Content-as-marketing isn’t new. The promotional tools, though… Those are new. We’ve never had as cool a toolset as we have now. It’s easy to get drunk on the possibilities. Sober up:

Promote Lightly-Branded Content at Top of Funnel

Lightly and non-branded content is a top-of-funnel vehicle. Don’t promote it to a high-intent, bottom-of-funnel audience. You’ll see limited results.

I, uh, tested this while helping out a friend & colleague with a local political campaign.

In our current political environment, I will not share names, but it wasn’t a national candidate, so cool your jets.

She wrote a great piece about a broader political issue in her campaign. We promoted it to everyone except her fans, and it hit a home run. Likes, shares, comments, clicks. I was like Eli Gold.

Then, for some stupid reason, I promoted it to her existing fans. It was a complete dud. No likes. No shares. No comments.

Campaign 101 is to get your name in front of the voters as much as possible. But people closer to the top of the funnel need to see the lightly branded stuff.

It seems obvious in hindsight: The almost converted want answers to product/service questions. They’ll come back for the lightly-branded information later.

Don’t spend dollars pushing lightly-branded content to the bottom of the funnel.

Promote Heavily Branded Content at Bottom of Funnel

Do amplify heavily-branded content at the bottom of the funnel. You’re already directly promoting your product or service (or candidate). But do you promote heavily-branded content that’s not a product description?

Say you run PPC ads for your $900 gaming mouse. You say it’s a great value. You say it’s lighter. You should also promote the case study about a video games star who won a tournament using your product. And the piece about your product research team.

Heavily-branded content seals the deal with almost-customers. Promote it to them.

Create Layered Retargeting Pools

Content of all types is your best retargeting pool builder.

Use lightly-branded content to build one retargeting pool. Then promote moderately-branded content to that audience.

Use moderately-branded content to build another retargeting pool. Then promote heavily-branded content to that audience.

Use heavily-branded content to build your final retargeting pool. Run conversion-targeted, direct-response ads for that audience.

Great Promotion Won’t Sell Rubbish

It’s a tired-as-hell principle because everyone says it: Great marketing won’t sell a crappy product. I promise that the moment brands follow it, I’ll stop talking about it.

Promote the unique stuff. Teach me something. At some point, we all have to produce content that says “be authentic.” We don’t have to waste money promoting it.

Market the well-executed stuff. I’ve never done this (cough), but if you raced to publish something and know it lacks polish, think twice before you spend money on promotion.

Don’t waste money promoting garbage. Content is a product. Promotion helps if you create great stuff, not if you ooze informational mucus.

OK, All Done

I hope this isn’t a tired rehash of things people have read elsewhere. If it is, I apologize, particularly after that last principle. But I rarely see huge content promotion budgets. Spend carefully, and follow the principles.

The post Principles of Content Promotion appeared first on Portent.

This article is about how we help people navigate our marketing and websites. We start with breadcrumbs. Metaphorical ones. The first little morsels of interest are “breadcrumbs” because, as content, their reach is limited.

These are small, temporal bits of information you distribute for customers to find you online. Your ads, social media, blog posts, brochures, a team member making an elevator pitch or encouraging people to visit a booth at an event – breadcrumbs. They’re all moments in time meant to draw attention.

Moments are not enough.

Think of Hansel and Gretel. They wandered through the forest, having lost their path of breadcrumbs home, until they found a delicious gingerbread house. Unfortunately, there was a witch inside who wanted to cook them in her oven. Breadcrumbs did not serve them well on their journey.

Breadcrumbs disappear. They are not enough to get your customers from where they are to where you want them to go. But who doesn’t love a giant house made of candy and cake? It’s alluring, attractive. However, if you really want to lead people to your company’s equivalent of a  gingerbread house, you need to light the path back, forward, and from any side.

To compete online, you need to provide breadcrumbs AND signposts — those permanent content anchors that help people towards their goals. Then, make helping customers* achieve their goals the focus of your content marketing.

Everything you do, from content to design, UX to marketing, sales to actual product or service delivery should have one primary goal: Build trust with your audiences. Trust must be earned.

In short, if your marketing points people towards a gingerbread house, there actually needs to be an enormous quantity of gingerbread at the end of your path. But if your house is made of black licorice, don’t hide that information from people on the path. Avoid risking the disappointment of licorice haters, knowing that the devotees will be so thrilled to have finally found you!

Use smart content marketing strategy to demonstrate your credibility. Breadcrumbs and signposts are small examples of how content and architecture will help you guide people through a path towards a goal without hovering or interrupting the journey.

*Note: I say “customers” but I mean anyone you want to reach. Be you nonprofit, government, or education, small business or gigantic enterprise – think of customers as people who convert. That can mean making a sale, receiving a donation, or even learning a piece of information you want to share.

Moving on from the Witch: Where’d the trust go?

When it comes to brands and marketing, Hansel and Gretel is a cautionary tale for our time. Most consumers don’t feel empowered. They feel consumed. So many brand promises turn out to be for the company’s benefit with no real value for the consumer. “Give us your eyeballs, email address, time, money,” marketers cry, “and tell everyone how great we are!” Even the good guys do this. What are we giving people in return for their engagement?

Think about your own time online. How often do you check a social media channel to see what your favorite brand is doing? Or are you there to check on friends and family? Get resources and advice from colleagues and professional heroes?

Maybe you’ll accept a commercial as long as you’re entertained.

Entertained.
Not interrupted.
Not irritated.

If you want your marketing to work, you’ll need to entertain without making people feel like you’re blocking their progress. With all these branded breadcrumbs being thrown around, it’s hard to get anyone’s attention. You do need to create value through content and promote it on every channel your customer regularly visits. But in a world of irritated people, what are ads good for now?

They’re still relevant. They remind people you’re out there. You have a lovely gingerbread house down the path and it’s full of tasty, delightful things they want, maybe even need. Plus, it’s real. Use ads–and other breadcrumbs–as attractive signals in your master marketing plan: Point these signals to even more useful, engaging chains of content.

Show people that your marketing is here to provide for them, not consume them.

How It’s Done: 3 steps to creating the path

Start by knowing the architecture of your content, from the central point to the temporary promotions. To succeed, you need to be sure that the labels, paths, and links are all clear. The content on the pages should be helpful and directional, not just aesthetically pleasing.

Know what content you want to share? Awesome, let’s map a path to it. (Bonus: Eventually, you can create as many paths as you like, as long as you understand your own content map.)

Consider your customers’ needs, language, and channels, then…

• Choose your central point (house)
• Create relevant anchors (signposts)
• Plan your promotion (breadcrumbs) for the channels customers actually use

Your Central Point (Gingerbread House)
This web page or point of sale will fully describe the product/service available and provide a way to take action. It’s useful and functional. Best case scenario: it answers customer questions, helps them make a decision, and makes it easy for them to take the next step.

For most of us, this is the ultimate conversion point to which we are guiding people.

Content Anchors (Signposts)
Evergreen content on your website moves people forward to the central point. It answers questions, aids decision-making, and points towards desired action.

It can also point them to pieces of information they may need in order to make a decision. It must have a clear call to action, but its message is helpful, not sales-focused. We’re not at the “close the deal” stage. You can use blog posts, webinars, slides, one-sheets, or useful guides and tools as anchors – as long as they subtly lead to the central point.

Evergreen also means you will maintain these assets. They will remain accurate, up-to-date, and functional at all times.

Promotional Content (Breadcrumbs)
Now we can have fun! These are temporary points of contact that lead people towards the lights or the house. Make informative entertainment over interruptions – from banner ads to meta descriptions, social media posts to landing pages. It’s okay to be playful. This means help someone enjoy the work it takes to learn something new. Be that fun teacher, the one you still admire.

Action Plan: An example content path

This is sample campaign model in which I am selling gingerbread-house themed cupcakes. They feature an adorable little candy house on top of a delicious cake.

House: Order form. My website has a kickass order page and cart. The shopping system is intuitive. It is quick, easy, and provides the right information for someone to understand how to order and how/when it will be delivered. You can easily access ingredients and preparation information from the form.

