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Review: Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break
through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less by Joe
Pulizzi
Lect. Najihah Mohammed Taher
Al-Furat Al-Awsat University, Najaf Technical Institute, Iraq
A R T I C L E I N f
О
Article history:
Submission Date: 04 January 2025
Accepted Date: 06 February 2025
Published Date: 03 March 2025
VOLUME:
Vol.05 Issue03
Page No. 9-14
DOI: -
https://doi.org/10.37547/social-
A B S T R A C T
Marketing in this day and age is nothing like it was in the past. With a wide
variety of methods to employ, it can be rather difficult to determine which
ones are ideal for achieving your goals. Evolution is what separates
humans from other animals, and knowing when and where to use this
change affords the ability to operate in any industry. Content marketing is
an amalgamation of ways of thinking that direct the focus of marketing
interest to the ones who keep the market alive: the audience. To connect
with the audience, brands and businesses now need to learn the art of
storytelling. By entertaining, informing, and evoking emotional
connections, companies have the opportunity to create a stronger tie
between the customer and the brand. Words, images, videos
–
we are all
creators and consumers of these forms of content. Blog posts, tweets,
status updates, case studies, white papers, and infographics are all just a
few examples of content that a brand can incorporate into its overall
content marketing strategy. This content helps to engage and captivate the
attention of their intended audience
–
in some cases, even driving the
group to convert.
Keywords:
Entertaining, informing, evoking emotional connections,
marketing, audience, brands and businesses
INTRODUCTION
A person could argue that one of the big business
benefits of content marketing is the opportunity
for competitive advantage it affords. However,
others argue
–
myself included
–
that creating,
perfecting, and implementing a unique content
marketing strategy with the ability to turn even
amateur lead generators into epic content
marketing strategists represents an even greater
competitive opportunity. By understanding the
wants and needs of a target audience, a company
can create an even greater divide between itself
and the competition. Companies that have spent
the time and effort to create a well-defined and
understood content strategy know that aligning
the content of the company with the needs, wants,
likes, and dislikes of a target audience can
transform a normal content strategy into an
element of excitement. Discovery-based strategy
connections help to more deeply embed interest
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between the target audience and the company.
These two attributes alone can make the difference
in driving not just low volume and low quality of
leads, but in driving excitement and action-
promising leads for sales teams. Ideally, it is this
concept of “epic content marketing” that will be
discussed in the following pages.
Content marketing is defined as a strategic
marketing approach focused on creating and
distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent
content to attract and retain a clearly defined
audience while driving profitable customer action.
There are no hard boundaries when it comes to
what content marketing is and isn't. This means
that, part of the time, content marketing isn't
content at all. Content marketing is about
delivering the content your audience is seeking in
all the places they are searching for it. It is the
effective strategy that is designed to operate over
the long term and recognizes the importance of
creating customer relationships.
The fundamental structure of brand-consumer
relationships is driven by managing the content.
Several distinct strategies that correspond to
numerous marketing campaigns are required.
Three factors are central to content marketing: the
audience, the relevance and value of content to the
audience, and the brand. Content marketing
includes creating and seeding viral content that is
intended for wide distribution and is rarely even
about the brand. While many marketers are
focused on short-term ROI, content marketing is a
long-term strategy. Excellent pieces of content
marketing take time to create. Content marketing
is an audience-first strategy. A great brand should
be like a great friend: passionate, trustworthy, and
consistent. However, many modern brands
actively provide content for their audiences
without necessarily having the knowledge.
"Business as usual" content won't cut it. For
content to provide the ROI needed to encourage
executive leadership to continue investment, each
asset needs to be an "epic" piece of content. Epic,
as used here, simply means original, creative, and
designed to provoke emotion. To appeal to viewers
and keep them engaged, content like this has to
stand out in their crowded content universe and be
designed to appeal to their interests, needs, or
hopes. This is what it means to create content
designed for humans, not robots. If a story is good
enough, then it is universal. Shake things up.
Humans are unique and complex; they like to see
brands do it, too. Brands that deeply understand
their audiences produce content that the audience
finds relevant for their needs, interests, and
passions. They create a desire to see and hear each
piece of communication, which ends up generating
a real emotional response. Your brand has
something worth revealing and sharing, which will
then reveal something new to the audience. By
customizing your content to share information
that is relevant to your audience's lives or useful
for your audience's problem-solving, you can
answer those questions not just better, but in a
way that no one else is doing. The best way to
differentiate your brand is to express it with a
unique brand voice. This means avoiding the
obvious and sticking to your brand and its story. A
diverse brand voice is okay, as long as it stays true
to your brand. Consistency is key to developing a
consistent voice and building trust with your
audience because they will begin to expect a
certain aspect of your brand. You can't perform if
you don't measure. Data can help inform decisions
and drive organizational change. Use it.
