MackCollier.com

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“How Do I Get People to Read My Content?”

I hear this question constantly.  From current and potential clients, from peers, from other bloggers during #Blogchat.  It seems we are all chasing the same unicorn: How do we get more people to read our content?

The short answer is, you write about your audience.  You help your audience make the connection between your products and services, and their lives.  How is your service going to help their business be more successful in 2017?  How is your product going to help the average customer live a happier life?

Unfortunately, many bloggers feel the need to sell themselves, especially business bloggers.  They feel the need to sell their products and services, because how else would you know to buy their products and services if you don’t know about them?

While this can make sense to the business, the reality is that it is a complete disconnect to your desired audience.  You have to make the case for why your business creates a product or service that’s worthy of their attention.  And you do that by creating content that’s focused on the customer.  You do that by creating content that focuses on the connections between your products and services, and the lives of your customers. You help them understand how your products and services fit into their lives, and make their lives better.

Watch this video from Steve Jobs.  This is a very short talk that Steve gave his employees when he first returned to Apple in the late 1990s as CEO.  He talks about how Apple’s marketing and messaging had gotten off course, and the talks about how Apple could correct that problem so that it created marketing messages that made an impact with its customers.  At the end he plays the first commercial that is relaunching Apple’s brand effort, and notice that the entire point of the commercial isn’t to talk about Apple and Apple products.  The commercial talks about Apple’s customers.  It talks about the type of person that would buy an Apple product.  The underlying message is obvious “If you’re this type of person, then maybe Apple is the company for you.”

How will your customers know if you are the right company for them? Your content should speak to them and make the case for why and how your company’s products and services fit into their lives.

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Your Complete Guide to Creating Better Content For Your Business in 2017

Create better business content in 20172017 will be the year that brands and companies begin to seriously invest in their content creation efforts. We are already seeing major brands such as Cisco investing heavily in the hiring of content specialists and this will continue over the coming years. So now is a good time to start focusing on your existing content strategy and how to improve it moving forward.

A great way to get started is to audit your current content strategy. A content strategy audit is different from a simple content audit. A content audit typically focuses on engagement parameters only, whereas a content strategy audit analyzes your current strategy and measures actual results from your content strategy versus desired business outcomes.

Think of it this way: Your content is the stuff you create, your content strategy is what you hope will happen as a result of the stuff you create. For example, if you write 1 post a week for your blog, you can audit the engagement metrics associated with those blog posts, such as numbers of visitors, time spent on each post, social shares, etc. But if you audit that content in the context of a content strategy audit, you would analyze how that content led to other actions, such as number of white paper downloads, or times a lead-gen form was accessed, or number of email newsletter subscribers converted from that post.

For example, let’s look at the last post I wrote on this blog. If you just examine engagement around the post, you can see it did pretty well. It got over 200 social shares, and that’s not including shares on Twitter, which were probably another 200-300. So about 500 or so shares on social sites.

If my goal for this post was to simply generate engagement, then this post was a winner. It generated a lot of shares, a lot of chatter online, and gave my blog a 10-15% bump in traffic for a few days.

But if I want to look at this post from the context of how it impacts my overall content strategy, I have to dig a bit deeper. The end goal for my content isn’t simply to create engagement, I want to ultimately get business from the content I create. So engagement isn’t the end point, it’s closer to the beginning.

Think of how you would approach this if you owned a retail store in the mall. You send out a circular that announces the sales you’ll be running this weekend. That’s your ‘content’. You hope that ‘content’ will drive ‘engagement’, or in this case, people to your store. But the end goal isn’t simply to get people in the store, you want to sell them something.

So there’s a process that needs to happen:

1 – The circular or ‘content’ needs to drive people to the store
2 – Once inside the store, you need to convert them into customers

So if you approach your content in the same way, you need to first create content that drives engagement, but then that engagement needs to convert into a desired action.

Let’s go back to the last post I wrote here. We’ve already established that the post drove engagement, but we’ve also established that driving engagement wasn’t the ultimate goal of that post as part of my larger content strategy. I wanted that post to drive business for me.

So when I create the content, I position it so that it encourages the reader to engage in a desired action. For example, in the previous post, there was a pretty obvious call to action placed in the middle of the post in the form of this banner:

If you click on that banner, you are taken to the page that promotes my Content Strategy Audit service. So I want the content (post) to be engaging so that people read it, but once they arrive here, I want them to then click the Content Strategy Audit banner to go to that page. Then finally, I want them to contact me about purchasing a Content Strategy Audit.

Hit the bullseye with your business content in 2017So there’s three activities I want to track associated with this content:

1 – How many people viewed the content?
2 – After viewing the content, how many people then clicked on the banner and visited the Content Strategy Audit page?
3 – How many people after visiting the Content Strategy Audit page then inquired about purchasing the audit?

Looking at this list, you can see there’s three conversions that need to take place; You need to read the post, then once you arrive here you need to click on the banner ad for the Content Strategy Audit, then once you’re on that page, you need to email me to discuss buying the audit. Let’s take each one separately:

1 – How many people viewed the content? I’ve already stated that this particular post had higher than average social sharing, as well as traffic. So simply from an engagement standpoint, this post did its job.

2 – After viewing the content, how many people then clicked on the banner and visited the Content Strategy Audit page? I can check Google Analytics and find this information. But it’s worth noting that there are a lot of variables that can impact this on-site conversion. Maybe the banner would have converted better in a different location like at the end of the post. Maybe a different graphic would work better or maybe different wording. All of these variables must be considered and it pays to tweak things and see how conversion rates can be affected. I already have some ideas in mind for how I want to make some changes.

3 – How many people after visiting the Content Strategy Audit page then inquired about purchasing the audit? This is another conversion point. By clicking on the banner to come to the Content Strategy Audit page, you are assuming they are interested in learning more about the audit. How well this page converted into purchases of the audit gives me insights into whether or not the content of the Content Strategy Audit helped convert those visitors. So there are more variables that can be played with, such as giving more of an explanation of what’s included in the audit, or maybe less. Or maybe I could increase conversions by simply removing the price.

Now if all this seems like it’s getting a bit ‘in the weeds’, you’re exactly right. But, the bottom line is that if you truly want your content to be effective for your business, you need to invest the time to critically examining whether or not it is truly effective in helping you achieve desired outcomes for your business. As I’ve said before, engagement without desired business outcomes is just noise. Noise is easy to create and measure.

