Our content marketing blueprint - updated
It's almost a year ago since we created our blueprint for content marketing infographic - and with so much conversation now around the converging of digital and 'off-line' media, the proliferation of mobile and the increasing popularity of marketers talking about paid, owned and earned media we wanted to update our blueprint for 2013.
Paid, owned and Earned media meets Inbound Marketing
It's important to be alert to paid, owned and earned, in relation to content and inbound marketing. Especially owned media - this has to be a key priority in 2013. Without your own (ed) brand platform from which to both publish, and to which you want to drive traffic there becomes a far weaker case to create and promote content. Since how will you garner any traction with your consumer, show any conversion? This is the key area that we've updated our infographic from last year, as…
Ideas on improving content marketing in 2013
I was recently invited to speak at an event for members of the Content Marketing Association discussing trends to consider for 2013. I enjoy learning from other speakers and discussions with the audience at events and since each speaker was focusing on different predictions I thought I’d share the presentations here.
Neil Perkin - Digital Content Trends 2013
First up was Neil Perkin a content marketing commentator who gave his thoughts on Digital Content Trends in 2013. I was particularly interested in his thoughts about subcompact publishing, a concept defined by publishing commentator Craig Mod in article from November 2012. Evidence of this trend can be seen in new compact publications like The Magazine social sites like Branch and Medium launched in August by Twitter’s co-founders.
…
7 tips to effectively promote your infographics
Last week I gave tips about creating effective marketing infographics. But creating an infographic isn't enough, to generate the return you'll obviously have to promote it. You'll want to do this since infographics are primarily useful for promoting your knowledge around a topic by being insanely shareable, and in turn attracting inbound links - the more exposure you can build, the better the return.
The power of show not tell
Infographics are visually appealing - if I were to tell you about the popularity of pork pies vs steak and kidney pies you'd be bored very quickly, however let me show you a crafted graphic to illustrate that and I'll be sure of at least a wry smile and probably a tweet or share into Facebook if you have an opinion on either over the other. Leveraging this obvious benefit holds the key to promoting an…
Are they The Real Thing?
I read yesterday that Coke have a new revamped corporate website, a nice example of responsive design. Not your average corporate site and a major step in implementing their 2020 vision for marketing. It's a site that's much closer to being a consumer magazine title than what we might expect from a large corporate website.
Are Coke a little late?
I've mixed feelings about Coke being positioned as pioneering in modern marketing, listening to them you'd be forgiven for believing that their Content 2020 vision is somehow leading edge, world changing stuff. They are "ahead of the game" compared to some corporates on one hand, I guess, yet on the other hand, especially given their size, they're way behind the pace.
To top it off, they're…
5 themes and 21 ideas to help create a content strategy
We'd no doubt agree that creating, sharing, distributing and promoting great content is now a very significant component of not only effective marketing, but effective brand-building today? We'd certainly suggest that it requires a key place in the strategic thinking in almost every organisation.
Perspective enables strategic thinking
As with most things when talking digital, the tactical jargon can really confuse people and I've been reminded again this week how our infographics have been really useful to people, to help think about this. The word "content" is thrown around a lot these days, most know what it means and its potential, but most are unsure as to whether they're doing it right. We suggest that it's the jumping into a down and dirty tactical perspective which causes this early confusion, the key is to elevate up and get a bigger picture view…
This is a great infographic - communicating 5 principles of B2B lead generation, it's useful for any company marketing to business buyers.
There's some good basic reminders on here, here's our favourite in Mobile (principle #5) - click to call: have a clickable phone number as well as a form. It's these simple things that make the difference.
…
What does it mean for content marketing?
What is it with the idea of storytelling these days, everyone's at it apparently - creatives, PR execs, ad agencies and now digital marketers, it appears. It sounds useful, inspiring even, I used the expression myself last week in a marketing seminar, but as the word came up again in a meeting yesterday I wondered - what does it actually mean for modern marketing? And, do we all think it means the same thing?
"Marketing is storytelling. The story of your product, built into your product. The ad might be part of it, the copy might be part of it, but mostly, your product and your service and your people are all part of the story. Tell it on purpose." ― Seth Godin
Bigger than marketing
First and foremost it's important to say that stories have to reflect the sum total of your business or brand, you…
Google's framework for multichannel success
I appreciate the headline might be a bit controversial, but it's a genuine question. It's a natural follow-up to my previous post reviewing McKinsey's New consumer Decision Journey. After all - Google are saying that their Zero Moment of Truth model represents the death of the sales funnel. Really? I don't think so…
Of course we already know that P&G first realised the idea of 'moments of truth' in 2005, they said that the first moment was "in front of the shelf," and that the "second moment of truth" was gained through product trial and experience. So compared with McKinsey's Consumer Decision Journey, what is ZMOT adding? The aim of ZMOT is to explain how the consumer's research and decision-making journey on the way to purchase is now fundamentally different, that there's a step prior to P&G's first moment of truth, called ZMOT.
ZMOT also explains that this…
Red Bull: A lesson in modern marketing?
I was debating writing this post, after all there's so much written about the Red Bull Stratos mission in the 2 days since it was finally completed. Yet I've not seen much written about how the event supports branding and marketing. I think there are certainly learnings for marketers like us, most of us who aren't multi-million pound brands.
So, what are the practical marketing ideas that we can really take from all of this? Here are our 4 lessons from the Stratos mission...
Success comes from committing to the hard work. Red Bull included, was this easy for them - no way. The Stratos project took 7 YEARS to plan and execute with ex-NASA engineers which means that Red Bull started doing the work seriously as early as 2005. We…
Practical tips and an example of creating a content plan for SEO
This is the 11th step in the 12 part series on SEO. In this article I’m looking at the crucial role of content marketing and providing easy-to-implement tips on how you can use it to support your SEO program.
Why is content relevant to SEO?
There are several ways in which content can support SEO by boosting search presence:
1. Content drives search presence
It's simple, to be found by searchers and search engines, you have got to have something for them to find. But to compete it needs to be outstanding content. Moving into 2013, content is still king as it helps you build webpages & other content assets (e.g. videos) that can be indexed. This applies to database driven product pages for e-commerce as well as CMS driven content pages like Buying Guides and Articles.
2. Content variety can increase SERPs penetration
Search…
