Tag Archives: content marketing

Are You Guilty of Wasting Readers’ Time With Bad Content?

Bad Content-image-O'C&K

Are you a marketing manager and an expert on writing blogs? If so, you probably never waste a reader’s time, which is fantastic. We in O’C&K believe that we don’t deliver bad content but still, we’re going to be honest with you about why we’re not experts. After that, we will share our thoughts on better blogging.

Why we might not be considered blogging experts is the fact that we don’t always stick to an editorial calendar and we don’t publish every day or even once a week! Furthermore, when we do publish, we don’t distribute it through every channel available on the internet. And, shock-horror, our rationale, in writing a blog, is not to solely generate leads.

On the positive side, though, we don’t produce low-quality posts as often as possible, just so we can tick a job-done box. And what’s more, we never sell our outsourcing services in the body of a blog post, (but do have a call to action at the end, if readers would like to chat to us).

For us, producing quick fire content for the sake of it, can lead to bad content. This approach would probably do our business more harm than good in the long run, anyway. Bad content = bad marketing.

Good content takes time and effort and let’s face it – it is not (time) cheap either. Plus, we all know what Google thinks (and does) with bad content.

Bad content = bad marketing.
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When Aidan and myself agreed to commence this blog we agreed on three things a) we would host it on our own site, b) the content would be helpful (good) rather than conveying a marketing message (bad) and c) we would only write about marketing topics that we have expertise in or experience with.

Of course, hosting it on our own site may drive additional traffic with the potential for lead generation and we won’t turn that down. In the main, however, the content of our blog, and its intention, is to reflect our brand value of being relevant to our customers and businesses in general.

We firmly believe in the mantra that helping people with something that matters to them will provide business reciprocity, in due course.

Bad content just wastes a reader’s time.

Let’s face it most customers don’t really need another blog post. What they do need is a source of relevant ideas that will help them get better at something. If you can use your expertise to help them, that’s great. If not – don’t waste people’s precious time with irrelevant content.

We thought about all the blogs we read and the ones that annoy us the most i.e. wasted our time. Here are some of the common themes that we’ve noticed and which you might want to avoid:

  • The posts are extremely complicated, self-indulgent and too frequent
  • The posts are not easy to understand and appear to be written for SEO purposes
  • The author doesn’t appear to know who they are writing for and get lost mid-stream anyway
  • There is no fresh perspective and no personality to convince us to return for more

(check out unroll.me which is a great tool for cleaning up email subscriptions)

Have you experienced any of these? Well, if you want to continue reading here, we’ll provide 6 suggestions on what we think will help you avoid wasting a reader’s time (and your own).

  1. Determine what the purpose of your content is and who will be reading it
  2. Decide what you can bring to the table that will inspire a reader to think or act differently
  3. Know what content your customers / prospects already enjoy
  4. Research how your competitors use content as a strategy
  5. Agree how often you will publish content and how you will distribute it
  6. Assign responsibility as to who will create / curate, maintain and measure the results

People don’t need another blog, they need ideas that will help them get better at something

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Dispelling some myths about content marketing

If your blog isn’t structured to produce revenue, then it should, at least, play an integral part in raising awareness for your brand. There is no need to throw yourself beneath the feet of the content king, however. General guidelines will help but not a rigid plan, in our opinion.

For instance, we limit our posts to 4 general areas of marketing (brand, digital, engagement and offline), but not to specific topics. Thereafter, we distribute our blog posts, not only on specific online platforms, but also seek out speaking opportunities and networking events. At such events we direct people to our blog, should they want to find out more on a topic.

It is important, though, that each post is repurposed so as to engage different audiences e.g. we will share a shorter version of this post as just tips (below) on LinkedIn Pulse, Medium and Bizsugar.

If you have to convince your line manager about the benefits of blogging, you might have to dispel a few myths first. Here are some arguments that they might put forward:

  • Our type of customer / industry doesn’t expect or need to get content from us
  • We’re already spending time on social media, that’s how we’re sharing our message
  • We just don’t have the resources or the capabilities to produce sufficient content
  • We don’t have an interesting story to tell and anyway how would we know if it worked
  • This is just another marketing fad – we have better ways to spend our marketing budget

These misconceptions can be easily dispelled (maybe we’ll attend to this in another post) by marketing managers who understand inbound marketing. Perhaps you can also give examples of some tools that can explain the methodology e.g.