Meaningful outcomes are far harder to create, but create more impact for your business.

So when you audit your content strategy, you want to first decide What Is The Goal? Why are you making the time commitment to creating content in the first place? What are you hoping will happen? Create the goal first, then work backwards from the goal, creating content that will help you reach that goal.

For example, if the goal is to generate more product signups, then you need to create your content with that end goal in mind. You need to think about how your content will help move a visitor closer to wanting to singup for your product. You probably want to think about including relevant Calls to Action in your content that encourage the reader to signup for your product. I did this in the previous post by including both links and a banner ad that pointed to the page for my Content Strategy Audit. Because I wanted visitors to go to that page.

And before you think ‘All content needs to do is create engagment’, I beg to differ. I just did a search for Content Marketing Manager positions on LinkedIn. Here’s some of the job requirements that employers are demanding for these positions:

“to increase brand awareness, grow subscribers, and attract leads.”

“Develop and manage a global content strategy that drives XXXX’s brand awareness, website traffic, lead-generation efforts, and new customer acquisition”

“Accountable for all content marketing initiatives to drive traffic, engagement, leads, that deliver sales and customer retention.”

As you can see, most companies are expecting more than simple engagement from their content. They want that content to move people to perform specific actions. Think of it this way, let’s say you are a marketing agency, and you have a competitor that is also crafting a content strategy for 2017. If your content goals for 2017 are a 15% increase in ‘engagement’ and their content goals for 2017 are a 15% increase in leads generated, who do you think will have the better year? Probably your competitor, because their efforts are focused on creating content that comes closer to impacting that agency’s bottom line.

Now at this point you may be thinking “But Mack in your previous point you said that you can’t create content that ‘sells’ if the customer isn’t ready to buy, and now you’re saying that good content should do more than just create engagement. Which is it?” My point is that your content should aspire to a higher purpose than simply creating engagement.

Remember the AIDA model from your college marketing classes? AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. You make the customer aware of your business, you get them interested in learning more about who you are and your products, which creates a desire to own those products, and that leads to a purchase (action). Your content needs to be positioned so it can move the potential customer through the buying process. Many businesses focus on creating content that builds awareness, that establishes thought leadership and that helps get the ‘name’ of the business out there.

But then what? Creating content that builds awareness is fine, but what about the next step? What about creating content that builds interest? And if you can get me interested in your products and services, I might become interested in actually buying those products and services. Your content needs to be there to hold my hand and move me closer to a purchase.

Now as part of your content strategy, you may find that certain tools or platforms are best suited for creating and housing different types of content. For example, you might use the content on your blog primarily as a way to build awareness for your business. Then maybe you then move those customers to another tool or channel to build their interest and to ‘close the deal’.

However, none of this will happen until you make a commitment to get serious about your content strategy in 2017. That means taking the time to put together a strategy, to decide what it is you want to accomplish, then executing that strategy. Then along the way you can continually audit your efforts so you know if you are making progress or not, and adjust as needed.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Engagement without desired business outcomes is just noise. ” quote=”Remember, engagement without desired business outcomes is just noise. “]

 

The Importance of Topic Buckets

I’ve written here before about Topic Buckets and why they are so important. Topic Buckets are the 2-3 areas that your content will focus on that are associated with your business. Think of Topic Buckets as your business’ elevator speech. If you meet someone in the elevator and they ask you what your business does, what would say? Think about the 2-3 areas that you would want your business to be known for. Those are your Topic Buckets. You should try to fit every piece of content you create into one of your Topic Buckets. This brings clarity and focus to your content creation, but it also helps to establish your business’ association with these 2-3 areas. By constantly creating content that’s focused on your 2-3 Topic Buckets, you are helping others to understand what your business is about and what it does. Additionally, you are helping to establish your expertise around these areas.

For example, this post is focused on Content Strategy, which is one of my Topic Buckets. This is a very long and in-depth post that is written to help companies create better content strategies in 2017. I want to be known as someone that can help companies create better content strategies, so I wrote a very detailed and instructional post that will teach companies how to do exactly that. Ideally, this post will help establish my expertise in helping companies create amazing content strategies. The added bonus for me is that it will help others understand what type of work I do, which can lead to more referrals.

But honestly, at the end of the day this post is nothing more than a commercial for my consulting services. However, I purposely did not write this post to be an advertisement, because very few people want an advertisement. They want content that creates value for them. So if I can write a 3,000 word post on how to create better content in 2017, that creates value for the reader. Which means I can gain the reader’s attention, and once I have their attention, I have a chance to convert them in some way that I’ve determined has value for me. Notice there are multiple links back to my Content Strategy Audit page. Those are there as a reference point within the post, but are also included because I hope people will click the link and check out that service. This is because I am always viewing my content as being promotional and thinking about how I can add relevant Calls to Action within each post.

You should approach your content in the same way. You should understand that your content is there to promote your business, but you should at the same time understand how to promote your business in a way that also creates value for your audience. This is why the concept of Topic Buckets are so important, because it allows you to focus your content creation efforts on 2-3 areas that relate to your business. And if you approach your content as being promotional while also creating value for the reader, you will create content that promotes the topic areas that are relevant to your business.

Or if this whole idea of creating content that promotes your business makes you feel icky, think of it this way: If you have created great content, you have earned the right to ask for something from your reader. Remember the PBS pledge drive example in my previous post. PBS aired a wonderful live concert of The Highwaymen, it was great content that I loved, so I didn’t mind a few short breaks within that 90-minute performance from PBS asking for donations. PBS earned the right to ask for donations by providing amazing content.

Your focus should be the same, especially if you feel uncomfortable ‘asking for the sale’. Simply create amazingly valueable content and not only will you have earned the right to promote yourself, the odds are your audience will WANT that promotion. If I stumble across a site that creates value for me around a topic I am interested in, what will I do? Subscribe to new content from that site. I am communicating to that site that I want to get new content from them as soon as it is available. Whenever we interact with someone that creates content that has value for us, we want more. I know this from my own experience as a content creator. Whenever I create a piece of content that’s very popular and well received, I see an increase in traffic from that content to the following pages:

1 – My bio. People that have never read my content before want to know who I am.

