a free guide to content marketing your market will love

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8 Steps to Discovering and Creating Content Your Market Will Love A Free Guide to Content Marketing VERTICAL MEASURES ph: 888.476.1881 / 602.314.3460

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8 Steps to Discover ing

and Creat ing Content

Your Market Wi l l Love

A Free Guideto Content MarketingVERTICALMEASURESph: 888.476.1881 / 602.314.3460

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Introduction

Step 1: Content Strategy for the Web

Step 2: Answer Sites Can Be a Content Research Gold Mine

Step 3: Developing Website Content to Meet Your Goals

Step 4: Optimization Techniques for Various Content Types

Step 5: Putting the ‘Marketing’ in Content Marketing

Step 6: Content Distribution – Finding the Right Channels

Step 7: Link Building vs. Link Attraction

Step 8: Web Analytics to Measure Your Content Marketing Progress

Whats Next?

About

Contact

Table ofContents

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Introduction

If you downloaded this f ree guide, you l ike ly un-derstand that the wor ld of market ing has been radica l ly changing in the last few years to a new k ind of mar-ket ing, content market ing. Market ing profess ionals and business owners have taken on the new ro le of publ isher, in addi t ion to h is or her cur-rent ro le.

The companies that are succeeding r ight now are those creat ing content that engages the i r custom-ers and br ings in the busi-ness. That is where Accelerate! and th is f ree guide come in. Many mar-ket ing books present them-selves l ike the consul tant who comes in and says, “Here’s the strategy you need, but I don’t implement. I don’t actual ly do i t . ” But i f you are going to be successfu l , you need to understand how to create and promote compel l ing content that br ings in the customers.

Published by Vertical Measures, th is is an abbre-v iated vers ion of my best-se l l ing Internet market ing book, Accelerate! Move Your Business Forward Through the Convergence of Search, Social & Con-tent Market ing. This f ree guide prov ides the 8 steps in 24 pages so that you may

quick ly d igest the concepts covered in more depth in the fu l l 250-page vers ion of Accelerate!

In this free guide, you wi l l learn:

• The 8 steps to a suc-cessfu l content mar-ket ing p lan f rom de-veloping a strategy to measur ing resul ts

• The best and most used tools in the indus-try, most of which are f ree!

This is your jumping off point to gett ing started on your way to a successfu l , turn-key content market ing program for your business. To d ive deeper into these concepts, p ick up the com-plete vers ion of Accelerate! , a 250-page, step-by-step guide with 16 examples of content for your business, rea l case studies, contr ibu-t ions f rom 13 other industry experts inc luding; Jay Baer, Rand F ishkin and Joe Pul izz i and more! Buy your copy today in paperback or on Kindle!

StrategyDevelopment

CONVERGENCE OFSEARCH, SOCIAL, ANDCONTENT MARKETING

Research

ContentCreation

ContentOptimization

ContentPromotion

ContentDistribution

LinkBuilding

MeasureResults

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Step 1: Content Strategy for the Web

You probably have a websi te. Has your phi losophy for i t evolved with the t imes? Contemporary websi tes offer more than just in format ion about your company, con-tact in format ion, and your product offer ings. They now prov ide resources for so lv ing customer problems, can be hubs for socia l act iv i ty, and, most important ly, are r ich wi th f resh and engaging content

that is regular ly updated so that v is i tors wi l l f requent ly return. Content strategy, then, begins wi th the ques-t ion: What’s the point of your websi te?

Many business owners th ink that the purpose of the i r websi te is se l f -ev ident, that the quest ions “Why do you have a websi te?” and

“Why do you produce web content?” are rhetor ica l ones that don’t need answer ing. I th ink just the opposi te. Businesses must answer these questions f irst and foremost.

When our cl ients come to us for he lp wi th the i r content strategy, we ask them r ight off the bat what they want to accompl ish. Somet imes, our c l ients don’t have the best answer. They te l l us th ings l ike, “We know that content is k ing, so we need to add more content.” Or, “Our compet i-tors are putt ing some real ly great th ings on the web so we need to too.” Whi le both answers conta in t ruth, they miss the mark when i t comes to the strategy. We te l l our c l ients that the quest ion is actual ly qui te s imple, but the answer is not. Organizat ions should develop a content strategy because:

• Web content prov ides the customer wi th c lean, logica l access to products and serv ices and should funnel them

to the s i te’s convers ion pages.

• Web content prov ides in format ion that an-swers some of the toughest problems cus-tomers face.

• Web content posi t ions the organizat ion as the t rusted expert in i ts industry.

Notice that the purpose of your web content cen-ters on the customer’s exper ience. Just l ike key-word research attempts to ident i fy what your custom-ers are searching for in your industry, your websi te can prov ide the answer to those searches. A smart content strategy begins wi th under-standing what the customer needs rather than what you want to offer them.

What Do You Want To Accomplish?

Contemporary websites offer more than just information about your company, contact information, and your product offerings.

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Step 1: Content Strategy for the Web continued...

In order for your content to del iver, you need a strat-egy with speci f ic object ives that guides your content creat ion. By implement ing measurable goals, you wi l l be able to assess the success of your var ious pro jects and discover what’s work ing for you and what’s not. You need to consider the measurable object ives that wi l l dr ive your content development.

The objectives for your content apply both at the mac-ro leve l for your whole content enterpr ise, and at the micro leve l for each indiv idual p iece of content. Your content wi l l be work ing for you when i t :

• Develops and increases your brand awareness

• Generates t raf f ic to your s i te and garners new cus-tomer leads or sa les

• Enhances your onl ine reputat ion

• Encourages natura l l inks and opt imizes your search engine rank ings

• Increases your compet i-t ive advantage

When you produce any s ingle p iece of content, i t should accompl ish one or more of these goals, and the sum tota l of a l l your con-tent should accompl ish a l l of them. An investment in a content market ing strategy is largely a matter of t ime and effort , and you want to be sure that every minute you devote to creat ing content y ie lds a product that works to your advantage. By basing your content creat ion on your main object ives, your con-tent development campaign wi l l be much more eff ic ient , maximiz ing the return on your investment.

Keep your object ives at the forefront of every p iece of content that you develop. Be-fore you create new content, hold i t up against your objec-t ives and ask:

Measurable Objectives

• Wil l th is content posi t ion my company as a thought leader?

• Does i t he lp solve my market’s chal lenges?

• Wil l i t generate qual i f ied t raf f ic to my s i te?

• Is th is content better or d i f ferent than what my compet i tors are of fer ing?

Begin by taking a step back and looking at your overa l l content port fo l io. Determine i f you’ve cre-ated content that fu l f i l ls these object ives in one way or another. Are there any holes? Have you neglected any part icu lar object ive? For example, has i t been a whi le s ince you’ve tended to your product pages?

Your objectives wil l guide you, not only as you create new content but a lso as you evaluate the current content you have. I t ’s cr i t ica l that each piece of content works toward your object ives. Let ’s go through each one of the object ives in deta i l to under-stand how they work in your strategy.

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Determine if you’ve created content that fulfills these objectives.

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Step 1: Content Strategy for the Web

Generate Traff ic, Leads and Sales

Certainly, increasing t raff ic is important for your s i te; however, un less you have advert isements on your s i te, and you’re gett ing paid for page v iews, you won’t get much out of increased traff ic apart f rom re inforc-ing brand recogni t ion. The u l t imate goal for increasing t raff ic is to increase conver-s ions and generate sa les for your business. Your content should a lways work to funnel the t raff ic that you’re gett ing to your convers ion pages.

Ultimately, your content wi l l on ly add va lue to your business when i t ’s re levant, t imely, and engaging. Con-tent that fa i ls in th is regard won’t have a chance at going v i ra l in socia l media chan-nels, and rather than gain ing va luable t raff ic wi l l instead lead to h igh bounce rates. On the other hand, when you generate engaging content, you wi l l f ind bounce rates drop and convers ion rates go up; you’ l l see your content take off in socia l media.

You can objectively measure t raff ic increases and convers ion rates. That makes th is object ive a great one for your strategy, not only as you develop your content but a lso as you measure

i ts success. When you see posi t ive resul ts, you can rest assured that your other goals for your content -- the ones that are harder to measure -- are reaping the benef i ts , too. That is , i f you see increased traff ic to your s i te and an increased rate of convers ion when that t raff ic lands there, then your brand is st rength-ened, your mindshare has increased.

Proactively Manage Your Online Reputation

The mantra for reputat ion management is s imple: Don’t wai t for a prob-lem to develop. Proact ive reputat ion management en-sures that the organizat ion’s own content f i l ls the search engine resul ts page when that organizat ion’s name or key people get searched. By ensur ing that the organiza-t ion’s content is v is ib le, i t becomes much harder for negat ive content to r ise up to the page one search re-sul ts. Most searches gen-era l ly don’t go past page one of the search engine resul ts page. Organizat ions (even indiv iduals ) that want to manage the i r reputat ion ought to focus on keeping page one f i l led with qual-i ty content that re inforces a posi t ive brand image. When

customers search for your brand, they should f ind noth-ing but posi t ive in format ion about your f i rm, and a smart content strategy ensures that they wi l l .

In order for your organiza-t ion, or you as an indiv idual , to achieve th is, your con-tent should be d ist r ibuted through a number of chan-nels. Through socia l media, businesses can communi-cate to the i r customers and manage the communicat ion that f lows to the customer. Socia l media s i tes typica l ly a l low you to create your own prof i le page. Prof i les on Google, Facebook, Twit-ter and L inkedIn are great examples of start ing points for developing a socia l media p lat form. I f your industry has any industry-speci f ic socia l media s i tes, these are certa in ly p laces to have a prof i le , as wel l .

The same content strategy is t rue for the repu-tat ion of your brand as wel l as key execut ives wi th in your organizat ion. Take me, Arn ie Kuenn, for example. A search for my name returns with a var iety of content -- near ly a l l the content on th is page is content that I have devel-oped and promoted, which is exact ly how i t should be.

continued...

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Step 1: Content Strategy for the Web continued...

Content for Search Engine Rankings

Any set of objectives for a content strategy would be incomplete i f i t ignored search engine opt imizat ion (SEO). W ithout consider-ing SEO at the development stage, the possib i l i t ies for your content are d imin ished.

Content development and search engine opt imiza-t ion go hand in hand. On-page SEO is about as-sur ing that each content page has the nuts and bol ts in p lace so that the content wi l l have the best chance for ranking h ighly in search. This means that your con-tent needs to get p lenty of l inks, and that onsi te SEO best pract ices ( f ree guide) – inc luding t i t les, opt imized metadata, and assurance that the pages do not have excessive load t ime – need to be taken care of . As the content is developed, keep-ing these SEO factors in mind wi l l ensure that i t goes l ive in the best condi t ion to improve your search engine rankings.

On-page SEO is about assuring that each content page has the nuts and bolts in place so that the content will have the best chance for ranking highly in search.

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Step 2: Answer Sites Can Be a Content Research Gold Mine

Answer sites might just be the per fect marr iage of socia l media and search. The basic concept behind an answer s i te is that people can post a quest ion hop-

ing to get i t answered by someone knowledgeable in the subject matter. The answers can be powered by publ ic knowledge with consensus determin ing

Create Content That Answer Your Market’s Questions

People ask questions about a l l k inds of th ings on near ly every topic imagin-able, and as you analyze what people are ask ing, you can spot t rends. From a market research perspect ive, th is means that you’ l l focus on the people that have been asking quest ions re lat ing to your in-dustry and your n iche market. You can der ive usefu l market data about the people who are looking for so lut ions to the i r problems in th is manner. By searching for quest ions that inc lude your keywords, you can discover what people are ask ing about. I f you f ind a common theme, you can cre-ate content that answers those quest ions. You might even phrase your content’s t i t le in the form of a quest ion, the very quest ion people are ask-ing. This g ives your content the best chance to be found when someone types that quest ion d i rect ly into a Google search.

On top of seeing the t rends that are happening, you can use answer s i tes to get rea l- t ime feedback about your industry f rom the consumers that are engag-ing with i t . Ask a quest ion to an answer s i te that re lates to your product to see what k ind of response you get f rom the answer ing publ ic. These answers can g ive you enl ightening market ing data.

On the Internet, there are a var iety of answer s i tes that at t ract d i fferent k inds of users, and the quest ions are character ized by the p lace where they’re asked. Let ’s go through a few popular answer s i tes, f ind out how they work, and look at what makes them unique.

You’ve Got Questions? Yahoo! Answers

Yahoo! Answers is one of the b iggest answer s i tes, gett ing mi l l ions of quest ions and answers.

the “best” answer. Answer s i tes offer users the abi l i ty to be both the inquis i tor and the expert .

The site gets a huge var iety of quest ions, ranging f rom dat ing to homework to home and garden. Because of i ts popular i ty, dur ing the 2008 U.S. pres ident ia l campaign, candidates Barack Obama, Hi l lary Cl inton, Mit t Romney, and John McCain submit ted quest ions to the s i te, leverag-ing the i r campaigns on the Internet and generat ing a huge response f rom the publ ic.

With Yahoo! Answers, you can browse by category and see what k inds of ques-t ions are most popular, new-est, or have received the fastest answers. And you can get speci f ic , too. Because every user has to categor ize a quest ion by topic before submit t ing i t , i t ’s eas ier for you to research quest ions that perta in to your market. You can search keyword phrases to browse quest ions that are being asked, e i ther wi th in cat-egor ies or among a l l catego-r ies.

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For example, after searching for the keyword “swing set ideas” the top three quest ions were:

1. “Shopping for swing set , any ideas where to get a good one on a budget?”

2. “Looking for do- i t-your-se l f p lans for a short monkey bar structure for our backyard -- any ideas?”

3. “Does anyone know where I can buy a n ice but af fordable wooden swing set?”

I f I sel l playground equipment, these quest ions g ive me a few ideas about what people are af ter. A l l three of these quest ions revolve around low-cost or do- i t-yoursel f so lut ions. So, r ight away I can infer that to be successfu l in th is market, I have to f ind ways to prov ide swing set parts or p lans that focus on cost sav ings. Many

quest ions in th is search reveal that people are look-ing for creat ive ideas when bui ld ing the i r own backyard swing set . Not ice an op-portuni ty for some content that wi l l o ffer so lut ions to th is problem? How about a top-10 l is t of coolest swing set ideas?

LinkedIn: Where Networking is Big Business

LinkedIn is primari ly a so-c ia l network ing s i te a imed at business profess ionals. W ith more than 80 mi l l ion networked indiv iduals, the s i te boasts the abi l i ty for l inked profess ionals to col-laborate on pro jects and ex-pand thei r abi l i ty to commu-nicate across the i r industry through L inkedIn Groups. L inkedIn offers an answers channel as one of i ts tools for col laborat ion. The Q&A feature offers the abi l i ty for industry experts to show off

the i r expert ise to a network up to three degrees deep (your contacts, your contact’s con-tacts, and your second- leve l-contact’s contacts) . Depend-ing on how wide each leve l is , th is could amount to a very extensive network.

LinkedIn answers has part icu lar ly good data for Business-to-Business (B2B) market ing. You can f ind ques-t ions your potent ia l custom-ers are ask ing as they t ry to solve the i r toughest quest ions. By spending t ime in L inkedIn, you’ l l get an ins ider’s v iew into the problems that your busi-ness can solve for your cus-tomers.

You might try Facebook and Quora too, as both offer Q&A appl icat ions. As you can see, by us ing answer s i tes for research, you can quick ly develop a l is t of content development ideas help ing you through one of the b iggest chal lenges of content market ing.

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Step 2: Answer Sites Can Be a Content Research Gold Mine continued...

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Step 3: Developing Website Content to Meet Your Goals

The content develop-ment process centers on the abi l i ty to keep inspi red. I t ’s about seeing opportuni-t ies to nab raw mater ia ls and turn them into market-able content, l ike br inging a d ig i ta l camera to a con-ference or keeping a smal l v ideo camera in the desk at the off ice. A l l i t takes is a proact ive menta l i ty and a l i t t le creat iv i ty.

The Essential Piece: An Editorial Calendar

Since the dawn of pr int per iodica l publ ish ing, edi tors have used edi tor ia l ca lendars to manage the publ icat ion and ensure t ime-ly del ivery of new content to readers. Just as t radi t ional pr int publ icat ions have an edi tor who manages the calendar, a company should inc lude a content strategist who governs the edi tor ia l ca lendar. This might be any-one f rom the owner of the smal l bus iness to someone in market ing, to a brand new posi t ion created for th is purpose. Because the con-tent strategist has a wide array of media to manage -- inc luding the websi te, socia l media prof i les, d ist r ibut ion channels, the b log, off-s i te content, and more -- the edi tor ia l ca lendar is a must-have.

A good editorial calendar p lots out a year in advance, every p iece of content that the organizat ion intends to publ ish, inc luding not only the date of launch but the steps inc luded in meet ing those goals. The content strategist and cre-at ive team frequent ly rev iew the calendar to bra instorm for upcoming pro jects, make adjustments based on resul ts, and manage the cre-at ion and launch of upcoming content. By using a calendar to manage the process, you can contro l publ ica-t ion across mult ip le media p lat forms. Whi le i t ’s recom-mended that you plot a year out, that doesn’t mean that you can’t adapt your ca len-dar to changing t rends. The calendar is a guide to keep you on t rack with your con-tent object ives, and i t can be updated as necessary. Without an editorial calendar, you run the r isk of producing content inconsis-tent ly and possib ly neglect-ing publ ish ing p lat forms that need nurtur ing. For example,

wi thout a ca lendar, i t can be very easy for a week, two weeks, even a month to go by between blog posts. And who’s cover ing the Facebook prof i le? Has anyone looked at i t late ly? Publ ish ing is a d isc ip l ine that requi res constant at tent ion. The edi tor ia l ca lendar he lps keep you disc ip l ined.

An editorial calendar deta i ls when, where, and how content wi l l be publ ished on a dai ly, weekly, and monthly basis. Every p iece of content has i ts own development pro-cess, which is managed on the calendar. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process for making web content search-engine-f r iendly. SEO fac i l i tates the search engine bot crawl ing your pages and makes the nature of your content c lear to the search engine a lgor i thm so that i t ’s recognized as h ighly re levant and wi l l l ike ly appear h igh in the search resul ts. Search engines reward content in the search resul ts for being c lear and user- f r iendly, so opt imizat ion is about making content exact ly that . Certa in ly, you should ensure that your webmaster understands SEO, but your web content creators need to understand opt imiza-t ion, too. This means they should understand some of the technica l stuff -- so that every content creat ion effort inc ludes opt imizat ion ( rather than leav ing i t as an af ter thought ) .

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Step 4: Optimization Techniques for Various Content Types

Optimizing Your Text Based Content

Optimization is about making sure your content is understood by the search engine bots. I cover th is in deta i l in my book and you can get th is f ree SEO Best Pract ices Guide here, so for these purposes I am going to concentrate more on opt imiz ing images and v ideo. However I wi l l qu ick ly cover just a few points about typica l page opt imizat ion f i rst .

