Posts Tagged ‘content marketing’

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Are You Doing Average Really Well?

Friday, March 12th, 2010

When you start a new project, what’s the goal?

As I see it, you can go two ways.  It’s a given that you want to make something that people will like.  Ultimately, the direction you take is determined by how you define that word: “Like”.

If by like you mean passionate, celebrated, different, noteworthy, challenging, then you’ve set the bar high.  Good.  The world needs more people like you.  It will never get them, so your work is even more valuable.

If, on the other hand, you define like as not offensive, you’ve gone in the opposite direction.  It’s impossible for brilliant work to not offend someone.  By it’s very nature, it won’t appeal to everyone.  It will put some people off your product or your business or you.

But, what you made, yes, people will like it.  Kind of.  In this other direction, the phrase actually reads more like, “no one is going to not-like this.”   This is what you do when you make the perfect example of an insurance commercial, or a website that’s normal, or a press release about your sale.

The bar is set pretty low for work like this.  You can do it for an entire career, and chances are no one is going to not-like it.

But no one’s going to like it, either.

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What Makes A Good Customer?

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

In a word: Fit.

Businesses used to go for low margins and high volume, which meant anyone fit the model.  It made sense for business to appeal to the widest number of people it could.

Customers aren’t like they were.  The crowds that used to line up to buy are now overloaded with the number of choices they have.  There’s no way you can undersell the internet.

So why try?  It makes more sense to charge for originality. And that’s where customer fit plays such a crucial roll.

If you’re paying attention to your entire online presence, you can tell who’s responding to you and who’s not.  Take a look at your posts.  Are more people reading about vacations than about adventure?  Those are the people who want a good fit.

When the big kid on the block starts to take over your market, you can try to compete.  But what if you don’t?  There are lots and lots of people out there that don’t want to play with the big kid.  They want a company that will hand deliver, that will call them by name.  They want to find the business that fits.

On reason people want fit is because it’s just as easy to find a quality experience as it is to find a low priced experience.  The lowest price tour is a click away.  But so is a list of customer reviews.  Read some reviews, find a product that fits, and you know what happens next.  They buy.

And still, fit is at a premium.  People that make products that fit can charge more than the ones that try to sell to everyone.  Everyone is cheap.  The people who want a good fit will pay for it.

It pays to find customers that fit.

What are your thoughts?  Exceptions?

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Super-Simple Photo Editing You Can Do This Second

Monday, February 8th, 2010

You need to be able to edit photos.

More and more folks are becoming comfortable using Content Management Systems and blogging platforms every day.   But to gain control of content, there’s definitely an increased need for a simple photo editing tool.nostalgia by Jim Sneddon

Today, even low-end digital cameras are capable of producing higher MegaPixel images than are really necessary for general web use. Even a 3 MegaPixel photo is 2048 x 1536 pixels (that’s a lot). While more than 70% are now viewing websites with browsers of greater resolution than 1024px, 2048px is still far too big for general on-page or in-post use.

So what to do with that way-too-big photo you have on your digital camera?  There are a number of ways to scale it down.  Here are the two easiest…

1) Your designer can use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to limit the display size of the image, even though it is still downloading the full-sized image.

2) You can quickly scale or crop the photo using a photo editing tool.

Considering that Google is now incorporating page load-time into their algorithm, it makes the decision even more of a no-brainer than it was before.  Edit your photo.  No question.

There are a wide variety of high-end photo editing tools like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Fireworks and Gimp. However, the complexity of these tools is generally overkill for small business owners or marketers that are simply working toward updating website content and blog posts.

One of my favorite simple tools for photo editing is Picnick.  It’s simple, effective, easy to use, and inexpensive.  There’s even a very capable free version available.

I made a video on how you can use Picnick to edit, crop, scale and save images using Picnick.  Hope you enjoy…

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Guiding The Conversation

Monday, February 1st, 2010

It’s important to listen.

We all know that.  But it’s equally important to ignore.Leuk satellite station by christianmeichtry

The critics who don’t offer input.  The people who fear change.  The people who are going to laugh at you and roll their eyes at your work.

How do you ignore the people that will ridicule your idea?  Here are some suggestions:

-Don’t be afraid to fail.  Whatever new challenge you’re taking on- social media, new products, a different creative outlet are all going to present challenges.  Some of them, you will not overcome.  And you shouldn’t: that’s how you learn.

-Remember that no one cares.  It’s hard to keep that in mind when you’re thinking about the success of your business.  You’ve built that amazing piece of work, you know it’s amazing, and no one cares (that’s why we do marketing strategies, BTW).  But what about that other piece of work that you’re not so sure about, the one that’s way out of your comfort zone, the one you’re really going out on a limb for?  No one cares about that either.

-Surround yourself with encouragement.  If there’s a din of positivity, helpful feedback, and honest critique, you can’t hear the people who want to shout down everything you do.

