I sat on a panel yesterday with best-selling author and speaker David Meerman Scott, where David talked at length on the concept of Real-Time Marketing and PR (check out his book here and see him speak at Content Marketing World here).
Could this be your future home page?
Two points resonated with me:
- That all websites in the future will look like news sites, similar to msnbc.com and the Wall Street Journal online.
- That the idea of creating content marketing in the form of a news service is public relations. It’s also marketing. It’s also social media.
What does it mean to start a news service?
Simply put, it means that you become the media company for your industry niche and your customers. For example, if you were a manufacturer that targeted plant managers, you would be covering issues like:
- The latest research on plant quality issues
- What plant managers around the world are doing to enhance productivity
- Companies that are expanding, contracting and why this is important to the plant manager
Every day, as part of your overall marketing, you cover the industry. You become the go-to source on everything that happens in your market…and as you become better at it, you could rival the leading publishers in your industry.
Is a News Service Social Media, PR or Marketing?
Yes. The benefits of a news service solve social media, PR and marketing objectives. For example, your news content will be shared and syndicated through social media channels [social media]. Because you are the news source, other media outlets will begin to pick up your stories [public relations]. Your content will be linked to and rise up the search engine ranks [marketing] and ultimately people will find you and buy from you [sales].
Do You Have a Choice?
If we’ve learned anything, we know that having a content marketing mindset does not mean that you stop your advertising, exhibiting at trade shows or other developing other marketing campaigns. But when it comes to online, getting attention means providing ongoing, helpful solutions. Every day that goes by, this becomes more the case.
Will creating industry news be a cost of doing business – for any business? I think it might.
How Do I Start a News Service?
Here’s a cheat sheet to getting started:
- Get a content strategy. Don’t just create content for content’s sake. Be sure that you understand how this could help your business, how it integrates with the rest of your marketing, and how, at least in the beginning, you can measure performance.
- Get a chief content officer…a person like a chief editor in a publishing operation that understands the needs of the reader and can champion the story in your organization. Content is owned by all departments in an organization in some way (PR, Marketing, Social Media, Search, etc.), but you need someone to bring it all together.
- Make an executive commitment that, as part of being the leading provider of widget A, B or C, that you dedicate your organization to becoming the leading informational resource for your customers and prospects. Content programs with executive support are 300% more likely to succeed.
- Get your employees involved in the effort. Find the 10-15% that see the promise of this initiative and feel it could enhance their careers.
- Get systems in place. Content management systems, marketing automation/CRM, insourced or outsourced editorial, etc.
- Think 10 to 1. One story can be repurposed and repackaged into many pieces of engaging content. As part of your content strategy, understand, as a process, how one article can be a blog post, a tweet, a facebook post, a slideshare presentation, part of a white paper, a case study and so on. Planning up front makes this work. Not planning makes this impossible.
All that said, most senior marketers still look at something like this as a risk. It’s new. There are no standard measurement systems for it. Fear is completely reasonable.
Today you have the time to think about it, but know that your competitors are trying to figure this out right now. Simply put, you can’t afford to wait too long.
15 Comments
Great piece Joe. At Coyne, we talk about ‘sector-based journalism’ quite a bit and the great opportunity for our clients to be seen as the leading resource for media and target audiences in their respective field.
This is definitely an area worth watching in the future.
I agree and yet, disagree.
I agree that successful marketing, PR, sales, or just a successful business for that matter, is part social and part content. That is to say successful businesses communicate and deliver (social) value and benefit (content).
I disagree that every business has to become a news service. This is a wonderful article and as an advisor to small businesses, I find it informative and validating.
If I’m a small business owner manufacturing, selling, repairing ‘things’ – or advising others how to do so – reading this article, I’m fainting from exhaustion and hopelessness. There aren’t enough hours in the day or days in the week to be a news service AND run a business. Integrating social media into my marketing efforts? Yes. Becoming a news service? Uhmm. I’m going to pass out.
Don’t get me wrong – I admire and have followed David Meerman Scott’s work for a long time and am happy to have come across your work as well. And yes, content IS the message and content is king. I appreciate your posts and the information you share in your news service.
At the same time –”Content Marketing”, “News Service”, “Social Object” are the flavors of the day; the next race to the next hot keyword phrase in a SEO battle among we social media gurus for web traffic, eyeballs and attaboys rather than anything new. For most small businesses, the “News Service” angle is just, pardon me, silly.
Lynnelle…I hear you. We are a small business and I understand that choices have to be made.
Whether you call this a news service or consistently providing valuable, relevant and compelling content, all businesses need to integrate this into their marketing (or at least consider it). I believe it’s not if, but when.
There are thousands of journalists and content providers just waiting to get the chance to work with small businesses on these kinds of initiatives. And, this is especially true for B2B.
So we can agree to disagree, but those who do this will have a substantial competitive advantage over businesses in their industry that don’t do it. We are already seeing this happen.
Joe,
I agree with you and David, but I think there’s a danger people need to be aware of. News sites just report the news. I think what you’re advocating is a sort of curation. News items concerning a certain industry or type of product/service are collected, formatted and displayed. The danger then is that my content is exactly the same as my competitors’. The task, if you’re going to take this route, is more sophisticated and onerous than collecting and formatting. A good portion of these news items should be evaluated and commented on. The ‘voice’ of that business website should have an opinion on appropriate items and should express them.
