F#ck Content Marketing

F#ck Content Marketing Plot Summary

Introduction

In today's digital landscape, marketers face a critical problem: 60-70% of all marketing content goes unused, representing a colossal waste of resources and missed opportunities. This startling reality points to a fundamental disconnect in how organizations approach content. While countless resources are poured into content creation, far less attention is paid to how that content is experienced by the audience—the environment in which it lives, how it's structured, and how it compels engagement. The author presents a paradigm shift from traditional content marketing to what he calls "content experience"—a holistic framework that prioritizes not just what content is created, but how it's delivered, organized, and personalized. This approach answers crucial questions that plague modern marketers: How can we ensure content actually gets used? How do we personalize content experiences at scale? How can we align entire organizations around delivering consistent, compelling content experiences? By reframing our understanding of content's role in the buyer journey, this framework provides a structured path to generating measurable results across inbound marketing, demand generation, account-based marketing, and sales enablement strategies.

Chapter 1: From Content Marketing to Content Experience: The Paradigm Shift

Content marketing has long been defined as creating and distributing valuable, relevant content to attract a clearly defined audience and drive profitable customer action. However, this definition has become distorted over time. Organizations have focused intensely on content creation while neglecting what happens after that content is published. The result is a broken model where marketers produce endless streams of content without a clear strategy for how that content reaches the right audience at the right time. The shift to content experience represents a fundamental rethinking of this approach. Content experience encompasses three critical elements: the environment in which content lives, how it's structured, and how it compels prospects and customers to engage. This approach acknowledges that creating great content isn't enough—the experience surrounding that content is equally important. Consider the author's Corona beer analogy: the same beer can taste dramatically different depending on whether you're drinking it in a damp basement or on a beautiful beach. The beer (content) hasn't changed, but the experience has transformed completely. This distinction matters because today's consumers have been conditioned by brands like Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon to expect personalized experiences. These companies don't just deliver content; they curate personalized journeys. Spotify doesn't simply play songs—it creates "Made For You" playlists tailored to individual preferences. Netflix doesn't just offer movies—it recommends specific content based on viewing history. These experiences build trust, which is crucial for modern buyers who are 40% more willing to buy from suppliers who provide personalized content experiences. The content experience framework addresses common marketing failures: greeting visitors with the latest rather than the greatest content, organizing content by format rather than topic or buyer journey, ignoring user experience, and failing to assign clear ownership of the experience. By solving these problems, marketers can create experiences that guide prospects through the buyer journey in a way that feels natural, helpful, and personalized. This represents a fundamental shift from thinking about content as isolated assets to viewing it as part of an integrated experience that builds trust and drives conversions.

Chapter 2: Understanding the Content Experience Framework

The Content Experience Framework provides a systematic approach to personalizing content experiences at scale. Unlike frameworks focused on content creation, this methodology addresses what happens after content is published—how it's structured, distributed, and leveraged to create meaningful connections with audiences. The framework consists of five interconnected stages: Centralize, Organize, Personalize, Distribute, and Generate Results. This framework acknowledges that effective content experience requires both strategic thinking and practical execution. At its core is the recognition that content serves as the fuel for all marketing strategies—whether inbound, demand generation, account-based marketing, or sales enablement. Each of these go-to-market approaches requires content that is properly packaged and delivered to create personalized experiences that resonate with target buyers. The framework provides a systematic way to achieve this across all marketing initiatives. The beauty of this approach is its applicability across organizations of all sizes. While a dedicated content experience platform can help execute the framework more efficiently, the principles can be implemented using whatever tools, spreadsheets, or techniques are available. The focus is on establishing fundamental practices that enable content experience efforts to scale according to organizational needs, not on specific technologies. This makes the framework accessible to any marketing team committed to improving how they deliver content. The framework's value lies in its ability to address the modern buyer's expectation for personalized experiences. Today's B2B buyers expect the same level of personalization they receive as consumers. Research shows that 82% of B2B purchasers expect B2B experiences to match the personalization they encounter in their consumer lives. The Content Experience Framework provides a structured way to meet these expectations, helping organizations deliver the right content to the right person at the right time, regardless of where they are in the buyer journey.

