The Deep Content PR Strategy

I often sug­gest the deep con­tent PR strategy.

Deep con­tent isn’t com­plic­ated — and the res­ults are predictable.

The down­side: You have to put in the work and cre­ate help­ful con­tent — lots of it. Also, growth is usu­ally a slow burn. Still, slow and steady wins the (SEO) race!

Here we go:

Deep Content

Deep con­tent is focused on provid­ing increas­ingly high­er-qual­ity inform­a­tion to con­tent divers (as opposed to con­tent surfers).

In the example, five lay­ers of ever­green con­tent are stacked ver­tic­ally on a quarterly timeline:

Example of a five-lay­er deep con­tent structure:

This inbound logic is sim­il­ar to ice­berg pub­lish­ing and con­tent themes regard­ing struc­ture and depth.

Learn more: The Deep Content PR Strategy

Content Surfers and Content Divers

If a user has shown interest in your sur­face-level con­tent and wants to explore and learn more, your brand must have some­thing to offer at those deep­er levels.

When users are sat­is­fied, they decide when not to go any deep­er. Your com­mit­ment to this strategy is to ensure that users nev­er leave because the option to go deep­er doesn’t exist.

As a rule of thumb:

A user­’s web­site jour­ney should nev­er end due to the brand’s fail­ure to provide rel­ev­ant information.

Since all rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion can­’t be eas­ily presen­ted sim­ul­tan­eously, organ­isa­tions must provide online inform­a­tion sev­er­al lay­ers deep. They must provide deep content.

Why is web­site depth so important?

Content surfers (mov­ing hori­zont­ally) look around, turn­ing over stones here and there. Content divers (mov­ing ver­tic­ally), on the oth­er hand, immerse them­selves — which is extremely valu­able from a brand’s perspective.

The minor­ity who click your content’s call to action (con­tent diver = mov­ing ver­tic­ally) is expo­nen­tially more valu­able than the major­ity who scan and move along (con­tent surfer = mov­ing horizontally).

Content divers have a more nar­row and focused intent. According to most web­site met­rics, they don’t mind scrolling ver­tic­ally and click­ing — as long as the con­tent becomes increas­ingly more rel­ev­ant to their needs.

Placing your brand’s most valu­able and in-depth con­tent at the “bot­tom” might seem counter-intuitive:

Content divers will quickly aban­don ship if they notice that your con­tent is get­ting worse and worse the deep­er they go.

Learn more: Content Surfers and Content Divers

The Press Release Paradox

Think of a reg­u­lar press release:
How do most press releases end?

“For more inform­a­tion, please con­tact:”

That’s not a clear, pre­cise, or enti­cing call to action.

Most press release writers try to make the head­line more com­pel­ling than the actu­al press release. Then, they make the first two sen­tences more inter­est­ing than the rest of the text.

The longer you read, the less attract­ive the con­tent becomes. So, the deep­er into the press release you go, the less you’re being “rewar­ded” for donat­ing your valu­able attention.

If someone is inter­ested enough in your press release to read it to the end, should­n’t they be treated with a little more respect?

Huh.

Press releases are designed to become duller the fur­ther down the page you read. The same can be said for how tra­di­tion­al news art­icles are struc­tured. But this old-school approach isn’t a good fit for a digit­al-first world.

Learn more: The Press Release Paradox (to be published)

Strategic Prerequisites and Fit

The deep con­tent PR strategy isn’t neces­sar­ily the right fit for all brands:

Deep con­tent is SEO-friendly and caters to online audi­ences look­ing to dive deep­er into spe­cif­ic niches. It’s a good fit for busi­ness-to-busi­ness ven­tures. It’s a good fit for thought lead­er­ship PR strategies. 

However, the deep con­tent PR strategy also goes bey­ond con­ven­tion­al white-col­lar industries:

Users are also look­ing to go deep in the most cre­at­ive of spaces. It can be any­thing from music to art, from gam­ing to col­lect­ables. Many online pub­lics are inter­ested in diving into the most remote online deep­sea trenches imaginable.

THANKS FOR READING.
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• The Press Release Paradox (to be published)

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