Post research:

Coschedule’s Headline Analyser                                 Hubspot’s blog topic generator

Buzzsumo’s most shared content                                Google’s keyword planner

Design / Images:

Canva’s design tool                                                         Pixabay

Fotojet’s pic editor                                                          Pickmonkey image editor

Curation:

Buffer                                      Post Planner                                       Scoop.it

These tools help to keep a focus on making the post relevant to your customer through automation and customisation. Of course, you should know who your customer really is, so that you can show genuine empathy with them. The idea is to build quality relationships by helping them with their pain points using your expertise.

By the way, an expert in online tools is a fellow Irishman Ian Cleary. Ian does a fantastic job sharing the most up-to-date, online tools available for your business. Check out his site at RazorSocial.

Tips and Timesavers

As mentioned, blogging is one way of allowing other people benefit from your experience. The more you share good content, the more people will pay attention to what you can do and the more they interact, the stronger your relationship will become.

Let’s look at six elements that we feel will help towards better blogging and towards not wasting anybody’s time:

  1. Write honest and genuine content. Don’t write with a hidden agenda because insincerity will be reflected in the quality of your content and very obvious to a reader
  2. Your passion will be shared. Readers will spot straight away if you’re going through the motions. You can only write with passion when you really care for and know your subject matter
  3. Strive for creativity. People love to read and absorb stories. Try and give your reader a different way to think about things / topics and write in a storytelling manner
  4. Have a consistent look and feel. Readers will get comfortable with your layout and style so changing it around each time you post will unsettle them
  5. Your blog is an extension of your brand. Be personable, approachable and conscientious
  6. Be generous. If you have something free to give away – just do it without hiding it behind a lead capture gate. People should finish your article feeling informed, educated or entertained.

Conclusion

Blogging with good content will form a major part of your online success. Stick to areas that you are an expert in and people will get to appreciate your advice when they require it. You owe it to yourself and your readers to produce the most effective content you can.

Before you know it you will increase your professional exposure, boost your reputation and guess what – you might even enjoy it too.

“Thank you for reading our blog post today” – Aidan & Jim.

 Would you like us to notify you, by email when we publish new content? If so, just let us know by clicking here. Of course, we can always meet face-to-face, just leave your details here and we might grab a coffee, cheers. Jim – O’C&K

 

Fortunately,There is No Cheating in a Content Marketing Strategy

black-hat-content-marketing-strategy

Those of us in the business world have definitely heard of it, and everybody, at some stage has been exposed to it. A content marketing strategy can include the use of video, social media, blogs, podcasts, email newsletters, white papers, SEO and landing pages, to mention a few.

The idea is that you provide informative posts for your audience so that they talk about you or share your content. As a result of this inbound attraction, (rather than outbound messaging), you become much more customer-centric than traditional methods and are favoured over competitors.

Easy right? Well no, because of the balancing act between a) being able to provide something useful for free, b) building trust and c) not overselling. And no one is saying that this is easy.

There are many prospective clients that we meet who want to ‘have’ a content marketing strategy in its narrowest form e.g. social media. Unfortunately, rarely will one form of content suit a marketing strategy and sometimes it might only be a mindset that needs to change. Look at it this way, if the real goal of marketing is to advance your business, surely all your marketing activity should be contributing to that goal.

Is Your Content Just Writing?

If content marketing is not facilitating the achievement of a business goal – then it is just writing. The only caveat is that it doesn’t become a constant irritant by way of a sales pitch. Fortunately with regard to selling, there is no cheating in a content marketing strategy because the very people you want to attract, will ignore a sales pitch. It might be argued that native advertising is content marketing, but that’s a discussion for another post.

Whatever way you look at it, a basic human trait is that we are constantly trading amongst ourselves. This may not be a financial transaction but basically, doesn’t everyone want to sell something to everyone else, even themselves? (e.g. personal branding).

