I’m guessing that I don’t even have to explain the implications of this simple graphic.  It’s that good. 

Somewhat surprisingly I found it toward the end of a wonderful blog post by Chris Garrett, Claiming Your Independence – 5 Years of Business Lessons.  As he describes the essence of the post,

Five years ago I cut loose from my day job and launched myself into the adventure that is working for oneself. That was the start of my journey towards claiming my independence day, and I think there are lessons for you if you want to do something similar to what I have done.

Chris then takes us along on the five-year journey that led him to his current business model. It’s great reading, particularly for those of us who have followed similar paths.

Essentially, this chart teaches us instantly what it took him five years to discover: That the reward of product creation relative to effort far exceeds that of either freelance blogging, coaching or consulting.

I loved his article. But, I loved his infographic even more because it shows how powerful the right visual can be.

Chris’ simple chart makes it obvious how you can persuade yourself–or your customers–of the merits of a particular course of action.  In his case, it took him many years to conclude that product creation was the right core business model for him. Fortunately, the rest of us can see in a few seconds how smart an idea it can be for any of us creative entrepreneurial types.

Perhaps what I like best about this persuasive infographic is that anybody, no matter how artistically hopeless, could have created this very same chart with a few minutes of effort. Of course, the thinking that went into it took a heck of a lot longer.

When you have a really big and important idea to convey, think about how you can add a visual to make your point quickly and obviously in support of your text explanation.  You may want to put this infographic up on your wall for inspiration.

Do check out: Claiming Your Independence – 5 Years of Business Lessons.
You’ll find plenty of great writing in addition to this wonderfully simple and inspirational infographic.

I think we can all agree that the health insurance reform legislation of 2010 will touch each and every one of us. It will impact both businesses and individuals.

If you are a business owner, it is vital that you understand how it will affect you and your employees.  Why? Because, unless you are a very small business, you will either have to provide healthcare insurance or pay a penalty for failing to do so. You will have to make some tough decisions in the years to come about how to handle your employees’ health insurance needs.

Because of the dramatic impact of this legislation, there is an urgent need for comprehensive and understandable information so that business owners can plan intelligently.

This creates a uniquely powerful opportunity to provide relevant and compelling content for your current and prospective customers. You can demonstrate thought leadership at a time when business owners are desperate to find an information source they can trust.

One local agency is doing exactly that.  Gulfshore Insurance in Naples, Florida is doing a superb job of content marketing at the exact moment that the health insurance paradigm shift looms large for everyone in the United States.

When you go to their website, you can find a broad range of information about the kinds of insurance coverage they provide, how they help you manage risk, and exactly who they are. That is always important.

But, what is urgent right now–and for years to come–is trustworthy content about healthcare reform. Gulfshore Insurance brings that information front and center on their homepage with their Health Reform Tools and Resources link. 

That link leads you to a wealth of information that is both comprehensive and timely. In the case of health reform, timeliness is vital because so much is undecided, in process, and apparently changeable.

The timeline chart below is a great example of the hard work they have done to help their clients understand what’s in store.

In short, Gulfshore Insurance is executing a content marketing strategy that genuinely benefits their customers and will therefore benefit to them well into the future.

Billion-Dollar Bank/Insurance Agency Completely Misses the Same Once-In-A-Lifetime Content Marketing Opportunity

BB&T is a huge regional bank which has in recent years acquired numerous local insurance agencies. In Southwest Florida, they bought an excellent local firm whose management team and employees continue to provide great products and services.

Unfortunately,  they are missing an unprecedented opportunity to show authentic thought leadership. During this turbulent time in American history when healthcare and healthcare insurance is changing forever, they are missing in action online.

If you go to the old local web address or the parent company insurance agency address, you will find absolutely nothing about healthcare reform. Moreover, they have eliminated any kind of local information on the website to tell you about the kinds of professionals that you would deal with in Southwest Florida.  If you drill down several layers, you can find telephone numbers to call but no e-mail or individual contact information. Even worse, they tell you absolutely nothing about the local company.   If I were not already familiar with that company, I would be at a complete loss to know why I should become a client.

