Content Marketing Today

More proof that companies need to be thinking and acting like publishers online.

In the world of print advertising, it has always been true the ads placed within very well read publications will outperform ads placed in also-rans.  There is a reason for this.  Great magazines and newspapers engage their readers and engender a level of trust that carries over to the ads running within their pages. 

Now, according to an article in the Online Media Daily, the same applies to online advertising.  This reinforces the importance of content marketing in building trust that can transform Web visitors into buyers.

Shama Hyder proves how powerful a website and blog can be for a solopreneur.

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.

When I walk into a room full of strangers at a networking event, my first and most powerful inclination is to turn around and walk right back out. 

Even though much of my business career has been in sales related functions, I don't even come close to anyone's archetype sales guy.  I am shy, reserved, and a hater of small talk.  Perhaps worst of all: I pay no attention to sports.  In short, I'm hopeless at in-person networking.

Actually, I do have a personality and I can be amusing.  But that is only after I have gotten to know people and feel comfortable with them.  So, I'm darned lucky that the Internet and blogging arrived just in time to save me from myself.

Here is why a business blog can become your most powerful networking tool:

Billboard marketing is fine on Route 66, but it's all wrong on the information superhighway

Your job as a marketer is to make it easy for your buyers to buy from you. But making it easy for them may be hard for you, unless you can execute an effective content marketing strategy.

Content marketing is the art of understanding exactly what buyers need to know and delivering it to them in a relevant and compelling way.  This extends way beyond product information into the realm of best practices, case studies, success stories, and more.

Why?  All the rules have changed.  You will need to relearn the marketing game with a brand new marketing mindset.  Those that can adapt will flourish.  Those that don't...well... think of the fate of the dinosaurs.

Bureaucrats are bouncing baristas, as they move to shut down 600 Starbucks stores. 

It may not be the same everywhere, but in our Southwest corner of Florida, Starbucks is shutting down nine of their stores.  This is likely to have an impact on their local reputation that may well be replicated around the country.

As far as I'm concerned, the Starbucks experience is as much about the people who look after you as it is about the coffee.  They do a brilliant job of hiring so that even though they don't pay gigantic wages, they manage to staff every store with a set of employees who care about what they do and about the needs of their customers.  Those employees are the all-important people component of their content marketing.

Why the Internet takes the wind out of print advertising sails--and sales.

Dawn's high impact print advertising in the 1970s and 80s can be done much better on the web in a 21st-century. I believe this change is a sad metaphor for the likely future of much of the trade publishing universe.

If the UK government with its mega-billion-dollar budget has confidence in WordPress to power its prime minister's website, I think the rest of us can confidently consider making a similar move.

The surprising news came from Chris Garrett's blog, ChrisG.com.  Chris writes consistently great stuff about blogging and new media.  Nonetheless, I was a little surprised to read this morning about merry old England's move to a blog-powered website.  But, I think we can learn something from our friends across the pond.

Want to understand RSS?  Think of the Associated Press.

Like many Web 2.0 applications, RSS may seem more complicated than it really is.  It's one of those three letter acronyms (or TLA's for those in the know) that seem unknowable by normal people at first.  But it is both simpler and more powerful than you might think.

To put RSS in context it's the 21st-century version of the Associated Press.  For anyone reading newspapers, especially local newspapers, you will notice that many of the articles you read come from the AP.  That's because your local newspaper cannot afford the reporting staff to write comprehensively about the broad range of topics you would expect to find in any newspaper.  In Southwest Florida, our business sections often are 90 to 100% derived from syndicated stories from the AP.

We may not need print newspapers anymore but we still need the news.

For those of us who care about the future of journalism you will want to take a look at Mindy McAdams' blog, Teaching Online Journalism.  I landed there serendipitously earlier this week and discovered two very different but perhaps unintentionally related articles.

Perhaps as print dies,the iPhone will emerge as the savior of journalism.

Put aside your preconceptions about real estate agents for this Bonita Springs blogger

I've never met Chris but after spending some time with her blog and with her content-rich website, I would look forward to the pleasure.

We've all had unfortunate experiences with driven, single-minded real estate agents who will do anything for a sale.  I'm sure Chris is ambitious and successful but based on a reading of her online content she conveys the impression of being smart, knowledgeable, funny, and one-of-a-kind.

She does it all with a terrific content marketing strategy.