2 – My Buy Think Like a Rock Star page. People that find value in my post become interested in buying my book.

3 – My Speaking and consulting services pages. People that find value in my post become interested in hiring me as a speaker or consultant.

No doubt, you have seen the same thing whenever you create content that is popular with your readers. This indicates that IF you have created content that’s valuable to your readers, then those readers are more OPEN to promotion from you. In fact, if you have positioned your content correctly, a relevant Call to Action (such as asking for a download of a white paper, subscribing to a newsletter or buying a product), should be expected and WELCOMED by your readers. So just think about that as you are creating content, you want your content to promote your business, but you also want that content to be so insanely valuable for your readers that they don’t mind the the promotion, they even welcome it.

Before I wrap up this post, a final word on why Topic Buckets can be so helpful to your content strategy. Remember that Topic Buckets are really the 2-3 things that you want to be known for. Once you have decided what the Topic Buckets are for your business, ideally you should then prioritize these Topic Buckets. So you know what Topic Bucket is most important to your business, then you can rank the others after that.

Additionally, having Topic Buckets helps you better organize your content calendar. For example, let’s say you have 3 Topic Buckets. If you have an editorial calendar that requires one new blog post per week, then you could write a new post on each of the 3 Topic Buckets, and the 4th post could be on the Topic Bucket that you prioritize as being the most important to your business. This instantly solves the ‘what will I write about?’ problem because you know to write about your Topic Buckets. You just pick which Topic Bucket each post is about, and go from there. So it greatly simplifies the writing process from the standpoint of picking your topic. Which, if you’re like me, if often the biggest issue you face when writing a new post. Using Topic Buckets has greatly helped me with this, and I believe it help you as well.

The Checklist You Need For Each Piece of Content You Write

1 – Remember the goal for your content strategy. Every piece of content you create should be associated with that goal. If your goal is to generate sales, then your content needs to be created in that context. If your goal is to build brand awareness or to establish thought leadership, create your content with that focus. Remember the saying ‘Begin with the end in mind’ because it applies here.

2 – What Topic Bucket does this piece of content fit in? Figure out the 2-3 things that you want to be known for, and try your best to make sure that every piece of content you create fits into one of these Topic Buckets. Also, prioritize your Topic Buckets so that you cover each and also focus more on the ones that are most important to your business.

3 – Create content worthy of the ask. Get in the habit of viewing the content you create for your business as being promotional, but do so with the understanding that it must also create value for the reader, or else you’ve wasted both your time and the readers’. Remember the PBS pledge drive example; Strive to create content that’s earned the right to ask for a donation. If you truly create great content that’s valuable to your readers, they will WANT to get more information about that topic, or they will want to sign up for your newsletter or subscribe to your content, or buy your product. Remember, the value you create IS the promotion. Think about what value each piece of content creates for the reader, and how that will ultimately create value for your business as well.

4 – Carefully consider your Calls to Action. This ties in with the above point especially. Create content that’s worthy of the ask, then carefully ask for the exact thing you want, that’s also relevant to the content you have created. Should every piece of content you create include a Call to Action? Not necessarily, but every piece of content you create should be worthy of you asking for something in return from the reader. Maybe it’s something as simple as asking them to visit a page, or leaving a comment. Maybe it’s directly promoting a product or service you provide. But the idea is to think more carefully and deliberately about not only the content you create but the time you are asking your readers to invest in consuming that content. If you have created value then you have earned the right to ask for something.

5 – Understand how you will measure the success of each piece of content you create. If you are writing a blog post, think about what needs to happen in order for you to realize that the time you spent on that post was worth the effort. Know what KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) you and your boss will use to judge the effectiveness of each piece of content. This is also useful to keep in mind as you create the content because it will help you create the content in such a way that relevant KPIs are impacted by the content.

Write better content in 2017 with Ommwriter

Finally, I wanted to close this post by letting you know about a very cool writing tool I just discovered from Peter Shankman’s blog. This tool is OmmWriter. It is designed to minimize distractions when you write so you can better focus. When you run OmmWriter, it takes over your screen so all you are left with is a blank screen with a background that you set (I prefer the snow scene). All system notifications are turned off so there’s no distractions. Additionally, several musical tones are provided (I prefer #5) that really help me get sucked into the writing and it also helps with focus.

Case in point, this is the first post I’ve written while using OmmWriter, and it is going to end up being around 4,000 words. Prior to this, the longest post I had ever written in 11 years of blogging was right at 2,000 words. I found it much easier to focus and just ‘get in the flow’ and write more in less time with OmmWriter. Now it does have a few obvious limitations to discuss. First, you can’t insert images or a lot of special formatting so you can’t just write a finished post with OmmWriter. You’ll still have to do some editing and formatting before it’s ready to publish. And it’s not free, although you can buy it for as low as $5.11, that’s the minimum price you can pay and the creators of OmmWriter let you decide what you will pay.

So definitely try out OmmWriter and I hope you love it as much as I do. My problem has always been that it takes me way too long to write a really good blog post. My ideas seem to come in spurts, and it often takes me 5-6 hours to write a substantial 1,000 word post. I wrote this post in about 4 hours, and it’s right at 4,000 words. OmmWriter really helped me focus and write more in less time. Here’s the link to check it out, and I’m not getting a penny from them, just wanted to share a really cool writing tool that I think you’ll love.

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The ‘Ugly’ Truth About Creating Amazing Content That Most Companies Don’t Want to Hear

head-1137275_1280Most companies start blogging and creating social media content for one reason: They are ready to sell their products and services.  So they create content that sells their products and services.

The problem is, most people aren’t ready to buy.  So when you try to sell to someone that isn’t in the market for your product, your sales message becomes a nuisance.  And by association, your brand becomes a nuisance.  The reality is that your content can be amazing, but if it isn’t aimed at your customer and their specific point in the buying process, then it will not work.

Period.

Now, let’s back up and see what type of content customers find trustworthy.  Research from Forrester into what type of content customers find trustworthy found that 70% of respondents found product recommendations from friends and family to be trustworthy.  Only 32% found content on a company website or blog to be trustworthy.  At first glance, it would be easy to understand why the average customer trusts their friends and family far more often than they trust the content from a company they don’t know.  But there’s also another factor at play that greatly influences trustworthiness.