Chapter 3: Centralize and Organize: Building the Content Foundation

Centralization forms the critical first step in creating effective content experiences. Despite many marketers lamenting they lack sufficient content, the real problem is often that existing content is scattered across multiple platforms—SlideShare decks, YouTube videos, blog posts, and PDFs—making it difficult to track and leverage effectively. Centralizing content means bringing all these assets together in one accessible location, creating a comprehensive inventory of everything available. This process begins with indexing—cataloging all content assets in a way that makes them searchable and usable. While a simple spreadsheet can serve as a starting point, listing assets with relevant details like format, topic, headline, CTA, persona, and journey stage, more sophisticated approaches may involve dedicated databases or content experience platforms. The goal is to create a central repository that allows marketers to understand what content exists and how it can be used, reducing duplication of efforts and enabling more strategic content deployment. Once content is centralized, the next crucial step is organization. This involves auditing and tagging content to make it discoverable in meaningful ways. Rather than organizing content by format (blogs, videos, ebooks), which doesn't align with how people actually search for information, effective organization involves tagging content by topics, personas, industry, and buyer journey stage. This makes content findable based on the challenges prospects are facing or the questions they're trying to answer—mirroring how platforms like Netflix and Spotify make their content easily discoverable. The author illustrates this principle through the contrast between Blockbuster and Netflix. Blockbuster organized movies primarily by format and genre, making it difficult for customers to find films based on actors, directors, or similar interests. Netflix, conversely, tags content with multiple searchable criteria, allowing users to easily find exactly what they want. This difference in organization contributed significantly to Netflix's success and Blockbuster's downfall. Similarly, B2B organizations that organize content based on how their audiences actually search for information gain a competitive advantage in guiding prospects through the buyer journey and building trust through relevant, easily accessible content experiences.

Chapter 4: Personalize and Distribute: Creating Targeted Experiences

Personalization transforms organized content into tailored experiences that resonate with specific audiences. This goes far beyond simply addressing someone by name in an email. True personalization involves understanding where prospects are in their buyer journey and delivering content that speaks directly to their current needs, challenges, and interests. The approach varies depending on the marketing strategy being employed—whether inbound, demand generation, account-based marketing (ABM), or sales enablement. For inbound marketing, personalization means ensuring that when someone discovers your content through search or social media, they're immediately guided to related content that continues to address their specific interests. Companies like Pivotal excel at this by creating dedicated content streams for different personas, ensuring that each visitor sees content relevant to their role and challenges. For demand generation, personalization involves building nurture campaigns that allow prospects to self-educate through curated content collections. Blackbaud demonstrates this effectively by creating persona-specific streams that prospects can explore at their own pace. In ABM, personalization becomes even more targeted, with content experiences customized for specific accounts. Snowflake exemplifies this approach by creating dedicated content destinations for target accounts, featuring the prospect's logo, personalized messaging, and content relevant to their industry. This level of personalization has helped them achieve remarkable engagement with high-value accounts. For sales enablement, personalization means empowering sales representatives to create one-to-one content experiences for prospects. Terminus equips their sales team to handpick relevant content for each prospect, creating personalized microsites that humanize connections and address specific buyer needs. Distribution represents the critical next phase—getting these personalized experiences in front of the right audiences. This involves strategic deployment across channels like email, paid ads, social media, and direct mail. The key insight is that distribution isn't about pushing single content assets, but rather guiding prospects into tailored content experiences. For example, instead of sending an email with a single piece of content, effective distribution involves linking to a curated experience that leads customers through multiple pieces of content. Similarly, when using paid ads, the goal isn't just to drive clicks to a landing page but to immerse visitors in a personalized journey that guides them toward conversion through multiple touchpoints and opportunities for engagement.

