Content Marketing – Building Trusted Relationships

I took a trip to Best Buy this weekend to stock up on some Blu-rays. I figured hunkering down with some movies would be a great way to pass the time during the weekend snowfall.  Always spending more time (and money) than necessary inside the store, I can usually count on Best Buy to supply the movies I’m looking for. While this is good news for me, this is probably also music to Best Buy’s ears. (Or maybe their pocketbook?)

It turns out, according to “Get Content. Get Customers.”, that Best Buy has lately been focusing much of its attention on me. Well, not me per se, but loyal, highly targeted customers. According to the case study presented in the book, Best Buy has taken a lot of time to identify their elite customer demographic and in turn, has focused their efforts on keeping them “in the know” and returning to Best Buy stores.

How do they do this? Simple. By creating a publication suited exactly for their consumers’ needs. Best Magazine is a print and online publication that highlights what’s “best” in terms of products, from cameras, to cars to televisions. What’s great about it is that an unfamiliar reader would have no immediate idea of the magazine’s connection to Best Buy.  So, while you can read about products and technologies that are sold at Best Buy, readers won’t simultaneously be overwhelmed with their company jargon and “purchase pressure”.

According to Barry Judge, Best Buy’s CMO, it’s critical for the magazine “to build credibility from a trusted perspective by making it clear that there is no obvious way Best Buy will benefit.” In other words, the key is to quietly entice loyal readers to buy something, and then cross your fingers that they will swipe their credit card at your store. Successfully do this a few times, and Best Buy will reinforce their image and keep happy customers coming back for more.

It sounds like such a simple concept, but I can think of countless marketers who haven’t cashed in on this technique. The great thing about it is that it can be used in practically all industries, not just retail. Think about your content offerings, for example. Have you identified your top tier customers, and if so, are you going above and beyond to build trusted relationships with them? Consider their lives and how you can help make their job and decision making responsibilities easier. Where can you step in and help?

Already on top of this idea? Share with us your techniques and how you keep in touch with your audience.

- Mary Evans

Inbound Marketing 101 with HubSpot's Rick Burnes

Inbound marketing - the term used to describe how companies are using Google, blogs and social media to get found - is becoming an increasingly central focus of the work we do at SpeakerBox. Perhaps obviously, "inbound" marketing is the opposite of "outbound" marketing, where marketers use things like advertising, direct mail, email blasts and cold-calling prospects to reach prospects. If you think of how you personally find information on new products, services and companies, are you more likely to be receptive to material that was pushed to you, or do you rely on search results to gather information? Overwhelmingly, people are relying on the latter.

I sat down with some of my SBX colleagues last week to watch video of Rick Burnes from HubSpot from a talk he gave at an event hosted by Red Shoes PR in Appleton, WI**. Rick gave a great "Inbound Marketing 101" presentation, which I recommend every marketer or communications professional watch.

There's a lot of great stuff in the video, covering SEO, content creation, social media and measurement, but here were a couple of my favorite takeaways:

• Marketing has evolved in a way that now helps people. Today's best marketers pull people into their web site as opposed to going out and interrupting people or hitting them over the head with their message.
• Inbound marketing is significantly cheaper and more efficient than traditional outbound channels (trade shows, pay-per-click advertising), and results in higher quality leads.
• Marketing is about more than bringing people to your web site. Once you get them there, you have to offer more reason to have them stay or return, and which helps convert them to leads and then into customers.
• Focus on turning your site into a content library - the longer you are publishing articles / blog posts, the longer you'll have a huge archive of assets which will continue to pull people into your site over time through search.
• You can't just focus on one piece of inbound marketing - all of this (SEO, blogs, social media) fits together like an ecosystem, and your business has to become part of that ecosystem.
• With SEO, be specific about the words you are trying to rank for.
• When it comes to content creation (including blog writing), is quality or quantity best? The answer is BOTH! You need to produce good stuff, but also a lot of it. Write about the content that your customers are thinking about. People want to talk about the issues they are facing, not the software, products or services you are selling.
• Think of yourself as a publisher, and create content that will travel across the web and be useful to people. Above all else, be a resource on your industry!
• What kind of content should you create? Try everything, and don't be afraid to experiment. Burnes  recommends starting with a blog ("ground zero"). Your blog is where all of the content you create other places (podcasts, videos, etc.) should live.
• Host your company's blog on your company's domain! Hosting it on a site like Wordpress.com or Blogspot.com doesn't help your site with SEO.
• Free HubSpot tool Rick mentioned: website.grader.com

Rick's presentation was full of actionable advice like this. I've embedded both parts of his presentation below, and highly recommend watching both them.

