What is content marketing?What makes it different from other types of business communications, and why should local businesses adopt a content marketing…

See the video interview below to learn from content marketing guru, Joe Pulizzi:

Via www.business2community.com

Lessons on writing headlines from legendary ad man David Ogilvy are relevant to writers of blogs, websites, articles and social media posts.

Written by Joanne Costin

I think advertising man David Ogilvy would have enjoyed online marketing for the instantaneous feedback it provides.  His rules about advertising weren’t based on opinion, but years of research.

As he famously said:

“Five times as many people read the headline as the body copy. If you haven’t done some selling in your headline, you will have wasted 80 cents out of your client’s dollar.”

Rule No. 1: “The headline is the ticket on the meat.”

Ogilvy promoted the use of keywords in the headline,  before keywords were keywords.
“If you are selling a remedy for bladder weakness, display BLADDER WEAKNESS in the headline. If you want mothers to read your advertisement, display MOTHERS is your headline.”

Rule No. 2: “Every headline should appeal to the reader’s self-interest.”

Ogilvy insisted headlines provide a benefit to the reader. If your headlines aren’t offering a benefit, scrap them.  A reader may not care that your machine has new engine (feature), what he cares about is five percent greater fuel efficiency (benefit).
Via contentforbiz.com

No old-world icon is safe. Just in recent weeks, both Kodak and Sears have percolated back into the news, offering headline writers a dilemma borrowed from the classic Saturday Night Live Weekend Update line, “Generalíssimo Francisco Franco is still dead.”

 How long have these companies been dying? Yes, it was a surprise sometime a long time ago, that digital media was challenging Kodak and that Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, and later Amazon were making life difficult for one of America’s retailing pioneers.
Ask an American in 1990 if he could imagine a world without Kodak. Or a shopper of a world without Sears. Now, in 2012, it’s a lot easier to imagine…
Via seekingalpha.com

Written by Joe Pulizzi

10 amazing content marketing books that will help persuade your boss (CXO) to give you more budget for content marketing in your company….

The New Rules of Marketing & PR

I consider this David Meerman Scott book mandatory reading for all marketers.  This best seller, now published in over 25 languages, clearly states the case for why we need to think about marketing differently. A big part of that…the creation of valuable, relevant and compelling content that positions you as the expert in your industry.

Get Content Get Customers

Yes, forgive me…this is my book written with my co-author Newt Barrett.  This was the first book that really talked about the content marketing industry as we know it today and how to actually handle the changing rules (as DM Scott describes above).  The first half of the book tells you the why of content marketing…the second half is chock full of online, print and integrated case studies.

Content Rules

Where Get Content Get Customers leaves off, Content Rules ramps it up a notch, with clear instruction and motivation on everything from content strategy to newsletter creation to blogs and social media…with some amazing case studies along the way.  Really like the practical tips in this book, like how to develop a publishing schedule and ideas on “reimagining” your content across different platforms.

And, it couldn’t have been written by two better people: Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman.

eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sell

This incredible resource from Ardath Albee is one I recommend to marketers very focused on the B2B industry.  Ardath details the complex sales cycle that most B2B marketing executives deal with and the important the role that content serves in each of those stages.  Do you have a long sales cycle with multiple client touch points? If so, this book can’t lose.

Managing Content Marketing

Sorry, guilty as charged…mine again.  This time, Robert Rose leads the charge.  Simply put, if you are a marketer trying to actually develop a content marketing practice within your organization, this book will help you with the structure and process.  This is not a book for the beginner, but for the believer that wants to take the next step.
Via blog.junta42.com

The Top 5 Things Marketers Should Never Say About Social MediaBusiness InsiderHere are some things I resolve to never hear from a brand manager or product marketer or any marketer about social media in 2012…
Via www.businessinsider.com

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.

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.

Get the paperback edition for overnight delivery. Perfectly priced at $13.74!

Or get the Kindle edition for instant gratification. Only $9.71 with the Amazon discount!!

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.

1. Be certain that each newsletter story links to a dedicated page on your website or blog. You want your readers to find their way easily to your online home so they can discover lots more about your company, its products, and its people.  Your hyperlinked newsletter articles make the natural content connection.  In addition, try to link to more related stories on your site or blog from the original article.

2. Record audio and video of interviews for your newsletter for later repurposing. Post videos of interviews to YouTube and other targeted video portals specific to your industry. Upload audio to your website and blog.  Research podcast directories that may be relevant to your industry. Many of us would rather watch or listen to critical content.

3. Develop a news release schedule before your newsletter comes out. Target three or four key topics that affect your customers and the industry (based on the newsletter content). The release link should take them to the newsletter subscription page. Consider offering a free whitepaper or report as an incentive.

4. Discuss the newsletter and its content on your business blog. Post some of the key findings/issues. If you don’t have a blog, it’s high time you started one to connect to your customers.

5. Send out news releases through a keyword-optimized service such as PRWeb. Make sure that they really are newsworthy. You’ll be surprised at your reach beyond your static newsletter readership. You’ll be picked up in the blogosphere and even by traditional reporters who are always looking for news stories.
Remember, news releases are for much more than getting press; they are for building key links and for helping bloggers and influencers find your site. Industry bloggers will be key to extending the reach and impact of your newsletter.

5. Continue the news release program after your newsletter is released, pushing the audience to  videos, an eBook, or key articles.  Your newsletter content can still be the foundation for newsworthy stories weeks or sometimes months after it hits the virtual street.

6. Be sure to make RSS feeds available for your newsletter and for all of your web content. This is an easy and free way of syndicating your news stories that will extend your newsletter subscriber base dramatically.

7. Be sure each article integrates social media sharing capabilities so that enthusiastic readers can tell your stories to their colleagues and friends on Facebook and Twitter.  If you’re lucky, a great article may go viral and be spread across the web by enthusiasts who value and want to share your content.

8. Provide something remarkable and different on your website or blog for download. This does two things:
1) continues the conversation with your current customers
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. Eliminate the sales pitch. Seek only to educate at this point.

Don’t settle for a lonely newsletter. Go above and beyond to get the content marketing results you need.

And Why It’s Not about Your Wonderful Qualities as a Human Being

I don’t mean to suggest that your customers don’t care about your fundamental decency, professionalism, and your devotion to your local community. However, each of those qualities is necessary, but not sufficient for someone to do business with you. Ultimately, your personal brand reflects your unique ability to help your ideal customers succeed.

A few weeks ago I had a phone conversation with a former colleague who had invested a significant amount of money with a company whose assignment was to shape his personal brand. To show off the results of the exercise, he pointed me to his brand-new website which highlighted his passion for financial planning and his devotion to his local Midwest community. Since I’ve known him for years, I know that this accurately reflects the kind of guy he is. But if I had been a customer going to his website in search of solutions, my initial reaction would’ve almost certainly have been, “So what?”

Remember visitors to your blog or to your website are looking for answers to problems. They are not looking to evaluate you as a person until they are darned sure that you and your organization can provide solutions to the problems that drove them to your website in the first place.

Therefore, your personal brand should focus on your unique capability of solving the problems of those future customers that you have defined as your perfect target market. A meaningful personal brand would seem almost impossible unless it reflects your ability to deliver uniquely powerful solutions for your customers.

If you visit the website of ThatWhitePaperGuy, you won’t read any verbiage about what a great guy he is or how passionate he is about white papers. Instead, he gets right to the point by asking rhetorical questions that qualify the visitor and then demonstrates that he understands their needs and can solve their problems by creating effective white papers. Here’s the core of his homepage message:

Put the power of white papers to work for your firm!

Special reports… executive briefings… product backgrounders… 

Whatever you call them, these fact-based documents generate leads and build mindshare… if they’re done right.

If you’re a B2B marketing manager looking for a white paper writer, you’ve come to the right place.

I’ve worked on 120+ white papers for companies like Google, Rackspace and Oracle… plus many smaller firms with big ideas.

So when you’re ready to talk about your next white paper, call me at +1 (705) 842-2428 Eastern, or e-mailGordon@ThatWhitePaperGuy.com

Only after we have convinced ourselves that he can solve our problems relating to white papers will we care whether he’s the kind of person we want to work with. His personal brand is all about being a white paper expert and has nothing to do with being a passionate, community-oriented professional.

Prospective customers don’t care about us. They care about how we can help them.

Perhaps, the word ‘personal’ gets us into trouble when we attach it to the word ‘ brand.’  ‘Personal’ simply means that the brand relates to you as an individual. But the all important ‘brand’ component means it’s all about what you can do to solve your customers’ problems.

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.

Niche Marketing at Work: Personal Injury Attorneys in Seattle

Smart personal injury attorneys are also great marketers. We know this from their ever present and effective television commercials. Many also do a brilliant online marketing job. In Seattle, Rob Kornfeld of Kornfeld, Trudell, Bowen and LIngenbrink has created a niche website, www.KornfeldLaw.com. This site has a laser focus on personal injury law in the Seattle area.

To understand the danger of lack of focus, I compared Rob Kornfeld’s site to that of another Seattle law firm with a broad set of practice areas, one of which is personal injury. We will call them ABC Law to protect them from my content marketing critique. They are buried so deep in Google results that few clients are likely to find them when they are looking for personal injury attorneys–or any kind of attorney, for that matter.

Here’s why KornfeldLaw.com does so well in search results on Google and ABC Law does so poorly:

KornfeldLaw.com– High Up on the First Page of Google Search for Personal Injury Keywords

• Rob Kornfeld’s site focuses 100% on personal injury. Everything from the header to the copy and the images reinforce that focus.
• His bullet point list of practice areas are all specific types of personal injuries
• His homepage integrates the keyword, personal injury, eight times in text and several more times in images.
• His copy includes additional references to specific instances of personal injuries for which clients will be seeking redress.
• His WordPress website integrates a blog that includes up-to-date mentions of the keyword, personal injury.
• His footer integrates mentions of both personal injury and location specific links.
• He uses video effectively explain exactly how his firm can help personal injury clients to achieve positive results.

ABC Law–by Trying to Be Everything They Are Found Nowhere

• their homepage describes their practice only in the broadest terms.
• They minimize the search engine value of their Seattle location by referring to other states near and far were they are able to do legal work. This may be a good selling point but it reduces their findability significantly. In fact, Seattle gets only three mentions on their homepage.
• Their bullet point list of practice areas is very diverse.
• Neither personal injury nor any other important practice related keyword gets more than a single mention on their homepage.
• Their personal injury landing page says that personal injury is a "major part" of their practice. But, there isn’t enough content on that page to attract either clients or search engines on the hunt for personal injury solutions.
• Their best ranking for any practice related search term is number 25–and that’s for topic that gets almost no searches in the Seattle area

Focus. Focus. Focus: That’s the Way the Top of Google Search Results

"How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" That’s the question from a very old joke to which the answer is, "Practice. Practice. Practice"  that same level of intensity in terms of focus is essential to generating great Google search results.

In traditional marketing, it has always been important to define a niche that is important to an ideal set of customers. In the new world of content marketing online, focus is vital. That’s true both in terms of defining a niche and making sure that your website reflects that niche. Moreover, as a local business, you have an even better chance of doing well when your customers are looking for the solutions that only you can provide in your geographical area.

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.

Top five Takeaways To Delivering Killer Content

1. Above all else, your website must be immediately useful to your visitors. They are not surfing aimlessly. They are on a mission to do something that is all about them. Your website must reflect a clear understanding of your customers and what they will be trying to do once they arrive.
2. Eliminate, or at least, minimize filler content. The vast majority of web content is never read by web visitors. As Gerry McGovern puts it, you need to replace filler with killer. Your content is not meant to make you feel good. Rather, its purpose is to let your visitors achieve their most important tasks.
3. Your website content should drive action. You want your visitors to take the next step toward the purchase of products and services. That may be signing up for an eNewsletter, downloading a white paper, contacting a sales rep or actually buying something. To make that happen, your website should teach your visitors something they didn’t know before they arrived.
4. Test. Test. And test again. Delivering the optimum combination of structure, design, and wording can make an exponential difference. As an example, McGovern discusses Aer Lingus which was floundering with a website that was all over the place. Their problem site and possibly their future was solved when they realized that delivering an overriding message, "Book a cheap flight now!" was what their passengers wanted to find. Once achieved, that made all the difference.
5. Selecting and emphasizing exactly the right “carewords” are critical to being discovered and to being essential to your prospects. Careword is a term that Gerry coined. It integrates the concept of caring for your customer with the omnipresent search term, keyword.  These are the words and phrases that reflect your customers vital concerns. They reflect what customers really care about and, thus, search for.
   Getting the care words right requires time, effort and some investment. But, it’s deceptively simple. You can apply the lessons from dozens of studies conducted by Gerry and his team with a simple exercise. Compile a list of 100 tasks, represented by carewords, that visitors might consider important. Ask groups of target customers to pick the five most important carewords.  If you can query 200 prospective customers, you will nail the top carewords precisely. Even smaller groups of 25 or 50 will consistently choose a very small number of critical care words.

The bottom line: When your customers come to your website, they are on a mission. Your job is to help them fulfill their mission, not your mission. As with so much of content marketing, that is much easier to say than to do.

However, if you buy Killer Web Content immediately, you will be surprised at your ability to transform your website so that your customers can perform their tasks quickly and, in the process, become your customers.