The bottom line:

The Good–

• Gulfshore Insurance is showing authentic thought leadership that will resonate with clients and prospects for years to come.
• By providing lots of relevant, localized information, Gulfshore Insurance enables search engines to rank them highly and prospective clients to find them easily .
• Gulfshore Insurance shows up high on the first page of local search results for terms such as health insurance, business insurance, and personal insurance. Great content has a lot to do with that.

The Bad–

• BB&T has lost that same once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show thought leadership and engender trust.
• They provide almost no information about their local presence in Southwest Florida.
• Their search engine performance is abysmal. Neither their current website address nor the predecessor local website shows up at all when you search for health insurance in Fort Myers or Naples–our two largest local markets.

Danger, danger, Will Robinson!!  Car salesmen approaching!! 

I’m guessing that I didn’t even need an evocative photo for each of you to conjure up your own happy showroom memory.

My own recollection is fresh since I’m considering (ugh!) a new car purchase. At a local car dealer, no less than 5 sales guys tried to foist themselves on me.  I was just one salesperson away from hightailing it out of there.

Car dealers and manufacturers spend a fortune getting you in the showroom door. Imagine if they invested equally in delivering a valuable, in-person content marketing experience.  One can dream.

But, because we can learn from the awful as well as the awesome, here are some content marketing lessons to take away from the typically painful automobile showroom encounter.

5 Lessons to Learn from the Agony of Anti-Content Marketing Car Showroom Visits

1. Don’t make it blindingly obvious that you are desperate to sell a walk-in—read web visitor—prospect anything you can manage to squeeze them into.  Your web visitors want you to make them smarter about possible solutions to their problems so they can make smart buying decisions.
2. Find a fun, unique way to offer helpful info from the get go.  Don’t replicate the same old, same old kind of greeting that you get in a showroom.  I can’t remember a car salesman ever beginning with a useful offer of information, research, fun factoids that might bring me out of my protective shell. Your website can find a zillion different ways to invite and inform your visitors.
3. Provide useful, non-salesy takeaway information that isn’t all about you or your company.  Wouldn’t it be great to get some tangible product information in a showroom without having to survive a gauntlet of desperate-seeming sales guys?  Make it easy for your visitors to take away great content via eBooks or whitepapers without an obtrusive request for buying intention or detailed contact information.
4. Display in-depth knowledge of your products and services in the context of your customers’ concerns. I’ve been astonished by how often a car salesperson is clueless about car information that the dealer or manufacturers should know is top of mind among customers.  Your website is the perfect venue to provide easily accessible, but ultimately in-depth content that answers your visitors most urgent and important questions.
5. Don’t have a pop-up as your web visitors are about to move on that says the non-automotive equivalent of: “What will it take to put you in a car today?”  Apparently, car sales reps are instilled with the assumed truism that if you let a prospect leave the showroom leave without getting them to make an offer, you’ll never see them again. 
   I’m pretty sure that’s because they hated dealing with you so much that they would rather have root canal without anesthetic than relive the showroom assault. 
   On the other hand, offering your web visitors relevant and compelling content that leads them naturally closer to trusting you will encourage them to return.

I”m probably naive about this but I really believe that smart car dealers could deliver a positive–and mutually rewarding–content marketing experience if they made the buying process all about the customer and his needs.

But, there is one thing I am sure about. When you show that you genuinely care about your online customers by benefiting them from the time they first land on your site, a significant percentage will come back to spend time on your site and to buy.  

Sailing is a wonderful, exhilarating sport for those who have the training and experience to enjoy the ever-changing interplay of wind and water on a boat driven by its sails.

First, you have to learn how to sail.  Happily, like 100,000+ students before you, you can do just that at Fort Myers-based Offshore Sailing School.  Once, you have learned from their skilled instructors, sailing becomes a lifelong pleasure.

But, you can learn even more from the Offshore Sailing School  folks. You can learn a lot about content marketing online.

Bringing Modern Marketing to a Traditional Business

Steve and Doris have been running a sailing school for more than 40 years, building a successful business with multiple locations and a world-class repetition. Although they have been doing this for a long time,  there is nothing dated or old-fashioned about their approach to content marketing. They are fully engaged online with a website, a YouTube channel, a blog, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account. 

I particularly like what they are doing on their website and on YouTube as examples of how to take a traditional business and bring it successfully into the 21st century content marketing world–with a strong visual approach to everything that they do.