-Stephanie
@stephstad





**Observant Sounding Board readers will catch that this is my 2nd consecutive post with a home state reference. Viva Wisconsin! I'll work on extending the streak...

Capital Business as a Substitute to Daily Business Section

This week The Washington Post began testing out the possibility of a subscription-based weekly business publication (similar to the Washington Business Journal). Special Post subscribers were treated to an advance copy and asked to fill out a survey on how they like the publication. Results from the poll are likely to be on the negative side since they asked readers to disregard that the articles included in the prototype are “old and out of date.”  I guess they are just gauging the interest in a publication of this nature and the design that they have produced, since readers can’t gauge on content.

I agree that there is something missing since the Post did away with its business section but I’m not sure that this weekly publication will fill the void. Although, I’d love to see more coverage of local business since Greater Washington boast some of the nation’s most recession proof areas.

Have you seen Capital Business? At $1.99 per week would you subscribe? We’d like to hear your thoughts on it since it’s you, the reader, who will determine its fate…

––Ali Smith

“I said No!” or at least I tried (with a little help from the Beatles)

This month my Middle School Marketing group had a discussion on saying “no” to clients. It was an interesting time to have the discussion - the start of a new year and on the heels of financially challenging times, which have impacted all of our companies in one way or another.

The concept of “no” or maybe more often times, getting a client to say “yes” is complex in the marketing/design arena for myriad reasons, so I was thrilled to guest blog about the big points of discussion/takeaways on Viget Labs' marketing blog, Engage - and took some queues from the Beatles in the writing process.

"Yes," "no," "maybe so?" What are your thoughts and strategies here? Would love to hear perspectives from both our communications colleagues and clients on the topic.

- Lisa Throckmorton

As the Words Turn - Looking at the 2009 "Word of the Year" Honorees

Almost everything we do here at SpeakerBox comes down to words - picking the right word to describe a company or new technology, or generating words (either on our own through various content generation activities, or through through the words of influencers) - which is why I had a keen interest as the various "word of the year" accolades rolled out for 2009.

The 'winners' will likely not shock you, and most are a reflection of the explosion of social networking. From a PR and marketing point of view, these designations are reminders of the trends, moments and evolutions that shaped our respective years, and which will continue to shape the future of communications - including the undeniable ubiquitousness of social media. I thought Zeenat Rasheed said it well on her blog when she reflected that these individual words and lists "provide a candid snapshot of the national consumer psyche and help us hone in on major trends, and force us to reflect on what these changes -- such as the increasing penetration of social media, acceptance of changing technology, and the development of online social mores that differ from in-person communication -- mean for consumers, brands and marketers."

So without further ado, what were 2009's honorees? [Insert drumroll sound here.....]

The New Oxford American Dictionary tells us the word of the year was "unfriend." Sorry, one-time Facebook friends.

The American Dialect Society gave the word of the year nod to "tweet," and the word of the decade honors to "google." Grant Barrett, chair of the American Dialect Society's New Words Committee and editorial director of the online dictionary Wordnik.com explained the decisions:

"Both words are, in the end, products of the Information Age, where every person has the ability to satisfy curiosity and to broadcast to a select following, both via the Internet," Barrett said. "I really thought blog would take the honors in the word of the decade category, but more people google than blog, don't they? Plus, many people thing 'blog' just sounds ugly. Maybe Google's trademark lawyers would have preferred it, anyway."

But, not every dictionary felt compelled to give the honors to a term from the 'Information Age.' Dictionary heavyweight Merriam-Webster named "admonish" as 2009's word of the year based on search volume on the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and its Online Thesaurus.

