As the man who originated the term ‘content marketing’, Joe Pulizzi knows what it takes to make your brand build customer loyalty. Read the final part of my interview with Joe...
How do you prove the value of your content marketing strategy and get executive buy-in?
JP: Executives buy in only after they see it work. Do a pilot programme with agreed upon objectives. Tell them how the programme will work and the metrics to expect. After a set period of time, review that with your team. If that doesn’t work, try fear. Do some research on what a key competitor is doing or a company that your executive team respects. Do some show and tell.
Is freeing your content the way to go or should we strive to capture and convert leads?
JP: It depends on the goal, but let’s put it this way: the vast majority of your content should be free and sharable. If you want to attract a new audience, putting it behind a registration form won’t work. No one shares content behind a firewall. So top of the funnel content should all be free. Mid-buying stage content, depending on what it is, can and possibly should be gated. Remember, we want an audience of subscribers, and at some point, we need to get them to subscribe.
Why content curate when surely organisations should be creating their own?
JP: Organisations should be doing both. Just look at the greatest media models of all time – New York Times, Wall Street Journal and ESPN – all those models have effectively used both. It’s not one or the other.
Powerful content marketing is also a way of attracting top talent. This is often overlooked…
JP: Great point. Actually that could be how you use content marketing for your business – to recruit new talent. Just look at how companies are using LinkedIn as a publishing platform for that exact purpose.
‘Slideshare is the most underused distribution tool.’ Give us your top tips to get started.
JP: Simple: sign up for Slideshare PRO so you can acquire subscribers. Then look at consistently delivering content through that channel. Most likely, your organisation has a ton of PowerPoint presentations that could be used or modified for use in that channel.
What does the future hold for the content marketing ‘movement’?
JP: We are still in early adoption phase, but the growth in technology is pushing marketers to do more, faster. I truly believe that in the very near future marketing departments will look and feel just like publishing companies.
Are you seriously suggesting that every company write its own book?
JP: Blog, book and speaking. These are the three ingredients are the best combination to position yourself and your company as a true thought leader. The book may, in fact, be the most important of the three.
And finally, what’s the best piece of career advice anyone has given you?
JP: If you try something and fail, you are vastly better off than if you had tried nothing and succeeded. And that was from the back of a sugar packet!
Joe Pulizzi is cofounder of the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and author of several books, including ‘Epic Content Marketing’, his latest publication.
You can subscribe to the Content Marketing Institute’s daily blog at contentmarketinginstitute.com and
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