Relevance.  Since your friends and family know you, they can apply that knowledge to give you more relevant information, and you are more likely to trust information that’s relevant to you.  If they know I’m in the market for a used sedan, they don’t bother telling me about the great deals the local Chevy dealer has on new trucks, because they know that’s not what I’m looking for.

The bottom line is that amazing content is relevant content.  Relevant content is amazing content.  If you give me the content I need, in the form I need, and the precise moment I need it, that’s relevance for me.

Too many companies use content as a way to convert customers when they should be trying to create customers.  You can’t convert customers until you have them, and when you push content that sells into the face of someone that isn’t ready to buy, you ensure that your content gets ignored.

For example, many companies are attracted to blogging because it can be a wonderful way to raise awareness for your business. But you have to incorporate that into your content creation.  If you are trying to raise awareness for your business, then that makes you are trying to connect with new customers that don’t know who you are and don’t know why they would want to do business with you.

ContentAuditSo if you create content that sells directly to new customers, it’s going to be a disconnect.  Since new customers aren’t yet aware of your business and products, then you need to focus your content on topics that relate to your products.  Here’s some examples…

If you sell athletic wear, create content focused on the activities customers would engage in while wearing your athletic wear.

If you sell cameras, create content focused on the experiences and events people would photograph with your camera.  I blogged about this last week.

If you sell  carseats, create content focused on how parents can be safer drivers.

Make Your Content Like the PBS Pledge Drive 

But let’s say you’re stubborn, and you are determined to SELL in your content.  That’s fine, you can absolutely promote your products and services in your content.   In fact, if you create useful content for your readers, you SHOULD use that content to sell to your readers.  Always keep in mind that if you have created useful content for your readers, then you have earned the right to promote yourself to your readers.  In fact, your best content SHOULD include a call to action for your readers.

Case in point, PBS is currently in the middle of its latest pledge drive.  Tonight, it will show a special concert from 1990 with The Highwaymen; Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson.   This is a unique and special concert that PBS usually doesn’t show.  Since PBS understands that this is content that its viewers will love, it uses this concert to promote its pledge drive.  During the concert, PBS will have scheduled breaks where it will ask viewers for donations by offering them the concert DVD in exchange for a donation.  PBS earned the right to ask for the donation by providing excellent content that was valuable to its viewers.

As a content creator, you can do the exact same thing. Notice I did this above by inserting a banner for my Content Strategy Audit directly into the post. I didn’t do that with my previous post because it wasn’t as in-depth as this post.  This post does a deeper dive into content creation, so as a result I feel more comfortable inserting a Call to Action directly into the post.  But also notice that particular Call to Action is also relevant to the content of this post.  A thorough post about content creation and strategy included a relevant Call to Action for my Content Strategy Audit.  It’s not that you can’t sell and promote with your content, it’s that you need to do so smartly.  Think about this as you are creating your content, if you’re writing a blog post that does a deep dive into a particular topic associated with your business, then it could make sense to promote your white paper that you did on a similar topic.  If I’m interested in the topic of the post, I might be interested in reading your white paper about a complimentary topic.

Let’s look at a slightly different example.  LawnStarter is a startup that provides lawncare services such as mowing and trimming in select cities across the US.  On its blog, the Austin startup does a great job of creating posts that are focused on lawncare and travel in the cities it serves.  But it’s hit upon viral sensations with its posts on the most beautiful college and high school campuses around the country.  Here’s one example:

LawnStarter

There’s two very interesting elements to note about this post.  First, it’s gotten over 40,000 Likes on Facebook!  The second, note that just to the right of the post, is a very clear Call to Action letting you get $10 off your lawn mowing service.  What LawnStarter has done is create content that is somewhat (perhaps even loosely) related to its core business.  But that content has gone viral, which means people are reading the post, and when they do, they are being exposed to a clear offer to get $10 off a lawn mowing service.

If LawnStarter had written a post just about getting $10 off its lawn mowing service, would it have gotten over 40,000 Likes on Facebook?  Of course not, it wouldn’t have gotten 40 Likes without being boosted.  But by changing the focus of the content away from its services (lawn mowing) onto something related to its services (beautiful landscaping and high school campuses), the post becomes far more interesting. And since LawnStarter was smart enough to marry a clever and clear Call to Action next to that post, they will benefit greatly from its popularity.

And the best part about this Call to Action? You’re letting the customer choose the content (experience) they want.  If they just want to read the post and look at the cool pictures and videos, they can.  But if they come read your post, then want to learn more about LawnStarter and even do business with them, that option is readily available to them as well.

The Bottom Line

Your content should only be selling IF your reader is ready to buy.  If your content strategy is to use the content to build awareness for your business, then you have to take that into account when you create content.  The job is to attract attention, and you do that by creating content that focuses not on your products directly, but the connections those products have to your customers’ lives.

At the same time, great content that creates value for your readers has earned the right to add a Call to Action.  Think of it as the PBS pledge drive example; no one wants to sit through a 90-minute commercial for buying the concert DVD, but a lot of people are willing to watch 90 minutes of the concert, with a short 5-minute commercial for the DVD placed every 20-30 minutes.

It’s the same approach with your content.  If you create content that interests your reader and truly does help build awareness for your business, then you are also building desire.  By creating content that the reader finds interesting, you’ve also made your business more interesting to that reader.  So you should focus on giving them valuable content, but also think about how you can include relevant Calls to Action in and around your content that gives interested readers the ability to move closer to doing business with you, if they chose to.

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Using Science to Create Better Content

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There’s been a ton of research into the idea that ‘money can buy happiness’.  The consistent conclusion is that money can buy happiness, but it greatly depends on how you spend that money.  For example, purchases of an item do tend to have an impact on happiness.  However, that happiness is typically short-lived, and can actually have the opposite affect if the item becomes outdated or less useful.  Can you remember the excitement you had when you bought your first iPhone?  Probably not, because a few months later the next version of the iPhone came out, and yours was ‘old news’.

On the other hand, research into how purchases can drive happiness has found that when we spend our money on experiences, the happiness enjoyed is more long-term.  This happiness can be increased if we share those experiences with others.  For example, if a family purchases iPhones together, that happiness will be short-term because soon the technology will become obsolete.  Plus the purchase can even become a source of disappointment if friends and acquaintances purchase newer phones that have more functions and capabilities than the now outdated iPhones that your family owns.