Webster's New-World says the honor goes to "distracted driving." While Ray LaHood, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation seems happy to see the phrase get additional attention, I can see where plenty of lexicographers might be calling for a recount, since that seems more like two words. In this video, Webster's New World Editor-in-Chief Mike Agnes gives more insight into their selection:



The Global Language Monitor listed "Twitter" and "global warming" as its words of the year and decade, respectively. And following tradition, the "word "czars" at Lake Superior State University "unfriended" 15 words and phrases and declared them "shovel-ready" for inclusion on the university's 35th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness."

My home state even got in on action when CityDictionary.com named "Sconnie" (anything relating to Wisconsin, or - when capitalized - "Sconnie" can refer to a person from Wisconsin) as its local word of the year. Viva Wisconsin!

What word (or words) would have been on your "word of the year" lists? Any early favorites for 2010?

-Stephanie Wonderlick

(Photo credit: jovike)

The Numbers DO Lie

In the old days (read: three years ago), we judged the pull and timbre of a given media outlet based on subscribers. The magic number? 100,000. Any publication with over 100,000 readers was obviously doing something right, and clients clambered to get their voices heard in these brand name outlets. What do those numbers mean in the here and now? Not much, if anything.

Blogs, Twitter and other social mediums have essentially made subscriber counts (as we used to think of them) worthless, except when it comes to purely judging the size of a geographic outlet, like Business Journals or local broadcasters. The obvious replacement number is unique Web views – using a service like Compete, you can check out rough estimates of unique hits a site has received over a given year. That should mean something, right? Wrong. Compete only factors in traffic to that given site – it doesn’t effectively track links or content shared via Digg, Twitter, Facebook or any other medium – and it doesn’t give you any sense as to whether or not a new site will explode in traffic next month nor does it factor in digital influence.

With this in mind, you’re faced with a clientele that still thinks along the lines of subscribers. How do you respond?

1. Everything matters. If a blogger or journalist wants to talk to your client, even if they’re low on your client’s list of important folks, make them do the interview. The more articles your client generates online, the more buzz they’ll receive in general, and pretty soon those big media names will come calling. At worst, it’s twenty minutes out of your CEO’s day. At best, they’re exposing hundreds or thousands of consumers to their product with almost no effort.
   
   
2. In on the ground floor. Maybe Bob’s Super Tech Blog isn’t driving a lot of traffic right now, but what’s the situation going to be like six months from now? Perhaps Bob is poised to join CNET’s blog ring or maybe he is working on a big time syndication deal with the GigaOM Network. Who’s going to get blamed if the blog’s traffic blows up in a month and your client missed their window? You. Take the interview.
   
   
3. Citizen journalists. Quite a few columnists and product reviewers, especially in the consumer technology space, keep low profiles online. Just because your client doesn’t recognize the reviewer’s name doesn’t mean that they aren’t important – maybe they’re a part-time reviewer for Engadget or have a syndicated column that runs in a few dozen mid-market papers across the US. It’s up to you to do your homework to find out who they really are and whom they might be working for.

Public relations shouldn’t be about subscribers any more – it’s about facilitating conversations with the right people to make sure you client gets heard. Pushing the mute button just because an outlet doesn’t APPEAR to have the right number of readers just doesn’t make sense.

--John Terrill

(Photo credit: Stewf)

Twavorites

So I’m really not a fan of when people make up twitter words like tweeple, twebinar and the one above. But we here at SpeakerBox are pretty addicted to the social media word itself and we’re not the only ones – Twitter has been named the most used word of 2009 – it has crossed that threshold where a product name becomes a verb (ie: Google and Xerox). Earlier this year Time magazine gave us details about how Twitter will change the way we live – in a great article that outlines just why exactly it’s important.

SBXers are hooked and we all use Twitter in different ways and follow different people, so through this series “twavorites” on the Sounding Board, we are going to give you a glimpse into our favorite people to follow, either in general or around specific topics.

To single my self out in starting this series, I use Twitter mostly as a listening post. I have it or cotweet up pretty much all day and check in periodically to see what folks are saying. I’ve found a lot of useful info this way but don’t actually tweet too often, that said my handle is @asmith731 if you want to find me. 

So without further ado here are a few of my twavorites:

·       @FishbowlDC – I love Fishbowl’s blog and it’s Twitter stream is on the same par. It keeps me updated about local (and national) media news with just enough gossip flair to keep it interesting.

