Content Marketing Today

A Powerful, Portable, Flexible, Connected, Social, and Cool Information and Entertainment Device for the 21st Century

Once Again, Steve Jobs Gets His Timing Just About Right with the iPad.

Timing is everything. Too early with too little for too few and you lose. That was the fate of the Apple Newton which might be considered the great grandfather of the iPad. 

That won’t be the fate of the iPad as it comes to market at just the right time, providing a marvelous new outlet for content marketers to capture the increasingly mobile digital generation that now includes most of us.

The Sad Fate of the Apple Newton in the 1990s. Great idea. Unfortunate timing.

For Apple, the Newton was a tablet pc that was too early to deliver on its lofty promise in the early 90s.  It failed not because Steve Jobs’ ultimate concept was wrong, but because users weren’t screaming for a mobile device and because the Newton’s capabilities were limited and disappointing to many.  In many respects, the Newton was a remarkable product for its time, but it didn’t deliver enough value to captivate millions of users as its descendents the iPod and iPhone have done.

However, Steve Jobs simply lost an early skirmish as an intrepid pioneer, but he will be proven right over time. He has been fearlessly persistent in evolving products that he believes represent the future of computing. He learns from what did well and what did poorly and then goes on to define the future. 

So it will be with the iPad. This new device reflects everything Steve and Apple have learned about computing and communications as they introduced and continually improved their highly mobile products--from the Newton to the iPod, to the iPhone, and now to the iPad.

The iPad in 2010 is Dressed for Success.  Incredible idea. Terrific timing. Genuine Game Changer.

The new iPad dwarfs the old Newton: It’s colorful, connected, powerful, packed with storage, easy to use, larger, thinner, and just a bit heavier.

The iPad not only delivers solutions for today's users demand, but is perfectly positioned to dominate for years to come as the standard for tablet computing on the go.

When you introduce a product that matches a confluence of powerful trends, you win.  Here’s why I believe that the iPad is that product:

A Sadly Wasted Effort for a Mystery Event That Might Even Have Been Worth Attending

I just received an email promotion that was so wrong-headed that it makes a perfect negative case study.  As always we can learn from what is terrific or, in this case, not so terrific.

Here are 4 Major Email Promo Mistakes that You Should Avoid:

• The header: This is the email header I saw in my inbox: “invitation for March 17”.  It doesn’t tell me what is happening on that date or why I should care. Since I, like all of you, receive way too many emails, I have no earthly reason to open it. 
  Your header must entice the recipient to open your email by showing quickly that your reader will benefit. It plays the critical role of a headline in a news story or an advertisement and is even more important because it’s the only thing your recipients may see in their crowded in box.

You No Longer Need to Get Lost Among a Blizzard of Big Ads from the Big Boys. You can win online instead.

If you were to dig up a five or 10-year-old edition of the Yellow Pages, you would find that in every major category, there are lots of very large ads from companies with huge budgets to spend influencing buying behavior. Back then, it really was important to have some kind of presence in the Yellow Pages because they frequently represented the last stage in purchasing.

Today everything has changed. Buyers go first to the web to do their research about potential purchases. They then either buy directly from the web or take their research results and go to the store or contact the business in order to complete their purchase.  You have only to look at the incredible shrinking Yellow Pages to understand how little influence they have in purchasing behavior today.

That is sad for the Yellow Pages. But it is terrific for small business marketers.

April in Paris and Content Marketing in Blossom

Online research for an upcoming April trip to the wonderful city on the Seine uncovered a delightful content marketing practitioner, Steve Solosky, “The Traveling Professor,” along with his guide to Paris, his website, his eNewsletters, his blog, and his intuitive grasp of content marketing.

I’m sure that launching a successful series of travel guides is almost as challenging as it is for an unknown novelist to create a blockbuster. That’s because everybody who loves to travel thinks they should be a travel writer in spite of long-established competition from Michelin, Fodor, Frommer, Insight Guides, Time Out, and hundreds of others.  In fact, a quick Amazon search for ‘paris travel guides’ shows more than 1000 listings. Steve’s book appears on the first search page and is ranked #40 Amazon’s Books > Travel > Europe > France > Paris.

But, Steve is more than travel book author. He also leads tours to Paris and to other parts of Europe.  What he has achieved is to position himself as an expert so that travelers will trust him as both a virtual and literal tour guide.  He has translated a passion into a business.  His commitment to content marketing over time has certainly helped to make that business a success.

Bus Shelter Ads Offer Can’t Miss Message that Promotes Use of Rider Friendly Technology

AC Transit avoids the "build it and they will come" mistake to which many companies and organizations fall prey. They know that simply offering bus service and implementing technology is just the beginning to motivating Bay Area residents to take the bus regularly.  They also prove that traditional outdoor advertising can still work brilliantly at the right time and place.  This is targeted, visual content marketing at its best.

