Why You Should Be Doing Content Marketing Right Now

Content marketing is, perhaps, one of the most flexible marketing strategies ever. It works for almost every industry, company size, product and even cultural scenario. Hence, content marketing cannot be just a trend. It should be a long-term approach to your marketing.

Content marketing is a powerful way to influence people. By letting your customers know what your company, brand or product offer is, you could persuade them to do (almost) whatever you want. By creating content, you share your company's values, ideas, purpose and why not, your company taste and humor. All these elements are essential to attract and retain customers.

Why is content marketing important?

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

No marketing, no customers

Having a fantastic product has no value if people are not aware of it, right? That is why companies do marketing.

Unfortunately, nowadays, marketing is not so simple because we are kind of overloaded with all the information and content around us. If you want your company or product to be found, it is no longer enough to just do some marketing campaign here and there. You (or somebody on your behalf) should talk about your product constantly and on many channels. 

In addition, this “talk” needs to evolve as you will be reaching different consumers and prospects simultaneously. Some of those are more ready than others to buy. This means, your content needs to fulfill the “knowledge gap" they (all) will be phasing before purchasing any product.

Content marketing is a flexible and affordable way to bring information to your customers and prospects and build that journey -from creating awareness to getting the deal (and even after that).

Creating content and keeping this "talk" flowing is not an easy task, as many companies including your competitors are willing to fulfill the same gap and to build the same journey. There is where a differentiated quality content will put you on the map, or better to say, on the rank of the search engines.

Content marketing is not just a marketing task. It can be the best ally for you company success.

5 reasons why you should be doing content marketing right now:

 - You can reach prospects who did not ever know that you existed. Content marketing can effectively help you building brand awareness. For example, by writing a blog you can increase the possibility to be found. At the same time, you can attract new traffic to your website.

- By helping people with your content you can build valuables relationships and gain the trust of people in an affordable way.

- You can reach a different kind of prospects -from a customer who does not know what he/she wants, to another who is ready to make a decision. You can provide suitable information and content to help them both to make the next move.

- You can enhance your brand image and your reputation, by for example sharing your expertise and your uniqueness.

- You can increase your customer engagement by opening new ways to communicate with them (and to find the solution for their challenges).

Remember, content marketing is not a sprint. It is more like a marathon. Constancy and perseverance are essential. You cannot expect to get results by just publishing two pieces of content. The more content you share the more people will see your content and remember your brand. Of course, quality matters. Make sure that your content is helpful and well-written.

How To Encourage Your Employees To Share Your Content

Sharing is caring they said but, what to share if your employees do not know about your company's steps, happenings, and plans? 

By creating and sharing content, your employees can add value to your marketing. They can be the voice of your company and, help you to increase your company's visibility and your brand awareness. Unfortunately, in many companies, employees are still underused as a marketing force.

Here, six ideas to encourage your employees to share your content:

1. The first step to increasing your employees’ participation is to share information with them. I know it sounds very obvious but, sometimes, communication can be underestimated in some companies. If your employees don't know what is going on, they cannot help you to spread the news. Make them know what is happening and, encourage them to create and share their own stories.

2. Stop random marketing and create a clear marketing strategy. After this is created, you have to share it with your employees. No excuses! Knowing about your company's future plans and direction will help them to make decisions on what kind of content they can create and share.

3. Create good quality content that at the same time is easy to share. It is important that they feel proud of the content they are sharing. A well-written and visually appealing material has more chances to be shared than a poor one.

Give your employees the chance to create and share their own content

4. Educate your employees to become your brand ambassadors. If fact, you should train them even before they start to use the social media channels. Communication and social media training will help your employees to feel comfortable when creating and sharing content. You might train them, for example, on how to use the channels as well as on how to follow the company’s social media guidelines. As soon as the content start to be shared by them, it will be useful to share best practices among your employees. Make sure your employees are spending time on the right social media channels, based on your company strategies and goals. 

5. Encourage your employees to try new things. It will not only help you to innovate and develop your communication and marketing but, also it will make their fear of saying or doing something wrong disappear and they will be sharing more and more.

6. Take actions yourself as a manager. You could create and share inspiring content and celebrates your employees' social sharing. Be present and engage with your audience.


Be aware that no all your employees will be willing to take part of these activities. That is ok, too. They are not required to act as your company's brand ambassadors so, you cannot force them to do so. On the other hand, it is important to reward those who take on this role. Make them feel valued.

Do you have any other tip? Share your experience.

Does Your Company Need A Social Media Guru?

The company's brand ambassadors are hot right now.

There are quite many blogs, books, and social media conversations covering this topic. It looks like everyone is talking about the relevance of the brand ambassador. The benefit of using this figure to promote your company and your products is undeniable. 

I totally support the idea of "people" (instead of "companies") taking a more active role representing the company in different events as well as on the social media channels and blogs. However, when the advice for the companies is to hire a "social media guru" to take care of this, it makes me think, is this really necessary?

Forget the external social media guru. Focus on your employees. 

First, let me clarify that I have nothing against the "social media gurus". In fact, I feel a sincere admiration for the guys out there who are able to engage masses and become influencers by giving fantastic speeches, creating catchy content, or sharing amazing pictures and videos. That requires a lot of talent and dedication.

My point here is that no all companies can hire a "social media guru". Sometimes, it does not even make sense. This can be very expensive and the company might not be "mature" enough to take this step and to make this investment. The hiring person might not understand how to start the hiring process or what kind of skills are needed for the role.

The good news is that social media management is a skill that can be developed. In most of the cases, you can develop the skills of somebody who is already in your team. By training well your employees, you can convert them into your own social media gurus and brand ambassadors.

Never underestimate the power of your employees

The advantage of using you employees as brand ambassadors is that they already know your company, your products, and your people. They will be able to network inside your organization and get the information they need to create their content. Of course, it will help a lot if your company embraces a culture of sharing content.  

Your employees' strengths and talents can be shown in different ways. Some employees might be very good writing on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Others might be better at taking pictures and using Instagram, or presenting in different shows or events. There will be space for everyone interested in being your company's ambassador. 

6 reason why you should convert your employees into your brand ambassadors

- Your employees might have already thousands of connections across multiple networks. Therefore, they might reach a much larger audience than the one you are reaching now by using your company channel.

- It is well known that the content shared by employees receives more engagement than the content shared by the company channels. People prefer to follow people.

- If your employees share content that is relevant for your brand and for the industry in which you operate, they will create a personal brand. This means they will be seen as experts, and they will be contacted for advice. If your prospects think about your employee and his/her expertise while finding a solution, they might be purchasing your product or service. 

- Employees talking and sharing content about your company and your culture will help you to create your employer brand. If the shared content is positive, this might help you to attract and source new talent.

-  When your employees participate actively sharing information on the social media channel or they participate in the industry events, they also get more information. The social media channels and the events itself are a great source for learning new skills and perfect for networking with people in your industry.

- Encouragement and new responsibilities can increase motivation. The beauty of allowing your employees to use and experiment with the social media channels at work is that at the same time you will inspire them to do something new and exciting. This will also create a positive buzz and an infectious excitement among the rest of the employees.


Summing up, it is time to start your "treasure hunting" inside your own company. Find people interested in this development area and help them becoming your company ambassador and your own social media gurus. 

No More Random Marketing

Is your marketing team throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks?

Are you doing marketing without a plan? Are you more like waking up every morning, going with the flow, and creating marketing content based on your feelings or on your boss' surprise assignment? Are you normally executing marketing acts which need to be ready ASAP without a budget, without connection to the rest of your company strategy or without results measurement?

If your answer is YES, sorry but, you are just doing random marketing. Too much randomness is a recipe for a marketing disaster. 

Why We Do Random Marketing

Marketing offers us a lot of opportunities perhaps, too many to manage. If we mention the major social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, Snapchat, there is already (more than) enough room to create content. Sometimes, this can produce some pressure for the company to create "just something". Many companies are too worried about being everywhere. That is a problem itself.  Strategically thinking and planning can save you a lot of those worries (without mentioning the time and the resources).

Other companies, simply, have no resources to hire somebody to take care of marketing. In the worst of the case, a random person inside the organization needs to manage this when she/he has some extra time. So, they try their best and publish something here and there without a real connection. 

Random Marketing Success 
 
I cannot lie to you. Sometimes, an act of random marketing can get good results. For example, your video can get viral even if this is randomly made with a reduced budget. You can get more followers after a funny picture than after a well thought and prepared campaign. The sad part is that if a random act of marketing works, it might encourage your company to continue using those. This particularly happens when company focus, for example, more on followers than in treal lead generation. But, the (long term) truth is that going to one fair trade here and there, printing an expensive glossy brochure, publishing a LinkedIn post once a year and publishing a couple of new pictures on your website or on your Instagram when you remember, will take you nowhere. When we talk about long term branding and marketing, random is not the best way to go. 

Strategic Marketing Matters 

As in any relevant part of your business, to do marketing successfully you need to have a game plan.

The first step is defining what do you want to get from your marketing (e.g. visibility, increase sales, recognition). Later, you need to define your strategy. Instead of trying to figure out what to publish in each channel, use your time smartly and define where is worth sharing content and what kind of content is worth sharing.


Sometimes in marketing, less is more. No doubt, random marketing is one of these cases. You should give it a try.

Stop Overselling, Start Storytelling

Once upon a time there was a product and a seller.

Jackson, the seller, woke up and saw that there was no money left in his wallet. He was concerned about this situation. He needed to do something about it and quickly. He needed to promote more his product. He needed to sell more.

Of course, Jackson knew everything about the product. Therefore, he decided to write all the information down. It took the entire day to get this ready but, he did it! He felt very proud of how much information he collected. His text was long and complex. "Beautiful", he thought. The text described the technical specifications and the attributes of the product. In addition, He mentioned the benefits that the customers can get from his product. In fact, he wrote everything he knew about the product. He was very eager to sell.

When the text was ready, He made a list of all his contacts. He added some other email addresses that he has found online. He sent the text by email to all of them.

Meanwhile, in a remote location in Europe, John was waking up. John is Jackson’s old customer. It was cold and dark and John was tired. However, John was willing to read his emails before the sunrise. John took his cup of coffee and turned his computer on. He started checking his Inbox while drinking the coffee. John was glad to see that there was a message from Jackson on his inbox. He opened it immediately with a smile on his face. "It has been a while", John thought.

He has not heard from Jackson for a while, perhaps, since he bought the product a few years ago. “That is a very good product”, John whispered. 

John took another sip of coffee but, something happened that wiped the smile off his face. He was a bit sleepy still but, this did not stop him. With a firm movement, he took the computer mouse and clicked the email from Jackson. He marked it as SPAM.
Jackson never heard back from John, despite sending multiple emails to him.

Instead of spamming information about your products or about your company, create stories. As the world is overloaded by advertising, and your customers’ attention is harder and harder to maintain, storytelling might help you to differentiate and to connect in a unique way with your customer. The fact is, no one cares about your selling goals and only few care about your technical details. But your customers like a good story especially if they feel identified with it.

SEO, Content Creation, Social Media and Courage: A Summary Of My First Year Of Blogging

A year ago I decided to start my own blog. I was missing writing so badly.  I wanted to practice my writing and to develop my marketing,  communications and social media skills. As you might know by now, my background is in marketing and in communications, however, during the last two years, I have been working mostly on sales.

Starting my own blog was something new and very personal. When you do marketing for a company, you focus more on the product, on the brand or on the corporation. In addition, you have to align your content with your company messages and you have to schedule your posts according to the company's plan. My blog is a perfect place to talk about the things that I am interested in. Here, I can focus on my own thoughts and I can arrange my own schedule.

The main goal of my blog is not to sell or to promote a company. It has been a personal experiment, a development plan. I have learned so much from my readers, and I am very thankful for that. In fact, there have been more readers than what I expected at the beginning of this journey. Some of my articles have been read around 1000 times. This is very encouraging and motivating.

I have experimented a lot and learned from each post. Here, the three most important things I have learned during this year of blogging:

1) Creating the right content for your blog

The process of creating content for my blog has been fascinating and challenging at the same time. It is good that you cannot see my drafts. At the moment, there are ca. 40 messy ideas. This blog has helped me to find a writing opportunity in almost everything in my life. Sometimes, I get topic ideas from things I see at my work place, other times, from my friend's conversations and experiences or from a book. I have accumulated a lot of ideas, however, some of those need to be very polished before I actually can publish those. Ideas are not very useful if I am not able to create something relevant from those.

Yes, content is the king, but I have learned that the way I present my content is also very important. It is not only about having fancy pictures but, more about having the right structure. SEO matters and you can see that very clearly when you have the chance to try these structures, titles, subtitles and wording, and measure the results by yourself. It is a great learning experience.

In a nutshell, a blog post should be:
- Relevant (information that matters)
- Easy to read
- With the right structures (titles, subtitles, etc.)
- With the right keywords to be found.

2) Mastering Social Media: 

To share your content on other channels is a must if you want to be found.  In my case, I use social media to promote my blog and my posts. Most of the visitors come to my blog from Twitter or from Google+. There is some organic search, too. I have used Facebook only a few times and I have gotten great results. However, I don't use Facebook so often because half of my contacts are not speaking English. It feels like I would be spamming them.

When I publish something on my social media channels, I can see the changes to the visitors' statistics. Following the Google and Blogger analytics have been very important part of the development of my blog. I have had the chance to play with many messages and content and see if those work or not.

There is something about the timing, too. I get more visitors to my blog if I promote at the right time for my audience. In my case, I write mostly in English so, half of the visitors are coming from the USA. When I tweet at the USA time I get more visitors than if I tweet at my local (Finnish) time. However, Finns are reading my blog, too. (Kiitos!)

Social media is all about interactions and getting to know people. I have noticed that if somebody "relevant" likes or share my tweet promoting my blog post, I get more visitors. If I am the one sharing other's people content, I also get more visibility. Sharing is caring.

3) Courage:
Jeff Bullas said once that "The biggest challenge for any blogger, social media marketer, content creator, and publisher is to -start- ". I could not agree more. It took a while for me to start this project, but, I am very glad I did.

Writing a blog is getting exposure. This can be very intimidating at some points. It took me a while to start my blog trying to find the perfect topic (or even the perfect language). The truth is that the perfect topic does not exist, so you just need to write and publish. I have done this experiment and I am glad about the results and the learning. Sometimes, I write and publish. Other times, I come back and edit. It is all about experimenting.  Hopefully, you have enjoyed this year on my planet as well. Thank you for be there.

Cuando Las Redes Sociales Son "Un Baúl De Recuerdos"

Muchos de nosotros hemos hablado ya por algún tiempo sobre las redes sociales. Sin embargo, todavía nos encontramos con empresas que están dando los primeros pasos en el desarrollo de las estrategias de mercadeo en estas redes. Si éste es tu caso, felicidades. Nunca es tarde para dar el primer paso.

Me imagino que ya debes tener en mente qué redes son las mejores para tu audiencia y a lo mejor ya has pensado qué tipo de contenido crear y publicar. Un buen contenido te ayudará a alcanzar tus metas.

El contenido para mercadeo tradicional y el contenido para redes sociales

Muchas veces por falta de tiempo podrás sentirte tentado en utilizar el material viejo, ya usado en canales tradicionales, y simplemente publicarlo en tu Facebook o en tu Instagram. Para tu audiencia será aburrido ver los contenidos ya conocidos, ahora “almacenados” de manera “digital”. 

Sin duda alguna, las redes sociales son frescas y así deberá ser tú contenido también. Algo muy bueno del auge de estas redes es que nos desafían a diario a ver y trabajar nuestro contenido de una manera diferente, de una manera más rica. Las redes sociales se enriquecen de la interacción, del contenido interesante, de nuevas perspectivas visuales, de arriesgarse a ser diferente así como también de actuar rápido y con un poco de urgencia. Sé creativo, olvídate de las mentes cuadradas y cosas demasiados tradicionales y diviértete con tu contenido.

Enfrentando lo desconocido. El primer contacto con las redes sociales

Si aún no has aprendido a usar por ejemplo, el Twitter, no tengas miedo. Mira a tu alrededor. De seguro que encontraras uno de esas personas “digi-nativas”. También hoy en día es mucho más fácil conseguir ayuda en Internet para desarrollar tus habilidades. Olvídate de tu orgullo, busca ayuda y empieza a aprender y disfrutar de esta aventura. Usar los medios sociales no debería sentirse como una tortura. Te puedo prometer que si consigues una red social que sea “tu alma gemela”, la pasarás a gusto.

Crea un contenido nuevo y relevante

Yo soy una persona súper afortunada a nivel profesional. He tenido la suerte de pasearme por varias industrias -por el B2B y por el B2C. En estas industrias de verdad que el mercadeo se mueve de una manera diferente, pero a la final todos le mercadeamos a humanos. Los humanos como tal se dormirán y dejarán tu sitio web o tu red social, si el contenido es tipo “noticia de ayer”.

Entonces, ¿estás listo para escribir tu primer tuit?  Allá vamos, respira profundo y comparte algo que menee un poco tu negocio y tu marca. Llama la atención de tu audiencia. Recuerda, que como todo en la vida, hay que tener un poco de paciencia. Si lo que quieres es incrementar las ventas de tu negocio, hay que darle un poco de tiempo. No obtendrás la venta inmediatamente después de escribir tus dos primeras líneas. Seamos optimistas, pero realistas.

Does Your Customer Understand Your Product?

You have a fantastic product: the latest technology, a state-of-the-art, etc. 
Nobody is buying your product.

You have invested a lot of money in marketing, communications and sales material. 
Your team used a lot of hours preparing it. 
Nobody is reading it. 

You have gotten no inquiries.

It is perhaps time to ask yourself a very important question: are your customers understanding what you are trying to say?  

Create messages which are easy to understand.  
Picture http://smilingtreetoys.com

Technical communication for non-technical customers: 

I have been involved in multiple technical or engineering-oriented projects. If I am honest, at the beginning it was not easy. I remember sitting in technical meetings listening to technical presentations. There the product managers used their field jargon and presented all the possible technical data. This was heavy data. It was hard to understand. For some engineers, the messages about their products were "so obvious" that they thought additional explanations were no needed. Unfortunately, the delivered messages to the customers were as complex and difficult as those used during the meetings. The messages were not reaching their audience.

Assuming that your (non- technical) target group understands very well your technical messages is a very common mistake. Another common practice is delivering very detailed data to "clarify" something forgetting that the target group has a very different level of understanding.  

The solution is simple. If your audience is not as technical as your team, you have to translate the technical information into messages which are easy to understand by your audience.



Communicate with your customers effectively:

If you are an expert on the topic, and especially if you are the "father of the product", you might try to impress your audience with your knowledge. That is a normal human tendency. However, there is a big difference between knowing something and being able to explain it to someone else. When preparing your marketing, sales or communications material remember the blog post, the brochure and the campaign are not for your or for your team.