One of the most important e lements is the t i t le tag. The page t i t le tag is set off by the tag <t i t le> and i t serves a number of purposes. I t usual ly states what the page is about and is v iewable to users in a number of p laces. In the search engine resul ts, and on many socia l net-works, the t i t le appears as the l ink for the websi te. I t a lso appears at the top of the browser when you are v iewing the page, and i f your browser is tabbed, i t wi l l be the name of the tab for the page being v iewed. Therefore, i t ’s meaningfu l to humans as the ident i f ier for your page’s content. I t a lso has a major s ign i f i -cance to search engines.

Optimization is about making sure your content is understood by the search engine bots.

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Step 4: Optimization Techniques for Various Content Types

Next, you have the Meta descr ipt ion. The Meta descr ipt ion typica l ly would be v iewed by the user in the SERP as the descr ip-tor text about the resul t . For the humans v iewing the search resul ts, th is descr ip-t ion is very important and should make i t qui te c lear what v is i tors wi l l f ind when they c l ick to your content (see REI example below). Therefore, you should avoid gener ic descr iptors,

l ike “Welcome to our home page.” A good descr ipt ion concise ly states the pur-pose of the page content and inc ludes your keywords. I t is your opportuni ty to se l l the indiv idual on c l ick-ing through to your page. Search engines l imi t the amount of rea l estate they wi l l g ive to descr ipt ions and normal ly have l imi t of about 150 characters. Anyth ing more than that l imi t is usu-a l ly cut off .

Optimizing Images for Search

Because images get searched qui te regular ly, the images on your websi te need to be opt imized. Images can appear in the main search resul ts i f Google determines that image resul ts are re levant to a part icu lar search. Your image could appear, even when your other content pages don’t .

Because search engines can’t der ive fu l l meanings f rom images, they re ly on

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Search engines reward content in the search results for being clear and user-friendly, so optimization is about making content exactly that.

continued...

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Step 4: Optimization Techniques for Various Content Types

the context of the page on which the images are found to ident i fy re levance to the query. The search engine uses the words on the page on which the image is located, a long with the Meta tags for the image, to understand the image’s contextual meaning and i ts re levance in search.

The metadata for images inc ludes source ( i .e. f i le locat ion and name), a l t , and t i t le tags. For best resul ts in search, a l l of these tags should be used and opt i-mized for your images.

• Alt tags serve as a l ter-nate text to descr ibe the image when the image is not avai lab le. For text-reading soft-ware, a l t tags are read a loud so that images can be understood by the l is tener. A good a l t tag is a s imple phrase that is keyword-r ich and adequate ly descr ibes the image.

• The image t i t le tag is s imi lar to the a l t tag, but i t d isplays on the scro l l -over by the mouse. The t i t le wi l l he lp the v is i tor to un-derstand the context of the image, and there-fore i t should descr ibe i t accurate ly and with de-ta i l . The t i t le tag should be keyword-r ich but i t should a lso g ive a bet-

ter sense of the context of the image. The a l t and t i t le tags are embedded with in the image source code as fo l lows: < img src=“pepperoni_pizza.jpg” a l t=“pepperoni p izza” t i t le=“pepperoni p izza wi th proper d ist r i -but ion of pepperonis”>.

• Not only should your a l t and t i t le tags be keyword-r ich, but the f i lename for your im-age should a lso conta in the keyword that you’re opt imiz ing.

Optimizing Videos for Search

The Internet v ideo phe-nomenon has made i t much easier for anyone, inc luding marketers, to use v ideo for communicat ion. V ideo does not have to be profess ion-a l ly produced in a studio to be interest ing, en joyable, or go v i ra l . I t on ly needs to be compel l ing.

Most v ideo-host ing s i tes prov ide an embed code that you can paste into your webpage’s HTML, a l lowing v is i tors to p lay the v ideo f rom your page. Post the v ideo to YouTube and, when i t goes l ive, grab the embed code and post i t to your s i te. You should a lso create and opt imize branded chan-

nels for your business on YouTube, V imeo and others. This way you can increase your brand recogni t ion and leverage your success-fu l v ideos to promote your other content.

Here are some t ips for opt i -miz ing v ideos:

• Make sure your v ideo t i t le is keyword-r ich, but g ive i t some pizzazz. Drab t i t les that ap-pear to v iewers as only keyword-conscious wi l l lead them to bel ieve that the v ideo i tse l f is just market ing propaganda.

• For the v ideo descr ip-t ion, make sure i t c lear ly represents the con-tent of the v ideo and conta ins your keyword phrase. Lead the de-scr ipt ion with a l ink to the most re levant page on your websi te, that way i t wi l l ensure that i t d isplays so that users can easi ly c l ick on i t .

• As with images, when post ing v ideo to your s i te, be sure to opt imize the descr ipt ion and t i t le tags.

• Opt imize the v ideo f i lename and URL in the same way that you would with images. Make sure they incorpo-rate the keywords you’re target ing.

Search engines reward content in the search results for being clear and user-friendly, so optimization is about making content exactly that.

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Step 5: Putting the ‘Marketing’ in Content Marketing

Once you’ve created and opt imized that great v ideo, b log post, or in fographic, you want i t to get some at-tent ion. I t ’s t ime to put the market ing in content mar-ket ing, and that ’s where the power of socia l media rea l ly k icks in. By leveraging so-c ia l media interact ions, you can c i rcu late your content and put your brand in f ront of potent ia l customers. I f you’re pay ing attent ion to where your target audience hangs out onl ine, you can interact wi th them there.

Tradit ional marketing through te lev is ion, radio and even pr int is more interrupt ion-dr iven, whereas content market ing engages your customers with some-th ing they are a l ready in-terested in, of ten prov id ing them creat ive solut ions to the i r problems. This makes the socia l web the ideal p lace to promote your busi-ness as the source of in for-mat ion that your customers are looking for.

Promotion is the work of announcing what you have to offer and ensur ing that i t gets d ist r ibuted to the peo-ple that you want to see i t . Many t imes, th is is a mat-ter of shar ing media wi th in a network of re lat ionships that you’ve establ ished and nurtured. To make the most of socia l media, you need to know how these re lat ion-

ships can benef i t you and how you need to care for them in order to susta in them.

Every business wil l have a unique approach to how i t promotes i ts content, based on the industry and customer prof i les. Smal l businesses with very smal l staffs may not be able to manage a huge so-c ia l media campaign. In many cases, you’ l l need to p ick and choose what k inds of socia l media you have the t ime to work with. There are a number of possib i l i t ies to choose f rom, inc luding: b logging, comment-ing on blogs, part ic ipat ing in d iscussion groups, and post-ing status updates on socia l network ing s i tes.