Signposts: Web pages. I have a page dedicated to the gingerbread cupcake – the images are mouth-watering, the messaging is clear, the tone is fun-loving. If you want to order these for your holiday party, school function, or a dozen for your own darn self – our page outlines the options clearly and makes it easy to get to the next step. We also have multiple evergreen pages showcasing these and other cupcakes.

From our story in About Us to content about ingredients to our party planning guide, we appropriately point to the order form on each page. We make it very easy for people with allergies or food-sourcing and preparation concerns to see how we work. And if you don’t like gingerbread, it’s always easy to navigate to our other selections.

Breadcrumbs: Winter is the season for gingerbread houses. Our planning and content creation started in August for a November launch. After Halloween, we began teasing the cupcakes through appropriate ads, social media posts, contests, and free samples at our locations.

We gathered testimonials from last year’s customers and showed this year’s creations being made in our test kitchen (bring on the Vines!). We even taught people how to make their own versions on our blog and YouTube channel. We offered an email sign-up list for notifications. At launch, we held and documented a party where our first customers decorated their own cupcake tops.

And we subtly pointed to our signposts in these posts. After launch, we were able to send some ads and posts directly to the order form.

The central theme here is: If you are looking for gingerbread cupcakes, you can find us. If you’re excited about gingerbread cupcakes, we will help you make them or make them for you. We’ll be transparent, helpful, and quick from time spent viewing content to final product delivery.

Content Marketing: Findable, useful, and generous

Content Marketing just means drawing people to you with your content. To do that, you need to structure images, language, and code so that your work is findable. You will prove that you are useful by creating content based on what your audience wants and needs to get done. In drawing them to you, you make a promise with all of your content points that you want them to succeed.

Online, you can’t hold someone’s hand throughout their journey. Getting their attention and leading them to your conversion point is difficult. Mistrust. Competition. Information Overload. Other people are getting in the way of your ideal customer. Be better than that.

Provide clear paths to content by planning first, creating second, and drawing it together with a cohesive map. In all of your content, seek to be clear and helpful. When someone sees your ad, clicks your link, gets to your destination – make sure they will find exactly what they thought they would. Every time.

Be the gingerbread house, not the oven.

Map your path: From central point to promotional venues

Find your signposts and plan your next breadcrumbs with a content inventory and strategy: https://www.eigene-homepage-erstellen.net/data/content-inventory/

Need help? Contact us for a UX Content Audit or Story Package that helps you build evergreen and promotional content.

More Content Marketing Resources

Map your Content with the Content Analysis Tools for Inventories and Audits: https://www.content-insight.com/

Content Marketing and Strategy: GatherContent
Content Strategy: The Content Strategy Toolkit by Meghan Casey

The post Realistic Conversion: Guiding Paths in Content Marketing appeared first on Portent.

Let me start with a disclaimer. If you haven’t started blogging, get a plan together and start. Don’t write just for the sake of writing, but create a strategy around what you’ll write about and then actually do it. Publishing content on a regular basis benefits search engine visibility and audience building.

If you are already consistently publishing content but haven’t made any changes to your blog’s structure in the last few years, I’ve got a painful truth to share:

Your blog is boring.

It’s not the content I’m talking about – it’s the layout. It’s the way that I can’t find what I want before you push the latest five posts on me. It’s that it isn’t fun anymore.

The formula for setting up a blog is simple. How many times have you seen this layout?

The problem here is that the format doesn’t encourage interaction. The setup is almost exclusively one way – you telling the customer – and it doesn’t help users find the answers to their questions.

Now this isn’t to say that anything is fundamentally wrong with blogging this way. Heck, as of this moment this is the baseline format that we use at Portent. Creating fresh and relevant content helps customers find you.

But lots of times, those same visitors come to your site looking for answers to questions. And that’s where your business has the opportunity to shine.

Once you’ve published a certain volume of content and established a diverse set of audiences, it’s an ideal time to change the organization of your blog to focus on the answers your visitors seek. If you’ve established a blog structure that looks like the one above, let’s take it to the next level.

Why is a hub better than a blog?

Content hubs focus on the customers’ needs and interests. That’s what it’s all about: making the content and answers your customers need easy to find, visually appealing, and entertaining.

Here’s a potential content hub. I say potential because hubs should be very customer centric and change depending on your audience.

Simply put, this is more fun. It’s interactive and gives you the flexibility to present lots of different types of content to your users. It’s modular, letting you plug various components into the layout for a cleaner aesthetic and better usability, giving the users more relevant choices instead of asking them to scroll.

With the intense amount of content being produced every day, anything that isn’t relevant is just noise to be quickly ignored or forgotten. We all see this. The millions of blog posts and videos uploaded daily are overwhelming.

Don’t contribute to information overload. Instead, help your users navigate your content. Whatever you put in front of your visitors needs to have immediate, obvious value or else it gets ignored.

There’s a reason Google doesn’t simply include the very latest news articles or blog posts on their home page. Users coming to their site have a question. Google doesn’t presume to know that answer before you ask it. (At least not until you type the first word, and it starts contextually guessing questions for you).

Some content hub examples

To give you a better model, these companies are doing it right. In fact, this article took me longer to write because I kept getting distracted diving deeper into these hubs.

Home Depot

Any DIY fan can use this resource. Whatever your project is, you can quick search for topics and tips from the pros to make your renovation shine. What I love about this content hub is the giant search box guaranteeing you will get an answer. It doesn’t assume the visitor’s interests.

And from a research standpoint, think about all the data you can capture in this search box. You will get useful insights into what people look for when they come to your site that you can turn into an endless stream of content topics and ideas.

Porch

The Porch layout is really, really ridiculously good looking. Like Derek Zoolander good looking.

It also has just about everything that someone would want in a content hub, and then some. My favorite part about this content hub is how modular it is. There are blocks of content that each serve a different purpose and can be swapped in and out based on context, user queries, CRM data, etc. Testing content blocks to the extreme is possible with this layout.

REI

With images that actually make you stop and appreciate the scrolling header, the REI content hub does not disappoint. It includes a few suggested blog topics on the left-hand side, but what I enjoy most is the clean design. It keeps the user focused on the emotional, visual story in the pictures, but also on the search bar at the top where you can get your questions answered.

GE Reports

I never thought I could be so interested in a B2B content page, but I find myself clicking-through page after page on the General Electric hub. One item that I find unique, but fun, is their use of GIFs as featured images. The page feels alive with the moving pictures and makes me stop to read more.

How to start building a content hub

Reworking your blog into a content hub takes some initial research and planning.

• Step 1: Take an inventory of your current blog posts.
• Step 2: Find our what your audience is searching for through search logs.
• Step 3: Determine what content pieces your audience is reading from analytics.
• Step 4: Talk to your customers to gain more insight into their questions.
• Step 5: Identify strengths and gaps within your current knowledge base.
• Step 6: Create a content strategy.

When done right, a content strategy surfaces content that is the most relevant, most useful, and most engaging to your customers. That’s what I love about it: getting the right content in front of the right audience in an engaging and fun way.

A content hub isn’t replacing your blog with a glorified search bar. It is about creating the best possible user-experience, specific to your audience. Remember, always begin with a content strategy, and the humility to ask your users what content is most valuable at that moment. Eventually, you’ll place the most relevant content at the front, and build a repository that will grow and support your users.

If you’d like to learn how Portent is playing with the concept of creating better user experiences, check out this post about our new contextual site search.

The post Your blog is boring. Upgrade to a hub appeared first on Portent.

Transcript:

Sara:  Hi and welcome everyone to our next…or to this installment of the Portent Webinar Series.  My name is Sara.  I’ll be your moderator for today’s webinar, which is 7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming Genius with Katie Fetting, our Brand Manager at Portent.  We would love it if you would all join in.  There are a couple of ways you can do that.  You can ask your questions with gotowebinar’s questions window or you can tweet your questions using the hashtag portentu.  Um, that’s #portentu and just so you know in case you miss out on any of today’s webinar or want to review it later, don’t worry, um, you’ll receive a follow up email, which will contain a link to this recorded webinar, a slideshow linked to the presentation slides, and a Bit.ly link bundle that contains links to the resources that Katie’s referencing here.  So without further ado, please join me in welcoming Katie.

