I love this graphic about Content Strategy.
It's creator is Mark Smiciklas, Intersection Marketing Blog:
Based on Six Steps to a Successful Small Business Content Marketing Strategy in ContentMarketingToday, by Newt Barrett, one of my favorite content marketing experts. Don't you think Mark does a nice job of summarizing graphically what CM's all about?
The rules haven't changed, but it's surprising how many people start writing on the web without regard for the basics. Many people focus on the medium, the latest shiny tool: the blog, the Twitter tweets, and Facebook updates, without regard for the basic rules of writing copy for the Web.
Content marketing is a buzz word because marketing people like new buzzes, and it sure beats writing advertisements that get ignored. But smart marketers know the rules and never forget them. Even if the Internet changes at lightening speed, the writing basics for copy are the same.
I'm a newbie, I've only been writing marketing copy for ten years. Before that, I was a journalist and a psychologist so I wrote feature articles and academic papers. Writing content for marketing is different. It's designed to produce an action, most often sales.
Every once in a while, I go back to the basics. A standard learning tool for many copywriters is Maria Veloso's Web Copy that Sells, originally published in 2004. The 2nd edition is now out and I've been reviewing and re-reading it. Good stuff.
Here's a recap of some really key nuggets from this book:
I spent the weekend doing research…well, not entirely, I played tennis, went to the movies, watched HBO and laughed a lot with my hubby. But work wise, I've been visiting a lot of blogs and sites lately, researching what makes for good content marketing and bad.
Newt Barrett does a terrific job of highlighting sites that get Content Marketing right as well as those who miss the boat over on his Content Marketing Today blog. I always learn better when I can see samples of what works and what doesn't work. I'm sure you do too.
However, I am a little stymied in my quest to find bad samples of content marketing on blogs. Why? It's not that there aren't bad sites and bad content on the Web. There's a lot of garbage. But mostly what I find is mediocrity.
Many bloggers are writing reasonable content. And they're probably getting some results. Most blog writers are just barely scraping the surface of what needs to be said. I believe most of you can do better than that.
Mediocrity Sucks
I hate mediocrity, because you can't really disagree with it or get excited, or anything. It's just a waste of my time to read the same old things. With mediocrity, you can't quite put your finger on it, but you know it stinks.
Okay, let me be frank. I think there are a lot of boring blogs that could be much better. People are regurgitating what others are saying. Sometimes they add their own perspectives, sometimes not. But mostly they're trying to post as much content as possible, without really saying anything new.
Boring, banal and bull–shitake, is what I'm really thinking. In fact, I know for sure that one professional is merely copying and pasting posts from other people (me!) and republishing them as her own. Besides being borderline illegal, and not very Kosher, it's boring. Been there, read that. Please don't bore me with old news.
I am really proud when dear clients take to blogging and regularly post good content and become passionate voices in the Blogosphere. But I've just got to vent a little here. One of my pet peeves just got me going again.
Here's how this went down this morning…I set off to visit two of my favorite executive coaches who've started blogging. My intention was to highlight their good work, you know, show off what two intelligent yet busy professionals were doing about their content marketing.
So I went to their websites because I couldn't quite remember the names or the URLs of their blogs. No problem, found their websites easily. Even without knowing their exact business names or site URLs, these two come up all over page one when you do a Google search for their names. I expected that and that was the easy part.
When I was fresh out of graduate school, newly licensed as a psychologist, I needed to get some clients. Word of mouth wasn’t going to do it, nor was relying on insurance referrals or my Yellow Pages ad. (Photo credit: Shutterstock)
I spotted a family style magazine at the hair dressers one day, and decided to buy a half page advertorial. I wrote about a fictitious client – “Susie” – who was unhappy about her weight, her husband, her life. I added some specific details about this person (“Susie” was an amalgamation of clients I had worked with as an intern).
That marketing tactic worked like a charm. Women came to my office saying they knew I could help them, because I had written about Susie who was so similar to them it was eerie.
Before I became a psychologist I had been a journalist, and the combination of those two skills paid off. It was my introduction to content marketing, although I didn’t know it at the time.
In business, this marketing tactic is a case study. It works because you connect with people where it hurts. You show them that others are similar, and here’s what happened to them. You give them hope. You spell it out for them.
