[I have made corrections below on the elements to the original story re Apple Newton. I made the edits because careful reader, Zach Leary, noted my Steve Jobs history was way off and that he had no involvement in the creation or development of the Newton.]

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 future 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 the 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.

Apple might have been too early with a tablet but will be will be proven right over time. Steve Jobs killed it off in 1998 when he returned after his multi-year hiatus.  But the tablet concept lived on.

The iPad delivers what the Newton just hinted at . This new device reflects everything Apple has 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:

The iPad: Dominating 2 Critical Trends That Will Drive the Future of Computing

1. Print is giving way to digital content for almost every generation. This seismic shift applies to books…to newspapers…to magazines…to catalogues…to advertising…to direct marketing.  It’s impossible to avoid headlines that shout out the disintegration of traditional print.  Even the best newspapers struggle with print while attempting to make their online products both compelling and profitable.  Costs are up. Subscriptions are down. Staffing has been slashed. Ad revenues have plummeted.
   We are consuming our information digitally and leaving paper behind.  That trend will only accelerate as we find just the right digital solution to meet our information consumption needs.
2. There is another equally powerful tectonic transition– from stationary to mobile. Today we expect to be able to compute and to connect with the world on the run. We also expect to receive the information we want instantly wherever we are. And, since the days of portable cassette players and the Sony Discman, we also want to take our entertainment with us as well.  But, now the definition of entertainment is much broader and includes games, movies, books, and magazines. We want our fun on the run.

In short, we want everything that we have always wanted but we want it on our terms. We are impatient mobile consumers of information and infotainment.

Apple: Seducing Us First with the iPod and the iPhone—Tablet PCs by Any Other Name

Apple has been warming up users with small devices that they adore—the iPod and the iPhone. They have trained us to love their own version of  ‘tablet pc’s’ even though that’s not what they called them. Hundreds of millions of users are now comfortable using Apple touch screens and virtual keyboards even on these super small computers.  That makes them tiny—and unbelievably successful–tablet computers.  The numbers tell the story:

• The iPod. Launched October 2001. 240 million sold by Jan 2010.
• The iPhone. Launched June 2007. 33.75 million sold by Q4 2009.

In spite of  the iPhone/iPod’s miniature form factor, millions of users are using these computing cousins for much more than phones or music devices. They are put them to work:

• to browse the internet
• to read online newspapers and magazines in the browser
• to read books via Kindle iPhone app
• to manage calendar and task info
• to manage finances
• to play games
• to connect with friends/colleagues via email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
• to share pix and videos
• to use a myriad of business and personal applications—2 billion downloaded by Q3 2009.

Soon users will be doing even more, more enjoyably by migrating to the next generation of tablet computers: the IPad.

Let’s Get Large. Bringing the Best of the iPod/iPhone to the iPad

If millions of users are doing so much with such tiny devices, imagine what they will do with a WIFI-enabled, full color, backlit, iPad with a 9.7” screen with 10 hours of reading time.  That’s as large as a small laptop or typical netbook, every bit as powerful, and much more enjoyable to use.

There is a lot to love:

• It’s large but thin–1/2”—and light–1.5 lbs.
• Instant on. No multi-minute Windows warm up wait.
• From the get go, every iPhone application will run unchanged on the iPad
• Users can buy books in full-color from the iBook store which uses the open eBook standard. It will be easy for authors to get their books onto the iPad.
• You can read Kindle books in a nice large size with your Kindle iPhone app.
• You can keep and share all your music, pictures, and videos from your iPod or iPhone.
• You can browse the iTunes store for music, video, and apps.
• You will be able to access customized information products such as the NY Times.
• You can draw and diagram to your heart’s content on a nice, large screen.
• You can easily connect a real keyboard if you want or use a comfortably sized virtual keyboard.
• You have a choice of WIFI only (plenty for many users) or the addition of high-speed 3G internet connectivity.

What’s missing and does it matter?

• No native phone, although you can use Skype or other internet phone software.
• No camera, but you can easily download pix to the iPad from your real camera or camera-enabled smart phone.

I believe that Apple has gotten the iPad just right and that Apple will dominate the heart of an exploding market for tablet computers where every other tablet pretender will be compared for better or for worse to the iPad.

