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

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

Positioning and Strategy in Content Marketing

I sat in on an impromptu SWOT meeting last week. While I think SWOT exercises are useful, I don’t think many people understand how to use them effectively. For example, someone in our group suggested that our newsletters were a strength. I had to ask, what made him think that? The answer was, “Because they’re good.”

The thing about strategy and positioning, especially in content marketing, is this: Nothing you offer is inherently good or bad. What you offer—products and services—is only good or bad in relation to other products and competitors. You might have an awesome newsletter, but your competitor’s might be even more awesome.

When trying to create a strategy and position your content products, it helps to consider what your competitors are doing. Let’s say your competitor has a print newsletter. Starting with that fact now gives you a framework for making strategic decisions. For example, you can make the following choices:

Compete head-to-head: Start your own print newsletter. If you go this route, now’s the time to do a SWOT on your newsletters. Compared to your competitor, rank your design, editorial, circulation, etc. according to whether they are strengths or weaknesses. What are your opportunities and threats?

Compete with variation on the theme: Your competitor has a strong print newsletter? Instead of head-to-head competition, maybe a better strategic decision is to compete with an electronic newsletter.

Compete yin to yang: Delivery platforms like newsletters have advantage and disadvantages. Your competitor may have strong newsletters, but the kind of information they transmit is limited by the platform. Perhaps you should position yourself by supplying different types of content to the market. Be the source of other information and its most effective platforms. Instead of using newsletters to market, why not books, podcasts, blogs, video—things that are distinct from newsletters.

Filed under: Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Marketing Strategies Articles, Position Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Strategy

Local Businesses Need Content Marketing

If your business depends mostly on local customers, then you might not think the internet is that important to your marketing. Many owners of restaurants, bars, hair salons, car dealerships, auto mechanics, real estate agencies and so on think that the internet is only for big companies that reach national audiences. Or they think that new business comes from word-of-mouth and foot traffic. That’s simply not true.

People who use the internet use it for almost everything. It is their primary method of research on companies they might do business with, even if it’s the pizzeria down the street. The internet has replaced the Yellow Pages for many people. You have to be on the internet if you want customers to find you. Even if you reach them through traditional marketing methods, such as advertising, direct mail, radio and TV, once they learn about you, one of the first things they’re going to do is look you up on the internet.

Being on the internet is more than having a website. Your website should be filled with a lot of good information that will help prospective customers decide to use your products or services. Your website should also be organized and optimized for search engine optimization (SEO). The best thing you can do in this instance is to hire a good copywriter, someone who knows how to write persuasive copy that also incorporates keywords that your customers will use to find you.

In addition to keywords and persuasive copy, you also need relevant, valuable information. That means determining why and how prospective customers decide to use your business. If you’re a bar, for example, does your website clearly communicate what the experience will be like? Do you have photos of your interior? Do you have staff photos and bios? Do you have a signature drink? Is there live music or a DJ? How many TVs do you have? When is the best time to come if you want to be alone or if you want to be somewhere crowded? Do you have testimonials and reviews?

The type of content and frequency with which you post content makes an impression on prospective customers. If you have a sloppily designed and written website with missing or outdated information, customers will assume that your service is sloppy and careless. But if you have a simple and user-friendly website with trust-building content, it will drive new business your way.

Filed under: Content Marketing, Content Strategy, Marketing Strategies Articles, Content Marketing, Content Strategy

What Do Content Marketing Consultants Do?

Marketers work in an environment that’s constantly changing. What worked yesterday to build awareness and generate leads may not work tomorrow. Unfortunately, many marketers are used to what they know, and they find it difficult or risky to try something new. That’s where a good content marketing consultant comes into play.

Like any good consultant, a content marketing expert can bring fresh perspective and new ideas to your business practices. If your traditional approach isn’t producing the results it used to, then it may be time to try something different. Content marketing is one approach to achieving your sales objectives. It requires a different mindset than many traditional marketers are used to.

Hiring a content marketing expert is an opportunity to learn the principles behind the strategy. Once you’ve learned them from an expert, you will have more than one approach to marketing your products and services. Learning from an expert affords you the flexibility to choose whether a given campaign is best served by a content marketing strategy or a more traditional strategy.

My suggestion is that you start with a single product or service that you want to promote. Write a marketing plan for that product or service, including a budget. Then hire a content marketing consultant to write a separate marketing plan using the same budget. You might be surprised to find how different or similar your plans are.

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

Why You Should Give Away Free Content

This post is for marketers and publishers who don’t believe there are any benefits to giving away free content. The truth is that giving away free content can be extremely effective, depending on your goals. Here are a few things that giving away free content can do:

Increase your market: If the content is valuable enough, it will get spread quickly and to a greater number of people than you could hope to reach through traditional means. Some of those people, if not most, must be hearing about your brand and products for the first time. Now that they know who you are, they’re viable prospects.

Raise your cachet: Let’s say you’re a trade association and one of the services you sell is a certification program for new employees. Normally, you charge companies for the educational material and the certification test. What if you gave the educational materials away for free but charged for the certification test? Wouldn’t it be a good thing if every company in your industry used your branded educational materials to train their employees, even if they didn’t pay for them? Wouldn’t it be a good thing to expand your market and raise your cachet?

