A Lesson From La La Land: Create a Content Portfolio

August 14th, 2009

If you’re a small business owner or a marketing professional, chances are you don’t pay too much attention to Hollywood.

It’s La La Land – a bubble disconnected from the business of selling fencing in Littleton, MA, or Real Estate in Chapel Hill, NC, right?

Not so fast.

There is a least one big lesson marketers and small business owners can learn from Hollywood: If you want to make a blockbuster, plan on making lots of bombs in the process.

Here’s what I mean: Hollywood movie execs have no idea which movies are going to be blockbusters. So the smart ones don’t try to pick. Instead, they create a portfolio of films. Most of the films in their portfolio end up bombing, but that’s ok because it only takes one blockbuster to pay off their investment in the rest.

Consider the distribution of Warner Bros’ revenue last year (see the graph below); their four biggest movies accounted for more than half of the ticket sales.

warner bros portfolio

As a marketer or small business owner, you should think of content the way Warner Bros thinks of its movies — as pieces of a portfolio.

Instead of trying to pick one or two winning blog articles every month, write one or two dozen shorter articles. This will give you a better chance of publishing a blockbuster.

You should also take the portfolio approach to different media types. Blogging is important, but don’t make it your only focus — try video, webinars, slidedecks and software applications. The more diversity you have in your content portfolio, the better your chances of producing content that generates traffic, leads and sales.

So, what’s in your portfolio?

Photo: andy castro