5 Ways to Create Dead On Content
Posted on 01. May, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Duct Tape Marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
Over the course of the last few years I’ve been telling business owners about the need to create content – lots of it. But, I ‘ve also been talking about content as a strategy, as a tool to create trust and educate and as something you simply must make a priority.
No matter how I position it, however, I always get the same question – How do I come up with enough ideas to write about?
The answer to that question really has two elements – first and foremost you must have a content plan that spells out the key content subjects that make sense for you to dive deeply into. This should be a list of eight or ten major themes that comprise your organization’s keywords and phrases. In other words, it’s not enough to have ideas to write about, they need to be the right ideas.
When you create this list and stick to it you can create a body of work over time that includes a thorough exploration of every subject on your list and build up a library of focused content that can extend to fact sheets, eBooks, videos, articles, interviews, and case studies that support all of your major themes.
The second element to this question involves the tool set required to keep content inspiration high. If you simply sit down each time you’re going to write something armed with only your keyword list, you’ll struggle to create fresh ideas.
Below are five ways that I keep content pouring over my brain in an effort to help me stay focused and excited about content creation.
Questions
This one is my power tool. Think about it. People ask questions because they want to know something. Your customers ask questions constantly. One of the easiest ways to create content that relates to your business and fills a need is to simply get in the habit of writing responses to questions you know need answering.
Before you know it you’ll have a powerful group of answers that you can turn into an FAQ document. The great thing about most questions is that if one person wants the answer, there’s a pretty good chance that others do as well.
Check out popular question and answer sites such as Quora, Focus or LinkedIn Answers. These sites are great because you can sort by topic and get a sense of the most popular questions people in your industry are asking. You may choose to participate on these sites, but the real value from a content standpoint may lie in the inspiration you gain from addressing the questions in your own content.
RSS Feeds
I subscribe to over 100 blogs and I make a habit of scanning them daily using Google Reader and an iPhone app called Reeder.
This allows me to stay on top of what people are saying in my world and often stimulates ideas for things I should write about. Many times I can take an idea and explain it differently or apply it to something totally unrelated.
This is also where I get exposed to other people’s content that I want to share in my newsletters and tweets.
Books and Magazines
I still subscribe to about five print magazines and, even though I can consume them online, I find that sometimes I gain additional insight through the use of different mediums. So in addition to the content in these magazines there’s value for me in the context as well.
I read lots of books due to the nature of my business but I also intentionally seek out books that people recommend that are seemingly unrelated to my business. I often get incredibly insightful ideas from books on philosophy, architecture, math, science and nature. There are so many parallel ideas in these studies that help me express business ideas in fresh ways.
Here’s a list of five books that taught me to look at things differently.
Bookmarking Sites
I love to dig into sites like Reddit and Delicious just to see what other people are finding interesting though their bookmarks. This helps me uncover content, tools and ideas that might take weeks and months to trickle into the mainstream and also provides tremendous intelligence on what makes something popular.
I also make extensive use of the tool on my own by bookmarking lots of content that I find and tagging it with my core topic list for later use.
Intentional Reading
This last one isn’t a tool so much as it is a behavior. I discovered this years ago when I was compiling information for my first book.
One of the most potent ways I know to develop unique content is to read a number of books related or unrelated to your topic with a single, intentional point of view.
In other words, if I’m looking to develop ideas around the topic of referrals I will read books that may or may not have much to do directly with referrals looking for ideas that I could apply. So for example a book on technology might be talking about how to design something in a way that makes it easier to scale and from my referral point of view I might very well gain a unique way to express how to build a network.
It’s almost as though I turn into the narrator while reading.
The bar for content creation is ever increasing. Where simple quantity was enough several years ago, today’s need for insight over shear information calls for a much deeper relationship with the ideas you choose to own.
5 Ways to Create Dead On Content is a post from: Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
Planning Your Content Marketing: Bricks vs. Feathers
Posted on 15. Feb, 2012 by Chris Sietsema in Blog, Blogging and Content Creation, content marketing, infographic, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, social media strategy
Chris Sietsema is Social & Digital Operations Lead at 
Convince & Convert. He also runs a digital agency called Teach to Fish Digital where he provides insights on search, social media, email marketing, and analytics.
