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.

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6 Essential steps to create a content marketing plan

Last Friday, Stephen Bateman took us through his 6 Steps to creating a content marketing plan in the latest Smart Insights-BrightTALK  Digital Marketing Priorities 2013 webcast. At the end of this post we share the deck and recording as requested. We again had some really interesting questions on the webcast - thanks for those! We covered the majority of them at the time, but Stephen has picked out 3 questions where we thought his answers would be of general interest.

Resourcing content marketing - should we use content curation?

Question: If we don't have enough content experts in-house to create well-rounded content, do you suggest we link to other sources from our site, or should we pay outside sources to create content for us? Answer: Yes, linking to other sources is known as curating content and is a widely used approach to present yourself as an authority…

Content planning made easy

Over the past 18 months to two years it seems there has been ever-increasing volume of advice on content marketing. You would have to have been on a very long holiday or living under a rock to not notice how content marketing is a huge topic and an industry worth $44 billion and that's just in the United States. While there are many posts exhorting us to "create awesome content" there is a big practical challenge of how you plan and resource this content creation. One specific problem many of us face is how to encourage other specialists in our companies to create content which we have covered in this post based on a discussion on persuading others in your company to create content for you. I wanted to add to this by reviewing the issue of when you're face with a blank piece of paper…..what content…

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.

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Integrating content and social media marketing

The vast majority of businesses will first experiment with social media long before they get underway with content marketing. Creating a coherent plan is the key to success in both. A content plan helps to integrate content and social media marketing activities. I will be explaining the approach I recommend in more detail in the next Smart Insights webcast. This post gives some of the background. [caption id="attachment_25503" align="alignright" width="150"] Which way first?[/caption] Companies tend to work first with social media marketing because social platforms are…

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…

Searchable, Shareable and Snackable are the keys to success

I read this post last week and feel it's worth sharing as a reminder for content marketing teams. It's created by Skyword a software company serving content marketers, so a good example of educational content marketing in and of itself. The infographic summarises a simple, and useful, mantra… I'd urge content marketers to take 10 and read more, to consider how you'd implement this within your programme: Searchable. Content must capture the passion and pain points of the consumer using relevant trending keywords, boosting the content’s search ranking. Read more about being findable. Snackable - Content needs to be relevant for an on-the-go consumer who needs answers to questions in a moment’s notice, increasingly on mobile devices. Snackable content leaves the consumer satisfied and eager to come back for more, you're part of their solution. Read…

Practical advice on WHO you need to execute your content marketing strategy

Many content roles I see are the domain of trained Journalists and Copywriters, but this doesn’t always add up. On the web, many of the best examples of engaging content, and certainly the most sharable, are visual in nature, and often application based. Thus creating content teams made up of skilled writers will limit success. If you have a large site, with hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of product pages that need writing, then hiring copywriters to get the job done makes good sense. But if you’re also looking to create a good blog, regular email newsletters and possibly applications that integrate with social networks, then you’re going to need some Designer / Development resource as well. If things are going to be promoted well, then a Community / Outreach Manager would be useful. Finally, to measure…

Tools for managing the content marketing process

In 2013, content marketing is receiving more attention than ever and there are a growing number of tools to manage it. We thought this infographic by Content Amp provides a nice visualisation of different types of tools to help manage how content is accessed, shared and analysed. Although it's a little overwhelming, we think the top-level groupings of technologies are useful if you're reviewing the tools and process you use to manage your content marketing. …

Ideas to humanise your online communications

As we all now become digital natives, it makes you step back and think and ultimately realise that those who follow us, will be born into a purely digital society, where eBooks and augmented reality will have gone from exotic to everyday. Thinking about what this means in the future is intriguing, but it's equally interesting right here and now in 2013. Technology, software and the devices we use, have of course shaped our social and human behavior on a number of levels, from shopping, to leisure, to business. Lives are lived online, and the opportunity to have a live feed into the minds of those you care about is becoming a clearer reality. People are more willing to share and consume horizontally through their social networks, rather than vertically. The organic spread of ideas, relationships, and trade can now be observed and measured on scales…