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?
Content Marketing Tactics Now Critical to All Businesses [INFOGRAPHIC]
Posted on 09. Feb, 2012 by Joe Pulizzi in B2B content marketing, Blog, Branded Content, content marketing, Fun Stuff, infographic, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
I bumped into my good friend Chris Baggott from Compendium yesterday at the Online Marketing Summit. Every conference we run into each other at, Chris pulls me aside and says, “Joe, here we are at this INSERT NAME conference and a content marketing conference has broken out”.
The point? Everyone is talking content marketing these days. The practice and integration of the creation and distribution of valuable, compelling and relevant content to attract and retain customers has never been more critical for brands of all sizes (see this Coca-Cola content marketing example if you want some proof).
It didn’t used to be the case. Even though I’ve been trying to get corporate marketers to use the term “content marketing” since 2001, only recently has it caught on (see this Google Trends chart below. If content marketing were a stock, we’d be living the high life.)
To further establish the point, our friends at Blueglass Interactive put together this handy infographic, featuring a number of Content Marketing Institute’s B2B content marketing research statistics. Also thanks for our friends at Mashable for covering this with some additional commentary as well. Enjoy!
The original post is titled Content Marketing Tactics Now Critical to All Businesses [INFOGRAPHIC] , and it came from The Content Marketing Revolution .
The 12 Key Messaging Strategies for Email Lifecycle Marketing
Posted on 27. Jun, 2011 by Chris Sietsema in audience segmentation, Blog, chris sietsema, Email Marketing, Email Marketing Advice, guest post, infographic, lifecycle marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Teach to Fish Digital
Guest post from Chris Sietsema, who teaches and trains small to medium-sized businesses and non-profits in the disciplines of search, social media, email marketing and online analytics. Chris owns Teach to Fish Digital, a one-man consultancy in beautiful Mesa, Arizona. He also created the infographics for The NOW Revolution.
A common challenge for us is to determine what specific messages will resonate with the various segments of our audience throughout the customer lifecycle. What should we be saying to smaller groups of customers based on their interests, individual needs, and history with your brand? If we seek to evade the “one message fits all” approach (as most marketers probably should), how can we ensure that every touchpoint with each customer conveys relevance and builds a solid relationship? The following infographic attempts to solve that quandary specifically for email marketers. However, you may find this logic useful in other modes of marketing communication too.
Please note as you read on that much of this is dependent upon your ability to segment your audience and collect additional information about your customers from surveys or integration with CRM tools. That’s not impossible if you run a smaller business or a pretty lean organization – it just requires a little more elbow grease.
Basics
To start, let’s quickly examine what your email marketing messages should look like with considerations to customer demand and the customer record (i.e. how much you know about that individual customer).
A. Low Demand, Sparse Customer Record: “Welcome” Message
This scenario typically signifies the beginning of a relationship. The contact is a new lead or just purchased a product for the first time. Provide “welcome” messages that inform the customer or prospect all about your offering. Let the individual discover aspects of your offering that are relevant to her, but track behavior accordingly.
B. High Demand, Sparse Customer Record: Quid Pro Quo
After a follow-up inquiry, another purchase or a response to a “welcome” message, you may construe that the customer wants more from you. Take this opportunity to get more data from her. Provide an incentive, special access to premium content, or some other “sleeves off your vest” offering in exchange for more data about that customer.
Here you’ll want to incorporate a short survey that allows you to gather important customer info so you can segment your list further.
C. Low Demand, Better Customer Record: Remarketing
If you have been able to monitor behavior or simply ask for interest data from your recipients, you are in a good spot. In this scenario, you have a decent understanding for what the customer wants. Engage in remarketing efforts to encourage further action from the customer.
D. High Demand, Better Customer Record: Up-Sell or Cross-Sell Opportunities
You know from recent activity that there is demand, and you have also been able to gather some telling info about the customer. At this point, you can begin to segment individuals into specific audience groups, commonly and affectionately referred to as “buckets”. You may decide to create buckets for product/service interest, geographic location, demographics, or other previous purchase behaviors.
Take the opportunity to cross-sell or up-sell your audience in these instances.
The Impact of Time
Now let’s add another crucial element to the equation – time. In the following scenarios, we’ll keep demand low and see how varying levels of customer data and time impact our email marketing messages.
A. Limited Time, Sparse Customer Data: “Thank You” Messaging or Utilize a Survey
After a short period of time, take the opportunity to say “thank you”. The impact of such a simple gesture cannot be overstated. In conjunction, you may find an opportunity to learn more about your new customer or prospect. Include a short survey to build upon your customer data profile.
B. Added Time, Sparse Customer Data: Reactivation Campaign
With extended periods of time and little to no demand from the customer, it may be prudent to create a reactivation campaign. In this instance, you are hoping to learn if the customer is still interested and if so, what will provide the necessary spark to purchase again or resume more frequent contact?
C. Limited Time, Better Customer Data: Remarketing
Where there is limited time or demand, but an abundance of data about the customer, your primary option is to provide relevant marketing messages. Use the response to previous marketing messages to educate and inform subsequent attempts to strengthen ties to your customer segments.
D. Added Time, Better Customer Data: Reactivation Campaign
If there is significant history with the prospect but demand is scarce, engage in a reactivation campaign to win them back. To bluntly paraphrase, the message to your customer with a reactivation or reengagement campaign is this: “$#it or get off the pot.”
Hybrid View: Demand and Time with Great Customer Data Records
Finally, as your email marketing program matures to a point where you have excellent data records for each customer, consider what message types are necessary with regard to demand and time influences.
A. Limited Time, Low Demand: Remarketing
Once again, engage in remarking tactics if your customer has given some indication of what they want from your business.
B. Limited Time, High Demand: Up-Sell or Cross-Sell Opportunities
A healthy customer profile with amazing demand lends itself to up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. Monitor response to such messages to determine what the next message should be.
C. Added Time, Low Demand: Loyalty
Beyond remarking and up-sell/cross-sell messages, an extended stretch with an individual customer but limited current demand provides opportunities for us to encourage loyalty. Anyone who has created a loyalty program in the past knows that this is no easy task. What we are really seeking here is to maintain a positive and meaningful relationship with a customer that has shown great promise previously. Develop messaging that keeps these important contacts happy and potentially pushes them into the next stage…
D. Added Time, High Demand: “Share” Messages
This is the scenario for which every lifecycle marketer strives. It is our euphoric state. Develop a meaningful, long-lasting dialogue with happy customers, and provide opportunities for them to share. Suck out the adoration like marrow from a roasted bone. Invite them to tell you and your other customers what makes you great.
Perhaps this act of sharing is done via social media. Maybe you devise mechanisms to collect this consumer generated content via another means for dissemination in other marketing communique. You may seek to develop a more structured relationship with your top customers (e.g. guest blogging, product reviews and concept validation, special promotion involvement, etc.). Think – Jared from Subway, people.
As these customers know your brand best, encourage them to share that knowledge…and the love. Allow them to be your brand evangelists. In a way, let them do your marketing for you.
Here’s the full infographic for downloading and sharing:
Can you apply this to your current lifecycle marketing program? What about this graphic would you change or improve? I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback.
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