I agree with you Bob, but I also think this is not one size fits all. Covering “newsworthy” information can be done in a variety of ways, to solve a variety of marketing objectives. Either way, it’s something to be considered.
It was great to connect yesterday, Joe. So lad that our ideas mesh! There is a huge opportunity out there for organizations of all kinds.
Thanks Joe. Great and inspiring info!
Hey Joe,
While I agree with the notion of creating a News Service, I think the term “News Service” may be relevant more to the opportunities for B2Bs, like in the example cited, or certain NPOs, etc. For instance, where “News Service” makes sense for many B2B industries, perhaps “Lifestyle Publication” is a better objective for certain types of B2C company to consider.
In either case, the objective is still the same: you’re seeking to become the indispensable “definitive resource” or “authority” on your product, service or cause category through publishing. And, as you’ve aptly pointed out, if you don’t do this now, your competitor will!
As I’ve shared with you, one of our clients has succeeded so well in what’s described here that they have received inquiries about whether or not advertising is available on their site! Imagine … A manufacturer’s site, on which compatible industries are interested in buying advertising.
Thanks for the post; I’ll definitely be referring folks to this one!
Great ideas! Great challenge! I am onboard with David Meerman Scott and I also very much appreciate the other perspectives offered in the preceding comments. As a small business coach I often wonder why business owners think anyone would want to visit their websites more than once! Regardless of what we call it, having fresh and valuable content is vital and even a non-negotiable.
Joe, I agree with your approach, though my perspective is from higher education rather than a business. About six months ago, we redesigned our home page (www.outreach.vt.edu) to include several news/feature photos and news/feature stories that we swap out a few times a month. I was just looking at Google analytics and found our unique views had increased 170 percent. And that was without much overt promotion of the website, which represents Outreach and International Affairs at Virginia Tech.
Excellent Andrea. Wonderful feedback.
Great piece, Joe – I wholeheartedly agree with you (and David) on the need for marketing to shift to a more journalistic approach. To Lynette’s comment and concern, perhaps taking the argument one step further is helpful. Large B2B companies may well need to look toward MSNBC.com or the Wall St Journal online as models — and, like major news organizations today, also figure out how to position themselves against competitive marketers, where to focus (e.g., hard news, features, investigative reporting, culture, etc.). For the small businesses that Lynette writes about, though, perhaps the weekly suburban paper is a better model: a few short features, news squibs, listings, and so on — and, increasingly, a focus on involving the local community with content production as well as interaction (this could be customer reviews, customer news items, etc.).
Overall, I agree most businesses need to look in this direction, but scale is a huge concern. If companies are spending 1-5% of revenue (or less) on marketing, the question is then how much should be put into this area. I’d suggest a pretty sizable share (maybe 30%) but that not’s going to create something like the Wall St Journal for any but the largest firms!
Hi Rob…I see your point on spending, but it all depends. A lot can be accomplished with speed, employees and partnerships. It’s not the size anymore that matters…and sometimes, smaller is better.
This was a timely article for me this morning. We have been reworking our website for a few weeks now and have been toying with some different templates. I like this approach and will be bringing it up to our team today. Thanks for the article sir.
Hi Joe –
I read your post and all of the comments and have and noted some hang-ups with the phrase “News Service”.
The key takeaway is your point that all organizations need to be publishing content.
At iPressroom (disclosure, I am the CEO and we are a hosted content management software provider of online newsrooms, microsites and multimedia sites), we recommend clients focus on an ongoing strategy of publishing content that is; Frequent, Authentic, Relevant and Engaging (F.A.R.E.).
We view social media sites, search engines and other sites that are NOT your own website as “other neighborhoods” and your own site as your “home”.
Objectives for online communications are typically focused on reputation management (nurturing relationships), increased visibility (new relationships), word or mouth referrals, news coverage, influencer outreach, etc. But, at the end of the day, you’re looking for people to take an action; download the whitepaper, buy the product, sign-up for a trial, register for the event, invest, write an article, etc. In most cases, to take those actions online, you want people to come back to your own website (corporate, organizational, small biz, etc.).
To accomplish these goals and get people to come back to you, you need the ability to easily publish content in all the forms and formats expected today (video, blog content, infographics, audio, microblog content, etc.) and publish it to your own site and THEN distribute it to “other neighborhoods” (Facebook, Twitter, Search, LinkedIn, YouTube, newswires, etc.).
Our clients range from UCLA, Target and Toyota, to niche B2B firms and local cities and municipalities with niche audiences. True, the larger firms have more content, but that does not mean that ALL companies cannot benefit (increased visibility, stronger relationships/reputation, more actions/conversions) from an ongoing effort publishing Frequent, Authentic, Relevant and Engaging content. Again, to some firms frequent could mean hourly, and to others it might mean weekly. Nevertheless, the more marketing and PR are able to focus on the content that is authentic, relevant and engaging (could be entertaining or informative) the more your visibility and ultimately desirable web traffic will result.
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