Storytelling Techniques
Good advice has a formula: surprise, exposition,
and an ‘aha!’ but good stories contain a surprise,
stir curiosity, and lead to an ‘aha!’ Stories gently
blend events and convey a brand message in
emotional language, making the listener smile,
laugh, or cry. It’s all about reader connection.
Customers are people who have gone through
many of the same experiences, struggles, and
feelings that you have. They prefer to connect with
others about obstacles they’ve overcome. Telling
these stories will provide a sense of common
ground. You don’t have to stop telling your own
business stories, but using customer stories can
enhance your business’s relatability.
Narrative-your story will follow a pattern. This is
especially useful for content creators who are
struggling to sift through ideas. Every culture on
earth can boil their stories down to the same
events. One method was to interweave everything
the audience loved
—
violent action, beautiful
women, humor, and fear. Sound familiar? The
stereotype of the spaghetti western? A certain style
is heavily influenced by those who made it ‘easy’ to
tell stories for an audience they wanted to
influence. Visual storytelling
—
turn your travel
footage into short travel featurettes. The goal is to
create a story using your trip. This is emotional.
This is important. This is a reason for others to
want to connect with your stories. Use your videos
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to connect with your audience. Share the
adventure. Dance through your wild, untouched
landscapes. Capture the view of a mountain peak
and record the sound of the snow beneath your
skis.
“Will it Blend?” has become a folklore story within
the marketing industry, and Blendtec’s sales have
been driven by strong content marketing for years.
He tested ideas we couldn’t ignore.
The best
running workout videos are based entirely on
sharing new trends
—
running and fitness news,
explaining and breaking down everything from
supplements and balanced breathing to what
quality gear can effectively reduce blistering. The
Color Run, by creating a new brand of athletic
event, has grown exponentially because each event
they do is more than another 5k; it’s a frame
-
worthy, feel-good experience.
Real Beauty Sketches went past jokes and made a
bold statement on the value of brand decisions.
Real Beauty Sketches turns the way we see and talk
about beauty on its head. All present three
examples we cannot ignore
—
and present them in
a beautifully executed, easy-to-digest interactive
campaign. As you can see, many of the things we
have learned from creators are becoming industry
standards. We now have guides to how-tos for
engaging people in the same ways did. I have to
agree; to get attention, brands and creators should
“be brief, be bright, be gone.”
The next relationship interaction will be and is
content. A new world of content is where brands
that think they cannot compete need to be. And
they don’t need to whip out playbooks, but they do
show lessons learned. Branded partnerships are
still just below the surface of these well-crafted
videos. Be open to change. If change is required, be
already “charged” to generate new success
principles. Start dancing to the beat of a new drum.
Today’s take on the old that we loved in 1980 is
Doritos. Marketing legend talks about the high
praise he gets from that
“can reinvent an industry.”
That’s what who owns Doritos, did with “Crash the
Super Bowl” and several cutting
-edge campaigns.
Successful Content Marketing Campaigns
Content marketing success stories can offer
insights into the strategies implemented to achieve
exceptional outcomes. 'Recall' by Volkswagen was
a brand-led initiative with the objective of
introducing a new car and ultimately increasing
car sales. The campaign told a South African love
story with a dramatic twist. Success was measured
by more than 140,000 shares on social media. The
campaign aimed at middle-aged couples, so it was
mainly promoted via video content and social
media channels. 'Recall' spectacularly provides the
punchline 4 minutes and 8 seconds into the video.
The content strategy aimed to create a viral
discussion on social media and a targeted
conversation around the activation. Developed-in
conversation
drivers
included
flirtation,
happiness, surprise, and innovation.
The Oreo 'Daily Twist' campaign was strategized to
create brand consideration and excite brand
lovers, sparking conversations on social media and
achieving a considerable amount of media
attention. It received more than 231 million free
media impressions and a 110% uplift in fan
engagement across social platforms. The 'Daily
Twist' campaign strategy aimed at switching the
focus from being a distant, popular cookie brand to
that of a more tangible brand with strong global
connections while driving retail sales. It was
designed to appeal to all ages and built with digital
and social channels in mind
–
especially social
media. Seventeen percent of all campaign
impressions were from social media, worth a
significant amount. The brand strategy for the
video content was built around a message of being
'accessible worldwide.' In assessing effective
content strategies, it is worth noting that blogs and
social media were employed for the Recall and
Oreo campaigns, indicating that they remain key
vehicles for generating engagement with the
content. Each of the projects indicates that the
correct use of specific communication headlines
can result in exceptional brand messaging
engagement. The standout feature of this headline
for communications is its relevance to the target
market and that the message is distinguished by
being interesting. From the above primary case
analyses, the strategies behind successful content
marketing campaigns are evident. The importance
of identifying the intended audience is paramount,
as is the relevance of the content and the creative
vehicle that carries the message. The role and
timing of distributing the content are equally
significant, as is building in points of engagement.
