Highlights and takeaways
from the CopyBlogger Authority Rainmaker 2015 conference in
Denver, CO. It was a useful conference focused on the full lifecycle of content
marketing. I’d like to share a few takeaways with you.
Focus on Creating Your
Own Audience
A key theme was
building an owned audience. Too often, marketers rely on other platforms for
audience — whether it’s a trade publication, an industry site, or a social
media platform. We refer to the audiences on these platforms as “rented.”
Relying on a rented audience is like building a house on rented land.
Eventually, you’re going to lose the house. The same is true of renting an
audience. I hear countless stories of firms that “built on rented land” only to
have the deal changed.
For example, in the past
few years, lots of marketers, particularly in consumer-facing businesses, built
out large Facebook audiences based on people who “liked” their business pages.
For a while, this was great, and firms were generating a lot of business from
Facebook followers. Then Facebook changed their algorithm, and reach dropped to
as low as 1%. Before the algo change, a status update used to reach 25-60%
of followers; after the algo update, the same update might reach only 1%. It’s
like betting your trading strategy on one product based primarily on the
behavior of a specific exchange matching engine. Then the exchange makes a
substantive change to the engine’s matching algos that renders your strategy
ineffective. Overnight, you can go from outsized returns to negative P&L.
Build Audience, Not
Just Leads
According to Joe Pulizzi, recent studies by CMI have found that only 3
in 10 marketers are working to build their own audience on their own platforms.
Instead, they focus most of their attention on lead generation.
“Build audience, not
just leads,” said MarketingProf’s Ann Handley. Not everyone in your
audience is going to be a sales qualified lead right away, but don’t let that
deter your content marketing strategy. Some prospects might be interested in
what you offer and the content you deliver, but have not yet encountered a
critical business problem or trigger event that effectively challenges their
status quo. But if you have been consistently nurturing them through your
content programs, you’ll be in the back of their mind when the critical issues
do come up.
If you focus only on
lead generation, you’ll end up not serving those people who may not be an
immediate marketing qualified lead but who might become one given time and
circumstance. Building an audience allows you to surface those leads who are
ready now AND develop a market that will support the company over time.
Remember that each
audience member is a human being with a career, and they rarely remain in the
same position for more than a few years. I’ve seen countless examples where
someone could not get a preferred vendor in at one employer, but successfully
introduces that vendor when they take on a new role at a new company. So nurture
for audience development and relationship building, not just for leads. [highlight
to tweet]
The payoff on building
audience is slower, and short term ROI is harder to quantify, but over the long
term, audience building and nurturing pays excellent dividends. Think buy and
hold rather than going flat at the end of the day.
Quality vs. Quantity –
A Fight for Sore Eyes
“Content isn’t just a
magnet. It’s a filter.” — Doug Kessler1
[highlight
to tweet] Over the years, PropelGrowth has focused primarily on helping clients
build small, niche audiences, and we’ve done the same thing in building our own
audience. This means that the number of visitors attracted and leads converted
is pretty small. I used to feel that we were failures compared to the marketers
who generated 100’s of 1000’s of leads with content campaigns. But now, it seems
that the industry has come around to our approach. Turns out, those huge
quantities of leads didn’t convert very well. In fact, even marketing thought
leaders are now acknowledging that as their own subscriber bases grew; open
rates, engagement, and conversion rates dropped.
Nearly all of our
clients focus on a small target niche where there are not many prospects. For
example, if you’re targeting tier 1 and tier 2 banks globally — your target
account list probably has less than 500 names. If your company is in that camp,
then it’s best to focus your audience building and lead generation efforts on
the target niches and specific audience segments that are most likely to
benefit from your services. Create content that is highly relevant and
important to that microcosm instead of creating content with macro appeal. Your
overall numbers will be smaller, but your actual conversions to sales will
improve.
