A better way to develop a content strategy

I’ve heard that more and more companies are kicking off their content marketing strategy lately. This is a welcome change from last year, when teams huddled together to figure out generative AI and all the changes in social media and search.

But I hear these teams say too often that they try to rebuild their planes while flying.

I don’t know where this phrase came from, but a 22-year-old advertising campaign by Fallon for the digital consulting firm EDS helped popularize it. The strange TV and print advertising showed people assembling a commercial airplane in the air and expressing how much they love their job.

The ad’s tagline states that EDS could help you “build your digital business even while it’s still running.”

Fallon created the ad as part of an integrated campaign with two other funny videos: Cat herdersabout managing the complexity of digital business and Running with the squirrelswhich claimed that EDS could help old companies compete like disruptive start-ups.

Any of these ads would be relevant in 2024.

But let’s explore why it’s time to abandon the “build the plane while you fly it” approach to new content marketing projects once and for all.

The frustration of building while flying

The to-do list for implementing a new (or newly launched) content marketing initiative includes:

It’s a lot. Frustration quickly sets in when team leaders realize they can’t give up anything while working to implement all the new ideas. And everyone else is busy too. They all still have campaigns to launch, blog posts to write, event materials to create, and content to feed into the website, all while trying to master the technology they haven’t fully implemented yet.

I recently worked with a B2C e-commerce company that identified an exciting new project: a new physical event supported by a digital hub and newsletter that would build an addressable audience.

The problem: Cross-functional support from multiple marketing and technology teams was required. No one on these teams had additional bandwidth or resources to devote to the new initiative. And no one wanted to give up existing projects to make room for the new.

They didn’t want to build a new aircraft and fly the existing one at the same time.

So what is the answer? It’s simple: stop building airplanes for a while.

New strategies, not new tactics

Whenever marketing teams cite the airplane cliché, I suggest a variation on the metaphor: Don’t try to build another airplane while flying the existing one. Instead, let the existing planes fly while you build a plane Factory.

Let me explain.

I recently worked with a client in the B2B technology space. Enabling content (educational content that helps customers improve their work) is very popular in this area.

My client originally planned to use their digital and PR teams to modify the existing PR newsrooms on their website and create a new online learning platform. But neither the newsroom nor the website fit this content marketing strategy.

Everything from the site hierarchy to the audiences attracted by the technology platform it ran on posed challenges to the success of the new project. The content team wanted to build a new learning objective using different technology.

However, the company’s existing processes were designed to focus all digital efforts – as well as paid and earned media – on the website. So business leaders resisted.

They said, “We already have this technology and this team with these capabilities. Why don’t we just use what we have?”

It was as if the company was saying, “Okay, you can bring us into the jetliner age – as long as you do so by repairing and upgrading our propeller plane while it’s in the air.”

Instead of going ahead and explaining why the new project needed this or that, the content leaders came up with a different answer. They stepped back and reviewed all existing teams, workflows, technologies, and processes used for content marketing across the company. And they realized that the company had room for new things.

To tie in with the metaphor, they found that by changing the way they made all the planes, they could upgrade their factory to handle new projects without having to rebuild old ones in flight.

Dealing with sustainable vs. disruptive innovation

The idea for my airplane factory metaphor comes from Meeting the challenges of disruptive change by Clayton M. Christensen and Michael Overdorf.

When the article appeared in 2000, businesses were facing disruption due to the growth of the Internet and globalization. And his advice remains relevant as companies grapple with the disruption of generative AI.

The article examines how to respond to disruptive innovations that create something completely new ((e.g. launching an online university) vs. sustaining innovations that improve on something already seen as valuable (e.g. replacing stock photography with AI-generated images).

The authors advise against approaching disruptive innovations the same way you would change something that already exists. Instead, you should approach it as if you were building something within a new organizational space.

My technology company client did this.

I know – because I meet them every day – that content and marketing professionals are contentious, resourceful and innovative. There are constant requests to build the equivalent of new aircraft.

And I know content teams may Hack together planes and manage some repairs and modifications during the flight. However, if you’re starting a new content marketing project, it’s more productive to set up a new section.

Christensen and Overdorf outline three ways to create this new organizational space:

1. You can create a new team within the existing organizational structure.
2. You can spin off the structure into a new and independent organization.
3. You can purchase another organization that becomes a new part of your existing structure.

Create a new space for new content projects

Every successful new content strategy follows one of these three options. Here are some examples of each approach.

1. A new content team within the existing organizational structure: When a new content team is formalized, named, and documented, the chances of success immediately increase. Red Hat Linux provides a great example. At Red Hat, for example, Laura Barnes (2019 B2B Content Marketer of the Year) has assembled a new strategic team to handle all of the company’s content marketing. Over the years, the team has grown, changed and changed as the organization evolved. And it remains a core part of the company’s strategy.
2. A new organization, separate from the existing structure: Content as a strategic function in a company is a powerful business model. For example, when ServiceNow wanted to build an audience through thought leadership, no new eBooks, videos, or white papers were added to the marketing team. Instead, a dedicated content product team was built and Workflow, a digital publication, was launched, along with online learning, a print magazine and an email newsletter.
3. A newly acquired group: The takeover of content brands continues. For example, the software company Pendo Mind the Product purchaseda product management community that delivers content, training and conferences to a global audience of more than 300,000 product managers, designers and developers.

No matter what approach your business takes, the first step to content marketing success is to create a factory where you can build any aircraft you want.

This does not completely eliminate the need to build aircraft and fly them at the same time. However, if you intend to stay in the air, you will have to occasionally return to Earth to build something new from scratch.

It’s your story. Say it well.

Updated from a January 2022 post.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute