Content Marketing Today

Blase Ciabaton, The DirectMail Man, Teaches a New Way to Do Some Real One-to-One Content Marketing

In order to generate measurable marketing response, you may well continue to rely on direct mail.  Although it may be less effective than in pre-Internet days, direct marketing does work with the right targeted message to the right audience. 

You can optimize your efforts by using a tool suggested by Blase Ciabaton. It’s all about PURLs that let you get personal with your prospects.

As a content marketer, you can target prospects individually with the use of PURLs, which are ‘personalized URLs.'  Thus, a 10,000 person direct marketing campaign would generate 10,000 PURLs which serve as individualized landing pages and can even greet the direct mail recipient by name.

A Powerful, Portable, Flexible, Connected, Social, and Cool Information and Entertainment Device for the 21st Century

[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:

You No Longer Need to Get Lost Among a Blizzard of Big Ads from the Big Boys. You can win online instead.

If you were to dig up a five or 10-year-old edition of the Yellow Pages, you would find that in every major category, there are lots of very large ads from companies with huge budgets to spend influencing buying behavior. Back then, it really was important to have some kind of presence in the Yellow Pages because they frequently represented the last stage in purchasing.

Today everything has changed. Buyers go first to the web to do their research about potential purchases. They then either buy directly from the web or take their research results and go to the store or contact the business in order to complete their purchase.  You have only to look at the incredible shrinking Yellow Pages to understand how little influence they have in purchasing behavior today.

That is sad for the Yellow Pages. But it is terrific for small business marketers.

As Content Marketing Goes from Optional to Obligatory for Business,  Penton Suffers and Miller Electric Shines

Penton’s shift to online only for Welding Design & Fabrication symbolizes the decline of traditional media.  At the same time, Miller Electric shows just how powerful content marketing can be as a replacement for traditional publishing—even when publishers take their acts to the web.

Penton’s print magazine launched in 1959 when Eisenhower was President, Sputnik had just gone into orbit, and most TVs were black and white. After decades of success, the print edition of Welding Design & Fabrication succumbed to fundamental changes in buyer behavior and vanishing ad dollars.  In fact, only an association publication remains in print.

Print pubs are perishing across the B2B landscape as advertisers and readers flee. What’s happening at Penton is happening everywhere. You may regret the demise of B2B print as do I, but you cannot bring it back to life. You can no more expect a return to publishing days gone by than you can to poodle skirts and hula hoops.

Yes, you can apply the best of traditional public relations practices to the new world of social media

Guest post from Kathleen Taylor, APR, President of the Southwest Florida chapter of the Florida Public Relations Association offers 4 top takeaways from their January 2010 Social Media Cafe.   Her report from the seminar illustrates that social media is beginning to permeate PR even in a relatively small market such as the Naples/Ft. Myers Fl area.

By Kathleen Taylor, APR

"The wisdom's in the room. Make a concerted effort to learn from those around you," said Butch Ward from Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, FL, as he spoke with a crowd of public relations professionals at the January 2010 Social Media Café.  Butch and three fellow experts shared new ways of including social media tactics in our public relations practices.

The Poynter Institute describes itself as “a school dedicated to teaching and inspiring journalists and media leaders.” The Institute’s interest in how PR or “business communication” professionals practice exemplifies the social media requirement  to reach beyond the way we’ve always done things. As Butch reminded the audience, we are all learning together as we explore the new  social media sandbox. Fortunately for all of us, not everything is new and unfamiliar.

In fact, as we expand our minds to embrace new technology and new methods, the best of traditional public relations and marketing principles still apply.  Moreover, even new elements such as business blogging don’t need to be intimidating.

Here are 4 useful tips from the Social Media Café seminar that will make even reluctant marketing professionals comfortable about  jumping on board the social media train before it has left the station:

New Crowd Sourced E-Book Is Also a Brilliant Example of Content Marketing

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.

Stand Out from the Marketing Crowd

Thanks to Lou Bortone, video marketing guru for this guest post

In an over-crowded and hyper-competitive marketplace, video marketing can help you break through the clutter and deliver your message in a powerful and memorable way. Thanks to YouTube, and inexpensive, easy-to-use camera options like webcams, Flip Video cameras and iPhones, online video is now well within the grasp of just about anyone.

However, just because creating video is more accessible than ever, that doesn’t mean we all know how or where to use it. As with any marketing tool, you’ve got to start with your goals for video. Your video marketing objectives may include greater visibility, enhanced credibility or expert status, higher search engine rankings, increased brand awareness or all of the above!

By beginning with the end in mind, you can decide on how best to use your video to achieve your objectives. To give you some ideas for diving in, here are ten great ways to use online video:

  It’s been a very good year for content marketing. In fact, visitors searching our site for the phrase “content marketing” increased by 85% in 2009 over 2008.

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.

Joe Pulizzi’s 7th Installment Reviews Record 300 Blogs to Select Content Marketing Thought Leaders

We are delighted to be part of the content marketing blog elite once again. In fact, we are even happier to have jumped up 4 notches from #13 to #9.

The number of blogs reviewed by the Junta42 team has grown as dramatically as the move toward adoption of content marketing strategies among companies of all sizes.  They began with a list of over 300 blogs through nominations and known content marketing-related blogs (the initial 2007 rankings contained only 81 blogs).

Integrate your online and in person efforts by learning from Truebridge's work in the banking industry.

Content marketing works by providing your best customers vital information that helps them be more successful or to live better lives. As a stand-alone effort, content marketing is powerful. What's even better is to integrate your online efforts with your team’s one-on-one work with current and future customers.

As with so much of marketing, this is a lot easier to say than to do. In a world of limited resources, generating great content poses challenges, particularly for smaller organizations. Knowing exactly what to say and how to say it rarely comes naturally to the folks who are running small companies.

Within the financial world, marketers have even greater challenges because they must comply with stringent regulations that restrict how and what they communicate to their prospects and customers.

Banks face a related challenge within their branches where they would like to do a lot more cross-selling of services to their current customers. Cross-selling can be difficult because today's customers do not want to be aggressively sold and because branch employees typically lack sophisticated selling skills.

That’s where Truebridge’s unique approach comes into play.