·       @dcsportbog – I am impressed by all things Dan Steinberg. I am a huge sports fan and love his Post column/blog, his twitter feed and when he’s on the Junkies. He keeps me up to date, has a biting wit and the same attitude as DC fans – he also regularly makes my fiancée say “how did you know that?”

·       @shannonpaul – I found Shannon though a guest blog post on PR Squared. She tweets on topics that keep coming up in our office (ie: assigning value to work). She also tends to post links to articles that I find really interesting on the influence of social media on traditional media and consumers.

Stay tuned – there are more twavorites to come from the SBX team…

- Ali Smith

Out With the Old, In With the New

Change is inevitable – that’s life. As adults, I think we’ve come to accept that. Or have we? Sometimes we get stuck into the same routines in the office, simply because they’re familiar and frankly, we don’t want to take the time to learn something new. But how about doing something good for your company, something that intends to educate new (and existing) customers and drive business results? That proposition might get your attention and attract you to something new.

What I’m talking about is content marketing. Following up to my last blog post about the book, “Get Content. Get Customers.”, I’ve learned that some marketers are hesitant to shift from traditional marketing strategies to content driven ones. Why? Some because they have already developed proven campaigns that seem to do the job just fine, others don’t have the staff bandwidth and some aren’t measuring their marketing efforts to even know what’s working (yikes!).

But what about the rest of us? Those of us who want to try something new, want to connect with customers more than ever before and who want to jump start their customer pipeline for the new year? According to this book, integrating a content marketing strategy into your company’s DNA is the first point of action. To do this simply and seamlessly, follow the book’s B.E.S.T. framework detailed below.

Behavioral: Everything you communicate with your customers has a purpose. What do you want them to do?

Essential: Deliver information that your best prospects really need to succeed at work or in life.

Strategic: Your content marketing efforts must be an integral part of your overall business strategy.

Targeted: You must target your content precisely so that it is truly relevant to your buyers.

Fast-forward a little bit, and your company has the mindshare and capabilities to roll out a new content marketing campaign. What’s next? According to the book, there are four things to consider when implementing a new content plan:

1. Determine which organizational goals will be affected by the content program.
2. Determine the informational needs of the buyer.
3. Determine what you want your customer to do and why this helps the business.
4. Determine the product and content mix.

Hopefully these ideas and steps get your blood flowing and brain thinking. Until the next installment, take some time to reflect on your marketing strategies and think about your content offerings. If you’re behind the eight ball, then you might want to ring in the new year with some new strategies. After all, a new year calls for some type of resolution right?

-Mary Evans

Your content is safe with Google?

For a while now subscription based news outlets have been upset at how easy it is to access their content through Google News searches. While it’s good for us and makes it easier and cheaper to find the content we’re looking for, it is causing real harm to papers that rely on online subscriptions for income. Rupert Murdoch maintains that “quality content is not free” and has gone as far as to call the allowance of free access to this content outright theft.

Now, Google has changed their policies to allow publishers of paid for content to opt out or have more control over the amount of free access “Googlers” have to their websites. Really this option has existed for a while, it was just more complicated to execute. Previously, publishers had to fill out an online form to opt out of Google News, now they can opt out or set controls automatically through a file they download to their site.

Will this option help to save papers and online content providers? We’ll have to wait and see. It is either a positive step forward for sites that depend on the money brought in from online subscriptions or a step backwards (as Arianna Huffington would see it) for old media that needs to “get real.”

- Ali Smith 

Keeping an Eye on Augmented Reality

I had to miss my monthly Middle School Marketing because of business travel, but was interested to read a great blog post  by Jen Krupey  at Viget Labs  on this month's topic: Augmented Reality.


My first hand experience with augmented reality is limited to playing around on consumer clothing sites that allow you to create a virtual model of yourself and try clothing on, but as you will read in Jen's post, the technology is growing in use, so important for marketers to be aware of.


I thought this example from Cisco was particularly cool:



The technology has clear implications for consumer brands, but I can imagine that in short order, we will be impressed by the clever ways that it is being integrated into B-to-B marketing.


Any thoughts on how it might be applicable to you business?


- Lisa Throckmorton