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Wednesday, November 20, 2013

5 Content Marketing Myths That Need to Die

In 2013 content marketing has finally progressed from a buzzword to a legitimate mainstream marketing strategy, and we can expect more such validation in 2014. If you're a brand thinking about investing in content marketing, don't fall for any of these content marketing misconceptions.

Myth 1: Content Marketing is Easy (Compared to Other Forms of Promotion)

Content marketing relies on the Know-Like-Trust factor, and as anyone who's ever been in any kind of relationship will attest, building trust is never easy. It takes a lifetime to build and a moment's carelessness to destroy.
While consumer relationships with brands may not always be this intense, building trust is usually an incremental process. Each piece of content you create adds another layer to the KLT pyramid.
In fact, advertising is much easier in the sense that campaigns are created, run their duration, and results are measured. In content marketing, though, you're essentially creating a lifetime campaign for however long your business will function and as such there's no end date, although there are plenty of milestones for measurement.
Trust, once lost, is much harder and painstaking to regain. Just ask British Petroleum.
On the flip side, content marketing proves again and again that companies who provide transparency and authenticity, both crucial factors for trust-building, may find a more forgiving consumer base when things go awry. Just ask Buffer.
No, content marketing isn't easy, but it is ever-so-rewarding!

Myth 2: Content Marketing Doesn't Take Much Time

Challenges B2B Content Marketers Face
"Lack of time" is cited as the top challenge facing B2B marketers, according to the 2014 B2B Content Marketing Trends report. And it's true. Let's briefly go through some of the processes involved in content marketing.
  • Content strategy development: This could include keyword analysis, market research, SEO, website audit, content audit, resources audit, and more. 
  • Constant content creation: This is time-intensive, thought-intensive and labor-intensive. 
  • Content distribution and promotion: This includes heavyweight time investments such as social media marketing, email marketing, and search marketing. 
  • Content performance measurement: This includes analyzing content marketing output against success metrics.
I don't know about you, but I'm not seeing how content marketing fits into a brand's shortcut strategy.

Myth 3: Content Marketing can be Automated – Set it and Forget it

Arising from the "we didn't realize content marketing would take so much time" myth is the sister myth "let's put this process on cruise control, yay!" Sure, there's plenty within content marketing that can be automated to a degree (repeat processes such as auto-responders, social monitoring and alerts, curation, and distribution), but many companies try to automate too much, too soon and in my opinion, the wrong stuff.
Some content marketing tasks which shouldn't be automated include:
  • Content strategy.
  • Social media strategy.
  • Community management.
  • Content creation.
As Jayson DeMers predicts about content marketing trends for 2014, "businesses will look for ways to automate their content marketing, and these efforts will fail."
But my all-time favorite automation rant is from Scott Stratten, who regularly posts a variation of this update on Twitter: "Automating your social media is like sending a mannequin to a networking event."
Automating your social media

Myth 4: Content Marketing is Inexpensive

Jay Baer phrased it well when he wrote: "Social media and content marketing isn't inexpensive, it's just different expensive."
While expense is relative, many brand managers assume that content marketing will always be the cheaper alternative to other promotional methods, such as advertising or PR. While in general, a 30-second TV commercial during the Super Bowl could rack up millions compared to a hashtag promo contest on Twitter which could be done for free, comparing such promotional activities is weird. And wrong.
While technology has leveled the playing field in that both big and small brands can achieve results with content marketing, brands are investing widely different amounts depending on perceived value. For example, Orabrush surprisingly achieved great content marketing results with a $500 YouTube video while Neil Patel famously invests five-figure sums for QuickSprout's free educational video content.
Barring unexpected viral hits, most content marketing success will be realized over years of consistent brand building activities and should be budgeted for as such.
"B2B marketers allocate 30% of their budgets to content marketing, and 58% of marketers plan to increase content market spend over the next 12 months," according to the 2014 B2B Content Marketing study.
B2B Content Marketing Spending

Myth 5: Content Marketing can be Handled by the Intern

When social media was still a thrill-seeker's term, there were a plethora of articles begging companies not to hand over social media marketing activities based on age. The same holds true of content marketing today. Companies believing that young and inexperienced hired hands can come in and "handle" content strategy and marketing have got another think coming.
Content marketing is a discipline in its own right. It's got its sea legs and is here to stay. And it'sattracting top talent from across industries: from journalists and reporters to create content, to analytics specialists to make sense of the data, to digital strategists to concoct tactical plans. In 2014, content marketing is expected to bring forth more specialized job descriptions and be taken seriously by companies still waiting at the shoreline.
Are there any content marketing misconceptions in your mind? Let's hear them in the comments!

