Why Killing Content Matters As Much As Creating It

At Corporate Path Leadership, we spend a significant amount of time with smart marketing teams. We are constantly astounded at the volume of quality content that these teams can create on a monthly basis.

We also are surprised at the volume of time that teams spend trying to audit and enhance all of their existing content – especially as their messaging strategies evolve. Here are a couple of examples of where this comes into play:

SCENARIO ONE: WEB CONTENT OVERLOAD

A services company had a robust website with over 300+ web pages, including core value proposition and offering pages; sub-pages stemming from these core pages; plus, landing pages for specific assets.

• Planned Actions: The company had completed a brand refresh project and planned to audit all 300+ pages, and rewrite the content to apply new brand elements.
• Planned Budget: They had estimated this part of the brand application to update the web content would take three to four months, and would require additional writing contract resources to get the work done.

TWO: MARKETING ASSET MAYHEM

A technology company had audited all internal and external marketing assets (a list of over 2,000 assets) that had been created over a four-year period.

• Planned Actions: The company determined that they needed to update nearly 1,000 assets to reflect a change in messaging.
• Planned Budget: The company estimated that it would take at least two team members 6 months to complete the work (if they spent over 70% of their time on this task). Plus 20 other stakeholders would need to partially spend time reviewing and editing content.

Q: Is there a better way to attack the challenges of updating content? Of course!

We believe the answer emphatically is “yes.” Instead of spending 100s of hours rewriting (and in some cases redesigning) old content, Corporate Path Leadership knows from experience that prioritizing time to “kill” old content — before you start anything else — is a better first step. While there is rationale that old content still might be drawing viewing online or internally, continuing to publish and update 100s of pages or assets is just adding to the confusion of, “What is the right core content, approach, and message for today?”

If your team is considering a content or brand refresh and wants to apply changes to existing content, we strongly recommend categorizing your content into the following areas with distinct actions:

#1 – CORE CONTENT FOR TODAY/TOMORROW

Use your priority resources here to refine the content that you are using today, or need to create to support future business/sales initiatives. It should be reviewed at least every 90 days to make room for simple minor tweaks as needed OR retired to one the other categories noted below.

TIP: Do not try to load all content into this category, or even keep things in this category long past their shelf life. It should only represent the small subset of content that succinctly describes your latest offers and approach.

2 – ANCILLARY CONTENT FOR TODAY/TOMORROW

Yes, you absolutely will have other landing pages and assets that are not the core content, but instead have a specific campaign or timely reason for existing. The most important part now is to categorize these assets as ancillary, with the knowledge that they should not be updated, and should be archived in the future.

3 – PAST RELEVANT CONTENT

We argue that much of the excess of content falls into this category. The strategy here is not to update this content, but instead determine how to take any relevant details from the past relevant content category and incorporate those details into your Core Content subset. This past content should be archived, and any links redirected to your new Core Content.

TIP: We understand this step might seem like throwing away ‘good content’ because the content worked previously. However, it’s easier to think of this category of content as an opportunity to pull out the still-relevant talking points for use in making a currently-used asset more robust, rather than spending time rewriting old assets.

4 – PAST CONTENT THAT IS A ????

This is an easy answer. Immediately archive this content. You can audit links to determine if there is a better redirect opportunity – but don’t waste unnecessary time and resources trying to refresh this category. It will only add to your messaging clutter.

TIP: The inclination is usually to hold on to all old content. However, be realistic. Have you used this asset extensively in the last 6 months? We caution that you should not count 1-2 internal stakeholders who are asking for this asset to count as extensive use. If there are salient talking points that can be leveraged in new content, use them there – but don’t spend time on rewriting these “???” assets. Time to retire them!

Remember – when it comes to memorable content, less is definitely more. With limited budgets and team members, keep your focus on a smaller set of content that can drive your results.