by tradesmeninsights | Jan 15, 2013 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
Now that the holidays are behind us and we’re all getting back to reality, I thought I’d share some thoughts on what we’re going to do to create better content this year. I was inspired by a post my friend Joe Pulizzi wrote, 42 Content Marketing Ideas for 2013. Thanks Joe for the inspiration!
Top 10 things I’m going to try to do this year to have better content:
- Less content will mean more impact – make content more meaningful.
- Find at least 3 other thought leaders in your company – build them into your plan.
- Develop a list of the top 100 questions coming from your customers – then write to them.
- Sit down with every salesperson and ask them what their customers biggest pain points are – then address them.
- Define your most targeted audience and consider doing a targeted print publication.
- Assign someone to slide share to figure out how we can get the most out of it.
- Make sure every content marketing landing page has only one call to action.
- Develop a series of stories for your industry on an aspect no one has covered before – what better way of becoming a thought leader.
- Double the number of email subscribers to your blog.
- Commission a piece of research that is important to your audience.
Those are going to be my goals for 2013; what are yours?
by tradesmeninsights | Nov 13, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Branding is no longer a company logo, tagline and brand colors. Yes, it helps people identify with your company, but it doesn’t necessarily make them want to buy from you. Branding isn’t something that happens overnight. The essence of branding lies in what does it mean. So words play an important part in establishing a brand, and what better way to do that than by creating content.
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.” Does that sound like something we should be doing?
Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google says every two days we create more information as we did from the dawn of civilization up to 2003. We need to create and convince customers and prospects to generate content that mentions our brand.
Frank Strong in a recent post on CopyBlogger talks about the web and its endless 24/7 cycle fed by content and social actions. Shouldn’t you be a part of that?
Here are some things to think about:
- Content is Currency – How are we spending ours? How much do we have to spend?
- You currency becomes more valuable every time it’s shared by someone other than ourselves.
- Your responsibility is to create content that’s worth sharing.
So take advantage of the tools that are out there, from blogs to LinkedIn, YouTube, webinars and the multitude of other options available to you.
by tradesmeninsights | Mar 21, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
The job of marketing today isn’t to create new customers but to create passionate subscribers to our brand. Your community will take charge and social networking will continue to facilitate the power shift towards the consumer. Our challenges are to make a person stop, read, think and behave differently.
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.” Does that sound like something we should be doing?
Roper Public Affairs says that 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company info in a series of articles vs. advertisements. 70% say content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company, while 60% say company content helps them make better product decisions.
So how do we manage this thing called content management? I found a good book by Robert Rose and Joe Pulizzi called Managing Content Marketing that might be a helpful tool for your marketing team to read. They outline and focus on 5 areas:
- Understand YOU – What makes you different? You need to define this before writing content to support it.
- Understand THEM – Who and where are the communities you’re serving?
- What content can you provide to help build loyalty?
- Subscribers need to be fed, nurtured and unsubscribed when it’s time.
- Measure success.
Content marketing is a different way to get the same information in front of customers, and we all need help and tools to manage it better.
We did a webcast with Joe Pulizzi on content marketing that might be of interest to you. You can watch it here.
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 5, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Content marketing expert and founder of the Content Marketing Institute, Joe Pulizzi will review the practice of content marketing and why it’s one of the fastest growing areas of marketing today. In this hour presentation, Joe will discuss eight initiatives that all marketers need to consider now when it comes to corporate storytelling and social media.
Joe is a leading author, speaker and strategist for content marketing. Joe is the founder of the Content Marketing Institute and the CEO of SocialTract. He’s also co-authored Get Content Get Customers and Managing Content Marketing: The Real World Guide for Creating Passionate Subscribers to Your Brand.
I’ve heard Joe present before, and you are in for a real treat. Please join us on February 2nd at 1 PM EST for this free, informative presentation. Joe will also be taking questions at the end.
This webinar is available on our YouTube channel – click here.
