May 24, 2013 in Content Marketing, Marketing by Stephanie Fedler
ADVICE: Right Now, You Have Some Great Content Just Waiting to Be Used in Your Marketing

shutterstock_108799703Among the biggest challenges in content marketing is producing enough quality content for all the various channels we use to distribute information. According to the Content Marketing Institute’s annual report, 64 percent of B2B content marketers say they are challenged with producing enough content. For Internet marketing firms and corporate marketing departments alike, the key to solving this problem lies is in getting the most out of the content you already have through re-purposing.

Let’s say that this month you want to do a white paper, an ebook, a byline article, two press releases, two media pitches and a series of three blog posts. Got 10 ideas for those 10 pieces of content? Thought not. Instead, think about the three big ideas you want to focus on, then fashion the content plan to fit those ideas. Vital to that plan is re-purposing your content across your distribution channels.

Re-Purposing Works in Both Directions

That white paper establishing your tech company’s thought leadership in a particular vertical can become a series of blog posts. The suggestions made in the byline article can be turned into a press release you pre-pitch to trade media as part of your technology public relations efforts. Need content for social media sharing? Tell people about all that valuable new content you’re putting out.

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April 18, 2013 in Content Marketing, Marketing, Media Relations, Public Relations by Mike Drago
RANT: Vague Language is the Scourge of Marketing and Public Relations

shutterstock_121137493“We the human capital of the United States, in order to facilitate a cutting-edge, best-of-breed convergence of revenue-generating entities, actualize Justice, insure scalable domestic Tranquility, provide for the interdependent interfacing of defensive capabilities, promote mutually beneficial functionality in the North American market space, and secure the Blessings of harmonized, re-engineered culture to ourselves and our Posterity, do conceptualize and cultivate this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Let us bow our heads and give thanks that Gouverneur Morris, the Founding Father credited with writing the preamble to the United States Constitution, was a far better writer than many of today’s marketers. Otherwise, millions upon millions of children would never have been able to memorize the preamble in grade school – much less understand it – and the Union might never had held together.

A Confession and a Theory

I have a confession: Vague language drives me bonkers. And ever since I made the jump to Internet marketing firms after a long career in newspapers, I have puzzled on this question: Why is so much business writing mind-numbingly obtuse? I developed an armchair theory. Vague language is high art in business because a negotiation is a courtship of adversaries, and ambiguity is necessary to avoid driving off the other party before you have time to draw him in. We marketers have simply gotten lazy and adopted it.

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March 22, 2013 in Inbound Marketing, Marketing by AmandaJane Roberts
ADVICE: Thinking of Buying an Online Audience? Think Again

shutterstock_35283577Inbound marketing agencies like ours have heard from plenty of clients facing a common dilemma: “I need to get the word out about our product or event, but I don’t have enough contacts to justify an email marketing campaign.” Often they say they have been offered a “highly targeted” list of contacts in a specific market or vertical for the seemingly low price of 50 cents to $3 a contact, and this will create for them a fresh and relevant audience. Right? Wrong. So wrong.

Unless you’re planning on emailing an entire purchased list from your personal email client (which we don’t recommend), you’re going to be hard pressed to find an email marketing tool or marketing automation platform (MAP) that tolerates the use of purchased lists. The less-expensive email marketing tools such as Constant Contact and Mail Chimp have been known to force entire email lists into the “do not mail” category if an email campaign gets a suspicious amount of spam complaints or even if the size of the list triggers a red flag.

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March 5, 2013 in Content Marketing, Marketing by Mike Drago
ADVICE: In Marketing and Movies, Audience Engagement Is the Goal

shutterstock_127731035My favorite part of John Hughes’ buddy comedy “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” comes when the Steve Martin character finally reaches his wits’ end with the annoyingly chatty travel companion played by John Candy. Not only is the scene an example of great writing, but it also offers valuable reminders about great writing that our Dallas marketing firm applies as it works to engage audiences.

In the scene, the Martin character, Neal Page, berates hapless Del Griffith for his “boring stories” about himself, full of pointless and irrelevant anecdotes. “Didn’t you notice on the plane when you started talking, eventually I started reading the vomit bag?” Neal screams. “Didn’t that give you some sort of clue, like maybe this guy is not enjoying it? Y’know, not everything is an anecdote. You have to discriminate! You choose things that are funny or mildly amusing! You’re a miracle! Your stories have none of that! They’re not even amusing accidentally!”

Then comes the final, humiliating kick in the gut for poor Del: “And, you know, when you’re telling these little stories, here’s a good idea: Have a point! It makes it so much more interesting for the listener!”

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February 22, 2013 in Inbound Marketing by Margaret Pacheco
ADVICE: 4 Marketing Automation Disasters and How to Avoid Them

shutterstock_62252611-1Our reputation among inbound marketing agencies means I often field calls from desperate marketing execs who have just invested thousands of dollars on a marketing automation platform, spent a few hours with remote onboarding and phone training, and now have no clue what to do next. Many of these folks jumped into marketing automation without a clear understanding of its complexity, costs or potential dangers, and now they’ve got a disaster on their hands. We see four issues with marketing automation, all of which are avoidable.

Marketing software-as-a-service solutions have exploded over the past five years as B2B, and increasingly, B2C companies are adopting marketing automation for its real-time, relationship-oriented approach to maintaining and extending customer relationships. Empowered with these new tools, companies now can determine what’s working and what isn’t, and then scientifically re-allocate their resources to operate more strategically.

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