Thinking Strategically About Content Type

The assumption that readers want one type of content instead of another causes content marketers to make bad strategic decisions. Once a content marketer thinks they know what an audience wants, it doesn’t matter to him whether that content is already available in other forms from other publishers or resources.

For example, let’s say that Company A wants to start Widget magazine or Widget blog as a way to reach prospects and customers. Their content marketer may determine that the audience only wants to read about research on widgets.

There might be a dozen other widget-based publications that focus on widget research, which only serves to confirm in the marketer’s mind that this is what the audience wants. When this marketer creates a strategy, it has already been confined by these limitations. It means that a strategy is based solely on how effectively Widget magazine can compete head-to-head with the rest of this crowded field.

In reality, readers don’t see types of content as an either-or proposition, and content marketers shouldn’t assume that an audience is one-dimensional. Moreover, Company A should consider whether their Widget publication needs to speak only to its traditional customer base, or whether it should cast a wider net. In this scenario, the publisher is better off launching the equivalent of Widget People instead of Widget Research.

Even if Company A is a widget research company, the opportunity from a strategic point of view is to provide content that the audience wants but can’t easily get from other sources. A general interest publication, focused on the people of the widget industry has relevance to the target audience.

Also consider this: Widget research publications have a limited audience. Niche publications have niche audiences. Depending on how general the editorial content of Widget People, there are opportunities to reach outside the core widget industry and reach widget suppliers, widget end users and anyone else with a peripheral interest in widgets.

Filed under: Content Strategy, Content Marketing, Content Strategy

Small Businesses Need Content Marketing

Even the smallest business can benefit from content marketing. So why don’t more businesses give it a try? What are they afraid of?

I think it’s change. People are afraid to change what they’ve been doing for so long. Doing something different means learning something new, and that takes time and sometimes money. But if you don’t change, what’s going to happen? If you continue to apply traditional marketing techniques (or no marketing at all) to your business, it will eventually stop growing. Maybe not this year or next, but in 10 years, what you do now simply won’t work.

Some small business owners say, “In 10 years, I’ll be retired, so who cares?” If that’s your attitude, then so be it. No one will convince you that the time and money spent learning something new is worthwhile. But let me ask you this: When you retire, what are the plans for your business? Do you plan to sell it or pass it on to your children? If that’s your plan, don’t you owe it to future proprietors to hand off something poised for the new era? If you’re going to sell it, don’t you want to get as much for it as possible? That means making it an attractive purchase, and that means positioning your business for the future.

Or maybe you’re just planning on closing the doors and walking away. Okay, then this post isn’t for you. If you can afford to close the doors in 10 years and retire, then you’re either lucky or a smart planner. You don’t need content marketing. But if you’re planning on retiring in 10 years and you expect your business to survive even after you’re gone, then it’s time to take a renewed interest in your marketing.

Marketing small businesses has changed, and what you used to do isn’t going to work anymore. You might as well get ahead of the curve by incorporating new strategies. Content marketing can help give your business new life, no matter how small it is.

Filed under: Content Marketing, Content Marketing

Content Marketing for $30,000

For the cost of an entry-level employee, your small business could create an effective content marketing campaign with the help of an experienced consultant. Content marketing works because prospects and customers want to be educated and entertained.

If you provide them with valuable, relevant content, they will do your marketing for you. They will pass that content to their friends, family and co-workers, who in turn will pass it along to their friends, family and co-workers. Content marketing builds trust and credibility, because you’re providing information that customers want and need.

It’s a two-step process. First, create good content for a targeted audience. Then, make that content available to your audience in a variety of ways. One is no good without the other. Remember that entry level employee you were going to hire to update your Facebook page? Can they produce the kind of content that will spread far and wide?

What do I mean by good content anyway? Let’s say you sell flowers online. Here are some content marketing projects you could produce for $30,000 that would attract customer’s attention and spread around the internet:

1.    A one-to-five minute video that solves a problem, demonstrates a technique, answers a question or makes your audience laugh. Some topics: “How to Arrange Flowers Like a Pro,” “Flower Arranging Tips,” and so on.  Post the video on YouTube and link through Facebook and Twitter.

2.    An e-book called “Three Flower Arrangements That Will Put Him/Her in the Mood.” Let people download from your website for free.

