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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Serie: New Rules Social Media Series
- Sprache: Englisch
The guide to creating engaging web content and building a loyal following, revised and updated Blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other platforms are giving everyone a "voice," including organizations and their customers. So how do you create the stories, videos, and blog posts that cultivate fans, arouse passion for your products or services, and ignite your business? Content Rules equips you for online success as a one-stop source on the art and science of developing content that people care about. This coverage is interwoven with case studies of companies successfully spreading their ideas online--and using them to establish credibility and build a loyal customer base. * Find an authentic "voice" and craft bold content that will resonate with prospects and buyers and encourage them to share it with others * Leverage social media and social tools to get your content and ideas distributed as widely as possible * Understand why you are generating content--getting to the meat of your message in practical, commonsense language, and defining the goals of your content strategy * Write in a way that powerfully communicates your service, product, or message across various Web mediums * Boost your online presence and engage with customers and prospects like never before with Content Rules.
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Seitenzahl: 415
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Big Fat Overview (Sometimes Called an Introduction)
Part I: The Content Rules
Chapter 1: The Case for Content
What Is Content, and What Can It Do for You?
Good Content as a Competitive Advantage
Chapter 2: The Content Rules
The Content Rules
Chapter 3: Insight Inspires Originality
Start with the Why
A Quick and Dirty Search Lesson
Back to the Why—and Onto the Who
Set Your Metrics: What Does Success Look Like?
Chapter 4: Who Are You?
Speak Human: How Do you Differentiate Your Content?
Chapter 5: Reimagine; Don’t Recycle
First, Look toward the Sun
Create a Publishing Schedule
Feed the Beast
Aim for Variety, and Do Something Unexpected
Imagine New Creatures
Chapter 6: Share or Solve; Don’t Shill
What Do I Talk about When There’s Nothing to Say?
What I Really Want to Do is Direct: Hiring Content Creators and Sourcing Content from Elsewhere
Who Owns Your Website Content?
What to Look for in a Writer (or Any Kind of Content Creator)
Sourcing Content from Elsewhere
Chapter 7: Stoke the Campfire
How to Build a Fire
Your Content Campfire
Start with the Small Stuff
Finding the Bigger Sticks
Singing Campfire Songs
Why Doesn’t My Content Have Any Comments?
Telling Stories by the Campfire Light
Chapter 8: Create Wings and Roots
Wings for the Web: Findable, Accessible, Shareable
Fishing for Attention in the Activity Streams
How to Make Your Content Go Viral
Chapter 9: The Care and Feeding of Fans
Setting Up a Listening Dashboard
Responding Quickly, and with Sincerity
Chapter 10: Attention B2B Companies: This is the Chapter you Are Looking For
Your Prospects Are Avoiding You
Marketers Need to Pick Up the Ball and Run with It
Content Marketing is the Key
Additional Steps to Getting Hitched: Content and B2B, True Love Always
Part II: The How-to Section
Chapter 11: A Blog as a Hub of Your Online Content
Blogging Guidelines
Chapter 12: If Webinars Are Awesome Marketing Tools, Why Do Most of Them Suck?
How to Create and Produce Awesome Webinars
“A Rose by Any Other Name . . .”
Chapter 13: What’s the Difference between an E-book and a White Paper?
Nine Steps to Creating an E-book or White Paper That People Will Want to Read
Chapter 14: The Single Biggest Secret to Creating a Compelling Customer Success Story
Chapter 15: From Dumpy to Sexy
Chapter 16: Video: Show Me a Story
Equipment: What You’ll Need
Creating Your Story
Shooting and Scripting
Show the World
But What Am I Going to Shoot?
iContent: Your Own Web Show?
Chapter 17: Podcasting: is This Thing On?
Chapter 18: Photographs
What Should I Take Pictures Of?
Sharing and Tagging
Social Snapshots
How Brands Are Responding
Getting the Good Shot
Bring in the Big Guns
Part III: Content That Converts: Success Stories (With Ideas you Can Steal!)
Chapter 19: Reynolds Golf Academy
Content That Ignites
Ka-Ching!
Ideas you Can Steal
Chapter 20: The Cool Beans Group
Content That Ignites
Ka-Ching!
Ideas you Can Steal
Chapter 21: U.S. Army
Content That Ignites
Ka-Ching!
Ideas you Can Steal
Chapter 22: AskPatty.com, Inc.
Content That Ignites
Ka-Ching!
Ideas you Can Steal
Chapter 23: Qvidian
Content That Ignites
Ka-Ching!
Ideas you Can Steal
Chapter 24: HubSpot
Content That Ignites
Ka-Ching!
Ideas you Can Steal
Chapter 25: Kodak
Content That Ignites
Ka-Ching!
