Information: The New Marketing Currency (Part 2)
Part Two – Put Your "Money" To Work
Now that you've built up your Information Bank Account, how do spend your new currency? Keep thinking like a reporter and consider the multitude of ways you can share educational nuggets that serve your target market.
Point III – Think like a journalist, continued
In Part One, we shared tips about writing styles, wearing a reporter's hat, designing content for feature articles and Q&As. Here are a few more pointers:
- What else would a reporter do besides ask good questions? He or she would talk to other people. So, expand your sources instead of always building content around a single interview source or a specific product or service.
- How good would your company look if it sponsored an objective roundtable discussion? Take that hot topic and include your company's executive, leaders from competing companies, end-user companies, a key industry association spokesperson and an editor.
- You can also expand your sources by just including one or two others in whatever content you are preparing. Another effective way is to re-publish content authored by others (with permission and some cost). It need not be dull industry-speak. Why not share words from a motivational speaker?
With all of these pointers in hand, conducting a single group exercise of "thinking like a journalist" with your staff should easily generate 10 solid ideas for new content to be used in various ways.
Use content for speaking. Speaking opportunities abound. Trouble is, they are difficult to obtain if your company is not widely known. Still it's worth shooting for. The same roundtable discussion published in a trade book can be submitted as a speaker panel to a local, regional or national group or conference. Virtually any content you now have or can create can become a speech. Again here again, don't forget to expand your sources. Include a customer in conjunction with your company's rep.
How to get your information out there. The type of information you create will frequently dictate how and where it should be distributed. There are so many media that this should be carefully planned. Your web site is the obvious place for almost everything, but don't just plunk your new piece in and expect the traffic to rise. You have to do something to showcase it.
For example, a perspective or opinion piece by your company's founder can be distributed to customers (even if you haven't had regular contact in the past). Articles can be submitted to your industry's print and e- media, and re-used for direct marketing. White papers can be used as offers for direct marketing, on your web site, linked to industry portals, etc.
The point is that the same content can be used in multiple ways; furthermore, it can become a cost-effective way to test market to a new target.
While sky's-the-limit marketing campaigns are not feasible for most companies' pocketbooks, you can afford to think rich when it comes to public relations. One of our favorite questions for clients is, 'If you were speaking to a room filled with 200 potential buyers of your product or service, what's the one thing you'd want to tell them?' Then find a way to couch that message into content that is educational to your audience.
