Relevant and Valued

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BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis writes about the rise of the transparent corporation in the Guardian. 

Companies like Dell and Starbucks have taken the suggestion box into the digital era by asking their customers to generate ideas as to how they can run their businesses better, publishing these ideas on the web and encouraging fellow customers to vote on the ones that they'd like to see implemented.

This is content marketing with an edge. By inviting customers into the (virtual) organisation and by giving them the opportunity to drive the agenda - and allowing them to be constructive and critical in the process - Starbucks, at MyStarbucksIdea, has tapped into a rich vein of direct feedback whilst building a direct relationship with its coffee drinking constituency.

You may not care much about the differences between Venti and Grande but thousands of others evidently do. Which leads me to pose an interesting question - is content generated by customers more relevant and valued than content created by marketers?  It reflects real rather than invented perceptions of the business, and by harnessing and acting on the feedback - which Starbucks is apparently doing - it could also represent a really efficient and cost effective way of growing brand equity.

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

www.relevantandvalued.com

Content marketing: up close and personal

Father of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, has some advice for the 'young people' that are recklessly posting personal information on social networking sites in a new BBC interview.

'Imagine that everything you are typing is being read by the person you are applying to for your first job. Imagine that it's all going to be seen by your parents and your grandparents and your grandchildren as well.'

It's a sobering thought that what you spontaneously tell the world about yourself today could haunt you for eternity, though supposedly Berners-Lee's advice will not be heeded by many in the Facebook generation, many of whom don't seem to have grasped the not-so fine lines between private personal preferences and public image.  Stephanie Rosenbloom, writing in the New York Times back in January, commented how 'impression management' is critical in a world where the first time you 'meet' someone (whether a prospective partner or a potential employee) is often in an online environment.  The challenge is how  you want others to perceive you when there are several groups to whom you want to position 'brand you' in very different ways.  The problem, as Rosenbloom sees it, is that people are 'grappling with how to craft an e-version of themselves that appeals to multiple audiences — co-workers, fraternity brothers, Mom and Dad.'

In this blog, I've talked about how companies can create personas to represent their target audiences in order to craft content that appeals to each in a way that motivates profitable action.  So a company may have to appeal to investors, consumers, business customers, new recruits etc through one online presence. But usually it's easy to allow your website visitors to select the path they want to take and point them directly to the relevant content that will meet their needs. It may be tougher when you're writing copy to influence different personas at the same time, but it's a lot trickier when the conflict is between your career history and what you got up to last Saturday night!

Yet the content marketing lesson for companies and individuals is similar: identify who you're trying to appeal to, understand your chosen niche, focus as narrowly as possible, decide what you want your customers to do and create content that appeals to them. What information are prospects in this market looking for and how can you provide it in a way that leads to profitable outcomes? Be consistent, write often, test what happens and learn from it.  But remember that what you want to achieve today may not be what you want to be remembered for tomorrow and rebranding (or changing your name) is most definitely an expensive and time consuming business.

The politics of content marketing

Content marketers Stateside are getting their teeth stuck into the content marketing lessons to be learnt from the increasingly fractious race for the Democratic nomination for President between Hillary 'Billary' Clinton and Barack 'time for change' Obama.

Newt Barrett at Content Marketing Today is convinced as to the reasons why Obama has gained the recent momentum:

'There is a fundamental reason that Barack Obama is beating Hillary Clinton’s brains out.  It boils down to who is using content marketing most effectively.' (Newt Barrett, Content Marketing Today).

He goes on to explain that Obama is much more tuned into understanding the needs and attitudes of his audience and is using this insight to craft relevant and valued positioning messages that motivate voters to act: the cornerstone of great content marketing.  For that reason he focuses on the message that he will bring change to American politics and society before he moves on to talk about policy details.  The detail of his policies are there, but they are packaged within a message that enables Obama to first build a trust and understanding with voters.  In other words, he is crafting a message that taps into the mood of the market, and only then is creating content to support it.  Conversely, says Barrett, Clinton appears to be reciting a 'laundry list' of policies/features to the electorate - which leads to shallower connections with voters than those which Obama is achieving. The lesson:

'In order to connect with your customers so that you merit their trust, you must have a deep understanding of what is most important to them.  Only then can you create a communications strategy that will achieve results.  Relevant content derives from true understanding of your customers.' (Newt Barrett, Content Marketing Today).

This is really important: when marketing a brand or for that matter marketing yourself as a brand, you need to think about positioning yourself in a way that speaks to your audience in a clear, compelling and distinctive way. Yes, you need to have substance behind the message, but people see the style before they see the substance and that's what they will remember. Take a simple example: the content you craft for your resume/CV.

To be effective you need to think about what a potential employer is looking for, decide on a clear and differentiated positioning statement that appeals to its goals, wants and needs and then include evidence (in the form of your career history, portfolio or testimonials) that supports the position you have taken. You should state the positioning statement clearly upfront - in your covering letter or email and at the head of your resume - and integrate it throughout by defining what you have done in your career in the same context. The alternative is to list numerous examples of what you have done/what you are going to do if you get the job, without ever making your central message explicit. 