Do you remember this trick question from grade school: Which weighs more – 5 lbs of bricks or 5 lbs of feathers? Some of us (self included) were initially fooled by this obvious test of common sense, but as it relates to your content marketing, should you be focused more on building substantial content productions or presenting your audience with a steady array of minute snippets that define your brand and message?
Defining Bricks & Feathers
Bricks are larger content productions such as research reports, events, white papers, video series, mobile apps, etc. They typically require decent budget and time to produce but have the potential to make a larger splash when executed and promoted correctly.
Feathers are comprised of simple text and photo content published via popular social media tools like 
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, etc. Less intensive than bricks from a production budget standpoint, feathers are created consistently to maintain an ongoing stream of communication between a brand and its audience.
Deciding Between Bricks & Feathers
The graphic below illustrates the key differences between bricks and feathers for content planning and production. Here’s an more detailed explanation of the attributes you should consider.
Position / Identity
While there are varying degrees of thought leadership, larger productions allow you to position your brand as a reliable resource for superb ideas. By continuously sharing small bites of information, you would likely be considered a news maker by the audience. Both positions are attractive in their own right, but businesses which have the capacity to create and share short, informative posts on a daily basis are more inclined to go the feathers route. Those brands that simply cannot provide entertaining, enlightening and/or educational content on a daily basis (e.g. law firms, insurance companies, some medical facilities, etc.) should focus more on building bricks for the purpose of conveying their value to prospects and influencers.
Content Life Span
Video series, graphic illustrations and even research reports have a greater chance of becoming evergreen compared to your everyday tweets and Facebook posts.
SEO Potential
One key reason to consider incorporating more bricks into your content mix is their propensity to attract high quality and relevant links, a “must have” for any organization focused on improving activity from natural search. To a lesser degree feathers can be utilized more as a social signal or as a link to key content on your website/blog. If shared by key influencers, shorter posts can have a noticeable impact.
Required Resources
Simple posts merely demand the attention of a dedicated community manager to create and measure impact. Bricks, on the other hand, are typically more involved. Due to the various skills required to produce an event, a podcast, a high quality infographic or a mobile application, you could potentially include creative, technical and other marketing resources in your development process.
Opportunity Cost
One potential issue with bricks is that there is really no way to predict what will resonate. Your organization may have research to support that there is a demand for a specific piece of content within a particular medium. However, there are no guarantees that your bricks will generate interest, links, traffic, leads, sales, etc. Thanks to the time and resources needed to create bricks, there is a much higher opportunity cost when compared to feathers.
Primary Metrics
Success for feathers is often gauged by how many audience members saw a posts and, more importantly, how many of those people actually took some action (i.e. clicked or shared). In addition to those important metrics, you may find other crucial means for reporting the impact of bricks such as downloads of content, number of event attendees, leads collected in exchange for access to content and so on.
Best of Both Worlds?
Does your organization (or do your clients) produce both bricks and feathers? How do you determine what kinds of content to produce? What methods do you utilize to manage production and promotion of all that you create?
Getting an Education Through Content Creation
Posted on 03. Jan, 2012 by John Jantsch in Blog, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
Getting an Education Through Content Creation
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Many business owners, and certainly most marketers, have succumbed to the need to consistently product high quality, education based content as the foundation of their marketing efforts.
Without looking too hard you can see that many successful organizations lean very heavily on their content to generate and convert leads. In fact, the wildly successful online marketing service Hubspot appears to do little more than produce, aggregate, syndicate and promote useful content as a way to expose potential customers to their way of doing business. (Granted they do a lot of it.)
With content production comes work, however, and that’s the part that even marketers that realize how important good content is struggle with.
I’ve written many posts about tools that make content production easier and even where I find inspiration for things to write about, but there’s one bit of leverage that I’ve not shared that may help kick your content production into high gear.
What if you looked at content production as a way to get yourself educated?
See, I’ve found that one of the surest ways to get something done is to increase the payoff for doing it. (It’s sort of why after months of not being able to get our taxes organized we magically get it all done one day in early April – the payoff, or perhaps threat of fines, makes it a high priority.)
So, what if instead of always writing about the things you know, you chose to include writing about the things you need to or should know.
For example, as a business owner I need to know more about cash flow, balance sheets, profit and labor productivity. Not so much so that I would advise others on these things, but certainly enough that I can understand them, teach them to my staff, use this data to run my business and, in some cases, teach my CPA how to actually be an adviser.
So what do I do? I ask around and find what some are calling the best book on these matters. (Here’s the one I landed on: Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits!: 4 Keys to Unlock Your Business Potential) I read the book. (That part most people do) Then I find the author, interview him, create a podcast, and write about the very subjects I needed to know more about – an act which deepens my learning.
This is such a powerful way to learn what I need to learn, get advice from leading experts, and produce high quality content all at the same time.
You likely couldn’t make this your only content strategy, but you can certainly create a list of 8-10 topics that you need to know more about and go to work on finding someone that would be happy to teach you while you create content.
Content Marketing Optimization: 8 Content Ideas for Business Blogs
Posted on 19. Aug, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, Blog Marketing, content marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
At the SES conference this week I gave several presentations on Content Marketing: “Content Marketing Optimization” and “The Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing”. In the CMO session, I provided SEO tips for each spoke in a hub and spoke model. The hub in this situation was a blog and one of the most common issues with business blog success is fresh content. In fact, one of the most common reasons companies don’t start a blog is over their concerns with creating useful content.
I can empathize with that concern and have addressed it with many companies over the past 7+ years that I’ve been blogging here on TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog. To help anyone interested in ideas for creating business blog content, check out the following 8 tips. They’ve worked for us and for many of our clients and may very well work for you too.
Oreo Cookie News Posts - Set up Google Alerts for keywords you’re tracking and when an article or blog post surfaces that meets your editorial criteria, excerpt in a blog post using your own intro and conclusion. That’s the “oreo cookie”, sandwiching a portion of the Google Alert with your own copy setting up why it’s important and your own conclusion or opinion. Always cite the source of course.
Short Lists – (Like this one) Create short lists of tips according to keyword themes, especially information that is in high demand but short supply. You can also focus on the kind of information that could help customers during various stages of the buying cycle: 5 Tips on How to Buy a New Widget, 5 Tips on Getting the Most Out of Your New Widget, 5 Things You Can Do With Old Widgets, 5 Common Problems with Widgets and How to Solve Them, etc.
Large Collections – Compile large collections of resources according to a search keyword or social topic theme. If you can find disparate resources that don’t normally get included together, it can really resonate as a unique and useful content object that will get bookmarked and shared. Long form and media rich content will often get bookmarked more because readers aren’t likely to consume it in one sitting.
Really relevant, unique and useful collections of resources can be hard to compile in one sitting, so set a task to collect such resources a few at a time, over time. A few minutes a day over 3 weeks is barely noticed compared to 2 uninterrupted hours in one day.
Interview Industry Influentials - First you need to define what influential really means to your particular industry. Those with the most subscribers, friends and fans (in social media terms) may not be the people who can be the most cooperative and giving. When approaching really well known industry people, it’s often easier to ask 10 people 1 question and compile the answers. That makes it easy for them to participate and when they see who else is involved, it can motivate them to participate. That means starting off with a few “internet famous” people that you know will participate, and reference them in requests to others you don’t know as well.
When interviewing subject matter expert “unsung heros”, use more questions and think about using keywords in the questions themselves, structuring the questions so that they might result in keyword rich answers. Of 10 questions asked of 10 people, make sure 2 or 3 questions are very tactical. Aggregate those tactical responses from the 10 interviewees later in a new post. There’s so much more you can do with repurposing content in original ways, but you get the idea. The key is to plan ahead.
Curate Comments - Aggregate the best comments from your blog or even other blogs according to a particular topic. Identify important blogs in your industry, especially those with active commenters. When you cite another blog, the content doesn’t need to be limited to the blog post. It can also include the comments from other blogs. You can chose to organize those comments according to keyword topics (citing the source blog of course) or a particular position that you’re taking.
You can also compile some of the best comments from your own blog as a way to recognize community participation.
Crowdsource Content - Think about doing surveys, polls & contests that result in content. Give readers an incentive to participate in a promotion where entry into the contest is based on some kind of content: short articles, images or video. Enable your blog readers to rate entries and promote the winner. Don’t just do this once, because if it works well at all, you can build momentum by running the promotion annually or quarterly depending on the volume of interest and participation. I recently posted about crowdsourcing content on ClickZ.
Answer with Subject Matter Expertise – Many subject matter experts and business executives are too busy to write blog posts. But if you ask them a question, they’ll talk your ear off. Use that behavior to your advantage and get business blogging staff to ask subject matter experts in the organization questions verbally – in person or on the phone – and use the answers in corporate blog posts.
Frontline Answers – Another goldmine of content for blogs is from frontline employees that interact with prospects and customers. Customer support staff and sales people answer questions all day long. Find a way to harvest that knowledge into edited FAQ’s for your blog. Always make sure you give feedback to whoever helps provide content to your business blog. That will contribute to their feeling of contribution and can help motivate future participation.
These ideas are just an excerpt from one slide of my solo presentation on Content Marketing Optimization. There are many other things you can do to create interesting content for your business blog, especially if you’ve done homework with customer profiles, search keywords and social topics. We’ve created processes around content calendars for blogs and other content marketing efforts that makes this a very straightforward process. Lists like the one above can certainly fuel an initial content calendar to either start a business blog or introduce new content to an existing blog.
Are you facing challenges with your business blog? What’s stopping you from launching a new blog or with content creation? What creative content ideas have you seen on other blogs that you’d like to share?
Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
Content Marketing Optimization: 8 Content Ideas for Business Blogs | http://www.toprankblog.com
My Content Amplification System
Posted on 16. Aug, 2011 by John Jantsch in Blog, delicious, facebook, linkedIn, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
My Content Amplification System
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Today’s post is in answer to a direct request I’ve received a number of times.
Of course writing good content is only part of the business challenge. You’ve also got to get it read. Some would say, and to a large part this is true, that simply writing something that people want to read is the first step in drawing links and shares, but you’ve also got to put your content out there in places where people do their reading these days.
The following is a sampling of my content amplification routine. I do this with each blog post in an effort to get that particular piece of content the greatest amount of exposure. Is this the perfect, all inclusive list, probably not, but it’s a routine that I can do in about five minutes and still give my content a chance to be seen by lots of potential clients, journalists and strategic partners.
After I hit publish I:
- Tweet the headline and link with some context to draw the most interest using StumbleUpon link shortener su.pr – this syndicates the content to StumbleUpon and Twitter and starts the traffic exposure in both places.
- Publish the post to my Facebook Page
- Publish the post to my Google+ Stream – public, circles and extended circles
- Publish the post to my LinkedIn profile – also share with several large groups
- Bookmark the post in appropriate tags to Delicious
- If a post has drawn a large number of retweets I may post to Twitter a second time during the day – I generally make this decision and schedule the Tweet for a specific time using TweetDeck’s scheduling function
A couple things worth noting:
- I don’t use a service or tool to cross post this to all avenues as I think they all have their own personality and following and I take a minute to point out something different about the post in each network.
- I participate in many other ways, unrelated to my own content promotion in each of these networks
- I check back several times a day, depending on my schedule to participate in any conversations happening around the content, including comments on the original blog post
- I have +1, LinkedIn, and Facebook buttons above every blog post
- I have links to share the content with popular bookmarking sites on the blog posts (sociable plugin) and in the RSS feed (Feedburner feed flare option)
- I often highlight a particularly well read blog post or two from the week in my weekly email newsletter
So, what would you add to this list?
Content Without Advocacy is Just Words and Google Bait
Posted on 21. Jul, 2011 by Jay Baer in Blog, content marketing, interview, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Book, Social Media Examiner, Social Media Success Summit, Video Blogs
Mike Stelzner knows a little something about building a successful company from thin air. He’s the founder of Social Media Examiner, currently ranked the #8 marketing blog in the world on the AdAge Power 150 (we’re lagging at #19 here at Convince & Convert). In just one year – from a standing start – SME became a multi-million dollar business. In addition to the blog itself, Mike and the SME crew produce the excellent Social Media Success Summits and Facebook Success Summits (disclosure: I’ve been a part of nearly all of them as a paid presenter).
Every time I think I’m doing a good job building a community and a company at Convince & Convert, I look at what Mike has cooking and realize he’s doing it bigger, faster, and better than me. Bastard.
The good news is that Mike doesn’t believe in secrets, and his excellent new book Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition (affiliate) shows you exactly how he’s built SME and his other businesses, and how other companies like Hubspot have used the same playbook.
Mike and I discuss the book and its teachings at length in the video above, and I really do hope you’ll take a few minutes to check it out. Lots of very interesting ideas from Mike that run counter to the accepted wisdom about how you build businesses.
For example, the core premise of Launch is the Elevation Principle, which dictates that you can build the best business by fulfilling people’s needs at NO COST. This is in stark contrast to the conversion and immediate ROI focus that most companies have adopted, even within the social media world.
Planting Customer Crops
Mike really believes in farming. Planting content seeds that produce customer crops down the road. Not today, but eventually. He also talks a lot in the video and in the book about giving gifts. The notion of quid pro quo and reciprocity are ruining business, in his estimation. Giving gifts (material gifts, content gifts, attention gifts) without expecting a return will produce – somewhat ironically – a far greater return.
It’s a weird paradox. Mike’s entire philosophy is about delaying business gratification, and about doing right by your prospective customers today so more of them will become actual customers tomorrow. Yet by following that advice, he’s actually building companies FASTER than if you did it the old school way with a bunch of sales reps and high-pressure Webinars.
I know it works, because I’ve seen him do it, and I’ve used some of the same techniques for my own businesses, and for my clients. But the reality is that most companies – especially large ones – don’t have the guts to give away all of their content without so much as even an email collection gate. If nothing else, Launch will inspire you to give it a try.
Content Without People Is Just Words
But the wisest part of Mike’s book isn’t about content or gift-giving, it’s about people. His formula is content PLUS people equals success. And when the storm clouds of budget and tactics roll in, the people part is usually what gets left out in the rain.
The book talks about “fire starters” – people in your industry that can drive awareness and social proof and attention and advocacy. It’s similar to Gladwell’s “Mavens” segment from The Tipping Point, but in today’s hyper-shareable world of micro-content and invitation avalanches, these people aren’t just nice to have, they’re critical.
And that’s the problem. I don’t care who you are, what company you work for, or how good your content is, that content isn’t good enough to truly succeed without key people making it work. You have to find a small group of netizens who believe in you enough to put some of their own skin in the game and support your content efforts. Are those employees? Maybe. Are they customers? Perhaps. Business partners? Sure. But all of those audiences are biased. What you really want are customers or third parties who don’t have anything to personally gain via your success. Those are the fire-starters that make your content more than just words and Google Bait. They are what make your content into a movement.
Don’t fall for the trap of just making content and posting it in a vacuum. As you’ll learn in Launch, the same amount of effort you put into your content creation should also be put into relationship cultivation.
That’s the secret. And I’m glad Mike is willing to share it for the price of a book. Pick up Launch. It’s a quick, interesting read that will have you dog-earing a ton of pages.
Content Without Advocacy is Just Words and Google Bait
Posted on 21. Jul, 2011 by Jay Baer in Blog, content marketing, interview, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Book, Social Media Examiner, Social Media Success Summit, Video Blogs
Mike Stelzner knows a little something about building a successful company from thin air. He’s the founder of Social Media Examiner, currently ranked the #8 marketing blog in the world on the AdAge Power 150 (we’re lagging at #19 here at Convince & Convert). In just one year – from a standing start – SME became a multi-million dollar business. In addition to the blog itself, Mike and the SME crew produce the excellent Social Media Success Summits and Facebook Success Summits (disclosure: I’ve been a part of nearly all of them as a paid presenter).
Every time I think I’m doing a good job building a community and a company at Convince & Convert, I look at what Mike has cooking and realize he’s doing it bigger, faster, and better than me. Bastard.
The good news is that Mike doesn’t believe in secrets, and his excellent new book Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition (affiliate) shows you exactly how he’s built SME and his other businesses, and how other companies like Hubspot have used the same playbook.
Mike and I discuss the book and its teachings at length in the video above, and I really do hope you’ll take a few minutes to check it out. Lots of very interesting ideas from Mike that run counter to the accepted wisdom about how you build businesses.
For example, the core premise of Launch is the Elevation Principle, which dictates that you can build the best business by fulfilling people’s needs at NO COST. This is in stark contrast to the conversion and immediate ROI focus that most companies have adopted, even within the social media world.
Planting Customer Crops
Mike really believes in farming. Planting content seeds that produce customer crops down the road. Not today, but eventually. He also talks a lot in the video and in the book about giving gifts. The notion of quid pro quo and reciprocity are ruining business, in his estimation. Giving gifts (material gifts, content gifts, attention gifts) without expecting a return will produce – somewhat ironically – a far greater return.
