What is Content Marketing?
Want to find out why content marketing is the future of corporate and association communications? Great! Just click below at some links that will show you how content marketing, custom publishing and branded content are coming together as a marketing force. Need immediate help. Try Junta42, the only community dedicated to content marketing solutions.
Looking to find a custom publisher, try Junta42 Match.
Want to know everything about content marketing? Try the The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing.
Looking to find a custom publisher, try Junta42 Match.
Want to know everything about content marketing? Try the The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing.
30% of Marketing Budgets Go to Content
Business Marketers Spending Big on Content Marketing
A recent Junta42/BtoB Magazine research study found that 29.4% of marketing budgets are allocated to the creation and execution of content.Highlights include:
- 42% of marketers increased their content budget in 2008.
- Although eNewsletters are the most preferred content distribution mechanism, new forms of content marketing such as blogs and podcasts are gaining steam.
For the full results, see the complete study.
The Content Revolution Blog
The Official Junta42 Blog
The latest on content marketing trends.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byThe Five Pillars of Content Marketing
Content marketing is the creation of educational and valuable content targeted to your customers to drive your business. It is the opposite of inundating your customers with sales garbage.The 5 Pillars of Content Marketing are:
1. Editorial-based (or long-form) content. It must tell a story. It must be relevant and valuable information that educates, informs or entertains.
2. Marketing-backed. The content has underlying marketing and sales objectives that a corporation, association or institution is trying to accomplish.
3. Behavior-driven. Seeks out to maintain or alter the recipient's behavior.
4. Multi-platform (print, digital, audio, video, events). It can be, does not have to be, integrated.
5. Targeted toward a specific audience. If you can't name the audience, it's not content marketing.
5 Tips to Create Value for Your Customers
A Marketing Knowledge Program that Works
1. Invest in buyer research. Clearly determine who your buyer is. What motivates them? What are their "pain points"?2. Develop relevant, multi-platform communications "combos". Launch content programs that create a more intelligent buyer. Target your buyers "where they are at" (online, in print, in person combinations). A big mistake companies make here is that communication initiatives work in silos. Be sure your content marketing programs "talk" and integrate with one another.
3. Set benchmarks and measurements to your content marketing initiatives before, during and after each launch. Test and modify as needed. Open up channels to create a dialogue with your customers (more learning about the customer).
4. Invest in internal marketing. A focus on the customer MUST be a part of your corporate culture. Tell your employees what you are going to tell them...tell them...and tell them what you told them (rinse and repeat). If your employees don't understand your buyer needs, external marketing is wasted. The consequence is poor customer service and misunderstood customers.
5. Hire an editor. An editor or journalist will help you look at your buyers more as readers, and assist you in stopping your "features and innovations" rants. An expert writer, with clear buyer objectives, will position your company as one that understands the buyer, not one that is shouting sales pitches.
Want Customer Loyalty?
Create Customer Wins with Content
The goal is not for you to sell something. The goal is to help your customers, in any way possible, TO WIN! In order to help them win, you (as the marketer) must deliver ongoing content to them that gives them the tools TO win. You must deliver content in many different ways, to wherever your customers are, in whatever form they will digest it in.Content, you say? This is not better sales material, better copy writing on your web site, or better direct mail collateral. This is a deep understanding of the challenges your customer is facing, and then delivering information that helps them overcome these challenges. This means investing in industry and buyer research, must like the Cisco's and Intel's of the world spend billions on research and development. This means hiring the best researchers and journalists in your industry to create content that enables true customer "wins". This is bigger than marketing.
If, as a marketing organization, you can put the customer "win" scenario in the middle of your marketing plan, you'll see the difference it can make. From this perspective, much of the "silly" sales messages on your website become obsolete. You'll want to replace those message with content in the form of articles, white papers, eBooks, video, in-person events, etc. that give your customers and prospects the tools they need to win.
If that doesn't create loyalty, nothing will.
Content Marketing "Must Have" Resources
More and more marketing dollars are being spent on content marketing activities than ever before. Here is a set of "Must Have" resources that will take your content marketing knowledge to the next level.
Junta42 - The Content Marketing Search Site
Junta42 is a search community site focused on cont more...2 points
The Five Pillars of Content Marketing - The Ultimate Definition
Junta42 blog posting taking a good look at multipl more...2 points
What is Content Marketing?