So, if you decide that your business is going to develop a content marketing strategy, and you know it shouldn’t be used as a sales tool – that’s fine but bear in mind, it should, at least, market something.

If content marketing is not facili­tating the achievement of a business goal – then it is just writing.

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Well, if it’s not just writing – what is content marketing? We believe, it is creating and/or sharing relevant and useful content for a specific audience. The long term goal is that you instill a sense of value and grow trust amongst a community of people, with a view to building a mutually beneficial relationship.

Should a business write their own content?

We have written in previous blog posts about how business success is built on a foundation of strong relationships. We’ve also previously suggested that relationships can only be successful if there is a two-way exchange of relevant value (in whatever form), manifested in suitable communication.

Your content, therefore, needs to be professional and solve a problem that your audience cares about – or, at least, is somewhat entertaining. Each piece of content you supply should really make them feel good in that it rewards your audience for consuming it.

Of course, it is easy for a CEO to say ‘let’s have a content marketing strategy’ and the minions start a blog and set up a few social media accounts. However, without a well thought-out strategy this will only result in tears.

WARNING: Sometimes business owners should not be allowed to write their own content. Despite the arguments that they would know their clients the best – here are seven reasons why they should be convinced to leave it to the experts:

  1. They can write content but doing so for online purposes is a different challenge
  2. They can’t write – sometimes even people who are great conversationalists just can’t write
  3. They find it difficult to write about themselves and is usually faster when done by a third party
  4. They won’t always have the time – e.g. the cobbler’s kids, not having shoes
  5. They might not have the skills for social media distribution or SEO.
  6. They don’t understand the significance of original content
  7. They are afraid to trust a third party and waste money by micro-managing.

Your content needs to be profes­sional and solve a problem that your audience cares about – or, at least, is somewhat e­nterta­ining.

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In many respects, implementing a content marketing strategy can be likened to attending a networking event.

Bear with us here.

Think about it, both involve telling stories about how value can be exchanged, in an interesting way. Both require being in the right place at the right time and having good listening skills. And usually, a ‘once off’ meeting is rarely enough.

Tips and Timesavers.

Admittedly, content marketing has become a buzzword in marketing but, as alluded to above, it is not an easy task. Ideally, for it to work it should be part of a long-term business strategy. Here is a great chart from Curata that outlines approaches which may help you with your content strategy:

curata-content-marketing-strategy

  • Appoint or employ someone to create content from within the business
  • Encourage staff members, outside of the marketing department, to contribute content
  • Outsource externally to an expert agency
  • Obtain stories from ‘happy’ customers and build content communities
  • Some media companies license content that you can brand as your own
  • Curate content from experts and share with your own community (linked to the original source)

Conclusion.

The objective of using well-written and relevant content in your marketing activity is to build trust, credibility, and engagement. The trouble is, that these may also be objectives of  your competitors.

So here are some thoughts to remember – develop concrete content objectives (thought leadership/information/driving traffic etc.), do research on your competitors (audiences/keywords etc.), ensure that your content plan fits in with your overall marketing objectives and always track your progress (engagement rather than ‘likes’).

Sometimes the challenge is simply to adjust your mindset.

“Thank you for reading our blog post today” – Aidan & Jim.

 Would you like us to notify you, by email when we publish new content? If so, just let us know by clicking here. Of course, we can always meet face-to-face, just leave your details here and we might grab a coffee, cheers. Jim – O’C&K

 

What Is It About Content Marketing That Makes It So Effective For Building Influence?

building influence

Building influence in your industry sector amplifies your marketing efforts. Having influence can impact the attitude of people to your brand and potentially change their purchasing behaviour.

One of the most effective ways of building influence is through the use of content marketing. We believe that it is one of the most powerful tools that any business should have in their arsenal.

It can achieve many things if done right. It can position your business as an industry leader and provide sales leads, but interestingly it can also be used for building influence.

In the current ever-changing and connected marketplace, providing useful content that makes your business a go-to resource is an effective way of providing a positive customer engagement.

Providing value is the way for building influence.

Through positive engagement, businesses can build relationships and subsequent influence.  At a practical level, having influence will help a) people to buy into the brand, b) to differentiate themselves from competitors and c) to get the team to buy into a founders vision. How do you build this influence? – by providing people with some type of benefit. The recipients have to appreciate the benefit / value provided or they won’t be influenced.

