In 2007, the mention of content marketing brought as many blank stares from small business owners as the mention of a website did 10 years before. In 2009, most small businesses do have websites and the term, ‘content marketing,’ has gone from obscure to fashionable. For example, the number of visitors to our website who arrived because they had done a search for ‘content marketing,’ has increased by a factor of How to go from clueless to compelling to transform prospects into buyers In fact, in 1997 when we started our small business magazine in Southwest

But, if you use it well, you can make a measurable difference in your content marketing strategy. Here are six easy ways for Twitter to strengthen your content marketing efforts: Because effective content marketing is as much about conversation as it is an outbound messages, you need to maintain a dialogue with customers, prospects, and industry thought leaders. You may be wondering why something as seemingly simple as Twitter causes so much confusion and consternation among business people. Perhaps, it best likened to a tool like a hammer which is simultaneously

Change your style of delivery according to the content. Tags: Content attention Audience storie Reference: Hartley J and Davies I “Note taking: A critical review” Programmed Learning and Educational technology, 1978,15, 207-224 cited by John Medina in Brain Rules Keeping audience attention is more important and more difficult than grabbing audience attention .

Tags: Content Key Messag A key message is the number one thing you want your audience to remember or do as a result of your presentation. Some experts call it “the big idea”, the core of your presentation or the proposition . Start planning your presentation by deciding on your key message.

This week, several client meetings reinforced a vital truth: Content marketing isn’t an arcane theory taught in expensive graduate schools that only billion dollar companies can use. In fact, great content marketing is much more about brains than big bucks. Those client conversations took me back to lessons learned from more than a dozen case studies we featured in Get Content Get Customers What came through loud and clear was that content marketing requires discipline, patience, and persistence, but it doesn’t require an enormous budget. It’s particularly

It’s been a very good year for content marketing. In fact, visitors searching our site for the phrase “content marketing” increased by 85% in 2009 over 2008. Social media certainly loomed larger in the past 12 months but interest in content marketing strategy accounted for the majority of the most popular posts. How To Create the All-Important Here is the Cliff’s Notes bullet point version with more detail and links to the full articles following: 5 Reasons an eBook Should be a Core Component of Your Content Marketing Strategy

New Crowd Sourced E-Book Is Also a Brilliant Example of Content Marketing Because all of us are smarter than one of us, you will find lots of value in the new e-book, Key Content Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2010 – which even includes my own fearless prediction on content marketing. Aside from its intrinsic merit, this e-book is a perfect example of content marketing at work. The genius behind this e-book is Ambal Balakrishnan. She has turned crowd sourcing into an art form.

When you publish a monthly print or electronic newsletter that targets an important audience segment, you probably invest heavily in generating the content that will make this newsletter relevant and valuable to its readers. But you can do much more to make that newsletter and its content work harder for your organization. Think beyond this single That is obviously critical. How?

Here are two tech-driven ways to let your audience co-create presentation content. Tags: content ideas PowerPoint Presentation Twitte Your audience has the technology. They're carrying smart phones. They have net books or note books.

If you can succeed at providing plenty of substantive information that addresses their biggest problems, you are beginning to play the role of content concierge in their lives. Your content is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Make sure that every major problem faced by your customers is matched by a critical mass of relevant content on your site. Think of yourself as the ultimate knowledge resource like those concierges serving fine hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton or the Four Seasons—But Available 24/7. When you find yourself in a new town but are blessed