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Brands Missing Out On Audience Development

Brands Missing Out On Audience Development

by , Yesterday, 6:37 AM
Subscribe to Marketing Daily
rohrsAs powerful as digital publishing exec Jeff Rohrs believes content marketing and social media can be, he kept noticing something odd: Lots of great brand content, but no real plan to make sure the right people found it. “There was a giant hole in all the conversations I was having, and this persistent, old-fashioned idea that ‘if we build it, they will come.’”
His contention is that brands need to do a much better job developing digital distribution strategies, leading him to writeAudience: Marketing in the Age of Subscribers, Fans & Followers. Rohrs tells Marketing Daily what he thinks is missing. 
Q: So tell us more about this organizational sinkhole.
A: Within companies, everyone's responsible for producing their own stuff, often thinking about it on a campaign or even day-to-day basis. So there is someone making sure stuff gets re-tweeted. And there's often a director of content marketing. But there was no equivalent title of, let's say, “senior director of audience development.” And that means lots of missed opportunities. The assumption is that there was this bigger, engaged audience ready to eat that content up, but then there is no person or team to make that happen. My point is, that should be a core marketing responsibility.
Q: Is there an example of a brand you think is acing audience development?
A: Here's a fun one. Here in the Cleveland area, there's a restaurant called Melt Bar and Grill, which is a gourmet grilled cheese restaurant. The chef and owner is a big rock ’n’ roll fan -- the menus are on old LPs, for example, and he has rock ’n’ roll designers do the posters announcing specials. One of his favorite bands is “Rocket from the Crypt,” which gave free concert admittance to anyone with a band tattoo. He took that idea, and now gives 25% off food and drinks to anyone with a grilled cheese tattoo. He was thinking he'd get 5 or 10 people. The Melt Tattoo Family now has over 500 members, including one guy who'd never even been to the restaurant. In effect, these people are all going on tour with the restaurant, and it's an audience in the digital but also in the physical realm. These people are all amplifiers -- word-of-mouth powered by technology. It's audience development in the best sense, and a way to make sure customers will come back over and over.
Q: Who is doing it badly?
A: I don't like to call brands out by name, but if you look at last year's Super Bowl advertisers, you'll see plenty -- almost none had any kind of call to action in their ads. One car company, for example, paid something like $3.8 million for one spot, advertising a car that wasn't coming out for months. The final frame was just the logo and a Facebook URL. That's a huge leap of faith. They should have done something to encourage people to opt in to some kind of direct relationship: Email us, follow us on Instagram. Something. 
Q: So it's a lost opportunity?
A: Yes. If we get people to enter into a permission-based marketing channel, it lowers my cost to reach them and speak to them. That car company missed a tremendous rollout opportunity.
Q: What's another success story?
A: Oreo. So much has been written about “the tweet heard ’round the world” from last year's Super Bowl, as if it's a social story. But it's not. It's an audience story. In the “Whisper Fight” spot, which is set in a library and aired early last year, it asked people to follow the brand on Instagram, which seemed like a head scratcher then. But it’s now the fastest-growing brand on Instagram, and rewards followers with photos of sculptures made out of cookies. It's got 34 million Facebook fans. And plenty of followers on Twitter. 
Q: Could you clarify the way you define subscribers, fans and followers?
A: Subscribers come through SMS, YouTube, and mobile apps. Email is the most linear and still drives the most traffic, because it's the most convenient. Fans are your virtual water cooler, and they pay attention to brands when they do something astonishing, either good or bad. (My beloved Cleveland Browns are an example.) People may be quick to like a brand page, but that doesn't mean they've given you permission to market to them. And followers are audiences with audiences, so, yes, they follow you on Twitter but then they are creating their own streams, with ripples of their own.
My point is that each of these is a distinct channel, and if you market on Facebook like you do on email, you won't gain anything.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/213173/brands-missing-out-on-audience-development.html?edition=66826


