Content Marketing Common Sense: Lessons from Billy Beane and "Moneyball"

In the movie Moneyball Brad Pitt's character, Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, found himself handicapped by the lowest salary constraint in baseball but still holding onto dreams of winning the World Series. What was his angle into the “field of dreams?” Brad/Billy had to look at things differently than every other team in baseball – he had to find a competitive advantage.

Finding your competitive advantage can mean your brand will win the "World Series" of achieving your goals better than everyone else in your industry - and maybe even having Brad Pitt (or Angelina Jolie) play you in the movie version. So how do you get started?

Like Billy Beane and the A's – your brand needs to use data/statistics and place value on the players you pick for your team. In the case of content marketing, the players are the mediums you employ to build your overall strategy. What is the trait that a majority of your customers have in common? You have their home address, email address, etc…but how do they like to receive information from you? How can you provide value?

Here’s a great example I employed recently in a meeting with a prospective client: while overall U.S. tablet ownership is hovering around 20% this client’s ideal customer (financial advisors) are way over-indexed to own a tablet at 56% ownership. As I told the client, that is a great place to build a competitive advantage from utilizing basic, easily accessible data.

Choose your content players to meet the needs of your customers. Nail the basics first, then once you start to get results you can experiment with different types of "players".

CONTENT MARKETING COMMON SENSE: Rather than do what everybody else is doing, use data to grade and select the content mediums you'll use to deliver your competitive advantage - and WIN!

In her role as VP of Content Marketing, Carolyn Strand brings years of experience matching marketing solutions to the challenges of some of the biggest brands in the financial services industry.