content marketing

The Content Code: A Book Review

Here are a few of the articles that have appeared in my newsfeed in recent weeks:

Do you have time to read and follow all of this? Heck, I barely manage to read the compendium articles listing the things I should be spending time on.

Marketers have embraced the content marketing trend in a big way, particularly when promoting the practice of marketing itself. We’ve reached the point at which there is more content about marketing available than one could possibly read, watch, or listen to. As Mark Schaefer puts it, “We’re approaching a physiological limit to content consumption.” He calls it content shock, and we’ve got it, big time.

Yet there are podcasts, blogs, and books that I make time for, because I trust and respect the authors. I will recommend books, blog posts, and podcasts to others – sometimes on social media, but often in conversation.

And that, in a nutshell, is the background for Mark Schaefer’s wonderful book The Content Code. In an era of content density, it’s not enough to put well-constructed content out in the world. You have to find people who treasure what you have to say, and help them share it.

The book is a survival guide to content marketing in a world with ever-more content. Success boils down to cultivating human relationships.

Why do people share content? Here’s a quote I love from the book: “Sharing content is a meaningful act, a very personal, intimate, and important gesture.”

Beyond the fact that it is well written and fun to read, here are three things I love about The Content Code.

A focus on human connections. Creating content isn’t enough; people have to share it for it to ignite and take hold in crowded content markets. The book focuses on human motivations and connections. People share content because it fills a human need; you must figure out how to fill genuine needs.

Actionable strategies. The book offers a number of ways to “ignite” your content, outlining practices that every content marketer can put in place today.

The idea of the alpha audience. The book encourages us to find and cultivate the audience that matters for us. “It’s so much easier to aim for the smallest possible audience, not the largest, to build long-term value among a trusted, delighted tribe, to create work that matters and stands the test of time.”

Work that matters. Thank you, Mark Schaefer. Count me among your alpha audience.

Welcome to the Funnel: A Book Review

Hungry for a good content marketing book? Although Welcome to the Funnel came out last December, November is the perfect time to read it (in the States). Because Jason Miller applies a turkey dinner analogy to blogging and content marketing.

Jason Miller is the content marketing strategist at LinkedIn. He earned his stripes at Marketo. He certainly knows his content marketing, and has written an entertaining, insightful book on the topic.

Here are my three favorite take-aways from reading Welcome to the Funnel:

The Well Balanced Blogging Diet

Jason proposes a blogging strategy that varies posts like courses of a meal; the main course is a big, meaty blog post. Guest posts, humorous posts, infographics, and stories represent side dishes and condiments. Put them together in the right balance and you serve up a satisfying (and effective) blogging strategy.

It’s a useful approach for marketers attempting to populate a business blog with daily updates. See how it plays out on the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions blog.

Valuable, “Big Rock” Content

Beyond blogging, the book recommends developing a few substantial content assets like ebooks, reports, or research. (He refers to these as “big rock” content – a less appetizing metaphor.) This main asset could live behind a lead form on your site.

Find ways to repurpose and distribute that content, in different formats and across various channels, to bring people to your table. You can dine off a substantial ebook or report for months.

This strategy only works with relevant, useful content that your prospects and customers find valuable. Content marketing is always about adding value, whether before the sale or afterwards. (My book Subscription Marketing discusses using content to add value for customers after the sale – this strategy keeps on giving.)

Build long-term relationships with prospects and customers by providing real value through content. Extend the impact with creative content repurposing and distribution.

Marketing and Writing

In today’s cross-channel marketing world, effective marketers work across domains. You don’t have to be expert in videography and metrics and writing and graphics. You do need to understand the disciplines and include them in your planning. The days of operating in comfortable marketing silos are over.

For Jason Miller, writing is at the core of the content marketing discipline. Here’s the title of an early chapter: “If Your Writing Sucks, So Will Your Content.” When he hires, he looks for writing chops:

I have hired quite a few content marketers over the years and I can tell you that the most important attribute that I look for is their ability to write. If they are a good writer and know how to craft a story, the rest of this stuff can all be learned.”

Amen to that.

Startup Marketing through Content: A Review of Content Inc

Reading Joe Pulizzi’s new book Content Inc is a welcome shock for someone who lives in the engineering-driven, growth-hacking Silicon Valley. The book’s message: start your business by building an audience with content, before you write a line of code. Once you own the loyal audience, figure out what that community wants and build it.

Wait—what? Content first, not product?

Instead of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of the lean startup, Joe proposes a Content Inc startup built on Maximally Valuable Content. (Can we make MVC a thing?)

If you’re involved in content marketing, you’ll enjoy the examples of building a business on the strength of great, differentiating content.

From a subscription marketing perspective, I love the idea of building and nurturing a subscriber base before selling anything. A company founded on this premise will develop a corporate culture based on adding value through content and aligning with customers’ values – both core value nurturing practices described in Subscription Marketing.

Even if you’re not involved in a startup, the book builds a cogent argument for finding your content niche (or executing your content tilt) and developing it to build your business.

Finally, I sense that Joe could be falling down a flight of stairs and he’d still reach out a hand to help someone else. The relentlessly helpful trend continues in this book. Even as it builds the main narrative arc on the Content Inc strategy, the book offers tons of useful resources, examples, and even one-line suggestions that are incredibly helpful.

