Water–or the overabundance of it–has been on my mind a lot this year. After the unprecedented rains of May 1 and 2 caused widespread flooding in Nashville, Tenn., many of us got our hands dirty on volunteer projects to rebuild our city. Six months after the flood, many families in our area are still putting their homes and lives back together. Though the nation’s attention quickly receded with the floodwaters, the economic burdens are far reaching and many people still need assistance. Hands on Nashville and the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee provide numerous ways to pitch in and get our community over these final hurdles.
Not only have lives been lost and homes wrecked, but Middle Tennessee’s natural resources have also taken a beating. This fall, as I’ve paddled down several of the area’s beautiful rivers (weekends have included a clean-up day on Swan Creek, a canoe camping trip down the Buffalo River and day paddles down the Harpeth River and on Center Hill Lake), I’ve witnessed the damaging effects of the flood–hundreds of downed trees, damaged banks and watersheds, piles of debris–on these ecosystems that we all depend upon.
You can help clean up and preserve these natural resources. Find out more by joining the Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association or volunteering at one of the many clean-water events sponsored by the Cumberland River Compact and the Harpeth River Watershed Association.
This year Hammock once again hit the events trail for our client, the Marine Corps League, making 2010 a record year in event-related advertising and expo sales.
The old saying “you can’t tell the players without a program” holds for trade shows where strapped-for-time attendees want to know what’s on display and where.
Since 2006, in addition to relaunching its member magazine, Semper Fi, Hammock has produced directories for each of the three annual Marine Military Expos sponsored by our client, The Marine Corps League. In that time, both Semper Fi and the Expo directories have experienced significant growth in advertising sales and print quantity.
Managed by Nielsen Expositions, a part of the Nielsen Company, these shows bring defense industry suppliers together with the Marines for frank discussions and critiques of the products and services.
The Expos are held at the Marine Corps bases at Camp Pendleton, CA, Camp Lejeune, NC, and Quantico, VA, outside Washington, DC. The latter is by far the biggest, drawing as many as 450 vendors and thousands of attendees.
In 2006, the guide for the Quantico event was 24 pages long, contained only two paid ads and was printed as part of the magazine. Since then it has doubled in size to 48 pages this year, with more than 19 pages of paid advertising that generated significant revenue for our client. The other two guides have seen similar growth.
Robust ad sales efforts and opportunities for vendor listings to be highlighted have helped fuel this growth, but advertisers say a redesign of both magazine and guides in 2006 plus a strong—and very Marine—content strategy make them increasingly desirable media buys.
Savvy marketers no longer depend solely on traditional advertising in traditional media to reach their audience. Creating and managing their own branded media — from e-media to print magazines and from video to iPad apps –marketers now are learning that content is the glue holding their marketplaces together. Since our own Rex Hammock helped to create what is now the largest content marketing trade group in the United States, the Custom Content Council, we asked him to answer one simple question that we get asked a lot these days: “What exactly is content marketing?”
At Hammock, we create content that helps our clients accomplish business objectives. Sounds great, but what objectives are we helping them achieve?
The following five objectives are what you can expect to influence and measure with a well-developed and executed content marketing strategy:
1. Lead generation
2. Direct sales
3. Customer retention
4. Branding support
5. Thought leadership
For today’s post, let’s focus on lead generation.
Content marketing is part of the marketing mix for nine out of 10 B2B marketers, but these same marketers are uncertain about the effectiveness of these channels. These findings are part of the recent “B2B Content Marketing: 2010 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends” report developed by MarketingProfs and Junta42. The report identified that marketers are facing a confidence gap—between the content marketing tactics they employ and their ability to measure their effectiveness. While 79 percent of marketers surveyed are using social media tactics (excluding blogs), only 31 percent of those who use social media tactics rate the tactic as effective.
Hammock has sent a team to the Nashville Adult Literacy Council Corporate Spelling Bee for years (and has brought home the big, heavy trophy more than a few times), so we know the drill when September rolls around. But this year, they raised the stakes: Come in costume and get a free pass in Round 1.
Team members Jamie Roberts, Steve Sullivan and Ashley Drinnon arrived to the spelling bee, held Tuesday, Sept. 28, in style. Jamie was a not-so-wicked witch, Steve played a convincing Prince Charming, and Ashley, our intern from Vanderbilt University, carried the team with her long locks and princess dress. Yes, she was Rapunzel—and our team captain.
They came large (winning the unofficial best costume award) but left empty-handed. Team Hammock misspelled “augur” (v. to foretell especially from omens) and “failed” to use the free pass properly.
They protested the call, and former Nashville Vice Mayor and Bee Judge Howard Gentry even let Rapunzel plead her case—but to no avail.
Still, a good time was had by all—even Steve, who just the day before pointed out, “The costume idea was conveniently left out of the recruitment process… .”
Really? Oops!!!
Congratulations to the winning team, Ingram Content Group, who correctly spelled “harridan” and subsequently was showered (for the second year in a row) with gifts, fame and a giant trophy. If you missed the spelling bee, you can catch it on Metro 3, Nashville’s public access tv channel. Check the schedule for air dates.
Maximizing your content, or “merchandising” it, as CB Whittemore of Simple Marketing Now LLC says, is stretching each piece of content for everything it’s worth, like a retail store merchandises to get the most out of each dollar spent. What’s more valuable to your business: a hundred blogs that only a handful of people ever see, or a few great pieces of content that have been reworked and reused in multiple modes of communication to reach a maximum number of viewers? Content is useless if you don’t get it out there in the open for people to read where they prefer to consume content. It’s much more effective and efficient to spend time amplifying each content piece’s reach than pumping out more and more content that just doesn’t go anywhere.
What are the best ways you extend the reach of your marketing? Here are three of our favorites:
As mentioned here earlier, you’re knocking it out of the park if your readers and viewers eagerly await your latest update.
As described by Ardath Albee, “Contagious Content” is about your clients, customers and prospects – about what you can do and have done for them, not how much better than sliced bread your product or service is.
As Steven Covey would say, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
Contagious content catches readers’ attention during that brief moment (about as long as it takes to sneeze) that they allot to decide whether it’s worth reading more. It’s also contagious because others may decide to pass it along via e-mail, Twitter or a blog.
You can make your content more contagious by following three basic steps:
* Define and refine search terms to improve your visibility
* Define and research your audience and their needs
* Using what you’ve learned, create compelling content that employs your optimum search terms.
Actually, there’s a fourth step: Analyze what works and what doesn’t, and further refine your search terms or your content or both. It’s an art, not an exact science, and it requires a commitment to improving your skills using what you’ve learned.
Ever had writer’s block? If you’re the one churning out content for your website, chances are you have. The worst is when you’ve exhausted all of the usual places you look for inspiration and come up empty-handed. Well, here’s another source to add to your arsenal of awesome content ideas: your web analytics. That’s right, those pages and pages of keywords showing how people find your site are full of great content ideas, says Dianna Huff of the Content Marketing Institute.
Dianna says every time she looks at her Google Analytics report, she comes away with at least half a dozen content ideas. (Hey, that could be two weeks worth of content!)
She shares her tips for finding content ideas in keyword reports:
Check out the post for more insight on each of these.
Creating content simply because you (or your boss) think you should will keep your site or blog or Twitter feed full but may not satisfy your readers. Frank Reed, owner of FT Internet Marketing, argues that it’s more important to create content your readers actually look forward to receiving.
Statistically speaking, the number of people who really look forward to your next installment likely represents only a fraction of your total traffic. But Rich notes, that fraction comprises the true believers, the true fans – think the 80/20 rule.
But they tend to be overlooked in the drumbeat to peg SEO goals – which is a sure way to squelch their interest. “They are your most valuable customers yet they are sacrificed in most marketers’ attempts to get bigger numbers rather than a better (albeit smaller in many cases) audience of true fans,” Rich writes.
So, Rich says, hone your content creation to cultivate that loyal fan base. “The old axiom of ‘Quality beats quantity every time’ holds true in the content world as well,” Rich concludes.