You’ll find everything from great newsletters to bad websites… great custom magazines for reluctant buyers… the 7 deadliest content marketing sins… 6 lessons to learn from a shopping mall…using content marketing to speed sales growth curve.

Read on for a great refresher course in content marketing.

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In a great post from Australia, Glenn Nicholas of OM4.com.au stresses that content is a heck of a lot more important than search marketing to build a business. Although, as Glenn’s graphic to the right shows, zillions of people are searching for ’search marketing’ rather than ‘content marketing’, that doesn’t mean it’s the right strategy.

Glenn comments on why ‘content marketing’ is so important:

‘Content Marketing’ is not a common term - yet. Content marketing is a strategy that involves publishing content to interest an audience, in the same way a magazine publisher produces content. Good content is often of interest to other web publishers, who may introduce your content to their audience. This builds an audience without search being involved. And to repeat Seth Godin’s formula: Attract people in trouble–>Help solve their problems–>Build your reputation–>Sales happen.

Glenn suggests that your prospects are using search as a last resort when they can’t find resources on the set of online resources they trust to provide the information they need. He concludes:

Running a business that is dependent on Google traffic is not good. A Content Marketing strategy helps you build your online business without this type of dependence.

That’s exactly what I’ve found. I can count on a steady flow of traffic from links that reside on sites that are trusted sources for folks who are looking for information that will get them up to speed on content marketing.

That may not work if you’re aiming for a get rich quick strategy, but it works very well in the get rich slow model.

Check out Glenn’s blog for some great stuff

1. They fail to research their buyers and their needs. Because they didn’t really understand what was most important to their customers, they couldn’t possibly deliver relevant content that would make a difference.

2. They confuse information that’s important to the business with information
that is important to the customer.  Of course, once prospects are ready to buy, they want to know all about your company.  But, when they first connect with your company, they are looking for solutions to their problems.  They don’t want to read your mission statement or read your latest press release.

3. They don’t integrate their content initiatives with the rest of their marketing programs. Unless you make sure that your entire strategy is customer-centric, one great content marketing effort will be largely wasted.  For example, if you have a great eNewsletter that takes prospects to a web site that doesn’t offer any relevant content, you may have alienated customers forever.

4. They try to dress up sales information as quality content. A surprising number of white papers and webcasts are so thinly disguised that marketers do more harm than good.  Your customers have highly developed B.S. detectors.  They greet the public as poorly disguised wolves in sheep’s clothing.  That’s a baaaaaad practice.

5. They don’t integrate visual elements into their content. Lack of great visuals makes for huge missed opportunities. That’s because unless customers are drawn into the content, they won’t engage with it. On the web, you have less than 10 seconds to engage your visitors.  Relevant visuals can make orders of magnitude differences in a web site’s ability to transform visitors into buyers.

6. They have no measurement process that establishes key benchmarks BEFORE beginning the initiative. Since you can’t manage what you can’t measure, launching a content marketing campaign without a clear set of benchmarks for success, makes it impossible to determine whether hard fought dollars were well spent.

7. They fail to develop content that’s just right for their readers, often aiming too high or too low. Once again, understanding precisely who are customers are makes all the difference. Understanding not just what they need to know, but where they are on the learning curve is critical to creating content that resonates with your prospects.

Learn More About the Basics of Content Marketing

If you’d like to understand why the trend toward content marketing is accelerating–and how you can benefit from deploying a content marketing strategy–Download the FREE eBook, Get Content. Get Customers.  Just click here.

Co-authors, Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett, explain why a new form of marketing is needed,

"The buyer can find everything they need to make informed purchasing decisions on the Internet. They don’t need to rely on old-fashioned marketing collateral nor salespeople to educate them about products. Today, businesses that market only through traditional means ignore the importance of the fundamental changes in buyer behavior that make compelling content so critical to the decision-making process."

Pulizzi and Barrett recommend the use of content marketing strategies to woo this new breed of buyer.  They suggest that providing frequently updated content that is both relevant and compelling is essential to attract and to retain loyal customers.

