Learn How to Publish Strategic Marketing Plan Content that Educates

by Dave DeVelder 17. May 2012 06:24

Featuring excerpts from the 7 Steps to Successful Marketing

Our recent blog on the three elements of a lead generation campaign features a section on the 4C's of which content is the most important. Content strategy must be accomplished through very specific forms of content, not simply through sheer volume. The content must also reflect a strategically laid out marketing plan. "Every business is now a publishing business, so you must start to think like one," says John Jantsch, a renowned marketing consultant to growing businesses.

Content that educates

  • The Point of View White Paper: Every business should have a well-developed core story that’s documented in the form of a white paper or e-book. This content (which is determined in the developmental stages of the marketing plan) must dive deeply into what makes a firm different, what the secret sauce is, how the company approaches customer service, and why the firm does what it does. This idea is expounded upon in The Referral Engine. This is the primer for a company’s educational content push.
  • Blogging: Blogs are the absolute starting point for content strategy that is determined in the marketing plan. It is the starting point because it makes content production, syndication and sharing so easy. The search engines love blog content, not to mention the fact that blogs allow one to produce and organize a great deal of editorial thinking. Content produced on a blog can easily be expanded and adapted to become content for articles, workshops and e-books.
  • Seminars: Today, people want information packaged in ways that will help them get what they want. Presentations, workshop and seminars (online and off) are tremendous ways to provide education with the added punch of engagement. Turning one’s point of view white paper into a 45-minute, value-packed session is one of the most effective ways to increase lead generation while nurturing and converting leads. Record them in webinar format to make the session available any time of day at the viewer's discretion. 
  • FAQs: There are those who want to know one very specific thing about the company or approach and these learners get the most value out of the traditional “frequently asked questions” approach. There’s no denying the value of information packaged in this format. Go beyond the questions that routinely get asked and include those that should get asked but don’t, particularly the ones that help position the company favorably against the competition.
  • Success stories: Building rich examples of actual clients succeeding through the use of the product or service offerings is a tremendous way to help people learn from other individuals and businesses just like them. When prospects see themselves in a success story, they can more easily arrive at a place where they can imagine getting those same results. This is a form of content that begs to be produced in video.
  • Videos:  If "a picture is worth a thousand words" than a moving picture is priceless. Any one or all of the content formats above can be delivered as a video. Just having video on your website makes you 53x more likely to appear on the front page of Google search results, according to Forrester Research (2010). Video marketing works because people like watching video, plain and simple.

All of the above elements should be built into a marketing plan with a process to create, update and manage each.

Working with DevCom’s marketing consultant Dave DeVelder can help build the elements listed above into a strategic marketing plan. For further information on how DevCom can help, or for more advice on how to coordinate a marketing plan that will drive lead generation results, contact DevCom today!

 

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Customer Experience | General | Marketing | Sales | Strategies

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