3.    A blog or microsite where people post photos of their arrangements, so customers can look at ideas.

Filed under: Content Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Marketing Budgets

Developing New Business with Content Marketing Takes Time

The unique thing about content marketing is that it helps you reach prospective customers that you would never reach using traditional marketing campaigns. When you produce valuable, relevant content, it will attract an audience that normally wouldn’t give you the time of day.

Good content appeals to people because it’s important to them. It matters in a way that jargon-laden sales-speak does not. It helps them solve a problem, learn a skill or make them laugh. If they like the content, they’ll pass it around to other prospective customers. Content marketing isn’t just for companies with massive markets. In fact, if you’re a B2B company, content marketing is equally effective, if not more. Take a look at your competitors: How many of them are following more or less the same marketing plan?

Content marketing is effective, but it doesn’t work overnight. It’s an investment. If you start a blog, don’t expect the phone to start ringing with orders the next day. It takes time before people start reading your blog, growing familiar with your company and its services, passing it around other prospects and then finally making a decision. It’s like any other sales funnel. Give it time.

Filed under: Content Marketing, Content Marketing and Sales, Content Marketing

How Bad CEOs Screw Up Content Marketing

This post is for owners and CEOs of companies. If you think that marketing is a necessary evil, something you have to do rather than a real opportunity to grow your business, don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for you when business stagnates.

By the time you own or run a company, one of your most important jobs is to shape the organization’s culture. If your attitude toward marketing is dismissive, that’ll become part of your organizations’ DNA. It will affect who you hire, how much respect and autonomy you give them, how many financial resources you allocate and what kind of results you get. I’m stunned by business leaders who think so little of their employees’ job functions (and usually the employees themselves) that they set them up to fail.

Content marketing takes skill, money and time. It can help take your company to the next level in terms of growth, but you have to believe it’s going to work. And if you don’t, it might be that you don’t understand how it works.
If you’re a business owner surrounded by people whose job you think you can do better, guess whose fault that is? If your marketing staff doesn’t know what they’re doing, then why don’t you spend the money to hire people who do, then let them do their jobs.

Sometimes, owners and CEOs lose sight of the big picture. They focus more on themselves—how much money they make, how many years until they can retire or move on—that they stop making decisions based on the company’s good. They don’t want to invest in marketing, for instance, because that would mean spending money out of their retirement or justifying an expense to their Board of Directors. Is that you?

Some CEOs forget that the company depends on the people working for it. When you tell professionals how to do their jobs, you might as well be asking them to update their resume. Even in this economy, skilled marketers can find jobs.

Some CEOs are more interested in office politics than business results. They’re the kind of people who would rather market on billboards because they’re flashy and highly visible and easy for other CEOs and managers to understand, rather than market in online forums and social networks, because that’s not where the Board is, even if it’s where customers are.

A good CEO asks questions, finds out why a marketer wants to perform strategy A or strategy B. If they don’t understand, they ask more questions until it’s clear. They ask for the advantages and disadvantages. They ask for the upside and downside. A good marketer will tell them honestly and anticipate all the things that could go wrong or right. Then a good CEO says, go for it.

Filed under: Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Content Marketing, Content Strategy

Niche Audiences Need Custom Content

When content marketing fails, a post-mortem examination of why it failed should start with the content itself. One of the mistakes companies often make is producing content that has no value to its audience because the content is too generic to meet their needs.

B2B companies in particular make this mistake. Their marketing departments determine that their niche audience needs information on a topic, but the information they provide ends up repeating conventional wisdom instead of illustrating specific examples.

For example, let’s say you are a brewery. You determine that your audience of bar and restaurant owners need help with marketing themselves. So you decide to adopt a content marketing strategy and publish a series of articles on how social media can help their marketing.

Here’s where your company goes wrong: The articles you publish talk about what Twitter and Facebook, are, who founded them, etc. You include such riveting advice as “Don’t tweet what you had for lunch” and “Post regularly.”  There’s probably a Top Ten list or two thrown in there for good measure. The information you provided is already out there. It’s widespread. It’s not proprietary. Its value is minimal.

What your customers need are specific examples of what other companies in their industry are doing successfully and how they did it. In this case, track down the bar and restaurant owners who use social media tools successfully, find out how they did it, ask about their processes and how they keep to them. Ask questions that are specific to the industry itself. The more specific and aligned with what your customers do, the more valuable your content will be to them.

Filed under: Content Development, Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Content Development, Content Marketing, Content Strategy