5 Content Marketing Assets You Forgot You Had
Posted on 24. Apr, 2012 by Stanford Smith in Blog, content marketing, Guest Posts, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, storytelling
Stanford Smith obsesses about how to get small business blogs noticed and promoted at Pushing Social, except when he’s chasing large mouth bass!
It’s usually a look of pure terror.
I’m sitting across the desk from a professional and confident marketing executive. We’ve discussed the benefits of social business. He is on board with making the changes needed to create a culture that embraces customer collaboration and is ready to get started, but we have one thing left to cover…his content marketing plan.
Specifically, how to produce interesting content and how to publish it on a regular basis.
That’s where that look of terror comes in.
He fears that his business doesn’t have anything to say that would interest consumers. His fear deepens when he realizes the need to publish relevant (even epic) content on a regular basis.
Fortunately, producing amazing content marketing isn’t as daunting as many think.
In fact, most businesses are sitting on a treasure trove of entertaining and relevant content that their prospects and customers would love.
They just need to find unlock it.
Here are five places to look:
Testimonials and Case Studies
Have you created a process for identifying satisfied customers and recording their stories? Customers love to see the experiences of others who have considered doing business with you. These testimonials and case studies add credibility to your value proposition.
One testimonial can turn into a formal case study, a video for YouTube, and add practical depth to a whitepaper. Gather your customer-facing staff and identify current “fans” and create a process for capturing their stories.
Stats Are Sexy
Many businesses collect data that their customers would find extremely valuable. B2B companies are particularly suited for finding and producing statistically based content. The best way to get started is to create a survey and distribute it to your customer base. Take the survey results and create an insightful special report or whitepaper. Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Marketing Industry Report is an excellent example.
You can expand the reach of your reports by turning them into presentations for SlideShare and creating a simple video for YouTube.
Turn Your Customers into Stars
Every business has a marque customer that is a reliable source of recommendations and referrals. Turn this customer into a celebrity. Create a content series that promotes the customer’s business and their use of your product.
Cast your customer as the hero and your product as the trusty sidekick. Add staying power to your promotion by creating a series of blog posts supported by Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn promotion. Don’t be surprised if your customer makes your content the centerpiece of their marketing attracting additional prospects for free.
Day-to-Day Business
37Signals, the creator of Basecamp, recently released a major upgrade to its popular collaboration software.
During their release promotion, they published several videos documenting the development of the software. These videos were supported by blog videos and quick visual sketches of user interfaces. The additional content was a hit with tech startups and small business owners who admire 37Signals’ culture and marketing savvy. Of course, these same folks were in Basecamp’s target audience too!
You can do the same in your business. Grab a camera and record key brainstorming sessions, one-off interviews with team members, and impromptu celebrations. Your fans will love the insider’s glimpse, and you’ll attract new customers as well.
Employees
Your employees are prolific content creators. Customer service personnel create customer satisfaction stories on a daily basis. Your sales team has a gold mine of field-tested value proposition tales at the fingertips. Take a moment to ask and you’ll be shocked how many bloggers, Twitter addicts, and Facebook mavens you have at your disposal.
As always, harness this creative energy with social media policies and incentives that educate and empower your employees while protecting your brand.
Time to Go Hunting
Spend some time talking with your employees, sales team, and customers before you write your company off as being too boring or tight-lipped to produce great content. You’ll be surprised by how much content is sitting right at your fingertips.
Online Marketing News: Pinterest’s Sneaky Tactics, Keeping Leaders Honest, 100 Million Videos Watched Per Day
Posted on 10. Feb, 2012 by Ashley Zeckman in Blog, content marketing, Search Engines, Search Industry News, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, storytelling, yahoo
How Social Media Keeps Leaders Honest
David Jones of Havas and Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore recently sat down to talk about the responsibilities of the leaders of today to respond to social media, and how it holds them accountable.
“Google Clarifies: No, Ads Shouldn’t Help Rankings & No, SEO Isn’t Bad” Recent comments made by a new Google employee have some SEO’s up in arms. Apparently his comments included “SEO isn’t good for users” and “It’s a bug that you could rank highly in Google without buying ads.” Curious to know what else he has to say and what reaction this has caused within the online community? Via Search Engine Land.
“100 Million Americans Watch Online Video Per Day. Up 43% Since 2010- comScore” According to comScore Americans streamed 43.5 billion videos in December 2011 alone. This is an increase of 44% over the previous year. With this astronomical jump in online views, is television in trouble? Via TechCrunch.
“The Next Big Social Network Is You” Many companies are trying to address the now common social network exhaustion. Between the constantly shifting policy changes and programming updates many users are getting tired. This opinion piece shares that in the near future it will be less about your number of followers and more about a smaller group of well-connected individuals. What do you think? Via Information Week.
“5 Essential Spreadsheets for Social Media Analytics” If you are involved in social media, and are a small business this post provides some useful tools for measuring your data. Want to know the best part? They’re free, customizable, and easy to use. Via Mashable.
“Brand Storytelling Lessons You Can Steal from Hollywood” Innovation, a term we seem to hear quite frequently these days. As a content marketer innovation is especially important because not only must you attract customers, you must veer them away from your competition. Paying close attention to Hollywood entertainment and the way that promotion is done in that industry is a great means for discovering new ideas. Via Content Marketing Institute.
TopRank Team News
Alexis Hall – Report: National Marketers Love Local, Fail At Basic Tactics
This post discusses survey results from late 2011 which revealed that although many marketers have the perception they are highly invested in local advertising, survey results show they are failing when it comes to basic tactics, like management of local directory listings. Those seemingly small tactics can have a big impact on local results, so if marketers are really invested in their online local presence, they must be diligent when it comes to education on all types of tactics. Via Search Engine Land.
Ken Horst – Pinterest is quietly generating revenue by modifying user submitted pins
It appears as though Pinterest has found a way to monetize their site, even at this early beta stage. Most people would say that’s a good thing however the way they are making money has some people crying foul.
Pinterest is using a service called SkimLinks to add an affiliate link wherever there is a link to a product page that has an affiliate program. It’s not the idea that people are concerned about, it’s the fact that Pinterest is doing this without providing any disclosure to its users. Via LLsocial.
Brian Larson – Bing Now A Full Point Ahead of Yahoo In Search Share-comScore
According to comScore, Bing is now a full point ahead of Yahoo! in search share. While Google’s search results are highly flavored by Google+, Bing receives streams of information from Facebook and Twitter. With Yahoo! In Bing’s rear view mirror, is Google next? Via Search Engine Land.
Time to Weigh In: What do you think of Pinterest’s money making tactics? Smart move or too far? With so many American’s consuming video on a daily basis, are you including video in your 2012 online marketing strategy?
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Online Marketing News: Pinterest’s Sneaky Tactics, Keeping Leaders Honest, 100 Million Videos Watched Per Day | http://www.toprankblog.com
The Power of Persuasion: Storytelling & Personas in Content Marketing
Posted on 19. Dec, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, content marketing, personas, persuasion, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media, storytelling
I attended University a very long time ago, where I started out pursuing Graphic Design and then transitioned to an interdepartmental degree: Sociology, Industrial Psychology and Business. Art was interesting, but I was only mildly talented and there was no digital program (this was pre-internet). As I look at the state of the social web today, I am amazed at what a dynamic and interesting time we live in. I wonder what it would be like, studying social psychology and organizational development now, with the ubiquity of the social web and transformation of internet access from PCs to mobile devices.
One area of interest to me is the impact of persuasion and behaviors. Not just individual behaviors, but that of groups. Since I’m in the business of marketing, it’s an interesting intersection between my past studies and what many companies are in need of today in terms of understanding social technology adoption, social communications, knowledge transfer, community and collaboration.
While many people consider me a “SEO guy” or that in combination with PR, Social and Content, I am and always have been a marketer. My job has always been to connect customers with companies for mutual benefit. Whether that involves optimizing content for discovery through search, social influence or awareness through industry media isn’t as important as knowing the difference between the vehicle and the outcome. And the “why”.
Marketers can get tactically proficient and even scientific about SEO signals, social technologies or information distribution platforms, but in the end it’s an understanding of those customers and what influences them that helps most with the process of persuasion. A lot of channel-specific marketers focus on how communication platforms work vs. how customers understand those platforms or even why they use them.
I’d like to point out that while I am a strong advocate of customer-centric marketing and how that manifests as persona development, it doesn’t mean I think customers should dictate all marketing. There are many, many scenarios where customers don’t know any better, don’t know what they want, or where the perception of need can be created through compelling story. Those situations call for an understanding of customers and then creative efforts to “tell them what they want” for lack of a better phrase. Whether we’re reacting to customers, anticipating their needs or leading them – an understanding of what persuades differente customer groups is essential.
Besides asking what keywords are most relevant and which social platforms customers are using, shouldn’t we wonder why a certain customer uses search in the first place? Why do they use social? What influences them to use both and in what situations? What kinds of content are most persuasive and in what contexts?
The follow-up to those types of questions is, “How can brands better understand the influences that motivate customers to act?” and “What content and signals of credibility do we need to create?”
Let’s say you have an objective of persuading a group of potential customers to change their behavior. It may be a scenario where there are commonly held, yet outdated beliefs and your brand is the solution. It might be as fundamental as a new product that solves an existing problem in a different way.
One of the first steps is to profile those potential customers in terms of preferences and behaviors.
- What do they currently believe to be true?
- What are their objections to doing what you’ll be persuading them to do?
- What are their primary influences?
- What motivates their behaviors?
- What outcomes are most attractive to them?
- What would limit implementation, use and acceptance of your persuasion objective?
Profiling the target audience in this way in combination with translating the information into a content plan can then be transformed into a holistic approach involving a mix of Paid, Owned, Earned and Shared media. One aspect of such a campaign would involve storytelling through content. You know, “Facts Tell, Stories Sell”.
Finding stories that represent examples of customer archetypes that have made the transition from previous behaviors to the desired behaviors and outcomes is a great starting point. This logic is pretty common in advertising where a storyline of, “I used to think this, then I found out that, and that’s why I use/buy from company 123.” is presented.
Those stories that are tailored specifically for the personas for each major segment of the target audience can provide the information and inspiration needed to make fundamental changes in their awareness, perception, acceptance and transition to the desired outcome.
The narrative for each storyline should empathize with the current situation and provide reasonable and practical steps for overcoming objections as well as clear steps for making changes. Motivations for change can vary by persona, so it’s important to identify a structure that allows for such variances. The success stories have to be real of course and not appear so different that outcomes are not attainable.
The format for content in such a situation can run the gamut of text, digital, video, audio, images, events, email and so on – according to what is known about the target customer group. Whenever there’s content, there’s a need for “Optimize and Socialize” to facilitate attraction, engagement and sharing. Additional considerations include how content will move customers through attraction to conclusion.
- Discovery
- Engagement
- Comprehension
- Internalization
- Enhancement
- Engagement
- Conclusion
- Sharing
As stories are told, it’s important to find and promote early successes as well as create a process for engaging with prospects, conversion, implementation and identifying success. Success stories can be small, tactical examples or more strategic and comprehensive. The role of search in such a scenario is to optimize for discovery but also to analyze search data, interactions and conversions for continued efforts at message refinement. Of course, this has been made somewhat more difficult by Google’s decision to encrypt logged-in search referring keywords. The same attention to social analytics would also apply. In the end, those success stories can become the spokespeople for future growth, engagement and conversion.
Maybe what I’m suggesting in this post doesn’t seem so different from what content marketers are already doing. What I do know is that there’s a lot of opportunity to bring in customer insight and brand storytelling into optimization and social media marketing communications. I think digging into a lot of the “why” customers are motivated and influenced as well as the “why” they use search and social technologies will help online marketers better understand how to use content and persuasive storytelling to attract, engage and inspire customers to buy.
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
The Power of Persuasion: Storytelling & Personas in Content Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com
Four Stories Every Business Must Build
Posted on 21. Sep, 2011 by John Jantsch in Blog, Commit, Duct Tape Marketing, personality, positioning, purpose, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, storytelling
Four Stories Every Business Must Build
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Stories build commitment. They allow us to go on journeys in search of our best self. They entertain, simplify, and inspire. They are easy to share. Great leaders are often great storytellers.
Sugar Pond via Flickr
The power of story as a business building and marketing tool is undeniable. A simple story can draw upon our emotional desires in ways that reams and reams of logical data never will.
While an uplifting story or even a tragic story can capture the listener’s interest, the real power of storytelling in business is that it permits a business to illustrate values and beliefs in action.
It’s one thing to say we’re trustworthy and quite another to share a story about the day your employees went without a paycheck because they so believed in what you were building and trusted you would make things right when you recovered from this unforeseen challenge.
I believe that every business must find and tell their core stories over and over again and then they must invite their employees, customers and networks to help build these stories into journeys worth taking over and over again.
Below are four core stories that must live in every business
The Passion Story
The is often the owner’s story, a tale of why they started the business, how the business serves their own personal mission or purpose in life. Why they get up and go to work, why they love what they do or what happened in life that set them on their current path.
The interior of the Grand Jury hearing room was anything but grand. It consisted of a handful of plastic chairs arranged in a way that made the jurists feel more like an audience than a court appointed arm of the United States Justice Department. Although I distinctly remember the lights, maybe it was me, but they seemed awfully bright.
What could I possibly have to offer as a witness in a hearing determined to bring federal charges upon one of my clients? As it turned out I was very boring witness with nothing to offer the case, but it was a turning point in my business and perhaps my life.
In the effort to build my business I had taken on a client that I knew was doing things I couldn’t support, that were counter to my own values, and I knew also in that moment that I would never again do business with a customer I didn’t respect.
And that’s part of my passion story. (To get the rest you need to buy the tell all book. Well, not really.)
The Purpose Story
This is mostly the story about why you do what you do in business and not at all about what you do. For many people this can be a story about mission or higher calling, but it can also be about who you serve and why.
When I was just starting to dream up the concept of Duct Tape Marketing I was operating my business as a traditional local marketing agency and doing work for organizations large and small – although I had already determined that I loved working with small business owners the most.
I had completed a very small amount of work for a very large organization and sent them in invoice for $1,525.00. When they paid the invoice, 90 days later, I opened the envelope and found a check for $152,500.00.
While there was a moment of temptation, I knew I had to return the check. I called and was directed to the five forms I needed to complete in order to return the check if I was to have any hope of getting my original bill paid.
That was the day I determined I was going to work with small business owners exclusively and set out to figure out how I could do that. There’s something equal parts gratifying and terrifying about doing work directly for the person paying the bill.
And that’s part of my purpose story.
The Positioning Story
This is the story that illustrates how you want the market to perceive your brand. Of course, perception is partly a goal and partly a measurement because some things are out of your hands. A true positioning story, however, is one that authentically captures your purpose in action – it’s how purpose is packaged in a way that allows the intended market to connect.
And, the best positioning, the best positioning stories can usually be summed up in one word.
Early on in my marketing consulting business I was invited to be part of a pitch for a very large piece of business. It was a national firm that wanted to hire a national ad agency, but also include a local marketing support company for the local branch.
The New York ad agency sent five people, all clad in black head to toe and armed with a 100-page deck filled with research and recommendations.