Increase sales: You’ve developed a bigger market and your brand is familiar and trusted now. It has the cachet of an industry leader. If those two things don’t result in more sales, there’s something wrong with your organization. Maybe it’s your salespeople. Maybe it’s the rest of your products. I don’t know, but if valuable content gets your brand in the hands of more people, it should also result in more sales.

Here’s what you do:

Step 1: Develop the content you will give away for free. It has to be really good, valuable, relevant content. Avoid generic topics and superficial information.

Step 2: Make sure the content has your logo and contact information on it. Make sure people who read the content know it’s from you and how they can get in touch with you.

Step 3: Give it away. Let anyone and everyone who wants the content have it and use it for free. Include some terms: The content can’t be modified, and you have to be credited as the author. Other than that, let it go.

Step 4: Free doesn’t necessarily mean ‘free.’ You can distribute the content absolutely free, or you can ask prospects to give something up, namely their name, e-mail and other pertinent info you want to collect. Just remember that the more information you ask them to provide, the more valuable the information should be.

Step 5: If you’ve collected information, the next step is to follow up with information about your other products and services. Don’t be too aggressive. Just give your consumers the information and include a call to action. Don’t start barraging them with tons of e-mails, letters and phone calls.

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

You Might Be a Content Marketing Amateur…

1. If you distribute content as a marketer that, as a consumer, you would dismiss as irrelevant.
2. If you choose the method of distribution (print, online, etc.) before articulating strategic goals.
3. If you expect immediate and dramatic results from poorly executed content products.
4. If you treat content as a commodity or content developers (writers, designers, etc.) as unskilled labor.
5. If you make content difficult, time-consuming or expensive for consumers to access.
6. If you tell consumers what kind of content they want.
7. If you confuse content frequency with content quality.

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

Sales Conversion with AdWords and Content Marketing: A Quick Guide for Small Business Owners

This is quick checklist for small business owners who think content marketing might be for them. It’s a step-by-step set of instructions for combining Google Adwords and content marketing. This type of campaign is for small business owners who are just getting interested in search engine marketing (SEM) and content marketing.

The concept is simple. You’re going to offer a free whitepaper to prospective customers who give you their name, e-mail and whatever other information you ask for. You’re going to advertise the free whitepaper through AdWords and collect the information from your landing page.

1. Set up a Google AdWords account.

• Choose a set of keywords that will cause your ad to appear.
• Use the AdWords keyword tool to gauge the competitiveness of common keywords.
• Choose keywords that are not the most competitive but still get a significant number of searches.

2. Write the copy for your AdWords ad.

• Spend extra time on writing the headline
• Include an offer or some other call-to-action. In this case, offer a free whitepaper.

3. Design and write copy for a landing page. (This is the page people go to when they click on your AdWords ad.)

• Include a form to capture names, e-mails and other information you want from prospects. (Note: The more information you expect to collect, the more valuable the offer needs to be).
• Use keywords that you’ve identified to help with organic search and PageRank.
• Include contact information, and an offer or some other call-to-action.

4. Write a whitepaper or report about a subject that’s important to your prospective customers:

• Example: If you’re a accounting firm, write a whitepaper called “Ten Easy Ways to Avoid Getting Audited by the IRS.”
• Example: If you’re a law firm that specializes in contracts, write a whitepaper called, “How to Safeguard Yourself in Contract Negotiations” or “Ten Contract Clauses That Will Protect You and Your Assets

5. Design and layout the whitepaper in PDF form.

6. When someone requests the whitepaper, send to them immediately.

Filed under: Content Marketing and Sales, Content Strategy, Marketing Strategies Articles, Content Marketing, Content Strategy

The Path from Content Marketing to Sales

Remember AIDA? Attention, Interest, Desire, Action? This acronym was supposed to guide writers through the process of creating compelling copy. Somewhere along this way, these principles got lost by a lot of companies. The one most frequently lost is “action.” Content marketers who don’t understand sales tend to devalue the importance of a call-to-action. They focus on the development of useful, relevant content and then assume that when enough customers are reading that content, somehow it will convert to sales.

I have been on both sides of the business, developing content and making sales. From my point of view, the call-to-action is the bridge between the two. Quality content is a must. It is an absolute imperative, the cornerstone of a successful strategy, but without some call-to-action, content will only attract the interest and desire of customers. It might generate leads, but it won’t close a deal.

Sometimes content marketers start to “get it.” They ask for an e-mail address in exchange for some content, whether it’s a whitepaper or something else. That’s a good start, but the sales process doesn’t end there. In the whitepaper, for instance, the another call-to-action is needed, but it’s often missing. There’s no instruction to customers about what to do next. After they’ve read the whitepaper, what should they do? What can you do for them? Instead of using content in a whitepaper to advance a sale, content marketers consider the whitepaper an end in itself. They hand off the emails they collected to clients who a) don’t do anything with them or b) revert to a traditional e-marketing sales strategy that negates the relationship that content marketing built. In other words, say goodbye to the attention, interest and desire part of the equation.

Asking someone to buy something from you is not easy for a lot of people to do. It’s why some people are good at sales and some are not. It’s why some salespeople are better at prospecting and some are better at closing. I believe that the entire sales process is made easier when you have a relationship with prospects and that content marketing is the most effective way to do that. But for content marketing to work, it has to be integrated into the sales process. This is more difficult than it sounds, because the culture and values held by content marketers are often different than those held by finance and sales departments. I’ll focus more on these differences in upcoming posts.

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