Article's Content
Article's Content
Calm is known for their meditation app.
I used it back in 2019 and have recently started back on my meditation practice as a way of staying grounded and centered. It’s one of those things that you can easily take for granted but if you can’t find 5, 10 or 15 minutes to go into a place of calm just for yourself…
It’s likely you’re someone who needs to find space through an app like Calm more than anyone.
And I don’t say that with judgement. I’m anyone…
I want to write about something that I came across while reigniting my commitment to meditating. You see, Calm is not exactly known as a B2B SaaS provider or someone who would have enterprise clients. But it turns out that Calm recently launched ‘Calm for Business’ which is a workplace mental health offering meant to help organizations build resilience and well-being. Today, companies like Lincoln, GoFundMe, Accenture and even Universal Music Group all rely on Calm Business for organizational well-being. Kinda cool right?
But here’s where it gets relevant to you…
Once upon a time, organizations like Stripe, Hubspot, Salesforce, Canva and Masterclass were all just getting started in their content marketing journey.
At one point, all of these sites started with one blog post…
One article… One webinar… One video… One single asset.
But we often forget that. We often forget that it takes time to build an organization known for content excellence. It’s easy to forget that because when these organizations first got started, their audience was much smaller. The compound efforts of consistent content excellence were yet to be visible and the opportunity to quickly analyze and see their success was impossible. I’m reminding you this because I think we’re at the early stages of seeing content excellence with what the team at Calm Business are doing…
Create Backlink Driven Assets
One of the most important things in SEO is to create content that generates backlinks. Backlinks are links from one website to another. It’s through a wide range of factors associated with these links that Google determines whether or not a piece of content is worth showing in the search engine results page.
In an analysis Foundation did a few months back surrounding the most linkable content assets in Martech we found that free tools were the most highly linkable asset followed by definitions, stats and then research. All of these assets are great for capturing the attention of journalists, reporters and other writers on the internet. Creating these types of content marketing assets help brands rise through the ranks of Google and cement themselves as a brand people can trust.
Calm Business is new to the content marketing world but are making some amazing strides.
I’m not one for calling out companies that are early in their lifecycle (we usually talk about those who have already built an SEO moat) but Calm is doing a great job.
In just a few months, they have been able to lay a great foundation for what their content marketing footprint will look like. These assets are linkable, referenceable, downloadable, shareable and some are even bookmarkable.
One of their assets that has attracted quite a few backlinks in the development of a ‘Self Care Guide For HR Professionals’. It’s a resource that checks all the boxes for what makes for a great downloadable asset. Here’s what it looks like when you download the asset:
Today, the page has more than 30 high value links driving back to it. It’s a piece of content that has content-user fit baked directly into it. You see, Calm Businesses’ ideal audience is going to be HR professionals who are interested in not only taking care of their colleagues but also taking care of themselves. One of the best ways to ensure that your ideal audience is clicking on your content and reading your content is to create something that is tailored o them and that specificity is called out in the headline.This piece could have been called:
- The Self Care Guide For Professionals
- The Ultimate Self Care Guide
- The Complete Guide To Self Care
- Everything You Need To Know About Self Care
But by adding “For HR Professionals” they very quickly are able to alienate anyone who isn’t that… Would an accountant download this? Probably not. Would an engineer download this? Probably not. Why? Because the title of the headline is tailored for an audience that they are not… But here’s where this gets even more interesting:
Imagine they duplicated this for all of the decision makers involved in the HR function within a company. It could be the “Self Care Guide for Vice Presidents” or the “Self Care Guide for CEOs” or the “Self Care Guide for People Leaders” — Imagine the variations?!
This is how you tailor your content to ensure content-user fit is established…
Create Content That Is Hard To Copy
One of our mottos at Foundation is to strive to create content that is worth copying.
As a result… People copy our work every single month.
It comes with the territory.
When you create content that is difficult to copy it helps you stand out amidst the noise and amongst your biggest competitors. It’s a great way to differentiate against other brands and increase your likelihood of being successful at earning backlinks, press, social shares and all the various KPIs that lead to indicating a successful piece of content. It’s one of the most rewarding parts of a content creators job. Creating things that are of significant value and hard to replicate.
One of the most difficult things to replicate is research.
The team at Calm have taken their approach to content to an entire new level. The team is partnering with actual PHDs and academic researchers to produce content and research that shows how successful the Calm app is at supporting people with cardiovascular disease or how it’s able to support those with sleep-related symptoms in adults.
It doesn’t get more difficult than that…This is how you set the foundation for content marketing excellence in the years to come. You conduct and create studies that you can then use in your own materials to support the idea that your product or service is one that people should trust and use. Pure genius.
One of my favorite examples of companies that have embraced this research-first method is the team at Glassdoor. The Glassdoor team has also invested in proprietary research and used it to create a competitive advantage that has ultimately helped them establish one of the most impressive SEO moats in the industry.
Create Content That Speaks To Emotions
Studies show that references to “The Office” generate 87% more clicks and backlinks than pieces of content that don’t…
Ok. I just made that up.
But… It’s very likely that content that references the hit TV show “The Office” will generate more clicks than a random piece without a reference to it. Why? Because content that leverages pop culture pulls on the emotional strings of humans (ie. the nostalgia string) and gets them to click. We click on the content because that content is likely to entertain us. We were once entertained by “The Office” so it’s likely that a blog post that makes reference to “The Office” will have the ability to entertain us as well.
The other thing that Calm Business does really well is they make their content click-friendly. I’m not calling it click-bait…
Because bait means you’re not happy with what’s on the other side of the click.
Click-friendly content is just content that knows how to use human psychology to get you to click on something. For example…
The headline:
Are You Suffering From HR Burnout? Here’s How To Tell – And What To Do About It
Checks all the boxes for what goes into a great headline.
4) But not just the answer… You will get a solution.
That’s called great copywriting.
(Here’s an essay I wrote all about creating great headlines)
So what should you do with all of this information?
Some of you might be thinking… Ross, Calm raised more than $75B and is valued at over $2B. I don’t have their budget…
You’re right.
You don’t.
But what you do have is four insights around how they’re currently doing content marketing that you could use in your own business. You don’t need to do all the things. That’s a trap.
But you do need to make the case internally (either in your own head if you’re the founder or with your colleagues if you’re at a company) that investing in content is a smart move. It’s a smart business move.
The same way that brands who invested in content 5 years ago are laughing today… I’m confident that 5 years from today the brands that invest in content are going to be laughing tomorrow.
Forward this to the skeptic on your team. This is the year to make an investment in content.
Because if you don’t… I’m worried that your competitors are going to read this first. And I’m rooting for you.
Go get’em.
