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How to crack the ‘content’ in content marketing

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For almost all the marketers I speak to the single biggest obstacle to maximising the opportunity that content marketing presents is the content bit.

It’s not that we don’t have the content ideas or that we don’t understand the principles of a good content marketing strategy. It’s quite simply finding the time to produce all of the new content that you believe prospects and existing customers will find interesting and / or useful.

Producing this valuable, helpful and informative content takes time. Before we go any further it’s important that I point out that I haven’t found a magic formula for producing new content at the speed we would all like to.

Instead, I have concluded that there is a far easier way to get the content in your content marketing strategy to work harder for you.

Sound like a plan? Let me explain:

As I’ve already said – producing good content takes time. After spending this time we unfortunately don’t maximise the benefit to be extracted from all that hard work.

I’m sure that you have on many occasions (as I have) upon completing your latest content project simply posted it on your chosen social channels, added it to your website and targeted relevant online discussion groups only to swiftly move on to the development of your next content project.

By doing this you are not maximising the potential for your content to generate leads, encourage attendance at your event, secure downloads for your white paper – whatever your specific objectives may be.

You worked really hard developing that content – so make the most of the opportunity it presents.

Only a very small proportion of your social audience will see your content if you only post it once. By using one of the many social scheduling tools and re-posting across different channels at different times you will greatly increase the exposure that your content gets.

It’s only then that you can be sure that you are extracting maximum value from the hard work you put in to developing the content in the first place.

It’s also a great way to conduct some live research – change the headlines, choose different images, post at different times of the day.

By doing this and studying your analytics you’ll develop a new awareness of what content works best, in what place and at what time.

You’ll then be in a position to decide which of your many ideas for new content will best help you to achieve your goals.

You’ll then find that all the content you develop starts working harder for you.

It’s easy to get caught in the trap of thinking that loads of content is all you need for a successful content marketing strategy.

What you really need is useful, helpful and informative content from which you extract maximum value.

I’m as guilty as anyone of being tempted by the exciting distraction of shiny new content – just remember that a lot of your existing content is new to an awful lot of people who haven’t yet been exposed to it.

Is it time for a sensible conversation about fracking?

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I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been listening to people talking about how good it is to see the price of petrol, diesel and home heating oil coming down over the last few weeks.

Petrol prices fall to a four-year low and cost of heating oil plummets by a third – BelfastTelegraph.co.uk.

There seems to have been something missing from the coverage of this though. It was only a few months ago that hysteria was being created over the plans to drill a bore hole in Fermanagh to see whether there was shale gas that we could exploit – or more accurately that a Canadian company called Tamboran Resources could exploit.

While the media were very happy to report all the alleged environmental dangers that fracking poses at the time when the  fracking protests were going on in Fermanagh there has been a distinct lack of balance recently.

At no time during any coverage of the falling oil price have I heard any mention of the fact that the fracking boom in the US is a contributory factor. It is thanks to the exploitation of the shale gas reserves in the US that the oil price has fallen to its lowest level in a number of years.

Is it impossible to have a sensible, grown up conversation about fracking and the potential it offers for us all to save money on the fuel we consume every day?

Or will the arguments continue at the extremes – earthquakes being caused at one end of the scale and zero environmental damage at the other.

It seems to me we have a choice to make – and there is going to have to be a trade off somewhere.

But if we’re expecting our politicians to take the lead on this and try and engage in a sensible conversation then I can’t see much happening. Once again the local parties will respond to calls from an uneducated public (and I include myself in that) rather than seeking to explore the pros and cons of the argument in relation to fracking.

I don’t know how much damage fracking will cause – if any. What I do know if that I quite like the sound of lower fuel prices – and I don’t think I’m on my own.

Is storytelling dead?

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storytelling for B2B marketers

Storytelling is still an important part of the marketing mix

I came across a post recently on the Explore B2B blog urging marketers to stop storytelling. On seeing the headline I thought I would disagree with the idea but after reading the article in full I could see where the author was coming from.

The article by Carlos Hidalgo highlighted that storytelling implies a focus on us as the storyteller rather than our customers. It was making the point that in the social media age we should be engaging in conversations (2 way communication) with our potential customers rather than simply telling them our story (one way communication).