Crucially, the content must align with existing
brand identity and be promoted through the brand
or business' established distribution channels. A
clear call to action should be included in the
messaging to encourage engagement and sharing.
Taking actionable steps is what’s involved in
implementing the first E, which is for developing
an epic content marketing strategy. Attendees run
through a process to develop a documented
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content marketing plan that’s aligned with their
business objectives. Among many, some of the
outputs over the two days include audience
research, competitive analysis, content calendar
and framework, a list of content production
projects, and a scorecard for reviewing and
evaluating current in-market content.
In addition, we also address some of the following
areas and provide these guiding questions in the
class exercises: How can we implement
collaboration across teams to ensure the story and
message are consistent? Have we considered our
persona preferences? What types of content make
sense based on the four P’s? Theory says that
people consume four types of content. Which are
most/least
popular
for
our
particular
organization? How can we address this unique
selling proposition? What are we trying to achieve
with our content for both the customer and the
enterprise? What are the resource constraints? Do
we have a budget to pay for creation? What are the
different iterations that would occur to use a
promotional video for completely different
purposes? How will we collect feedback to adapt
our content marketing strategy on a regular basis?
What does the feedback mean for us and the
content? Key room finish, Q&A, and feedback in the
top 10 minutes of day 2.
However thorough the business planning process
is, we also submit the following as a key requisite
for an effective and engaging content strategy. That
is, we must bear in mind what is required to
implement the strategy as stipulated by top
management,
but
also
understand
and
acknowledge what the audience, habitually staff,
want to engage with and what makes them tick
irrespective of the fact that we want to ‘sell’ a
product or a service. Strategy only goes as far as
having the allocated budget to proceed with the
campaign or project, but if there’s no audience
engagement for it to work wonders and captivate
the interest of the target audience, then the
strategy, in essence, is utterly worthless.
All the writing that we did for our audience was
based on need. We brainstormed ideas, and our
internal creative teams started drafting. You want
your content to be highly relatable and engaging,
which starts with a well-drafted piece. After
creation, it goes through the one-two-three punch
of review, rewrite, and extensive editing. When it
comes to content creation, the best piece is always
the one that provides the reader with the most
value. It helps if you craft a compelling narrative to
frame your content. We also made sure that what
we were writing was relevant. The team
researched what keywords were best to
incorporate when creating written content so that
it would rank on search engines. Keyword research
tools tell us the specific words people are typing in
to find what you are talking about. After our
research is conducted and our drafts finalized, we
moved on to our distribution strategies for our
content. By this point, we had distributed a variety
of pieces, including everything from videos to print
material.
Formulating ideas, creating content, and then
distributing it are not individual processes. You
want your content to resonate across all channels
so that more people hear and see what you have to
say. Social media and personalizing direct emails
were the biggest ways the content was distributed.
Social media has a large audience. It has a
significant number of users, which can target a
broad demographic of people. Another platform
comes in second on the list with a large user base,
most of which feed into the first platform anyway.
We posted our content on all of these social sites,
along with distributing it via email. Culture was our
go-to site, and we were able to personalize emails
for auto dealers in each city. This helped with SEO
capabilities and reaching a local demographic. We
also shared our written content on our internal
blog. Writing regular blog posts about what we are
talking about benefits our optimization efforts.
Sharing our social content and blog published
posts was another step in converging our
distribution process. Sharing is caring, right? We
took our content distribution efforts one step
further by placing them in our monthly e-
newsletter campaigns, too!
The timing and frequency of a post are also key
pieces that make a difference. Posting on social
media in the morning or around 5 PM is when the
highest engagement takes place. This is also
encouragement for what time of day to email
people. Sharing your written content is also better
on the weekends. Certain days are high traffic
points for people using the internet after work.
After you share your content, analytics tools are
useful to track how well it is doing. We pay
particular care to see how many people are looking
at our site, and at what times. Regular reporting
metrics should help you understand how well
certain posts have performed and predict how well
new content may do. Analytics will help you
understand what works and what does not, and let
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you know the best time to post content.