If you’re ignoring correctly, you’re also guiding yourself and those around you toward conversation that can actually help.

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Best Ideas Of The Week (Jan 25-Jan 29)

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Hi everyone.

Once again, it’s time to close things up for this week with the best ideas that we’ve seen around the internet.  It’s not just digital marketing stuff, but it is a look into everything that can go into digital marketing.  Hope you enjoy…Happy Rainbow Water Droplet on Green by Pink Sherbet Photography

-More good stuff on change.  Here’s a short stop motion movie about ideas and how they change the world.  Well worth three minutes of your time.  Did I mention it’s done in Lego?

-What do you know about Cross-Promotional Deal Mechanics?  What about Synergistic Revenue Paradigms?  Me neither.  But I know one thing: These are Weasel Words.  If you end up hearing a lot of this stuff at your next meeting, run-don’t-walk to this site and post it.  It’s in Australian, but weasel words cross all language barriers.

-Interested in seeing a website completely deconstructed?  Go to Internet Online Website and check out some of the thinking that goes into what we do.  The site’s not only smart and funny; It’s an educational tool to get ideas about the parts and pieces that go into online experiences.

-If all of a sudden you need to completely blow your own mind, here’s a recording of ice sheets cracking.  I guarantee you will not hear what you expect to hear.  Bookmark the page and keep it around for that moment when you need to think of something completely out of the ordinary.  Listen with headphones, and listen until the end.

-Do you like to eat Crap?  There’s a hilarious video by Pump restaurant in NYC (never been, but it looks pretty good) that riffs on all the different ways crappy food gets marketed.  The music and language in the fake ads is dead on.  I especially like the attention to detail on the typography.  It’s scary what marketers can do sometimes.

-We talk a lot about transparency and being yourself in your digital marketing.  This is what we mean.  Imagine the conviction it took to hit publish on this post, an open letter to a business partner (a publisher) that wasn’t doing his job.  Here is what I predict the results of this post will be:  Publishers who are afraid to have their authority questioned and are dedicated to preserving the status quo will be outraged, and publishers that are looking for the best way to do their jobs will immediately try to hire the post’s author, Barry Eisler.

Have a great weekend, and feel free to post links to things you found that you consider to be a great ideas.

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How A Three Fingered Gypsy Can Make You A Better Blogger

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Have you ever heard of Django Reinhardt?

Asking that question in prewar Europe would have been like asking if you’d ever heard of Elvis.Paris Exposition: night view, Paris, France, 1900 by Brooklyn Museum

Django was a guitarist.  A great guitarist, maybe the best ever.  He grew up in a gypsy camp on the outskirts of Paris.  Amazingly, he made his best music after a tragic fire rendered his pinky and ring fingers on his left had permanently curled up and unable to move.

Listening to his music (a lot, I admit) inspired me to think about how you can do something similar when writing a blog.

Be Daring Swear.  Be Ridiculous.  Tell the Truth.  In your headline, you should be writing something that pulls attention hard enough to snap someone’s neck.  Okay, maybe not that hard.  But think of how ordinary 99% of all the blogs out there are.  The bar is set pretty low.

Be Innovative Ideas are contagious.  Putting them across in a blog (10 Ways To Have Fun Even If You’re Boring) is a good way to keep yourself blogging.  Think about that opportunity:  You get to invent something new every time you sit down to write.  If your blog is something you have to do, you can forget about ever succeeding with it.

Be Awesome Despite Everything Django was a Gypsy who had been burned in a fire.  An outcast.  It would have been easy to be average.  Instead, he created something new in the world, something brilliant.  You’re not a natural writer?  Learn.  You don’t have anything to write about?  Not true.  You’ve got writer’s block?  Get unblocked.

There’s every excuse in the world not to write a daring, innovative posts.  But you have the chance to be awesome, every single time you sit down to write.

If you can use a three fingered gypsy for inspiration, you should.

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Your Friend is Obnoxious

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Here’s a thought:

If you want your marketing to do direct sales for you, you’re wasting a lot of money and time.  That’s not marketing’s job.  You’re doing it wrong.The Crowds by Marc Forrest

Your marketing is for introducing you to potential customers. Or re-introducing you. Either way, that’s the main function, right?

Marketing isn’t you; it’s an introduction to you.

Think about what that role plays in our society.

The introduction is a big deal.  Like it or not, you’re going to be associated with the character of the introducer, probably forever.

On some level, we look for vouchers in an introduction.  There are all kinds of cues we take from them.  The presentation, the language, and, yes, the source.

The question then becomes who’s doing the introductions?  Is it the person that’s friendly, witty, funny, always interested in what other people are up to?  Or is it that loudmouth jerk who just talks about himself all the time?