Think about the people who have influenced you in the past. It may have been your parents, a teacher, a sports coach, a work colleague or even a friend. Whoever it was – you probably valued them greatly. Doing so makes them an influence in your life.

Therefore, our point is that content marketing can be a powerful tool to help build influence by providing benefits to your target market. If you can solve a problem or just answer a question, without asking for anything in return, they are more likely to favour you if deciding to purchase a service you supply.

Let’s face it – people are really only interested in what your business can do for them. So they will be interested in your brand if it engages them by making their life easier somehow. It’s not about you – it’s about them.

Let’s face it – people are really only interested in what your business can do for them.
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People are hungry for relevant and reliable information.

Admittedly, nobody is going to put up their hand and say “influence me” but they do want the availability of good information so that they can make quick decisions. This can be for personal or business reasons.

The problem is that there is a tsunami of information being made available online and offline every day. As a result, it is becoming extremely hard for many people to sort the relevant and reliable information from the time wasters. Good content marketing can help them with this dilemma.

We will look at content marketing in a little more detail. Customers want information to help them take the ‘next step’ in a decision process and businesses want it to help build their customer base. Let us say you have decided to assist both parties by providing information. Before you start doing so we would recommend you have a look at our four general principals which you need to commit to:

  • Decide to use content marketing as a strategy (see below)
  • Consider how you will develop content that will be relevant to your audience
  • Agree on a consistent style and delivery schedule
  • How will you facilitate your team in providing good, quick and real content

We have found that if you create content based on your own experience, recipients can empathise more and will view it as being more valuable to them. For instance, the driver of the content of this post arose from a client meeting from last week.

They have decided to pay more attention to their online presence and to commence building thought leadership in their industry. Accordingly, we have embarked on a plan of activity to achieve that objective. In doing so, we thought we might share our thought process with you.

Effective content marketers build a plan of activity.

I guess the hardest part of starting off is putting together a content marketing plan. Here are 7 elements we recommend that you consider:

  • Curate a list of your current content – website, blogs, social media, brochures, newsletters.
  • Determine where your target audience is – what are they listening to / talking about (e.g. google analytics).
  • Align your communication for consistency – tone, keywords, interest, educational, engaging, of value.
  • Choose appropriate channels and tools – social media, video, audio, images, presentations, software (e.g. Hootsuite to help with time management).
  • Plan around specific events – industry events, public events, seasonality, PR/advertising  campaigns etc.
  • Place your plan in an actual calendar – one, three, six or twelve months, whatever suits.
  • If you don’t have the time, get help* – you will be planning, creating, editing, curating, distributing, measuring etc.

* If you do decide to get external help, look for evidence of, i) previous work samples, ii) who influences them, iii) SEO / SEM knowledge and iv) how much they expect to be paid.

Putting together a content marketing plan is not easy. Here are 7 elements to consider:
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Tips and Timesavers.

I think we can agree that no matter how fantastic your product or service is – if nobody knows about them, your business will not survive. Marketing is an essential part of business growth and using a content strategy is a relatively cheap way of gaining a foothold in your chosen market. Quite often these markets are dominated by large companies so not having to compete on budget, levels the playing field somewhat.

There are many ways of over complicating content marketing, but the concept is relatively straight forward.

Create and curate good and reliable content, promote it in the right places and thereby offer value to your audience.

As alluded to above, undertaking a content marketing strategy has to be a conscious decision by you / your management team. Let’s look at five steps you might take to build your strategy into one that will get you noticed:

  • Firstly, ask yourself why do it in the first place? Consider your overall goal – is it to provide a specific solution to customers, to reinforce a brand positioning, to generate sales leads, activate a sponsorship etc.
  • Secondly, determine (with your colleagues / external survey) what type of content your audience wants to receive – how to videos, tips via a blog, infographics, ebooks etc.
  • The third step is to decide where the content will feature i.e. paid, owned or earned media. Your allocated budget will determine to which extent these channels are used for distribution. Either way there should be a mix of these elements.
  • The penultimate step is to decide who will run your content marketing efforts. As mentioned above, if you don’t have the resources (i.e. a dedicated person / team) get help. Agreeing responsibilities, up-front, will help determine your capacity to create and distribute your content.
  • The final step is to consider how you will measure success. There are many tracking tools out there that can provide you with mountains of data. Choose the one that provides real insights into how you’re doing and how you can improve.
Why are businesses making content marketing an integral part of their marketing strategy?
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Conclusion.

