Nomenclature, Squirrel Suits, and Niche Media.

Greetings from our quarterly offsite! A day in which we ask our team to come together from the four corners of the globe to answer the strategic questions that keep us up at night:

  • How are we progressing against our KPIs? 
  • How do we need to adjust our quarterly OKRs? 
  • Are we driving adequate ROI? 
  • And of course the big one: Is Holdovers an instant Christmas classic or are we just on a high from blowing off work and spending a Thursday afternoon in a movie theater with a food and alcohol minimum? 

Pictured: A team who would never not hit their minimum

Either way, it’s always important to get the Q4 offsite out of the way before the holiday party, and before Spotify Wrapped szn fully commences and everyone’s legally forced to start judging each other.

Which also reminds us – we’re discounting most of our services and adding in some freebies for anyone who signs an SOW with us between now and the end of the year. Reach out to sam@lhchq.com for more details. 

And with that, we’re off to the #content:

RIP clickbait; long live niche media! 

Just two years after Business Insider dropped its name down to Insider to appeal to a broader audience, it changed its mind again and is back to being (you guessed it) Business Insider. And Buzzfeed learned that a “hey millennials like listicles!” strategy actually doesn’t hold that much appeal to advertisers. Going forward, they’re pitching their brands individually— Buzzfeed, HuffPo, Tasty — rather than their network. Oh!  And have you heard about Disney? Turns out their 2024 strategy is quality over quantity. 

Why are we telling you this? 

It’s not just so you can have riveting conversation starters at your company holiday party (but, like, you’re welcome). It’s because it’s a sign of a long overdue strategy finally getting the comeback it deserves. 

Yep, you read that H1 correctly, we’re talking brand-owned niche media.

After years of feeling pressured to cover everything that could possibly be in a company’s wheelhouse, or touching their wheelhouse, or within screaming distance of their wheelhouse, we’re starting to remember that people prospects actually prefer you focus on what you actually know.

And while the promise of brand-owned media properties has been bubbling ever since Red Bull televised its first squirrel suit, niche media is actually a perfect fit for brands –  who actually do know a lot about what they do. You get to lean into content that you’re truly an expert in — and then forget everything else. 

Pictured: Not your owned media strategy.

Suddenly you’re memorable not because you scooped up some SEO points with your endless keyword research — but because you have a strong, expert-backed view on what the orcas are planning to do next and therefore, which yachts are most deserving of being capsized. (Or you know, content strategy, or inbound marketing, or sports betting.) 

The secret — that we’re just going to give you pro bono — is that you have to back up your expertise with a consistent content strategy. Not just because you have a lot to say, but because consistency breeds familiarity which breeds trust which breeds the holy grail of brand affinity. And no, content strategy doesn’t just mean “blog publishing schedule”. It means how your expertise comes to life across the entire customer experience.

Take Topps for example. The card manufacturing company is perfectly placed to be THE content authority on collectibles — they have tons of in-house knowledge, a deep understanding of the audience, and the marketing budget to sustain consistent publishing. 

Enter Topps Ripped, which publishes daily content about the latest cards for the true heads, while also having a useful glossary and a “Cards 101” section for people who are just starting out on their collector journeys. The result is an invaluable resource to both hard core collectors and n00bs; and Topps gets to reap the rewards in the form of increased brand loyalty and ultimately sales.

The best part about niche media from a brand perspective is that sprinkling in self promotional content is actually useful! While readers don’t need to hear about the brand’s offerings all the time, they actually are potential buyers and so they do want to know what you do, how you do it, and why they should buy it. And because you’ve proven yourself by consistently showcasing content that’s informative and useful, they trust you that your product will be useful too.  

But if that doesn’t work, we suppose you could always change your company name and see if that does the trick? 

Department of self promotion