Content Proposal_Outdoorcats

This article is my journey of researching and collecting data of visitors on Medium for the past two months. I have posted several contents that were related to cats and outdoor activities with cats to see different behaviours of visitors. By experimenting with some articles by changing some variables like shorter headlines, adding a new cover photo and even changing the text to make it more readable.
This whole experiment was required to gather enough data for a new marketing strategy for a client named Outdoorcats.com. The client is a company with a clear vision that want’s to encourage cat owners to be closer with them and to enjoy outdoor activities. In addition to their vision, the company offers subscriptions for a new cat food blend with natural ingredients that is full of nutrition’s. My job is to come up with a new content strategy to help Outdoor cats with their marketing objective to have 5000 sign up’s before the first of November as well as with their vision.
This article will discuss my most and least successful contents based on beta tests and AB experiments. Next, a summary of my key learnings regarding my tests and any trade-offs that I have discovered during my experimentations. Finally, a short summary and examples of my proposal for my client.

Most and least successful content
For my research, I have created three specific articles on Medium for three different objectives. The experiments were performed to understand what the audience likes to see and what they want to read. Unlike Facebook or YouTube, Medium requires more effort and time to write interesting articles. Let alone the attention span of a regular reader on Medium. Not everyone will invest his or her time to read one of your articles unless it’s captivating.
Therefore, each article that I wrote had a different purpose with clickbait like headlines in order to have quick responses and to have some traffic. The three beta tests are: consumer friendly, channel friendly and client friendly contents.
The article that had the highest views and reads was the client friendly article where I accumulated 41 views, 27 reads and a read ratio of 66%. My first article was mainly focused on the differences between outdoor cats and indoor cats. This article was written to create an impression that cat owners have an interesting animal and that they need more attention. Lastly, the main goal of this article was written to create leads for the company. Since the marketing objective of Outdoor cats is to have 5.000 signs ups by November the first 2019. In my case, this was a success because it has the highest amount of views and reads.

