One piece of content, 20 ways to use it

If you’ve created a piece of marketing material, here are 20 ideas for squeezing every last drop of value from it. Most of which take time and energy, rather than money, so that you can make your marketing budget go further.

With a nod to John Watton, recently named B2B Marketing Magazine’s ‘B2B Marketer of the Year’, this is a quick blog on what he affectionately calls “pimping your content”.

First off, what do we mean by content and content marketing?

We all produce powerful content all of the time, for example a presentation you put together for a client, a talk you gave at a networking event, some training material you’ve produced for staff or clients. All a great starting point for a bit of market-facing content. You can, of course, generate content especially for marketing purposes. For example, commissioning some research to prepare a paper, or writing a How-to guide or checklist.

So, let’s say you’ve gone to the trouble of collating some compelling and relevant thoughts that your target market might find interesting, here are…

20 ideas for things you can do with your marketing content:

1. Turn it into a paper that can be downloaded from your site as a PDF in return for data capture.
2. Knock up some slides and put it on SlideShare, even better add a little voiceover.
3. Video yourself giving an abridged version and pop it on You-Tube.
4. Embed your SlideShare or You-Tube content on your website.
5. Post your SlideShare or You-Tube content on your company Facebook page.
6. Use the content to write a 500 word article and submit it to the free article sites, or use a professional to help you. We like NikkiPilkington.com
7. Sell it in as an opinion piece to a relevant press title.
8. Use the content to host an online event, like a live web seminar. Check out EventBrite for ways to do this really cost-effectively.
9. Contact local networking groups, like Business Link or FSB and offer to give a talk on the subject.
10. Tweet a link to your download, SlideShare, You-Tube, press article, etc.
11. Post a link on your LinkedIn status.
12. Add a link to your email footer.
13. Post your content to content sharing sites, like Business Week’s Business Exchange or UTalkMarketing
14. Write it up as a Blog in your company Blog (what do you mean you don’t have one? Ridiculous!)
15. Offer it as a guest Blog on relevant other blog sites.
16. Use it as the basis for intelligent comments on Blogs and Forums, ideally with a link back to your download, presso, etc.
17. Add to a library of comment that you have available when responding to press features.
18. Turn the content into a short training session and offer it as value-add to existing clients.
19. Use the same content to run a paid-for training event for your market.
20. Run an internal ’show & tell’ to get your team up-to-date on the subject.

In small business marketing, every penny counts – so if you have some content make sure it works really hard for you.

Also don’t be shy in using it, re-using it and re-using it again. At the B2B Marketing Lead Nurturing event (30 Sept 2009), John sagely reminded us that if, as marketers, we’re totally bored by a piece of content, then the market has probably only just noticed it. If the material is relevant, interesting, and not date-defined, you can probably dine out on it for six months to a year, at the very least. Probably longer. I mean, for each new follower on Twitter, for example, it is effectively a brand new piece… don’t be shy in showing them your best stuff.

You might also be interested in:

• Bryony’s 30 minute webcast on generating online word of mouth on SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/clearthoughtconsulting/online-word-of-mouth
• Case study of integrated campaign including social media: http://www.clear-thought.co.uk/life_cycle_campaign/
• Understanding which content to use when in the sales funnel: http://www.clear-thought.co.uk/in_thought/art/1/
• A typical thought leadership campaign: http://www.clear-thought.co.uk/in_thought/art/12

By Bryony Thomas | Chief Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | www.clear-thought.co.uk

A typical thought leadership campaign

One of the key strengths at Clear Thought Consulting is in conceiving and running thought leadership programmes. I’m often asked what these entail, so here’s a quick run-down of the basics.

Thought leadership is about being front of mind in regard of a certain subject or market. A thought leader will always make it onto a ‘long list’ when people are making buying decisions – and often become the benchmark against which others are measured.

Timescales:

• Thought leadership programmes are not a quick fix, you cannot expect immediate results.
• A thought leadership marketing programme is only effective in the medium term, and then only when it forms part of a funneled sales approach. That is, a planned process that uses specific tools and techniques to move people from one stage to the next through the buying decision. The thought leadership programme typically acts as a top and tail to this process.
• In the longer term, thought leadership programmes also serve to create a bank of ‘good will’ in more junior members of the target audience, which translates into awareness and leads when they move into more senior positions later in their careers.

Typical thought leadership tools:

First off you’ll need to think of subject matter that is interesting, engaging and useful. Then, create a campaign that has a mix of tools that can be used to influence people along hierarchical and vertical planes.

Typical thought leadership campaign checklist:

• Get your best brains in a room, or even better some customers, and think about subjects that are interesting, engaging and useful.
• See if you can find a respected industry partner, if not then use your own research and expertise to prepare a ‘future trends’ report that can be downloaded online in return for data capture.
• Prepare an accompanying 1/2 hour presentation and use the content to host a live web seminar.
• Prepare press and direct mail to generate report downloads and webinar registrations (these can be tailored to sectors, and as customer and non-customer versions).
• Track report downloads and invite anyone who has downloaded, but not registered for webinar an invitation.
• Practice your webinar with the technology, slides, hosts in the room you will be using for the live session.
• Host the webinar and record the session.
• You can often boost attendance with an offer to attendees of something like a free book or other useful offer for people who attend – we’ve previously managed to get signed copies of business books by talking to the publishers.
• Review the people who attended and downloaded and get your best sales people to follow-up the hottest leads, keep the others for future or your junior team.
• Anyone who registered, but didn’t attend can now be invited to watch the recording.
• The recorded version now goes up on your website, where it can be viewed in return for data capture – this can form the next level of the campaign (where perhaps Director level people were invited to the live event and more junior people are now invited to view online).
• Alternatively snippets form your web video can be placed on You-Tube, Twitter, or other document sharing sites to drive people to the original download.
• All data captured builds your database for future relevant, timely, engaging and useful thought leadership material.
• New techniques allow you to publicise your materials at little cost, with simple things like Tweets, LinkedIn updates & news items, contributions to discussions, blogs, etc. For example, we’ve seen great traffic by posting content on Business Exchange.

As said, this needs to form part of a sales funnel, where the aim of the game is to increase hit rate when your sales teams pick up the phone. If people have read something interesting or attended and engaging event, they are much more likely to be warm to the call.

For more on sales funneling, see our 20 minute webcast: http://www.slideshare.net/clearthoughtconsulting/making-marketing-pay-1202609

For an example, you may like to see a recent campaign for Fraudscreen looking at The Life-cycle of a Debtor: www.fraudscreen.co.uk/lifecycle-part-one

By Bryony Thomas | Chief Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | www.clear-thought.co.uk

No risk, no point…

Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Truly compelling messaging is almost certainly going to upset someone… providing that you’ve identified the people you want to inspire and the message works for them, does it matter if you upset people? Often the answer is no. Clearly, you need to be legal, honest and fair – but a bit of controversy can be a good thing. Who was it who said “write what you like, just spell my name right”? So true, especially in an search-enabled world.

Really good design should go completely un-noticed

I spent six hours this weekend clearing junk from my house. It felt great. I sorted through piles of boxes, threw out unwanted clothes and re-organised a load of storage. Then, my Dad came to visit and commented on what a lovely home we have. Now, he didn’t say ‘Wow, isn’t it tidy’ – in fact he didn’t notice that I’d been tidying, but by clearing away the distractions he was able to notice the lovely touches we have around the place – like art and photos.

A room that is clear of clutter and that is well laid out to enable you to move around freely, is a joy to be in. Good literature design (on and off-line) is the same. There are various design conventions in regard to leaving white space, to aligning and anchoring headings and sub-headings, etc. – and whilst most people picking up a brochure (except those of us who work in the business) won’t consciously see these rules being applied, they will enjoy a well designed piece much more. This is most evident when you see something that hasn’t been well designed – you don’t know why, it just doesn’t look right. Just like when you walk into a room that has been freshly vacuumed, you don’t actively notice the carpet pile all running in the same direction – it just looks better.

Whilst there are, of course, examples of anti-design where rules are actively broken to create a jarring and clashing visual impact – most marketing literature, particularly in B2B, requires the sort of design that allows the message to take centre stage, that gently gives a sense of the corporate culture, and that silently guides the eye to the key points.

So, take care if you’re tempted to prioritise content over design in times of budgetary squeeze – if the two aren’t balanced, you’re missing a trick.