Get Content. Get Customers. is a practical guide for executives to the brand new world of content marketing.  Readers can expect to learn the following:

•The three reasons traditional marketing isn’t working.

•Content marketing is the biggest industry you’ve never heard of.

•What content marketing really is and why it is important.

•Why you must now think like a publisher today!

•The 11 biggest benefits of content marketing.

•The seven deadly sins of content marketing.

•What Best Buy, MindJet, and ThomasNet are doing to drive business through the use of great content.

•What specific methods you should use to implement your content strategy now.

Get Content. Get Customers. is available for free download on the book’s website: www.GetContentGetCustomers.com.  The greatly expanded print version will be available in January 2008 from Voyager Media, Inc.

Joe Pulizzi is chief content officer for Junta42 (http://www.junta42.com), a content marketing/custom publishing search portal. Newt Barrett is the founder of Succeeding Today. He is the chief content officer for ContentMarketingToday ( http://www.contentmarketingtoday.com), the online content marketing resource.

Here is a very simple, yet strategic plan to get and keep more customers through the use of valuable, relevant content. This will form the basis for your custom publishing/content marketing media plan.

1. Simple Market Research

You’ve come this far because you understand your customer and prospect base. By conducting some simple, online market research, you can not only create a competitive advantage, but use the data to construct and develop relevant messaging to your customers.

• Questions - create mostly “multiple-choice” questions that deal directly with the challenges you think your customers are facing in the industry. Once the questionnaire is complete, run it by some of your best customers. Make sure that it takes 10 minutes or less to complete the survey. Include at least one open-ended question that asks them what their biggest challenge is. You can use this for white paper topics (to be discussed later).
• Database - leverage the customer names you have email addresses for. The idea would be to get at least 100 responses. At an average 3% complete rate (which could be much higher depending on how you position the survey), you’d need a universe of about 3,000 names. If that seems impossible, survey tools such as Zoomerang offer services to get you a number of defined completes of your target functions and titles for a set price.
• Survey Tool - Tools like Zoomerang or SurveyMonkey are very reasonable and have enough functionality to give you the results you need. Each also gives a free trial membership for lower survey quantities.
• Incentive - Starbucks cards or Amazon gift certificates seem to be the flavor of the day. Set up the survey so that the first 50 or 100 to complete the survey get a $5 or $10 certificate. Amazon’s gift certificate tool makes it easy to upload multiple emails and send out to winners. Takes about 5 minutes.

Once the research is complete, you’ll have the information you need to create a content marketing plan that makes sense. As a bonus, you can construct a research report that can be used as a free download to draw prospects to your Web site, or deliver the custom report as a special gift to customers.

2. Web site

Is your Web site all about products and services? If so, you’ve got a problem. Today’s savvy buyer yearns for great content, and they will look just about anywhere for content that helps them do their job better.

Instead of relying on media outlets, or worse, your competitors, to give them the content, create the mindset of a publisher. With a publisher’s mindset, your goal is to give your readers content that is valuable, relevant and timely.

If you are not already doing so, here are the adjustments to make on your Web site:

• At least 50% of the content on your home page should be NOT be product or service related. Fill your home page with content that makes the prospect/customer more intelligent. We’ll talk more about how to do that in a second.
• Create a blog. Starting a blog may be the key to your custom publishing/content marketing program. TypePad or WordPress are virtually free, and both are easy to use. Tie it in with your Web page, or even make it your home page. If you tie it in to your home page, be sure that blog posts are clearly visible. Post at least twice a week and talk about what is going on in your industry. Writing consistently will be challenging at first, but once you get started, you’ll enjoy seeing the additional traffic coming to your site from all over the globe.If you have any questions about setting up the blog, check out Patrick Schaber’s post on “The Beginner’s Guide To Setting Up A First Blog Site”.
• Use Feedburner to create automatic email feeds to those subscribed to your blog. You can also add “email this” functionality within each blog post.

