10×1 Content Marketing: The Ultimate Guide

We all want to produce more and better content. That’s a fact.

In this article we explain how, with a simple approach called 10×1, you can leverage your premium content assets in a better way.

Marketers want to produce more content

Producing more content is often at the core of the challenges marketers face. According to a recent Content Marketing Institute research, 70% of B2B marketers and 73% of B2C marketers plan on producing more content in the coming year.

But even though we know this, it doesn’t mean that there will be that much more money available in those content marketing budgets.

So how can you leverage your existing budget to produce more content?

This is where we usually introduce the 10×1 approach to our clients.

What is 10×1 content marketing

This approach means that for each piece of content you produce, you should be planning to be able to create 10 extra pieces directly from it, almost based on the same budget.

When you invest money into a good piece of content, you should always think how it could be leveraged on all your platforms, and through time.

Leveraging platforms with 10×1

Let’s say you are producing a video asset, investing a decent amount of money for the production and getting a high-quality deliverable. You plan on putting this video natively on Facebook, but also publishing it on your YouTube channel.

But how will people know about it if they follow you on Instagram? And on your own website, have you planned to simply embed it on an empty page (or worse, put it in your “Videos” section…!).

Right off the bat, when planning production day, you should be thinking about all the other touchpoints your brand has with its audience and figuring out how your production can “live” on those platforms.

Should you shoot a quick 15-second excerpt for Instagram while the crew is on set? (it would cost you close to nothing)

Should you have a journalist on set to draft an article, or will you be preparing a transcript of your video so that it can also live as a 2,000-word blog post? Or maybe you will even choose a different video director, knowing that this other person can also write a great essay on the subject?

Leveraging platforms requires planning.

It cannot happen after you’ve finished editing your video and wonder how you will promote it.

At Toast, we often brief video crews on what collateral content they should produce while on set. It can be pictures, behind-the-scenes material, a quick audio interview, shooting something with their phones, etc.

And all this can come in cheap, but only if it’s planned.

In short, plan to create 10 pieces of content from that single production you are preparing.

From a blog post or a video production, there is a multitude of formats you can create. Here is a list we sometimes use just as a quick reminder of everything we could consider (and that’s not everything of course):

• Listicles
• Memes
• Loops, boomerangs
• GIFs
• Short videos
• Picture-story
• Events
• Articles
• Quizzes
• 360-degrees videos or photos
• Quotes
• Infographics
• Charts
• Social take-overs
• Fast-facts
• Q&A / Interviews
• How-to’s
• Content curation on the same subject
• Instagram/Snapchat stories
• User generated content
• Facebook/YouTube/Twitter live

 

Leveraging time with 10×1

As you know, content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.

And you should also be leveraging your content assets through time.

Some content is time sensitive, but as much as possible, you should always find a way to make it live longer, to be evergreen even.

And plan to promote it for a longer period.

“Too often, marketers expect quick results from content marketing, but it simply doesn’t work that way. In a metaphor borrowed from Chris Moritz, associate director of customer experience strategy at MRM//McCann, content marketing is like your 401(k) plan. No one should expect great 401(k) results at the beginning; rather, they should see the returns increase over time because of the compounded growth. Of course, if you want to see bigger returns faster, you can invest more at the beginning. In content marketing, quicker returns means paying to promote your best content to build an audience.” (source: CMI)

Very often, you write a blog post and start sharing it, promoting it, sending it to your subscribers and followers. And then you write a new blog post, and that first one stops being promoted, it almost disappears from your radar (and your audience’s!).

If you invest money into producing content, it should be promoted for a decent amount of time.

How can the 10 pieces of content you will create off that initial production live through time? Can you plan multiple assets that will allow you to promote that same blog post, for example, but without always using the same collateral?

By creating useful content assets that will live through time, you are setting yourself up for the long tail, one of the keys in the success of content marketing.

The importance of making all 10 pieces of content useful

Just creating more pieces of content that only drive your audience from where they are to your video or blog post isn’t 10×1. It’s content promotion, it’s a form of advertising.

And 10×1 is not the same thing.

The idea behind 10×1 is that each additional content you create from your production needs to be able to live by itself. It needs to bring value to your audience, where they are, at that moment. It has to take context into account and find a way to be useful to your followers, your fans, your ambassadors.

And you know how it works. If they find it useful, there is a better chance they will share it and spread it.

And that’s where 10×1 does its magic.

From one production, one research document, you are able to bring value to more people, for a longer period of time.

How about 100×1 ?

If you plan on creating 10 pieces of content from one single production, why not 100?

Although 100 might be a little too much, one entrepreneur actually does this in her own way.

Chalene Johnson produces most of her content directly off her Facebook Live broadcasts.

She leverages her audience in live Q&A’s, but also feeds off these questions to create additional content like Instagram posts, her team will also create an audio version and publish it as a podcast, transcribe it to be published as blog posts, and she tweets quotes from the initial video (sometimes hundreds!).

How 10×1 impacts your content marketing budget

By planning ahead and getting 10×1 flowing into your veins, your budget will not be impacted that much, but your editorial calendar will.

It means more content at your disposal throughout the month.

It means less repetition in what you publish when promoting a specific premium asset.

But what it does is that it allows you to keep budgets available to more premium pieces. While in the past, you might sprinkle your budget over the year in order to make sure you have fresh content at all times, you end up spending on multiple medium-level production throughout the year. What if you could do one great production every month, or every two months, but thanks to the 10×1 approach, have content that will carry you between each release.

This is how 10×1 actually helps you better manage your marketing budget and give you wiggle room to produce better content that you might not have had the budget for before.

In summary

• Over 70% of marketers plan on producing more content over the next year.
• The 10×1 approach requires that you plan ahead, making sure you will be able to create 10 additional pieces of content whenever you plan on investing a decent amount on a production.
• This approach allows you to produce more premium content pieces, thanks to all the collateral assets you will be able to use.
• 10×1 makes your budget work in a different way, allowing for better premium pieces.