When determining your content marketing mix, you want to make sure that you have what we at Marketo call  “Big Rock Content Pieces”. These are your big kahunas, the large thought leadership pieces that not only illustrate your unique point of view, but that you can also break up and use to create smaller content pieces. At Marketo, our “Big Rocks” are in the form of our Definitive Guides, which can be 80+ pages jam packed full of awesome content and tips. From our guides we develop a variety of other content pieces: cheat sheets, infographics, visual slide decks, webinars, podcasts etc, so we can extend the life of our guides for a long time.

But how do you create one of these crazy “Big Rock” pieces? Sounds like a lot of work. Well, it is! They take a lot of time and effort to write, edit, and design something that is truly unique. Here are 5 helpful tips to make sure your content behemoth is a huge success:

1.  Always create an outline.

This might sound obvious, but when you are creating such a big piece of content, this is an absolute must. Clearly define what you want the flow of your document to be and determine what topics you want to tackle. Once you have your outline, it is always a good idea to socialize this to internal stakeholders and SMEs (subject matter experts) to make sure that you are covering all of the right topics. You might also want to add an abstract or an intro to provide more clarity on direction and tone. The more organized you are when you begin, the better you will feel later when you are trying to compile many different sections and connect all of the dots. – href="http://blog.marketo.com/blog/2012/11/creating-your-big-rock-content-piece-5-must-have-tips-for-success.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+modernb2bmarketing+%28Marketo+B2B+Marketing+and+Sales+Blogs%29&utm_content=Google+Reader">Creating Your Big Rock Content Piece: 5 Must-Have Tips For Success by Dayna Rothman

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