I’m going to be keeping this one around and referring to it, time and again.

Other reviews you might enjoy

Read my review of Joe’s next marketing book, Killing Marketing.

Master Content Strategy by Pamela Wilson

Customer-Inspired Marketing

Your best marketing ideas may come from outside the marketing organization – even outside the company. In the case of Pley, a simple suggestion from a busy parent resulted in a business success and many happy children.

Pley is a subscription-based service for children’s toys. In shorthand: Netflix for LEGOs.

The company does many things right when it comes to marketing its subscription business. I profiled Pley and the PleyWorld community in a recent post on the Marketo blog: 3 Ways for Marketers to Take On the Growing Subscription-Based Economy.

In this post, I want to tell the story of Pley Birthday.

Pley invites customers to give their feedback in an online forum. Better yet, the company pays attention to that feedback. One subscriber (a parent) suggested that the company send multiple sets for a birthday party. And four months later, Pley Birthday was born.

The company reaches out to loyal customers as their birthdays approach and offers a free birthday party kit for up to 15 guests. Pley provides the online invitation workflow and sends LEGO sets, activities and goodie bags for the party.

The results are reason for celebration:

Customer loyalty: Happy parents continue renewing the subscription.
New customer acquisition: Guest goodies include a discount coupon for new subscribers, so the company can track customer growth resulting from the parties.
User-generated content: Many parents share pictures or video from the party on social media, creating more visibility for Pley’s service.

Are you listening?
Are you inviting and listening to customer suggestions? Do you foster an environment or community in which people believe their suggestions will be heard?

Particularly in a subscription-based business, your customers are willing to tell you what they value. It’s up to you to listen and take action.

Next steps: If you’re interested in more ways to nurture existing customers, sign up for the Subscription Marketing group. You’ll get access to a growing list of content, including a value nurturing checklist and an ebook on Customer Retention Marketing.

Image by Morgan Sessions on Stocksnap.io

Cultivating Content from Customers

Content cultivation is the practice of collecting content from customers to use in ongoing marketing and customer nurturing.

When it comes to content marketing after the sale, you need focus on the issues that are important to current customers. What better source for this content than the customers themselves?

You may have heard the term user-generated content, referring to posts, videos and other content created by customers rather than brands. Content cultivation goes further than simply collecting social media posts. Marketers engaging in content cultivation actively pursue and share contributions from customers to create new marketing content or support ongoing marketing objectives.

See this article I contributed to Marketo’s blog for a description and examples: How Content Cultivation can Reinvigorate Your Content Marketing Efforts

Here are a few other examples of content cultivation.

GoPro has practically built its brand on user-generated content, as the product is all about collecting and sharing video. The company invites customers to submit photos and videos for selection as the photo or video of the day.
Pley, a sharing economy startup for children’s toys, created an online community called PleyWorld in which subscribers can submit and vote on designs for LEGOs kits.
Contests and awards are another great way to solicit content from customers. In a B2B example, Totango invited its customers to nominate individuals and teams as customer success heroes. The company shared the video submissions for team awards and celebrated the winners at the Customer Success Summit.

Do you have examples of content cultivation you’d like to share? I’d love to hear them. Leave a comment or send me an email. Thanks!

And if you’re interested in marketing for ongoing customer loyalty, join my Subscription Marketing group. I’ll share interesting resources and articles every couple of weeks.

[Image via Skitter Photo on StockSnapIO.com]

Why Marketers Should Read The New Rules of Sales and Service

If you’re in marketing, you’ve probably been influenced by David Meerman Scott’s New Rules of Marketing and PR. Originally published in 2006 (and updated several times since), it’s had a lasting impact on the practice of marketing.

Now he’s got a new book out, The New Rules of Sales and Service. Again, it’s a marketing must-read. Although I read last fall and included the book on my list of marketing books last month, I haven’t reviewed it here yet. Until now.

Although the title doesn’t say marketing, I’d suggest you put it on your reading list. Because sales and service interactions should be a continuation of marketing efforts and strategies.

Several of the new rules sound familiar to a marketing professional, but apply as well to sales and service organizations. For example:

Rule #1: “Authentic storytelling sets the tone.” Understanding the business story is critical for anyone engaging with the customer, including sales and service. If marketing is creating stories, we need to share them widely and build consensus throughout the customer-facing business.

Rule #2: “Content is the link between companies and customers.” Stop thinking of content marketing as simply a way to generate leads, and start thinking of it as a way to support and nurture your customers.

And another chapter heading reads: “We’re all in sales and service.” So true. The boundaries between marketing and the other parts of the business are blurring. Sales and service teams tend to own ongoing customer relationships, but that doesn’t mean that marketing’s job sends at the time of the sale.

This is particularly true in businesses that maintain a long-term relationship with the customer. Customer loyalty is the life blood of businesses with subscription-based business models. (That’s the topic of my latest focus, subscription marketing.)

The New Rules includes terrific examples, with instructions on topics such as interviewing customers to create buyer personas, engaging with customers in real time, and using great service to generate more leads.

To sum it up, again in David’s words: “Break down the walls between sales and marketing, and your business will improve.”

The Content Code: A Book Review