Content Marketing Today

Business blogging expert, Meghan Wier, helps position Dr. Ellie Philips online as an expert in her field.

If you are an expert at what you do, your surest path to success is sharing that expertise with current and future customers.  Of course, that's one of the key tenets of content marketing.  The sticking point tends to be that many executives and professionals are so busy running their business that they have little time to devote to make that communication connection.

That's where business blogging expert, Meghan Wier, enters the picture. Although Meghan views herself as an introvert, she shaped a successful sales and marketing career with a Web software company prior to launching her own business in January 2007.  She learned just how important it is to position yourself online with great content that makes your expertise clear.

Publishing executive opens his readers to the importance of content marketing

Whether you are an author, a book publisher or just an avid reader, you should be reading Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 blog to get a sense of the future of publishing in every imaginable form.  In fact, he subtitles his blog: "A Book Publisher's Future Visions of Print, Online, Video and All Media Formats Not Yet Invented.

Joe is Vice President and Executive Publisher in the Professional/Trade division of John R. Wiley & Sons, Inc., a publicly traded company with $1.4 billion in annual revenues.  Wiley is doing some great work that extends well beyond print publishing.  It's obvious that they understand the need to be online and to be interactive as well.

So, I was especially pleased to be asked by Joe to do an online interview about our new book, Get Content.  Get Customers. His first question was intriguing because it suggests that "content marketing" is still not an obvious concept.  Here's the first question and answer:

Then it's high time you--and I, for that matter--learn about Twitter: What it is, how it works, and why you should probably be using it.

In that spirit, I have invited Chris Griffith, our local blogging and real estate pro, to make Twitter understandable to the rest of us. Take it away, Chris.

Have you heard of Twitter? Do you know what a tweet is? Count me in with some of the millions people who are Twitterers that tweet. Twitter is social networking, micro-blogging site that helps people and businesses communicate. It’s a way to form relationships and stay connected.

More proof that companies need to be thinking and acting like publishers online.

In the world of print advertising, it has always been true the ads placed within very well read publications will outperform ads placed in also-rans.  There is a reason for this.  Great magazines and newspapers engage their readers and engender a level of trust that carries over to the ads running within their pages. 

Now, according to an article in the Online Media Daily, the same applies to online advertising.  This reinforces the importance of content marketing in building trust that can transform Web visitors into buyers.

Shama Hyder proves how powerful a website and blog can be for a solopreneur.

Shama is an online marketing expert.  How do I know this without having met her?  Because I have visited her website, "AftertheLaunch.com," read her blog, and downloaded her e-book, "Online Marketing Plan." There is so much great stuff inside this e-book that you'll be amazed she's not charging big bucks for you to buy it.

How did I learn about her in the first place?  Because she wrote a great comment on one of my blog posts.  That prompted me to visit her website where I discovered all the terrific stuff she's doing.

In other words, she is walking the content marketing walk.

When I walk into a room full of strangers at a networking event, my first and most powerful inclination is to turn around and walk right back out. 

Even though much of my business career has been in sales related functions, I don't even come close to anyone's archetype sales guy.  I am shy, reserved, and a hater of small talk.  Perhaps worst of all: I pay no attention to sports.  In short, I'm hopeless at in-person networking.

Actually, I do have a personality and I can be amusing.  But that is only after I have gotten to know people and feel comfortable with them.  So, I'm darned lucky that the Internet and blogging arrived just in time to save me from myself.

Here is why a business blog can become your most powerful networking tool:

Billboard marketing is fine on Route 66, but it's all wrong on the information superhighway

Your job as a marketer is to make it easy for your buyers to buy from you. But making it easy for them may be hard for you, unless you can execute an effective content marketing strategy.

Content marketing is the art of understanding exactly what buyers need to know and delivering it to them in a relevant and compelling way.  This extends way beyond product information into the realm of best practices, case studies, success stories, and more.

Why?  All the rules have changed.  You will need to relearn the marketing game with a brand new marketing mindset.  Those that can adapt will flourish.  Those that don't...well... think of the fate of the dinosaurs.

Bureaucrats are bouncing baristas, as they move to shut down 600 Starbucks stores. 

It may not be the same everywhere, but in our Southwest corner of Florida, Starbucks is shutting down nine of their stores.  This is likely to have an impact on their local reputation that may well be replicated around the country.

As far as I'm concerned, the Starbucks experience is as much about the people who look after you as it is about the coffee.  They do a brilliant job of hiring so that even though they don't pay gigantic wages, they manage to staff every store with a set of employees who care about what they do and about the needs of their customers.  Those employees are the all-important people component of their content marketing.

Why the Internet takes the wind out of print advertising sails--and sales.

Dawn's high impact print advertising in the 1970s and 80s can be done much better on the web in a 21st-century. I believe this change is a sad metaphor for the likely future of much of the trade publishing universe.

If the UK government with its mega-billion-dollar budget has confidence in WordPress to power its prime minister's website, I think the rest of us can confidently consider making a similar move.

The surprising news came from Chris Garrett's blog, ChrisG.com.  Chris writes consistently great stuff about blogging and new media.  Nonetheless, I was a little surprised to read this morning about merry old England's move to a blog-powered website.  But, I think we can learn something from our friends across the pond.