But if that same family had instead spent that money on a trip to The Grand Canyon, they would not only enjoy happiness from the trip itself, but for the rest of their lives, they could share that experience and re-live it through story.  They could also share their experience with other people that had visited The Grand Canyon.  So the value of the trip and its impact upon the family’s happiness is long-term.  In many ways, the happiness that the family enjoys from the trip can actually increase over time.

So how can you apply this research into your content creation?  By focusing on the experiences associated with your product.  This applies even if you are selling a product such as a smartphone, or if you are selling a local destination.  My friends in the tourism industry have known the power of selling experiences for decades.  So if you actually are selling experiences such as a destination or a waterpark, or similar, then using the experiences with your content is much easier.

If you are instead selling an actual product, then create content that’s associated with the experiences involving that product.  Notice that Apple actually does this with its iPhone commercials.  Most are focused on how you could capture moments with the iPhone during your experiences.  Such as travel, a wedding, riding in a car, being with friends, etc.

Think about what you are selling, and consider the experiences that are associated with that product.  Or consider life-changing events, like a wedding, a graduation, a birthday.  How does your product relate to those experiences? A camera could take photos of the wedding, maybe a car could be a graduation gift.

The reality is, until a customer KNOWS that they want to buy your product, content that focuses on the product itself does not interest them.  And this is a disconnect because many companies subscribe to the ‘well people won’t know that they want my product unless I tell them about it’ theory.  People would rather hear about how your product fits into their lives.  Which is why you want to relate your product to the experiences that your customers enjoy.

That approach will earn their attention and make them consider that maybe they should buy your product.  Gain awareness by focusing on how the product relates to the customer first, then when they are ready to buy, shift to more product-centric content.

Pic via Flickr user Laura Hadden

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What’s the Difference Between a Brand Ambassador Program and an Outreach Program?

Influencer Marketing and working with Brand Ambassadors are two of the hottest areas in marketing today, but they are completely different tactics often aimed at completely different audiences.  So what’s the difference?

A Brand Ambassador program is where the company and its customers (fans) have a sort of informal and ongoing relationship.  Typically, the participants in a Brand Ambassador program have signed up with the company, so they are raising their hands and telling the brand that they want to work directly with them.  Most Brand Ambassadors are compensated for their involvement.  That compensation could be in the form of cash, or products, or discounts on products, or greater access to the brand, or possibly all of the above.  The benefit to the brand is that it gives them a way to stay connected with its most passionate fans, so they can work with those fans to help them better promote the brand’s products to others, but also the brand can get valuable feedback from its ambassadors and apply that feedback to the business and product cycle.  The Brand Ambassador benefits by having a closer connection to a brand it loves and supports.  Often, Brand Ambassadors will get advance access to upcoming products or projects, and get to go ‘behind the scenes’ at the brand, and are given a level of access that the average customer could never gain.  If the Brand Ambassador program is organized and executed properly, there are clear and obvious benefits to both the brand and its Brand Ambassadors.

For example, Chick-Fil-A has a program where it works with moms, #ChickFilAMoms. It will send them coupons for certain items and also promote certain items to them (especially new menu items). CFA tries to get the moms to try the items, but they also want the moms to tell other moms about the products so they’ll give them coupons but also instructions on messaging, how to promote the items to other people, etc. The customers will also give feedback on the items and brand experience, and Chick Fil-A can then leverage that feedback for change (see Chick Fil-A launching a Mom’s Valet service for moms that bring kids to Chick Fil-A). Customers opt-in to be a part of the program, it’s all about having an ongoing relationship with fans that have raised their hands and told the brand that they want to help them.

Outreach programs are a bit different.  Typically, these inititiatives are designed to raise awareness among a particular group, often a group of influencers.  For example, if Chick-Fil-A wanted to work with influencers, what they might do was identify say 25 moms that were also ‘influencers’, and fly them into Atlanta and let them spend the day with their chefs, see how the food is prepared, maybe learn more about how CFA works with moms, etc.  As Janice Person explained in a recent MarketingSmarts podcast with Kerry Gorgone (Click to listen), Monsanto brings in foodie bloggers to its partner farms to give them a complete look at the process in bringing food from the field to the table, and along the way they also learn more about Monsanto’s role in helping to facilitate that process.  In both examples, the idea of the outreach is to educate the influencers with the hopes that they will then go and tell others about their experience.

And in that regard, both a Brand Ambassador program and an Outreach program are tactics to drive Word of Mouth.  The tactics are simply aimed at different audiences.  With a Brand Ambassador program, you’re working with an audience (your existing customers) that loves your brand and who is already spreading Word of Mouth about your brand.  You want to work with these customers to help them do a better job of this as well as working with them to gain better product feedback from customers they interact with.  With an Outreach program, you’re dealing with an Influencer that has often built a large and (ideally) engaged online following, and you want to expose them to your brand so that they can share their experiences with their networks.  So the Outreach program is a brand awareness tool as well.

Another way to think of the difference is, an Outreach program is a good way to build awareness for a new product line or initiative, whereas a Brand Ambassador program is a good way to increase the marketing efforts of your customers around an established brand.

Is your company looking for a kick-ass Content Marketing Manager? I’m in the market!  Here’s my details, please email me if you have a remote opening! 

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This Is Why Your Brain Hates Case Studies

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Companies (and their agencies) love sharing case studies. They can be great PR for your business, but they typically aren’t the best way for your brain to learn.

Let’s be honest: Case studies are shared to promote the company and sometimes its agency or partners.  They aren’t positioned as learning tools, they are positioned as promotional tools.  And there’s nothing wrong with that, if a company has done good work and wants to toot its own horn, they should feel fine doing so.

I’m currently looking for a job, most specifically, a Content Marketing Manager or similar position (if you’re hiring, here’s my information).  In talking to B2B companies and agencies, one of the most common needs I am hearing from companies hiring for this position is “We are looking for someone that can help share our client success stories in order to grow our business”.  For B2B companies and agencies, this sharing of case studies makes perfect sense, because it’s proof of concept.