Ideas you Can Steal
Chapter 26: Boeing Company
Content That Ignites
Ka-Ching!
Ideas you Can Steal
Chapter 27: Indium Corporation
Content That Ignites
Ka-Ching!
Ideas you Can Steal
Chapter 28: PinkStinks
Content That Ignites
Ka-Ching!
Ideas you Can Steal
Part IV: This Isn’t Goodbye
Chapter 29: This Isn’t Goodbye, and a Gift for You
A 12-Point Content Checklist
About the Illustrator
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
List of Illustrations
Big Fat Overview (Sometimes Called an Introduction)
Figure I.1
Chapter 1: The Case for Content
Figure 1.1 Research Tools for Online Shoppers
Figure 1.2 Long-Tail Keyword Search
Chapter 3: Insight Inspires Originality: Who Do You Want to Attract?
Figure 3.1 Content Is to Google What Brains Are to Zombies
Chapter 4: Who Are You?
Figure 4.1 Entry in the Incredibly Boring Web Content Challenge
Figure 4.2 The Conversation by Eloqua
Chapter 6: Share or Solve; Don’t Shill
Figure 6.1 Trusted Cloud Website
Figure 6.2 OPEN Forum Web Page
Figure 6.3 The Ford Story Website
Chapter 8: Create Wings and Roots
Figure 8.1 Make Your Content Shareable
Figure 8.2
Figure 8.3
Figure 8.4
Figure 8.5
Figure 8.6
Figure 8.7
Figure 8.8
Figure 8.9
Figure 8.10
Figure 8.11
Figure 8.12
Chapter 10: Attention B2B Companies: This Is the Chapter You Are Looking For
Figure 10.1 Qvidian (formerly Kadient) Produces Humorous Videos to Connect with Its Audience
Figure 10.2 Marketo Created an Interactive Game to Build Relationships with Qualified Prospects
Figure 10.3 Embed Options to Facilitate Sharing
Chapter 12: If Webinars Are Awesome Marketing Tools, Why Do Most of Them Suck?
Figure 12.1 Most Webinars Look Something Like This
Chapter 13: What’s the Difference between an E-book and a White Paper? (And When Should You Use Them?)
Figure 13.1 Saved by a Hard Cover
Figure 13.2 E-book Landing Page
Chapter 15: From Dumpy to Sexy: An FAQs Makeover
Figure 15.1 A Clean and Organized FAQ
Chapter 24: HubSpot: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Figure 24.1 HubSpot Cartoon
Chapter 26: Boeing Company: Chicago, Illinois
Figure 26.1 Boeing Apologizes on Twitter
List of Tables
Chapter 10: Attention B2B Companies: This Is the Chapter You Are Looking For
Table 10.1 In Other Words: You Can’t Assume People with Similar Titles Approach the Buying Process in the Same Way
Table 10.2 CIO Archetypes and Focus
Table 10.3 Map Out Your Prospects’ and Customers’ Information Needs and Content Preferences
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CONTENT RULES
HOW TO CREATE KILLER BLOGS, PODCASTS, VIDEOS, E-BOOKS, WEBINARS (AND MORE) THAT ENGAGE CUSTOMERS AND IGNITE YOUR BUSINESS
Revised and Updated
ANN HANDLEY
C.C. CHAPMAN
Copyright © 2012 by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.
Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Handley, Ann, 1963–
Content rules : how to create killer blogs, podcasts, videos, E-books, webinars (and more) that engage customers and ignite your business / Ann Handley, C. C. Chapman. — Rev. and updated
p. cm. — (New rules social media series; 13)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-118-23260-6 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-28303-5 (ebk);
ISBN 978-1-118-28405-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-28700-2 (ebk)
1. Internet marketing. 2. Social media. 3. Web sites—Design. I. Chapman, C. C. II. Title.
HF5415.1265.H3577 2011
658.8’72—dc23
2012001608
For Colin.
Miss you every day.
—A.H.
Goofy Monkey, Buddy, and Sticky Noodle—I do everything to keep you smiling.
Now and always.
—C.C.
Foreword
“Marketing is about publishing great content.”
How many times have you heard a statement more or less like this? Tons, right? By now every marketing professional and entrepreneur on the planet understands this fundamental truth. We don’t need convincing.
But what the many content-marketing experts have failed to do is tell us how to create that content.
What, exactly, should I do?
In my experience, the art and science of creating content had never been adequately explained to marketers. Perhaps you would build a website and spend a bunch of cash on the design. But the best that the designers could do with the content was put in some filler text. Okay, then what? You stared at lorem ipsum for days not knowing what to write, and then defaulted to some gobbledygook-laden drivel about your products and services. Ugh.
There is a better way, and this book will show it to you.