Or, worse, that person who never says anything interesting or anything worth listening to.  The one that everyone just ignores.

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Best Ideas Of The Week (1-18 to 1-22)

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Here it is once again.  Hope you’re having a great Friday.  Let’s dive right in…

-I’ve got a post coming on some good ways to change your mind (or your business).  I think that speaks directly to why New Year’s resolutions don’t work.  It’s a good place to start if you’re wanting to make a change.adam lamber galleria by gadjo cardenas sevilla

-I thought this post from smallbiztrends.com was interesting because it focuses on rural business trends for 2010.  Number 10 is that tourism is staying closer to home, which we’ve known for a while.  I don’t know if that gives the post validity, or makes it outdated.  You’ll have to let me know your thoughts on that one.

-Do you hate meetings?  Well, here’s an idea I’ve subscribed to for a while:  It’s not the meeting that sucks.  It’s the way that the meeting is run.  Here’s the down and dirty on how to run a meeting the Google way.  Now go forth and meet like you’ve really got something you need to share.

-This is just a quick reminder that, sometimes, plans can take a while.

-For anyone out there that’s a little intimidated to link to the outside world from your website or blog because you “don’t want to lose the traffic” (I know you’re out there), here’s some proof that you’re wrong.

-And finally, another word geek link to finish things up for this week.  Corporate-speak has always been a pet peeve of mine.  As the author puts it, we need “a reminder to give anything you write a decent bullshit test before sending it out“.  Amen.

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A Brief Post About Content Brief Contents

Friday, January 15th, 2010

Content should be central to your projects.

The cool thing is, that’s happening more and more.shanghai expo plan by Ivan Walsh

And I have to say that I really, really like that.  Thinking about marketing strategies from a content POV has always been important.  It’s how I got started working with Matterhorn in the first place.  I’m saying that the focus is changing.

Not just around here.  Out there.

Why is that?  One reason is search.  Google is rolling out new SERPS that are heavily influenced by content quality.  And quantity.  Well, one begets the other.  Creating a lot of quality content is going to help your ranking, plain and simple.

That’s not news.  But the fact that that content can come from anywhere, like facebook or twitter or urbanspoon or yelp, is.  Or at least, the extent to which social content matters is news.  It’s becoming more important every day.

Another reason to focus on content, and we’re mainly talking written content here, is because text is messy as hell (a direct quote from Content Strategy For The Web).

Meaning, if you leave content out of your plan, or think that you’re including it by writing the word “content” somewhere on a mindmap, you’re going to wind up a week away from the day you launch your site saying something like, “Man, we need to put some content up, quick.”

If no one “owns” the content you’re creating, you’re looking at no content.  Or crappy content.  That’s a terrific way to fail.

And this means that your (content) briefs need to contain more than just deliverables.  They need to contain plans.  They have to identify why you’re writing what you’re writing.  There has to be a measurable element to your work that tells the rest of the team how this piece of content fits.

There are a lot of good reasons to focus on content.  What are yours?

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Why Audit Your Online Content?

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Because you can.

Meaning, digital content is easier to manipulate than other forms of content.  So use that to your advantage when you work on your digital marketing by going through an audit.stream of consciousness by jurvetson

That doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.  A content audit can be a bear of a project to tackle.  Some people even recommend a continual audit, if your assets are big enough to demand it.

And just for clarification, we’re defining an audit as building a spreadsheet that lists your assets by going through everything you’ve got, and IDing it all.  You inventory the category, the keywords, the meta data, the traffic, the strength of the writing, the consistency of the writing, and on and on.  The more info you account for, the better you’ve audited.

A content audit can be like a bit of light housekeeping, or a spring clean where you have to rent a dumpster.  It all depends on the kind of maintenance you do, and what condition your content was in when you moved it in.

Why (Really)

So, a bit beyond “because you can”, here are some reasons to audit:

-You’re getting a new site.  Don’t take all your junk with you; audit before the move, and only take what’s useful.  Same goes for a site overhaul, where reasons for an audit don’t need much explaining.

-You’re looking at your analytics.   Amazingly, very few small businesspeople are actually paying attention to where their traffic comes from, where it goes, and what it does while it’s there.  If you’re one that does, do an audit to see what people are actually doing on your site.  Then, make more content like that.

-You’re organized.  It’s one thing to have a site map, and quite another to have an audit.  It’s the difference between the TV you have now and something like this.  It’s easier to see what you’ve got.

-You want to find out what you need.  An audit is just as good at showing you the holes in your content strategy as it is at showing you where your strengths are, especially if…

-You’re doing keyword research.  It sure will be nice to have an at-a-glance reference at where you can put your research to work.  Tweaking keywords can be tedious, but usually because there’s not a good enough map to follow.  Your audit will take care of that.

It’s about time for an audit of the Matterhorn site.  I’ll let you know what we find.

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