And avoid boring brand content

One of the key challenges in content marketing is being able to create enough great content. Great? OK, maybe that’s vague, I mean relevant, engaging and it works. Great means different things to a financial services company than say, a BBQ grill manufacturer, a basmati rice brand or sports clothing manufacturer.

The truth is we all have the same challenge when it come to content creation and content marketing - creating dull content is a choice, it’s your choice.

“If people aren’t talking about you, they’re not talking about you for a reason. And the reason isn’t that they dislike you. They’re not talking about you because you’re boring.” ~ Seth Godin

People first...

Use your imagination, take a step back and think about your target audience, not your brand. What your audience needs over what you want to promote. It’s this return to people where it get’s so much…

5 key issues to consider to make your content marketing more effective

I recently recorded a short series of short videos for TFM&A Insights where I selected just five factors to focus on to improve key digital marketing techniques. 

In the first video I cover Content Marketing. If you were picking just 5 factors to help make content marketing successful which would you choose?

[youtubevideoembedder id="fvRSE8Jp3o8" parameters="start=2"]

The five practical success factors I cover in the video are:

Success Factor 1. Set goals and KPIs so you can prove the commercial contribution of Content Marketing. For ideas on KPI selection, see Dan Bosomworth's post on KPIs for content marketing and Stephen Bateman's Content Marketing Evaluation guide.Success Factor 2. Prioritise content for different audience needs using the content marketing matrix. See the Content Marketing infographic for how you can audit and brainstorm content ideas and the persona toolkit for how to create…

5 Tips for getting key employees involved in Content Marketing

Do you remember the scene in 'Far and Away' where Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman race against hundreds of people in wagons and on horseback to stake their claim in the Oklahoma Land Rush? Now, pretend all those men and women are CEOs for companies in one industry, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the current race to establish thought leadership is like.

Everyone wants to be considered the Thought Leader in his industry, and just like the Oklahoma Land Rush, it’s a lot easier to establish yourself than it is to replace someone who’s already claimed that spot. Content marketing, if done correctly, leads to Thought Leadership for a brand. If you’re putting out engaging content that…

An introduction to the "Hero's Journey" method of storytelling

Your product or services will likely solve a problem for your customers, or fulfil particular needs and wants. No matter how boring you view this product, it sits within a ‘story arc’ that can always be made interesting to consumers facing the challenges that it solves. In Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a basic pattern of storytelling is defined as a ‘monomyth’ or ‘hero’s journey’. This is a pattern that can be seen in a wide range of storytelling from around the world. Essentially, protagonists within a story go through a number of common stages, as below:

From Homer’s The Odyssey, to Medieval Romances and modern sci-fi adventures such as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Avatar, this story arc persists: The protagonist is inspired to go on…

The what, why and how of infographics marketing using social media

In today’s fast-paced social media world, if you want your message to be seen, you need to include a visual. Whether it’s a picture of your dog, a map, or an infographic, articles with images attached get 94 percent more total views than plain text. Of all the visuals available, infographics are an especially compelling way to capture the attention of online readers.

Consumers are bombarded every day with so much social media content that you need to include something that can get their attention and educate them quickly and succinctly. Whether you’re using a visual social network like Pinterest or Instagram or a text-based platform like Twitter, infographics fit the bill. So what is it that makes infographics so engaging in a social media format? Infographics are popular…

If our audiences have less attention than a goldfish, it's important to push the right "hot buttons"

Did you know that the average attention span for a new idea, we page or piece of content is now only 8 seconds - compare that to a goldfish at 9 seconds. It’s pretty startling and when you observe your own behaviour, or mine at least, 8 seconds does feel like a short time. But it depends on the context, in this post, Dave Chaffey talks about a 2 second rule to get your message across as someone visits your site or social media outpost for the first time, comparing it to the 7 seconds we supposedly look at an outdoor billboard.

Rational vs Emotional Content

This got me thinking how so much content that we create does not take the huge lack of time into account. We write and create so much content.…

What are you your plans to trial new tactics in the Year of Content Marketing?

2013, if you haven't realised it as yet is the year of Content Marketing. Study after study have shown that content marketing can turn the unaware into aware, the non-engaged into advocates and web browsers into customers. It does though require effort, resources and quality creators. To be successful, content marketing relies on sharing a regular dose of quality content and producing this takes a big investment in time; not to mention being creative with it. 

This recent joint DMA-CMI report on 2013 Content Marketing trends in the UK, US and Australia is worth checking if you haven't seen it. It shows that half of all marketers surveyed are planning to increase their budget on content marketing in the next 12 months, encouraged by the effectiveness of existing tactics.

…

An analysis showing how using the right calls-to-action can increase content sharing on blogs, Twitter and Facebook

Great content is naturally sharable based on the visuals or copy you use to describe it. But this latest infographic from Dan Zarrella shows how you give content a further boost to reach a larger audience by including the right type of call-to-action to encourage sharing.

This is great insight since there are big differences based on using the right CTA, particularly on Twitter… expect to see a lot more “Please RT/Like/Share” in social media. Remember you can overdo it… Please RT can look desperate if used too much… creating compelling content that is more naturally shared is still most important to shareability.

…

Legal services: Engaging the non-engagable through content marketing

For law firms, word of mouth has always been the principal generator of work. This may seem surprising given the wealth of marketing tools at their disposal, but the reason is actually quite obvious. Both individuals and businesses perceive purchasing legal services as high risk. People generally don't fully understand their legal rights, and if they do, making a purchase is typically an infrequent act, arising out of a situation of distress (litigation, divorce, death). So people look to friends, colleagues and 'opinion leaders' for their experiences and recommendations, to reduce any risk they may feel exposed to. Historically law firms have sought to leverage the power of word of mouth through 'thought leadership' activities, 'early' forms of content marketing; monthly newsletters, articles in trade publications, local seminars etc. But things have moved on. Or to be more specific, moved online: word of mouth has expanded…

7 ideas to engage through storytelling

"Those who tell stories rule the world" - Plato Storytelling - the buzz of 2012? I remember so many articles from last year, many great, claiming that 2012 was the year of brand storytelling. The power of those stories central to marketing dialogue. Let's remember first that storytelling isn't new, using narrative to evoke emotion in people is central to clever advertising creative from decades ago. It's 'digital' and 'direct' marketing that has only more recently moved marketing too more of a science - and often a very lazy one at that - bypassing all the important learning of what it means to market to, and motivate, real people with unmet needs. It seems though that we’re all catching back on to the effectiveness of building stories through content and connecting with people, our consumers. When your information is communicated…