Relevant and Valued

Content marketing tactics and when to use them

Which of the content marketing tactics at your disposal should be deployed at each stage of the customer journey? 

This table matches appropriate digital and print content marketing tactics with marketing objectives at each stage of the customer relationship as marketers attempt to attract, engage and develop consumers from strangers to evangelists.  It builds on the framework presented in the e-book by Barrett and Pulizzi and also borrows from client path maketing.

Importantly, it adds an additional stage in the journey to support the idea of turning advocates of your product or service into evangelists: not just endorsing a product but actively and vigorously promoting it through social media, thus amplifying its impact.

Experimentation is all and there are no hard and fast rules here but this is a snapshot of possible applications.  For example, it is envisaged that print custom publications are best utilized at a point in the relationship where you are trying to develop new customers into repeat customers and subsequently into steady ones (ideally loyal!) The depth of engagement print magazines facilitate and the level of investment required suggests that they are optimized when consumer informational needs are at a point where there is a relationship has been established and the marketing goal is to grow customer value through educating and engaging about a wider product portfolio, extensions, new product launches and/or nurturing a longer term relationship with the brand.

Conversely, White Papers are seen to play a distinct role in the acquisition and conversion stages of the journey: a kind of bait used to lure strangers through push (e-marketing) or pull (search engine marketing) strategies to a specific relevant piece of vital intelligence that generates valuable leads for the sales team. 

E-books can play multiple roles - depending on the stage of the customer journey at which they are put into play and also the nature and complexity of the product or service on offer. Due to their flexibility (in terms of page extent) and relatively low cost compared to print - an e-book could be employed in the same way as White Paper - to acquire and convert customers or alternatively to deepen the relationship with them further down the line. Their format also means you can encourage advocates and evangelists to deploy them virally by sending them onto their own acquaintances (strangers to you) and therefore exploiting the kind of influencing effects described by Paul Gillen.

In fact: the journey is a circular one as the amplifying effect created by evangelists for your brand in turn can help to renew the customer acquisition process. Therefore exploiting widgets - devices that enable advocates and evangelists to post your content on their own web properties with a perpetual, real-time link back to the content on your own site - closes the loop by supporting the acquisition of completely new customers.

The framework can be used to explore which content marketing opportunities are most relevant for your organization and business. Remember: context is all.  Understanding the level of information and engagement different types of customers are seeking at each stage of the relationship and what's appropriate to provide for the products or services in your portfolio is essential.

Test, measure, learn and feed this back iteratively into your marketing program.

The level and depth of information provided and how it is packaged should be driven by an intimate knowledge of your market and an understanding that at any point of the journey what's appropriate for a financial service is not likely to be the same as what's appropriate for a brand of beer.

Be relevant, be valued and get your customers to act.

www.relevantandvalued.com

 

Time to think like a publisher

Several prominent gurus have recently urged marketers everywhere to think like publishers.  In a week when Jeff Bezos launched Amazon's long-awaited wireless e-book reader Kindle in a bid to change the way we read the most enduring of all old media formats, Relevant and Valued explores how.

What have publishers (who market content) got to teach those who want to reach and influence customers through content marketing?

It's an exhilarating time to be a publisher of traditional print media: books, newspapers and magazines.  As audiences change the way they discover, purchase and consume media, publishing companies are implementing their assault on the new media environment. It's an ongoing challenge as traditional models become eroded but it has also led to a great deal of change, experimentation and commercial success.

The biggest question for businesses built on the monetization of content - through sales, subscriptions and advertising - is how to protect revenue streams in a world where content is striving to be free and the very act of publishing has become a democratized activity. Creative commons and crowdsourcing sit uncomfortably with the idea of professional authors and journalists distributing their words of wisdom through centralized hubs with the editor as the ultimate arbiter of what reaches readers.

The model may be changing, but many in the publishing industry are adapting and innovating fast. The motive of the content marketer - sourcing, creating and distributing relevant and valued content to drive interest and engagement - are different. This new breed of marketer is using content to monetize a product or service - not the content itself - but many of the imperatives are the same and the content experts (the publishing industry) can point the way.

Publishers are leveraging their traditional strengths in the networked world of Web 2.0 with exciting results. Content marketers should take heed of the following:

• Publishers are highly attuned to the informational (and entertainment) needs of their target audiences.  From lads mags to business news online to books for medical practioners: the content is driven by what their customers are looking for, in their preferred format, and is increasingly modified for other media channels as well. For example: print books become e-books and audio books and their content is syndicated to newspapers and on the web.
• Promotional flair.  Note Seth Godin and others distributing free e-book content to drive print sales and ultimately his own consulting and public speaking activity. Content marketers can use e-books to drive adoption of their own products and services. Newspapers and magazines employ online content and communities to drive print sales and advertising revenues.
• Using the web to get sales growth: books were one of the first commercial success stories on the web and many publishers have ten years experience of growing their business through ecommerce enabled websites.
• Understanding the immense power of Google and its search competitors.  Publishers have experienced a love-hate relationship with Google over the years but the massive success of Google Book Search has been embraced as a terrific free marketing opportunity.  Great content marketers understand that if it does not exist on Google then it doesn't exist as far as the customer is concerned and publishers have significant experience in optimising content for Google search results.
• Crowdsourcing.  Been on the BBC website recently? The readers/viewers/listeners are meshed with reporters' content for maximum impact.
• Content goes viral: readers comments drive Amazon sales - enable others to easily spread the word about your company or your product.
• Putting it out there!  Widgets are the talk of the town and these nifty web applications allow publishers to reach consumers with electronic samples of content in the context of user-generated content: blogs, author websites, Facebook profiles etc. Random House are one of the publishers enabling their website visitors to do just this through their browse and search functionality.
• Social utilities. Newspapers know the power of getting their readers to bookmark and distribute their content online and provide tools to enable this. See the Guardian website and its 'share' call to action for proof.
• Aggregating the best writing on the web: from the hyperlocal to the international (see Jeff Jarvis' article about Glam.com). What if you started to source content from customers that are talking about your products and re-publish the most powerful advocates on your own site?