To identify what you should be doing for your industry, start by tak ing a look at how your compet i t ion is us ing socia l media. Look c losely at your compet i t ion’s act iv i ty in socia l media. What chan-nels are they us ing? How many f r iends do they have on Facebook? How many fo l low-ers do they have on Twit ter? Maybe your compet i tors are work ing in b logs and forums. I f not , why not? Are there any n iche forums out there that have audiences that might be interested in your work? Check out the media and bloggers that normal ly wr i te about your industry. Make f r iends with these b loggers.

How to Use Social Media Interactions to Promote Your Content the Right Way

The greatest value in social media is , of course, that i t ’s socia l . Th is means that you have the opportuni ty to en-gage customers in a way that wasn’t possib le in the past. A key execut ive in your business could post an update v ia Twit-ter and interact wi th potent ia l customers, industry experts, and any other fo l lowers. This k ind of engagement can add a sense of fami l iar i ty and com-fort to your brand image. On the socia l web, where content is instant ly accessib le, peo-ple want to engage with the brands in much the same way that they interact wi th every-day people. This means that by engaging through interest-ing, conversat ional content, you can keep your brand in f ront of customers so that when they’re ready to look for products in your market, they’ l l th ink of you.

Facebook – the Social Media Juggernaut

Your Facebook pages are communicat ion tools that you can use to mainta in brand awareness by promot ing your business as wel l as your con-tent. Keep in mind that in or-

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Step 5: Putting the ‘Marketing’ in Content Marketing

der to be socia l , you have to have status updates that are socia l in nature. Engage with personal i ty in a way that ’s appropr iate for your business and works for your industry.

Social media interactions work best when they inv i te the socia l network to act ive ly take part in the ongoing, v ibrant l i fe of your business. W ith a mix of incent ives to v is i t your websi te and engag-ing content, create updates that encourage comments in order to keep fo l lowers act ive ly engaged with your prof i le . Furthermore, when updates generate comments, other fo l lowers in the net-work take not ice and register that your brand is making a buzz. That k ind of exci tement is contagious, and people p ick up on i t .

Twitter – the Information Engine

Twitter is a self-pro-cla imed “ informat ion engine.” That moniker a lone should te l l you that i t can be an awesome plat form for pro-mot ing your content and sub-sequent ly your business. The pr imary market ing appl icat ion for Twit ter is to keep your fo l lowers in formed about the cool products and ser-v ices that your business can prov ide. When you develop new content, tweet i t , your fo l lowers wi l l be expect ing i t . I f you tweet your content, your fo l lowers can retweet i t ,

br inging t raff ic to your pages and expanding your brand recogni t ion.

The secondary application i s to act ive ly engage the phe-nomenon of crowd-sourc ing. By us ing Twit ter search and meet ing the needs of indi-v idual users head-on, you can act ive ly promote your content to the potent ia l customers who are looking for answers.

LinkedIn – the Business to Business Connection

By now you probably understand that L inkedIn is the premier socia l network ing s i te that is devoted sole ly to profess ionals. I t is sa id that L inkedIn’s 100 mi l l ion mem-bers inc lude an execut ive f rom every Fortune 500 company. L inkedIn remains the best so-c ia l network ing s i te to market your business-to-business (B2B) products and serv ices because of th is specia l demo-graphic.

Even for business-to-consumer (B2C) companies, L inkedIn is important. Not only are weal thy consumers a lso members of L inkedIn but even B2C companies have B2B market ing act iv i t ies wi th regard to d ist r ibutors, agents, and strategic a l l iances. Imag-ine i f a l l o f your key manage-ment for sa les, market ing, and business development were a l l contr ibut ing to L inkedIn in

meaningfu l ways. I t could be a powerfu l way to obta in mind-share and eventual thought leadership, which could eventu-a l ly generate rea l revenue for your business.

Forum Participation

Forums are the evolutionary descendants of chat rooms. They aren’t necessar i ly as popular as other forms of socia l media interact ion, but there are some av id users of Inter-net forums. Many industr ies have n iche-re lated forums. I t ’s worthwhi le to dedicate some t ime and effort to part ic ipat-ing in industry forums. Through forum part ic ipat ion, you can:

• Demonstrate your expert ise by of fer ing answers to par-t ic ipants’ quest ions

• Promote your content pages by l ink ing to pages that might interest or benef i t the group

• Develop re lat ionships with other forum part ic ipants, who might be wi l l ing to pro-mote your content in the i r networks, such as the i r b logs or other socia l media spaces

Blogger Engagement

The essence of blogger engagement is network ing. By network ing with b loggers, you can pi tch your content, and even ask them to wr i te a post for your content. Pract ica l ly

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Step 5: Putting the ‘Marketing’ in Content Marketing

speaking, you bui ld your network by searching for the b loggers wi th whom to net-work through media l is ts and Google b log search.

At the center of blogger engagement is comment ing, which fosters re lat ionship-bui ld ing. Bloggers welcome good comments that are on topic wi th the i r posts be-cause they enhance the qual-i ty of the b log and increase i ts favorabi l i ty wi th search engines. This means that you can leverage blog com-ment ing to your advantage in order to promote your web content and your brand, i f you engage blogs in the r ight way.

Press Releases and Media Outreach

Starting from scratch in a media outreach campaign, inc luding p i tch ing to b log-gers, can seem daunt ing. There is such a p lethora of media out lets on the Inter-net that i t would be near ly

impossib le to keep t rack of who’s wr i t ing what and for which target demographic. Fortunate ly there are publ ic re lat ions f i rms managing a l l of th is data on media l is ts, and they can help you pinpoint your media target.

Companies l ike Vocus and Cis ion specia l ize in media out-reach and have act ive data-bases that can help you target p i tches and press re leases. Media l is ts prov ide deta i led informat ion for a wide range of media out lets, f rom te lev is ion to newspapers, to magazines, to b logs.

Email Marketing

Email can be a great way to ensure that you del iver content to a speci f ic community. Your eNewsletter is the best way to a ler t your subscr ibers to your latest content, promot ions, and t ips.

You can del iver your eNews-le t ter and other promot ional mater ia l to the mai l ing l is t that

you’ve bui l t through your lead-generat ing efforts and network-ing. The very best emai l l is t is the one that has indiv iduals who want your emai l to begin wi th. You can bui ld up an emai l subscr iber l is t by prov id ing am-ple opportuni t ies for v is i tors to your websi te to volunteer the i r emai l address. Even better, of-fer them an exchange by g iv ing away f ree and usefu l content -- such as a whi te paper -- in return for an emai l address. People are of ten more wi l l ing to g ive an emai l address i f they can immediate ly get something that they want.