While I agree with this principle it’s premature to signal the end of storytelling as a marketing tool of value.

And here’s why:

Before people will fully engage in conversations with us they want to know who they are talking to.

Do we understand their problems and offer a solution?

Do our values match with their own?

Do we have any evidence to support the claims that we are making about how we can help them?

online and offline conversations with customers

Conversations are given context by the story you tell

A well crafted story will help to answer these questions and provide the context which will give the subsequent conversations some meaning.

Of course the story we tell needs to be carefully considered. Too many of these focus on what we would like to talk about rather than what our potential and existing customers want to know.

If we have a good story to tell its most likely down to our understanding of customer requirements and capability to design a solution to these problems. So make this the story.

For me it’s not a case of storytelling versus conversations. Both are vital parts of the marketing mix.

One of the most significant impacts of social media has been to facilitate conversations between us and our customers – but the reports of the demise of storytelling have been greatly exaggerated.

If you would like some help creating your compelling story that will make your target customers engage with you first, and buy from you second then get in touch.

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Content Marketing – still to be convinced? Read this.

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content marketing as a magnet for new customers

Use content marketing as a magnet for new customers

There are some compelling stats out there supporting the rise of content marketing over the last few years – the number of web searches for ‘content marketing’ has increased by 400% since 2010 (stats from Google Trends) and there are now 27 million pieces of content shared online every day (according to AOL).

These 2 stats are taken from a great blog post by @captora last week called ‘20 tweetable content marketing stats that every marketer should know’.

I published a post last week in response to this attempting to delve a little deeper. While the figures are undoubtedly useful for reinforcing the importance of content marketing to any modern marketing strategy I feel that there is a need to look at what questions they provoke.

The 2 most important questions for me are:

  1. What does this mean for your company?
  2. What can you do about it?

My previous post dealt with the 2 stats mentioned earlier about the 400% increase in searches for ‘content marketing’ and the 27 million pieces of content shared online every day. You can read my thoughts on this by visiting the post – Need convinced about content marketing? Read this.

For today, I’d like to focus on another stat from the @captora post and answer the 2 questions posed above:

Stat #1
78% of consumers think organisations that create content are interested in building relationships.

What does this mean for your company?

This one stat alone sums up one of the major opportunities that exists with content marketing. For decades marketing departments were engaged in the game of producing content and hoping that the relationships you had developed with your target print publications would mean that your news release, project case study or company announcement would get featured.

In most cases the only way to really ensure this happened was to part with some of your hard earned budget and invest in advertising.

Of course the best print publications maintain a level of editorial integrity (and that is how they have survived) but content marketing represents a huge shift in the balance of power. We’re all publishers now and the technologies that facilitate the content marketing revolution have added a level of democracy to our communications that didn’t previously exist.

For the first time it’s genuinely not about how much advertising spend you want to commit to a specific publication in order to ensure the required level of editorial coverage.

You produce your own content and publish it. If it’s good enough it will gain traction online with your customers, increase your profile and ultimately help you achieve your goals whatever they may be.

Another benefit of this development is that your brand can have a voice and the opportunity to communicate directly with your target audience rather than being run through the editorial controls of your target print publications.

This helps to better portray the personality of your organisation which allows your potential customers to establish whether it is an organisation that they would like to do business with.

What can you do about it?

In order to maximise the chances of success from your content marketing strategy there is an old saying that was a particular favourite of the sales director of a company I used to work for:

“You have 2 ears and one mouth – use them in that proportion.”

Your first job in trying to take advantage of the content marketing opportunity involves listening and observing what is going on in the virtual world around us.

  1. What online channels are your customers currently using?
  2. What are the current issues within your industry that your products or services help to address?
  3. What have you got to say about these issues?
  4. What are your competitors currently saying about these issues and how can you differentiate your message?

Once you’ve got the answers to these questions you’ll be in a much better position to understand the kind of content you can produce in order to help you achieve your goals of more leads, more sales, more donations, more applications for the job you’re promoting (or whatever else is relevant for your business).

In summary, content marketing represents a huge opportunity for any business for whom their customer base is online. While the headline stats from the @captora post confirm this you need to understand what it means for your business and what you should be doing about it. Once you’ve nailed these two questions then the opportunity will begin to open up in front of you.