3. White Papers

A white paper is a 3,000 to 5,000 word document that centers around a key issue. I recommend creating a quarterly white paper series around your industry issues. Be sure to use the research from your online survey to generate the white paper topics.

If you can’t write it yourself, hire a freelancer that is close to your industry to write one for you. Depending on the industry, you can probably get someone to do it for 50 cents to $1 per word. If possible, try a bartering arrangement to cut down on your costs.

Create an abstract on your home page promoting a white paper download. This will be a free download to prospects/customers…but they do need to give you their name, company and email address. You can also add a few other qualifying questions, but know that you’ll get 20% or more drop off with each question. Might be better to get the name first and qualify later.

4. Search Engine Marketing

To drive people to download your white paper, create a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign using Google AdWords or Yahoo! Search Marketing. Target key words that you uncovered with your research survey to drive people to download your white paper.

Be sure to test first and start out with just a few dollars in budget per day. Once you see the conversion results (which you can set up in AdWords), you can decide if you want to budget more per day.

5. Develop a Print Newsletter

Print is still very important to the overall marketing mix. The difference today is that you need to use the content from your print initiative throughout your marketing vehicles.

A short four-to-eight page custom publishing newsletter should do. Work with a local designer to create a clean, fresh look for your newsletter. B2B Marketing Trends, produced by Penton Custom Media, does a nice job with their 16-page newsletter (click here for a link to the media kit to see the design).

Remember, this is not a sales update, it’s an initiative to help make your customers and prospects smarter. Start with a quarterly frequency, or even bi-annual if it’s too much to bear. Do the following:

• Create a name that positions the content of your newsletter within your industry. Be sure to check for any trademark issues before you move forward.
• Develop an editorial outline. Short, quick-hitting editorial should be the focus in the print version. All stories should drive the reader back to their online location for the “complete” story.
• Promote your quarterly white paper within each issue. This could possibly be your feature story. Create a shorter 500 to 750 word article that ends with a link back to the download URL to the white paper.
• Content is content. Ads are Ads. Keep all content areas informative and valuable. If you want to promote your services individually, outside of the context of a case study or feature article, separate those messages out so it is clearly marked.

An Integrated Custom Publishing Program

By doing the above five steps, you’ve just created a simple, yet effective content marketing/custom publishing program. Be sure to track your ROI/measurement of the program through:

• Blog Feeds
• Blog Subscriptions
• White Paper Downloads
• SEM conversions
• URLs from Print Newsletter

Ultimately, you can set this up to directly tie back to your sales. Use unique URLs and Toll-Free numbers on each initiative so you can track what leads are coming from where.

The best part of all - you are taking a true leadership position in your industry. You are developing relevant and valuable information on a consistent basis for your customers. They will begin to look to you for your industry knowledge and will ask you for your help to be their solutions provider.

Not a bad place to be when customers actually want to read your branded content!

For more on Joe’s commentary, check out the Junta42 blog or find content articles from around the web at Junta42.

Mindjet uses Content marketing to accelerate the acceptance of the concept and of their product, MindManager

San Francisco-based, software company, Mindjet, has been developing mindmapping software since 1993. In the past three years they’ve grown dramatically from a three dozen employees to almost 165—and more than 900,000 users.

Mindmapping is a different way of thinking from the traditional vertical outline that we all learned in school and United States. It involves a radial model with a core concept at the center and branches and sub-branches extending from that core. Click here to learn more of what it’s all about and why you should consider using it as a productivity tool.

Although it does take a bit of explaining, Mindjet marketing executive, Katy Colletto, likens the incredible productivity improvement she experienced when she started using MindManager to the difference between schlepping an old fashioned suitcase and the ease of strolling along with a suitcase on wheels. As she puts it, “Today I can’t imagine how I ever got along without MindManager.”

I must confess that I’m not totally impartial because I’ve been using MindManager myself since 2000—and I can’t imagine doing without it either.

Mindjet’s growth parallels the increasing acceptance of the concept of mindmapping. But, in spite of their success, they face a significant marketing challenge:

Fortunately for Mindjet, they have incredible word of mouth; in fact 60 to 80% of their sales are driven by viral marketing. Even better, 85% of their users consider themselves ‘evangelists.’