How Their Website Makes It Easy to Transform Site Visitors into Sailing Students

• They feature a big, beautiful slideshow at the top of the page that illustrates the beauty of the sailing experience. There is almost no need for words to introduce prospective students to the idea of a lifelong love of sailing. Their own eyes will make the sale about sailing.
• When it comes to home page copy, they get right to the point. In just two opening paragraphs, they make the case for sailing and for the  Offshore Sailing School:

Be Inspired by Sailing!
We know your time is valuable, so we’ll teach you everything you’ve always wanted to learn about sailing, fast. In just three days, our Learn to Sail Course gives you the confidence to sail mid-sized sailboats with ease. In one week you can gain skills to sail and live-aboard big cruising sailboats with our Fast Track to Cruising® course. Like to sail really fast? If you’re new to racing or currently race and would like hard-core hands-on coaching, you’ll benefit greatly from seven days of race training on our Colgate 26 fleet, with seminars and video recaps by North U. in Offshore’s racing courses.
Whichever sailing course you choose, you’ll be inspired, refreshed, amazed at how much you learn. Whether you want to get away for a day or go around the world, sailing is now within your reach. Offshore Sailing School is the leader in sailing lessons and sailing vacations – discover one of our seven locations today!

• They make it very easy to connect with a prominent "Quick Connect" box in the upper right-hand part of the page.
• They display the latest news prominently on the left sidebar, using complementary images as appropriate.
• They combine text and images frequently with sidebar items such as their featured course, their sailing specials, and their newsletter sign-up.
• They highlight their social media connections on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube  to make it easy to continue the connection.
• They integrate a timely and informative blog, which, in turn, includes numerous videos from YouTube as well as their latest Tweets.
• And, it may be a small thing,but the site’s background is an ocean panorama on what looks to be a perfect day for sailing. For many websites the sort of background would be superfluous. But, for Offshore Sailing School, this is perfect.

Offshore Has Their Own YouTube Channel with Plenty of Engaging Videos

The Offshore Sailing School YouTube page has been nicely designed to complement their website.They have 20 videos which provide sailing instruction, testimonials, and some examples of the sailing experience. Their "Learning to Sail" six minute video has had more than 3000 viewings.That’s pretty powerful when you compare towhat they might have expected from traditional magazine advertising in days gone by.

Does their approach to online content marketing work? Well, if you search for  "sailing school" on Google, you might not be totally surprised that they come up #1 in the organic results.

Not bad for a couple of old salts.

I continue to be surprised by the number of marketing and advertising companies who have websites that hide examples of the great work that they do behind a bunch of content clichés that fail to distinguish them from every other similar company. 

I recently stumbled upon the website of such a company who is missing its primary content marketing opportunity. They have great stuff, but it’s really hard to find.

Content marketing is all about providing relevant, compelling, and easily accessible information to your prospective customers.

In this case, what is genuinely relevant and compelling is the work that this agency has done on behalf of of its clients. That  visual content represents potential solutions to the problems that its Web visitors are facing.Unfortunately, the content that counts is lurking behind some same old, same old verbiage.

The copy below is from the actual website that I happened upon  They appear to do some really good work. But,  as a potential client, I would have to be truly driven to find that work. First, I would have to wade through all the generic copy that promises pretty much what any good marketing/advertising company could do for me :

“Fill in the Blank” Advertising Company creates custom marketing solutions from strategy through execution to help build and transform your business needs. Let us get to know you inside and out. Let us become instrumental in helping you develop breakthrough solutions to meet your brand objectives and increase your profits. With smart planning & execution, we strengthen your image and reputation as the world around us changes. Change is reality.

We differentiate your company from the competition……

A genuine irony flows from the website copy that makes the promise: "We differentiate your company from the competition."  Sadly, there is almost nothing in the copy that differentiates this agency from its competition.

Actually,  there is a differentiation to be found on this website–but not easily found. That differentiation consists of the proof behind the copy clichés, that is, the actual work that this agency has done. But, you have to struggle to hard-to-find it.

Making It Too Hard to Get to What Really Matters

To get to the good stuff,  you must click on a small  link called, "The Work,"  that sits at the bottom of the page. There, you will find a wealth of visual examples of excellent marketing and advertising projects done for a broad range of companies from relatively small to very very large.  You can even watch videos of commercials that are memorably amusing and interesting.