It’s a weird paradox. Mike’s entire philosophy is about delaying business gratification, and about doing right by your prospective customers today so more of them will become actual customers tomorrow. Yet by following that advice, he’s actually building companies FASTER than if you did it the old school way with a bunch of sales reps and high-pressure Webinars.
I know it works, because I’ve seen him do it, and I’ve used some of the same techniques for my own businesses, and for my clients. But the reality is that most companies – especially large ones – don’t have the guts to give away all of their content without so much as even an email collection gate. If nothing else, Launch will inspire you to give it a try.
Content Without People Is Just Words
But the wisest part of Mike’s book isn’t about content or gift-giving, it’s about people. His formula is content PLUS people equals success. And when the storm clouds of budget and tactics roll in, the people part is usually what gets left out in the rain.
The book talks about “fire starters” – people in your industry that can drive awareness and social proof and attention and advocacy. It’s similar to Gladwell’s “Mavens” segment from The Tipping Point, but in today’s hyper-shareable world of micro-content and invitation avalanches, these people aren’t just nice to have, they’re critical.
And that’s the problem. I don’t care who you are, what company you work for, or how good your content is, that content isn’t good enough to truly succeed without key people making it work. You have to find a small group of netizens who believe in you enough to put some of their own skin in the game and support your content efforts. Are those employees? Maybe. Are they customers? Perhaps. Business partners? Sure. But all of those audiences are biased. What you really want are customers or third parties who don’t have anything to personally gain via your success. Those are the fire-starters that make your content more than just words and Google Bait. They are what make your content into a movement.
Don’t fall for the trap of just making content and posting it in a vacuum. As you’ll learn in Launch, the same amount of effort you put into your content creation should also be put into relationship cultivation.
That’s the secret. And I’m glad Mike is willing to share it for the price of a book. Pick up Launch. It’s a quick, interesting read that will have you dog-earing a ton of pages.
(video production from my friends at Real Simple Video. If you need someone to take your raw footage and tidy it up, add titles, etc. they are the guys. Fast and reasonably priced. Check them out at http://realsimplevideo.com/jaybaer).
5 Types of Content That Every Business Must Employ
Posted on 18. Jul, 2011 by John Jantsch in Blog, Duct Tape Marketing, Podcast, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
5 Types of Content That Every Business Must Employ
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Marketing podcast with John Jantsch (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes or subscribe via other RSS device (Google Listen)
Dawn Endico via Flickr
The creation and distribution of content has become such a significant aspect of effective marketing that it requires a high place in the strategy conversation in most every business.
Some might go as far as to suggest content marketing has become the most effective way to build a business.
The word content is confusing enough as it’s bantered around these days, but it’s also difficult for many small business owners to come up with a big picture view of the role content plays in the acquisition of clients.
Strategically, the word content must mean more than a blog post or a blank sheet of paper each day. You must begin to think of your content as a total body of work that is being built to serve your business over time.
You must understand and create content for the most important keyword phrases for your industry, the essential themes of education in your business, and your company’s core points of differentiation.
You must also think in terms of your content as a tool that moves prospects from awareness to conversion and in this effort there are at least five types of content that you must address. Each type must be considered as part of your overall content strategy.
I’ve listed each below and I also discuss them in the audio track that accompanies this post.
Content that builds trust - One of the first jobs of your content is to bridge the gap from awareness to trust building. Your SEO efforts actually marry with this type of content to make sure you are both found and found in abundance.
- How to content – specific advice or tips and tricks
- Reviews – customer reviews on sites like Yelp and Google Places
- Testimonials – endorsements from happy customers
- Articles – articles you’ve written or that mention your firm in outside publications
Content that educates – Once you create awareness and trust a prospect will be hungry to find out much more about your unique approach, your solution, your story and your organization.
- White papers – not boring, dry technical stuff, your best writing tying a bigger topic together
- Newsletter – Weekly or monthly education that nurtures their interest
- Seminars – in person or online, these allow prospects to learn as well as engage
- FAQs – some folks just need the answers to their questions and this format serves well
- Survey data – results from surveys can be very compelling as a way to let prospects know you understand them
Customer generated content – Getting your customers involved in the production of content builds loyalty and community, creates proof of results and gives you another avenue for content creation.
