Content Marketing Today

Dean Piccirillo Makes a One-Person Blog-powered Website Look like a Major Corporate Presence Online

Building a solid business blog-powered website is challenging for all of us. But it’s even more difficult for anyone who lives in the financial services universe.

Because financial services professionals must adhere to strict compliance regulations, they must be very careful about what they say and how they say it.  Dean Piccirillo a principal in HBK Sorce Financial, LLC, manages to convey relevant and compelling information while maintaining essential compliance.

Even more impressive is the quality of his own site's design which manages to be simultaneously newsy and professional. To build DeanPiccirillo.com, Dean used a WordPress theme called Live Wire that can be significantly customized for the needs of an individual business.  Perhaps most impressive of all is the fact that Dean did almost all the work himself. Although this may be beyond the capabilities of many of us, it shows what a non-technical businessperson can achieve using the power of a tool like WordPress.

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Effective content marketing online drives LifeinBonitaSprings.com to number four on search rankings.

You might think that Realtor.com, Yahoo real estate, the Yellow Pages, either of the two local newspapers or all of the big area real estate companies would trample an individual realtor on Google. But, you’d be wrong.

In fact, when you search for "Bonita Springs real estate" in Google, you pull up a total of 557,000 results. But, standing at an impressive #4 is LifeinBonitaSprings.com. That's the blog powered website of Chris Griffith, a realtor with Downing Frye real estate. It's worth noting that, although Downing Frye is a successful, well-established local realtor, their company website doesn't show up until page 3 of the listings.

Although Chris gets a terrific ranking, does that translate into business for her? You bet it does.

Chris says that she currently gets more than 90% of all of her real estate business directly from the Internet. Just five years ago only half of her business came from the Web.

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Inspiration from ‘Visual Blogger’ Mark Smiciklas of Intersection Marketing

It's hard to make things easy. And, it's even harder to be amusing at the same time.

But the very best visuals take a complex idea or series of connected ideas and make them instantly understandable. Just the right visuals make those ideas even more memorable when they are funny as well. In the case of the Intersection Marketing blog from Mark Smiciklas, he manages to do both consistently. Read More

How to go from clueless to compelling to transform prospects into buyers

In 2007, the mention of content marketing brought as many blank stares from small business owners as the mention of a website did 10 years before. In fact, in 1997 when we started our small business magazine in Southwest Florida, few owners had websites, let alone an online marketing strategy. In 2009, most small businesses do have websites and the term, ‘content marketing,' has gone from obscure to fashionable. When I say fashionable, I mean that the usage of the phrase has skyrocketed in the past two years. For example, the number of visitors to our website who arrived because they had done a search for 'content marketing,' has increased by a factor of 10. I'm delighted that content marketing has come out of the shadows and into the spotlight. Even so, for most small businesses, developing a content marketing mindset and a strategy to follow just does not come naturally. Fortunately, the fundamentals of a successful small business content marketing strategy are much more commonsensical than you might think.  In fact, they build on what have long been best marketing practices.  Even those content marketing elements that require a new mindset have a simple and compelling logic that even the smallest business can grasp and adopt.

Here are the six steps that can put you on the path to an effective content marketing strategy:

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Great Advice from Singapore Blogger and Coach Celestine Chua on Kick Starting Your Business

We all tend to go overboard with any important trend. We get so excited about what's brand-new that we forget about the tried and true. So it is with inbound marketing vs. outbound marketing.

Celestine reminds us that outbound marketing done right, particularly in the form of smart public relations can make a measurable and almost immediate positive difference. 

The concept behind inbound marketing is that you engage in a lot of information creation activities that will pull in folks who are interested in what you have to say. Business blogs and participation in social media such as Twitter and Facebook enable you to offer content that prospects volunteer to consume.

Obviously, I believe in that. Witness the existence of Content Marketing Today and the blog post you’re currently reading. But, as Celestine emphasizes, that's only the first part of the equation that should also include smart outbound marketing.

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Influence them with information well before they are ready to buy from you.

I have written before about the many differences between a traditional website and a blog.

Your website typically provides timeless information, while your blog provides timely information. Moreover, your blog becomes more important as you keep adding more and more content that is relevant to your prospective customers.

But a case study about a consulting company, De Novo Strategy, from Bernie Borges' new book, Marketing 2.0, suggested a new nuanced but critical reason for the power of a business blog.  It boils down to the fundamental difference between the purpose of your website and of your blog.

Your website must necessarily be designed so that when your customers are ready to research the purchase of products and services, they will find everything they need to know to make a positive buying decision on your site.

Your blog has the opportunity to reach those prospective customers earlier in the process. The best blogs provide a continuous stream of information about topics, issues, and problems that are specific to a well defined market niche. This would apply equally to content marketing or a segment of the banking industry.

As we begin an initial search for information in a particular niche, we probably have no intention of buying anything from anybody. At that moment in time, we simply want to become better informed in areas that matter to us, either professionally or personally. We are looking for information. We are not looking for a vendor.

A banking market website without a blog--loser. With a blog--winner.

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How I Discovered This Video Offers Another Proof of the Power of Social Media

SW Florida online marketing maven and real estate professional, Chris Griffith, clued me into this cool and compelling video which does a terrific job of dispelling doubts about the power and impact of social media. So, it's only natural to share it on my blog.

But, there’s more. As I was about to simply post the video, I realized that the Facebook alert from Chris was a metaphor for the fast growing impact of social media to connect people, businesses, and concepts.

Here's what I mean:

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Content Marketing Pioneer, Tim Berry of Palo Alto Software Tells You How to Build Your Business Before He Charges You a Nickel

In 1994, I read the first edition of Tim Berry's wonderful book, Hurdle: The Book on Business Planning without realizing that it was a perfect example of content marketing. Of course, back then, nobody was calling what he did content marketing. Essentially, Tim's book gave away all of the information you needed to build your own successful business plan. This might seem odd since his real business then and now is selling software that automates the process of building business plans and marketing plans. Why would we want to buy his software after we've read his book? I believe there are two reasons: Read More

That's the key word from veteran SEO expert Heather Lloyd-Martin

SEO is not about creating a website sausage overstuffed with key words and phrases. It’s all about creating relevant and compelling content that transforms you into a thought leader who can become a trusted provider That is ultimately how you convert visitors into buyers Of course, this is gospel for me and many content marketers. But, it is still poorly understood by many marketers and SEO practitioners who swear that cramming a ton of “search engine friendly” words and phrases deemed into every nook and cranny of your website will place you high on the results page. So, I was both encouraged and inspired by Heather Lloyd-Martin's recent post. She has been helping clients get great search results for more than a decade. Since Heather does search engine optimization for a living, it's wonderful to hear her say that it's ultimately all about the content. Read More

You may be wondering why something as seemingly simple as Twitter causes so much confusion and consternation among business people. Perhaps, it best likened to a tool like a hammer which is simultaneously simple and powerful.  After all, a hammer can be used to put up a basic bookshelf or to build an entire home that will house a family for a lifetime. Everything depends on whether you wield that hammer in an awkward, solitary way or use it skillfully and cooperatively with a team of other like-minded folks.  So too with Twitter.   Used poorly, you may do little more than smash your virtual thumb.  But, if you use it well, you can make a measurable difference in your content marketing strategy.  Happily, some terrific tools make the effective use of Twitter almost as easy as hammering in a nail. (If you are brand new to Twitter, you may want to read our earlier post, Twitter for Business Made Easy , before continuing)

Here are six easy ways for Twitter to strengthen your content marketing efforts:

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