But often, these case studies aren’t positioned in a way that encourages learning.  Too often, case studies are shared, results are given, and takeaways provided. Unfortunately, this isn’t the best way to teach your brain the core concepts that drove success for the case study.  It helps the reader understand the case study, but it doesn’t help the reader understand how to apply the same core concepts to its own business.

Let’s say that your business sells productivity software.  If you share a case study from how your software helped a big-box chain retailer, the reader is going to understand how your software helps in that particular situation.  What you need to do is also share hypothetical or abstract examples that would be more relevant to your targeted audience.  For example, if you want to attract more software clients from the manufacturing industry, you could share your case study from the big-box retailer, but add to it a hypothetical example or two from the manufacturing industry.  Give an example of how a potential client in this space could use your software in the same way as the big-box retailer did.  The added relevance will help the potential client in the manufacturing industry understand how your software could help THEM.

By offering both case studies and hypothetical examples, you make it easier for the brain to both spot and learn the core concepts.  If you only offer the case study, then the brain will learn why the case study worked, but it won’t fully grasp the core concepts, because you are only sharing them in one environment (the case study).  But when you offer the case study AND hypothetical examples, it becomes much easier for the brain to detect (and learn!) the core concept that flows through both the case study and your examples.

The best part? When you marry a great case study with relevant examples that facilitate learning, then you drive more engagement and more interest in your business.  It becomes far easier to see the benefits of working with your business, which also drives more leads.

So if your business wants to make better use of its client case studies, focus on adding relevant hypothetical examples that facilitate learning of the core concepts.  This helps the reader understand why they should work with you and will greatly improve the efficiency of your content marketing efforts.

Or you can just hire me to do it for you!

Pic via Pixabay

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The Secret to Doing Real-Time Content Marketing Well: Catch Opportunity When it Falls in Your Lap

If you’re a sports fan, you owe it to yourself to go back and watch the 2012 Daytona 500.  The February race is NASCAR’s biggest event, and it annually kicks off the new season.  In 2012, the Daytona 500 saw multiple rain delays that pushed it to primetime for the first time ever.  NASCAR was actually thrilled with this development as it meant a large audience was going to be exposed to the sport for the first time.  And that audience saw quite the spectacle, indeed.

With 40 laps left in the race, there was a caution that happened when a car on the track had an issue.  As usually happens, trucks were sent out on the track to clean up debris. As this happened, the race cars continue to circle the track at a much slower ‘pace’ speed.  Basically the cars on the track go into a sort of ‘holding pattern’ until the debris on the track is cleared and NASCAR deems the race can continue.

While under caution, one of the cars on the track suddenly lost control and slammed into one of the trucks on track to clear debris. This led to a huge explosion and resulting fire.  Then things got really interesting.  Driver Brad Keselowski just happened to have his smartphone with him in his car and he snapped a photo of the cars on the track, and sent it to Twitter from the race track.  This was the first time that a NASCAR driver had ever tweeted DURING a race!

Brad Kesolowski, Twitter, Daytona 500, Fire, Tide

The tweet itself became a huge deal and Brad gained over 50,000 followers on Twitter in an hour or so.  It also drove a lot of spontaneous attention on Twitter, to the Daytona 500.  Suddenly everyone on Twitter was talking about how ‘one of them race cars hit a truck and exploded and a driver’s tweeting it!’  Remember this was 4 years ago in 2012, athletes and celebrities using Twitter was still a bit of a novelty.

So back to the race, when the car struck the cleanup truck and caused the explosion, it also created a huge oil and gas leak as it ran out of the truck and down the track.  The stuff was so toxic there was fear that it would literally eat away the finish of the track and potentially cause the race to be postponed.  The solution?  NASCAR and Daytona officials hurry to the scene with a cleaner that would quickly save the day.

Boxes of Tide detergent.  That’s right, a national audience watched as Tide detergent got one of the best organic product placements since CBS focused in on the Nike logo on Tiger Woods’ putt as it fell into the hole during The Masters.  Even better, Fox NASCAR announcer Darryl Waltrip was calling the race and Tide was his main sponsor during his racing days.  So as the cleanup is being performed with simple Tide detergent, Darryl is doing what any good NASCAR driver does (even former ones) he was plugging his sponsor and singing the praises of Tide detergent.

It was the real-time content marketing opportunity of a lifetime for Tide, and it fell right in their laps.  Unfortunately, at the time Tide’s Twitter account was asleep and missed capitalizing on any of this.  Ironically, I quickly wrote up a blog post during the delay, published it, and the next morning ESPN interviewed me for a story they did on the race, and I got to discuss how Tide dropped the social media ball here.  So one brand’s loss was another blogger’s gain!

But last week, Kohl’s was a bit smarter. You’ve probably already seen the Happy Chewbacca video but just in case you did not (or want another good laugh):

Note at the start that Candace mentions buying the mask at Kohls. So when your brand gets a positive mention during one of the most popular videos in the history of the internet, what does your brand do? If it’s smart, it goes out of its way to reach the person behind that video and thank them for the kind mention. Kohls was smart enough to do just that, they drove to Candace’s house, gave her and her family loads of Star Wars toys (including Chewbacca masks for everyone in the family), and plenty of gift cards. Candace was clearly moved and thrilled by Kohls’ act.

The cynic will argue that Kohls is just trying to capitalize on the popularity of this video.  Of COURSE that’s what they are doing!  That’s what they SHOULD be doing, but the first thing they should do is communicate to Candace that they appreciate the fact that she shopped at Kohls, and mentioned them.  Think of how much money Kohls would have had to spend to get as much positive publicity as Candace gave the brand in 4 mins?  Millions.  So showing up at her doorstep with a few thousand dollars in merchandise and store credits is a very small price to pay for that publicity.  Plus, that act itself gets Kohls MORE positive publicity, as you see here.

The two most important words in social media are ‘Thank you’.  When a customer does something for you, you thank them.  Don’t overthink this social media stuff, y’all.

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Great Marketing Is About Understanding People, Not Tools

About five years ago I talked to a District Attorney who spent a lot of time talking to high school students about the dangers of drug usage. It was a passion of his and it allowed him to gain a great understanding of how teenagers communicated with each other online.  He told me something (again, this was in 2011 or 2012) that surprised me.  He said “The kids I talk to have left Facebook and they’ve moved to Snapchat.” Now fast forward 5 years and it seems like within the last 6 months every marketer on the planet has suddenly ‘discovered’ Snapchat.  It’s the hot shiny social media tool of the moment, even though it’s been around for years.  The next Instagram, maybe even the next Facebook depending on who you talk to.

