Tony's Chocolonely is arguably the best chocolate bar on the market since the Marathon bar. If you've not tried one, let us know (click the image) and we'll send your flavour of choice just for making it this far in the guide.
It’s the scourge of effective marketing — content that caters to everyone and thus caters to no one.
Follow an approach to telling stories that is informed by your data, and you force your content strategy in a direction that naturally is more effective, differentiating, relevant.
For instance, the best stories are specific — don’t say ‘chocolate bar’ when you can say ‘Snickers.’ (Said to mean, ‘Don’t water down your content with generalities; be as specific as you can for your readers.’)
With content creation, follow the 80/20 rule with most assets. 80% of a content asset can be the same across audiences, with 20% being powerfully targeted by company, industry, department, role… providing context for the 80%. Snickers becomes Kit Kat, Yorkie, Brunch Bar (or Tony's) depending on customer insight.
Sprinkle in additional content that is pure 100% unadulterated relevance and no one will notice that you fudged a little bit.
This is tip 1 of 1000 on How to Avoid Vanilla. For more, sign up for our blog or follow us on Twitter.