Three Content Marketing Lessons to Kick Off 2012
Fresh, relevant, engaging content.
Without it, your web site is boring, stale and completely ignored by Google, prospects and customers. We all know this, we hear it over and over again – it’s that “content marketing” thing - so why am repeating it here? Because even though we all know it, we still struggle to do it. Even here at Percussion, and we are in the web content business.
In fact, respondents to the Marketing Profs annual content marketing survey stated that producing content is their biggest challenge:
- Producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers- 40%
- Producing enough content- 21%
Unfortunately, there is no tool out there that will create content for us. Technology is a wonderful thing, but content creation is a creative process, and creative processes require people. People AND time – something that most marketing teams don’t have a lot of.
But there are things you can do to make developing content a little easier. Here is some advice from the experts:
Remember that content marketing is more than white papers, collateral, and case studies. Not everything has to be the great epic.
- WebInkNow: Photographs as compelling content marketing
- Content Marketing Quick Tips: CMI Contributors Share Their Favorites
- Content Marketing Institute: Content Marketing Playbook 2011 – 42 Ways to Connect with Customers
Extend your content team to include folks from other parts of the organization. You work with a lot of smart people, encourage them to share what they know.
- BtoB Oline: Six ways to start subject matter experts thinking like content marketers
- Content Marketing Institute: Content Marketing: Customer Relationship Management Begins at Home
Re-use/repurpose content - but do it right!
- Savvyb2bmarketing: The Dos and Don'ts of B2B Content Reuse
- Content Rules-Chapter 5 (by Ann Handley & C.C. Chapman): “Reimagine; Don’t Recycle”
In short, the key is to just get started, but be prepared for sustained effort.
PS: Need help preparing your business case for content management? Download our free tools and frameworks for a winning web content management business case here.
