Striking Content Marketing Gold - Direct from the Content Experts

Just finished our first book tour call with my co-author Newt Barrett (@newtbarrett), Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and Paul Gillin (@pgillin).  Fantastic call.  If you missed it, go here now. Much of this is also covered in our book, Get Content. Get Customers. Big thanks to Elizabeth Marshall for putting this together.

I was trying to jot down some golden nuggets from our esteemed panel while the session was going. So, in no particular order, here are some things you may find useful in your content marketing quest for gold.

For an additional resource, download this just updated white paper, "Attract and Retain Customers with Content NOW" (no registration needed...please share. We need all the content marketing believers we can muster. This white paper is great for executives that don't get "it".).

What is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing is all about valuable, relevant and consistent content delivered to a target customer group - the goal of which is to create or maintain behavior.

Content marketing is the art of understanding what your customers need to know and delivering it to them in a compelling way.

Instead of focusing on your product or service and selling them, you devote resources to creating information that your customers and prospects need.

Your marketing is publishing...you are a publisher.

Return on Objective

Paul's ROI Meaning - Risk of Inaction.  Don't get paralyzed into trying to figure our return that you do nothing (get more on this in Paul's new book on Social Media Secrets).

Think "Return on Objective" or measuring each content marketing tactic with a specific action. Chris shared an example of a company who set up listening tools with the purpose of responding faster to customer praise and complaints. Focus on what you want the action to be...that's your return on objective.

Content Marketing Mistakes Made by Marketers

1. They give up on the content program too quickly.  It takes some time to build a real relationship with customers.  Some corporations start a newsletter or blog and expect magic to happen in three months.  Usually doesn’t happen.  Content marketing must be consistently delivered in order to really build a relationship.
2. They don’t understand the informational needs of the customer.  Businesses need to leverage free online tools such as Google Alerts and Twitter as listening posts to then develop great content.
3. They don’t ask for help.  Many companies leave this to internal marketing or pr people.  Many times these people can’t take their sales hats off – so the content isn’t perceived as valuable to the customers.  Almost all businesses can afford to hire a journalist or partner with a custom content provider who has expertise in content that is important to your customers. (That is exactly why we developed Junta42 Match).  And, journalists are being let go by traditional media left and right.  There is a huge opportunity for both journalists and companies to partner with each other right now.
4. They don’t integrate the content program with their overall marketing.  In many companies, a corporate magazine, newsletter or enewsletter seems to fall outside of the other marketing initiatives.  Integrating both can be powerful.
5. They see social media as just another distribution channel for selling – and don’t see it as an opportunity to get closer to customers and begin to better understand their needs.
6. They don’t plan.  You need to plan out good content and not just rush to get content out when you see an opportunity. Editorial calendar anyone?

Useful Content Marketing Tools

• Websitegrader.com - How is your website holding up? What are you not offering that could improve results?
• search.twitter.com - Will help you find out who's talking about what important to your industry.
• flickr groups - Paul says that there are 1200 people in a group that take pictures of bacon. Where's your group? Get involved in what's important to them.
• Communispace - Private and branded communities.
• Google Alerts - Monitor what's going on with words and phrases important to you (including your brand)

Setting Up Listening Posts

In order to create great content, you first have to listen and find out what your customers' informational needs are.

• Survey tools...research doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg - Zoomerang, SurveyMonkey, Constant Contact.
• Twitter - Powerful listening tool.
• Tweetdeck - Having trouble managing or understanding Twitter?  Start by setting up phase searches in Tweetdeck (i.e., "content marketing"). Or try TweetGrid.  Good post by Newt on using TweetGrid as a listening tool.

The B.E.S.T. Formula for Content Marketing Creation

Much more detail in the book on this, but here's the overview questions.

Behavioral
How do we want the customer to feel?
What effect must we achieve with them?
What action do we want them to take?
How will we measure their behavior?
How will we put them on the path to purchase?

Essential
What do our buyers really need to know?
What will provide  the most benefit personally or professionally?
How can we present the content for maximum positive impact?
What media types must we include based on our current/near future customer behavior?

Strategic
Does this content marketing effort help us achieve our strategic goals?
Does it integrate with our other strategic initiatives?

Targeted
Have we precisely indentified the prospects we want to target?
Do we really understand what motivates them?
Do we understand their professional roles?

Case Studies

• Digital Nomads from Dell - Chris says this is a great way for Dell to target a buying niche without actively selling.
• HomeMadeSimple.com - P&G home and living tips site. P&G uses this for research and product development (very successful according to P&G). Also see BeingGirl.com for another example, a site targeting teenage girls (here's the ROI article on BeingGirl.com).
• MasterCard Small Business - 50% of new card signups coming directly from a content page. 322% increase in traffic over one year.
• Out-Law.com from Pinsent Masons - 250,000 uniques per month.  Their sole marketing for the law firm. Two people dedicated to content marketing in the 100 person firm.
• Miller Electric - Big user of content marketing.  Print, online and in-person. Great example of a resources/business tools section here.
• WillitBlend.com from BlendTec - According to Paul, over 120 million video downloads to date. Key to success was that they did a lot of planning in advance of the launch, which consisted of talking to bloggers and leveraging social media - which was a key difference maker.

Final Tips from Brogan, Gillin, Barrett and Pulizzi

• Create content that is byte-sized and has handles...meaning that people can share it and make it actionable. "People don't read Moby Dick anymore" according to Chris.
• Go niche - the smaller the better...and easier to solve your customer's informational needs.
• Call your customers - find out what their challenges are so you can better share relevant content with them.
• Listen first.
• Just starting?...get a nice bed of content that will form the base of your site after you've listened. Why not start with a blog?

For more on each content expert, please visit them on their websites:

• Chris Brogan
• Paul Gillin
• Newt Barrett
• Elizabeth Marshall

If you were on the call...I KNOW I missed many key points.  Can you add in the comments so we can make this a more complete transcript?

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Comments

[Paul Hydzik]

A beautiful thing..."Instead of focusing on your product or service and SELLING them, you devote resources to creating information that your customers and prospects NEED." Because, at the essence, it's all about the customer. And how you connect through your content and conversations.

[Shawn Thompson]

Thanks for the summary. I just knew someone was taking better notes than me. Which allowed me to listen.

[Sam]

Another good tool to marketers is the free competitive analysis tool ReviewMyWeb (http://www.reviewmyweb.com).

Free internet marketing tool for see how you are doing against the competition.

[Terri Holley]

Excellent teleclass and great information. The operative word is "relationships". The more relevant we are with our prospects, the stronger our relational capital. As a social media strategist and certified coach, I believe our ability to build strong relationships is the most important factor in successfully executing a social or conventional marketing campaign. And as more people become increasingly discriminate about how, when and where they spend their money, businesses that leverage their ability to build and strengthen relationships will not only thrive in today's economic climate, they will grow exponentially as things begin to improve.

[Debbie Corkin - Corkin Associates]

Content marketing just makes sense! The trouble is...how do we educate executives who still believe the traditional ways are the only way?

[Joe Pulizzi]

Hi Debbie...good question. Well, everyone will come around after a while...but to speed up the process, I've given the book to a few executives who then began to adopt content marketing.

Those that don't understand aren't in tune to how people are making buying decisions. It's not that traditional marketing goes away...not at all. It's integrating the power of information into your total marketing strategy.

[Shortcuts to Millions]

Content Marketing is a consistent , relevant and content oriented means to market focusing target customer segments according to behaviors and perspectives .