I have a confession to make …
I’ve not been taking my own advice. It’s certainly not the first time and (sadly) likely won’t be the last either.
Earlier this week I ran a two day marketing workshop for a dozen enthusiastic entrepreneurs. I challenged them to focus their thinking and find that one big thing that their brand and business would become known for.
No woolly thinking or jargon here. A printing company would be FAST. A videographer would be the MTV of the wedding video world. A business and life coach would become Ms Motivation.
One thing. One idea. One brand promise. One focus.
ONE BIG THING (OBT)
The point of the challenge was to help them identify what was really different and unique about their businesses and help prevent a rather uninspiring slide into grey mediocrity.
Unfortunately, my one big thing has been small business marketing – and that’s just too big and too fuzzy a concept to be a real OBT. It’s like saying accountancy is OBT. Or law is OBT. They are certainly big things but for something to really be OBT it needs focus, drive and a real raison d’etre.
In a recent post on his Seobook.com blog, Aaron Wall rather modestly puts much of his success down to a first mover advantage in blogging about SEO. He continues:
“Unless you have first-class insider information, and can produce it on a regular basis, I wouldn’t advise anyone start a generalist search engine blog these days. … So, instead of a blog on search, one strategy might be simply to go deep on one aspect of that market. How about a blog on the mathematics of search engine algorithms? Or search marketing for a specific region? Or search marketing in one industry vertical, such as travel?”
I couldn’t agree more.
So over the last few months I’ve started to focus more and more on certain aspects of small business marketing – namely content.
Then what’s the problem, you say? I started out with a general idea and have developed my OBT, all should be well with the world.
Not so.
You see having OBT is about more than picking a niche. Much more in fact. OBT is about developing a single, powerful, all encompassing, driving force behind your business. A driving force that solves your customers problems better than any other.
So, without further ado, my OBT is content.
Content is the best way I know for small businesses to market themselves. Content is non-negotiable.
The question is not whether or not customers and prospects want engaging and compelling content but rather whether you’ll deliver it or continue to recycle the standard marketing platitudes.
No more hiding in the closet. I’m an out and proud content marketer.
Phew. That certainly feels better. Now it’s your turn.
What’s your OBT and why?
Image: LeoSynapse
{ 1 trackback }
{ 2 comments }
Is it a good idea for your OBT to be “content marketing?”
Maybe. You could do worse.
I’ve seen/heard gobs and gobs of stuff on content marketing, and the death of traditional advertising.
OTOH, you gotta do the content marketing. OTOH, EVERYONE is doing it (just about). So, there’s so much freakin’ content out there it’s hard to get people to pay attention to it, and, once they’re paying attention, provide value and differentiate.
Getting attention remains, IMHO, the toughest part of marketing. Great content doesn’t mean anything unless someone is looking at it.
Now, Googleers (yeah, a new word, sue me!) would say that “Content is King” because you need to keep putting fresh content into your site/blog to keep the search engines interested. True enough, but it’s a lot of work and a lot of time to invest. It’s great if you can afford someone writing 12+ hours a week, but otherwise where is all this content coming from?
So, using content for SEO is a great idea, but expensive. Some businesses can “do it yourself” on content but it is still time consuming.
The bottom line is that marketing has to have solid content, but how much, how deep, who for and where located varies tremendously depending on B2B, B2C, size of business, target audience, etc. For example, if you’re selling aspirin, people are more interested in knowing and trusting you for fast relief than they are a treatise on how synapses work. If you’re a consultant, then people are more likely to review your “content marketing” as a way of vetting you.
Even so, relying on content as your only strategy is dubious. Businesses, not for profits, everyone needs to have activity taking people to the content, or else taking the content to the people.
As for me, I get roughly 50% more visitors to my blog than to my web site. Mean time on my web site is 57 seconds, mean time on my blog is 1:20.
I do get a lot of positive feedback from my blog, and I think it helps generate TOMA (top of mind awareness… Hope you’re not minding all these acronyms).
I haven’t seen any real metrics on social networking sites, blogging, etc., but there is a whole generation of marketeers swearing by them (hyping them) so presumably there is a lot to it.
Instinctively, I agree that there is a lot of power there. It makes sense to me.
I’d still like to see some real numbers. That’s all I’m sayin’.
And by the way, here’s my OBT: Get more leads. Sell more stuff.
Hi Luis,
Thanks for the insightful comment. I completely agree with you on quite a few points.
As you say there is no point in creating content if you have no strategy for getting people to consume it. Certainly SEO is one aspect but it is only one.
I advocate that businesses put content at the heart of their marketing. In practice that often means ideas like using content as the focus of an advertisement or as a lead generator in a direct mail piece.
In the example you give about aspirin – I agree that people are not likely to care about ‘a treatise on how synapses work’ but they may be interested in a tip sheet with ideas on keeping their family healthy.
That may be enough to encourage them to visit a site after seeing an ad promoting it.
It may also be enough to encourage them to provide their email address for future comms – the part that does the selling.
‘If you’re a consultant, then people are more likely to review your “content marketing” as a way of vetting you’.
I agree entirely, which is worthwhile in itself, but it can also be the first step in your sales funnel.
A free workshop, an article in a trade magazine or a great case study can all generate leads.
Too many businesses look at content as separate from their marketing. What I hope to do here is show how content can be used to generate leads, generate TOMA and to build trust.
For me that’s the difference between ‘content marketing’ and content for content’s sake.
Comments on this entry are closed.