Therefore, their primary efforts involve extending the reach and impact of these evangelists. They have determined that most MindManager users tend to focus on a single application for mindmapping. Mindjet is convinced that by educating these enthusiasts in all the ways that MindManager can improve productivity, process, and creativity, they will grow both the users and the uses of the product.

A website that really works

Appropriately, when you land on their website, the first thing you see is a simple but instructive mind map with the headline: “Work smarter, think creatively, save time… Every day Mindjet helps people visualize and use information.”

In fact, the Mindjet website provides a wealth of compelling content that it presents brilliantly. It uses a combination of visual elements and well organized bullet point style text that makes it clear even to a complete mindmapping newbie what they can expect from Mindjet and from the MindManager product.

Webinars explain and extend mind manager’s capabilities and user base

An essential element of the website is the access provided to regular webinars that feature subject matter experts on everything from ‘how to write a best-selling book’ to ‘real world project management.’ The webinars are equally valuable to brand new users or to the thousands of Mindjet evangelists. Typical webinars attract as few as several hundred to as many as several thousand attendees. Archived versions may pull in as many as 10,000 new contacts.

Mindjet learned an important lesson in terms of what works well. Those presenters who make their webinars interactive are far and away the most popular and successful. In turn, they will certainly deliver the most effective viral marketing impact.

But there’s lots more on the web site:

• a free 21 day trial

• free productivity packs

• clear descriptions of vertical solutions

• an extensive gallery of sample maps

• case studies on the successful use of MindManager in a variety of applications

• easy access to support

And then there’s a really useful monthly newsletter

The Mindjet newsletter focuses almost entirely on how to achieve more by using MindManager. For example, in the August 2007 issue, the lead story is about using mind manager to win complex sales—with a link to a special “Sales Manager’s Dashboard Template.” It also includes new tips and tricks, maps of the month, and time-saving templates.

If In addition to all the great stuff that users can put to work immediately, the newsletter also has numerous links that take readers to where they can purchase the product or upgrade to a more advanced version.

The newsletter is also colorful and visual, adding to its impact. Every graphic has purpose—and serves to reinforce a mind mapping concept or benefit. All in all, the Mindjet user newsletter is an excellent example of effective content marketing. Why? Because it serves the information needs of the reader while it serves the strategic marketing needs of the company.

Powerful, relevant visuals can double or triple the strength of your online brand. Bad visuals will create significant damage.

Why so many bad visuals then? They tend to represent the belief that flashy graphics will stop your visitor dead in his tracks– just as they sometimes do on television, in a magazine or on a billboard. Instead, wrong-headed graphics are likely to stop visitors from exploring and send them off to a competitor.

Because agencies spend most of their time pushing messages out to targeted suspects who may have no interest in what you are trying to sell them, they have typically relied on minimal text and flashy and colorful visuals. Think about great billboards and you get the idea.

But the world has changed. Visitors come to your web site for a reason. They’re looking for information about products and services – and about your company. They are on a mission to determine whether they would like to do business with your organization. They have qualified themselves by taking the time to search out your website.

Content Marketing: The Ideal Scenario is Visually Enhanced Information

We all know that compelling content is absolutely essential. What may be less obvious is that compelling visuals greatly enhance the impact of compelling content.

Two great examples come from the Newfangled Web Factory and their client, Secured Engineered Machinery. In each case, these content rich sites will capture a lot more potential customers because the visual elements on the pages are right on the money.

On the Newfangled home page you can select from three videos that relate directly to services offered by the organization. Even if you don’t watch them, still versions of the videos grab your attention—and are enhanced by text that explains exactly what you would learn if you had the time to watch. Check them out here.

Secured Engineered Machinery delivers less than flashy services. They shred sensitive documents for a wide range of clients. The moment you land on their home page, large changing visuals provide vivid illustrations of that kind of services they provide and the kind of clients they serve. Within seconds, they are able to convey that they’re the kind of company you would like to do business with. Take a look at the SEM home page to get some ideas on how to persuade your visitors to do business with you.

