Like a rolling stone

mlns='> Sure, change feels like a complete unknown. It’s still worth it. [View Message in Browser]( / [Add Us to Safe Sender List]( Weekly News 8.26.22 Connect With CMI [5 Award-Worthy Content Lessons From Project of the Year Finalists]( Good content marketers borrow – great content marketers steal (to paraphrase the internet-famous quote). Why not steal these ideas from the best? Start with the five programs nominated for Project of the Year in the 2022 Content Marketing Awards. [Read more]( By Jodi Harris More of the week's best stuff: - [CMI News: What To Do About Google’s ‘Helpful Content Update’]( by Robert Rose - [Don’t Waste Your Hard-Won Content Budget on These Avoidable Mistakes]( Ann Gynn - [How To Guarantee Great Visual Experiences on Any Device]( by Buddy Scalera - [Change Is Still Worth It, Even When You Risk Failure [Rose-Colored Glasses]]( by Robert Rose - [5 Brands See Big Value in Multi-Billion-Dollar Influencer Marketing Industry]( by Shane Barker  Like a rolling stone Does anyone care about incremental change? In my consulting practice, I see the same challenge again and again at businesses large and small: Incremental improvements fail to excite people enough to motivate change. When a content process is suboptimal but not so broken as to undermine success, the anticipated pain of changing feels greater than the pain that might (or might not) arise if you change nothing. It’s a Catch-22. No one wants to throw out the existing approach to content strategy because they worked hard on it. And they question whether any reinvention will prove as amazing as promised. So they don’t change because they’d risk failing. But that means they don’t give themselves the chance to try something that might produce remarkable results. Seth Godin wrote these words about [making something incrementally better]( a decade ago: If you define success as getting closer and closer to a mythical perfection, an agreed upon standard, it’s extremely difficult to become remarkable. Particularly if the field is competitive. Can’t get rounder than round. They’ve stayed with me ever since, mainly because I see so many digital marketing strategies falling into a rut. Teams get stuck pushing harder than ever for every single incremental improvement. But trying to get “rounder than round” isn’t inspiring. New approaches provide a much-needed shakeup. Just don’t try to sell them as more efficient or more productive. Instead, pitch them as new windows into what’s possible. Selling change is hard when things ‘aren’t that bad’ I recently helped a client audit their marketing content development process and found the content team suffering. Because siloed product groups held all the marketing budget, the content team couldn’t control content requests. And, because the product groups lacked insight into other teams’ requests, they often asked for new content pieces without realizing something similar already existed. I recommended that the organization add collaborative content planning to the development process. Unfortunately, many of the product teams viewed the efficiency promise as an incremental improvement to an otherwise working model. As a result, they resisted adding “yet another step” to their content process. For them, not changing was easier than adjusting to a new process for a possible (but not guaranteed) improvement. Nothing changed. What happened? Well, nothing. Nobody got fired. No massive failures occurred. Content development just kept going. But this ongoing drudgery (moss gathering, if you will) feels insidious. How long will the content team stay inspired and engaged before they start churning out pieces that fit the request but go no further? Worse, the company missed an opportunity to realize how much better things (including content and employee satisfaction) can be. Most of us do things based on what we think we know today. But what if we’re wrong? What if we took the time to test something new, even if the change caused temporary discomfort? The only way to know if things could work better is to try something different. Look, I know the idea of creating new content strategies and processes seems esoteric. And sometimes, even raising the suggestion raises hackles. People eye these conversations with suspicion based on their experiences with frustrating brand value conversations that didn’t move the needle in the past. But doing nothing new rarely leads to success. I know a large B2B company where the global marketing team created incredible experiences for customers, partners, and even prospective employees. Over the last 10 years, though, the steady drip of not doing anything new reduced the team to doing … almost nothing. They now send brand emails created by an agency, review and distribute internal sell sheets created by the design team, and ensure the correct use of the logo in press releases by the comms team. Is it any wonder this team ended up in the first of the company’s recent bulk layoffs? When selling change is so hard, what can you do? In this week’s [Rose-Colored Glasses]( I suggest a few ways to turn your existing maps upside down and adopt a new perspective (including one technique from South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker). I’d love to hear whether these techniques successfully help you pitch new ideas. Send [an email](mailto:cmi_info@informa.com) to let me know, or leave a comment on [the article page](. In the meantime, remember: It's your story. Tell it well. Robert Rose Chief Strategy Advisor Content Marketing Institute Do you have colleagues or friends who would benefit from Robert's weekly updates? If so, please invite them to [subscribe]( here.   Sponsored Content  5 Reasons Why Brand Differentiation Is Your Biggest Competitive Advantage The one thing your competitors can't copy is your brand. Discover the top five reasons why brand differentiation is your company’s biggest competitive advantage. 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On September 13-16, we’re bringing together these brand innovators (and 150+ more marketing leaders) on the Content Marketing World stage. Hear the stories behind the success of their content programs – and return home with expert secrets and new ideas to inspire your own content marketing. Register now to join us in Cleveland (or check out the Virtual Experience on September 21-22). Use promo code COMMUNITY100 to save $100 on your registration. [View the Speaker Lineup »]( [Register Today »]( [CONTENT OPERATIONS RESOURCES]( Events [Content Marketing World]( [ContentTECH Summit]( [Content Marketing Awards]( Resources [Research]( [White Paper/eBook Library]( [Content VIPs]( [CMI Business Directory]( Education [Content Marketing University]( [Chief Content Officer]( [Webinars]( [Job Listings]( Interested in advertising with CMI? [Learn more.]( To stop receiving future Content Marketing Institute update emails, please respond [here](. 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