So why are more businesses making content marketing an integral part of their marketing strategy? We touched on it earlier in this post. We believe that it is because if you want to build influence with your audience, you need to be providing as much value as possible.

This is why content that offers a distinct benefit that makes your customer’s life easier, will earn you the right to influence them. However, your content must be relevant if it is to provide value. How can it do that?

It should answer a question that is being asked by your audience. At least it should be content that tells the reader how to solve a problem. Perhaps you could give your audience information that may be hard to get elsewhere. Or alternatively, you might provide content that makes your audience think about a topic differently.

Whatever style you decide upon, if you want to persuade someone to take a particular action, you must find a way to benefit them. If you provide relevant value, you will grow your influence.

There is one final question that is on most content providers minds when the publish – Does Google Penalise Duplicate Content? Here is a very good read on duplicate content by Connex Digital Marketing

 Content marketing is a way of making your brand useful to an end-user beyond what your product or service offers. ….O’C&K

“We hope you have enjoyed our marketing tips and timesavers blog” – Aidan & Jim.

 Would you like us to notify you, by email, when we publish new content? If so, just let us know by clicking here. Of course, we can always meet face-to-face, just leave your details here and we might grab a coffee, cheers.   Jim – O’C&K

Inbound Marketing – should it stay, in-house, or should it go?

inbound-marketing-help-button-

“We want to create value for you by sharing marketing tips and timesavers” – O’C&K.

9 tips for planning your inbound marketing.

It’s been a few years now since brands realised that people were becoming increasingly annoyed by ‘intrusive’ marketing. What arose (primed by the advances in technologically assisted connectedness), was a method of attracting people to your brand rather than invading their space with an irrelevant message.

This ‘new’ approach was called inbound marketing and appeared to be a logical way to proceed, mainly because consumers have never had it so easy to be able to switch off irrelevant brand communication.. Of course, it was, and is, a back to the future scenario because the rationale for smarter marketing hasn’t changed, just the methodologies available.

In fact, inbound marketing is flying so high nowadays, it’s like there is no other way of marketing. It has become king of the marketing castle. To confound matters further, there are many practitioners out there proclaiming that traditional marketing is dead because ‘content marketing’ has taken over.

Before we proceed, let’s clarify one thing – in our opinion content marketing is a subset of inbound marketing. It is the lifeblood of an inbound strategy without which, there is no hook for people to listen to your brand communication.

Well, to all you marketers and organisations out there, you’ll be pleased to know that traditional (outbound) marketing is not dead. It is alive and well. It still has a part to play in a focused marketing plan. Here is a table outlining sample activity that may form part of your detailed marketing plan, depending on the target audience and business goals.

Traditional / Outbound / Push Marketing Inbound / Content / Pull Marketing
Radio or Television ads Website – SEO
Outdoor advertising Social Media
Tradeshows or Exhibitions Blogs
Direct Mail Whitepapers or eBooks
Flyers, Circulars or Inserts Email campaigns
Outbound Call Centres eNewsletters
Banner or Display ads Podcasts, Webinars or Video streaming

 

A brief summary of the above table is that – outbound activity is an attempt to ‘buy’ the attention of the targeted audience whereas, inbound activity is an attempt to ‘earn’ their attention. Of course, both methods have their pros and cons but the essence of success is a mix of both, that will provide measureable results.

9 tips for planning your inbound marketing.

Although almost everyone is talking about embracing inbound marketing, it is not as easy as having a few social media accounts and blogging every now and then. It takes commitment, perseverance and some creativity to achieve measureable results. These results will be based on a business plan and should culminate in increased leads, conversions and sales.

Here are our tips and timesavers when planning your inbound strategy.