Moreover, the agency’s work examples include several very well-known brands that add implicit credibility to their skills and experience.

There is another missed opportunity, however. In an era of quantification, none of the work examples are accompanied by information about the objectives of the work and successful outcomes. I’m sure that there were plenty and that they would provide plenty of trust building content for potential clients.

The simple lesson: When you have great work to show, make sure that it is front and center on your website so that impatient visitors find it immediately. Then, use that work to power the copy that populates your homepage and the rest of your site.  Content marketing fails when you cannot find the content that counts quickly and easily. Only pirates love buried treasure.

In other words, when you can show specific successes, you do not have to rely on generic copy that fails to differentiate you from dozens of other similar companies.

Oh,and be sure to avoid clichés like the plague.

The iPad is the new computing superstar with 2 million units sold in 2 months. As a result, plenty of small companies are benefiting from the apps they have developed for the new tablet computer. Within this new environment, startups can thrive by creating unique and usable software applications that enable iPad users to be more productive.

Todo from Appigo is one such app. It’s a very intuitive application that helps users manage to-do lists, tasks, and projects on their iPad. Because the iPad is hot news, great apps are potentially newsworthy, too. Unfortunately, there are plenty of competitive choices even at this early date.

How, then, can this one small player stand out from the crowd?

As a critical component of their content marketing strategy, the company behind Todo, Appigo,  issued a news release  that makes it very easy to find and to learn about  the company and the product. This is great for users who are looking for information, but it is also a lifesaver for reporters with too much to do and too little time to do it . 

They chose PR Web, which is an affordable new release service offering a lot of handholding for small companies who are new to the PR game.  In addition, it offers broad distribution across the web for every release.

Why This News Release Is so Effective

• Their headline and subhead make it obvious why we should care about this news release and includes keywords(bold type below) for easy findability :
  
  Appigo Raises the Bar for Beautiful iPad Apps by Launching Todo for iPad
  Appigo Todo for iPad Takes Advantage of the iPad’s Large Screen by Presenting a Planner-like Interface for Managing To-do Lists and Tasks. Todo for iPad is Now Available on the iPad App Store at a Special Introductory Price.
  
• They integrate those obvious but important key words such as iPad,to do, task, and Appigo throughout the release so that Google and other search engines—as well as users and reporters–can find the release easily.
• The news release does an excellent job of explaining what Todo does and why we should care. And, it takes only 557 words to do it.
• For potential customers , it tells us exactly where we can buy this App.
• They provide contact information for a real live human being with his phone number and e-mail address.
• They include 5 HTML tags that provide links to external sources. All of those external links are very appealing to Google.
• They highlight a terrific callout quote which sums up the Todo experience– and this quote is hyperlinked to the company website:
  "Holding Todo for iPad in your hand just as you would a daily planner is an incredible experience that gives you motivation to be productive."
• They provide plenty of images that will be available for industry publications or bloggers to use in enhancing their articles. This includes an appealing logo icon and multiple screenshots.
• They offer a window to the company website so you can see what’s available there and can then click to go directly to the site.
• They provide a link to a media kit for reporters and bloggers
• They provide links to printer friendly versions, PDF version, and a Reader version.
• They offer a “Share this” link so that you can spread the word via e-mail, Facebook, Twitteror Google Buzz, among others.

Appigo is a small company, but it’s thinking big about the huge iPad opportunity. Its effective use of a PR Web press release puts it in the same league as much larger organizations.  Did it work? Well, in a search today for “iPad to-do list,” the Appigo App came in 5 of the top ten results on page one. Not bad for a little guy.

P.S. It is a terrific App, one of my iPad favorites.

A business card is quite literally a small thing. But here’s one that made a big impression on me as a surprising example of content marketing.

The card’s owner/creator, Kerry-Anne Gilowey, participated in a workshop with me at the 2010 Content Strategy Forum. She impressed me as being memorably smart, creative, and witty. Quite separately, I found her card positively memorable, too.  And, I would have done even if I had never met her in person.

Here’s why:

On the front—very nice but not the killer side

• She leads off with her content marketing/social media credentials. I see those even before I see her phone number
• She asks us to take action, e.g., find me…follow me…call me.
• She doesn’t bother with an address that would have taken up communications space–and these days, who cares?
• Her sunshine graphic reflects her company name nicely but not obtrusively.

