Content Marketing Today

Excellent Advice from PR Guru, Joan Stewart Written by Joan Stewart If your online pressroom looks anything like mine did about two hours ago, it’s time to drag out the dust mask, the Shop-Vac® and maybe even a garbage dumpster. I found so much outdated information and ancient publicity photos in the pressrooms at my website and at thePressRoom247 site that I almost didn’t recognize myself! And then it dawned on me that the current photo at this blog is about a decade old. That, [...] Read More

Time to Take Out the Social Media TrashMarketing PilgrimHere's the full layout from Altimeter's new report: “A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation.” Companies create multiple accounts to split out brands or for a specific marketing...Via www.marketingpilgrim.com Read More

  Get content. Get customers.,has now sold more than 10,000 copies in its hardcover, paperback, and eBook editions.

Even though Joe Pulizzi and I wrote and updated it in the early stages of the content marketing revolution, our book’s vital lessons and detailed case studies are just as valid and valuable today. 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.

If you haven’t yet read Get Content Get Customers, 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, just to wet your content marketing whistle, here are the top 10 takeaways 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.

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How to Get  Readers to Spend Serious Time with Your Core Content

Be brief. Be complete. Be Enticing. Headlines have always been important in print publications. They are even more important online. They grab readers’ attention and lure them into reading entire articles.  If you have lots of great headlines, avid readers will linger much longer with your content.

Solutions for Short Attention Spans

Today’s readers have short attention spans. That’s exponentially true for your online visitors. You have seconds to grab them before they move on.  You need to show why they should care enough to continue reading. Otherwise, your content marketing efforts will fall short. Easier said than done, you might think. Fortunately, a quick scan of this morning’s online edition of the New York Post illustrates the 3 shocking secrets that you can apply to your online headlines. Read More

8 Ways to Extend Your Print or eNewsletter's Reach Far Beyond Its Core Subscribers

When you publish a monthly print or electronic newsletter that targets an important audience segment,  you probably invest heavily in generating the content that will make this newsletter relevant and valuable to its readers.  That is obviously critical.  But you can do much more to make that newsletter and its content work harder for your organization. How? Easy. Think outside the newsletter. After all, the newsletter has a relatively finite reach, even online.  Think beyond this single content product.  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 newsletter itself. Here are 8 ways to extend the reach of your content far beyond the circulation of that print publication.  None of these require significant incremental expense. But they will consistently deliver dramatic increases in the reach of your content to prospective customers—and the impact it has on them. Read More

Via Scoop.it - Content Marketing Now By Raul Kaevand at DreamGrow.com. I covered the importance of Call to Actions in my blogpost Read this: 9 Secrets Towards an Awesome Call To Action. Go read it later, if you already haven’t done so. But many people are still asking for solid Call to Action examples. Read the full story at: Via www.dreamgrow.com Read More

Your Sales Team Must Be Content Marketers, Too!

Mike Wisner was my first boss in publishing back in the days of John Denver and disco. He was a unique, colorful, and brilliant character. I learned so much from Mike that some of the lessons he taught me still inform my approach to sales and marketing. In fact, in many ways he was a pioneer content marketer within the sales arena before anyone had imagined such a concept.

Learning a Vital Selling Secret from Mike Wisner before I Ever Got to the Office

Mike delivered a shocking and memorable sales lesson in my first 5 minutes on the job--it was all about why it was essential to get very, very close to your customers and how to make that happen.

He picked me up on an icy January morning at O'Hare Airport on my first day on my first ad sales job for Gorman Publishing. As soon as I had sat down in the passenger seat of his car, he told me, “To be successful, you have to get in bed with your customers.”

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Learn What Not to Do from One Very Boring News Release

Press releases still pack a punch for marketers.

With content rich releases, smart marketers engage not only the press, but thousands of customers as well. But, ineffective press releases benefit neither a company nor its customers.

As with so many things, it's probably easier to explain what's important in a press release than it is to execute effectively. Fortunately, it's much more common sense than it is rocket science.

Effective press releases incorporate core content marketing concepts:

• Understand your customers' information needs
• Create content that responds precisely to those information needs
• Explain how you can solve their problems whether personal or professional
• Make that content immediately engaging with a strong, benefit-laden
  • headline
  • subhead
  • first paragraph
• Be certain that the lead-off content is all about the customer and not all about your company.
• When it's time to talk about your company, make sure your unique benefits shine through.

Much of this may seem obvious. But it's surprising how many marketing professionals seem to get it wrong. This makes for an awful lot of ineffective press releases that sit around mostly unread, cluttering the Internet.

Lessons to Learn from a Snooze-Inducing Press Release

The good news is that we can learn from both great press releases--those that are not quite so great. In the latter category, see if you can figure out what you might take away from the following, real-life news release headline:

BDD Corporation Plans to Utilize Twitter Research 

Unfortunately, this headline gives us almost no reason to continue reading further. And, it doesn't get much better as the press release proceeds.

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Pair of Seattle Personal Injury Law Firms Prove the Content Marketing Point

Marketing on the web is just like the old saw from the real estate world: "It's all about location, location location."

On the web, there are two important meanings when it comes to the word "location."  They both relate to the importance of marketing focus.

First and foremost, a fabulous location is being at the top of Google search results. There is only one way to make that happen--by creating a niche for your business that precisely targets the information needs of your best customers.

Enter the second meaning of "location." Physical location is still important in strengthening your niche. Why? Because, by emphasizing your location, your site is much more likely to do well versus national or global competitors. This can give you a significant competitive advantage.

When you get both of these location elements just right, your website pops to the top. That's the benefit of relentless focus.

This fact rears its marketing head in the world of law firms--and especially in the realm of personal injury attorneys.

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Five top takeaways from "Killer Web Content" by Gerry McGovern

Your business attracts potential customers online who are pursuing tasks that are truly important to them. When they arrive at your site, they want to find what they need as quickly as possible so they can complete the set of tasks that they have in mind.

According to content strategy guru, Gerry McGovern, your site will succeed or fail based on its ability to let your prospects complete their tasks quickly and completely. In his classic book, Killer Web Content, he offers a clear roadmap to delivering exactly what your customers need in the way that they need it.

If you haven't read his book, order it immediately. It's that good. He models his content commandments. He doesn't waste your time and manages to deliver the goods concisely, compellingly and completely.

There's plenty to take away from his masterful book but, until your copy arrives, here are five that I found most valuable for content marketers.

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