Does Your Company Have the Patience for Content Marketing?

By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman at Sonnhalter

We live in a society that expects immediate gratification. This spills over into our business lives, and companies expect an immediate ROI on almost everything today — Content Marketing is no exception.

Some companies are putting more eggs in the content marketing basket and are expecting big results in a short period of time. The problem is, to build a loyal audience, it takes time. They need to get to know, like and trust you and that doesn’t happen overnight.

If you want immediate results, use traditional outbound tactics like direct mail to generate short-term activity.

Joe Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing Institute found in interviewing a number of entrepreneurs for his book, Content Inc., that it took at least 15 months to grow a loyal audience.

This is no surprise for those of us who have been doing this for some time. For those that are trying to get a content program going they need to do some ground work to let management what to expect and when to expect it.

Joe offers some suggestions on getting in the game while you try to build a case for the BIG push.

  • Do a pilot program  choose a market category and put metrics like increases search engine ranking or number of leads that will demonstrate to the bean counters that it’s working.
  • Fear Factor – analyze your competition and make the case that your company is losing web visibility.
  • Find a sugar daddy – identify solutions to key pain points for your sales leaders and you may find that they not only will become your advocate, but may find funds short term to fund your efforts.

The bottom line is that it takes time, so be patient!

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Do’s and Don’ts of Content Marketing

So everyone knows what content marketing is. But do we know how to get the best results out of it? I know I’ve been doing this for over three years now and have hardly touched the potential of what is available. I’ve been to webinars, seminars and summits on the subject and continue to learn new ways to capitalize on content marketing.

I recently read Joe Pulizzi’s book Epic Content Marketing. As usual, Joe does a great job explaining how to use and integrate into overall marketing plan.

epiccontentmarketing-pulizzi

This is a good book for the beginner or for those already engaged to reinforce the right way of doing things. It’s easy to read, has lots of examples, from defining your strategy to developing and managing content to marketing your stories, and I’m sure you’ll get tons of useful tips on how to get more out of your content marketing.

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Content Strategy: Do You Have One?

Your company has a strategy. Your sales force has a strategy. Your marketing department has a strategy. Why doesn’t your content have one?

We all are busy creating content for various purposes, but do we ever ask the question of why are we creating it, and once it’s created, what are we going to do with it? I recently read an article by Joe Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing Institute where he reminded us that content without a strategy is just stuff.

To be not only efficient, but also effective, we can’t take a ready, fire, aim approach. Joe pointed out that a well-thought-out strategy not only gets us more traction in the market, but we also might be able to do more with less by utilizing content in several different places. By understanding your customers and what they want, you can put a strategy together that will not only create content, but have it tied with other similar content that your user will need as they go down the decision process.

If we want users to share our content, it has to have value to them and address the issues straight on. Don’t publish content for the sake of content. Have a plan in place before you start to write. By having a strategy and good user content, you’ll have a winning combination for users to keep coming back to you for more useful info.

Time is money-use it wisely!

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When is Less – More?

We all get caught up with having to do more and more, especially when it comes to developing content and deploying it through various media channels. We get pressure from our bosses (clients) to be on every new thing that comes down the road. I recently read an article by Joe Pulizzi, the founder of The Content Marketing Institute,  that addresses this actual issue – Do less, not more.

So here’s a novel thought, Don’t worry about quantity and start focusing more on quality. Let’s be realistic, we don’t have the time, resources or possibly content to do all things. Joe cites examples of great brands that started out by dominating one channel consistently over time. What a novel idea. Doesn’t it make sense to focus on and own the primary space you’re in? It doesn’t mean you can’t branch out into other means of getting your message out, but just take it slow.

So what does this mean for the manufacturers? It means do some homework to find out where your customers get their information. If it’s blogs, forums or LinkedIn groups, then start there. Create a blog, for example, that addresses your niche. Make sure you regularly contribute to it so you attract followers. Make sure topics are about solving customers’ questions/issues, not trying to sell them something. Engage them in a dialog of ways you can help them do your job better. Make whatever you do so good people can’t wait to read what’s coming next. In other words, over time, become the go-to resource for whatever specialty you offer.

I think you will find that by focusing on few things and doing them well will not only make you feel better, but will actually accomplish some of those marketing goals of becoming the industry expert.

What are your thoughts?

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Why Do You Use Content Marketing – Do You Think it’s for Branding or for Selling?

You can’t turn around today and not hear the words “content marketing.” You would have thought that someone had discovered the holy grail! Content marketing isn’t anything new, it’s just called something else. There can be arguments for both I suppose, but I feel the primary role of content marketing is to position yourself to have an advantage and sell something!

Why do people do business with you? It probably has something to do with your having something they find useful and need. It also probably has something to do with them finding you helpful, informative and an all-around good guy. They can count on you for troubleshooting or advice on best practices. Now I haven’t mentioned the term content marketing, but don’t you think that’s what you’ve been doing all along? Now they call it something different.

Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and known as the Godfather of Content Marketing, describes it “as a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of driving profitable actions.”

Content Marketing should be helping you in some way to move a prospect down a sales funnel. I’m not saying they need to be hard selling but you need to able to satisfy a need of a prospect in order for them to take the next step. Always answer the question – WIIFM – What’s In It For Me? If a prospect can’t easily answer that question, there will be no next steps.

Chris Brogan, in a guest post on Copyblogger, Why content marketing is not branding, highlights why the end game in any content marketing efforts have to be helping someone make a decision of some kind. He goes on to say that marketing and sales are not evil and that content marketing, if done correctly, will give the advantage in the long run.

What do you think content marketing is and how are you using it?

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