The answer: Tell stories.
Think about it. All good films and all good fiction are really about the story, right? Without a compelling, conflict-driven story, all the other elements don’t mean much.
Here is a classic story line from countless books and movies:
Boy meets girl.
They fall in love.
Boy loses girl.
Boy (and sometimes girl) is miserable for most of the action.
They finally get back together.
They get married.
How and why they break up and then what they do to get back together are what make the story interesting.
How interesting would that same book or movie be were it to have this plot:
Boy meets girl.
They fall in love.
They get married.
At best, such a plot would be an insufferable bore. At worst, it becomes propaganda.
In fact, it’s just the sort of propaganda most marketers and business writers construct every day: “Here’s our product. It is great. Here are customers who say it is great. Now buy some of our product.” Sadly, this classic propaganda-driven marketing is everywhere. It’s not just text-based content, either. Video and other information is also mainly propaganda.
As you read the book, you’ll be reflecting on how you can introduce storytelling into your work. How can you make your content interesting, like a great movie or novel? How can your website, blog posts, videos, and other materials be made more interesting?
Ann and C.C. show you how!
Throughout Content Rules, you’ll learn how to construct interesting and valuable information using many of the same skills that journalists and storytellers use. You’ll learn how to identify an audience, how to develop a distinct point of view and voice, and how to construct a narrative that is exciting and engaging.
Content Rules includes many success stories from consumer brands, business-to-business (B2B) outfits, government agencies, and other organizations—together with “ideas you can steal” from each.
When I created the New Rules Social Media book series with John Wiley & Sons, I said that it was essential to have a book about how to create killer content. And I knew just the people to do it. Ann and C.C. are storytellers, journalists, and marketers. In my opinion, that’s the perfect combination of skills and expertise to identify and deliver rules that we can all use to create killer blogs, podcasts, videos, e-books, webinars, and more.
I’ve followed the work of both Ann and C.C. with keen interest for nearly five years, learning from them as they pave the way forward to new forms of marketing. They must have more than a thousand blog posts, hundreds of videos, and dozens of articles between them. Now, in one place, you have access to their greatest hits.
—David Meerman Scott
Author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR and Real-Time Marketing & PR
www.WebInkNow.com
twitter.com/dmscott
Acknowledgments
You know how people say they wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for the support and friendship of certain people? So we, too, are surrounded by countless treasured friends and colleagues who helped make this book possible. Many of them are quoted here. But in addition, we give special thanks to:
J.C. Hutchins, Clarence Smith Jr., Steve Coulson, Mitch Joel, Julien Smith, Amber Naslund, Ron Ploof, Christopher Penn, Whitney Hoffman, Tamsen McMahon, Michelle Wolverton, Lauren Vargas, Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff, Kristina Halvorson, Matthew T. Grant, Stephanie Tilton, Steve Garfield, Jay Baer, Joe Pulizzi, Amy Black, David Armano, Lee Odden, Ted Page, Mack Collier, C.K. Kerley, D.J. Waldow, Leigh Durst, Shelley Ryan, the amazing Shannon Vargo, the executive team at MarketingProfs—Allen Weiss, Roy Young, Sharon Hudson, Valerie Witt, Aaron Lorentz, and Anne Yastremski—and (saving the best for almost last) to Vahe Habeshian: a thank you doesn’t quite express the depth of gratitude. Finally, a very special thank you to David Meerman Scott, who knew what this book was before we did.
Last, but certainly not least, we thank our loving families. Writing is lonely. But it’s only tolerable when—at last!—you open the office door, and there they are.
Big Fat Overview (Sometimes Called an Introduction)
Blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other online platforms are giving organizations like yours an enormous opportunity to engage directly with your customers or would-be customers. That’s a lucky thing, because instead of creating awareness about your company or your brand solely the old-school way (by annoying people with advertising, bugging them with direct mail, or interrupting them with a phone call during dinner), you now have an unprecedented and enormous opportunity.
Now, thanks to the advent of the Internet and, more specifically, the rise of web-based tools and technologies, you can create online content—blog posts, videos, webinars, and websites—that will attract customers to you, so you won’t have to chase after them. What’s more, you can entice your customers to share that content with each other, all across the web.
Produce great stuff, and your customers will come to you. Produce really great stuff, and your customers will share and disseminate your message for you. More than ever before, content is king! Content rules!
Of course, like most things in life, such luck—the opportunity to have your customers tell your story for you—comes with a hitch. Content may rule, but your online content must be the right sort of content: Customer-focused. Authentic. Compelling. Entertaining. Surprising. Valuable. Interesting. In other words, you must earn the attention of people.
That sounds like work, doesn’t it? It is. It’s work to create and publish compelling stuff that will:
Appeal to your would-be constituents.