This is a clear lesson from psychology as to why the former is more effective, as featured in a recommended book for content marketers: Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion.  The authors describe an experiment in which two groups of business students saw two different adverts for BMW, one stating: 'BMW or Mercedes? There are many different reasons to choose a BMW. Can you name ten?' The other: 'BMW or Mercedes? There are many different reasons to choose a BMW. Can you name one?'  The research found that those asked to name ten reasons had a lower evaluation of the BMW than those who were asked to name just one. In psychological terms, this is to do with the 'fluency' of the experience - that is, the easier task - recalling one reason as to why a BMW should be chosen - played better, precisely because it was easier to achieve. 

You can see the power of this in action just by looking at the Clinton and Obama websites.  They are both superb sites from a marketing perspective: easy to use, clear calls to action, contain viral tools, provide easily navigable content on the candidates, the policies  and the campaign trail and have superb design. But all of Obama's content is framed in his central message: 'I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington... I'm asking you to believe in yours.'  It's both aspirational and personal, simple and clear yet it contains complex and attractive ideas.  Obama may or may not get to the White House, but I have to agree that with a more 'fluent' position in the psychology of voters, he has won the early content marketing victory.

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

www.relevantandvalued.com

The improbable story of the content marketing Goldfish!

Content marketing by financial services companies is commonly based on meeting informational needs of consumers in order to convert prospects or develop existing customer relationships. Choosing a new credit card may be a lower engagement decision than, say, selecting a pension plan, but innovative credit card company Goldfish is taking a different approach to content strategy nonetheless.

Associating itself with National Storytelling Week which kicked off yesterday, the focal point of the campaign is the stories told at the website meandmygoldfish.com by respected British celebrities about the relationships they have built with their credit cards. 

Comedian and writer Meera Syal tells a tale of motherhood and sleep deprivation. Anthony Horowitz , author and script writer, of a diving holiday in Egypt. Comedian Rik Mayall writes of a planned trip to the pub which turns into a surreal adventure. The stories are written around the 'Me and My Goldfish' brief with the Goldfish less of the flexible plastic friend and more taking on the personality and dialogue of the 'sole' (as one of the storyteller puns) mate. Adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes portrays his Goldfish as a trusty compass for a treacherous journey across frozen wastes.

It shouldn't really work but it kind of does.  Far from being the strongest fiction ever written, it's quirkiness is charming. You can read the tales or you can listen to or watch the authors narrate them. And you can bookmark the stories or email them to a friend.

The distinctive thing about the fishy tales is that they have absolutely nothing to do with product.  Why? Because, 'these stories tell us more and more about the relationships we have built with our cardholders over the last 12 years.'   This is using content for a pure branding exercise. Even the calls-to-action are understated on the marketing site, although when you go through to goldfish.com proper, the copy and design embodies direct marketing best practice.

But is it effective?  Without access to the key data, it's difficult to say but they've certainly differentiated and - with the help of teaser billboards throughout the UK - grabbed attention. And in a world where one credit card is much the same as another, that's not a bad thing.

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

www.relevantandvalued.com

Monitor the content that others are generating about you and your business

Who in your organization is responsible for monitoring the content that's being generated about it and its products and services?

We've all heard the buzz around UGC and UCM - User-generated content and Consumer-Generated Media - but this is far from just a passing fad.  As the lines have blurred between consumers and producers, so-called prosumers (a term coined as long ago as 1980 by Alvin Toffler) have emerged to become critically influential players in the conversations taking place in your market.  Mainstream media reviews and articles still remain vitally important to influencing opinion but focusing on these alone is the marketing equivalent of listening in to one end of a telephone call and hoping to understand the detail of everything that's being said.

Your challenge is to market-watch efficiently. But like consumers, the attention of marketers is scarce and because we're all so oversubscribed with information, it's hard to cut through the white noise and follow what our customers are saying about us.

What's the best way to monitor the conversations in the blogosphere? Google offers a solution with its Reader, which styles itself as an 'inbox for the web': enabling you to source, consolidate and manage what's being said about you on the internet. 

Not a unique idea but the most consistently impressive solution available says Steve Rubel who evangelizes about Google Reader in his blog at Micropersuasion.com 'Become a knowledge management ninja with Google Reader':

'In this era of data smog, the knowledge worker who can act like an agile ninja by consuming vast quantities of information, synthesizing it and getting it in the hands of the right people at the right time is invaluable'.

Reader enables you to organize, file, tag and share feeds and web content easily and efficiently.  If you're having a problem keeping up with all the conversations in your area of specialism, then it's a fantastic solution because when you log in, the homepage consolidates all the content updates for you. Cancel your email subscriptions and replace them with RSS feeds that you can subscribe to within Reader, with unread posts clearly visible. You can also organize the feeds into folders to ensure that you are able to differentiate quickly between multiple conversations that you are following: for example, you may be a marketer who needs to keep the different info streams apart because you are responsible for several products or product groups in your portfolio.

But is simply monitoring the content enough?  How about re-using it in your own marketing messages or joining the conversation yourself?  This is a core topic of Meerman Scott's The New Rules of Marketing and PR,  a full review of which will appear in the next Relevant and Valued.