Katie: Hello and thank you for attending my webinar.  So obviously genius is a bit of a stretch, but uh, I’m going to try to live up to it.  Anyway, here are the links for the Bit.ly.  What we’d like to do obviously at the conclusion of this is after a few questions and answers I’d like to get an interactive brainstorm going so tweet in product topics, ideas you want ruminated on, suggestions for other people’s topics or ideas they want ruminated on.  This is an experiment but it may prove really fun and enlightening (she says hopefully).  But first things first, just who is this Katie Fetting anyway?  Well first of all it’s me but to give you a little background (with dubious fashion sense obviously), but my brainstorming began early when I was called upon to explain a variety of weird occurrences in my home, for example why there was a puffy Cheetos stuck in my brother’s nose or who was playing in the car, left it in neutral, and walked off?  True story, they found it in a ditch.  Anyway, back then the result of my brainstorming was referred to as lying but now I like to call it creativity and they pay me for it.

I was a journalist from my sophomore year of high school until I was about 23.  I worked for a syndicate of small newspapers in Chicago after college, which is most noteworthy because we had very few resources, meaning I had to be very resourceful, which included a lot of brainstorming.  Actually once one of our photographers forgot to take pictures at a local play and I was forced to quickly brainstorm to cover a page of blank space.  I wound up spearing my hand with ink to make a bloody handprint.  In my defense it was for a play called Crime of the Century, which looked really cool when scanned but now I can’t commit any crimes in Illinois.

Then I became a screenwriter and I wrote two amazingly derivative, sub-par movies.  On the other hand, Hollywood loves amazingly derivative, sub-par movies so you would’ve thought I’d be more successful.  I did however write some unique scripts, which I brainstormed on non-stop.  I’m hoping to see them produced and released in honor of my 90^th birthday.

And now, I’m the Brand Manager at Portent and a content dynamo.  Obviously one of those is an official title and the other one is slightly made-up.  I invite you to guess which.  But more than any of these things I am someone who has never given a webinar so if I stumble, if I fall, if I don’t take up the appropriate amount of time, please forgive me dear listeners.  Are you instilled with confidence?  Well then let us continue.

(My friend Josh made this odd bouncing man after two shots of bourbon and I’ve decided to leave it in.)

Notes on this webinar: first of all brainstorming is for everyone, not just content people and not just marketers.  Brainstorming is basically just problem solving.  If you think about it, MacGyver was an amazing brainstormer, constantly coming up with new and exciting ways to build bombs out of paperclips and gum and who knows what else.  I like to think of myself as MacGyver-esque though.  A few weeks ago at my mom’s house we were roasting some marshmallows and we didn’t actually have any spits so I basically sat there in our house imagining all the different things that could be spits and I finally came up with a hanger that I could straighten out, a wire hanger that I could straighten out and roast my marshmallow on, which worked pretty well.  So what does Joan Crawford know anyway?  But while MacGyver was a one-man brainstorm, I think brainstorming in groups usually presents better results.  A variety of viewpoints and ideas generally lead to the best outcome.

While brainstorming is for everyone, like I said, this presentation will focus on brainstorming for marketers, campaigns, blog posts, branding videos, speaking topics, well mostly because I’m a marketer and I’m guessing you are too.  But why this webinar?  Why are you really here?  Okay, so this is a slight exaggeration but I come from Hollywood remember, and so for every Inception there are a zillion Pirates of the Caribbean 17’s and Iron Man 43’s and every other type of man you can imagine.

For example Batman as an idea, as a character, is just Batman.  No matter how many times they remake it, he has the same alter-ego, he has the same tragic back story, the same skills; he’s basically the same core product.  Even the villains are often recycled so what’s the difference between Tim Burton’s films and Christopher Nolan’s?  The positioning of Batman.  Burton’s Batman is fairly upbeat and certainly less tortured, more in line with that ’60s television show and his alter-ego, Bruce Wayne, is downright nerdy.  This fits with Burton’s bright color pallet and gaudy gangsters, but Nolan’s Batman is damaged, dark, sorrowful.  His Bruce Wayne is a suave womanizer who seems to always know what to say, so his film is darker in tone and color and seems more rooted in reality – but it’s basically this same core product with a different interpretation and positioning.  So there are new ways to communicate a message even if the subject or product or service itself is familiar or even stale.  The art is in the telling, not in the subject of being told, what’s being told rather.

So to differentiate your product or service from your competitors you need to carve out a unique position in the market.  And how do you do that?  You need a brand.  And remember branding initially came from ranchers who had to separate their steer, basically their products, from others.  So what is Christopher Nolan’s unique positioning?  I think he thinks this is a complex, gritty take on Batman, you know, that both appeals to fans and film snobs.  And as people commented on at the time, he was trying to make something like The Godfather of superhero movies.  So your messaging needs to support this positioning.  The messaging that supports gritty Batman, he’s a character that’s tragically damaged and dwells in a world not unlike our own.  The horrors of his world are merely heightened versions of our own.  Content is then generated around that messaging and in this case the content is the film itself, the script, the art direction, the lighting, the cinematography, editing, music, you name it, and it’s basically the unified delivery of this new positioned Batman product.

But it all begins with brainstorming, trying to see something similar in a new light.  It should be noted in the case of the Batman narrative that Nolan didn’t actually do the positioning himself.  He basically based it, you know, largely off “The Dark Knight” Batman comic books, so he obviously had a lot of help.  So brainstorming is basically just one method of generating a fresh position or a message.

But so what?  Why would you want a fresh position or a message?  Remember when I said brainstorming was basically problem solving?  Well for marketers that problem is usually how do I separate myself from the pack?  How do I convince consumers that my widget is the best widget if all the widgets basically seem equal?  Well a fresh position or message is often the only way to differentiate yourself from your competition, which then, of course leads to greater visibility, likability, and consequently what we all care about, sales.

The characteristics of a good brainstormer: they’re open-minded, they’re willing to hear other people’s opinions and evolve their own, they’re creative, they can see things from fresh perspectives, they can develop connections other people can’t see, they’re educated and I don’t mean necessarily educated in the academic sense but they have a wide and broad background of experience to draw on, theirs or other people’s.  Um, they’re collaborative, they aren’t overly obsessed with putting their stamp on everything; this is the enemy of good brainstorming.  More on that to come.  Incidentally one of the reasons there are so many disjointed movies in Hollywood is everyone’s desire to put their stamp on it.

Secure, this goes along with open-minded and collaborative but they basically don’t see every amendment to their initial concept as an attack on their intelligence or talent.  And curious; curiosity may have killed the cat but it keeps us constantly evolving and striving for something new and better.  And the impression of new and better are two core necessities for brand positioning.

So what makes a bad brainstorm session?  Well avoid the following and hopefully you won’t have any: not verbalizing everything.  Yes, some of it may seem stupid or wacked out or downright unhelpful but it all is in the end.  You don’t know what will jog an idea loose from someone else and if you don’t try something you don’t get the failure out of the way.  Like our boy Tom Edison said, “I’ve not failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Two, dwelling in preconceived notions; you have to be open-minded.  Coming into a brainstorm with fixed opinions on what will or won’t work, that defeats the purpose entirely, which happens a lot in Hollywood.  People come in with a fixed idea of what they want, um, so much so, that they’re unable to consider other possibilities.  For example sometimes it’s just as easy to make your main character a woman and you might want to do this if say you have an actress interested in the part and you can’t get an actor.  But if you’re so entrenched in how you see the movie, like how you view the script, that, um, you can’t sort of be open to that opportunity, you basically don’t get your movie made.

Pulling rank; brainstorming has to be a democracy.  If only the top exec in the room can voice their opinion then no one else should be there.  We need to let everyone’s ideas breathe and then evaluate and categorize them later.  No one likes someone who hogs the conversation and talks over others, which is ironic right now given that I am having a one-way conversation.  On to the next one.

Don’t get caught up in the details.  Follow what people mean, not necessarily what people say.  Now isn’t the time to filter.  That comes later when you’re in a more analytical mindset.  So if someone gives a specific example like maybe saying a horse when you think it should be a dog, you know, just go with the spirit of what they’re saying, not necessarily the specific.

