The 70, 20, 10 Content Planning Model

Content marketing is exploding. People talk a lot about trends, but one of the most fundamental shifts taking place in marketing right now is the ever greater emphasis on touchpoints that are not only interactive and participative, but long-term and always-on. And always-on, content-hungry platforms need feeding. So content becomes the currency and brands are increasingly becoming publishers in their own right. 

Yet whilst we now have some great examples of smart content-based thinking (including from the likes of AMEX, Coca-Cola, Nike, Red Bull, P & G, Intel and ASOS amongst others) the challenge here of-course is that brands aren't set up to be publishers, and as Josh Sternberg once noted: "They don't necessarily understand the editorial process or have the stomach for the length of time it takes to build an audience". 

In order to act like a publisher you need to not only think like a publisher, but plan like publisher. I've talked before about the 70,20,10 model in reference to content strategy and as a route in to becoming more agile. It's a model that has applications in learning and development, and has been more famously applied by Google as a model for resourcing and innovation. More recently, Coca Cola have talked about applying a 70/20/10 investment principle to content creation:

• 70% of the content should be low risk, bread and butter marketing
• 20% should innovate off what works
• 10% should be high risk ideas that will be tomorrow's 70% or 20%

I think the usefulness of this model does not stop at content strategy, but stretches further into content planning, and enables us to draw a parallel between the kind of content planning a brand increasingly requires, and the kind of approaches that are second nature to a publisher. Let me explain. The analogy I will use here is that of a magazine publisher (since that is also familiar to me) so with that comparison in mind, here's what a 70,20,10 content plan looks like for a brand:

• 70% of the content should be 'core' content - the kind of bread and butter stuff that is central to what the brand is all about: it's positioning, proposition, reason to believe. For a brand community for example, this would equate to the purpose of that community, the reason people are there in the first place. Too many brands attempt to establish communities with no clear purpose to that community, or plan for what they're going to talk about not just over the next few weeks, but long-term. So they soon find that they can only talk about themselves for so long and they start to run out of interesting things to say. If we use our publishing analogy, this equates to the editorial franchises of our magazine, the key areas of our flatplan that are central to the editorial proposition and which comprise the bulk of the pagination in each issue. If it was a women's monthly fashion or lifestyle title, these franchises would relate to core subject areas such as fashion, food, travel, health, beauty, celebrity.

• 20% should optimise and innovate off what is really working within the 70%. Part of this is about more responsively upweighting core subject areas to take account of events or seasonality (in the magazine this might be fashion in spring and autumn, Summer foods, Christmas, diets in January and June and so on). Whilst planned content around things such as product launches and campaigns might sit in your 70%, maximising the opportunity created by short-term peaks in activity focused around what already you're doing (reactively putting more resource into content that is proving particularly popular/engaging for example) is what the 20% is all about. With the 20%, there is always a link to the 70%.

• 10% is completely new - the kind of stuff you can't possibly plan for but is driven either by a reactive desire to take advantage of a short-term situation (e.g. a news story or event) or a more pro-active desire to experiment and test. Either way it's new activity, not directly tied to the rest of what you're doing, but something from which you can develop learnings. As with the content strategy model, this 10% could well become tomorrow's 20% or 70%.

So there you have it. A simple content planning model based on solid publishing principles. Feedback, as always, welcome.

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Comments

[Olle]

Interesting subject content planning. I think it's important to add that content is not only for content hungry platforms, but for picking up search interest and converting to money. Cash. It's risky (for respect for the subject) to discuss content planning in a publishing and audience context.

Where content planning and marketing is most important to the bottom line (and proves ROI without a doubt) is where the product is digital. Services or purchases. Those who know most about how to work with this is probably interaction designers and data miners. SEO people too. There can be close to zero risk in it and it can prove its worth after a week. This needs to be involved in content planning discussions. Even though it's so ugly and unsexy ;)

Doing content planning for "Compare the markets" for example, or for a telecom selling call/data plans online, is probably nothing like the above and shouldn't be. It should be driven by analytics; 1) traffic and where it all comes from 2) search patterns (indicating interest that might not turn into traffic but should/could) 3) the traffic put next to conversions (conversion to whatever KPIs but primarily sales) 4) analysis of page rankings and opportunity etc etc. Dull stuff for traditional ad planners. And where it's painfully obvious how tightly linked content planning is to SEO and eCommerce (not only brand engagement goals etc).

In these cases, what content will then be produced in the end is - by 100% - decided from what the numbers show. And it's proven by numbers that matter. If Compare the markets see relevant searches that aren't really converting - the content (articles/landing pages/etc) should be about just that. Keywords. Specific landing pages. Content. Subjects about it on facebook linking into site (where the actual business is).

intel from data - content production - repeat.

It's not either/or, obviously, but the part of content planning that's dictated by traffic/SEO/conversion is ROI intense, riskfree(er) and totally not understood by agencies.

[neilperkin]

Hi Olle. Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I agree that you've got to be clear about your objectives and how you measure success. And yes, good SEO practice should be integral to any content plan. I'm not sure though that there's such a distinction anymore between what publishers do and what marketers are trying to do with content. The measures of success might be different in some instances, but ultimately it's still about visibility, acquisition, getting customers interested and involved in what you're doing, and of-course - money. I like your point about the loop of using intel from data in content production. I'm sure there's not enough of that going on even in media owners ;-)

[Nick Stamoulis]

I have to agree with the notion that "many brands attempt to establish communities with no clear purpose to that community." Your content needs to be specific to your industry to help build your credibility as a thought leader. You need to have a content strategy that is associated with your overall marketing strategy. Plus having a clear strategy will help you measure whether or not the content you are producing is effective or not.

[Michael Litman]

Fantastic stuff Neil, thanks. Agreed that the 70/20/10 model really works and is applicable for brands pretty much across the board. Will share internally.

[Amber Sargent]

This blog is quite interesting. One would never cease to find success in business, and I guess you just did a great job on the 70-20-10 model. Find this very helpful. Thanks.