Give them something they find value in.
Keep them coming back for more.
Today, however, every company has become a de facto publisher, creating content that’s valued by those they want to reach. We’re hesitating as we write that word publisher, by the way, because to many of you it implies the production of books, magazines, and the like. Most businesses don’t have a lot of experience with publishing, nor do they see themselves as publishers. Rather, they are in the business of whatever they are in the business of (making things, selling services, or what have you).
But when we say that businesses are becoming publishers, we’re referring not to the process of putting ink to paper or printing and binding books but to the notion that creating and delivering relevant, valuable information to people will drive new business to you. Figuring out what your prospective customers are interested in, creating stuff that meets those needs, and delivering it to them is what you need to do. And that, by the way, is exactly what publishers do.
But organizations or individuals like you looking to build their business online have to take it further: you need to create stuff that will help your clients, you need to become a trusted resource your customers can then look to, and you need to get buyers to take action when they are ready. Your company can now publish the kind of content that will cultivate a base of fans, arouse passion for your products or services, and, ultimately, ignite your business.
The problem, of course, is that doing so successfully is a challenge. What does it mean to create content that’s remarkable? And how can you do it consistently? How can you be heard above the noise? Why doesn’t your blog have any comments? It’s hard work, right?
Yes, it is. A survey of more than 1,000 businesses in late 2011 found that “producing engaging content” is the top challenge in content marketing programs (see Figure I.1).
Figure I.1
That’s where this book comes in. It demystifies the publishing process and shares the secrets of creating remarkable blogs, podcasts, webinars, e-books, and other web content that will attract would-be customers to you. It walks you through the fundamentals of how to create bold stories, videos, and blog posts. And then, once you’ve created the content, it tells you how to share it widely online to cultivate fans, arouse passion for your products or services, and ignite your business.
In other words, this book equips you for success. It will serve as a one-stop source on the art and science of developing content that people care about, content that will drive your business. Some companies have already figured it out; they are already publishing great content to establish credibility and build a loyal customer base. To inspire and inform your own efforts, here we’ll share how they are doing it.
How This Book Works (and Three Promises to You)
This book is part of the New Rules of Social Media series, produced by John Wiley & Sons with David Meerman Scott. With his The New Rules of Marketing & PR (John Wiley & Sons, 2007, completely revised in 2010), David pioneered the idea of creating remarkable content to connect online with buyers. David’s book (and others in this series, including Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah and Get Seen by Steve Garfield) examines the importance of creating remarkable content but does not delve into the nitty-gritty of how you might go about doing so. And that is where this book comes in. It complements the others in the series by laying out the how-to.
Think of it as a little like the notion of having a baby: it’s easy enough (and loads of fun!) to imagine and conceive a child. But tending to the demands of a wriggling, persistent creature—and consistently! Forever and ever! Like for the rest of your life!—is another thing entirely. That’s where the hard work comes in. But like parenting itself, content done right delivers in amazing ways and is ultimately a rich and rewarding experience. In other words, it’s worth it.
Did that analogy just scare you? Does it feel like a sentence of sorts, or too daunting a task? Are you thinking you’d rather remain childless than commit to that level of work? Well, here’s where the analogy starts to crumble a bit: not everyone has to become a parent, obviously. But if your company has a website, you have essentially already given birth. And producing content isn’t nearly as forbidding as it sounds, because this book is the field guide you need for identifying your audience, creating great content, and getting that content to your targeted community.
This brings us to the point of this section’s heading: how this book works. Aside from a quick bit in Chapter 1, we’re not going to spend a lot of time here on setup, convincing you that the rules have changed, that product-centric communications and marketing-speak are selling your brand short, and so on. (In other words, we’re guessing you are already convinced of the need for killer content.) But if you need a more detailed rationale, we’d suggest David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing & PR as a primer.
Rather, we’re going to pick up where The New Rules of Marketing & PR leaves off. We’re going to talk about how to create and share remarkable content: the elements, necessary inspiration, and some handy tools. In other words, we’re not going to focus on why content rules but on how to create the stuff that truly does.
As we do, we’ll promise you:
Not to be boring.
Some business books really plod along, don’t they? We’ve written this book in a digestible, how-to format. Skim it. Jump around. Put it down and come back and pick it up later. It’s designed for that.
To give some context.
You’ll notice that we borrowed liberally from the literary and journalism worlds in this book to better explain points and concepts. In part, it’s because our backgrounds are in both, so they are worlds we know and are continually inspired by. But it’s also because marketing can learn a lot from the art and style of storytelling (literature) and the fundamentals and science of good reporting (journalism). Those endeavors have been matching content with audiences longer than anybody, and it’s hard to find a better inspiration for clear, accessible communication. (If you can, let us know.)