Number six, making someone feel dumb.  Don’t be intimidating.  Don’t inhibit your exchange of ideas by being overly critical or condescending.  Nobody likes to think that their idea was a bad one.

Blocking, this is somewhat like being down in the weeds and making someone feel dumb.  Blocking is when the other person just refuses to engage and puts up unnecessary roadblocks to the detriment of what you’re trying to accomplish.  Um, the term comes from comedy improv.  You know when you’re working with a partner, and ‘with’ is the key term, you need to feed off of each other.  There’s a concept called “yes and.”  When you’re finally with a partner and somebody starts with “remember last year when you were arrested” and your partner says something like “actually, I don’t remember that at all.  I don’t think you were arrested.”  That’s a block.  What your partner should’ve said is “yes I remember that, and…” they add something else that then you can feed off of.  So you don’t want to block people when they’re brainstorming.  You want to basically evolve their idea much like a comedy improv.

And seven point five, showing up too drunk or too sober and I don’t mean this literally.  Basically this is just about moderation.  Participate but don’t dominate.  Allow yourself to be flexible but don’t let it go too far off track and be ridiculous.

So I figure we should take a break now and so, I was going to tell a story, um, but as I was thinking up a story to tell here, I basically got blocked.  Every story I was brainstorming didn’t seem to really fit my topic.  I mean I could tell you about the time I forgot what Ketchup was or why my roommates in college put a roll of toilet paper outside their closet with the sign, “This is not a bathroom,” or the time I was pitching a movie to some executives and I could tell on page 2 of a 20-page pitch that they were bored and I had to keep going anyway, or the time I told Charlize Theron I didn’t write a script for her but if Nicole Kidman passed she’d be great, or the time I was hit by a car while sitting in a Chinese restaurant.  I could tell any of these stories but none seemed to fit… so that’s my story.  The point is sometimes self-referential works.  There’s almost always something you can write about even if it’s just writer’s block.

And now we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming.  Without further ado, the 7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming Genius and basically coming up with unique ways to approach content and deliver value to our clients.  Be self-critical.  Anticipate the criticisms of your brand and head them off.  You can use FAQs.  You can use complaints.  You can ask yourself “what is it people don’t like about your product or think they don’t like about it?  Is there a way to turn that into a positive?”  We have a client who is only accessible to Seattleites by ferry.  Many people find this annoying, they want to drive, it seems like a hassle, so we’ve crafted content around how fun ferries are, you know best board games to play on ferries, X reasons ferries are romantic, et cetera.  So answer questions and issues before they’re asked.

Two, think about your mom.  This is not my mom, by the way, Mom, if you’re listening.  Basically it can be your mom, your plumber, the weird guy standing in front of you at the Shell station.  What would appeal to these people?  My boss Ian Lurie says when he’s brainstorming he thinks about the last person he saw walking into work that day.  Well, Portent is located in Pioneer Square so that person could be just about anyone.  It might be a lawyer or a homeless fellow or a bail bondsmen or a sandwich engineer at Subway or, of course, some combination therein.  Generally I start with my target market and a goal relating to it and work backwards.  So say my target is working moms and my goal is social shares.  Um, what’s a hot button topic right now for a working mom?  Which channel should we push it through and on?  Is she more likely to be on Facebook or Pinterest, Twitter?  What do working moms look at?  Where can we find them?  I try to enter her mind.  If I were a working mom what would make me interested in X?  Craft your message around this.  Yes, it sounds basic but sometimes we forget to do it.  You become so buried in the message of your brand you forget what it’s like for the consumer.

Two point five, ask a little kid.  Little kids are great.  I mean just look at the AT&T campaign that they’re running right now.  I want a puppy brother.  I want to go to show and tell.  Kids ways of looking at things are so different you can’t help but be inspired by this out-of-the-box thinking.  I mentioned in my blog post how my seven-year old cousin said she wished she had a magnet in her back so she could sleep on the ceiling; amazing.  Kids love to be asked things and unlike adults will give you a straight answer.  For example me: do you like my haircut?  Kid: no.

Three, think about Tom Cruise.  Now use metaphors.  A great metaphor can make even the most tired topic seem fresh and can translate really heady topics into things that a consumer can understand.  So we had this client who wasn’t grasping a concept that our director of accounts was trying to explain.  She asked me how I would explain it to a lay person and the concept was this 70/20/10 theory on content strategy that gives basically an ideal ratio for creating different types of branded content.  The basic standard stuff that appeals to your existing consumer or customer, that would be like the 70 percent content, you know really safe.  It appeals to a lot of people. 20 percent should take that standard stuff but push the limit a bit, you know still be relevant to your audience but also reach out to others, have a solid point of view or challenge conventional wisdom.  Then 10 percent should be kind of revolutionary, explosive, and hopefully have the potential to go viral.  Something that’s outside of your comfort zone on occasions or maybe it just appeals to a different demographic altogether.  This is where your content and company grows.

So I looked for a metaphor that could possible explain this 70/20/10 idea, something that the average person could connect with and I came up with Tom Cruise because let’s face it: most of us have seen most of his movies and if we haven’t seen them, we still know what they’re about.  And he is a risk-taker on occasion but generally he sticks to his core competency, his core competency being sort of the cocky, lovable guy that by the end of the movie saves the day.  You know we’re talking Mission Impossible or, um, Top Gun, uh, I’m trying to think of another one…well Jack Reacher just came out.  He basically has like a very standard Tom Cruise style so that would be a 70 percent; his fans like him in that persona.  Reaching out to different fans but not getting too far outside the box he does things like, say, The Last Samurai or like Far and Away.  Far and Away particularly, he’s basically playing the same cocky, lovable dude, except that he is in a period film with an Irish accent.  So that’s taking his 70, still remaining true to the core of it but giving it a little spin.  But then sometimes he goes nuts and he does his 10 percent content and he does things like Les Grossman or Born on the Fourth of July or, um…what did he just do…Rock of Ages, and basically these are things that can fail epically like Eyes Wide Shut or they wind up getting you Oscar nominations like Born on the Fourth of July or Magnolia.  So basically I thought the average person could really latch onto that concept and understand how their brand’s content should be like his, that the 10 percent is going to be like a go big or go home and the rest of it is very regimented.

Anyway we turned it into an infographic for two reasons.  One, we couldn’t get the rights to the photos themselves, but two, we knew more people shared infographics and so what happened?  I pushed it out into the world and boom, Tom Cruise retweeted.  Sorry, this still just blows me away.  I had a Top Gun poster on my wall when I was eight and he retweeted this, if you notice, on Valentine’s Day, so it was pretty much just, you know, totally romantic for me and yes, I had lots of nice dreams afterwards.

Anyway, back to number four, research.  So whenever I’m jammed up for ideas I start surfing.  Ideas build on each other so staring at a blank Word document really doesn’t help anybody.  So browse new sites, bounce around Wikipedia, read your clients’ sites.  You never know where the inspiration is going to come from.  When I was a kid I had an Encarta CD rom, which just shows you how old I am.  Sarah looks like she has no idea what that is by the way.  I would get lost for hours clicking around.  It’s amazing how much you don’t know you don’t know until you look.  I mean how else would I know that Hitler wasn’t from Germany and Catherine the Great wasn’t from Russia?

Number five, you can use a tool.  There are plenty of tools out there to help writers get past the block, um, and in fact two of my coworkers, Isla McKetta and Rebecca Bridge, wrote a book of writing prompts for blocked novelists and poets that suggests things that I find amazing like eavesdropping on strangers for inspiration or using a piece of clothing to describe a character’s backstory.  And there’s no reason that marketing content folks can’t do the same.  At Portent we’ve created a Content Idea Generator that allows you to enter a keyword and creates a crazy title such as Why Webinars Should Be One of the Seven Deadly Sins.  A lot of them wind up being silly, um, like that one, but they can be great jumping off points and it’s pretty fun to boot.

Six, change your world.  Is this not the greatest stock art of all time?  There’s change, there’s a world; amazing.  Anyway there was an ad agency that used to covertly switch everyone’s desks every week or so to keep them from becoming too entrenched in one spot and mindset.  Other agencies have people sitting in canoes or conference room tables painted like basketball courts.  Why do they do this?  Well, because your environment does affect your creativity.  It affects the way you see the world.  To see things differently you need to change your perspective.  You need to go outside, breathe fresh air, go to a museum.  Live in all of your senses.  You’ll find your approach to your brand will be different; you’ll see it with fresh eyes.

