Olivia: What if I told you that up to 70 percent of the work your company's marketing team does is thrown directly in the trash? Not because it's bad, but because it's homeless. That's the shocking reality we're unpacking today. Jackson: Whoa, hold on. Seventy percent? That's an astonishing number. What do you even mean by "homeless content"? Is it just sitting on a server somewhere, forgotten? Olivia: Exactly. It's the blog posts, the white papers, the videos that are created with great effort and then left to fend for themselves in the vast, lonely wilderness of the internet. This is the central problem tackled in a book with a title that’s impossible to ignore: F#ck Content Marketing by Randy Frisch. Jackson: Okay, that title definitely gets your attention. But it also sounds a little aggressive. Is he just trying to be provocative, or is there a real fire behind that smoke? Olivia: There's a huge fire. And what makes his argument so compelling is that he's not just some critic yelling from the sidelines. Randy Frisch is the co-founder and CMO of Uberflip, a major content experience platform. He built a company to solve the very problem he’s writing about. The title was a deliberate choice to jolt marketers out of a routine he believes is fundamentally broken. Jackson: That makes sense. He’s not just pointing out the problem; he’s building the lifeboats. So, what is this huge, systemic problem he sees? Why is so much of this expensive, time-consuming content ending up homeless?

Olivia: The core of his diagnosis is that for years, marketers have been obsessed with the wrong thing: content creation. We've been told to just make more. More blogs, more videos, more everything. But we've completely neglected the experience of consuming that content. Jackson: The experience? What does that mean in this context? Olivia: Frisch gives this brilliant analogy in the book. Imagine you have a bottle of Corona beer. You can drink that beer in a dark, dusty, unfinished basement while you're looking for a wrench. The beer is fine, it's a Corona. But the experience is... functional at best. Jackson: Right, it’s just a beverage. I'm not exactly savoring the moment. Olivia: Now, imagine drinking that exact same Corona on a warm, sunny beach in Costa Rica, with your feet in the sand and the sound of waves in the background. The beer itself hasn't changed one bit. It's the same liquid. But the experience? It's a thousand times better. Jackson: Oh, I see. That’s a perfect way to put it. The content is the Corona, but the website, the layout, the way it’s presented—that’s the beach. Olivia: Precisely. Frisch argues that most companies are serving up their content in a digital basement. They write a brilliant article—the best Corona you could ask for—but then they bury it in a clunky, 10-page PDF that you have to download, or it's just a wall of text on a webpage with no clear next step. The content itself might be great, but the experience is terrible. Jackson: I know that feeling. You read something interesting, you get to the end, and... nothing. It’s a dead end. You just close the tab and move on. You're saying that's the failure? Olivia: That is the massive failure. He calls it a "sh#tty experience." And it's not because marketers are lazy. It’s a systemic issue. The tools and strategies we've been using for the last decade, like basic Content Management Systems or CMSs, were built for publishing pages, not for creating journeys. They were designed to put the beer in the basement, because back then, just having a basement was a big deal. Jackson: So we're stuck with architectural plans from a bygone era, trying to build a modern resort. Olivia: That’s a great way to put it. We’re still thinking in terms of assets—individual blog posts, individual videos—instead of thinking like Netflix or Spotify, who are masters of creating an experience. They don't just dump their entire library on you. They guide you. They create a seamless flow. Jackson: Okay, I'm definitely sold on the problem. My browser history is a graveyard of those dead-end content experiences. It’s a mess. But diagnosing the illness is one thing; prescribing the cure is another. What is Frisch's actual solution? How do we start building that 'beach' for our content?