To draw plenty of road maps.
The first part of this book (appropriately called Part One) introduces and elucidates the rules for creating great content. Part Two offers specific how-to steps to creating an array of content you might want to develop, by type. Part Three offers 10 case studies of content that converts. And last, Part Four is a handy content checklist against which you can measure your own content development efforts.
And finally, a clarification: When we use the word business in this book, we’re describing any kind of business, either one that sells to other businesses (business-to-business, or B2B) or one that sells to consumers (business-to-consumers, or B2C). What’s more, when we use business (or brand, company, or organization) in this book, we’re really talking about any kind of entity or individual, including corporations, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, sole practitioners or consultants, artists, government agencies, churches, schools, hospitals, political candidates, sports teams, community groups, and rock bands, along with butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. Similarly, when we use the term buyer, we also mean subscribers, voters, donors, applicants, attendees, worshippers, or new members.
In other words, these content rules apply to anyone looking to do business, get subscribers or clients, win votes, or find donors or constituents of any kind. We also realized that if we consistently included all of the people we are actually referring to when we say businesses or organizations or buyers, you would find it annoying. And so would we.
Why We Need Some Rules, but Not Others
Most of us learned how to write in school. As impressionable children we learned how to compose essays or term papers according to a specific formula: each new thought is awarded its own paragraph, and each paragraph consists of a topic sentence, several body sentences, and a concluding sentence.
The topic sentence is the powerful ringleader of a paragraph and states the main point. Supporting body sentences are the flunkies, backing up whatever the topic sentence asserts and doing the necessary dirty work of explaining and completing the main assertion. The concluding sentence is the hefty thug at the end, and he throws his weight around a little to be sure you get the point.
That’s a perfectly fine way to write an essay, a blog post, a white paper, or just about any kind of written content. But the problem is that such a rigid composition formula suggests that there is only one way to write: a sort of secret code to writing that you must crack to do it well. Then there are all those convoluted and complicated rules of grammar and punctuation and usage, which only compound the anxiety. (We’re talking about who versus whom, split infinitives, and affect versus effect.)
It’s no wonder, then, that many of us are paralyzed when confronted with a blank page. We often think there’s a right way and a wrong way to write, and we often do just about anything to avoid writing altogether.
As content creators, we understand the anxiety surrounding publishing your writing for others to read. We’re in the clarity business, simplifying people’s convoluted ideas and wrestling their wild, out-of-control text into something more civilized and comprehensible. If everyone knew how to write and did it well, people like us would be out of work.
We’re imagining that as you read this you’re perhaps thinking, “Wait a sec: Writing? Isn’t this a book about creating content that rocks?”
Well, there’s a link between the two that is sometimes obvious (as when you are writing a blog post or an e-book) and sometimes less so (as when you might be creating a webinar or a video script). But what’s more fundamental is that anxiety about writing often spills over into anxiety about creating content generally, resulting in content that’s stilted and uncomfortable sounding, or not at all like something a human being might have written to engage other human beings. That anxiety is also what makes some people a little shy or fearful about creating content that’s different—and possibly extraordinary.
The truth is that creating content does not have to be complex. There is no rigid formula you must learn in order to do it well. By applying a few general rules, anyone can begin producing great stuff. What’s more, it’s a tremendous opportunity. It’s awesome to have the ability to connect to customers and would-be customers directly in a language they understand. It’s surprisingly satisfying to spark a direct dialogue with them. It allows you to look at things from your customers’ points of view and inspires you to create content that will resonate with them.
And while we are on the subject of simplifying, we’ve intentionally used a direct, pragmatic, nonbusiness vocabulary wherever possible. In part, that’s because we wanted to keep the advice equally accessible for the church minister who is trying to get more of the devoted to attend more regularly, for the small-business owner trying to sell more widgets, and for the marketer or agency for a larger organization trying to provide the best possible service to the client. In business, people love to complicate concepts with their own lexicons. So we wind up with text that tends to obfuscate rather than illuminate or with copy that feels off-putting instead of friendly.
Like you with your customers, our goal here, too, is to engage rather than repel. We don’t want readers to feel like they need to know the formidable (and often silly) language of business. In other words, we’ve used ordinary language here, so as not to paralyze any of you.
The inherent tension in marketing is that companies always want to talk about themselves and what their products or services can do. Everyone else, meanwhile, wants to know only what those products or services can do for them. Creating content as a cornerstone of your marketing allows you to truly place yourself in your customers’ shoes, to adopt their vantage points, and to consider their thoughts, feelings, and needs. In short, it allows you to get to know the people who buy from you better than any customer survey or poll ever could.