It's not just a new way to compete. It's a brand-n more...1 point
Bringing Sexy Back: The Eight Steps to Content Marketing Bliss
Article where I discuss the eight steps that can p more...0 points
Web Ink Now: The Long Tail of Marketing and PR
An excellent blog post by content marketing expert more...0 points
10 Reasons Brands Should Think Like Publishers
Author Mitchel Ahern from iMedia Connection gets i more...0 points
The Content Marketing Manifesto
Larry Chase delivers eight solid ways to execute c more...0 points
Ask Debz :: Content Creation
Content Creation Site0 points
http://www.askdebz.com/
Ask Debz Hub Page0 points
UK Content Writer - Unique Squidoo Lenses now being created.
UK Content Writer - Unique Squidoo Lenses now bein more...0 points
Take a Look! Content Marketing Sites
Just a few sites from around the web that are providing valuable and relevant content to their customers.
Home Made Simple - Procter & Gamble
Home Made Simple is Procter & Gamble's more...1 point
Chevy Nation by Chevrolet
Interactive web 2.0 content marketing site from Ch more...0 points
Welcome to Bud.TV
Bud.TV invites all beer drinkers to kick back and more...0 points
Microsoft Home Magazine
A web content portal from Microsoft Canada on how more...0 points
GE's Imagination Theatre
A collection of short movies, integrated with GE m more...0 points
The JOURNAL Magazine from Rockwell Automation
Formerly AB Journal (Allen-Bradley), The JOURNAL f more...0 points
Succeeding Today » Home
Lots of examples of best & worst content marke more...0 points
Content: The Future of Marketing
When you mention content marketing to a marketer, even an experienced one, the best reaction you get is confusion. Content marketing, otherwise known as custom media, custom publishing or customer media, is perhaps the biggest industry that no one has ever heard of.According to Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a b2b private equity company, content marketing rose almost 30% last year to $28 billion in marketing spend. To put that in perspective, the average company spends about $1 million on its custom content projects (think custom magazines, newsletters, content portals, etc.). Not bad for an unknown industry. Most senior marketing executives don't have a clue how much is really spent inside their own companies on editorial content serving their customers and prospects. Those times are changing!
Content Wins
A simple definition of content marketing is relevant and valuable information delivered by a company to a targeted audience with the purpose of changing or fostering a behavior. Go back and read that definition one more time, but this time remove the relevant and valuable. That's the difference between content marketing and the other informational garbage you get from b2b companies. Companies send us information all the time - it's just that most of the time it's not very relevant or valuable (can you say spam?). That's what makes content marketing so intriguing in today's environment of thousands of marketing messages per person per day. Good content marketing makes a person stop...read...think...behave...differently.
According to the Custom Publishing Council and Roper Public Affairs, 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles versus an advertisement. 70% say content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company, while 60% say that company content helps them make better product decisions. Think of this - what if your customer looked forward to receiving your marketing? What if when they received it, via print, email, website, they spent 15, 30, 45 minutes with it? Yes, you really can create marketing that is anticipated and truly makes a connection! That is marketing for the present and the future.
Content Marketing Predictions
Indians/Cubs Series or The End of Traditional Media Content?
Flying cars, an Indians/Cubs world series, fat free pizza (that tastes good) and corporations as the new publishers. Well, maybe I'm stretching the baseball scenario. You, the marketer of a small, medium or large corporation, are the content providers of the future. Companies like GE, Cisco and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange already get it, with more on the way. They realize that effective marketing relies solely on the shoulders of content the helps customers and prospects do their jobs better, faster, cheaper or with more fervor. The combination of this and the fact that corporations have deeper pockets (i.e., Cisco buying WebEx with petty cash) than traditional media companies will create a tipping point that will see business decision makers from around the globe being affected by the highest quality of editorial content available.So, as you are beginning to plan your next marketing strategy, is content in the center or an also ran? If it's not in the center, prepare for irrelevance.
Recommended Reading
Need a step up in your content marketing efforts. Try these handy dandies.
IMC, The Next Generation : Five Steps For Delivering Value and Measuring Financial Returns
Amazon Price: $34.92 (as of 12/11/2009) 
Small Is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas
Amazon Price: $17.13 (as of 12/11/2009)
Get Content Get Customers: Turn Prospects into Buyers with Content Marketing
Amazon Price: $14.93 (as of 12/11/2009)
by juntajoe
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