  1. Invite, don’t interrupt. – Use social media, blogs, articles, newsletters etc. to engage with your audience.
  2. Help, don’t sell. –  If you know your audience well, you will know what they want – give it to them.
  3. Humanise, don’t automate. – When you get the leads, you need to nurture the relationships.
  4. Be relevant not incidental. – Blog a lot of relevant content, as regularly as you can.
  5. Measure, don’t guess. – You can be smarter about your marketing by knowing what works.
  6. Be visible, not hidden. – Use SEO to increase the likelihood of being found in searches.
  7. Talk directly, not generally. – Use email selectively and customise content for recipients.
  8. Spark conversation, not self-promotion. – Use social media as a ‘social medium’ not an advertising channel.
  9. Entice rather than pay. – Short, consumable content that educates or entertains will work.

Stay or Go? Content marketing In-house, or outsourced?

The first thing to emphasise here is that there is no right or wrong answer to this question. The fact is, that it totally depends on your business objectives and of course your budget. It may also be the case, as it is with some of our own clients, that a combination of both is the more suitable.

Some of the main arguments we hear against outsourcing are:

A) can outsiders capture your brand voice? Our answer is yes they can – there are many very talented writers out there who are extremely creative and professional enough to avoid the content becoming just more advertising copy.

B) Our own marketing dept. / person can write a blog – yes they could, but different audiences require different approaches / channels, and we would ask “do they have the time and expertise to adapt”?

C) In-house people understand the brand guidelines better – at the end of the day, content that connects with people is what counts not content that adheres to company rules. Of course, if the agency is not producing what it promised it is also easier to terminate their contract than it is that of an existing staff member.

Accordingly, we encourage organisations to outsource in the following four situations:

-You don’t have the time to do it yourself.

-You don’t have the expertise in various content types.

-Keeping up to date on trends is too much of a chore.

-Your marketing needs to be smarter, in order to grow your business.

Every time we discuss this topic with clients or prospects, we offer them a trial period of six months with O’C&K. In that way, a company owner (marketing manager) can gauge the time and effort that is required to manage an inbound strategy and supply quality content. Thereafter, they can decide which route adds more value to their business operation.

Six months is not sufficient time for an inbound strategy to kick-in but at least it will show the volume of effort involved.

One other alternative, referred to above, is to outsource one element of your marketing plan. This could be writing a blog, a white paper or an e-book, managing an email or social media campaign, all of which could be once-off projects as part of your overall engagement strategy for clients.

Let’s face it, you are in business to grow your company and improve your revenue. Outsourcing some or all of your marketing, can help you reach your business objectives. Sometimes, expanding your internal marketing department or hiring an intern is just not a good use of your resources.

If you do outsource, it means that you could use the savings to drive growth while in the knowledge that your marketing activity is playing its part in your success.

We would say that though wouldn’t we?

Because that is what we do..

   If you have any other tips or timesavers please leave a reply below. If you’d like to receive similar content, just subscribe by clicking through the pink button, on this page.  Of course, if you want to get in touch, leave your details and perhaps we might meet for a chat, cheers.   Jim – O’C&K

5 content marketing drivers that you must adhere to.

content marketing drivers

“We want to create value for you by sharing marketing tips and timesavers” – O’C&K.

“We tried content marketing already but it didn’t work”.

Have you ever heard a business owner say this? We have, but in saying that, being smart about any of your marketing activity means outthinking your competitors. Content marketing is just a way of pulling it together.

When Aidan and I started up O’C&K, one year ago, we planned our company’s online presence using a content marketing strategy. Our thought process was that content marketing is a way of thinking as much as an activity. So if we were to help businesses to be smarter about their marketing, we wanted to create or curate relevant content to share with them. Furthermore, by example, we wanted to encourage customers to use content marketing as a relatively inexpensive way to communicate in general. Then, when added to traditional methods of marketing, as a strategy it would serve to develop their brand and grow the business.

As we reflect on our first year, it seems that in general, more and more businesses are creating content. Some efforts are effective and some of it is, just drivel, and a complete waste of time. Perhaps now with a hint of an economic recovery in this Country, it is opportune for businesses to review their communication. This should be done because quite a few are not joining the dots when it comes to their marketing activity. Let’s face it, most businesses appreciate that the use of video, social and mobile is changing the business landscape. They also acknowledge that content matters in this new environment, but they just can’t seem to pull it all together.