We want each of you to create amazing content that is compelling to you and your community. That is the goal of this book: to be a beacon to the hapless and anxious, lighting the path toward content that will help you connect deeply with your customers and ignite your business.
In collecting and vetting these Content Rules, we have relied on the keys of good storytelling and journalism and on the fundamentals of marketing. We’ve created these rules for writers and nonwriters alike, making the rules accessible and, we hope, memorable.
We’re a little nervous about using the word rules in the title of this book; however subtly, the title seems to be undermining the very point we’re making about flouting rigid conventions. But what follows are not so much strict rules as guidelines, really. Unlike laws, which suggest fixed codes of behavior with dire consequences if they are broken, guidelines are a handy and broad set of suggestions meant to simplify your life and ease the anxiety you might have about creating content. Think of these rules as you might bumpers on a bowling lane: they not only greatly improve the chances that you will bowl a strike but also, at the very least, keep you well out of the gutter.
Part IThe Content Rules
Chapter 1The Case for Content
About a year or so ago, Ann was thinking of buying a digital camera to take on a trip to Armenia. She’s not an expert photographer, so she didn’t need anything with bells and whistles. She merely wanted something as slim and light as an ATM card to slip in her pocket (and cheap, too, in case it fell out). She wanted it to do nothing more than quickly and easily record the memories she would make there.
The problem, of course, wasn’t that she couldn’t find something to fit the bill. Rather, she couldn’t decide from among the array of choices. Each of the major camera makers (Canon, Kodak, Sony, Nikon, Pentax, and so on) had a product that was suitable. So which was the right camera for her?
A few years ago, she might have flipped through a back issue of Consumer Reports for some advice or consulted a buying guide. But this time, she started her search online, consulting the camera makers’ own websites to compare features and read reviews.
She also sought advice from friends and followers on social networks such as Twitter. Somewhere along the way, her search caught the attention of Kodak’s then–chief marketing officer (CMO), Jeffrey Hayzlett, whose team monitors Twitter for queries such as Ann’s. Jeffrey subsequently reached out to Ann directly on Twitter to suggest his company’s own point-and-shoot pipsqueak, the EasyShare. Oh, and if she had any unanswered queries about point-and-shoot products, Jeffrey added, ask away!
It’s cool that the CMO of a $7.6 billion company reached out to a single consumer. But what’s really going on isn’t just cool; it’s a major shift in how companies are marketing themselves online. Kodak might be on Twitter, but it and other companies are also creating blogs, publishing podcasts and webinars, launching Facebook pages, and more. Kodak knows that it doesn’t have to wait for Consumer Reports to review its latest point-and-shoot; it can publish the specs itself and help customers come to Kodak.
Sears knows this, too, which is why in early 2010 it launched the Sears Yard Guru (www.searsyardguru.com) to help would-be buyers of lawn mowers narrow their search according to their own yard’s size and terrain. So does industrial equipment auctioneer Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, which publishes and maintains RitchieWiki (www.ritchiewiki.com) to share information about heavy equipment. And MC2 (www.mc-2.com), an exhibit and event marketing company that churns out blogs, e-books, and white papers. And Landon Pollack, who launched his nonprofit StubbyDog (www.stubbydog.org) as an online magazine with a mission: to rebrand the much-maligned American pit bull terrier.
What’s up with that? Why are companies like Kodak and Sears and Ritchie Bros., or any of those profiled in this book, bothering to invest so much in online content? Because it’s both efficient and increasingly imperative that companies create online content as a cornerstone of their marketing—for three reasons:
The notion of marketing to your customers by interrupting them repeatedly with advertising or other marketing messages is simply not enough anymore. Creating brand awareness through buying mass media or begging some attention from the newspapers, magazines, or other media that cover your market is selling your brand short.
In other words, the rules have changed. David Meerman Scott explained this first and best in his seminal book The New Rules of Marketing & PR: “Prior to the web, organizations had only two significant choices to attract attention: buy expensive advertising or get third-party ink from the media. But the web has changed the rules.”
Customer behavior and expectations are shifting.
Ann’s approach to buying a point-and-shoot digital camera was neither unusual nor unique; you’ve probably done similar research for your own buying decisions. Likewise, your potential customers are going online to search for information about the stuff you sell: everything from lawn mowers to cameras to consulting services to circuit-board solder paste to what band to go see on a Friday night.
Your customers read blogs, they google their purchases, and they query followers on Twitter or friends on Facebook. They are always educating themselves by researching products online before making purchases.
Overwhelmingly, consumers depend on search engines to help them shop online, writes Debra Miller on the Compete.com blog about a February 2010 study of how shoppers buy. “Three out of five shoppers said that they always or often use search engines when shopping online,” reports Miller. “More consumers use search engines than they do coupon sites, retailer e-mails, consumer reviews, or shopping comparison sites.” (See Figure 1.1.)
