June 6, 2014
Recently, one of our editors bought a new piece of guitar equipment. Since he bought it used, he wanted to make sure he got a good price so he did some online research. Though the Amazon.com reviews were positive, it was the manual that reviewers couldn’t stop gushing about. Yes, the manual—the documents that are usually explained with basic, yet confusing, pictures or are written in something only vaguely resembling English.
Topics: Buyer Personas, Content Marketing, Website Content, Content Creation, Content Strategy
May 9, 2014
Despite the fact that event sponsorship and participation is costly and time consuming, marketers continue to invest in this tactic. In fact, 70% of B2B marketers rate live events as effective, one of the most powerful tools in their marketing arsenal.
Before addressing this, some context. Given the increasingly saturated media landscape; ubiquitous access to information; and inundated, time-strapped audiences; the greatest competition for your customers’ attention isn’t just a direct competitor, it’s the entire ecosystem of brands.
Topics: Content Strategy
Broadly speaking, there are two types of marketers—those who have a lot of content and those who don’t. They both share the same problem: Whatever content they do have, they’re not sure what to do with it.
Enter the customer journey. Buyers tend to go through four distinct phases before deciding to purchase or repurchase a product or service. If you know what your customer is looking for, you can use content more strategically. A white paper might not be right for a returning customer but a webinar on upgraded product features could be.
Topics: Content Marketing, Demand Generation, Content Strategy
February 7, 2014
If social media is part of your content marketing strategy, great job! But if you aren’t integrating your social media with the rest of your content, it could be doing more to engage your audience and extend your company’s reach.
Integrating social media with your content means weaving the two together, such as adding a link from an ongoing community discussion to a blog post or e-newsletter article covering the topic of that discussion. And it can work both ways. You could also use that article to introduce a new discussion to your community.
Topics: Social Media, Content Strategy
February 3, 2014
There's a common saying about referees in sports: You don't notice the good ones. The only time you usually pay attention to them is when they're screwing up. Referees, like doctors or yes, content marketers, should all follow the same basic principle: Do no harm.
The About Us section of many B2B websites often disregards this maxim. Like a whistle-happy zebra, many companies make this section all about them. Which despite the name, is a harmful approach to take. Customers' interest in your company is directly related to how it benefits them, how you will solve their problems.
Topics: Content Marketing, Website Content, Content Strategy