But let’s go back to that revelation from 5 years ago that ‘the kids have left Facebook’.  Why?  What caused these teenagers to shift their behavior away from Facebook and move to Snapchat?

In short, it’s because their parents were getting on Facebook. If you want to push teenagers and millenials off a social media site, then add either their parents, or marketers on the site.  And what was happening 5 years ago?

Marketers everywhere were telling us that we had to be on Facebook.  Now fast forward 5 years, and what are marketers telling us today?  That we have to be on Snapchat.

Marketers have never understood that it’s not about understanding the social media tools, it’s about understanding the people using the tools. The only way to understand the people using a tool is to be a part of the community of people that use that tool.  You have to interact with them directly to understand their motivation for being there.

Marketers typically don’t want to ‘waste their time’ with that, they just want to sell.

Surfing

You can only sell to someone that is ready to buy.  Seems like common sense, but too many companies market their products to potential customers that have no idea how those products fit into their lives.  It would be like marketing a surfboard to someone that has never surfed.

If a potential customer has no interest in a surfboard, then you don’t market the product (surfboard), you market how the product fits into the customer’s life (surfing).  Once you’ve sold the customer on surfing, then they are ready to buy a surfboard.

At that point, it makes sense to shift to product-specific marketing that focuses on the surfboard.  But if I have never surfed and have no idea why I would ever want to, selling me on why I need to buy your surfboard is a complete waste of time and money for you.

When you’re crafting your content strategy focus on these key points:

1 – It’s more important to understand your customer than it is social media tools. You don’t need to understand Snapchat, you need to understand IF and WHY your customers would use these tools.  That gives you insights into how you can use the same tools in a way that creates value for them, instead of distraction and irritation.

2 – If your goal is to leverage social media to build awareness for your business, then you want to create content focused on how your product and services connect with your customer.  Create content focused on surfing, not the surfboard.  Create content focused on safe driving, not your auto insurance policy.  Creating content focused on the connections between the customer and your products helps get their attention.

3 – If you know your customer is ready to buy your product, then you can create product-specific content, because that’s what they want and need at that point.  But if they aren’t ready to buy, then sell how you product fits into their lives, sell the product itself when they are ready to buy.

Sell me first on how your product makes my life better, then I’m ready to buy, and you can sell me your product.

Pic via Flickr user Kevin Cole

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The Passion Principle: The Secret to Creating Content and Marketing That Your Customers Will Love

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Patagonia doesn’t market itself like your company does.  Patagonia spends almost no money on traditional advertising, and when it does, it typically does so in a way that makes its competitors shake their heads.  For example, a few years ago Patagonia ran an ad telling its customers not to buy its products.  Last year it sent a truck on a cross-country tour where seamstresses would not only repair your Patagonia clothing for free, they would repair any clothing, even if it was from a competitor.

Patagonia does everything it can to stop you from buying its products.  And its efforts have been a colossal failure.  The privately-held company is not only growing, it’s growing faster than its founder wants it to.

“I am faced with this ‘growth’ thing.  We could be a billion-dollar company in a few years, and it’s not something I ever wanted or even want.” – Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard

 

“I’m Fast, and There Ain’t Nothin’ You Can Do About It”

Consider this broadcast commercial from Nike that debuted last month:

This commercial breaks two long-accepted beliefs of what makes successful advertising:

1 – The belief that people don’t like commercials. There’s been an entire cottage industry pop up around helping consumers skip or avoid commercials. Yet this commercial from Nike had over three million views on YouTube within the first week.

2 – The belief that you have to sell something. This commercial never advertises a product or service, and there’s no call-to-action at any time to buy either. Strip out a few quick and almost subliminal appearances by the Nike Swoosh logo, and you would have no idea what company was responsible for this ad.

 

But something is being sold here.  Maybe it’s the dream that every child has when they play mini-midget or pee-wee football that one day they will be the next Peyton Manning or Julio Jones.  Maybe it’s the dream that a mother or father has for their child to see them one day become an NFL success.

Nike understands that every child has those dreams, and what it is selling is how its products can help make that dream a reality.

Nike’s marketing focus for this commercial isn’t its products, it’s what its customers are passionate about. That instantly makes its message more interesting and appealing to its audience.

 

“The Challenge of My Life Is…To Find Out How Far I Can Take It”

RedBull

And then there’s Red Bull.  Long heralded as the poster-child for successful content marketing, Red Bull does little to promote its actual product.  Instead, it promotes the activities its customers are passionate about.  Even to the point of sponsoring ‘extreme sporting’ events and teams, helping to push forward an entire industry.  Red Bull’s customers can see that the brand is just as devoted to the sports and events as they are, and this makes it easier for these customers to become more devoted to Red Bull as a result. Red Bull understands that it’s not about selling its energy drink, it’s about selling what happens after you drink it.

 

Most of us view marketing in the same context. As being boring, repetitive, and a nuisance to be avoided.  Yet in the hands of brands like Patagonia, Nike and Red Bull, marketing becomes something else entirely.  Interesting, engaging, and even inspirational.  Great marketing doesn’t sell a product or service, it inspires us to change ourselves, to even change the world.

Why the Disconnect?  What Are These Brands Doing Differently?  

One of the main reasons why I wanted to write Think Like a Rock Star was because I was enamored with how easily rock stars can create and cultivate fans.  And when I say ‘fans’, I am talking customers that literally are in love with their favorite rock star.  I wanted to write that book to determine if brands could create fans using the same methodology as rock stars.  I was thrilled and delighted to discover the exact process that rock stars use to create fans, and how brands can do the same.  It’s all in the book.

On the same note, for the last few months I’ve been fascinated with how brands like Patagonia, Red Bull, Nike and Pedigree simply create better marketing than most other brands.  I wanted to deconstruct what these brands are doing differently to determine if there’s a pattern and a process that your brand can use to improve its own marketing efforts.