Figure 1.1 Research Tools for Online Shoppers
Source:http://blog.compete.com/2010/02/22/online-shopper-intelligence-study-released
This means, of course, that your key to igniting sales is to create online content and optimize it so that it appears on the first page of search results when your customers search for you or the products or services you sell.
Everyone is the media. Everyone is a publisher.
Technology has enabled connections. There is no longer a high barrier to publishing online. The ease and low cost of publishing via blogs, videos, podcasts, forums, and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook mean that businesses can reach their customers directly with relatively little cost. The idea of publishing material to attract a certain audience isn’t reserved for an elite few who can afford the printing and distribution costs. “As brands, we become media,” says Brian Solis, author of
Engage
(John Wiley & Sons, 2010). In other words,
you
are a publisher;
you
are the media.
What that really means is that you can reach your potential buyers directly. And, of course, they can speak directly to you as well. You now have the ability to engage in direct conversation.
What Is Content, and What Can It Do for You?
So what is content, exactly?
Content is a broad term that refers to anything created and uploaded to a website: the words, images, tools, and other things that reside there. All of the pages of your website, then, are content: the home page, the About Us page, the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page, the product information pages, and so on. All of the things you create as part of those pages or as part of your marketing—your videos, blogs, photographs, webinars, white papers, e-books, podcasts, and so on—are content, too. And finally, all of the things you publish at outposts that are off of your own site—your Facebook page, your Twitter stream, your LinkedIn group page, for example—are forms of content.1
Obviously, you don’t have to publish through all of those channels to have a noticeable online presence. As you’ll see with the companies we profile, your online content can take countless forms, depending on various factors: the needs and preferences of your audience, your goals, your company’s expertise and brand, as well as available time, talent, and budget.
You can use the concepts in this book to infuse all of your web content with energy, life, purpose, and value. But this book maintains a specific focus on how to create content for marketing: creating and sharing relevant, valuable information that attracts people to you and creates trust, credibility, and authority (among other things) for your business and that ultimately converts visitors and browsers into buyers.
That’s precisely the point of creating killer content—to convert browsers into buyers and customers into regulars or (better yet) rabid fans, ambassadors, and advocates. You do that by deepening your relationship with them, over time; by repeatedly and consistently creating content they care about and want to share freely with their friends or colleagues; and by encouraging them to engage with you and to sign up for things you publish (for example, an e-mail newsletter or a webinar) or to download a white paper or an e-book.
“The one who has the more engaging content wins, because frequent and regular contact builds a relationship,” one offers lots of opportunities for conversion, says Joe Pulizzi, author (with Newt Barrett) of Get Content, Get Customers (McGraw-Hill, 2009). “Advertising is a luxury,” Joe says, “but content is survival.”
Done right, the content you create will position your company not as just a seller of stuff, but as a reliable source of information. And its benefits compound, adds social media strategy consultant Jay Baer, who calls content an information annuity. (Don’t you love that phrase?) Likewise, Marcus Sheridan of River Pools and Spas calls content “the ultimate gift that keeps on giving.” (More on Marcus and River Pools in a minute.)
Unlike other kinds of marketing, content marketing “doesn’t have an expiration date,” Jay says. What you create online will be searchable indefinitely. “It generates web traffic (via search and social media linkages) and helps remove purchase impediments every day of every month. Your potential customers have questions about your company, your products, your services, your competitors. Creating and propagating smart, optimized content that succinctly answers those questions is the most direct line to sales and loyalty.”2
Specifically, creating content as a cornerstone of your marketing can:
Attract customers.
Educate your buyers about a purchase they are considering.
Overcome resistance or address objections.
Establish your credibility, trust, and authority in your industry.
Tell your story.
Build buzz via social networks.
Build a base of fans and inspire customers to love you.
Inspire impulse buys.
Does it seem weird to talk about your marketing as inspiring, credible, or trustworthy, or as telling a good story? Does it seem radical? Does it make you a bit skeptical and nervous all at once? If so, why?
Perhaps such descriptors are more often applied to other realms—to a favorite magazine or newspaper, or maybe even to a friend—rather than to marketing. But why not steer your marketing to another level? Why not create value? Why not provide your customers with a steady flow of high-value content that, as Len Stein, marketer and founder of New York’s Visibility Public Relations describes it, is “packed with utility, seeded with inspiration, and that is honestly empathetic”? “Anything less will not suffice in a world where consumers can simply click away or spin around and mount a Web-wide counterattack on brands that refuse to walk their talk,” says Len.3
In other words, create awesome stuff! And then use what you create as the foundation for meaningful conversations to engage with your customers. Regard your content as something more, as something other than just words and images on a page—as an extension of your brand. Just as a person is more than flesh and bones and hair and teeth, good content, too, is more than text and graphics and video. It’s an embodiment of your brand. It’s designed to inspire people to read more, view more, or get to know and love your company a little more. Good content can quickly become the soul of your brand to the online world.