Content can comprise many elements.

Let’s look at some of the main ones and their pitfalls. Then, we will look at what we consider to be good content drivers.

Social Media: It is great that more and more businesses use social media, but unfortunately some do so with a broadcast mentality. They are stuck in a traditional marketing mindset and what they do online and offline is disjointed. I have written about this previously, but it is worth repeating here. I believe that if you are not focused on nurturing relationships, both online (by sharing relevant and engaging content) and offline (by networking), your business will not survive, in the long term. It has never been easier for people to ignore you and your communication, and they will, unless you are useful to them somehow.

Blogs: It  is an excellent idea for businesses to own a blog. Unfortunately though, some use it as a sales tool, a product manual or perhaps worse still – don’t maintain it. To be successful a blog must be a relevant source that educates, inspires or entertains your customers, in the first instance.

Blogs and social media go hand-in-hand in building your relevancy so you should take advantage of that fact. Together they are ideal content marketing tools, but take care to ensure that you write them in a non technical, interesting and engaging manner.

Video: You knew that YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet – right? Did you also know that it handles more than 20% of all traffic on the web? There is much research in existence that shows the internet is turning visual. I mean, just look at the popularity of Vine, Instagram and Pinterest, (here’s a great board to follow if you’re on Pinterest). Videos are becoming part of our personal daily online lives. It should be no surprise that businesses are learning that videos can be an integral part of their marketing activity. Video production isn’t the daunting and expensive option that it used to be, a twitter colleague of ours @thadykav is a good example of this.

We’ll be the first to admit that O’C&K don’t optimise the potential of our YouTube account much at the moment. This is because initially, we are concentrating on other channels to build a presence. It is our intention to embrace video, in the future. When we do it will fit in with our content marketing strategy and be creative, consistent and of quality.

Others: The danger of press releases and case studies is that irrelevant ones are ignored by everyone and thus, so can be a time-suck. Unless you are up to date on search engine and content optimisation, you can attract penalties from Google online. Many people don’t realise that websites should fit into the content marketing strategy rather than lead it. Free offers of white papers and e-books must be relevant to your target audience, because if not, they can just become an irritant.

As alluded to in a previous post, ( here ), the expectations of the general public, towards business, are changing. In relation to purchasing habits they want their needs satisfied in an easy, quick, transparent way. They definitely do not want to be sold to. So, providing your audience with something they want, will build an authentic and beneficial relationship with customers and prospects.

If a content marketing strategy is to work for you, your activities should reinforce how your business puts the customer first. If you can align the content of your marketing activity with your behaviour, you will be leveraging it in a profitable way for your business.

Tips and timesavers.

Whatever the number of elements you include, there are 5 content drivers that you must adhere to.

  • It should be relevant (for your customers, their context and your business).
  • It should be useful (after reading it your reader will do or think something in a different way).
  • It should not focus on your business (your brand must be part of your customer’s story).
  • It should be clear and consistent (the style of writing or presentation should not distract the reader).
  • It should be compact and renewable (nobody watches or reads long and / or stale content).

Nobody said this was easy, by the way. We know that some businesses get nervous just thinking about using social media, not to mention having a content marketing strategy. There is no need to panic. Outsourcing is a common and acceptable method of handing this element of branding over to people that can ‘ease your pain’. Just a word of warning though, shop around and agree what exactly they will do for you. The marketplace is swarming with gurus, scammers and poor performers.

If you decide to keep content marketing in-house, the worst thing that you could do is to give the  job to an already overworked assistant / HR person / marketing intern. Especially if they don’t have it in their job description. In such scenarios, you will end up using the inevitable excuse for dropping a pro-active marketing approach; “we tried that already, but it didn’t work”.

If you have any other tips or timesavers please leave a reply below. If you’d like to receive similar content, just subscribe by clicking through the pink button, on this page. Of course if you want to get in touch, leave your details and perhaps we might meet for a chat, cheers.   Jim – O’C&K