The solution is not adding technical details to your content. You need to think a bit more like the customer. So, focus on finding out your customers' needs as well as getting to know your customers' understanding level. With this information you might know the right level of detail needed on your content. It is important to always keep in mind that if you are focusing only on the technical details or scoping your message too narrowly, there is a high risk of getting bogged.

Keep it simple. If your message is too hard to explain, it will be too hard to be understood by your audience.

Teamwork means better marketing and communications material:

Are you thinking that your product is so unique that nobody else than you is able to talk about it ? If your answer is YES, it is time to change your mentality. Such a product does not exist. 

You should work with different people to prepare your marketing, communication and sales material. It will help you developing your content. If more people understand your content, you will have more chances to get your customers and prospects interested in your product.

If you want to start with something simple, test if your actual material works. Ask feedback from people who are not directly involved in your project. 

Let your marketing and communication team work on your wording and on your content. If you are working with an outside agency, they might give you a sincere feedback on how you should try to create your content to increase your product's awareness and especially, to be understood by your audience. You don't need to accept all the suggestions but, it is all about working as a team. Be ready to interchange ideas, to ask and to answer questions as well as to share your thoughts.

Marketing For Non-Sexy Industries

Heavy machinery, engineering jargon, niche markets, kind of unknown products...

It is not an easy task for a marketer or a communication person to get the attention of the media or of the public when the product or the industry is everything but sexy. Right?! If you feel represented, trust me, you are not the only one struggling with it. But, what are you doing to make your content more interesting?

It does not help just giving up and falling into the trap of thinking that your brand is too boring or too traditional. 

Remember even in the weirdest industries, 

there is an audience waiting for information 

and getting ready to make a purchase. 

 Make it happen. 

Be brave, take risks.

 

8 Marketing tips for challenging industries: 

1. Share useful content: Remember the content main goal is to inform, educate and entertain. You should give your customers what they actually need (not just what you want to share or -better to say, to sell).
2. Make the content appealing: the content should be interesting and relevant but, please, do not forget using the right font, good layout, and the visuals. There are so many channels and tools out there, that you can try new things even at low cost. No excuses.
3. Focus on one topic at the time: The more common mistake when writing about a product that is not that "sexy", is that you try to say too much. Just visualize for a second a brochure with too much text and too many pictures, well you know the feeling...Forget to try to speak about everything. That will not increase your blog readership, either. Instead, focus on main points.
4. Write for a wider audience: rather than writing from engineers to engineers, (sorry for my honest example), try to make your topic more interesting for other people. Forget that technical jargon. It is not making you look as an expert or smarter. This is very relevant if you want your content to be shared on different channels. If more people understand your content, you will have more readers and therefore, more chances to get shares, likes, and comments. This approach will help you when working with the media, too. A journalist will not write about something that is too difficult to understand or that needs many hours to get deciphered. Keep it simple.
5. Stop measuring a number of readers (or likes); focus instead on quality leads: I know you think I am contradicting myself but, my point here is that you need to get more readers, but a number of readers does not guarantee the sell. You need to create content that will attract the buyers, too. A funny picture can get thousands of likes, however, they are not buying your product. 
6. Stop selling or advertising: Nobody wants to read a blog post that is only an advertising in plain text. What about talking about cases or examples in which those benefits are shown? Don't push your products. Make your customers discover the benefits between the lines of your stories.
7. Make your employees your ambassadors: If you are running out of ideas why not to talk to your own people. They can help you finding great ideas, new perspectives, new topics and why not, they can help you creating the content. What about getting a great picture from your factory, or the story behind the guy who creates your latest hit... Your company is not only about selling products, there is much more happening inside the organization. Share it! 
8. Track the results: You have the chance to try many things, but the only way to know if those have an effect on your results is by measuring. You can measure the changes to the sell, the reach of your stories, the media coverage, changes to the brand awareness, etc. Decide the measurement tools according to your goal.