Recently, I've been looking through some content on the internet that is a little bit older, but still has value. We like to call that "evergreen content" in marketing. When it comes to developing content, there is a trend in common thinking that new is better; the fresher the content, the more valuable. There is a drive to get the scoop. Certainly technology moves fast and we want to keep up with it. Keeping the content monster continually fed with fresh content is considered best practice, but is our "best practice" drive to always be creating new content part of what's killing our marketing? Would you be willing to try that new approach to your marketing that you've been scared to try, if you could test it and see what happened, be it turning to "slow" content or otherwise?
In my recent efforts to bring back to the surface some of the more valuable content elements that are still relevant. I ran across this excellent SlideShare presentation from one of our partners, Episerver. In it, the theory is that the concept of "best practice" may be holding us back from achieving our potential to create better marketing content. Take a look at the slideshow below and you'll see what I mean.
In the presentation, there is this awesome section where the author lines up some common justifications for why we don't take more chances with our marketing efforts. Once it lists them out, it "translates" them into what those excuses "actually" mean in the context of letting "best practice" feed our fear of the new.
In particular, those stood out to me, so I've clipped those slides to talk about below.
"That's just how it's done in our industry" (Even better IMO: that's NOT how it's done in our industry.)
"That home page image was chosen in a top-level meeting."
"Everyone is doing it."
"This is all there is time and budget to do."
These are all "conventional wisdom industry trends" and part of the potential problem of "best practice."
Do these assertions resonate with you as you execute your marketing? Do you think you could be doing just a little bit better if you could somehow reach for those new ideas without fear by way of testing slowly?
What is it that you've been dying to try, but hesitant to do so because of common ideas around "best practice"?
Do you agree with Episerver's take on "best practice"? Let us know in the comments below or over social.
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