I recently read a post written by Brian Carroll of MECLABS. An excerpt caught
my attention as this is a problem I see often. He was discussing a finding in
Marketing Sherpa's 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report that found only 15%
of marketers reported they have dedicated resources to produce content for
each stage of the buying process.
Brian's colleague, Daniel Burnstein, shared that he had heard a related story
from one of their partners:
They, too, wanted to send emails that were relevant and didn’t know where
to begin. Typically, as a matter of rote, they blasted out an email every
week about one of their products. The marketing team knew it wasn’t the
optimal approach, but didn’t have the time to think it through – the
emails had become merely another part of their weekly list of activities.
This is why content marketers find themselves in a pickle. They've re... (more)
The rise of the term Native Advertising seems to be causing quite a stir.
This may very well be in creating a label that's inherently in conflict with
itself. The main problem is with the word "Advertising." However, the concept
of "Native" is headed in the right direction in regards to addressing context
for audiences, rather than the unwanted interruption of ads.
Before anyone gets cranked up, let me explain a few things. I've been
thinking about this for awhile. There are all kinds of reactions to the term
Native Advertising, but I find most of them to be surface. We need to lo... (more)
I've been on a number of calls recently with companies that want to break
into a new market. They think that content marketing may be the key, but are
uncertain if they're right, as well as how to approach this new direction.
Content Marketing is definitely a key strategy. In fact, I'm not quite sure
how a company would go about breaking into a new market without it. But there
are some challenges when your goal is quick uptake and your company doesn't
have a lot of exposure or familiarity with the target audience.
Here are the things that come to mind. It shouldn't be surprising th... (more)
Many B2B companies think that their website must serve every type of customer
they have—every flavor of persona. I'd ask you to step back a moment and
think about your website audience. Just because your company serves a range
of people, titles, and roles, doesn't mean that they all use your
website—or ever will.
The elephants in the room during this discussion are usually represented by
the CXOs—the ultimate persona that all companies want to attract, engage
and sell to. However, these people are not likely your website's greatest
fans or visitors.
Why not?
CXOs are:
Too busy... (more)
When alignment is discussed in marketing, the usual application is to sales
and marketing alignment. This has been an ongoing conversation for nearly as
long as I can remember. And I've been in the business environment for quite a
while.
The issue that comes up for me is that there are some alignment issues before
we can even get to sales and marketing alignment that could have major
implications for brands, if they took stock.
What I'm talking about are two sources of fragmentation - the second driven
by the first.
marketing misalignment customer misalignment
But, first, let's ... (more)