Counter-intuitively many print-based newspaper, magazine and book publishers have thrived in the digital age. And they have done so because of a notable combination of authoritative content, multimedia diversification, marketing nous and customer-centric innovation. Some are dragging their heels but they are likely to emerge from this content revolution in a weaker market position. And it's this kind of forward thinking that content marketers can benefit from.

Be relevant, be valued and get your customers to act.

www.relevantandvalued.com

The birth and rise of content marketing

Does a marketing concept without a Wikipedia entry officially exist?

Permission marketing: check. Viral marketing: check. Search engine marketing: check. All present and correct. Content marketing: not yet.

So here's my definition.

Content marketing is the technique of sourcing, creating and distributing relevant and valued content to attract, acquire, engage and enthuse a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of driving profitable customer behaviour.

Do you agree?  Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett do. They write about content marketing at their influential website Content Marketing Today.  They also have a free eBook that you should download.  In echoes of Seth Godin, Pulizzi and Berrett position content marketing as an antidote to the 'old model' of interruption marketing which relies on the industrial era tactic of bombarding people with advertising communications in the hope that some of it sticks.

Content marketing is appropriate for all stages of the 'client path'.  From stranger to prospect to client to advocate, relevant and authoritative content is highly valued.

You need to understand your customers and your potential future customers.  A key part of this is to identify what information is needed in your market and to provide that as a priority to support and drive customer research and purchasing decisions.

Is content marketing a new concept?  Enlightened businesses have been practising it for years. But now the possibilities are more scaleable. The Web era demands that every business and organization needs to consider and implement a content marketing strategy as a core part of planning and delivering an integrated marketing strategy.

Whatever the size of your business, content marketing is critical.  David Meerman Scott proposed in a comment on my blog - What is great content marketing? - that 'the definition of marketing is the influencing of opinion through content.'

I like this a lot but propose an enhancement: 'the definition of Marketing is the influencing of opinion through content, converted to profitable action.'

Marketing has to be accountable and so marketers need to emphasize the importance of building a content marketing strategy with clear, measurable objectives.  Developing a simple dashboard to monitor and assess your content marketing impact is a very worthwhile investment of time.

As Billy Bragg once sang: 'Start your own revolution and cut out the middleman'.  Create and distribute targeted content through the channels where existing, new and future clients are looking for it, and provide it in the format they want it.

Be relevant, be valued and get your customers to act.

www.relevantandvalued.com

What is great content marketing?

It's a low-attention, low-trust world and today's consumers are faced with an unprecedented abundance of choice.

Your organization needs a content marketing strategy to cut through the white noise of today's marketplace.

In 2007 the consumer is like a Las Vegas tourist casually strolling down the Strip: senses repeatedly assaulted by hustlers, touts, pushers and pimps jostling for his time and money.

That's why compelling, targeted and well-delivered content that is relevant and valued by your customers will drive growth for your organization. 

Great content marketing is a financial services company that issues a monthly newsletter - available in print or electronic versions – full of timely and valuable advice for private investors who want to manage their own portfolios.

Great content marketing is an online wine merchant that provides comprehensive tasting notes to all its wines before you buy. It is a specialist travel company that publishes podcast interviews with real travelers from far-flung destinations. It is a digital camera manufacturer that tracks what bloggers are saying about its products and uses their positive feedback on its website.

Great content marketers start from the perspective of what their target customers are looking for and package that content according to identifiable needs in a format that’s convenient and accessible.  They distribute their content through the most appropriate channels to market and they optimize it for maximum search marketing benefit.

Great content marketers create niche and customized content based on specific insights from customers and not on generalized speculation about their values, attitudes, needs and motivations.

Why am I qualified to advise you on great content marketing?  I work in the book publishing industry and so I know a thing or two about originating, shaping, packaging and disseminating content to meet closely defined customer requirements.  As David Meerman Scott says in his excellent book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, it pays to think like a publisher.  In fact this is exactly the way you need to think and behave to build an effective content marketing strategy.

Relevant and Valued will help you to drive more interest and involvement in your products, your brand, and your business by focusing on developing a content marketing strategy that is relevant to, valued by and acted upon by your customers and stakeholders.

From audit to diagnosis to implementation, this blog will show how you can create, craft and make your content available to get results in the digital age.

In a networked world, the rules are changing.  A coherent content marketing strategy underpins the success of all your marketing activity. What you say about your own product, brand, business or organization and what others say about it is universally accessible and constantly evolving in today's Web 2.0 environment. You have to ensure that the content you generate is going to hit the mark and engage your prospects and customers: directly and authentically.

Your content is an asset - do you understand what it’s worth and how to grow its value?

Relevant and Valued will explore the best ways for you to originate, create, collate, source, assimilate, aggregate, store, distribute and remix your content to drive your bottom line.   

Be relevant, be valued and get your customers to act.

www.relevantandvalued.com