And you’ll enjoy the benefits offline as well – after all. you’re producing great content tackling the main issues facing your industry. What print publications aren’t going to be interested in that story?

If you’d like some help developing your content marketing strategy or producing the content you need to build your profile then get in touch.

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Need convinced about content marketing? Read this.

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I came across a great blog post today from @captora with some really powerful stats on the rise of content marketing in recent years.

There is no doubt that the stats are convincing – content marketing is here to stay and I don’t think you’ll get much of an argument from any modern marketers.

So here’s my problem – if my hypothesis is correct and there is an acceptance that content marketing needs to be central to any marketing strategy there must be something else that is stopping people from getting involved.

I think there is a general fear of content marketing – largely driven by the fact that it is often accompanied by the word ‘strategy’. This immediately conjures up visions of 100 page documents and puts people right off.

So, to try and dispel this fear I’ve taken two of the key stats from the @captora post and asked 2 important questions:

  1. What does this mean for your company?
  2. What can you do about it?

Here we go:

Stat #1:
There are 27 million pieces of content shared each day online

What does this mean for your company?

This is one hell of a big number – you need to understand how much of this content relates to your industry, to the products you are selling. This will vary hugely depending on whether you’re involved in a mass market consumer product or a niche engineering application for example.

What can you do about it?

  1. Understand what your goal is – what does success look like? Sales, website visitors, video views, increased followers, more enquiries?
  2. Two ears, one mouth – use them in that proportion.
  3. Search online for content relating to your industry (Google Alerts are a great way to do this).
  4. Search Twitter to see who in your industry is doing this stuff well – and understand why.
  5. Once you’ve done this initial research you will better understand what content you can produce that is suitable for sharing, likely to get a response and will ultimately lead to more sales leads (or whatever your overall goal is).
  6. Start recording these ideas in an editorial calendar and hey presto – your content marketing strategy is underway.

Stat #2:
The number of web searches for ‘content marketing’ is up 400% since January 2011

What does this mean for your company?

Take comfort in the fact that this suggests to me that there are a lot of people out there who don’t understand how to make the most of this opportunity.

The opening line of the @captora post says “Content marketing has become a buzzword in modern marketing”.

Content Marketing is simply the latest way to describe what marketers have always done – produce good content. It’s nothing particularly revolutionary. Your tone might have to change and adapt to the social media channels that you are using in order to get the best results but otherwise – keep on keeping on.

What can you do about it?

Once you’ve developed the first run at your editorial calendar then select the channels that are right for you and just get started.

I’m reminded of a quote from Thomas Edison that is relevant to this discussion:

“I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

Hopefully you’ll get the hang of it well before the 10,000 mark – but the only way you’ll really find out what works and what doesn’t is to get started. Set yourself some small objectives at the start that you think will help you achieve your overall goal – increased sales, donations to your charitable cause, views of your Youtube videos.

There are a number of other interesting stats in the @captora post and I’ll return to these at a later date.

Hope you found this post useful – if you did please remember to share with your network.

You can follow me on twitter @petracmarketing

And if you want some help developing your content marketing strategy then get in touch.

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Hands off our music

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Never mind the latest instalment of pointless ramblings at Stormont where our neanderthal politicians will spend the next month in their tribal gear knocking ten shades out of each other and getting nowhere.

ulster orchestra by petrac marketing

Stand up for the Ulster Orchestra

Meanwhile, in the real world the same politicians – that approximately half of us vote for – are systematically turning the places we live into joyless places where any experience that might actually enrich our lives is cast aside because the return on investment doesn’t add up.

What price the joy of a child learning to play a new musical instrument?

What price the joy of discovering that music is mind and mood altering? It can bring joy from the depths of despair, it creates memories that will never be forgotten.

What price the release that music gives you after another day on the treadmill?

You may not listen to classical music but this still affects you – they’re coming for whatever you get your joy from and they’re dismantling it.

It can’t be allowed to happen. It’s not even the Ulster Orchestra we’re standing up for. We’re standing up for our desire to live somewhere that is actually a nice place to be, where people want to come and visit, where enjoyment is around every corner.

Hands off the Orchestra. Hands off our music.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2014/oct/14/the-ulster-orchestra-funding-cuts-crisis