Unicorn Marketing and Your Business

If you work in the digital marketing industry, unicorn marketing has been an it-phrase for the last few months. Popularized by Larry Kim and his Content Marketing Moneyball webinar, a content unicorn is a key piece of content that’s been:

• successfully shared
• engaged with
• ranks high on Google
• meets important metrics like high CTR, ROI, and conversion

Unicorn content marketing is about throwing away everything you think you know about content marketing and dealing with the data. Instead of attempting to meet arbitrary quality guidelines, the theory of unicorn marketing posits that your best performing content is your quality content and that you should reuse it and repurpose it.

With a successful unicorn marketing strategy, you and your content team can take advantage of high-performing content, learn how to spot a unicorn, and think long-term about your content strategy. Utilizing unicorn marketing services can lead to viral articles that drive traffic to your site, have high click-through rates, and ultimately drive leads.

What is Unicorn Content?

Unicorn content is that blog post, webinar, video, or another piece of content everyone is talking about. It’s a piece of content that performs in the top 1-3% of your site and usually delivers most of your traffic. Unicorns are not only traffic drivers; they’re the best-performing content pieces in many ways. They usually have higher social engagement, clickthrough rates (CTR), and conversion rates than your donkeys (the rest of your content). The top 10% of your content will, on average, have a That’s why finding and cultivating your unicorns is so important.

In content marketing, we’ve tried to define quality content by many unrelated metrics: length, spelling and grammar, readability scores, expertise, and even more obtuse values. But unicorns are quality content. Quantity begets quality. You’ll find your unicorns in a hill of donkeys by producing hundreds of pieces of content and finding what works well. There aren’t boxes to check off to create quality content, and most of your blogs and videos won’t perform well. It’s all about finding your unicorn content and capitalizing on it.

What Do You Once You’ve Found a Unicorn?

Once you’ve found unicorn content, it’s time to use it. When you find high-quality, top-performing content on your site, you’ll “want to sound the unicorn alarm,” as Larry Kim says. Promote the content through your social media channels, and repurpose it into different forms, such infographics, videos, and SlideShare decks. If it’s something temporary, like a Webinar or Facebook Live video, you can always use it again for a different audience. While it’s not possible to predict what will succeed, you can reuse what does perform well in a new context to increase its chance of exploding.

One common trait found in unicorn content is the use of stories that evoke emotion. Use happiness, surprise, affirmation, and fear to craft your unicorn content marketing. With a consistent publishing strategy, careful data analysis, and valuable information for your readers, you can produce more unicorns.

What Does This Mean for My Content Strategy?

Overall, content marketing goals for your business should remain the same. Even while using a unicorn content marketing strategy, consistency is key. Keep writing, learn from your metrics, and invest in your high-performing content. Look at your data after several months and find what’s working—use your statistics. It’s not always possible to predict what will be popular, just try to create the spark that will help any piece of content succeed, whether it turns out to be a donkey or a unicorn.

Are you having trouble writing high-performing content that maximizes ROI? Leverage Marketing’s content team knows how to turn a herd of donkeys into a blessing of unicorns. Contact us today to start your journey to better content.