Measuring Success and ROI
How do you prove content marketing is working
for your company’s ROI? It’s tempting to see
unanswerable or dismissive responses to that
question as uncertain signs of failure, but the
metrics you should be gathering may be an
indication of a better strategy than you think. How
you measure the effectiveness of your epic content
will depend, to some extent, on your initial
business objectives
–
is it designed to drive people
to a landing page, to start conversations, or to sell?
Traffic is often cited as a key indicator of content
marketing success, which makes it a tempting way
to measure the effects of your epic content. Other
people prefer direct engagement, interaction, even
the number or quality of interactions a piece of
content has instigated.
The particularly savvy will line KPIs like these up
against their business objectives, then follow them
up with some measuring and reporting. There are
dozens of tools for choosing, depending on how
you want to measure your success. One of the first
tools people think of in the context of content
marketing measurement because it’s free,
powerful, and offers a huge range of statistics that
can be used to measure nearly anything
–
and
there’s nothing to stop you from combining it with
paid tools or software. Similar services give you a
suite of marketing tools including automated,
some
dig-down-into-it
social
engagement
measurement features. Another option offers
almost everything the first tool does but with a few
bells and whistles for larger enterprises, and is
generally considered a bit flashier, but the biggest
benefit is that it’s easy to merge compliant data
from part before crunching those numbers. For the
particularly social media inclined, another
analytics tool lets you measure how many fans or
subscribers you’ve earned since p
ublishing.
Another tool has built-in SEO and social media
optimization features in addition to offering a large
number of interactive content options
–
not just
quizzes. Most competitive analytics tools,
especially those with a content marketing focus,
are available. As of right now, a tech startup has
taken a social analytics tool and their own
conversation analytics tool. Another option offers
a clean, slick, persuasive in-app social media
analytics tool, making it rank first on the list of the
best social media marketing places in the world.
Another tool rounds up the top of our list of social
media analytics tools, and it’s somewhat of a belt
-
and-
braces choice; it’s an analytics tool specifically
designed for brands that rely heavily on data.
Interviewing audience members and asking them
what they think directly may mean that you miss
out on less vocal people, or that your views become
skewed by overly ardent fans. Conducting a survey
to uncover qualitative insight is often a good
substitute because you can begin to make
quantitative assertions based on the feedback you
receive - all of which must be planned beforehand,
as part of your initial documentation process.
The perceived success of your content should carry
some weight in your next round of strategy
development. Plus, using a metric such as ‘shares’
is naturally built into the life of your content
–
if
something is good enough, people will share it.
Finally, and hopefully, those initial intentions and
KPIs will have resulted in more people converting
for you. Measuring the effectiveness of epic content
to launching a product, suggesting you should
learn, re-launch, and grow over time, creating
unlimited potential for growth.
CONCLUSION
The success of content marketing is usually
measured by specific KPIs or Key Performance
Indicators. KPIs are used to quantitatively measure
the strategic goals of the marketing campaign.
Several consumption parameters are used in
practice in the framework of the content marketing
strategies of companies.
These KPIs can be divided into two different
categories, i.e., into parameters that are mainly of
quantitative nature, and those that are mainly
qualitative in nature. Both have their right to exist
and mainly reflect the content and subsequently
the objectives of the marketing tactics. Which KPI
is appropriate ultimately depends on which task or
target the campaign pursues. Consequently,
companies need to become more aware of their
objectives and desired outcomes. As a content
marketer, you must be aware that you can only
measure successfully by defining objectives and
KPIs. You should always reflect the strategy and
lead the corporate goals in the long run. Content
marketing can and should change; for its part, this
view also includes the data, which directly allow
the success and failure of the operations to be
tracked.
Performance measurements must be target-
oriented if they are to be meaningful.
Consequently, it is important to start with
comprehensive KPI evaluations. These should
always be aligned with the company's goals and
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needs. This way, only factors that are suitable for
business success can be evaluated, as is suitable for
scaling. In the same way, the review of KPIs must
be regular, and this should take place at least on a
monthly basis. Especially if, for example, content is
regularly published, it will be essential to know
whether the effort of the current production is in
any way justified. In the same way, KPIs should be
communicated with all persons involved, as well as
all other stakeholders. They must be integrated in
order to ensure consent, alignment, and coherence.
In order to modify the priorities and continuously
refine and extend them with the constant also
negative results in the context of content
marketing strategy, the various groups can be used
with a KPI-helped updated feature. Regular
reports should shed light and help your companies
understand your strategies by publishing the KPIs
for transparency and clarity, particularly at the C-
level participants and all others.
REFERENCE
Pulizzi, J. (2013). Epic content marketing (pp. 87-
93). New York, NY, USA: McGraw-Hill Publishing.
