I joined a couple other B2B Marketers for a meal a few weeks ago, and the topic of content marketing and blogging came up.  This came as no surprise – I know they occasionally read our blog and can see that we are passionate on the topic.  They recounted some of their challenges with blogging, including some common challenges:

• Getting content from subject matter experts, when these experts are also required to focus their energy on billable hours
• Occasional missed deadlines and the need to build a backlog of content before this happens
• Varying levels of commitment from different authors

While I’ve seen many companies experience some or all of these challenges at one point or another, as I listened and started to ask questions I realized what was happening to them – blogging had become hard because they weren’t getting anything back from it.  The above challenges really were just addressable symptoms presenting themselves from the larger malady – they hadn’t established a content strategy that showed them direct return on investment from their blogging efforts.

They needed Better Content, Not Just More Content—this broke down in to three main areas:

We Don’t Know What They Want to Know About

Simply put, my colleagues didn’t know what their audience was looking for anymore.  I think each of us at one time or another has hit a temporary wall when it comes to content ideas, but in this case they were really stuck.  Initially they turned to their Analytics, but there was no clear indication of the types of posts that performed better than others.  The solution here was easy – go back to the basics of why you are ultimately blogging for your business.

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As I sat down yesterday with a couple members of the Right Source team for our check-in on our 2012 tactical plan, I was reminded how our marketing, like that of many of our clients, is heavily dependent on content.  We use the term content marketing all the time in our industry, yet to many folks outside of the industry – and to many of our potential clients – it means very little.  What I’ve realized is that a post Mike wrote nearly 2 years ago – What is Content Marketing and Why is it Hot? - is still incredibly relevant today and maybe even more so.  Why?

Many People Still Need an Explanation of What Content Marketing Is

People in the industry don’t believe it, but it’s true – the term content marketing sounds great but many marketers, presidents, and CEOs have never heard it or don’t know what it means.  A great example of this occurred yesterday.  Mike and I looked at Google’s keyword research tool and see a term like “content marketing firm” has a very high level of competition  - see how many sponsored listings come up when you search it – and yet only 170 or so searches a month worldwide.  By comparison, the term “advertising firm” has 301,000 searches per month, huge difference.

So, it’s clear people aren’t out there asking for it by name, so the idea of effective content marketing takes some explaining and education.

Content Touches Almost Everything You Do

Take a look at your 2012 marketing plan and I’ll bet most all of your initiatives involve content in one form or another.  Whether it’s webinars, blogging, website updates, social media or so many more initiatives, they all require well-planned and well-crafted content.   Like Seymour the monster from Little Shop of Horrors, you need to continue to feed your marketing initiatives great content, or they’ll shrivel up and die.

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With 2012 approaching, many are making predictions for what will happen in the coming year.  While most of us can’t fully see into the future, 2011’s predictions featured quite a few interesting looks into what we thought the year might hold.  This year we once again reached out to some of our friends and colleagues for predictions.  Here are their thoughts on what the 2012 may bring in the world of marketing strategies, marketing tactics, mobile marketing, social media, leadership and management.  Take a look below and add your predictions in the comments section.

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Big Moves by Big Names
1. Buy, Not Build. There will be a slew of top brands that start to buy established niche media properties instead of starting from scratch.
2. Google will undergo FTC scrutiny for trying to corner the market on the purchase funnel…they buy one too many media companies (i.e. Zagat in 2011) that finally sets off some opposition from social influencers.
3. Facebook indeed surpasses $100 billion in market cap after going public (probably not a stretch, but worth saying… since Facebook is the only company that scares Google).

When I hear “fresh” I think of Will Smith and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (I’ve probably gotten the theme song stuck in your head now). In the late 80s and early 90s, “fresh” served as a synonym for cool, unique, or just all around great. Even more importantly, the Fresh Prince has grown up–when Will Smith makes a movie it consistently hits the top of the box office list. Fast forward to 2011 and there’s no doubt that whether we’re talking music, movies, meat, or beer born on date, fresh is still the way to go.

Freshness and Search Results

Google may not be as “fresh” as Will Smith or the MC Hammer Search Engine (yes, seriously). But, last week, Google added search results to the best-when-fresh list with a major update to its algorithm. For many sites Google is a kingmaker (or Fresh Prince maker?), and this update certainly affects all SEO, social media, and content marketers. The goal of the change was to give you fresher, more recent search results. On its official blog, Google estimates the changes will impact approximately 35% of searches, or 3.9 billion searches a month (according to September 2011 data). To put that in context, that is almost 3 times larger than the Panda update which impacted 12% of searches, and people are still talking about Panda’s impact. Read the rest of this entry »

As you probably know by now from recent blog posts and Twitter streams, a number of our Right Source team members spent last week fully immersed in the Content Marketing World conference.  Kudos to Joe Pulizzi and his team for putting on a fantastic event – it ran so smoothly you never would have guessed this was the conference’s first year.

One session that really stood out to me was Thursday morning’s panel on “Content Marketing Metrics: Justifying Content Marketing Spending.”  The panelists addressed a topic I am passionate about – planning your content to align with buying cycles and buyer objections.   Two major points made by one of the panelists, social media and content strategist Jay Baer, were of particular interest:

Everyone’s a Publisher – and Collectively We Create Mass Amounts of Content

Jay hit the nail on the head by reminding everyone that “All companies now find themselves in two industries: the business they are actually in, and the publishing business.”  Jay just talked about this today on his own blog.  I see marketers and brands picking up on this, and agree that it’s a trend that will continue to accelerate.

Think about how much content you engage with on a daily basis and how much that has grown in the past quarter, 6 months and year.  We frequently cite a quote from Google’s Eric Schmidt that “Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003” – which is still astonishing to me every time I say it.

Where the problem lies is all too often companies don’t spend much time planning their content so that it is mapped to buyer personas, needs and objections. Instead (to borrow from a South Park inspired internet meme) they take the approach of:

Step 1 – Create Content

Step 2 – ?

Step 3 – Profit

As nice as that would be, content marketing simply does not work that way.

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