The social web provides great opportuni t ies to put your content in the hands of poten-t ia l customers. People love to share the content that appeals to them, and socia l media has s impl i f ied shar ing. I f you get your content in the hands of the r ight person, i t can spread l ike wi ldf i re. Through targeted pi tches and socia l media inter-act ion, you can increase your chances of landing your content in the spaces where that person is l ike ly to be found.

“ ”The social web provides great opportunities to put your content in the hands of potential customers.

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Step 6: Content Distribution - Finding the Right Channels

At this point you have awesome content on your websi te. I t ’s great stuff -- you should be proud of i t ! I t ’s t ime to open up chan-nels where you can distr ibute your ideas and c la im even more rea l estate onl ine. Distr ibut ion channels create more opportuni t ies to del iver content to potent ia l custom-ers and to possib ly inc lude a l ink back to your products and serv ices.

The difference between promot ion and distr ibut ion is that promot ion is a l l about generat ing a buzz around your content and distr ibu-t ion is a matter of f ind ing a lot of d i f ferent ways to get your content to appear in the search resul ts. To maximize your abi l i ty to d ist r ibute your content, d ivers i fy or repur-pose i t so that you can reach a var iety of channels.

Diversifying your distr ibu-t ion channels g ives you the opportuni ty to f i l l the search resul ts wi th your content. Your branded socia l media prof i le on Facebook or your YouTube v ideo might just outrank s imi lar content on your websi te. I f you have a d iverse d ist r ibut ion strat-egy and you target the r ight keywords, you could poten-t ia l ly f i l l severa l s lots on the search resul ts page with your content !

Repurpose and Distr ibute Your Textual Content

To expand your footprint, consider s i tes l ike Huff ington Post, Squidoo or even Hub-pages. In effect , these s i tes ask members to generate web content in the i r area of exper-t ise, bui ld ing a resource for anyone seeking informat ion on any number of topics, ranging f rom food to photography.

These types of sites have been around for qui te a whi le, susta ined by revenue generated through advert is-ing. However, th is is a good t ime for a word of caut ion. The Google Panda update in February 2011 targeted s i tes genera l ly considered to be “content farms.” S i tes that were l i t tered with advert is ing and poor content were ham-mered, and r ight fu l ly so. My recommendat ion is that you f ind only the strongest s i tes for your speci f ic market, s i tes l ike CafeMom and FanNat ion. There are a lot of rea l ly good s i tes in your industry looking for profess ional ar t ic les and even blog posts. Take the t ime to f ind and bui ld re lat ionships with them.

When you develop content for the s i te, make every ef-fort to create new, interest ing content that engages the i r readers. However, a l low me to take th is opportuni ty once again to pra ise the beauty of

repurposing. You can take an ex ist ing p iece of text content, tweak i t wi th some new, or ig ina l content, and submit i t .

RSS for News and Blog Feeds

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and blog feeds are awe-some ways to d ist r ibute your f resh content to the masses. Not only does RSS del iver up-dated news to subscr ibers who are fo l lowing your feeds, but i t can a lso be p icked up by feed catchers, widgets, and other appl icat ions that aggregate RSS content by speci f ic key-words. RSS ensures that your content wi l l get to the people who want to receive i t .

From a distr ibution stand-point , s i tes l ike L inkedIn (and many others) a l low you to add your RSS feed to your prof i le page. Al l your new posts wi l l f low through your feed so that i t immediate ly gets d ist r ib-uted to your L inkedIn page. Once you’ve establ ished an RSS feed, the maintenance is min imal . Your content goes out to your subscr ibers and to feed-catchers looking for your keywords. Just as fast as you can develop content, your RSS feed pumps i t out .

Video, Photo and Podcast Sharing Sites

Hopeful ly, you are either exc i ted to start or are a l ready producing lots of audio, v ideo, and photo content for your

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Step 6: Content Distribution - Finding the Right Channels

s i te. Whether you’re report-ing your success at confer-ences in photos, interv iewing industry experts wi th v ideo, or issu ing audio vers ions of your content for the v isual ly impaired, you wi l l have some fantast ic content in a var i -ety of media formats. I t on ly makes sense to open up dis-t r ibut ion channels where you can post that same content. As you think of content to put on your s i te, th ink in terms of the channels you have opened e lsewhere (off-s i te ) so that you can distr ibute i t broadly. I f you have a YouTube channel , th ink of content ideas that inc lude v ideo. When you have events, br ing a camera to post photos to your F l ickr account.

Let’s look at some of these channels:

Video is Booming

Video content is highly v is ib le and easi ly d igest-ib le. I t ’s a great medium for communicat ing your thought leadership, your expert know-how, and i t ’s probably the most enterta in ing way to connect to your audience, opening up the possib i l i ty for creat ive, fun content.

Not only should your v ideos appear on your s i te, but you should a lso get them onto s i tes l ike YouTube,

V imeo, and, i f possib le, Meta-Cafe. V ideo is eas i ly share-able, and for th is reason you should make as much use of v ideo distr ibut ion channels as possib le.

YouTube and Vimeo both offer the abi l i ty for users to create branded channels where you can upload your v ideo content. I f you haven’t done so a l ready, set up brand-ed channels for both s i tes. You can set up background images to show your brand logo, and coordinate the color theme to match your brand sty le. When you opt imize the channel , make sure to l ink back to your websi te.

When it comes to video, remember to repurpose. Re-purposing a v ideo interv iew to text or to audio is a great

way to get more mi leage out of your v ideo content. L ikewise, i f you have a great p iece of text content, t ry hav ing a dynamic person in your organizat ion present i t in v ideo format.

Distribution Possibi l i t ies for Images

If you’ve developed some cool , or ig ina l photos or images, you should be shar ing them. Image-shar ing is a great way to keep people engaged with the exci tement that ’s happen-ing in and around your industry. When you take advantage of photo-distr ibut ion channels, l ike F l ickr, Photobucket, and Picasa, you not only ra ise the v is ib i l i ty of your content but a lso encourage i t to be shared.

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Step 6: Content Distribution - Finding the Right Channels

Almost every photo- shar ing s i te makes i t easy to publ ish photos to other socia l media s i tes l ike Face-book and Twit ter. This can make i t a snap to expand your d ist r ibut ion throughout your socia l media footpr int . When you publ ish content to a photo s i te, share the photos to your socia l media p lat forms to let your net-works know that you have new photo content avai lab le for v iewing.

