Content Marketing Today

A Great Video Points the Way to Effective Use of RSS

Written by Paul Mosensen

  An overview on Google Reader, and how to manage RSS feeds, folders, share buttons, and integrate with LinkedIn, Google Alerts, Google+, and Twitter...... Read More

Who Knew How Hard It Was to Be An Outbound Marketer?

Rebecca Shares Her Pain Musically for Our Amusement

This may go down with Old Man River as a classic song of pain and suffering. Read More

The Power of Storytelling for Content Marketers from Robert Rose

  In this video post, Robert Rose, co-author with Joe Pullizzi of 'Managing Content Marketing,' discusses what brands can learn from big-screen storytelling, as well as from Joseph Campbell: creating 'heroic' content that speaks to your audience. Via www.contentmarketinginstitute.com

This past September, I was honored to speak at Content Marketing World. My talk was called “Storytelling Secrets From Hollywood.” Since that time, I’ve had a few people ask me for the slides. Inspired by these requests, I’ve been having some fun learning about video-editing programs. So here, I thought I’d go one step further and develop a little video for CMI readers. The video embedded below is the basis of my presentationat Content Marketing World 2011.  I’ve since added some more visual elements to the storytelling — including clips from some of the movies I reference. (Hopefully, I’ve made them a little more fun to watch). Of course, if you’re interested in viewing the on-demand version of my talk, it’s available here.

Read More

Via Scoop.it - Content Marketing Now Written by David Meerman Scott One of my favorite videos is HP Invent, which was co-created by Tom Wrigglesworth. I've shown this video at many of my speaking gigs because it beautifully captures what HP Workstations are about. The video is not a product pitch. And it is entertaining as heck.   HP - invent from Films & Things on Vimeo. This HP Invent video has nearly 600,000 views. Imagine that – a video [...] Read More

Via Scoop.it - Content Marketing Now     Sally Hogshead's video explains the 9 second rule. Grab them fast or lose them. Keynote speaker Sally Hogshead is the author of FASCINATE, teaching audiences how to persuade and captivate in a world with a 9 second attention span.       Listen to Sally and You'll Begin to Understand Why You Need to Buy Her Book: Fascinate.

More on this fun, fabulous, and yes, fascinating read: Read More

A Compelling  and Affordable Video Did the Trick

Normally in Hollywood, when you're trying to get someone to join the cast of a picture, it involves actors and their agents, directors, studios, sending scripts back and forth, and lots of other rigmarole.

When you're trying to attract a big star like Amy Adams, at best, this process is inefficient. At worst, it is completely ineffective.

The producer of the new Muppets movie, Jason Segel, decided to use content marketing to appeal to Amy Adams, who had lately been appearing in pretty serious dramas such as, The Fighter. Although he probably had no idea that his approach involved content marketing, his perfectly targeted video illustrates all the best of what content marketing can be—and can accomplish.

Read More

Geico’s Drill Sergeant Therapist Gets It Just Right. Mayflower Marionette Gets It All Wrong.

Even though they spend plenty of money on television advertising, Geico doesn't need to spend much money at all for this incredibly effective commercial which is one of a series that are similarly effective.

On the other hand, Mayflower has created an elaborate series of giant marionette television commercials which are certainly expensive but almost as certainly ineffective.

Geico Makes a Simple Point and Ties It to a Compelling Story

The commercial begins with an intro asking whether Geico can really save you 15% on automobile insurance and then segues into a little vignette that tells a story that virtually all of us would believe would be intuitively true. The connection is then simply made between the story and the saving of 15% on automobile insurance.

This commercial series is not about some highfalutin branding or image making. Rather, it's about telling a simple story that is not only easy to remember but is also easy to retell. Even better, most of these Geico ads are also pretty darned funny. That makes them even more memorable.

The best content marketing should include compelling stories to which your customers and prospects can relate easily. This may be hard to do. But it does not have to be expensive.

Read More

Veteran Sailors, Steve and Doris Colgate, Make Sailing Come Alive on the Web

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.

Read More

Plenty Has Changed from 1960 to 2010 but What Is Most Important Has Stayed the Same.

If you're not already a fan of the TV classic in the making, Mad Men, it's all about the Madison Avenue ad agency world of the early 1960s. There was plenty of drinking, smoking, and carrying on. But, there was plenty of great, and surprisingly timeless, marketing taking place, too.

Most of you probably are not old enough to remember when housewives really did wear shirtwaist dresses to do housework, when color TV was just beginning to take hold, when JFK  had just promised a man on the moon, and when a lot of famous brands were invented or enhanced by the ad agency Mad Men in the title.  That may have been a long time ago, but we can still learn some timeless content marketing truths from one wonderful segment.

In a Mad Men segment about the creation of the Kodak Carousel the roots of content marketing shine through when lead character, Don Draper, makes it clear that building a brand is all about storytelling and engaging the consumer--and not about technology or the company itself.

Read More

Bring Your Business Up to Speed with Timely Tips from SW Florida Experts

Although our Southwest Florida region comprises mostly small businesses, we are blessed with a surprising number of savvy local experts on content marketing and social media. I was delighted to take part in a recent Collier Business Industry Association (CBIA) Sales and Marketing Council session with just such a group:

• Marc Meyer, Principle at Digital Response Marketing Group
• Jim Cossetta, cofounder of 4what.com
• Paul Mussina, President, Business Technology insight

Attendees from the building industry and related companies struggle with two simultaneous challenges:

• They are suffering from our a especially steep downturn in building that limits both people and dollar resources.
• They need to transform from traditional marketing methods to content marketing and social media.

Fortunately, there is a new generation of affordable tools and techniques that can make that transformation inexpensive—and with a bit of outside help—almost painless.

Here are some practical lessons on content marketing and social media that I’d like to share from the St. Patrick’s Day session.

Read More