In a recent editorial, Phil Lewis, editor of the Naples daily news, wrote about increasing traffic to the newspaper web site. His editorial was frighteningly notable for two reasons:

• He admitted that he and his fellow editors had no idea what articles were being read in the print product: “The best we can do with the print edition is guess how many people picked up the paper each day and which stories they read.” That’s pretty scary. This suggests that they either lack the resources or the interest to determine what is really important to local citizens.

• The best read story online, by a 3 to 1 margin, involved a woman backing over the driving teacher. Next in line, a very distant second, was coverage of the dismissal of Collier county school superintendent, Ray Baker. Following close behind was a story about teenagers collecting mushrooms and getting in trouble for it. Yikes!

Amazingly, Lewis indicates that they will not use information about what readers are actually reading to determine how the cover the news. I’m not sure that approach is very encouraging when you look at the cover story and graphic that focuses on a local Spider Man.

One wonders about their editorial judgment, if Spidey is the best Lewis & co. can do for their online Sunday lead.

Perhaps the Spider Man gambit is the newspaper’s attempt to recapture all those young readers who have abandoned newspapers in droves over the past several years. Spider Man has faced incredible challenges in the past. But, I doubt that even he will be able to rescue our local newspaper from looming disaster.

If only you could improve on your areas of weakness, you would optimize your performance. Right? No. Wrong! And, if you work really hard, you can achieve anything you want. Right? No. Wrong.

Most conventional wisdom about optimizing our performance is dead wrong, according to Strengths Finder 2.0. Author, Tom Rath, builds on decades of research by the Gallup organization to prove his point. He states that we cannot change who we really are: “You cannot be anything you want to be—but you can be a lot more of who you already are.”

Don’t Take the Path of Most Resistance

The story of Rudy, the driven, but hapless Notre Dame football wannabe who got a few seconds of playing time after thousands of hours of relentless work illustrates Rath’s point. This heartwarming movie, offered a wrong-headed life lesson. Rather than figuring out where he could naturally excel, Rudy took the path of ‘most resistance.’

Unlike Rudy, we should take the path of least resistance. Rath stresses that we must determine those few things we do naturally well—and love to do—and then focus our energies at doing them brilliantly. We excel by turning our natural talents into strengths. Best of all, whenever we can play to those strengths most of the time, we will be both happy and successful.

Just as important–we should waste little time working on our weaknesses. At work, we are often presented with ‘areas of improvement’ and told to get good at what goes against our nature. Bad idea. Don’t try to fix the unfixable. Instead, optimize what we do easily and enthusiastically. That’s how we can deliver genuine value to our organizations.

Uncovering Your Strengths

Strengths Finder 2.0 offers a FREE online assessment from Gallup that enables you to determine your five core strengths (out of 34 Gallup identified) and how to put them to work. This is well worth the price of the book. And, if you’re a manager, you may want to encourage your staff to participate so that you can build on your individual strengths and excel as a team.

In his second of 5 points on ‘Connecting with Customers Online,’ Chris Elliott referenced Mr. Barrett’s emphasis on the importance of compelling online content:

Challenge customers with information that provokes a response. Newt Barrett, a Sarasota, Fla., media consultant and the co-author of an upcoming book about marketing through Web content, says actionable site content is critical to connecting with customers. “Compelling content generates highly qualified leads,” he says. “Compelling online content begins an ongoing dialogue with your best buyers from the very first moment they land on your Web site.”
What works? Contextually relevant content: anything from a chart depicting the growth in demand for a certain product to a short paragraph summarizing the benefits of a service. Barrett recalls one example of a custom publisher that launched a quarterly white-paper series. Most of the promotion was simple —just a short Web site blurb and a few ads. The papers were only about eight pages each, but the information was relevant and valuable to the user. And it sold well.

Click to read all of Chris Elliott’s Microsoft Live article, “5 Tips on Connecting with Customers Online.”