I've been talking to retired friends who want to start a little online business. I ran across two excellent posts this week that tie into this topic nicely, one by Joe Pulizzi of Junta 42 Blog, and other by Seth Godin.
According to Seth Godin, there are 6 steps to success:
Let's talk about Approach, what does that mean? How do you approach your new project, your new business, your customers?
My advice to my retired friends Lucy and Tom is to explore their mindset and expertise by writing about it on a blog. That's step 1, attitude. You express that attitude with 3 key content pieces: your message, your bio or backstory, and the big problems people encounter in your niche.
With Step 2, you need to collect information about the needs of your targeted audience by creating conversations with them and finding out what they want. You need to listen.
Before you can set goals for your business, you need to research your customers by having conversations, really listening to people, running polls, doing surveys and finding out what people want.
Here's what Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 blog says about Step 2 of these six steps to content marketing success:
I've been talking to my retired friends Lucy and Tom who asked me how they could supplement their income by starting "a little online business."
My advice was a little counter-intuitive, because I said to just start blogging! Before even having a business name, a business plan, or a clear idea of what they're going to be selling.
But then, that's the way I get clarity for new ideas, by writing on my blogs. Not everyone thinks like I do, or is comfortable publishing incomplete business ideas.
Then I ran across an interesting post from Seth Godin, who also advises a counter-intuitive approach to becoming successful. He says the last thing to pay attention to is the actual execution. The first thing is attitude.
Attitude Matters
For me, clarifying thoughts and attitudes comes with writing on a blog. In fact, the first things you should publish on your blog have everything to do with your attitude about your expertise, the reasons you're passionate about it, and your attitude towards the customers you want to serve.
It's also a good way to create a community of readers who will give you ideas and information about their needs, what they will buy. But the natural impulse is to start with the product or services you want to sell.
I say first develop your mindset, your attitude, and connect with people, then develop your products and services.
The Secret Sauce
Another brilliant content marketer, Joe Pulizzi, of Junta42 blog, agrees with Seth and explains it this way:
Some of my friends are retired now, others want to be…(and some of them are just plain tired!) But just about all of them tell me this: "If I could start a little business on the Internet, you know, bring in a few extra bucks each month, that'd be great."
Many of them are very successful human beings, a couple have some great ideas that could actually work online, and some already have a presence on Twitter, Facebook, or blogs. They're computer savvy. (Photocredit: Shutterstock)
Most are overwhelmed when they sit down to figure out what "little business on the Web" they should do. Here's their line of thinking:
My friend Lucy and her husband Tom recently got bad news that their retirement income dropped 30% in one month. Until things turn around, if and when they do, they'll have to make do with less.
Or, they could look to find an additional income stream. Lucy asked me what was the best way to start an online business, using information products.
As you might have read, I'm doing some blog improvements with Easton Ellsworth and his Visionary Blogging program. One of the things we talked about was creating what he calls "linkbait content" for my executive coach marketing site, ContentforCoachandConsultants.com.
I'd like to share his linkbait ideas and some of mine, because these ideas for content are good and easy to translate for any niche.
Unless you are a techy-type, and into search engine optimization, you might not be clear on what "linkbait" really means to you and your online content marketing efforts.
Wikipedia defines Linkbait like this:
Here's why this is important:
It's really important to get another pair of eyes to look at your blog. No, I'm not talking about glasses, which make you see what you're looking at better. I'm talking about a different set of eyes, someone who doesn't see what you see, but sees the stuff you can't or don't see.
How do you find the right person to ask to give you new vision? Well, the funny thing about content marketing is that I'll remember the name of someone who's written an intelligent piece years before.
So when I got an email from Easton Ellsworth, promoting his new blog review program, somewhere in the back of my mind I remember some good stuff he wrote a long time ago. I can't remember what exactly, but I remembered his name.
I just signed up for his Visionary Blogging program, and are my eyes wide open! For a reasonable fee, (are you kidding? I mean, this is really cheap and worth a lot more than he's charging right now!) he's already given me some money-making tips for my other blog site and business. I can't share them with you just yet, I'm still working on them.
But I will share with you the casual email Easton sent out, with the links to click through if you're interested in getting some top-notch feedback for Visionary Blogging, including social networking advice. Here it is…
