A few weeks ago, a VC firm reached out to us about turning their data and their guest interviews into editorial content they could run across several channels.
Context over their business:
around $25b in assets under management
a podcast with good guests coming along
over 100,000 followers across social
Every week they bring interesting people into their podcast, so we could pull the interesting bits out of that and build the content on those.
On the call with their team, we jammed on this question:
“How do we use the podcast to create unique content nobody else can create, and use that as flagship pieces to be used in other channels?”
Here's the framework I laid out to them:
(We use this framework to write newsletters and deep dives for our clients - if you're sitting on proprietary data and want to build media with it, chat with me).
A breakdown of the 3 levels of data uniqueness:
1/ public data only
This is anything a stranger could go and find without knowing you through your channels.
an industry report cited somewhere
a public filing or earnings release
a benchmark study somebody else ran
a stat your guest quoted on the podcast last week
If your last edition was built on a public report, everyone on your list can go and read the same report.
It's fine as an ingredient for a good newsletter, but on its own it doesn't bring originality.
They already know what's in it by the time they open your version.
2/ single-company data
This is data from inside one business that nobody outside it has ever seen.
what your customers do inside your product
what one of your portfolio companies knows about its own market
what happened to every client you took on in the last three years
the reason your last 20 churned accounts gave when they left
Example of newsletter editions based on single-company data:
“We looked at 4,000 of our customers and here's what they do.”
Or “Here's what happened to every company we backed in this sector.”
Or one chart with a number on it that has never been published anywhere.
It goes one level up in data uniqueness because nobody else can publish that data, and your readers can't find it anywhere else either.
3/ cross combinations
This is two sets of data put together that nobody has put together before.
two companies you own, in different industries, that measure the same thing
your own customer data against a public index
what your customers do against what a podcast guest say they should do
your podcast archive against your own deal flow
Example of cross-combination we built from another firm's live podcast (unprompted, just to show what's possible) -
An investor went on a podcast and brought numbers on how fast companies are adopting AI (proprietary data from his own portfolio of companies).
First thing we did was verify every one of them ourselves, because the moment you publish somebody else's figure under your own logo, it becomes your figure.
Then we added another layer: external data from the S&P 500. We asked:
If AI usage is climbing that fast, has the stock market climbed with it?
The results produced a very unique piece of content because:
The guest never discussed the stock market on the episode
We couldn't find the answer anywhere else because nobody else asked and answered the question
The question was interesting for that audience
Point is-
Proprietary data can be turned into a media asset, but holding them up against a second public set is what turns a content piece into something nobody else can publish.
Anyone can pull public data from podcast episodes and write newsletters on it, but almost nobody goes one level deeper to create pieces that dominate their category.
If you're wondering how to produce this for yourself, the only thing you need is repetition.
Anything you produce on a schedule has been collecting data that nobody has.
a podcast where you bring interesting people from your industry
a webinar where the same thing comes up in the Q&A every month
a community where the same question comes up multiple times
your sales calls, which is where we start with every client we take on
If you want us to go through your three levels and work out how your content could look like, book a call.
It takes about 30 minutes.
/N
P.S. If you produce anything on a schedule and have never gone back through the archive, LMK and I'll reply with my ideas (must be qualified).