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

www.relevantandvalued.com

Content marketers: don't overlook the basics

In Relevant and Valued, I've been writing about how content marketing is a great way to 'attract, acquire, engage and enthuse a clearly defined and understood target audience with the objective of driving profitable customer behaviour'.

Last week, I received 'Remote working: a complete guide' through the post to my office address from THUS:  'a UK-focused business telecommunications company with a strong belief in its people and the services it provides to customers'.

The guide is an expensively-produced brochure which discusses the merits of remote working and its value for business and provides an overview of the technologies available. It usefully defines 3 different segments of remote worker: home, mobile and field workers in order to help the reader understand the distinctions between and the considerations for each when considering the solutions and services that will benefit your business.    It takes on the issue of security and explains how a balance needs to be struck between enabling accessibility for remote workers and keeping the corporate network secure.  In short, it is a reasonably strong attempt at educating and informing prospects about the issues at stake.

However, the mailing has significant weaknesses which will limit its success.

• Why me?  I have never shown an interest in THUS or their services or in remote working as an issue. Like millions of others I already remote work and my organization has an effective policy and set of tools to facilitate it but it's not likely to be something I'm going to take a lead on in my business, nor do the ins and outs of remote working particularly interest me. To be frank, I'm not sure why THUS mailed me or thought that remote working was specifically relevant to my needs or interests.
• They have my job title incorrect. So they got my name from a mailing list and not a particularly useful one at that. This is saying 'we don't really know you'.
• Calls to action are weak. It's all a little understated.  'for further information on remote working please call...', 'if you are looking at how to mobilise your workforce, please contact us on...'  Where's the value statement?  What's making me want to get on the phone?  Give me a reason to act.
• It's all a little bland - although I would say that as I wasn't interested in the first place! If it's not relevant then it won't be valued.

The marketers at THUS would do well to consider the following:

• Pre-qualify leads by asking prospects to sign up rather than mailing them cold. This could be achieved through targeted e-marketing, advertising with a strong call to action or through search engine marketing.  Pursuing a permission-led strategy will ensure that the content reaches the people that are likely to be most interested and most likely to act.  This makes for a much more effective use for your marketing spend.
• Pull not push? - maximize search engine results for key phrases that your customers care about. THUS does appear in the first few results of a UK Google search for 'remote working', so scores reasonably well on that front.
• Communicate a clear value proposition. THUS is weak in this regard: the sales letter states that the company is 'one of the few providers that offer a wide range of hardware, services and applications, as well as the expertise needed, to create solutions that overcome these concerns as well as help you to realise the true benefits of remote working'. This doesn't pass the 'so what?' test.
• Integrate offline and online marketing messages. I can't find the THUS guide online and whilst they do have a remote working landing page on their website, the content is positioned as the 'Remote Working Solution', defined as 'a comprehensive communications package for remote employees'. The offline communication does not refer to this branding of the solution in any way. Inconsistency will confuse customers - you have to replicate online and offline messages.

All this goes to demonstrate why a well-conceived but poorly excecuted content marketing campaign will not deliver its intended objective of driving profitable customer behaviour, no matter how compelling the content is. I suspect that THUS needs to get back to direct marketing basics if the company wants to make the most of its otherwise promising content marketing strategy.

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

www.relevantandvalued.com

It's official: content is king!

Web pioneer Vint Cerf helped to build the infrastructure that drives the internet.  In this week's MediaGuardian, he and his friends (all Web luminaries) turn their attention to its remarkable future.

And the conclusion? An endorsement of the famous adage 'content is king' finally coming to fruition. Certainly user-generated content but critically content which is professionally produced. Cerf writes:

'At the same time, [as millions have created their own content] the appetite for professionally produced content... continues to grow. Audiences have more choice, not only over what to consume, but also how they consume it. Regardless of the medium, there will always be demand for high-quality content.'

In a world where David Beckham was once referenced as a Chinese goalkeeper on Wikipedia, high-quality content should certainly be seen as premium.

Elsewhere in the issue, Chris de Wolfe, co-founder of MySpace, writes of the demands of the online population for content 'where they want it, when they want it'.  Maurice Levy of Publicis Groupe talks about the shift from linear media to liquid media, 'where you can move in and out of different settings'.  Peter Norvig, Director of research at Google also supports a vision of a more fluid interaction with information. 

Marketers have an opportunity. Provide great quality content that meets consumers' informational needs in a format that's sought after and through a channel where it's being searched for. Allow it to be easily exchanged between customers.  When you supply it, make sure it's contextual (relevant) and high quality and timely (valued).  Attract prospects and give them a reason to become customers. Engage these customers, build a relationship with them and influence them to buy more from you.  That's what great content marketing is all about.

Review of RelevantandValued.com in Content Marketing Today

Newt Barrett posts a great review of Relevant and Valued in 'New British Blog Joins Content Marketing Crusade' with the line 'now we have one more reason to love England'!  Newt supports the view that content marketing can and should be used to drive profitable customer behavior.

The revolution described by Cerf and friends makes this even more possible. In a liquid, fluid, online environment: accountability is the only constant.

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

www.relevantandvalued.com