When I was writing a scene for one of my scripts, um, yet another unproduced one, and I largely write thrillers by the way, I would try to match the space I wrote in to the scene I was writing.  For example I once had a fight sequence in a kitchen so I sat in my kitchen imagining all the ways I could do damage with various utensils.  I mean sure knives and frying pans are obvious but what would happen if you slammed some guy’s head with a wooden cutting board?  Anyway, my big finish included a can of Raid and a gas oven.  I’m not going to go into details.

Number seven, borrow.  Don’t steal people.  It’s really lame and usually illegal.  You need to make something your own.  I mean you wouldn’t steal the sugar from your neighbor.  You’d borrow it and make something better, maybe a cake or some cookies.  My movie Homecoming was supposed to be an homage to Fatal Attraction and Misery but it wound up coming off as more of a blatant rip-off because a lot of its unique features were cut in the editing.  At least that’s my story as the writer.  No one likes that.  Make sure to stamp and keep your personal spin on whatever it is that inspired you.  Picasso may have been an okay painter but I have to say he was wrong when he said, “Good artists copy.  Great artists steal.”  I think great artists transcend.  They make something new out of something that’s been old.

And two more, mostly two more because I’ve thought of them after my blog post went live.  Eight, choose a facilitator.  For example this guy, he looks way inspirational, but no, this is not a leader.  A leader would defeat the purpose of a democratic exchange of ideas.  But a person who can solicit opinions and draw people out, he can write on the board and keep things moving along, that’s a really great person to have in the room.

Nine, come in with ideas.  Sometimes it’s really hard to get the storm started.  If everyone comes in with a few ideas jotted down, it’ll be much easier to get the ball rolling.  Even the worst idea can spark some discourse that may turn into a great idea later.  In screenwriting it’s what they call the bad pitch or the bad version.  They’ll say like ‘so this is the bad pitch but there should be like this mean girl in the Civil War who just wants to get home but then a lot of stuff happens that prevents it’ and that bad pitch could be Gone With the Wind.  So basically come in with ideas that other people can feed off of and contribute to.

So there you have it, 7.5 ways or 9.5 ways or 9.5 ways plus 7.5 sins so 17 of whatever.  Um, thanks for coming.  I would love to start the brainstorm or answer some questions so Sara, do we have something exciting?

Sara: Let me look and see.  I don’t know that we’ve had a brainstorming request come through so we’ll ask –

Katie: Blerg people, blerg.

Sara: Yeah, we’ll start with some questions and then, um, if you’ve got a topic that you’d like to brainstorm about as a group here, um, or something that you’d like to throw out for Katie to give a go at then hit us on Twitter at #portentu or in the webcast, um, chat screen.  So, uh, we got a question from, um, Mike.  What is the best remedy for writer’s block?

Katie: Like I said I think a lot of it has to do with changing your environment.  Um, also I find when I want to start something I write the best and I write the fastest when I get sort of annoyed about something so I would suggest reading The Huffington Post, just something…look…I don’t think you should base your content on your competitors but you know look at their websites; see what they’re talking about.  I would also say look at trending topics on Google, see what your audience members are talking about on social media, um, and I think in that way you can probably generate a few good content ideas.  Um, you can also just engage somebody else.  Just say you’re kind of blocked and ask them for their opinion.  People love to give opinions.

Sara: And Aviva asked, “Are there any classic exercises like word association that you don’t think are effective for brainstorming?”

Katie: Um, I think most things are probably effective.  I think that’s kind of the point of brainstorming is you’re not going to put sort of a finite stop on anything.  Um, I think that there is a point where maybe you get too far off the path and you end up, um…there needs to be that person who draws you back in.  I mean it’s great to be creative but like anything else in life there’s kind of a limit.  You don’t want to go totally crazy on it.  Um, but yeah, I think word association could help.  I think you know pretty much anything that gets the creative juices flowing helps.

Sara: Great and then, um, Elizabeth asked, “For those of us who are resistant to the word ‘brainstorming’ is there something else you can call it?  Is there a way to sneak brainstorming in without raising those brainstorming red flags?”

Katie: Hmm, well I mean you could call it idea generation or collaborative thought or…let’s see, what else?

Sara: I like that you’re brainstorming right now.

Katie: Yeah, I am.  I’d say like uncovering the collective conscious or actually somebody in one of my blog post comments shared the word mind showers so if you don’t like brainstorming you could have a mind shower, which sounds a little dirty but I think it could work.

Sara: Uh, Kimberly on Twitter asked, “Are there any special tricks to long-distance brainstorming?”

Katie: Long-distance brainstorming…um, you know I think I find everything in the room is ultimately better, but yeah, you could use a WebX.  I think my problem with calls is generally people become inhibited just because they think they’re going to step on somebody else during the call so they end up not saying as many things as they would say and then by the time they speak often they’ve forgotten what they were going to say in the first place so I would say if you’re on a long-distance brainstorm and you’re on a call, make sure that you have a pad and paper so that you can write these things down while other people are talking, um, and each person can sort of draw out their own storm map, um, while they’re listening.

Sara: And then, um, Alexander on Twitter asked, “What do you think is an ideal group number of people for brainstorming?  How many people makes it too crowded and unproductive?”

Katie: Um, well sort of the real answer is probably that there isn’t a solid number but I understand the question because it’s kind of like establishing an age you can drive.  There are certainly people who are 14 who drive better than people who are 40 so I think it really depends on the person, um, and the people involved and sort of how they get along, but I would say just in terms of logistics I find the best brainstorms are about 4 to 5 people.  I think also people who are a little more shy aren’t likely to participate in a brainstorm with too many people.

Sara: So that dovetails into my question, which is what do you recommend for getting more introverted, more shy people, not that introverts are necessarily shy, but still just saying involved in brainstorming?

Katie: Um, I would you know welcome them to write things down.  Um, I spoke to someone who’s introverted and she says that actually pointing at them and saying ‘talk’ doesn’t work so, um, I think you can sort of look at their social cues and see who seems to want to jump in.  Um, just give them room to talk but don’t put them on the spot or intimidate them, um, because that’ll just backfire.

Sara: Cool and then, um, let’s hear a story.  What…Elizabeth asked, “What idea or creative campaign are you most proud of that came from a brainstorming session?”

Katie: We just had one recently, um, for one of our clients where one of our clients was telling us a story about something personal that was going on in his life and it sort of sparked something that made us think this guy would be sort of an ideal brand voice in addition to the actual brand.  Um, and then we got very excited about it because the best thing about a brainstorm of course is when your adrenaline kicks in and you start really just feeding off each other and we started coming up with all sorts of topics, what he could talk about, and there’s just a certain charisma to this guy that you know just gives you the idea that this is going to be really successful.  Um, we also had a client who I think it’s okay to say this, they sold various arousal oils so we were trying to brainstorm a way to make something that would go viral and it was during the political election, the last presidential election and so we brainstormed a lot of ways that we could potentially tie in the presidential election with this in terms of getting your base excited.  And so that was a very interesting mix of things but you know ideas out of left field can be amazing.

Sara: And then Josh asked, “What’s the best way out of an impasse like if you just can’t get started, if you’re just completely stalled?  What are some other tips for getting out of an absolute wall?”

Katie: Well that might be a borrowing case.  You know think about what inspires you and sort of saturate yourself in whatever that is.  Um, yeah, I mean that works.  I think some of the other tips would also work.  You know it’s very difficult when you really feel a block and a lot of the time it’s just you almost need to put it away for a little bit as well because you can approach it later and sometimes it just clicks into place.  When I was writing I used to do this thing that I called sleep thinking where I would just sort of try to go sleep while thinking about whatever my problem was I was having in the script.  Um, of course everyone told me I was just being lazy and going to sleep when I should be working but I think it was really helpful, um, because sometimes I would wake up and you also don’t know when the idea’s going to happen.  I had a problem in one of my scripts, um, where I was just…it was driving me insane for hours, it was you know basically while I was thinking about it I could not get anywhere.  When I stopped thinking about it and was just watching TV with my parents, suddenly the answer just came to me and it really was literally the light…well not literally, but it felt like the light bulb.  Um, so I think yeah, sometimes just putting it away for a while, especially if you’re doing it by yourself, is probably the best way to approach it and then come back to it with fresh eyes.