Wednesday, November 6, 2013

BEFORE YOU GIVE UP, HERE’S WHERE YOUR BLOG WENT WRONG

BEFORE YOU GIVE UP, HERE’S WHERE YOUR BLOG WENT WRONG

write-about-what-you-hate
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You found it. That something that gives you goosebumps. That keeps you awake at night. That you love and can’t wait to share. And you’re pretty convinced it will change the world if enough people knew about it.
So, you start writing. And writing. And writing. Each blog post better than the one before.
Before long, readers take notice. They begin to react to your words. They leave comments. And they share you with their friends. Could this be it?!? Have you finally made it?!?!
And then all of a sudden it happens. They begin to go away. They stop reacting. Stop commenting. And stop sharing. The excitement they once had for your blog has disappeared. And you are left wondering just what went wrong.
So, what do you do? You panic. You worry. You weigh the possibility of whether or not you should just give up.
Sound familiar?

But Before You Give Up, Here’s Where You Went Wrong

Somewhere in between waking up deciding to start a blog and hitting publish for the first time, someone somewhere out there gave you this little piece of advice:
“Find your passion and write about it”
So, that’s what you did. And it worked for the first post. Even the second. But after a few posts of regurtitated passion, your blog ran out of steam.
Why?
The problem is simple. You are writing about what you love. And although it’s important to write about what you love, it’s only one side of a much more complex coin.
Writing only about what you love is flat. It’s boring.
It’s not real.
You see, life is a roller coaster. It has ups and downs. Hard turns. Twists. Big drops. Loops. Massive climbs. And a bunch of other stuff that is making me nauseous as I’m writing this. But without them, life would be boring.
Just like your blog.

In Other Words

You can’t just write about what you love. You must also write about what you hate. The ups and downs. Hard turns. Twists. Big drops. Loops. Massive climbs. And all of the stuff that makes you jump out of your own skin. This is how you build excitement. How you get readers to think. How you get readers to take action. And how you get readers to keep coming back.
This is how you make a difference.
As a writer, you want to take your readers on a journey from Point A to Point B. You can push them away from Point A. Or you can pull them towards Point B. But what you really want to do is to push them away from Point A while pulling them towards Point B.
Love and hate.
Take this blog for example. The one you are currently reading. I write about being human and building relationships in an otherwise digital world using search engine humanization, social media and blogging. But if all I did was write about the touchy feely “let’s all join hands and sing kumbaya” side of things, it would get really old, really fast and you would eventually lose interest. So I also talk about the the people out there ruining the space for the rest of us. Theself-proclaimed gurus that take advantage of those that don’t know better.
The ones I hate.
It’s a big part of my message. And pointing out the negative side of something is often more valuable (and more entertaining) than always pointing out the positive side of that same thing.

Don’t Worry, I Haven’t Forgotten About You Positive Folks

I know. But you’re a positive person. You like to focus on the good. You watched The Secret one too many times and you don’t want to manifest what you hate by writing about it. Does that sound about right?
Tough.
If your mission is to help others with whatever it is that you are great at, then that means giving it to them in a way that is real. A way that they can connect with. A way that they understand. And this is just one of those ways.
It doesn’t make you a negative person. And it won’t call to the universe asking it to rain poo-poo on you.
We all have these emotions within us. Including you. So take off the halo and wings for a few minutes and allow the rest of us a chance to see who you really are. Show us that you have more than one dimension. And trust that we will find our own comfort in knowing that you are just like us and we will feel more connected to you because of it.
Who knows. You may just fire us up to a point where we get behind your cause Braveheart style and race down the mountain to fight by your side.

So, Here’s What’s Next

As you start thinking about your next blog post, I want you to travel down a different path this time. Think differently.
Write about something within your industry or topic that you hate. Something that makes your skin boil. And write about it with as much passion as you have when writing about something you love.
For example, if you have a self-help blog, write about the frustration you feel over people that buy the books but never read or implement them. If you have a sports blog, write about the anger you have towards the players taking steroids and how they are ruining the game. Or, if you have a social media blog, write about how much you hate people that buy Likes and Followers.
If it needs to be said, say it. A post about something you hate doesn’t have to be hateful. It can still be constructive. In fact, I bet you will get a much more positive reaction from it!
You have no idea how many of us are sitting on the sidelines wishing someone would just come out and say what the rest of us are thinking in a way that the rest of us are feeling.
Give it a shot. And if you do, make sure to include a link to your post in the comments below so we can all check it out.
Featured image courtesy of Nomadic Lass licensed via Creative Commons.
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