Content Marketing Today

As they rush to make their deadlines, be sure reporters can find great content on your website.

Just because your customers are consuming less traditional print news and feature content does not mean that don't still crave information that helps them find solutions to their problems.  Thus, a great news story or feature article that includes information about your company, its people, and its products can drive a ton of new business your way. After all, that's what public relations is all about.

Although you may not have a budget for a public relations staffer or a PR agency, you can still increase the likelihood that you will get solid press coverage by creating a virtual home for reporters. Make it easy for them to do their job by creating a reporter-friendly online media room.  Think of this strategy as content marketing designed to provide relevant and compelling content--not to your customers--but to reporters.

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London Times editor delivers online slide show to put you on the right track

Tom Whitwell's headline "How to Write Awesome Headlines" might be better than mine.  However, they both have something critical in common: Each tells you exactly why you should read the article that follows.

How important is a great headline versus a poor headline? 

According to Tom, it's not a few percent, it can mean 10 to 20 times greater readership.  That's why paying careful attention to your headlines is vital.  They are the single most important element of your online articles.

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A vital recommendation from a useful new book, The Contrarian Effect!

This new book from Michael Port and Elizabeth Marshall delivers plenty of great advice about why and how to abandon old-fashioned sales approaches that just don't work in the age of the empowered customer.

Too many salespeople and organizations are still stuck trying to push products down the throats of their customers.  In The Contrarian Effect, Michael and Elizabeth argue for a completely different approach.  As they stress:

Sales professionals must find a way to build relationships and to be there when customers are ready to buy--a totally different world view and way of interacting with potential customers.  Something that won't be possible if you insist on selling to them and use the usual approach to reach and communicate with them.

Their approach is completely in sync with the fundamentals of content marketing which stress the importance of an in-depth understanding of your customers and their needs. Only after you have developed that understanding should you attempt to encourage them to buy from you. Otherwise, you risk becoming everyone's vision of the worst possible used-car salesman.

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First, use it to understand your buyers and their needs. Then use the results to prove your credibility in the market.

Content marketers realize that understanding what is most important to your current and prospective customers is vital to your success as an organization.  You cannot possibly connect with your customers without that understanding. Just 10 to 20 years ago, the research necessary to develop that understanding was difficult, complex, time-consuming, and expensive to conduct and to share. All those reasons may well have provided small to medium-size companies with an understandable excuse to avoid their own primary research. Today, there are no more excuses.  It is fast, easy, and inexpensive to conduct high-quality research and to share it with the world. Here are some basics to get you started: Read More

What I learned from my own blog posts that were poorly read: It's all about the headline. 

Although quite a few of the articles I have written over the past year were well read, a disconcerting number were hardly read it all.  To understand why, I took a hard look at the articles to see if I could discern a pattern that will enable me to improve readership in 2009. 

There is an obvious  common thread: everything relates to headlines. Here are the five most important things about my headlines that got in the way of the story.  By avoiding these headline blunders, you can count on increasing readership.

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