Content Marketing Today

Content Marketing Beats Social Media

A report from BlogHer suggests that tech businesses targeting American women can be most effective with blog content marketing. Read More

Via Marketing Clout

You wouldn’t ask a violinist to conduct an orchestra. He may be an extraordinary musician, but what does he know about conducting or about how each section comes across to the audience? Will the audience come back? Chances are, probably not. Similarly, your typical copywriter, while highly skilled in his area, won’t necessarily have an understanding of writing content for integrated digital marketing campaigns. Old school copywriters are still in demand for offline campaigns. The new breed of digital writers, however, understands how to write for the web. For example, they know how to: Read More

Just two years after the launch of Social Media Examiner, founder Michael Stelzner has plenty to be proud of. He runs one of the world’s top business blogs, with an email list of more than 124,000 and growing, plus over 450,000 visitors per day. He also recently published his latest book, Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition, that details his strategy for developing new business initiatives. Read More

Written by Melanie Brooks Dave and Carrie Kerpen started their marketing company,   Likeable Media, after they created a buzz selling sponsorships to their New York wedding. They raised $100,000 for their wedding and $20,000 for a charity The couple, who both had marketing backgrounds, were asked by so many people “what’s next” after their wedding promotional stunt that they started their own company, which today has offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, and Mexico City. Read More

Classic wisdom from David Meerman Scott. Don't buy, beg or bug!

It still boils down to content marketing.  According to David, you can choose from three old, traditonal methods:

• You can buy attention (advertising)
• You can beg for attention from the media (PR)
• You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales)

Or... Read More

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 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

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

Content Marketers Can Deliver Great Information Products to a Targeted Customer Base

Fortune 500 companies have long had the technological resources and investment capital required to build sophisticated content marketing solutions—and to manage huge amounts of demographic data relating to their prospects and customer bases. Many of these firms, such as Best Buy, Proctor & Gamble, Microsoft, and Amazon.com, probably know more about us than some of our relatives do. They also do a terrific job of delivering relevant and compelling content to different segments of their prospect bases.

Smaller companies, however, have had to rely on media companies to deliver their message to their targeted buyers . This has certainly been true with print publications and, until  recently, online as well. Affordable technology is now changing all of the rules.

Just a few years ago, it would have been laughable to imagine that a very small organization could create and maintain a Web site that could be updated daily—and that would allow visitors to interact and even buy products and services. Today, this is not only possible but pervasive. In fact, a 10-person company may be able to outmarket a 10,000-person company in a carefully chosen niche.

There are four core components underlying the shift in the technological balance of power away from media giants and toward companies of all sizes:

• The ability to create sophisticated online publications such as Web sites, digital magazines, and e-newsletters
• The ability to manage huge amounts of data relating to current and future customers
• The ability to leverage social media to engage targeted customers
• The ability to do each of these simply and inexpensively

 

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Solopreneur Firm Understands How to Engage, Educate, and Entertain

There are dozens of electrical firms in Southwest Florida. Many of them have lots of employees. But, one of those firms stands out on Facebook: Martin McMurtrie's Grace Electric with 601 Facebook friends.

Making Vivid Visual Points to Engage Facebook Fans

This photograph from his Facebook page shows the kind of scary electrical fixes customers often attempt , sometimes with disastrous results. It typifies the kind of engaging content he provides regularly and that has enabled him to accumulate those hundreds of Facebook friends.

By contrast, the only local competitors I could find on Facebook provided very little useful information and managed to accumulate fewer than 10 Facebook friends.

For example, one well-known national franchise with numerous Florida locations manages a Facebook page for its Southwest Florida franchisee. But, it has only 9 fans. And, the only content on its Wall is spam from a provider of Acai berry services. 

Grace Electric: Lots of Real Content from a Real Person

Martin proves that you don't need an MBA from Harvard to create an effective presence on Facebook. What comes through on the Grace Electric Facebook page is Martin's natural friendliness and sense of humor, as well as his obvious knowledge of his profession.

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