Recall the AIDA model of measuring advertising effectiveness that we all learned in college.  The ‘A’ stands for Awareness.  It’s the starting point, a potential customer has to be aware before they can have Interest and the Desire to Act, ie purchase your product.

This is where most brands deviate from those that create truly effective marketing like Nike, Red Bull, Patagonia and Pedigree.  Most brands begin at the starting point of making sure that they make potential customers aware of its product.  They sell potential customers on what the product does, and use that as the basis for making the case for why you should buy it.

Brands like Red Bull, Nike, Patagonia and Pedigree do something radically different.  They don’t start by trying to make you aware of their products, instead they try to make you aware of how their products will fit into your life and make it better.  The focus isn’t their products, it’s your passions.

Patagonia isn’t selling clothing, it’s selling what you will do while wearing its clothing.

Red Bull isn’t selling an energy drink, it’s selling what happens after you drink it.

Nike isn’t selling shoes, it’s selling how you will be better at the sports you play while wearing its shoes.

Pedigree isn’t selling dog food, it’s selling happier and healthier dogs.

Pedigree

You don’t market your product, you market how your product fits into your customers’ lives.  Too many companies market their product and assume that the customer can make the connection for themselves as to how that product would be relevant to the customer.  Quite frankly, this is incredibly lazy and ineffective marketing.  The smart companies are the ones that understand their customers enough to understand their passions, what stirs their souls.  And they take this knowledge and create marketing messages that tap into these passions, and that make the connection for the customer between their passions, and the company’s product.

If you focus on the things that your customers are passionate about, by extension your customers will become more passionate about your brand.  The key is to market things that your customers are passionate about, that also relate to your product.  Nike promotes being active in sports because it sells the equipment you’ll need to perform those activities.  Pedigree promotes happier and healthier dogs because it sells the dog food that’s going to help your dog live a happier and healthier life.  But customers are more passionate about being active than they are about a running shoe.  They are more passionate about creating a better life for their golden retriever than they are about your dog food.  Nike and Pedigree understand this, so they focus on their customers’ passions first, and the connection between those passions and the product, second.

In fact, most brands prioritize its marketing communications in this order:

1 – Sell the product, what it does and why it works.

2 – Sell how the product fits into the customer’s life.

3 – Sell ideas, beliefs and causes that customers are passionate about, that also relate to the product.

Most brands focus almost all of their marketing efforts on #1, with a bit of #2, and almost none of #3.

But the brands that truly create memorable marketing communications flip the order:

1 – Sell ideas, beliefs and causes that customers are passionate about, that also relate to the product.

2 – Sell how the product fits into the customer’s life

3 – Sell the product, what it does and why it works.

There’s two important point to realize about both these approaches.  If you focus mostly on the product itself, many people will immediately tune your marketing messages out because you haven’t yet made the case to them for what your product is relevant to them.  Also, your message will immediately be classified as being a ‘marketing’ message, and most of us immediately ignore any message that we view as being ‘marketing’.

Second, if you focus instead on the ideas, beliefs and causes that your customers are passionate about, that instantly makes your ‘marketing’ message relevant to your customers.  You immediately perk their ears up and they will listen to what you have to say.  Also, you are creating that Desire to learn more about your product so your customers will be motivated to do their own research on your product.  And let’s be honest, we all want to support and advocate for companies we believe in.  If your brand shows me that it can connect with me around the ideas, causes and beliefs that I hold dear, I will feel better about doing business with your brand.

 

So what’s the formula?  What’s The Passion Principle for your brand?

First, you have to know your customers well enough to know who they are, and what’s important to them.  What you want to do is find the connections between your product, and your customer’s passions.  This isn’t always obvious, and typically requires research on the part of your brand.  For example, Fiskars didn’t realize how popular its orange-handle scissors were with its customers in the scrapbooking community until they started talking to those customers.  This knowledge caused the brand to shift its marketing focus away from the scissors (product), and instead focus on scrapbooking (customer’s passion).  By shifting its marketing to focus on the passion of its customers (scrapbooking), the brand became more interesting and relevant to its customers.  BTW, Fiskars just reported that net sales increased by 62% in Q3 for 2015.

So in order to create marketing and content that your customers will love, start by asking (and answering) these questions:

1 – What are our customers passionate about?

2 – What are they trying to accomplish?

3 – What problems do they need to solve?

4 – What roadblocks are in their way?

5 – How does our product relate to any or all of the previous points?

The fifth point is probably the most important because it’s not enough to simply understand what your customers are passionate about or what their problems are, you also need to understand how your product is the solution to that problem.  Otherwise, you’ll be focused on ideas, passions and beliefs that might be relevant to your customers, but that aren’t relevant to your product.  Which means your content and marketing won’t be as memorable or relevant to your customers.

Case in point: Name your 5 favorite Super Bowl commercials from last year.  It’s tough, isn’t it?  I bet you’re struggling to remember even one, aren’t you?  Yet every year we’ll see Super Bowl ads that make us laugh or tug at our heartstrings, but unless the message is relevant to the brand, it’s difficult to remember.

Now here’s another test: What brand did the ‘So God made a farmer…’ Super Bowl commercial from a couple of years ago?  I bet its easier for you to remember that Dodge was behind this commercial, right?  Why?  Because a Dodge truck fits into the life of a farmer.  It makes sense because farmers need trucks to get their work done, so there’s a connection there that works.

If the connection makes sense, then the content or marketing message will resonate and be more effective.  Remember, you don’t market your product, you market how your product fits into your customers’ lives.

Pic via Flickr user Sheila_Sund

Pic via Flickr user Kevin Cole

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The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show Episode 39: How to Connect With Influencers

Hey y’all, it’s time for another episode of #FanDamnShow!  In this 39th episode, I tackle a topic that a LOT of companies want answers to: How to more effectively connect with influencers.  So sit back for 12 mins of smartitude!

Here’s where you can download and listen to the episode directly.  And if you can, please subscribe to The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show on iTunes, and I would *love* it if you could review the podcast on iTunes as well.  Also, #FanDamnShow is now available on Stitcher as well!

Also, don’t forget that sponsorships are now available for The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show. This page that has all the information on how your brand can sponsor #FanDamnShow and the rates. Please note that all available sponsor slots will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis, so please email me if you are interested in sponsoring #FanDamnShow.

We’ll talk again next episode!