- Automatic referrals and reviews – create ways to move happy customers to a referral and review process
- Testimonials – automate this process by providing online audio and video tools
- Video success stories – create events that bring customers together to tell their story and network
Other people’s content – one of the primary jobs of marketers these days is to provide some insight to the stream of information that our customers face. Filtering and aggregating content produced by others is not only a great service, it’s a great differentiator.
- Custom RSS feeds – create customer or industry specific feeds to share
- Republish, Share, RT – point to and share great content that being produced
- Curate – use tools like Storify to collect and republish customer newsletters
Content that converts – this last category is one that gets overlooked in the write for writing sake view of content. Ultimately, great content has the ability to call and convert prospects to the action of buying.
- In person events – live events are the absolute best way to use content to close
- Case studies – deep studies into the success of another client act as tangible proof in the buying decision
- ROI calculators – use content to help prospects understand the specific value of making a change
- Results – provide documented proof results in simple and easy to understand forms that address the common needs of most prospects.
I’m in Alaska this week so I’ll be sharing some photos from their in my posts.
The SEO Cupcake
Posted on 11. Jul, 2011 by John Jantsch in Blog, Keywords, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
The SEO Cupcake
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
When asked to talk about marketing these days I spend increasing amounts of time explaining the notion of being found. Like it or not, generating leads by putting lots of valuable content in the places where people look for just such a thing is central to marketing success these days.
When looking for a simple way to illustrate the important relationship between content, social and SEO, I decided to forgo the obvious pyramid or Venn diagram and chose instead the uber trendy cupcake.
I mean, who hasn’t stood in line these days outside an Airstream trailer in Austin or a chic little boutique in Soho, just to purchase one of these little delights? Okay, maybe you haven’t jumped on this trend just yet, but for illustration purposes the cupcake serves well.
Content – You can’t exactly have a cupcake without, well, the cup. The little wrapper is the foundation for the entire thing. Likewise, content is the underpinning of any attempt to score well in SEO – you need lots of it, in many flavors. In fact, there’s really no reason to preheat the oven without a firm commitment to the production of content.
Keywords – Now, if all you did were serve up wrappers of content you wouldn’t have a very tasty treat. We need to add the cake in your cupcake. We need to test out the flavor combinations that keep your customers coming back for more. Keywords, the actual stuff that prospects put into search engines to find a business like yours, are what give your SEO efforts tastiness and set the table for surfers and search engines alike.
Links – Of course, if you really want to attract the search engine spiders you’ve got to pile on the icing in the form of links pointing the way to your content. Creating great, keyword rich content, is the best way to attract lots of links and form a strong base for mounds of traffic fattening icing.
Social – There, you’ve got an awesome cupcake, now it’s time to add that all important finishing touch. Lots of folks get the connection between social and SEO, but they don’t fully appreciate that social without content turns a scrumptious desert into a health snack. It’s nice, but it won’t satisfy the surfer’s sweet tooth. In this case, one of the best reasons to even grow raspberries (participate in social) is to top off the cupcake and add a very attractive package to your overall content play.
Okay, so today’s lesson leans a bit to the goofy side, but I just couldn’t think of a better way to simplify the interdependent relationship and hierarchy of steps involved in winning the being found game.
Want to Maximize Your WordPress Website Fortin-Style?
Posted on 21. Jun, 2011 by Michel Fortin in Blog, cms, consulting, critique, feedback, interest, introduction, marketer, News, price, product, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Success Chef, theme, Traffic, training, WordPress
Many people have asked me for this, and now I’m seriously thinking about doing it. (Yes, I hear you, Mike Sigers.) I’m thinking of offering a WordPress training course.
No, not a basics course and not something too advanced. And not any old training course teaching stuff you would expect to find for free online.
But a “Fortinized” WordPress training. A “how-did-he-do-that” course that shows you how, exactly, I tweak, optimize, modify, and monetize my WordPress websites.
Let’s just call it FortinPress.com for now. 
It’s been on my mind for the last two years now. I was supposed to put one together with another marketer, but it never materialize for a number of reasons — being extremely busy being one of them.
I want to gauge your level of interest on this. I want to see if you would be interested. So here’s what I envision, what will be included, and the price point…
The course itself will be delivered over 4-5 weeks through a series of webinars.