Anne Handley said, “We
don’t need more content. We need ridiculously better content.”[highlight to
tweet] Only about 30% of marketers in the latest CMI study actually
KNOW that their content is effective. Those who do know their content is
working indicated that they’re still focused on creating more engaging content
and becoming better story tellers. 65% of these marketers are working to become
stronger writers.
Value Is More
Important Than Price
We must understand
that value is what’s important to our customers and broader audience. Price is
relative. Customers buy value. For example, compare price of a 2 liter bottle
of coke vs. small single serving bottle. The small bottle is higher priced,
because the customer values it more in specific circumstances where a large
bottle is inconvenient.
Sean D’Souza pointed out that value is established
with information. Price dominates when there is insufficient information by
which to understand value. Information raises the perceived value. Take away
information, and the perception of value goes down while price sensitivity goes
up.
Whoever Gets Closest
to Their Audience Wins
So how do you build a
deep lasting relationship with your audience online? We only succeed when we
matter to people. And we have to do this one person at a time — not to the
masses all at once.
Our job as content
marketers is to make a difference for our audience. [highlight to tweet]
Only when we understand them can we stand in their shoes and use empathy to
communicate with them. When we really understand the customer’s story, we’ll be
able to create the content that our customers want and need.
Bernadette Jiwa pointed
out, “If we want to get inside our audiences’ wallets, we need to start by
getting inside their heads. It’s not the biggest company or the biggest
platform that wins. It’s the person with the greatest understanding of their
customers.”
Find your target
audience, find out where they want to go by actually talking to them, and then
take them there. But you can’t shortchange the buyer persona research process
and expect to establish that level of empathy.
How to Create
Conversations With the Audience
Over the years,
content marketing pundits have repeatedly proclaimed that marketing should be
about a dialogue, not a monologue. But they rarely offer tangible advice on how
to make that happen. Most of the pundits have long-standing blogs with a few
active audience members who routinely comment. They rely on this commenting to
create conversation. It is a powerful way to connect with a small sub-segment
of the audience.
But quite frankly,
most of us are not going to succeed with this approach. Very few blogs attract
that kind of engagement, and usually, the people who engage are not the targets
we’re looking for to meet our lead generation goals. Recently, a few of the biggest
blogs have actually turned OFF their blog commenting capability in the fight
against comment spam (we did this too).
So here are a few
practical tips for creating real conversations if you don’t have an active
community on your blog.
· Q&A
times — hold a live
Q&A session online or via conference bridge where participants are invited
to ask you anything. Make sure you have subject matter experts on hand to
answer questions. You’ll probably want to make these sessions “by invitation
only” to prevent competitors from joining. But this can be a powerful way to
listen to your audience.
· Invite
email questions — every time you
publish a blog post, encourage people to respond with questions or comments via
email. This is a better venue for people who work at banks and are prohibited
from participating in public discussions (either in live conference calls or in
blog comments).
· Surveys — send out brief surveys to your
audience and ask long answer questions (e.g., “What’s a really frustrating
problem related to ‘X’ that you’re dealing with?”). These responses will help
you understand your audience better and will help you identify ideas for blog
posts and e-books. For example, you could look for the thorny problems and
answer them in an e-book.
Brand Voice
Ann Handley made an
excellent point: “Good writing is a matter of getting inside the heads of
other people so that you can respect their needs and wants. Your brand
voice is not what you say, it’s how you say it.”
Your brand is not what
you sell, it’s who you are as an organization. [highlight to tweet] Your
brand voice should make clear:
· Who you are as an organization
· Why you do what you do
· What you’re like to deal with
Your voice should
reflect your company culture and tell your story in a way that communicates
with empathy.
Content marketing is
not just copywriting. [highlight to tweet] It’s a calculated risk — it’s
an opportunity to surprise and delight. Bring your copywriter in at the
beginning of any program strategy so they understand the story and can find
creative ways to tell it and make it a reflection of your brand.
I hope you’ve found
these takeaways useful. If you’d like to hear more of the insights we gained
from the event, give
us a call or shoot us an
email. We’d be delighted to discuss.