When it came time for me to offer my two cents I said something like – I don’t know, why don’t we just talk to some of your current customers? The meeting ended and the next day the VP that was conducting the search called and said he wanted me to do the entire project without the New York ad agency. To this day I can hear him say why – “you were the only one that said anything that was practical.”
And that’s part of my positioning story.
The Personality Story
This is the story that gets at how people experience your purpose or brand. This is the story that illustrates the traits that are on display in every action, product, service, decision, hire, process or promotion.
There’s a story behind how I came up with the name Duct Tape Marketing, but the real reason this name has served my brand so well is the association that people already have with all things duct tape. This allows them to connect their own personal stories of simple, effective and affordable use of this cuddly gray sticky stuff. (Okay, cuddly might be over the top, but you get it.)
The name comes packaged with its own personality traits and the only trick is to make sure that people experience the brand and the business in that same way.
And now for where the name came from . . . with apologies to my daughters.
My wife I decided to take a little mini vacation and figured the two oldest girls (high school sophomore and junior) could act as babysitters. You probably know where this is going and you’re right.
The party peeked at about 100 people I’m told. One of the guests decided to take my car for spin as well and bumped it into something just hard enough to knock a piece of plastic bumper off. In an effort to hide the damage my daughters duct taped the piece masterfully back in place.
There is a chance they would have gotten away with it too, but they carelessly left the role of duct tape sitting on the car hood, creating immediate suspicion when we arrived home.
The thing is, that’s when I knew Duct Tape Marketing would be the perfect name. If a sixteen year old could recognize the simple, effective and affordable use, then it might just be universally true as well.
And that’s part of my personality story.
Content, Social & SEO Lead Customers to Great Experiences
Posted on 07. Jul, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, content marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media, storytelling, user experience
My friend Bob Knorpp has a good piece on AdAge this week:”Why Marketers Should Break Free of the Digital Content Trap” about the fallacy of content. He makes some good points about companies going through the motions of creating and promoting content on social channels with motivations of retweets, likes, shares and links over real engagement. I have to agree where he says, “content alone is a dead end for ongoing engagement”.
While many savvy online marketers don’t see content as a shortsighted substitute for social strategy or simply as a SEO tactic, but a proxy to creating customer experiences, there are even more who do. Content is a vehicle for discovery, engagement and sharing. Content is the mechanism for storytelling and if social and search optimization are also involved in a qualitative way to aid in discovery and sharing of those stories – then all the better.
Bob makes great points about the need to think of new ways to approach digital storytelling beyond single dimensions like videos that “go viral” and infographics that spread like wildfire on Twitter and Facebook. Engagement is indeed more than a click, a share or a link.
In the way that many business bloggers and marketers approach online marketing with an egocentric perspective, promoting messages they want to persuade audiences with vs. empathizing with customer needs and interests, many agencies that create content are more interested in creative self expression over experiences that are truly meaningful to customers.
In our Hub / Spoke and Constellation models for content marketing, we emphasize an understanding of customer needs and behaviors through persona development and attention to variances during the buying cycle. Those insights, combined with ongoing monitoring and engagement, drive content marketing strategy and the creative mix of content objects designed to help prospects have meaningful experiences with the brand.
The content itself is made easier to discover in more relevant ways through search engine optimization and social media optimization. A “Socialize and Optimize” approach to content marketing increases the connections between consumers that are looking (i.e. searching) and discussing (social networking) topics of relevance to the brand solution.
I’ve said it before, great content isn’t great until it’s discovered, consumed and shared. Littering the social web with scheduled Tweets, status updates and blog posts alone is not engagement and certainly not creating the kind of experience that builds brand or motivates customers to buy, be loyal or advocate.
What say you? Can great user experience and storytelling co-exist with social media marketing and SEO?
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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
Content, Social & SEO Lead Customers to Great Experiences | http://www.toprankblog.com
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