For content marketers who are increasingly focusing on social and mobile media, the iPad offers loads of enticing possibilities to be newly relevant and compelling to a very active group enthusiasts.  Be there or be very square.

Postscript:

Yes, I will be pre-ordering mine on March 12.  And, no, the Newton wasn’t named after me.

Because all of us are smarter than one of us, you will find lots of value in the new e-book, Key Content Marketing Trends and Predictions  for  2010– which even includes my own fearless prediction on content marketing. The genius behind this e-book is Ambal Balakrishnan. She has turned crowd sourcing into an art form.

Ambal has recruited 39 experts and given them an opportunity to display their knowledge. She adds her own value by synthesizing the best of those 39 predictions to come up with her own top 10+1.

Aside from its intrinsic merit, this e-book is a perfect example of content marketing at work. It delivers relevant and valuable content for marketers that illustrates how savvy its creator, Ambal, is about content marketing. Thus, it gives her instant credibility among potential clients.

Here are her top five trend takeaways synthesized from her 39 contributors:

1. Interruptive, "tell-and-sell" marketing is a thing of the past.
2. Don’t follow the crowd.
3. Get visual.
4. Grow more ears.
5. Think about engagement.

There’s plenty of substance behind those brief bullet points, but you’ll have to download the free e-book to access that terrific content. Click on this link to bring your content marketing knowledge up to speed.

Why this e-book represents content marketing at its very best

Key Content Marketing Trends and Predictions  for  2010 has plenty of intrinsic value for marketers. But that’s just the beginning.

What I really love is that Ambal is helping other content marketers with their content marketing. Needless to say, it is in our collective best interests to assist Ambal to promote the heck out of her ebook.

We will happily promote the e-book to our own networks of readers and fans.  Moreover, this e-book is easy to talk about and to explain to fellow marketers—who, in turn, are likely to spread the word. Best of all, she has provided us links to every possible preconfigured tool and image so that we can share it on our websites, our blogs, our eNewsletters or on Twitter. For example, the image I’m using in this blog post comes from a direct link that Ambal provided. She made it very easy for me to help her and to help myself in the process

These critical content marketing components optimize the probability that it will become a pervasive Internet presence within a matter of hours, days or weeks.

That’s pretty smart content marketing.

Social media certainly loomed larger in the past 12 months but interest in content marketing strategy accounted for the majority of the most popular posts.

Here is the Cliff’s Notes bullet point version with more detail and links to the full articles following:

• How To Create the All-Important Elevator Speech For Your Presentations and for Your Content Marketing
• 5 Reasons an eBook Should be a Core Component of Your Content Marketing Strategy
• 5 Twitter Tips to Strengthen Your Content Marketing Strategy
• Want to Attract and Retain Great Customers? Become Their Online Content Concierge!
• Six Steps to a Successful Small Business Content Marketing Strategy
• 6 Reasons Why Your Blog Is Your Most Important Social Media Tool
• Why Being Visual Can Bring Beautiful Business Results
• 6 Reasons to Embrace Social Media Today
• Top 10 Lessons Small Businesses Can Takeaway from Smart Content Marketers
• 6 Secrets to Making Online Video Work for Small Business

A more detailed look at the top 10 with links to each complete article is just below.  Kick back and enjoy.

1. How To Create the All-Important Elevator Speech For Your Presentations and for Your Content Marketing
   It is so hard, but so important to explain what it is that you do and how it will benefit the person to whom you are communicating. Not at length.  But so concisely that it can be communicated in less time than it takes an elevator to go up a few floors. And, so compellingly that your listener will remember and repeat it to others. Click to read more.

2. 5 Reasons an eBook Should be a Core Component of Your Content Marketing Strategy
   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. Click here to read more.

3. 5 Twitter Tips to Strengthen Your Content Marketing Strategy
   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. Click here to read more.

4. Want to Attract and Retain Great Customers? Become Their Online Content Concierge!
   Think of yourself as the ultimate knowledge resource like those concierges serving fine hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton or the Four Seasons—But Available 24/7. Click here to read more.
5. Six Steps to a Successful Small Business Content Marketing Strategy
   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. Click here to read more.
6. 6 Reasons Why Your Blog Is Your Most Important Social Media Tool
   It’s much more powerful than those young whippersnappers–Twitter and Facebook
   Thanks to free or inexpensive blogging tools, any individual can be on the same technological footing as the New York Times or Business Week.  That may seem relatively obvious to many of you.  What I think is less obvious is that your blog is every bit as much a social media tool as Twitter, Facebook or MySpace.  In fact, I believe that a blog is the most important social media weapon in your arsenal. Click here to read more.
7. Why Being Visual Can Bring Beautiful Business Results
   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. Click here to read more.
8. 6 Reasons to Embrace Social Media Today
   Social media marketing is a trend, not a fad. But,  most small to medium-sized businesses have yet to participate fully and enthusiastically.
   We have just written about a powerful new research study that paints a picture of how thousands of smart companies are already benefiting from the inclusion of social media.  What’s clear from that research is that when we evaluate social media, we are not talking about the marketing longevity equivalent of the hula hoop or the Lambada.
   Social media marketing is here to stay.  Because you want your organization to be here for the long haul as well, you need to move now.  Not next week. Not next month. But now. Click here to read more.
9. Top 10 Lessons Small Businesses Can Takeaway from Smart Content Marketers
   This week, several client meetings reinforced a vital truth:  Content marketing isn’t an arcane theory taught in expensive graduate schools that only billion dollar companies can use. In fact, great  content marketing is much more about brains than big bucks.
   Those client conversations took me back to lessons learned from more than a dozen case studies we featured in Get Content Get Customers. What came through loud and clear was that content marketing requires discipline, patience, and persistence, but it doesn’t require an enormous budget.  Click here to read more.
10. 6 Secrets to Making Online Video Work for Small Business
    Kathy Saenz of Neighborhood America Shares What It Takes to Make Video an Effective Content Marketing Tool
    Even a micro business can use video effectively to communicate with its customers online.
    But, as we amateur carpenters know, you can wind up with a mess instead of a masterpiece unless you understand how to use a potentially powerful tool well.   In that spirit we’re happy to can share with you six terrific tips for using video successfully from talented Southwest Florida professional, Kathy Saenz. Click here to read more.

Thanks to everyone for their support in 2009!

You have to love it when a great marketing guy completes the content marketing circle. That’s exactly what Jonathan Kranz has done in his new E-Book E-Book which teaches its readers  exactly how to create an effective e-book that will, in turn, serve as an effective content marketing vehicle for their organizations.

Jonathan is true to the content marketing credo. He provides relevant and compelling content for free. He proves that he understands how to create a great e-book by creating a great e-book. In so doing, he makes himself a trusted source of information whom we would be comfortable hiring to help us with our content marketing. It just doesn’t get any better.

Here are my top 10 takeaways from this terrific e-book:

1. Make sure you have something worth saying. If you don’t, your e-book will flop.
2. When searching for ideas, think about how you can solve a problem, help your customers succeed or both.
3. It is okay and even important to frame the debate in your favor. That is, if your company is particularly good at solving certain sets of problems, focus on how important it is to solve those very problems.
4. You do not have to be positive throughout. In fact, building up the potential danger of failing to solve a problem builds dramatic tension that will keep your readers engaged from beginning to end.  This is akin to the old sales technique of scaring the heck out of your customer before you show him how you can get him out of the frying pan. 
5. Organize your e-book in short, easily digestible sections. This makes your content much more appealing to time-starved, short attention span business executives.
6. Although organizing by lists may seem old hat, it works. Lists make for a simple and understandable way of organizing almost any kind of content.
7. Real life case studies add meat to your e-book bones as you take your case study protagonists from challenge to solution to results.
8. Be generous with sidebars, callouts, and graphics. These will make your written content even more easily digestible and understandable.
9. A compelling introduction is vital because it sets the stage for the content to come and lets your reader know that you understand his problems and will be providing solutions that are relevant to him.
10. When you wrap up your e-book, make sure that you lead your reader to the all important next steps that he must take in order to achieve the positive results you have shown to be possible in your e-book.

If you’re trying to figure out how to use e-books as a core component of your content marketing strategy, this is absolute must reading.  Of course, since this is a perfect example of content marketing, it’s also free. Click here to get Jonathan’s E-Book E-Book.

While you’re enjoying the beach or a barbecue this 4th of July weekend, take a few minutes to ponder how effective content marketing can make you independent of the old-fashioned way of doing things.

Here’s the tasty topics menu from which to choose:

• how to create effective elevator speech to drive your content marketing
• using content marketing to survive the recession
• low cost research as killer weapon
• making an eBook a core component of your content marketing strategy
• become your customers’ online content concierge
• why your blog is your most important social media tool

Read on to see the 6 most popular articles that your fellow content marketers voted for with their visits.

1. How To Create the All-Important Elevator Speech For Your Presentations and for Your Content Marketing    
   It is so hard, but so important to explain what it is that you do and how it will benefit the person to whom you are communicating. Not at length.  But so concisely that it can be communicated in less time than it takes an elevator to go up a few floors. And, so compellingly that your listener will remember and repeat it to others.
   Actually, Nick Morgan is even more precise than this.  He says your elevator speech must be a single sentence. Read more. 
2. Ways Content Marketing Can Help You Survive the Recession
   Crank up your communications now.  Don’t dial back your efforts.
   The knee-jerk reaction for most companies when faced with the recession is to reduce their marketing efforts. However, decades of research show that those who maintain or increase their marketing will blow past their peers once the recession is over. Read more.

3. Why You Should Use Low Cost Research as a Killer Content Marketing Weapon
   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. Read more.

4. Five Reasons an e-Book Should Be a Core Component Of Your Content Marketing Strategy
   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. Read more.

5. Want to Attract and Retain Great Customers? Become Their Online Content Concierge!Think of yourself as the ultimate knowledge resource like those concierges serving fine  hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton or the Four Seasons—But Available 24/7.
   When you find yourself in a new town but are blessed to be staying in a hotel with a knowledgeable and caring concierge, you’ve got it made. When your customers come to your website, they are similarly looking to you to solve their problems.  If you can succeed at providing plenty of substantive information that addresses their biggest problems, you are beginning to play the role of content concierge in their lives. Read more.

6. 6 Reasons Why Your Blog Is Your Most Important Social Media Tool
   It’s much more powerful than those young whippersnappers–Twitter and Facebook
   Thanks to free or inexpensive blogging tools, any individual can be on the same technological footing as the New York Times or Business Week.  That may seem relatively obvious to many of you.  What I think is less obvious is that your blog is every bit as much a social media tool as Twitter, Facebook or MySpace.  In fact, I believe that a blog is the most important social media weapon in your arsenal. Read more.

Enjoy.

And have a wonderfully, independent and freedom-rich 4th of July!

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:

1. You can quickly, compellingly, visually, and inexpensively establish thought leadership with an e-book that provides relevant information on the toughest challenges your customers face.  Although you should have complete, in-depth information on your website that delves into those same challenges, an e-book distills your organization’s wisdom in an easily digestible format.  In the case of the RPO group, they boil it down to 5 Secrets of Talent that target c-level executives who care deeply about talent but probably think very little about the minutia of recruitment.
2. Offering a free e-book, is a wonderful incentive to entice your prospects to begin in their engagement with you.  You don’t need to require that they sign up to download your e-book In fact, author David Meerrman Scott, stresses that you should never require registration for the downloading of e-books. The RPO group follows this rule and has managed to get more than 4000 prospective customers to download theirs. Their CEO, Liam Ovenden, explains their thinking about providing this kind of great, free content, "Now we’ve got qualified buyers coming to our website who are being turned from strangers into friends.  And that makes our business development instantly more successful, which was the whole point in the first place."
3. E-books, in the universally acceptable PDF format, are easy to pass along from one prospect to another, giving you potentially infinite reach.  This means that however many initial downloads you get, you will undoubtedly get much broader viral reach with an e-book that delivers relevant and compelling content.  E-books don’t suffer from the limitations of print material.  Once you have made the initial investment it costs no more to generate a million copies than it does to generate a hundred copies.
4. If you need help in designing your e-book and in generating the content, you can find talented designers and freelance writers easily. The skill set required to create an e-book is much more universal than that required to build a highly sophisticated website.  Thus, there is plenty of available talent.  The key is to make sure to partner with folks who understand the importance of great content that precisely targets your ideal customers.
5. If your budget is very limited, you can create your own e-book by starting with PowerPoint and then transforming the PowerPoint files into PDF files. Even if you need to bring in professionals to fine tune your work, your investment will still be minimal while yielding maximum results.  Take a look at the 5 Secrets of Talent and you’ll see that although it is certainly well designed, you could probably replicate the basic style yourself and wind up with a highly effective content marketing vehicle that delivers infinitely greater impact and reach than a traditional print brochure.

