Content Marketing Today

Of course, I'm assuming that you already have a website and are probably doing some business blogging.  You may also do a regular eNewsletter to inform your customers and prospects about the great content you have created recently online.  Your next step is to create an e-book that targets your ideal customers.

Joe and I learned this lesson with the e-book that preceded the print version of Get Content Get Customers.  We were able to distribute our content marketing message to thousands of folks from around the world who took the time to download our e-book.  We got plenty of positive and helpful feedback.

The power of e-books hit me again while I was reading David Meerman Scott's new book, the World Wide Rave.  He wrote about an Australian company the RPO group which is a recruitment outsourcing firm.  Although David covered their website and their blog, I was particularly impressed by their e-book, 5 Secrets of Talent.  It's only 23 pages long, but conveys critical concepts clearly and compellingly. 

Their e-book works for them.  E-books can work for you as well. Here are five reasons why:

Great New Book from David Meerman Scott Delivers All the Tools You’ll Need

David is a content marketing pioneer who realized early on how important it was to create relevant and compelling content for your customers.  And, in his earlier book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, he explained clearly why both marketing and public relations professionals needed to change the way they operate based on new Internet realities.

His newest book, World Wide Rave, as the subtitle explains, is all about, "creating triggers that get millions of people to spread your ideas and share your stories." Although you may have a stack of books waiting for you to pick them up, I recommend that you get this one and start reading it immediately.

A Length of Wire, a Bunch of Sticky Notes, and a Red Marker Tell an Appealing and Amusing Story

Evernote is a cool web-based application that lets you save notes, web links, webpage clips, documents, images, and even iPhone  phone voice notes. Because the application is both versatile and unique, Evernote requires a bit of explaining.

Most of their explanation takes the form of short videos which illustrate the wide range of capabilities to which users can put Evernote.  In fact, they lead off with a video on the home page.

But, my favorite is a very brief video that uses stuff all of us would have at home to tell the Evernote story in just 44 seconds.

Yes. Absolutely, yes!

I was reminded of the importance of small business branding when I read a recent post on Duct Tape Marketing which asked the question in preparation for a March 18 webinar. (Click here to get the archived webinar)

Your brand is a vital part of your business even if you are a one-person shop. Your brand is the sum total of what you and your company represent to the world.  Thus, when we hear Coca Cola or see the NIKE swoosh, all of our experience with those brands flood into our brains.  So, it is with you and your company.

You need a brand. To build your brand, you must understand the most important problems you can solve for your customers—and how to position your company as the ideal solution provider.  You can’t do everything to help your customers, but you can do one thing—or a few things—brilliantly. That’s the essence of your brand promise: “What problems can our customers expect to solve by working with our company?”

Lessons for small business marketers from a very creative insurance website

You might not think of renter's insurance as an especially lucrative product.  Although it may be very profitable, it's certainly not expensive. Even so, there are plenty of renters who don't bother to buy it because they just don't see the value.  And, going after prospects for this inexpensive coverage on the phone or in-person would probably not be worth the effort.

That's where imaginative content marketing plays a key role: It sells this important insurance product to folks who need it, but don't yet know they need it.

Liberty Mutual does a fantastic job online with its YouCovered.com site that targets what seems to be an ideal buyer persona: relatively affluent young people who have a fair amount of stuff that is worth a lot to replace. You can apply the best of what they do even with a small online marketing budget.

If you really show the love to your current customers, you won't have to beg shamelessly to try to get them back.

Image via Wikipedia

Just like the Swiffer, "Baby, come back" TV ads, once you've lost your long-time customers, you may have to forget about getting them back--even if you send them flowers or sing under their window.

EMBARQ basically failed the in person content marketing test. They completely forgot the vital importance of your people to people relationships.

For many years in our part of the world, Southwest Florida, EMBARQ offered solid reliable phone service that originally ran under the Sprint banner.  But, over the past six months or so, we ran into lots of annoying problems. 

When we called them, rather than taking a proactive approach to figuring out what was wrong and fixing it, they suggested that we must be doing something wrong.  They insisted that we go through all kinds of gyrations to test it out and warned us that--although they could send out a service person--they would have to charge us if it turned out that the fault was ours.

Nick Morgan's great book, Give Your Speech, Change the World, not only teaches what it takes to become a great speaker. His lessons apply equally to effective content marketing.

Poor presenters and mediocre marketers share certain traits.

• They cannot explain concisely why their audience should care about the information and services they provide.
• They lack focus.
• They do not understand their audience.
• They are more focused on themselves then on their audience.
• They fail to engage in dialogue with their audience.
• They don't urge their audience at the end of their presentation to take specific next-step actions.

It might seem obvious that speakers who exhibit the traits above would do poorly and probably bore their listeners to tears.  But, as marketers, we too often exhibit the same bad behaviors.

Content marketing is now a strategic imperative for companies of all sizes.  Doing it well is challenging because it requires a new mindset for most marketers.  When you add in rapidly evolving digital technology and a plethora of social media choices, keeping up is very hard to do. 

That's why the March 22-24, 2009 Custom Content Conference in Miami is especially relevant to marketers.  Because content marketing will be playing an ever more important role within your company, effective execution becomes paramount. 

In today's, you will learn from some of the best content marketing thinkers in the business.  Best-selling otter, David Meerman Scott, kicks it off discussing how to create a worldwide rave.  You'll also hear from marketing gurus with Lego, Kraft, Nielsen, Leo Burnett, the Miami Dolphins, just to mention a few. Click here to see the awesome speaker lineup of and what they will be discussing.