Sara: Super and then Mike asked, “How can you be creative in brainstorming with more traditional or conservative clients?”

Katie: Yeah, that’s difficult but then you, you know…there’s sort of a number of realities I think.  There’s what might sell their brand but then what they think sells their brand and then what they’re comfortable with and so there are a lot of things that sometimes aren’t necessarily the same thing, um, and I think that you need to sort of find out what makes that person, what entertains them, or makes them interested and then sort of build your concepts around that so that it’s easier later to sort of get them to, uh, to get on board with what you want to do.

Sara: Um, and we’ve only got one or two more questions here so if you’ve got a question go ahead and send it on the webinar chat or you can tweet it to us at #portentu.  Um, Marianne asked, “Is there such a thing as guided brainstorming?  Is there anything that you can do as a group leader to help kind of get people started when everyone’s just sitting in a room staring at each other?”

Katie: Um, I know some people do various, you know exercises.  I think sometimes getting people talking is just as easy as you know what did you do this weekend and just get them sort of engaging with each other.  Um, so don’t bring in sort of the topic until you feel everyone is comfortable and willing to talk so I would say something like that.  Um, otherwise people coming in with a few different ideas, I think whoever the facilitator is should probably come in with some questions that they can ask people, um, their opinions on things.  You can always if it’s a product, you know what are the words that come to mind with this product.  That reminds me of Mad Men actually.  I think they did that on an episode not that long ago where you know what is the essence of this.  I think it was margarine and they’re basically just sitting around free associating about margarine so I think there’s definitely that aspect as well.

Sara: Well I think that’s it for questions unless any pop up.

Katie: Cool.

Sara: Is there anything you’d like add in closing Katie?

Katie: No, thanks for listening to me talk.

Sara: Um, so that was fantastic and now don’t forget all of you out there that the resources that Katie referenced will be available via the Bit.ly link bundle, um, which I don’t know if it’s on the slide –

Katie: Let’s see…there we go.

Sara: Yes, there it is.  So hit that Bit.ly link bundle and, um, that is case sensitive so make sure you type it in the right case.  Um –

Katie: And it’s co, not com, which they point out there.

Sara: Be careful, portent.co.

Katie: Right, we couldn’t get the M.

Sara: If you have any more questions for Katie you can tweet them directly to her at @katielfetting.com…sorry, .com. @katielfetting and make sure that you add the hash tag #portentu.  Just a reminder, today’s webinar and the presentation slides and all the links will be coming your way in a follow up email.  Join us next month for our August webinar, which will be hosted by our, um, very own CEO, Ian Lurie.  Uh, he’ll be here at Portent on August 29^th and his presentation will be about Distance from Perfect: A Quality Drive Approach to SEO and Internet Marketing.  Details about that webinar can be found on our webinar tab on our Facebook page and that’s at Facebook.com/portent.marketing.  Thank you for joining us today and have a great day.

Katie: Goodbye.

[End of Audio]

The post 7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming Genius [VIDEO WEBINAR] appeared first on Portent.

Transcription:

Katie: What’s on your mind today?

Isla: Editing.

Katie: Okay.  What kind of editing?  SEO editing or –

Isla: No, just editing in general, because I think we spend a lot of time talking about content –

Katie: Mm-hmm.

Isla: – and making good content, but what we don’t spend enough time talking about is how good content is made.  And I don’t mean writing it; I mean editing it, because editing is just as important as writing, and a lot of people just don’t spend enough time on it or leave time for it at the end like they should.

Katie: Do you have any tips for what would sort of – what i, what is a checklist of what you should look, look for when editing something?

Isla: Well, one, I think you need to get some distance from the piece when you’re editing.  Um, so [laughter] you take –

Katie: Yes.

Isla: – some – if you can, like if you’re working, say, in an agency, and you write a bunch of different stuff, let it sit for a day before you come back and rewrite it.  Also, if you have an editing buddy, that’s really fantastic, because they’ll have a perspective on the work, and they’ll get to know your writing and your tics, and they will call you on it.  If they don’t call you on your tics, they’re not a good editing buddy.

Um, so things that I like to look for are – obviously, you wanna do a copyedit.  Concision is important.  You know, if you find the piece that’s repeating itself over and over again – readers don’t have a lot of time.  We know that.  We know they’re gonna scan the content anyway, so you may as well make it short for them to read if you can, but make sure it still has all the information in there they need.

Um, what else?  I have notes.  Should I look at my notes?

Katie: Sure.

Isla: Um, oh, tension.  One of the things that – this is – so I’m a fiction writer, and one of the things that’s really important in fiction, even in literary fiction, which I write, is tension as the thing’s writing.  And so one of the things – when you’re reading your piece or when you’re reading somebody else’s piece, you start to notice when you get bored, because that’s where anybody else’s is gonna get bored, and it’s really important at that moment to just make a note, figure out what’s going wrong with it.  And on the Internet, a blog post may be about 400 to 800 words.  There should be no room to get bored, and there so often is, so think about that.

Think about your audience when you’re writing and when you’re editing, because you may think that what you’re writing is genius but the person that you’re – who’s your intended audience – may not even know what you’re talking about.  So that’s something really important, and that’s where getting that day-of perspective can be very helpful, too, when you come back to edit.  One thing I like to do when I really have time and when I’m really concerned about the wording of something is to read it aloud, because you will find things in there that will surprise you and it’s great.

The other things are the blank sheet of paper test, and you can always – what that means is that – Ian talks about this – but your title, your headings, your paragraphs should all be able to pass the blank sheet of paper test.  They should be able to fully explain themselves, what they are, without too much, um, external stuff.  So one of the things that can help with that is a reverse outline.  So if you’re going through a piece and you’re like, “I don’t really know where this went wrong,” go down and write in one or two words what every paragraph is about, and if there are sentences in there not about that, they go away.  That helps with concision.

Style guides can be really helpful.  Grammar – like, everybody’s got their own grammar and I don’t really care what you decide you like about the Oxford comma or not the Oxford comma, but I love it when people are consistent.  [Laughter]  And the other thing is just get to know yourself as a writer and call yourself on your stuff,  because if you don’t have that editing buddy – you know, like, for example, I know that I use the word “amazing” a lot, and there are so many other adjectives [laughter] –

Katie: Cool.

Isla:  – that makes writing more interesting.  Is that…

Katie: Yeah, that’s good.  Say goodbye, Isla.

Isla: Goodbye, Isla.

The post Portent Pop Quiz: Isla McKetta on Why Editing is Just as Important As Writing appeared first on Portent.

It ended up being a top-to-bottom guide on how we do content strategies at Portent. We put it into a custom format so it’s easier to read:

Read it: [How to: Create a Content Strategy in Only 652 Steps ]

I look forward to your adulation/catcalls…

The post The Humungous Guide to Content Strategy appeared first on Portent.

Content strategists of the world unite!

Have you heard? Content marketing is the future. I hear you saying to yourself, “But you’re an inbound marketer, Rebecca, isn’t that statement just a tad self-serving?” It’s not just me. Look at the spike in interest over the past two years:

This is a conversation that’s being had over and over again, both in and out of the inbound marketing industry. If we’re right about content as the future of the Internet (hint: we are), then marketers need to make some promises to ourselves and the larger world. And then we need to keep them, so listen up. This is our manifesto.

We will respect the Internet as a place

You know how you’d never, ever go over to your grandmother’s house and put your dirty boots on her coffee table? You know, because you respect her? Well how about we all stop putting our dirty boots all over the internet!

From now on, we promise, collectively, to only produce content that adds to a larger conversation. We understand that people come to the Internet for two reasons: to be entertained and to be informed. We will endeavor to always create content for our clients which achieves those means. We will NOT:

• Write the same old, tired list post that’s been written fifty-billionity times before
• Write content whose only purpose is to contain keywords and links
• Publish content that would embarrass us if it had our names on it
• Write content just to have a content strategy
• Add blog posts just for the sake of keeping your blog content “fresh”

I know, I know, our clients want guest posts, they want link building, they’re not going to let it go easily. There’s not a lot we can do about these requests other than set out to prove that the new strategies are actually more effective in the long-term for our clients.

We know that our clients will come into our engagements with their own strategies. That’s okay. But we will do our best to educate our clients on why the old techniques don’t work anymore while simultaneously arming them with a full understanding of why we are making the choices that we are.

We will look into the future and not dwell on the past.

Look, we’ve come a long way, baby, but in a short amount of time. I mean, remember when this lovely blog post title was indicative of what people expected of inbound marketing?

Image courtesy of Ricardo Bueno

Let’s promise ourselves that we will not go back there. Yes, keywords are important, but perhaps even more important to the world of inbound marketing is authority. It’s content that is lasting and meaningful that will end up doing the most for our clients in the long run – and will help keep the Internet a place that we all want to hang around in. We will anticipate and be the future of the internet before it happens.

We will understand that “content marketing does not exist as a tactic”

We are not black hat SEOs, after all. We are writers and marketers and designers and creative folks who have more to offer than just a few gimmicks. So, to paraphrase my boss, Ian Lurie, content marketing is NOT a tactic or something that exists at all, really.

What does exist, however, is marketable content. Or at least it could exist if we made it. This is content that allows us to help our clients build a strong and dynamic message, then communicate that message effectively with others in order to grow an audience. Let’s be like Kevin Costner and realize that if we build great content, our audience will come.

We will match our content to our client’s needs

You know what would be fun? If every client was a “Red Bull” client who put their content first and their product second. But they’re not. And that’s a good thing. After all, there’d be no balance if all we ever produced were extreme sports videos and viral content. Plus, for most clients, that kind of content would stand in opposition to the needs of their brand. What are the needs of the brand?

We will take the time to find out and then we will build a body of content that enhances their brand. We will find out what types of content could be the equivalent of a viral sports video in their field and we will help them produce it. We will be the doctors of the Internet and we will first do no (brand) harm.

We will push our clients to the content edge without pushing them over

Oftentimes, our clients want to see a return, but they don’t want to take a risk. That’s not okay. Yet, it’s also not okay for us to step all over the brand messages that they’ve spent years developing. Instead, we will develop content that builds on their existing work but that also pushes their brand forward. Here at Portent, we call this the 70-20-10 strategy.

Clients tend to want to stay solely (and safely) within the 70% content. Or they tend to want that infinitely-more-difficult-to-produce 10% content. It is our job to convince them that it is not an either-or and explain to them why balanced content is the best content. Then we’ll act on those strategies and create content that improves our clients’ sites.

We will assign real value to our work

It’s simple. We know that we are doing important and valuable work for our clients, yet we’re not always the best at communicating that value. That’s partly because it’s more difficult to assign a specific analytical value to content that’s intended to build authority. Not domain authority, but honest-to-goodness brand authority.

We can look at bounce rates and repeat visitors and such, but the real work that we’re doing isn’t a quick fix, so those results don’t really reflect the long-term aim. It’s not our clients’ faults that they don’t “get” content, it’s ours. So let’s fix it.

So what do we do? We work to find new ways to convey value in content. We do case studies. We learn the metrics that we can use to measure value. We figure out algorithms that go beyond the scope of Google Analytics (but we still learn how to prove value with Google Analytics). We work together as an industry to prove the value of the very difficult work that we do.

We will discover new things every day and find ways to challenge ourselves

In order to do the best work that we can – every day, we must remember this motto and repeat it to ourselves:

If I’m bored while writing the content, then it’s boring content.

If we’re not consistently learning and having fun at our jobs, we will remember that it shows in the caliber of our work. We will remember that this isn’t a job that can be done by rote if we expect to succeed. When we’re on our five hundredth product description, feel as if our eyes are bleeding, and that every adjective we’ve ever known has escaped our brains and floated off into the ether, we will stand up! We will walk away! We will do something else or talk to someone in another department.

We will rotate and balance the work that we do for our clients so that we stay fresh.

Furthermore, we will spend time every day learning, growing, and developing new techniques. We won’t be content to let someone else tell us what works on the Internet; we’ll actively try new things and make these discoveries for ourselves. We will read up on the latest thinking, we will go to conferences and meetups and engage with our peers, and then we will form our own strategies. And we’ll share them.

We will endeavor to be seen as the strategists that we are

The nature of inbound marketing demands that we work fast to obtain the best results. While in traditional channels of marketing and advertising decisions are made over many months and by committee, this is not the case with inbound marketing – which has made us all strategists in ways that other types of marketers could only dream of.

We recognize this and we will endeavor to be thought leaders. As inbound marketing’s star rises, we will rise with it. We will recognize that for many years, our field had a bad reputation, yet we knew the work we were doing was important. Now that the value of a solid content strategy is being recognized, we will not rest on our laurels. We can still be the “cool kids” that we’ve always known we were, but we will continue to engage intellectually. We will create content that is the best and that is the smartest.

We will change the world (one blog post at a time)

We will. Or at least we can. Now let’s do it.

The post The Inbound Marketing Manifesto appeared first on Portent.

When he’s not streaking through the Danger Zone on an Impossible Mission, the world’s biggest movie star (yes, still arguably) veers Far and Away from his core competency, occasionally taking a mega-risk with his Eyes Wide Shut.

Corniness of that opening sentence aside, Tom Cruise makes for a compelling model of how to run a brand: while his trademark relates to an über-successful motion picture career – and yours (likely) doesn’t – there are many things a business can learn about reputation management and content strategy from him.

And just what is the “content strategy” of Tom Cruise’s career?  It’s fairly simple.  Mr. Cruise delivers to his core audience while attracting new fans with moderately risky creative choices, still keeping himself fresh for critics and colleagues with strategic, iconoclastic roles that challenge the core Cruise brand.

70-20-10

My boss Ian Lurie subscribes to a 70-20-10 approach to on-site content (a slight refining of Jonathan Mildenhall of Coca-Cola’s famous value and significance strategy).  I also subscribe to this philosophy for the following reasons:

1.)    It is a deliberate and thoughtful method of planning useful, entertaining and responsive branded material.

2.)    He’s my boss.

Just what is the 70-20-10?  Per Ian:

• 70% of our content should be solid, standard stuff: Basic how-tos and advice that’s very safe and is easily justified as supporting SEO and other efforts.
• 20% of our content should riff on the 70%, but take some chances. This is the content that expands on 70% content, but may flirt with controversy, or try appealing to a new audience, or otherwise be moderately risky. It may also take a bit more effort. It also offers a higher potential payoff.
• 10% of our content should be completely innovative: Things we’ve never done that, if they work, could become part of the 20 or 70%. 10% content often requires a lot of work or audience interaction. Or, it’s just risky. Most of the 10% will fail. You still have to do it. It’s really important, because without it, the entire strategy stagnates.

Graphically represented:

Tom Cruise’s 70-20-10

• 70% of his roles represent The Movie Star.  The Tom Cruise™ brand:  That cocky, loveable scoundrel who is exciting and risky, but inevitably on the side of right.  These Cruise personas – Maverick in “Top Gun,” Ethan Hunt in “Mission: Impossible” – often have tragic backstories that enable us to look past their initial conceit, waiting for a denouement which always proves the Cruise character to be heroic, self-sacrificing and truly good.
• 20% of his roles represent The Actor.  Tom is still Tom – generally looks like him, sounds like him, acts like him – but he’s taking a chance.  Maybe it’s a period film like “The Last Samurai,” or working in an unfamiliar genre like “Minority Report” or spending half the movie in a mask (“Vanilla Sky”).  Tom does these films both to challenge himself AND to increase his “brand reach” to various demographics who may find his 70% films cloying or predictable.
• 10% of his roles represent The Iconoclast.  Tom isn’t Tom.  In fact, Tom is trying to tear down Tom Cruise™.  Here’s where the “art” happens.  He takes big risks like ranting about his manhood in “Born on the Fourth of July,” or playing a misogynistic, manipulative motivational speaker in “Magnolia.”  Both of those films landed him Oscar nominations.  There is a HUGE upside to 10% content, but the downside is just as large.  This also is where you can fall on your face (see “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Rock of Ages”… on second thought, don’t).

Awesome infographic by Jess Walker.

I should care because…?

Like Tom Cruise, you must manage your brand identity through choices in content. The days of the “EAT HERE” ad campaign are no more.  There are too many alternatives.

Like it or not, everyone is now in the content business.  Involve and evolve… or dissolve.

But 10% content scares me…

Risk mitigation doesn’t mean you don’t TAKE risks… It means you manage them, deciding where to pull your punch, and where to hit ‘em with a massive uppercut.

I’m sure 10% content scares Tom Cruise, too… And do you what?  Those movies generally DON’T do as well… at least at the box office.  But what they do REALLY well is improve his brand – its reach, its durability and its reputation.

The role of Les Grossman in “Tropic Thunder” SAVED Tom Cruise after the notorious couch-jumping incident.  The performance made him accessible; it showed people he could laugh at himself.  Now they’re talking about developing a Les Grossman movie… and having tried and succeeded with that role, Les Grossman no longer represents 10% content for Mr. Cruise.

The most successful 10% content can (and should) be replicated, joining the 20, and sometimes even the 70 (for a good example of that, consider Tom Hanks… from comic goofball to two-time Oscar winner).

The takeaway

Unless you are happy with your business’ status quo (and OK with the risk that status may decline), you need to put out content that occasionally scares you.  Not foolishly, but strategically, deliberately, measurably.  The audience gets bored of the same old, same old.  Growth can be painful, but it’s worthwhile.

Let Tom Cruise be an example for your content strategy, or understand that you’ll never attain A-list status.  Instead, you and your business will be relegated to the direct-to-video shelf.

But, then again, maybe you like Jean Claude Van Damme.

The post Why Tom Cruise Should Be Your Content Strategist [Infographic] appeared first on Portent.

Last night, when most of Seattle was at a holiday party or stuck in traffic on the way to a party, a group of intrepid souls filled the Portent presentation room to discuss using content strategy to save the world. The event, Content Strategy Forum 2012 Redux: Out of Africa, was part of an ongoing series of content strategy meetups in Seattle. Presenters Jonathon Colman, Paula Land and Misty Weaver brought wisdom from their recent experiences at CS Forum 2012 in Africa.

Building bridges between SEO and content strategy with Jon Colman

As Principle Experience Architect at REI, Jon Colman shared a short version of his presentation from the Cape Town Content Strategy Forum, “How to Build SEO into Content Strategy.” He advocated building a bridge between content strategy and SEO and suggested those two teams can help each other by incorporating stakeholder interviews, looking at metadata instead of <meta> keywords, and using templates that include variables for search and social metadata.

One of my key takeaways was to focus on core values. For example, REI’s core values are “inspire, educate, and outfit for a lifetime of outdoor adventure and stewardship.” Their content strategy grows out of the “Educate” portion of that mission statement.

The second takeaway was to write from the audience’s experience out, not the keywords in. Jon said, “Search engines reward you for building brands, not for using keywords.” And then he illustrated the point with this video:

By working from the customer’s needs, the content and SEO come naturally. You can (and should) check out Jon’s extended presentation:

Paula Land and the value of soft skills to change culture

Paula Land, founder of Strategic Content and co-founder of Content Insight, shared information from two CS Forum presentations: “Empathy: Content Strategy’s Hidden Deliverable” by Corey Vilhauer and Jonathan Kahn’s “Embracing Your Role as a Change Agent.”

Empathy: Content strategy’s hidden deliverable

Paula spoke of how content strategists should be using and encouraging soft skills like listening. They should also be as advocating a move from content strategy to people strategy. By asking questions, finding a shared understanding of terms, identifying strategies and playing to them, we can help our clients not only work better as a team but also help them build relationships with their customers.

Embracing your role as a change agent

In sharing the second presentation, Paula built on the idea of working with clients to change the way they do business. In fact, content strategists can actually change the way people look at the world. Here’s how:

• Be vulnerable and allow people to make mistakes
• Fight the culture of shame
• Embrace failure
• Get out of the building

Each of these ideas speaks to creating a culture of openness both within in our team and with our clients where it is easier for everyone to find new and better solutions for communicating with customers.

Misty Weaver hunts for ways to create a good user experience

The final presentation, by Misty Weaver, Lecturer in Content Strategy in Information Architecture at the University of Washington’s Information School, took a look at the Big 5. These used to be the 5 animals the Great White Hunter went to Africa to shoot. These days, they are the five animals you hope to see and photograph on safari. Here are some highlights:

• How are customers like elephants? Customers choose their own paths. We should design around the paths they create and not the ones we think they should use.
• How are customers like predators? Like the leopard, customers can be elusive and have their own patterns of behavior. Know thy audience.
• How are robots like predators? Like the lion, search engines only succeed 30% of the time. Still, they are one of our users so we should design for them as well. Search engines need our help to become more efficient.
• When is a buffalo a buffalo? Our communication is sometimes flawed. When we create content, we must fill gaps in user knowledge and always be credible, consistent, and clear.
• How is good content like a rhinoceros? Good content is rare. Content strategists create an environment where good content can survive.

Still not convinced content strategy will save the world? What I learned last night was that it is still possible to focus on people instead of search engines. Here at Portent, Ian likes to say, “Marketing is about communicating true value and significance to your audience.” One of the key ways to do this is through content strategy. Sure, corporations are interested in profits, but customers aren’t trophies. It’s time to observe the customer in their native habitat and learn to relate to them on their level.

If you, too, want to change the world through content strategy, check out the Content Strategy Meetup page and join us at the next meetup for great discussion and yummy food (thanks to Twitter user @messemi for the pic).

The post Sneak Peek: How Content Strategy Will Save the World appeared first on Portent.

Don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this.

Today I hauled my excessively-jiggly butt up Avalon Way, then got into the left-turn lane for some blessed rest time. Alas. An oncoming driver in a mini-van swerved into the lane, heading straight for me at 20-25 mph while mouthing something that looked a lot like “You fudge sing mediate”. He missed. Don’t worry. It was close, though. For a second, Ian-as-really-lumpy-hood-ornament and Ian-as-sarcastic-writer co-existed. In that flash, two thoughts went through my sweaty brain:

I am pretty damned tired. This way the ambulance can take me the rest of the way home.

and

I’ll die while everyone still thinks I’m an SEO.

I was sad. Because I’m not an SEO. I’m a marketer. And as a marketer, I obsess about content.

For some reason, though, every time I talk about content, folks assume I’m talking about SEO.

I’m not.

Content strategy is one discipline. It’s one tactic.

SEO is another.

Do they help each other? Sure. But content drives all marketing. If you’re still paying $10/article for stuff that wouldn’t get a ‘C’ in elementary school… Well, I was going to say “You’re behind the times,” but the truth is that great content has driven great marketing since we lost most of our fur and started coherently grunting.

You can’t do social media without a content strategy. If you do, you end up being the vaguely creepy person who walks up to a group, interrupts a conversation with a totally unrelated remark, and then just stands there, smiling blankly.

You can’t do a PPC campaign without a content strategy. You need to be on-brand, on-message and clear. Otherwise, folks give up.

And yeah, SEO needs content, too. Good content. If you’re still asking questions like “How unique does my content have to be?,” you’ve totally missed the point.

Content isn’t a thing. You don’t buy it. It doesn’t spring forth, all at once, so that you can paste it all up on your web site and then go back to pretending it’s 1995 and the internet is just a fad. Content is the sum of all communications with your audience: Videos, blog posts, comments, reviews, Tweets, Facebook posts, your replies to Facebook posts. Everything you say becomes part of your ‘content’.

I love SEO. But content is the heart of all good marketing. So please, if you remember nothing else about me after some idiot makes me into a pothole repair kit, remember that SEO is not content, and content is not SEO. They complement each other. But they’re separate.

Did you know that Monday’s my birthday? You didn’t? Well, I’ll forgive you if you donate just a teeny sum to http://mycharitywater.org/portentint.

The post On cycling, near-death experiences and content appeared first on Portent.