Web content allows your visitors to get involved—to comment, share, engage, and click here. As Arianna Huffington said during her keynote speech at a MarketingProfs event in Arizona in late 2008, “If you are consuming old media, you are consuming it on your couch. If you are consuming new media, you are consuming it on your horse.”
What Arianna meant was that online content both invites and demands that its participants be engaged, involved, and active—always moving forward. Old media, like TV and other forms of broadcast, just ask that we passively sit and watch.
Content drives conversations. Conversation engages your customers. Engaging with people is how your company will survive and thrive in this newly social world. In other words, online content is a powerful envoy for your business, with an ability to stir up interest, further engagement, and invite connection. And that’s when things get interesting.
Good Content as a Competitive Advantage
Marcus Sheridan is one of three owners of River Pools and Spa in Warsaw, Virginia. The company installs swimming pools and hot tubs throughout Maryland and Virginia. Since joining the business in 2002, Marcus has spearheaded tremendous growth at the company. Despite years of record rainfall, a housing slump, and the slacker economy, River Pools and Spas continues to grow: in 2009, it sold more fiberglass pools than any other company in the United States, where it’s among the top 5 percent of all in-ground pool companies.
A big reason for that, Marcus says, is his company’s approach to business. “I used to see my company as a ‘pool company.’ [We] installed lots of swimming pools and therefore we were a pool company.”
“In hindsight, though, this mentality was all wrong,” he says. “Today, I see my business as a content marketing company. In other words, my entire goal is to give more valuable, helpful, and remarkable content to consumers than anyone else in my field, which will in turn lead to more sales.”
Through a steady stream of blog posts and videos (the company publishes one to three a week) and an e-book on the subject of “how to buy a pool” (with the subtext “without getting ripped off”), Marcus set out to create the most educational and informative swimming pool website on the Internet.
“I want our website to be an encyclopedia of pool buying,” he says, not unlike a business trade magazine publisher might seek to have similar authority in any given industry. “I want someone with a question to come to our site and get an answer by reading it or watching it.”
The swimming pool industry is dominated by larger manufacturers, which makes it difficult for a small, young company like the nine-year-old River Pools and Spas to compete online for general search terms like swimming pool or in-ground pool. (When a potential customer searches for swimming pool information online using such terms, Google is more likely to return results for one of the big guys, not a small outfit like River Pools and Spas.)
So, instead, Marcus focuses on lower-volume, long-tail search terms to include in his website content—more specific search phrases that usually consist of three or more keywords. Such phrases may generate low volumes of searches and traffic compared with short-tail, or more generic, search terms, but they take searchers to sites with specific, deep content that closely matches what the searcher is looking for. Such an approach is akin to “not hitting a home run every time, but if you hit enough doubles and triples, you can win the game,” Marcus says.
See Figure 1.2 for a graphic representation of a long-tail keyword search.
Figure 1.2 Long-Tail Keyword Search
Source:www.searchenginepartner.com/Latest-SEO-News/seo-trends-utilysing-lsi-and-the-long-tail.html
“Most people searching online are sophisticated,” Marcus says. Most are not searching for just pools, as they’ve probably already done some preliminary research and narrowed their choices. “I put myself in the mind of the consumer and think, ‘What questions do I have unanswered?’” Marcus focuses on creating long-tail content that addresses those questions, creating blog posts and videos about fiberglass pool problems, fiberglass pool costs, and how to choose your pool contractor. His content educates his customers about what to look for in a manufacturer and installer of pools—the hidden costs, the budgeting process, or, as Marcus says, “the good, the bad, and the ugly of in-ground pools.”
“I point out the ugly, when others only talk about the good,” he says.
Marcus includes keywords and search terms in a meaningful way on his blog—not in an annoying, obvious way that gets in the way of the content itself. In the same way, you can include keywords you might be targeting, but in a natural, conversational manner. Don’t make yourself look like a tool or, worse, clueless by stuffing your content full of keywords without providing context and value.
Search engines love people like Marcus; those who produce content such as keyword-rich YouTube videos, blog posts, articles, and so on, consistently show up on the first page of search results for their targeted keywords. But Marcus sees the content he produces as a competitive advantage that expands and deepens his relationships with would-be customers. In other words, his customers might find him organically through search, but they do business with him because of his willingness to talk about problems and pitfalls to avoid, which builds trust, credibility, and, ultimately, rabid fan loyalty.