Make sure to use the descr ipt ion feature for each photo you publ ish. Make your descr ipt ion natura l , but be keyword-conscious. Descr ip-t ions are the cr i t ica l in forma-t ion that search engines use for ident i fy ing re levance and can get your photos into the search resul ts.

Podcasting: Your Own Private Radio Broadcast

People al l over are keep- ing up on industry news through audio. By del iver ing audio f i les to these l is teners, you can capture an important n iche audience. By prov id ing your content in th is format, you can make your content avai lab le to your potent ia l customers even when they are away f rom thei r com-puter.

Essential ly, podcasting centers on an audio RSS feed f rom your s i te. When

you set up a RSS feed for your audio, you are effect ive ly broadcast ing your audio f i le over the Internet. Anyone with a podcatcher that ’s set to search for your feed or key-words in your feed wi l l down-load your f i le . But that ’s not the only way that people p ick up podcasts. Many users go to podcast d i rector ies l ike iTunes and Podcast Al ley to browse podcasts to download. You want to ensure that you’ve establ ished accounts wi th these s i tes and set them up to receive your feed.

When you set up the feed f rom your s i te, be sure that the metadata descr ipt ion of the episode is opt imized for your target keywords. As a lways, the t i t le should be natura l for the human reader brows-ing d i rector ies, but i t should conta in keywords that wi l l get i t p icked up by podcatch-ers searching for your term. Because most browsers use keywords to f ind podcasts to fo l low in d i rector ies, you need to opt imize for them, too.

Presentation Sites

Sites l ike Sl ideShare.net, MyPl ick.com and Author-Stream.com offer funct ional i ty that can enhance the o ld-fashioned s l ideshow and turn i t into an awesome distr ibut ion channel .

The bulk of content shared on Sl ideShare and other presentat ion shar ing-s i tes

is the t radi t ional PowerPoint presentat ion. However, I ’ve seen some very creat ive uses for s l ideshows that go beyond presentat ions. For example, t rave logues are f inding the i r way into the s l ideshow format. They work wel l because the t rave ler can post p ictures f rom a t r ip and add text descr ipt ions of the exper ience. As another example, Pres ident Obama’s 2011 State of the Union ad-dress was turned into a s l ide-show, complete wi th enhanced infographics, to demonstrate the key f igures he d iscussed in h is address. Some people have del ivered eBooks, whi te papers and even product compar isons as s l ideshows.

The core message for d ist r ibut ion is , “F ind ways to get i t out there!” The more you capi ta l ize on the myr iad onl ine channels for d ist r ibut ion, the more you wi l l put your great content in the hands of the potent ia l customers who need i t . Distr ibut ion is where you get to show your brand’s abi l i ty to del iver industry wisdom. The more you create content for d ist r ibut ion, or repurpose con-tent for d ist r ibut ion on mult ip le channels, the more your brand wi l l show up in search, and the more opportuni t ies you’ l l create for shar ing. You have great con-tent r ight? -- get i t out where i t can be d iscovered!

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Step 7: Link Building vs. Link Attraction

I t is probably safe to assume that your business object ives depend heavi ly on search engine rankings and exposure through l inks f rom other websi tes to your own. As readers of th is b log know, a major contr ibutor to search engine rankings is the num-ber of qual i ty l inks to your websi te. On top of that , l inks f rom reputable s i tes to yours help increase t raff ic to your s i te. Needless to say, l inks to your content prov ide a major benef i t to your efforts. So you have to f ind a way to get people to l ink to i t .

Theoretical ly, and largely in pract ice, l inks are where humans ident i fy re levance

page to page because i f they l ike i t , they wi l l l ink to i t . Many businesses, however, have had to develop l inks “unnatura l ly” by re ly ing on proact ive ly creat-ing backl inks or -- gasp -- pay ing for l inks. Some have re-sorted to spammy techniques in order to obta in a quant i ty of l inks on the cheap. I t turns out that spam is a rea l ly good way to annoy a webmaster (and Google or Bing) , and i t won’t he lp your reputat ion. To do l ink bui ld ing the r ight way, you have to get personal .

I ’m suggesting that you focus on l ink at t ract ion rather than re ly so le ly on l ink bui ld-ing. I f you generate awesome content and then promote i t , you’re going to at t ract natura l l inks. In effect , i f you develop rea l ly compel l ing mater ia l , l inks wi l l fo l low as the content gets shared. That’s l ink at-

t ract ion. I t ’s rea l ly qui te s imple, and i t serves as one more very strong case for tak ing care to publ ish magnet ic content. The process of promot ing and dis-t r ibut ing your content g ives you an edge in l ink bui ld ing because in those cases i t ’s reaching a targeted audience that wi l l be compel led to share your page by l ink ing to i t f rom thei r s i te.

However, l ink attraction of ten requires pat ience. Yes, most l ike ly you wi l l receive some l inks immediate ly f rom your promot ion efforts, but we have seen content receive new l inks years af ter i t was or ig i-na l ly publ ished. Think about i t , people wi l l not a lways be ready to l ink to your content when you want them to, instead they l ink to i t when i t su i tes the i r purposes. So be pat ient , the l inks wi l l come.

Link attraction plays a key ro le in making a l ink request, too. You won’t at t ract a l ink wi thout prov id ing some k ind of va lue to the s i te that you want to l ink to you. The r ight way to request a l ink is to research b loggers (or webmasters) that are wr i t ing on topics in your industry. I f your content can respond to the issues they ad-dress in the i r content, you can offer up your page as a solu-t ion. A l ink request ( I just l inked to a 5-year-o ld post ) that is targeted and customized wi l l answer the quest ion, “Why should I?” before the webmas-ter or b logger has a chance to ask.

A major contributor to search engine rankings is the number of quality links to your website!

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Step 7: Link Building vs. Link Attraction

The way I look at i t , the r ight k ind of l ink bui ld ing is a l l centered on creat ing excel lent , qual i ty content that has inherent va lue to the person l ink ing to i t (and the i r audience) . The industry term for th is k ind of content is “ l inkworthy.” I l ike to th ink of l ink bui ld ing as a rewards program for your content. Do i t r ight , and you wi l l be re-warded with re levant, t raff ic dr iv ing l inks to your content. High qual i ty l inks are the r ight way -- and the best way -- to make your content r ise in search engine rankings.