Chapter 5: Measuring Results and Scaling Content Experiences Organization-wide

Generating results represents the culmination of the Content Experience Framework—where strategic content deployment translates into tangible business outcomes. This isn't a final step so much as a mindset that should permeate every stage of the process. The focus shifts from merely creating and distributing content to measuring how that content drives leads, pipeline, and revenue. This requires implementing proper tracking mechanisms, including lead scoring models that assess both demographic fit and behavioral engagement to determine when prospects are ready for sales outreach. Effective measurement involves tracking how content experiences influence each stage of the sales funnel. By implementing multi-touch attribution, marketers can understand which content assets play critical roles in moving prospects forward—whether they directly trigger conversions or serve as important supporting pieces in the buyer journey. This comprehensive view allows marketing teams to remain agile, quickly adjusting their approach when content isn't performing as expected. Companies like aPriori have demonstrated the power of this approach, achieving dramatic improvements in engagement metrics after implementing a content experience platform and creating tailored experiences for visitors. Scaling content experiences across an organization requires acknowledging a fundamental truth: content isn't just the responsibility of content marketers. Everyone in the organization creates and uses content in some form—sales teams sending emails, customer success building presentation decks, HR drafting job descriptions. When these various content sources aren't aligned, organizations suffer from "broken telephone syndrome," with messaging becoming increasingly distorted as it passes from one department to another. This inconsistency creates confusion and erodes trust with prospects and customers. The solution lies in organizational alignment around content experience. This means establishing clear ownership of content experience within each department while ensuring cross-departmental coordination. Companies like Slack and Mailchimp exemplify this approach, creating consistent content experiences across all touchpoints—from marketing materials to invoices. By ensuring that pre-sale and post-sale content experiences remain consistent, organizations can build trust, improve product adoption, and transform customers into advocates who accurately represent the brand's value proposition to others.

Chapter 6: Aligning Teams Around Content Experience

Creating effective content experiences requires clear ownership and coordination across the marketing team and beyond. Traditional marketing team structures often leave content experience in a state of ambiguity, with various team members contributing pieces without anyone overseeing the complete journey. Content marketers—often former journalists hired for their storytelling abilities—are frequently expected to handle everything from content creation to distribution and analytics, despite lacking the bandwidth or expertise for these varied responsibilities. The solution lies in clearly defining roles and responsibilities across the marketing team. Content marketers should focus primarily on creating high-quality content and properly tagging it for discoverability. Digital marketers contribute by optimizing user paths and leveraging analytics to refine experiences. Graphic and UX designers ensure visual consistency and intuitive navigation. Demand generation marketers drive distribution and measure performance. Each role plays a vital part in the content experience, but none can own it entirely. This is where the content experience manager becomes essential—a dedicated role focused on unifying content efforts across the organization. Similar to how the demand generation role evolved from "weird data-focused marketers" into an indispensable position, the content experience manager represents the next evolution in marketing team structure. This role serves as a liaison between departments, ensuring content alignment throughout the buyer journey and acting as the champion for content experience across the organization. The content experience manager identifies the right assets for each stage of the funnel, facilitates communication between teams, and ensures organizational alignment around content experience. Beyond the marketing team, scaling content experience requires executive buy-in and organizational commitment. The author suggests a direct approach: presenting leadership with the stark reality that the organization is wasting resources, time, content, and opportunities by not focusing on content experience. By demonstrating how content experience directly impacts growth—driving demand, revenue, and relationships—marketing teams can secure the support needed to implement the Content Experience Framework. The ultimate goal is to create a consistent narrative that aligns all content touchpoints, from pre-sale to post-sale, creating a seamless journey that builds trust, accelerates the buying process, and transforms customers into advocates.

Summary

The essence of effective modern marketing lies not in creating more content but in crafting better content experiences. By implementing the Content Experience Framework—centralizing, organizing, personalizing, distributing, and measuring content—organizations can transform their approach from random content creation to strategic experience design. This shift enables marketers to guide prospects through personalized journeys that build trust and accelerate buying decisions. The content experience revolution represents a fundamental rethinking of marketing's role in the digital age. As consumers increasingly expect Netflix-like personalization in their business interactions, organizations that master content experience gain a significant competitive advantage. By aligning teams around content experience and investing in the right combination of people, processes, and technology, companies can ensure their valuable content reaches the right audiences at the right moments—ultimately driving demand, revenue, and lasting relationships in ways that traditional content marketing alone never could.

About Author

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Randy Frisch

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