Even if you’re not quite ready to make the plunge into e-book publishing, start exploring e-books that you find compelling in terms of information that’s directly relevant to you.  I think you’ll find that the best ones have a pretty powerful impact in positioning the e-book writers as experts you can trust to help solve your problems.

Shama is an online marketing expert.  How do I know this without having met her?  Because I have visited her website, “AftertheLaunch.com,” read her blog, and downloaded her e-book, “Online Marketing Plan.” There is so much great stuff inside this e-book that you’ll be amazed she’s not charging big bucks for you to buy it.

How did I learn about her in the first place?  Because she wrote a great comment on one of my blog posts.  That prompted me to visit her website where I discovered all the terrific stuff she’s doing.

In other words, she is walking the content marketing walk.

Three secrets to her success

1. When you get to her well-designed website, it tells you exactly what she can do to help you solve your problems.
2. She provides a treasure trove of free marketing-related content, most notably her Online Marketing Plan.
3. Because she demonstrates her expertise while displaying an obviously upbeat, enthusiastic personality, it is very easy to make the next step and call her to see how she might help you do exactly the same for your business.

Content marketing displacing advertising

Shama reinforces our conviction that great content marketing, whether it’s online, in print, or in person, can be much more powerful than traditional advertising.  As she puts it, it’s all about proving that you are an expert:

Advertising is Out. Expertise is In. Only 14% of people trust advertising. Personally, I think that number is too high. Online advertising may work for some products, but it rarely works for service oriented professions. When was the last time you chose a doctor or a lawyer because of an ad you saw? Establishing yourself as an expert is the KEY to attracting more clients online.

The wonderful thing about content marketing, as Shama proves, is that you can out market a giant corporation without needing to come close to outspending it.  Sensational content marketing is not about what’s inside your wallet.  It’s about what’s inside your brain.

Be sure to visit her website, AftertheLaunch.com.  You will come away a lot smarter about online marketing.  And, of course, you may even want to hire her.

Get content. Get customers.,

The range of organizations that we analyzed extended from huge multibillion dollar public companies to midsize companies with a few hundred employees and even to very small single owner organizations.

We know that you will want to run out and buy the book because it is chock-full of content marketing knowledge that you can put to work immediately.

But for now, here are the top 10 content marketing lessons we gleaned from some brilliant content marketing practitioners. These represent the themes that we recognized again and again as we examined how organizations are putting content marketing to work.

1. Only content that is intrinsically valuable to your customers will work as a core component of your content marketing strategy.

2. You must have a thorough understanding of your customers and what is most important to them. If you do not understand the problems and challenges they face, you cannot hope to create content that is truly relevant to them. Without understanding their problems, you cannot provide solutions.

3. A comprehensive content marketing strategy may provide a complete or partial replacement of traditional advertising and marketing. Such a strategy can be both more effective and less expensive than doing things the old-fashioned way.

4. Print magazines can be a powerful weapon within your content marketing arsenal. They enable you to reach out with precision to your customers with carefully targeted messaging that is totally under your control.

5. Great design adds significant value to content marketing by making it more accessible, more appealing, and more actionable for your customers.

6. Your best content marketing investment may be in the creation of a dedicated internal or external team who understand how to produce great content and who live and die by the success of your content marketing program.

7. Drink your own Kool-Aid. Whenever possible, use your own company’s products or services to prove their worth to your customers.

8. Get your customers to participate actively with the content you create in print and online. Begin a conversation and keep it going in order to earn their loyalty and trust.

9. Relevant and valuable content is just the first step in turning a prospect or visitor into a customer. You must then make it easy for them to buy.

10. Most of the best practices from the larger companies we profiled can be emulated in whole or in part even by very small organizations. It’s not the money. It’s the content marketing mindset that counts. Big ideas can trump big bucks.

These lessons are fairly simple to express but much harder to put into practice. That’s why we know you will want to buy the book.

Stay tuned for much more as we near publication.

To learn more about our new book–and to buy a copy–click on Get Content. Get Customers.

For example, let’s suppose you have decided to create a quarterly print magazine that targets an important audience segment.  You will need to spend a significant amount of time and effort in generating the content that will make this magazine relevant and valuable to its readers.  That is obviously critical.  But you can do even more.

