The dangers of self-love: why your company news is bad content
Content Marketing, General Marketing Ideas, What to write about
Here’s the thing. When you start thinking about using content as the focus of your marketing the natural question is: “what, exactly are we going to write about or talk about?”
When you think about advertising or direct mail or leaflets or PPC ads, the answer has almost always been (rightly or wrongly), ‘tell people how great we are’. For the more progressive it might be ‘write about what our products can do for customers’.
Your company news isn’t that interesting to anyone else
Unfortunately those answers don’t make for an interesting read.
Imagine reading a magazine that was one big advertorial. Imagine reading a book that was little more than a company brochure. Imagine searching online for useful information and finding a sales pitch in its place.
Chances are those are not resources you’d return to.
People choose to consume your content - or not
And therein lies the problem. When companies make the well-meaning decision to invest in content-led marketing (blogs, monthly newsletters, articles) the initial reaction is to treat these tools like advertising vehicles.
But no prospective customer will choose to receive regular monthly advertisements by email. No prospective customer will choose to subscribe to your daily sales pitches. No reader will choose to read 500 words about how brilliant you are - written by you!
If you’re considering putting content at the heart of your marketing - and I’d certainly applaud that - then you need to start thinking more like a journalist and less like a marketer.
A marketer promotes.
A journalist tells the story that the audience wants to hear and answers the questions that their audience wants to know.
A marketer starts with a product or service and brings out the benefits.
A journalist starts with the reader and figures out how to deliver for them.
A marketer talks features and benefits - it’s product-centric.
A journalist talks problems, solutions, pros and cons.
That’s not to say that there’s no place for selling and promoting your business. Far from it. In fact, content without a clear business objective serves no business purpose. Content must be linked to your sales process for it have value but content about you and your business is a similarly wasted exercise.
The point: Great content is not about you - it’s about ‘them’.
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November 12th, 2008 No comments
Seth Godin: Another cool vid from the Inbound Marketing Summit
This time Seth Godin …. I need to get to this event next year.
November 4th, 2008 3 comments
Happy Hallowe’en
Pic: spindlierhades
A Happy Hallowe’en to all our readers.
Believe it or not, our lovely little city hosts one of the Europe’s largest Halloween Carnivals. Despite being the wrong side of thirty, I’m quite looking forward to hitting the town (in full costume of course) and mingling with the many tens of thousands - local and visitors - who will hit the streets to party into the small hours.
So why does Derry have such a love for Halloween? Who knows, but it’s the highlight of the year and every bar, restaurant and hotel will be bursting at the seems.
Business lesson: find something and make it your own.
October 31st, 2008 No comments
Weekend Reading: Social Media, Blogging, Unique Publishing Ideas
Content Marketing, General Marketing Ideas
Five worthwhile reads for the weekend
- Problogger Darren Rowse sheds some light on how he mixes his own site with social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
- DoshDosh uses a recent article by Philip Myer in the American Journalism Review as the basis for an interesting post on the future of content. The DoshDosh article is here and Philip Meyer’s is here.
- JournaMarketing has a great little example of a small organisation using video journalism to good effect. One for even the smallest businesses.
- Springwise points to Distill, a new fashion magazine that collates and curates the best from other fashion magazines across the globe. Another reminder that content doesn’t always have to be created - you can be the curator as well.
- Finally, Chris Brogan has a timely reminder - and tons of examples to back it up - that a gulf still exists between the online, twittering, facebook poking, blogosphere and the real world of people. If most of your prospects are offline then you need to read this - and start working on ways to be that bridge.