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.

Continue Reading

 
0
February 15, 2013 in Content Marketing, Marketing, Media Orchard, Social Media Marketing by Scott Baradell
ADVICE: Don’t Be a Digital Sharecropper

Digital Sharecroppers Inbound MarketingSince Media Orchard has evolved over the years from my personal blog into a forum representing our agency as a whole, I decided last month to start a second blog, “Media Orchard Too,” where I could rant and rave with relative impunity.

My latest rants are on the subject of “digital sharecropping” — the practice of focusing your online marketing efforts on third-party social media sites rather than your own web presence.

While folks from the traditional advertising world might characterize this third-party focus as simply the latest iteration of media buying, that comparison doesn’t hold up very well when it comes to content-based marketing. The better comparison is to 19th-century subsistence farmers from Mississippi — and you don’t want to be like them, do you? You can learn more here.

 
0
January 21, 2013 in Content Marketing, Marketing by Mike Drago
RANT: Let’s Get Rid of ‘Content Marketing’

contentchalkboardWhat am I doing? I’ve been asked the question dozens of times since I made the jump to our Dallas marketing firm from a 20-some-year career reporting and editing for major news outlets. (Yes, I was the MSM, and I swear there is no such thing as a media conspiracy.) Now I work in content marketing, which is not a new concept; and nine out of 10 companies are doing it in some form. But after winding through explanations of content marketing with neighbors, family members and business contacts, I’ve concluded that what we do is not well understood. I think content marketing needs a better name.

Like a lot of business terms, content marketing can glaze a listener’s eyes. Rather than enlighten and inform, the name obscures. Not “marketing,” so much. Everyone understands marketing, more or less. No, I’ve decided, the problem is content. The word in and of itself is, well, boring and vague. I hated the word when the newsroom adopted it years ago to mean “news delivered by any means.” I hate it even more now, because I think it devalues the work Internet marketing firms do for clients and their noble goal of developing closer relationships with their customers and prospects.

Continue Reading

 
1
January 7, 2013 in Content Marketing, Marketing by Clay Zeigler
ADVICE: For Effective Marketing Content, Start with the End Result

Ever say something in a meeting that the boss never let you forget? I did that about a year ago, but I think he’s over it now because since then I’ve learned something that now guides the way our Dallas marketing firm thinks about content. The lesson is this: When creating content for marketing purposes, the first consideration isn’t the story you have but the result you want.

I came to Internet marketing firms after a long career in newspapers. And newspaper reporters and editors, most of them anyway, work hard to present the incremental developments in an ongoing story without regard to the ultimate result. No truly ethical journalist says, “We’re going to get that place shut down,” or “We’re going to get that woman fired.” Stories I’ve edited have had those very results, but that wasn’t their objective.

In Marketing, the Story is a Vehicle for Action

I brought my journalistic approach to Idea Grove, and into an early client meeting in which I tried to leverage my newspaper experience in a self-deprecating way by saying, “I don’t know much about public relations, but I’ve consumed a lot of it.” In other words, I know a good story when I see it and I can help you present a series of good stories that together will portray your company in the most positive way possible. The boss winced, and has periodically reminded me of my error — and rightly so.

Continue Reading

 
0
June 14, 2012 in Content Marketing, Marketing, Media, PR and Pop Culture by Clay Zeigler
ADVICE: Marketing Realities in Black and White

The newspaper in New Orleans is laying off a third of its staff and shifting to three-days-a-week publication in just the most recent example of that industry’s decline. Meanwhile, Politico is hiring 20 journalists to beef up its coverage of the economy and the military. The easy analysis of their diverging fortunes is that the Times-Picayune primarily is in print and Politico is online, but it’s more complicated than that. The real reasons are familiar to marketers, or at least they should be.

Newspapers like the Times-Picayune aren’t dying solely because they’re in print. They’re dying because they failed to hold onto their audiences in profitable print and rushed free content online under the mistaken premise they could sell advertising there. Politico isn’t growing just because it’s online. It’s growing because it’s found an audience, built value with that audience, and extracts that value with a subscription model.

Does Politico share free content? Sure it does, a lot of it. But it doesn’t share everything. That helps increase the value of the content not shared with everyone. More importantly, Politico has found an audience that places a high value on its content, and it’s asking that audience to give something for it.

Find an audience that values what you do and build rapport that audience. Do that by sharing, but don’t share everything. Ask consumers to give you something in exchange for your best work. Sound familiar? It should. It’s the basic roadmap for effective content marketing.

Continue Reading

 
4