After all, the print magazine has a finite reach.  Think beyond print.  Think beyond the magazine.  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 magazine itself.

Here are 15 great ways to extend the reach of your content far beyond the circulation of that print publication.  Many of these involve little or no incremental expense while offering dramatically improved incremental impact.

1. Record audio and video of interviews for the magazine or newsletter
for later repurposing (we’ll use magazine for the rest of this example).

2. Develop a news release schedule before the magazine comes out. Target three or four key topics that affect your customers and the industry (based on the magazine content). The release link should take them to the magazine subscription or digital magazine subscription
page. An incentive could be a free subscription to the print magazine or newsletter.

3. Discuss the magazine on your corporate blog. Get your editor to post some of the key findings/issues. If you don’t have a corporate blog, create one on your magazine microsite.

4. Sent out news releases through a keyword-optimized service such as PRWeb.

5. Post videos of interviews to YouTube and other targeted video portals
specific to your industry. Upload audio to microsites. Research podcast directories that may be relevant to your industry.

6. Print and mail glossy 32+ page magazine to your targeted database.

7. Send digital magazine version to the international audience or domestic audience you didn’t want to spend printing and postage on (possibly a secondary customer target).

8. Make sure all articles have their own HTML pages on your microsite. Be sure each article has social media capabilities such as letting people add it to Facebook, Digg, or StumbleUpon, to name a few.

9. Be sure to Stumble! noteworthy articles and choose the proper category for the article. Say, for example, the article goes best in agriculture; those people who have tagged agriculture as a keyword may see your article when they use StumbleUpon.

10. Provide something remarkable and different on your microsite for download. This does two things: 1) continues the conversation with your current customers, or 2) gives you information on prospects so you can begin a conversation with them. Something remarkable may be a free eBook about the 10 trends in your industry, or a free white paper on a new, cutting-edge technology. Keep the sales pitch out. Seek only to educate at this point.

11. Use PPC, targeting specific keywords to drive people to your downloadable content offering.

12. Be sure to make RSS feeds available for your web content.

13. Continue the news release program, pushing the audience to the videos, an eBook, or key articles. Remember, news releases aren’t for getting press; they are for building key links and for helping bloggers and influencers find your site. Industry bloggers can be key to your magazine effort.

14. Upload articles to key vertical and social bookmarking sites such as SmallBusinessBrief.com for small business, Sphinn for SEO/SEM, or Digg.com for wider exposure.

15. And if you are really on the cutting edge, create a Facebook fan page around your magazine or your company and promote within that vehicle. Invite your key customers to join the Facebook group.

It talks about how to convert customers using content as a key focus. This is a topic all small business owners and solopreneurs should embrace.

The odd fact is that it’s often overlooked. I always look at the content of a client’s website as a key indicator of how well they understand their customer and how targeted their marketing is.

It’s Hard to Make Things Easy

I was intrigued that she spotlighted our B.E.S.T. formula for content marketing. In fact, we were emulating her approach by making it easier for marketers to make it easy for the customers.

It really is hard to make things easy. We’ve found that even marketers who are willing and eager to move toward a content marketing strategy find development and implementation difficult. Why? Because there are few roadmaps to this marketing frontier. Our B.E.S.T. formula is designed to simplify a complicated process.

Here are the basics:

Apply the B.E.S.T. formula so that your marketing is:

Behavioral – Everything you communicate with your customers has a purpose. What do you want them to do?

Essential – Deliver information that your best prospects really need to succeed at work or in life.

Strategic – Your content marketing efforts must be an integral part of your overall business strategy.

Targeted – You must target your content precisely so that it is truly relevant to your buyers.

Use the B.E.S.T approach to all of your online, print, and in-person communications. That’s how you can play the same role that newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, conferences, workshops, and Web sites have played in the past. Now it’s your turn to become the trusted source that persuades them to become loyal, long-term customers.

As Stephanie noted, “Joe and Newt have created a “B.E.S.T” test that helps you evaluate your strategy. Check it out.”

If you would like to learn more, click here for our FREE eBook, Get Content. Get Customers. It describes why content is so critical, why you need to deploy a content marketing strategy, and how to begin the process.

And, if you want to make it easier for your customers to buy, check out her blog. You will always come away with useful action items.