A signif icant part of content market ing involves achiev ing these l inks. L ink bui ld ing has t radi t ional ly meant that you reach out to a websi te and ask them to l ink to you. Part of l ink ac-

quis i t ion today has inc luded paying for l inks be-cause websi te owners under-stand the va lue of hav ing l inks. But th is of ten leads to bad pract ices and low-qual i ty l inks. In fact , Google wi l l penal ize websi tes that both se l l and buy l inks. The best a l ternat ive to pay ing for a l ink is generat-ing l inkworthy content.

Think about it . I f I contact you and ask you to l ink to my web page, the f i rst th ing you’re going to th ink in the back of your head is , wel l , why should I? Compel l ing, re levant content a l ready answers that quest ion. I f my content adds va lue to the audience of the websi te I ’m reaching out to, then i t wi l l benef i t the websi te by enhancing the content on

i ts page and, u l t imate ly, the exper ience for i ts v is i tors. The content stands out as interest-ing to the i r audience so they should be wi l l ing to l ink to i t .

Top-notch content makes the strongest case for gett ing natura l l inks, that is , l inks f rom genuinely interested websi te owners or edi tors. L inkworthy content genera l ly gets more l inks f rom a var iety of d i f ferent sources, which is enormously va luable to your rankings and overa l l success. And the t raff ic that those l inks generate typi-ca l ly at t racts a better potent ia l customer. Put the effort in at the content development stage to make your content rock, and the l inks wi l l fo l low.

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Put the effort in at the content development stage to make your content rock, and the links will follow.

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Step 8: Web Analytics to Measure Your Content Marketing Progress

You can’t measure success unt i l you’ve def ined i t . Content development is d i rect ly l inked to the goals in your market ing strategy. But how do you know i f you’re meet ing those goals? Say your goal is to increase t raf-f ic to your s i te. At what point can you say you’ve achieved that goal?

Defining Success

The answer is that every goal should be contextual-ized to inc lude measurable mi lestones so that you can c lear ly see whether or not you’ve been successfu l . I f your basic ambit ion is to increase t raff ic to your s i te, work into that goal one or more mi lestones that estab-l ish a t imetable and measur-able benchmarks. Art icu late your goals so that they are c lear ly establ ished and make them as speci f ic as pos-s ib le. So, a goal of “ increase t raff ic to our s i te” could be better stated: “Show a 50 percent increase in t raff ic to our ‘Contact Us’ page in s ix months.” This restated goal speci f ies what area of your s i te you’ l l focus on, i t g ives a f i rm, measurable def in i t ion of what leve l of increase you’re looking to achieve, and i t establ ishes a date at which you wi l l be able to determine the success.

Measure Progress

Using web analyt ics, you can measure the return on your object ives. What are web analyt ics? According to the Web Analyt ics Associat ion, web analyt ics are def ined as “the measurement, col lec-t ion, analys is and report ing of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and opt imiz-ing web usage.” By us ing web analyt ics, you can get deta i led metr ics behind user act iv i ty on your s i te and other pages.

On-site analyt ics measure user act iv i ty as they engage your websi te. They t rack us-ers’ paths through your con-tent, reveal ing what is impor-tant to the i r exper iences and ident i fy ing areas where you could br ing forward the con-tent you want to emphasize. Using tools such as Google Analyt ics, you can get huge amounts of metr ics back on the act iv i ty on your s i te. You can ident i fy which keyword searches are leading to v is-i ts per page and, u l t imate ly, convers ion. Using these tools to develop your onsi te analyt-ics, you’ l l be better equipped to make mi lestones for future content because you’ l l know exact ly what you can measure.

By developing web forms on your s i te, you can dr ive the analyt ics wi th precis ion to gather metr ics on user behav-

ior. By t racking user in-teract ions with forms, you can ident i fy who’s us ing your content, what k ind of people are convert ing, what they want f rom your products and serv ices, and a host of other pos-s ib i l i t ies.

You can’t measure success until you’ve defined it.

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Step 8: Web Analytics to Measure Your Content Marketing Progress

You have the ability to use analytics to adapt your content toward what is likely to work and not waste time producing content that doesn’t have a chance at success.

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Establishing a Basel ine

By establ ish ing a web analyt ics program for your business, you can deter-mine i f you are meet ing your goals, what content works, and what needs improvement. Measure-ment a lways begins wi th establ ish ing a basel ine benchmark f rom your cur rent analyt ics. Establ ish ing a basel ine is genera l ly not d i ff icu l t , especia l ly i f you’ve been monitor ing the ana-lyt ic data a l ready. From the basel ine, establ ish a goal and a t imel ine for achiev-ing the goal . Generate your

content and run the analyt ics according to your t imetable.

Web analytics wil l give you a v is ion for future content development. A l l content you develop should work toward a measurable goal . By us ing analyt ics to both establ ish your goal and measure your efforts, you can be smart about each new effort , which wi l l actual ly f ree you up to fo l low bold, creat ive ideas with conf idence.

Take What You Have Learned and Adapt

But it ’s not about tr ial and error. I t ’s about t r ia l and

test ing. I t ’s not exact ly sc i-ence, but you shouldn’t have to take a shotgun approach, e i ther. I t ’s far more eff ic ient to take r i f le shots. In other words, you can generate tar-geted content that has been informed by exper ience and research. Through measure-ment, you can hone in on the k inds of content that have h istor ica l ly worked for you and for your compet i tors. You have the abi l i ty to use analyt ics to adapt your con-tent toward what is l ike ly to work and not waste t ime pro-ducing content that doesn’t have a chance at success.

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Arnie Kuenn is the pres i-dent of Vert ical Measures , a search, socia l & content market ing company help-ing the i r c l ients get more t raff ic , more leads, and more business. Arn ie has held execut ive posi t ions in the wor ld of new technolo-gies and market ing for more than 20 years. Mr. Kuenn served on the 2008 Ar izona Super Bowl Market ing Com-mit tee and is a founder and

past pres ident of the Ar i-zona Interact ive Market ing Associat ion (AZIMA). Arn ie is a lso a f requent speaker. A l is t of h is pr ior speaking engagements is ava i lab le on Arnie’s Speaker Bio page, as wel l as booking informat ion.

Arnie KuennAuthor: Accelerate! Move Your Business Forward through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Market ing CEO: Vertical Measures

ContactArnie Kuenn Vertical Measures

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Congratulations! You now have a foundat ion to get started with your content market ing program. Cont inue to educate yoursel f by at-tending webinars and indus-try conferences and reading f ree guides just l ike th is one.

I f you are interested in partner-ing with Vert ica l Measures to generate more t raff ic , more leads and more business with content market ing, contact us today.

And don’t forget to buy the complete best-se l l ing Internet

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