R.N. Johnson Creative Marketing

Good Content Makes It Much Easier To Boost Your Web Presence

Finding the time to build good content is essential for inbound marketing. It’s the cornerstone of visitor engagement and long term ROI. Yet, it requires a firm commitment by top management. I’ve been re-reading “Smart Content Marketing Relies On Efficient Production,” a useful post by Derek Gordon from Search Insider on 4/27/11. Here’s a quote:

Who has time to do all this stuff? By stuff, marketing professionals are referring to the production and distribution of the variety of content that flows from strategies that are built to engage audiences, improve search rank, and yield better bottom line business results.

Efficient production techniques can help you become more successful at building good content

Which is all very nice but one must come up with the goods, right? It won’t just grow on a tree all by itself. You have to write it, produce it, make all the edits and write, write, write some more, thereby producing the videos, articles & posts, photos, webinars, eBooks, podcasts and tweets. And, you need to attract inbound links from others.

Who said it was going to be so easy and facile anyway? (Okay, I’m indulging a little.)

Most of the clients I know, the ones who have never jumped into blogging, are a little wary of the commitment they’ll need to make in pursuit of content marketing. We work with small organizations. Mostly we’re into a business blogging approach when the idea of content marketing is under discussion. But one could also be looking at photography, online videos and/or webinars as the driving force for establishing an inbound marketing program. It really doesn’t matter. The continued production of interesting information, is a relatively new mindset for many organizations. Unless they’re used to a regular diet of corporate communications and ‘PR,’ the notion of actually developing an Editoral Calendar scares the devil out of these firms. Tell them the advantages of building a website in a blogging tool like WordPress, and using it as a Content Management System (CMS), the marketing manager or owner may perk up a little, but you can feel some of the air leaving the room at the same time because the benefit comes at a price.

Efficient production is extremely important in this regard. You need to go forward with efficiency right off, or you may not get very far. Derek Gordon talks about an interview done by a Bloomberg reporter who asked if he could record the session on his Flip HD video camera. By doing this the reporter said he could edit a brief ‘newscast’ for the video channel:

• then use the transcript to write up the story;
• then use the audio for a podcast:
• then use a few still photos captured from the video for the Title screens;
• and for online display ads to be used on Bloomberg’s web properties.

The formula would seem easy enough: record the session in a no frills manner using a Flip HD camcorder (on a tripod with external microphone works best), return to your office and start slicing, editing and producing the elements into plug & play system that publishes directly to your website and social network.

There is a very satisfying simplicity to this content strategy. The primary road block to this model may be more psychological than physical or budgetary. But of course there’s a learning curve and a commitment curve as well.

You will need to establish a Web Hub to be constructed from your website and blog, your social framework which may use popular tools such as  FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google + and varied bookmarking sites, etc. But once you have established your online presence based on these elements, you will have most everything you may need to capture useful streams of compelling information.

I can feel it starting to happen with the customer at this point. A dawn of recognition. The look of awareness and interest starting to grow.

You have likely been there yourself in your meetings. What do you do to help your boss, or colleague, start taking the next few steps toward the most focus set of goals?

Portrait of a youthful Steve Jobs

How can a golden age of online marketing take place amid turbulent stock markets, high unemployment and a growing European financial crisis that threatens the U.S. Banking system? Maybe it’s premature to say “golden age.”  Just one more dramatic downswing and we may see a double-dip recession. Yet, when I think of all that’s been happening I say quietly to myself, “hey, this may be the golden age of Internet marketing.”

It may be wise to address this issue because the transformational power of technology has grown more quickly than other parts of our economy. Considering the end of an era with Steve Jobs’ passing, one can easily assert that a very special golden era has also passed with him.

Moammar Gadhafi: Brought down by cell phones?

But there’s something about social media and the state of all things digital that keeps me thinking we’re in the midst of a spectacular run, with everything accelerating at Tech Speed.  Indeed, the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, and the stunning swiftness of the Arab Spring, was sustained by cell phone technology.

With regard to marketing, just take a look at the customer. He/she is an empowered person with Mouse-in-Hand who enjoys enormous and unparalleled freedom:

• Finding great websites and blogs
• Great information on nearly any product or service
• A robust era of social media sharing
• A  host of ways to publish and republish individual passions and ideas
• With everything one could possibly want online everyday

Yet people are not getting into the car, or punching their phone lines as they once did with basic questions. Clearly online content is profuse — as wide as it is deep. The customer has become very savvy and well educated before contacting a particular business about a specific product.

Business-to-business and business-to-consumer, everyone sees the same thing: human behavior has fundamentally changed. Right now people are looking for your product: locally, regionally, internationally. Their quest for information growing. If you own or manage a business, are you taking advantage of everything that’s happening? Are you seizing the day? Or, are you still waiting for something, or someone, to light a match under you so that you can finally take action?