The second article was focused for another goal of Outdoorcats which is to encourage cat owners to go outside with their cats. The second article generated 16 views and 13 reads and was based on a consumer friendly test. In other words, the test was to find out whether the article would have a benefit on the consumers lives. Interestingly, the read ratio was much higher with this article which was 81%. This could mean that there are cat owners that are aware of the trend of going outdoors with your cat, especially hiking.
The third and the last article was an article that was based on a channel friendly test. A “ how to “ article that is written to elaborate and give tips to bolster your relationship with your cat. Sadly this article had the least views and reads. However, the read ratio was 67% meaning that the content was read despite the low views, ( see figure 1).
To see the full list of AB tests please click this link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uuRv_Cr2bFv0Vojoo2Yre9pt1Ixgenh8
Key learnings
Beta testing:
Next to my three beta tests, I have performed an AB experiment with my content just to see how readers would react. In order to see different behaviours, I took one article and changed some elements to see if I could have a higher conversion rate. I changed the headlines, the cover photo and also created more paragraphs by splitting the whole text, this is more pleasing to read.
Unfortunately, out of all three different AB tests, I had zero luck. No view and no reads. This was strange indeed. I even included a YouTube video in one of the articles hoping I would get some clicks. Alas, I could not bait anyone from clicking on my articles or at least giving me some claps.
I tried to see where the problem was located, then I noticed that my least successful article and my alternative contents for the AB experiment had very long headlines, (Sean D’Souza , 2019). Longer headlines that exists more than 14–16 words are not good since a headline is there to create a thought according to Sean D’Souza in his article about headlines, (Sean D’Souza , 2019)
Furthermore, the headlines did not provide any engagement either just like with the last article about creating a good relationship with your cat. The first beta test had more emotion and engagement which made the viewers interested to click. Plus, the channel is very important when you plan to start a campaign. Medium demands more time to think about a good headline as well as a story that will keep the reader’s attention.
Trade-offs
Earlier, we discussed how the experiments resulted. All three beta tests received different responses based on the headlines and the topic itself. Based on my analysis, I can conclude that any article that is related to cats worth reading. Especially, if it’s explaining new trends or research about cat behaviour. Perhaps there is a new trend about dressing up cats in cute costumes or a trend that is involved in hiking with your cat. In my case, I have seen results that show that there is indeed an interest of doing activities outside with your cat. Nevertheless, based on my own hypotheses and the results of my tests, I can propose and alternative strategy for the client. A strategy that will work more efficiently.
Trade-offs and advice:
Medium is not the best channel to generate leads for the company. The channel is great for exposure and views however, generating leads is not the best since the channel does not have a built in method for consistently generating high quality leads, (Josh Hamit, 2019). Medium is a channel that is more focused on informative articles it’s great to explain and describe something really well but in order to comply with the clients marketing objective, it is better to look for other methods.
However, there is a trick to use Medium to attract more leads by inserting links from the home website into your stories or share your stories through other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or vice versa. Another trick is to use a third party service called Upscri.be. This tool is used for building newsletters that requires sign up forms where visitors can subscribe to you much easier by creating the link of your website through Upscribe.be and paste it in your story on Medium, (upscri.be, 2019). Visitors will give you consent to send them mails and therefore this will result in more visitors for in your home website.
The second trade-off I have identified during my tests is the headlines of articles on Medium. The hiking article received good results including four fans. However, the content could have had more views if the title was more engaging. As we explained before, titles of an article should be around 14–16 words, (Sean D’Souza , 2019). Furthermore, the headlines needs to be more engaging because some of the content had boring headlines. Therefore, more engaging headlines will be more consumer friendly which will result more traffic for the client.
An example: “ Here’s what you don’t know about hiking with your cat. “
Finally, it is really hard to have people read your articles on Medium. My results speak for itself. Even when I changed the headlines or even when I added a new cover photo, it was still difficult to have visitors.
My content that was based on the channel friendly test received the least amount of views and reads. However, there is another cool option on Medium.com which can be used to feature your article on someone else’s channel. Publications is a unique option for new members to ask other members with greater followers to post your article on their channel, (Larry Kim, 2018). Outdoorcats can look for members/ influencers that are glad to share their posts on their channels.
All three advices that we have discussed so far form a cohesive strategy which will directly aid Outdoor cats marketing goal to achieve 5000 sign ups by November the first. Especially, if we can combine Upscribe.be with Medium which makes it much easier for visitors to subscribe to your channel, (upscri.be, 2019). Furthermore, by creating clever and engaging headlines, we can draw attention much faster like we have given an example previously. Lastly, with publications, the content that we create on Medium can be shared via other members on their channels who have hundreds of followers.
New Content strategy
According to the clients demands, they are looking for a content that will be their hero during their launch. Therefore, I propose an article that is based on cats with hiking. An article that will discuss tips for beginner hikers that are planning to go wander the wilderness together with their cats. The client also wants to know the ideal location to start with the campaign until they start expanding to other locations. My suggestion is to start with the US first because the country has many cat owners that look exactly how Outdoorcats target audience is described.
Furthermore, each content will have a sign up form where visitors have the opportunity to subsribe and to receive news about the company or new stories on their channel here in Medium.


This article will be the first step towards the clients objective and therefore, this article will posted on the first of October until the end of the month. Each content will have a different date when they will go live until a specific date. This way, we can measure the metrics/ visitors and analyse whether it succseful or not based on their visits.

The second article will be an informative article about various cat breeds. This article will be launched on 15th of October until the end of November and will be channel friendly.


Finnaly the last article will be a post based on top locations for hiking with your cat. This post will be consumer friendly based article which will add value to cat owners world wide. This article will launched on the first of November until January 18 2020.

To see the content calender please click on this link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yJTHumw68d73S-J9Juh8ykFqFn4Pi1qf
Appendix: https://drive.google.com/open?id=12pG80sdJ3xZevr8fATT6pV6TNqTikE30