Olivia: This is where the book moves from diagnosis to a very practical, actionable cure. He introduces what he calls the Content Experience Framework. It’s a five-stage process: Centralize, Organize, Personalize, Distribute, and Generate Results. Jackson: That sounds a bit like corporate jargon. Can you make that feel more like the beach and less like a basement? Olivia: Absolutely. Let's skip the buzzwords and go straight to the stories, because that's where it comes alive. Let's talk about "Organize." Frisch uses another perfect analogy: Blockbuster versus Netflix. Jackson: Oh, a classic tale of disruption. I'm listening. Olivia: Think about walking into a Blockbuster in the 90s. You wanted to watch a Tom Hanks movie. Maybe you just saw Apollo 13 in the "New Releases" section and you're on a kick. How would you find another Tom Hanks movie? Jackson: Uh, I guess I’d wander over to the "Comedy" section and hope to spot Big? Then maybe check the "Drama" aisle for Forrest Gump? It was a guessing game. You had to know what you were looking for, and where it might be shelved. Olivia: Exactly. Blockbuster organized its content by format or genre. It was a system that made sense for the store, but it was often useless for the customer's actual goal, which was "I want to see more stuff like this." Now, think about Netflix. It doesn't just have a "Comedy" category. It has "Witty Sitcoms," "Dark Comedies," "Goofy Comedies." And most importantly, it has the magic row: "Because you watched Apollo 13." Jackson: Right. It organizes content around my behavior and my inferred interests. It’s anticipating my next move. That’s a complete game-changer. So, organizing for a content experience means structuring your content around the user's needs, not your own internal filing system. Olivia: You've got it. It’s about creating pathways, not just shelves. But that's just one piece. The next, and maybe most powerful, is "Personalize." And this is where so many companies get it wrong. Jackson: That's great for movies, but what about a B2B example? How does this apply to a company selling, say, software? Olivia: Well, Frisch shares a horror story that perfectly illustrates the wrong way to do it. He was researching a company and found a white paper he wanted to read. The call-to-action button on the website didn't say "Download Now." It said, "Email Frank." Jackson: Email... Frank? A specific person named Frank? Olivia: Yes. To get the white paper, you had to manually send an email to a guy named Frank. It was awkward, inconvenient, and felt incredibly sketchy. That’s the opposite of a personalized, seamless experience. It’s the digital equivalent of being told the beer is in a locked fridge in the basement and you have to find Frank to get the key. Jackson: That is awful. So what's the "beach" version of that? Olivia: He contrasts it with his experience test-driving a Tesla. After the test drive, he didn't just get a generic "Thanks for your interest" email. The follow-up was hyper-personalized. It referenced the exact model he drove. It included content specifically about the benefits he had asked about during the drive. The sales rep even sent a personal note mentioning a conversation they'd had about his brother-in-law. Jackson: Wow. That’s next-level. They weren't just sending him content; they were continuing the conversation he had already started. They were showing they had listened. Olivia: And that's the essence of personalization in the content experience. It’s not just using someone's first name in an email. It’s delivering the right content, in the right context, at the right time, based on what you know about their journey so far. It’s making them feel seen and understood.

Jackson: You know, as you're describing this, it feels like it's about so much more than just marketing. It's about a fundamental respect for the audience's time and intelligence. The "Email Frank" approach is disrespectful. The Tesla approach is respectful. Olivia: That's the deepest insight of the book, I think. It’s about a philosophical shift. Moving away from a purely transactional mindset—"how do I get this person's email address?"—and toward a relational one—"how do I build a journey that earns this person's trust?" Jackson: And that's a much bigger ask. It's not just a new tactic. It's a new culture. Olivia: It is. And that’s probably why the book has had a bit of a mixed reception among general readers, even while being praised by marketing leaders. It's not a simple, easy-to-implement checklist. It challenges the very structure of how many marketing and sales teams operate. It requires organizational alignment, which is a massive undertaking. Jackson: It’s asking you to redesign the entire store, not just rearrange a few shelves. Olivia: Exactly. And that can be daunting. But the book's ultimate argument is that in a world overflowing with content, the only way to win is to stop contributing to the noise and start building destinations. Places where people want to stay, explore, and engage. Jackson: That really reframes the whole purpose of what a company puts online. It leaves me with one big question for myself, and for our listeners. Olivia: What's that? Jackson: The book challenges us to ask: is our content a destination, or is it just a dead end? Olivia: That's the perfect question. And maybe a good challenge for everyone listening. The next time you're on a company's website, or even your own, ask that question. Are they guiding you on a journey, or did they just leave you in the basement with a warm beer? Jackson: I love that. And for anyone listening, we'd be curious to hear your examples. Share the best, or even the most hilariously worst, content experiences you've encountered with the Aibrary community. Let's see what's out there. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.