In working with our clients, as well as dealing with our own content and custom publishing practices, here are some key questions that businesses need to continually remind themselves of in order to grow. Often, these are overlooked, but are extremely important.
- Are you and your executives easily reachable by phone or email? Many businesses make it extremely difficult for their executives to be contacted directly. Consumers now expect that they can reach anyone at any time. This is the new reality we live in. Make sure that your contact information is current and that your employees can be easily contacted by customers and prospective buyers. Email addresses and direct contact information is a must.
- Are you keeping your content promises? If you deliver consistent information to your customers via email or print, are you staying on schedule? You have made a commitment as an organization and a business partner to keep set dates, whether daily, weekly or monthly. Be sure to adhere to your editorial calendars. By missing dates, you fall off the radar screen, which makes it difficult to continue long-term relationships.
- Are you honest with yourself about your content expertise? Most businesses are set up to create and distribute products and services, not consistent, valuable and relevant content. Most marketing departments are not equipped with the journalistic talent to make sure that the content you are creating is as good or better than anything else out there. Is your content first rate? If not, look into hiring a journalist or content team to manage your content projects (which is why we created Junta42 Match).
- Are you expecting the media companies in your industry to keep your customers and prospects educated on the information that is important to your business? If you are, don't rely on outside sources. Shouldn't you be providing this type of information? Shouldn't you be the expert resource that your customer and prospects turn to?
- Are you on the cutting edge of your customers' behavioral patterns? How are they making their decisions? What information are they using to make those decisions? Are they starting with the web first, as most seem to be (IBM notes that 95% of buying decisions in their sectors start on the web)? To find this out, you need to be talking with your customers on a consistent basis (talk to them, don't just sell them). What are their challenges and pain points? How can you solve their problems, not just with services, but the content and information you create on a consistent basis?
By answering and continually monitoring these questions, you WILL grow and be successful. Simple, yet complicated, at the same time. The information you create and distribute as a corporation is what fosters the customer conversation. If you don't consistently create valuable, relevant and compelling content, why would anyone want to have a conversation with you?
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I like this approach to these critical factors - it helps crystallize these elements for those just starting to understand the power of content. My experiences has taught me that an extension to number 4 is the question "Are you willing to create content that your customers are interested in?" I've found over the last 8 or so years that one of the most important (yet difficult) gaps I've had to bridge for my customers is the one between what they want to say and what their customers are interested in. Sometimes they can't understand why content about scrapbooking helps sell printers or why purchasing advice not just focused on their products can increase preference for their brand.
Data is a truly persuasive tool. When I can show the efficacy of content that customers really care about and draw a correlation between that content and my client's business objective the conversations become much easier.
Posted by: Natanya Anderson | July 05, 2008 at 09:39 AM
That is a nice article. You give some direction on the web content producer, Yeah you are right there some of what you mention are being neglected sometimes.
http://fresh-web-content.com
Posted by: Trixie | July 07, 2008 at 01:40 AM
That is a nice article. You give some direction on the web content producer, Yeah you are right there some of what you mention are being neglected sometimes.
http://fresh-web-content.com
Posted by: Trixie | July 07, 2008 at 01:41 AM
That is a nice article. You give some direction on the web content producer, Yeah you are right there some of what you mention are being neglected sometimes.
http://fresh-web-content.com
Posted by: Trixie | July 07, 2008 at 01:41 AM