Here’s three big reasons to move:

• Internet Marketing is continuing to grow and evolve.
• The Internet is beginning to mature, e.g. Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin now dominate social media (with Google + on the way up)
• The customer has spoken. They have the mouse, cell phone and tablet in hand. They’re excited by the Internet and it shows.

The time for action is now. You have every reason and incentive to get underway with that next idea or strategic campaign. There’s blogging, content marketing, micro-sites, mobile media, search engine optimization, online advertising and more. These tools are tremendously adaptive and effective. But you should think of them as much more than a random shopping basket of techniques. You’ll need a strategy to make everything work. (Full disclosure: that’s what our business is all about, finding the best strategy and tactics for the company involved.)

So, what do you think? Is this the Golden Age of Internet Marketing?

As always, your comments are greatly appreciated.

Lean Manufacturing Photo by Numerical Precision Inc.

Can internal production teams involved in continuous improvement and lean manufacturing help us discover new marketing ideas? If so, can lean manufacturing provide hidden benefits beyond the shop floor.

As always, by simply looking for new ideas one can often find them.

On 16 November 2011, I attended a Lean Manufacturing breakfast held by the Shah Center in McHenry, Illinois. The Shah Center has been doing these meetings for a few years, thereby providing a place for regional manufacturers to make “lean” presentations on what they’ve been doing to eliminate waste and inefficiency while following up on shared themes such as:

• Value Stream Mapping
• or reviewing the Toyota Production System
• or gaining a greater understanding of the Seven Wastes

As a creative marketing professional I always find the slide shows intriguing and fascinating to behold. Though not so much for the design values or creative impact of the presentation — they often seem much too long, convoluted and amateurish. Yet at times while listening, I’ve said to myself:

Does their marketing department know what they’re up to on the shop floor? With so many innovative ideas and processes the energy level must be high. The ideas flowing. Is there a unique proposition based on the actualities of a particular lean manufacturing practice that be might be moving prospective customers to place new orders? And, if that’s the case, where is the marketing department or creative agency in all of this?

Mr. John Huber, Continuous Improvement Manager for Watlow, a world leader in heaters, sensors and controllers, was the main presenter on this particular morning. He commented on how customers often appreciate lean manufacturing. In particular he referred to reducing those aspects of the procurement cycle where the customer felt the most ‘pain.’ By implication, I assumed he was referring to delivery, quality and/or engineering issues. Additionally when he spoke of value streams, he made my ears ring.

Whenever you have breakthroughs in manufacturing that concern a potential shift in perceived customer benefits, the marketing department should be there actively watching. However, in following up on “lean” benefits the marketer shouldn’t be trying to lead it, or mess with it. Just be there to listen, learn and look for new themes and ideas for Internet marketing, social media, public relations, etc.

In fact, today the Internet is driving something I’ll call “Lean Marketing.” It is a very pervasive world-wide trend incorporating content marketing (or inbound marketing if you will), social media, SEO, online advertising, intelligent calls to action (CTA’s) and landing pages using specialized information transactions.

Okay, so here’s my hypothesis. It’s a simple one:

Lean Manufacturing can help drive Lean Marketing.

It may be too early to be carried away with this idea; it’s just a hypothesis. In my view Lean Marketing is driven mostly by the Internet. But the lean manufacturing movement seems to me as if it’s moving in a parallel universe.

Anyone care to add a few points to this?

This is an old post that we thought might deserve another look. It contains some observations on copy and content, which in my mind is always helpful. Much of this was inspired by Jacob Nielsen’s famous research on “prioritizing web usability.” He can be tough on creative types, art directors in particular who chafe at his hide-bound rules and restrictions on design values. But there’s no getting around the quintessential strength of his advice.

So here’s the original post written a few years back. As always, please let us know what you think:

“Through technology…”

… we have adapted our eyes into optical tools that seek nuggets of information. Think for a moment what it means to scan content (as opposed to reading a novel). Your eye is searching for keywords, lists, highlighted phrases and links.

Because of this usability research now shows us how Web content should look:

• Concise subheads
• Highlighted keywords
• One core idea per paragraph
• Concise lists
• Succinct headlines, page titles and first paragraphs
• Lean copy (cut word count)
• Dark type on white (or on light background colors)

For direct marketers, much of this is old news. Yet, old school hard sell tactics or hype (often misused in print advertising and direct mail) is a very bad fit online. Users are busy people in control of their searches or verification of online credentials. They want hard facts and real information, without exaggeration or hype.

If you’re an old school marketer, it’s time to learn new ways. High quality graphics, good copy and outbound links show that you know your stuff. Credibility goes up. People respond to the content because so many websites are driven by people who are trying to exploit or misinform.

Save money by writing your own Web copy? You may want to think again. Does it make sense to save money and lose sales? Or, at the very least, if your site has poor information architecture, convoluted copy or dense blocks of text, you are not doing your cause any favors.

As in everything else in marketing, it pays to put things into their proper place of importance.