On the back—here’s the especially memorable creative side of the card

• She provides a category cloud that shows us at a glance what she does and the relative weight she gives to each element
• We can grasp almost instantly what she does that can help us.
• She doesn’t have to say that she does these things. We just know.
• It’s a creative approach so we spot her creativity.
• It’s web-related so we also figure that she intuitively gets the whole web thing.

I’m sure that there are plenty of wonderfully effective business cards out in the world. But of the dozen+, I collected at the Forum, only Kerry-Anne’s communicated so much, so memorably. In fact, it’s the only one I could have described from memory.

When it comes to your content marketing strategy, even your business cards can make a difference.

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.

• The sender: The sender was Pearl Collier, but I neither know her nor can determine who she works for by looking at the sender name. That makes me nervous. If I take the trouble to cursor over the name, I can figure out that her email address seems to come from a large local R.E. developer. But, I bothered to do that only because I was motivated to write this article.
  Your send address mustn’t be mysterious. Unless you are mass mailing to folks who are inclined to open something from you because they know or respect you, you should use inexpensive software such as Constant Contact or MailChimp that lets you show a company name as sender in order to give you credibility.
• The message body: This tells me nothing other than the fact that an unspecified event is happening in an unspecified location at an unspecified time for an unspecified reason. I can see that the sender is connected to ‘Verandah’ but I don’t necessary know what Verandah is or what on earth the event is all about.
  Your message body should include everything your target needs to know to motivate them to take the next step whether it’s to attend an event, visit your website, get a free report, etc., etc. Make it obvious and enticing.
• The attachment: Since I don’t know this person and am paranoid about viruses and evil spyware demons, I will not open something that might wreck havoc on my PC.  Even if I knew the sender, she hasn’t given me enough explanation about why I would benefit to justify opening it.
  Your attachments should be rare or non-existent in promotional mailings. Put what you need to communicate in the body of the message. Make it super easy for your recipients to do what you want them to do.

A Sadly Missed Content Marketing Opportunity

What’s really unfortunate about this promotional mailing is that it is almost certainly promoting an event that is important for the company, expensive to produce, and most likely enjoyable to attend.  But, few recipients are likely get past the marketing hurdles that make it hard for them to justify taking action.

Don’t let this happen to you. Make sure that your header and your message body provide relevant and compelling content that motivates your prospects to take the next step toward becoming your customers.

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.

We have already written about their wonderful online marketing campaign that paints such a compelling picture of the benefits of bus travel. AC Transit  created ACT for Me as “Your Guide to the Future of Public Transit.”  They illustrate why AC Transit should be an integral part of your life by sharing a creative range of content—from user-generated videos, to a travel savings calculator, to a discussion of community and environment benefits, and the exciting future of transit. Here’s A Public Agency That Really Understands Content Marketing.

Now they are adding even more value for their customers and continuing their effective campaign in a brand-new way.

Helping Passengers First by Adding Smart Transit Technology—and Then by  Enticing Them with Smart Targeted Marketing

AC Transit committed to NextBus to improve bus travel for their millions of annual passengers.  This system tells riders exactly when the next bus will arrive—and can even send arrival alerts so passengers never miss a bus.  However, they didn’t assume that every rider–or potential rider–would be aware of this new technology nor understand how NextBus could help them

To make the most of their NextBus implementation, they have recently added advertising to their bus shelters.  Now, even passersby get the message about how easy it is to use public transit and to stay on time.  The bus stop ads illustrate that it’s easy to know when the next bus will arrive by using NextBus technology. They use an image of a rider using a smart phone to access bus data with an additional close-up image of a smart phone and showing a NextBus prediction. Of course, they include the appropriate web address to use so that riders can access the NextBus data immediatel

In this way, AC Transit helps current riders to improve their bus riding experience while providing an easy-to-understand marketing message for folks who may be just beginning to think about taking the bus on a regular basis.

Even in Northern California, it can be difficult to get drivers out of their cars and onto the bus. But AC  Transit is doing a stellar job of marketing that is very likely to make that transit transition seem like a very smart idea .

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).

Woof, indeed.