The Battle For Customer Attention
It used to be so easy. With the right amount of budget and the right Madison Avenue “Mad Men,” any business could reach their target audience.
But now, the consumer marketplace is fragmented almost beyond recognition. We receive more marketing messages than we can handle and the battle for customer attention has moved from being mainly about the medium to technology to content.
If “content is king,” then customer attention is the “Holy Grail.”
That was how I kicked off my presentation to the International Advertisers Association in New York on January 20, 2012. Here is an overview of the presentation and the slides as well…
How To Generate ROI (Return On Interesting) With Content Marketing
Lately I have been having some very passionate discussions about the best place to start in Content Marketing. Do you start with products, personas or topics?
You have heard me rant before about the biggest marketing mistake when we use our website and too much outbound promotion to just talk about ourselves. So you can eliminate product as the starting point.
This brings us to the question of whether to start with personas or topics?
Recently one of my colleagues discussed the concept of “Return On Interesting” with Content Strategy. And he talked about how to use “Audience Marketing” to get started. I think it’s brilliant, and so I thought I should explain the basic concepts he presented to all of you here…
Email Ain’t Dead! 5 Steps To Building Stronger Email Relationships [REPORT]
Despite what you may think, email ain’t dead. In fact, it is tied with search engines as the most popular online activity according to the latest Pew Internet survey.
And it is still the number one way people share information according to AOL/Nielsen.
No, email isn’t dead. It is still very much a thriving aspect of the marketing mix and a key activity in building customer relationships.
The challenge with email is not whether to use it, but how to use it effectively to build on the relationships so important to the success of your business.
When Content Strategy Meets Social Activation – A #ProfsChat Review
People often ask, “which comes first the channel or the content?” And the answer is that both content and channel are important.
Why have a social channel or a website or a paid media program with no clear content strategy to support your objectives? And what is the point of having great content, if no one can find it?
Last Friday, I was honored to be the guest for @MarketingProfs #Profschat. And although we were competing with a webinar by the amazing Nancy Duarte, we still had a strong showing by some super smart people who shared their thoughts on the subject.
So with a big thanks to Megan Leap for having me on the tweetchat, here is a transcript of the 112 best quotes and tweets from the event…
Have The Right Content. Help Your Buyers. Get More Customers.
I have been struggling with this dilemma for months. When you talk to most marketers and even the majority of business people, they get that the web, social media, mobile devices and the content we place on these channels are all important factors in driving real business results.
But then the questions arise: How? What is Content Marketing and this thing called a Content Strategy? And more importantly, how do I execute it?
Well I am going to propose some answers. And in doing so, I’ve created what I believe is the only chart you will ever need to explain the benefit of a content strategy for your business.
What is Thought Leadership and Why Do you Need It?
These were some of the questions asked recently at the #profschat back on September 16th by @MProfsEvents and the good folks @MarketingProfs.
During the one-hour “tweetchat” that occurs every Friday from 12-1pm EST, there was a great dialogue on the definition, the need and the value of Thought Leadership.
If you write a personal blog or help manage your company’s blog, you already know the value that blogging can provide as a tool for Thought Leadership.
I’ve been discussing the need for Content Strategy in B2B Marketing for some time now. But here I will share some of the insights from the discussion as well as 5 steps to create thought leadership that drives real results…
Content Strategy Visualized – The Blog Tree Sprouts New Growth
The most popular article I’ve written thus far posed the question: “will content strategy save marketing?”
The question is being asked by marketing leaders at companies large and small. And it is being answered by thought leaders like Ardath Albee, Ann Handley and CC Chapman, by the emergence of experts like the folks at The Content Marketing Institute, and in blogs like Junta42 by Joe Pulizzi.
When I speak about content strategy, I often see eyes glaze over . . . until I show them the Eloqua Content Grid and talk about the amazing progress made by their VP of Content Strategy Joe Chernov. (They recently updated the grid to a much-improved Content Grid v2.)
They followed the Content Grid with the highly successful Blog Tree and have just announced an update: the New Blog Tree.
So If you are looking for real examples of how to define and execute a content strategy, look no further than the visualizations created by Joe and his team…
The Most Important Question In Business…
…is “how are you doing?”
When I started my career as an account executive, I found out very quickly that customers and prospects rolled their eyes the moment I started talking about my company and our services.
I would ask them if they’d like to hear about our new product release…crickets.
I would ask if I could bring my sales manager in for a meeting with my main contact’s boss…crickets.
I would ask if they had any budget they needed to spend…”nice try!”
But when I asked about them, when I asked about their business challenges, fears or aspirations, they lit up like a Christmas tree. And that is how (through lots of trial and error in business and in dating) I found out that I needed to stop talking about myself and ask that most important question: “how are you doing?”
The Traditional Marketing Playbook Is Dead!
Are you tired of being badgered by sales people before you are ready to buy?
In some organizations, the primary role of marketing is simply to help sales make a deal.
How do you help them make a deal? You negotiate amazing offers like price reductions and special financing. You create flashy sales collateral. You book fancy events and cold call to get them appointments.
Now I’m NOT saying we should stop supporting sales or that we should stop helping them to close deals. And I’m not sure traditional marketing is dead, but it ain’t what it used to be. So here are some facts to help support a move to an Inbound Marketing strategy…
The Biggest Challenge in Content Marketing
I am bummed that I will not be able to attend Content Marketing World next week, so I’ve been reading all the great content coming out from the amazing team over at the Content Marketing Institute.
If you missed the posts, some of my favorites include an overview of the technology that excites the speakers, their 12 Content Marketing Predictions For 2010, and my favorite one is where Content Marketers Reveal Their Toughest Challenges. In these posts, Michele Linn (@michelelinn) has done a great job pulling together some of the greatest minds in Content Marketing and getting their thoughts down in one place.
Now, there is one big question that these posts discuss that I’d like to emphasize. And it centers on the question: “what is greatest challenge in content marketing?”
For me the answer is simple and applies to marketing and across the entire businesses: the greatest challenge in content marketing is having and maintaining a customer mindset…