I prefer live webinars because you get to see me do it, in front of you, live. I share my desktop with you, and you get to see what I do, how I do it, as I do it. You also get to see the innerworkings of my websites, warts and all, and any snags that appear, which is a perfect learning environment.
Here’s the tentative course synopsis:
1. Introduction and Examples
In this session, I will go over WordPress, how I specifically use it, how I turn it into a content management system (CMS), how I use it on my clients’ sites, and more. I will also give you a sneak peek at the admin areas and the tools I use.
2. Themes and Styles
I will go over theme tweaking, styles, and graphics — from making basic layout changes to more advanced modifications. When people ask, “Michel, how did you do this or that on this theme?” This session will answer that question.
3. Plugins and Functions
This session will focus on plugins — the plugins I use or recommend, and how to set them up. Not all plugins are usable out of the box. Some need tweaking. I will show how I set them up and offer a downloadable Excel spreadsheet of all my plugins and where to get them.
4. Tools and Shortcuts
In this session, I will go through some of my tricks and external (non-WP) tools I use to speed it all up. I will show you how I use Firebug, SEO tools, page speed tools, cheatsheets, social media integration, cross-browser tweaking, etc.
5. Money and Traffic
I’m thinking this may be something a lot people will love to know, and that’s how I monetize, market, and drive targeted traffic to my WordPress website. Without PPC or advertising. I will talk about list-building, content strategy, and social media integration.
6. Open Q&A Session
The final session will be an open question-and-answer session. This is where I will answer any and all of your questions related to the course content. If it takes an hour, I’ll take an hour. If it takes three, three it is. I want to take all the time needed to answer all your questions.
Bonuses
Not sure about this one, but I think a free trial to a one-month Success Chef University might be a good bonus. This is not going to be some forced continuity thing. If you like the free trial, you will need to re-subscribe to keep it going. Just sayin’.
Success Chef also includes the weekly Wednesday night classes and the derivative products, like List Whisperer, Marketing ESP, the Copy Doctor, etc.
Upsell
I do plan on offering an upsell. The reason I’m doing it is not entirely because I want to maximize sales, although that is obviously one of the reasons. But more important, I feel like this is one upsell people will actually ask for and buy.
What is it? It’s a private, one-on-one session with me.
This is an opportunity where the student can book a time with me, and I go through their website, theme, and plugins, and perhaps even web copy and strategy.
In it, I will review their setup, answer individual questions, and provide actionable recommendations. Perhaps even fix a thing or two while on the call, and implement a few tweaks right on the spot (within reason, of course).
Again, this is a tentative list. It might change, especially based on your feedback. All these sessions will be recorded and available online in a password-protected area.
The price point will increase once the sessions have been delivered and uploaded. I want to offer a lower price point before and while I deliver the course as a special introductory price.
My thinking is $297 is more than a fair price. I looked at other courses of this type, and $297 is actually on par or less than most.
The upsell will be $997 (total) for both the course and the full, one-on-one session. Considering that I charge $1,000 for critique consulting, and a minimum of $3,000 for any copy project, I think this price point is more than fair.
Now, you don’t have to choose the upsell.
You can buy just the main course for $297.
I only want to make the one-on-one session available to those who need more hand-holding and individualized attention.
But if you have a website right now, and you’re wondering how to tweak it but don’t know how, and if you prefer to save the hassle and expense — Mike Sigers said he was charged $2,500 to modify just one page! — this will certainly be a bargain.
So let me know your thoughts.
To answer a few of your questions in advance, let’s say I’m looking at next week as the launch, and the course will be delivered throughout July. Probably in the afternoons.
(However, if you choose the upsell, the one-on-one session can be booked at any time based on any openings on my schedule.)
All the sessions will be recorded and you will have access to the recordings. You can share your private session (if you choose the upsell) with a freelancer, partner, staff member, or designer, if you wish them to implement some of the things I recommend.
(Keep in mind, I will do a few tweaks for you, and do it live. This is only if the changes you need fall beyond the scope of our time together.)
Standing by and listening…
Want to Maximize Your WordPress Website Fortin-Style? originally appeared on The Michel Fortin Blog. Please visit to subscribe to it, or Tweet This.
Connect With Us Here:
