I’ve always dreamed of just getting into the car with a wad of cash and setting off on a vacation with no particular destination in mind. A serendipitous foray like that sounds like the perfect vacation. But would you do that with your marketing efforts? I bet not! CONTENT MARKETING OVERVIEW When we started this series, we said that there …
Mapping Content to Buyer Behavior: Content Marketing Step 3
Did you know that 70% of customers say they would rather learn about a company through articles rather than advertisements? This is particularly important in the B2B world of organizations that are offering their services as products. Purchases that range from hundreds to thousands of dollars are not going to be made after two visits to your website. The savvy …
The Marketing Communications Audit: Content Marketing Step 2
What is it that a sports coach and her/his team are looking for when they review past game tapes of next week’s opposing team? At first glance, that could seem like an incredible waste of time! The answer is holes. They’re looking for holes—holes in the opponent’s offense, holes in their defense. Where are the gaps, what are the weaknesses, …
Content Marketing Step 1: Know Your Audience
Know your audience. Having pulled together four weddings in the last three years, please understand that I’m still in recovery mode. So the best analogy I can come up with about knowing your audience is related to wedding analogies. When you’re putting together your guest list, travel arrangements and seating at the reception you have to take all kinds of …
Content Marketing: Approach Overview
What’s the first thing you do when you start to think about making vacation plans? Lots of folks get on the internet, look up places and start reading reviews. Why? Because you want to get a picture of what’s out there and what others are saying. Content Marketing Stats and Trends Here are some interesting statistics to consider as you …
Content Marketing: What Is It?
Marketing Overview Summary First there was Integrated Marketing. Then there was Direct Marketing. Then Online Marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing and now Content Marketing. With all these marketing buzz words, one can easily become confused. (Apologies if I missed a few 🙂 ) What’s the difference? Is there a difference? Interestingly, there can be quite …
10 SEO Tips to Enhance Your Content Marketing Strategy
Our Sales Coach takes a pretty hard line—any business that doesn’t have a sales strategy is pretty much dead in the water. Not hard to agree with that position! So if you’re in the B2B category of business, here’s an interesting statistic for you: according to the Content Marketing Institute’s recent 2013 Benchmarks, Budget, and Trends—North America Report 91% …
Gen Y: Retention and Loyalty
Our daughter was recognized as an Outstanding Scholar recently at her university and I was truly touched with the intimacy of the ceremony and recognition given to each student. But what blew me away was the tribute to the educators and influencers that helped motivate each student to achieve such a high level of excellence. As an educator myself, I …
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Association Membership: Keeping Gen Y Motivated and Engaged
“The challenge inherent in keeping Gen Y engaged is that we’re easily distracted, we want to see progress from our daily efforts, and have a high need to stay in touch with those leading us.” ~ (p. 108) Translation for Associations: GenY needs to know OFTEN why being a part of your association matters. They need to see measureable …
Associations, Are You Talking to Me?
I’ve been waiting to see if some of the associations that I’m interested in would reach out to me first. Why? I’d rather spend the money on a weekend get away or dinner at my favorite restaurant, unless you can convince me of the value of membership in your association. I love to read posts by XYZ University’s Shannon Neeser. …