The San Francisco Bay area boasts excellent public transit systems in the city itself and in surrounding counties. AC Transit is notable not only for a well-run system, but for its effectiveness in marketing the benefits of public transit to its passengers.

AC Transit is the third-largest bus-only transit system in California, serving over 400 square miles of the East Bay.  Every weekday, over 230,000 people ride their fleet of nearly 800 buses.  They run buses on 105 routes with more than 6500 stops.

Even better, they do a great job of marketing all those buses, stops, and routes to current and future passengers.

Your Target Customers Won’t Read Your Content without Compelling Headlines

Too many websites lack effective headlines. In fact, many have no headlines at all.  This void violates the first commandment of content marketing: “Think Like a Publisher.” 

That commandment covers a lot of ground, but let’s just focus on the all important headline. Unless you have time to go back to school, you can learn plenty from legendary print and online publications like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and yes, in its own unique way, the New York Post.

The purpose of a headline is simple: To make your visitors want to read the story that follows. Your headline must just explain enough so that readers correctly and eagerly anticipate content that follows. The right headline will then intrigue visitors enough to jump into the story.

It doesn’t matter that your site covers a niche that only some people care about. Your headlines must still entice those targeted visitors into reading your stories.

We can learn a lot from some of the best practitioners such as the Times, the Journal, and the Post. I have selected recent headlines that illustrate key elements for those of us who aren’t trained journalists—but who must nonetheless capture our readers’ attention whenever they visit us online.

When you publish a monthly print or electronic newsletter that targets an important audience segment,  you probably invest heavily in generating the content that will make this newsletter relevant and valuable to its readers.  That is obviously critical.  But you can do much more to make that newsletter and its content work harder for your organization. How? Easy. Think outside the newsletter.

After all, the newsletter has a relatively finite reach, even online.  Think beyond this single content product.  You can dramatically increase the impact of your content marketing by thoughtful repurposing of the information and resources you developed in order to create the newsletter itself.

Here are 7 ways to extend the reach of your content far beyond the circulation of that print publication.  None of these require significant incremental expense. But they will consistently deliver dramatic increases in the reach of your content to prospective customers—and the impact it has on them.

Your honest interactions with customers are critical to your content marketing success. So, please don’t make the mistake that this get rich quick marketing vendor program made with their fake ‘live attendant.’ 

This lame attempt at artificial online intelligence was amusing, but appalling.

I was awake late one night not too long ago and wound up on a marketing product site that didn’t want to let me go. Up popped the following dialogue between the fictional Lacey and my canine alter ego.  Her enthusiasm for her product never flagged in spite of my devious doggy replies.

See if you’re smarter at spotting a prevaricating PC pooch than ‘Lacey’ was in this actual dialogue (or dogalogue).

As Content Marketing Goes from Optional to Obligatory for Business,  Penton Suffers and Miller Electric Shines

Penton’s shift to online only for Welding Design & Fabrication symbolizes the decline of traditional media.  At the same time, Miller Electric shows just how powerful content marketing can be as a replacement for traditional publishing—even when publishers take their acts to the web.

Penton’s print magazine launched in 1959 when Eisenhower was President, Sputnik had just gone into orbit, and most TVs were black and white. After decades of success, the print edition of Welding Design & Fabrication succumbed to fundamental changes in buyer behavior and vanishing ad dollars.  In fact, only an association publication remains in print.

Print pubs are perishing across the B2B landscape as advertisers and readers flee. What’s happening at Penton is happening everywhere. You may regret the demise of B2B print as do I, but you cannot bring it back to life. You can no more expect a return to publishing days gone by than you can to poodle skirts and hula hoops.

Yes, you can apply the best of traditional public relations practices to the new world of social media

Guest post from Kathleen Taylor, APR, President of the Southwest Florida chapter of the Florida Public Relations Association offers 4 top takeaways from their January 2010 Social Media Cafe.   Her report from the seminar illustrates that social media is beginning to permeate PR even in a relatively small market such as the Naples/Ft. Myers Fl area.

By Kathleen Taylor, APR

"The wisdom's in the room. Make a concerted effort to learn from those around you," said Butch Ward from Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, FL, as he spoke with a crowd of public relations professionals at the January 2010 Social Media Café.  Butch and three fellow experts shared new ways of including social media tactics in our public relations practices.

The Poynter Institute describes itself as “a school dedicated to teaching and inspiring journalists and media leaders.” The Institute’s interest in how PR or “business communication” professionals practice exemplifies the social media requirement  to reach beyond the way we’ve always done things. As Butch reminded the audience, we are all learning together as we explore the new  social media sandbox. Fortunately for all of us, not everything is new and unfamiliar.

In fact, as we expand our minds to embrace new technology and new methods, the best of traditional public relations and marketing principles still apply.  Moreover, even new elements such as business blogging don’t need to be intimidating.

Here are 4 useful tips from the Social Media Café seminar that will make even reluctant marketing professionals comfortable about  jumping on board the social media train before it has left the station: