Case in point: I was recently invited to participate in series of posts that brought together 29 influential content marketers. When the blog posts — and subsequent eBook — featuring my contributions ran, I was shocked at the imbalance. Of the 29 “brilliant minds,” only four were women. Four! 

When and why did content marketing become a boy’s club? My guess is this: At some point, we stopped thinking about who is most likely to contribute fresh and relevant content, and instead shifted our thinking to asking, “Who holds enough sway to thrust our content into the mainstream?” Originality — and in some cases, quality — has taken a back seat to built-in distribution.

In other words, curation has devolved into influencer “trophy hunting.” We want to mount big names with big followings onto our content, as if we were hanging an exotic animal head on our wall.

If this practice continues unchecked, it threatens to derail our emerging industry, not only because we will dissuade half of the population from participating, but also because we won’t benefit from any new thinking. (Seriously, if I hear myself talk about “staggering distribution” one more time, I am going to unfollow me.)

My counsel to the industy is this: When you curate, don’t place such a high priority on trying to hijack someone’s following. Instead try to earn distribution by highlighting new perspectives. Include students. Invite marketers from different verticals. Blend product vendors and service providers. Juxtapose B2B marketing pros with their consumer counterparts. Incorporate multicultural points of view. Or, at the very least, make sure your finished product isn’t stranded in “guy town.”

It’s with this urging in mind that I have — with the help of Ann Handley, who, for the record (and to her credit), hates the necessity of this post — curated a list of 20 women who rock content marketing. If you want to follow this group en masse, I’ve built a Twitter list here.

1. Ardath Albee (@ardath421): Ardath is the E.F. Hutton of B2B marketing: When she talks, people listen. Her blog and Twitter stream are among the most influential in her category.
2. Leslie Bradshaw (@LeslieBradshaw): Leslie runs data visualization firm JESS3, which has produced some of the most shared content of the entire social web. Ever. Her “More Seats” column for the Forbes Blog highlights women in tech.
3. Dierdre Breakenridge (@dbreakenridge): Dierdre is proof that PR and content marketing are kindred spirits. She’s omnipresent across her blog, Twitter, webinars, social Q&A sites, and more.
4. Jennifer Cisney (@kodakCB): Jennifer runs Kodak’s blog and social media presence. She’s also a prominent speaker at industry events. Anyone who follows Kodak marketing knows it takes smarts and swagger to succeed. She’s got both.
5. April Dunford (@aprildunford): April’s probably the least “classic” content marketer on this list, but her RocketWatcher blog might just be the smartest, most interesting marketing-related content on the blogosphere.
6. Barbra Gago (@BarbraGago): Content, meet demand generation. World, meet Barbra. She might know more about the role content plays in generating demand than anyone in her market. And that’s a very important niche to own.
7. Ann Handley (@MarketingProfs): Forbes just listed Ann as the second-most influential person in social media. When it comes to content, she’s tops. Her book, “Content Rules,” is a building block for any effective content strategy.
8. Christina “CK” Kerley (@CKsays): CK is a writer, speaker, trainer, and professor, yet she still finds time to churn out killer guides and videos on B2B marketing. Prolific.
9. Kirsten Knipp (@kirstenpetra): As one of the driving forces behind this category, HubSpot has content marketing in its DNA, and A-lister Kirsten Knipp has been vital to its marketing success.
10. Kelly LeVoyer (@kellylevoyer) (: You try convincing a massive company like SAS to publish a blog post titled, “The poop on change management” and see how far you get. Kelly, well, she gets it done.
11. Rebecca Lieb (@lieblink): Rebecca not only covers content marketing for the Altimeter Group, she also wrote the new book “Content Marketing: Think Like a Publisher.” She’s the definition of thought leader.
12. Michele Linn (@michelelinn): Content Marketing Institute’s own Michele Linn is the type of content marketer who makes everyone else’s output better. It’d be easy to overlook someone like her. But if you enjoy CMI, you have her to thank.
13. Valeria Maltoni (@ConversationAge): Valeria is a content factotum. She’s a strategist, top blogger, compelling speaker, and she ain’t afraid of data (or anything else for that matter). One of the sharpest minds in all of marketing.
14. Amanda Maksymiw (@amandamaks): A rising star in content marketing, Amanda helps lead OpenView Labs, the strategic consulting arm of a venture capital firm. How’s that for an original role?
15. Maria Pergolino (@InboundMarketer): The bottom line is this: Maria gets results. She not only understands content, she also knows her audience. That’s a powerful combo.
16. Leslie Poston (@leslie): The question isn’t where can you find Leslie, but where can’t you. She runs her own company, founded Magnitude Media, started Social Media Breakfast NH, writes for Mashable and jams out “For Dummies” books like most people write blog posts.
17. Stephanie Tilton (@StephanieTilton): Whom do I turn to when I need help creating B2B content that’s as insightful as it is accessible? Stephanie, that’s who. She and her “Savvy Sisters” also run a rocking blog called Savvy B2B Marketing.
18. Susan Wassel (@Sharpie): When her @sharpiesusan Twitter handle was replaced with a corporate account, fans rebelled. If that’s not a testament to “getting it,” what is? She’s done it all: broadcast producer, reporter, PR pro, social strategist…, you name it.
19. Karen Wickre (@kvox): Someone I am very interested in tracking moving forward, Karen recently joined Twitter as Editorial Director. Given her creative and strategic background, the possibilities for awesome content are endless.
20. Kirsten Watson (@kirstenewatson): If someone were to issue a “Content Marketer of the Year” award, the smart money would be on Kirsten. Don’t know why? Read “Content Rules” and the reasons will be clear.

Certainly there are more than 20 star women in content marketing, and  this list isn’t meant to be the finish line. It’s the starting block. Please add the names and handles of women who inspire you to the comments field. I’ll add them to the Twitter list.

Here is B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Budgets, Benchmarks and Trends.

It was no surprise to us that content marketing remains a top priority for marketers in 2012. Many of the statistics and results are consistent with what we saw last year:

• 9 out of 10 organizations market with content marketing.
• On average, B2B marketers employ eight different content marketing tactics to achieve their goals.
• Marketers, on average, spend over a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing (see the full budget breakdowns in the report).

But, we’re seeing a lot of changes as well.

Increased adoption rate for some tactics

Just as we found in last year’s study, article posting and social media (excluding blogs) are the most popular tactics and are currently used by 79% and 74% of B2B marketers, respectively.

But, there are a number of tactics that are seeing an increased adoption rate:

• Blogs (27% increase)
• White papers (19% increase)
• Videos (27% increase)

Marketers are using social media more frequently

As we saw last year, Twitter is the most popular social media channel with content marketers. Every social media channel is seeing increased adoption, often by 15-20%:

• YouTube: 47% increase
• LinkedIn: 39% increase
• Twitter: 35% increase
• Facebook: 30% increase

Content marketers are becoming more effective

Last year, we asked marketers to assess how confident they consider their usage of each tactic to be.  This year it’s clear that marketers are more confident in how well they are using these tactics — around just about every tactic. While in-person events and webinars are still seen as the most effective tactics, on average, the following ranked notably higher in perceived effectiveness compared to our last report:

• Blogs: 45% increase
• Case studies: 32% increase
• Videos: 36% increase
• Webinars/webcasts: 25% increase

Content marketing spend is increasing

Rising confidence in the effectiveness of content marketing seems to be spurring marketers
 to dedicate more budget to this strategy. On average, 60% of respondents indicate that they plan to increase their content marketing budgets over the next 12 months. This compares to 51% of marketers who were planning to increase their budgets in the previous study.

More marketers are outsourcing 

As content marketing budgets increase, so too does the percentage of companies that outsource. Last year, only 55% of marketers used outsourcing in some capacity. This year, 62% of B2B marketers use a mix of insourced and outsourced content.

Download the full report: B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends.

What findings in the research are most interesting to you? Let us know in the comments!

I’m tired… tired of the large amount of destructive posts about content marketing that are completely and utterly false.

Two posts in particular, as penned by Hubspot, are clearly written by individuals (no offense here) who do not understand what content marketing really is (here is one and here is the other for your reading enjoyment).

I’m not sure why Hubspot is targeting the term content marketing and misleading its customers in such a way. Do they want to misinform marketing professionals? That is something I cannot live with.

Disclaimer: I am a Hubspot customer (pending future status).

What is inbound marketing?

When the term “inbound marketing” first started to get traction, I thought it was pretty much the same as content marketing. I was wrong.

According to my good friend David Meerman Scott, as published in the book Inbound Marketing (from Hubspot founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah), “Inbound Marketing is about getting found online, through search engines and on sites like Facebook and YouTube and Twitter…”

That said, if you only focus on inbound marketing, you will fail as a marketing professional.

Why you need a content marketing mindset

Content marketing is the practice of creating relevant and compelling content in a consistent fashion to a targeted buyer, focusing on all stages of the buying process, from brand awareness through to brand evangelism. Content marketing, unlike inbound marketing, has been around for hundreds of years, most notably starting in 1895 by John Deere with The Furrow magazine (although I argue that the cave people were drawing stories on walls to sell product). See the video for more:

While inbound marketing (as opposed to outbound marketing) and getting found online by prospects are critical, what do you do with your story once they find you? If content marketing were a football field, inbound marketing would get you to the 35-yard line. Definitely critical, but hard to score from that distance.

After inbound marketing, you need lead nurturing. Once the lead is nurtured and becomes a customer at some point, you need customer service content. What if you want to upsell or cross sell to the customer? Well, that’s a whole set of different content. What if your goal is customer retention and loyalty? Well that’s another content strategy as well. Lots of valuable content spread out around the web will help you reach a few of your content marketing goals, but not all of them. NOTE: Some will argue that lead nurturing is part of inbound marketing. Even if that is true, it still means you have to throw a Hail Mary to score a touchdown.

Content marketing must include strategic planning, content creation, distribution, and metrics for multiple stages of the buying cycle to multiple customer personas. In my view, that means a complete content marketing strategy would incorporate inbound marketing principles, but it would also take a more holistic approach to meeting a business’s overall marketing goals.

Uh, print?

Even more importantly, content marketing is channel-agnostic. That means that content marketers should be looking at ALL available channels to engage with customers… print, in-person, and online (including mobile). The outstanding Ritz Carlton magazine, placed in hotel rooms, does not have anything to do with being found; neither does the amazing LEGO Club magazine, which has been produced in print for over 30 years (I received the original Brick Kicks magazine back in the 80s). LEGO Club magazine is not inbound marketing.

The business goals of content marketing

With content marketing, there are a number of overall business goals you could have:

Brand awareness or reinforcement
This is almost always the first thing that is thought of when you look at content marketing. The goal may be that you are just trying to find a more effective way than advertising to create awareness for your product or service. This is the long-tail strategy. Content marketing is a great vehicle for that, as it’s organic, authentic, and a great way for you to start driving engagement with your brand. Content marketing and inbound marketing overlap in this area.

Lead conversion and nurturing 
The most basic part of inbound marketing is the conversion metric. How you define a lead will vary — but from a content marketing perspective, this is where you have (through the exchange of engaging content) encouraged someone to give up enough information about themselves that you now have permission to “market” to them. This can include signing up for a “demo”, registering for an event, subscribing to your e-newsletter, or gaining access to your Resource Center. Once you have the prospect’s permission, you can use content to help move them through the buying cycle.

Customer conversion 
In many cases, you already have a ton of content in this area. This is where, as marketers, we have traditionally focused — the “proof points” to the sale. Examples include case studies you send to your prospects that illustrate how you’ve solved the problem before — or the “testimonials” section on your client page. Ultimately, this is the content you’ve created as a marketer to illustrate to the hot prospect why your solution is better or will uniquely meet his or her needs.

Customer service
This is where content marketing can really earn its “subscribe” stripes. How well are you using content to create value or reinforce the customer’s decision AFTER the sale? This goes well beyond the user manual, the documented process for success, and the FAQ on your website. These are the best practices for how to use your product or service. How can customers get the MOST out of your product or service? What are the successful, innovative ways that you’ve seen your product or service get extended into other solutions?

Customer loyalty/retention
Just like you have a planned lead nurturing process to turn prospects into customers, you also need a planned customer retention strategy. If your ultimate goal is to turn customers into passionate subscribers who share your stories, this area needs major attention. Options may be a customer e-newsletter or printed newsletter, a print or tablet magazine, or possibly a user event or webinar series.

Customer upsell
Marketing doesn’t stop at the “checkout” button any longer. If you’re particularly good at using content to service the customer in a subscribe model, you also have the opportunity to be effective at creating ongoing engagement for the other products and services you offer. Why stop communicating with prospects once they become customers? Instead, communicate with them more frequently (certainly not in a creepy way) and engage them with additional value. Customer upsell and customer retention goals can work hand-in-hand.

Passionate subscribers
If you can successfully move customers to this stage, you have really accomplished something. Content — and especially content generated by satisfied customers — can be one of the most powerful ways for us to reach any business goal. This is when content marketing starts to work for you exponentially. Apple Computer is the quintessential example of this. Ask yourself what their content marketing strategy is. They have no social media presence. They have no blog. But they have successfully built their passionate subscriber base — and these people create fan sites, write, share, and evangelize the Apple brand. Your ultimate goal should be to create a community of evangelists who are prepared to fight for your brand.

So which of these goals makes sense for your content marketing? Maybe it’s only an inbound marketing initiative and you’re just trying to help drive more leads into the sales and marketing process. Maybe you’re trying to create a program that increases awareness, drives down the cost of organic traffic to your website, and increases your position with search engines. Maybe you are working to improve your customer retention rate. Take a moment now to get your mental juices flowing.

What do you want to accomplish with content marketing?

One last message from the soapbox

I’ve seen way too many presentations and read way too many articles from “gurus” touting that all marketing resources should switch to inbound marketing. Or even content marketing for that matter? For some small businesses, this could be the case. But for smart, growing businesses, we should be leveraging content marketing throughout all our marketing initiatives — even (gasp) traditional marketing and advertising. (Check out this excellent post by Robert Rose about how content marketing is butter, not the bread.)

Yes, traditional marketing doesn’t work the way it used to because the consumer is in complete control. If they don’t want to pay attention, they won’t. Telling interesting stories is a much better way to get attention. But in many circumstances, traditional marketing and advertising can work (Old Spice showed us the power of paid advertising in collaboration with content marketing and social media). The point is, there is no black and white in marketing; it’s all gray.  There are no silver bullets. Marketing objectives sometimes need to be solved with a combination of efforts, not by putting all your eggs in one basket.

As a marketing professional, it’s your responsibility to call BS when you see it. I hope you will.

NOTE: If you are looking to see content marketing in action, check out Content Marketing World On Demand, featuring over 40 videos from the leading content marketing experts from David Meerman Scott to brands like DuPont, Intel and Sherwin Williams.

The base: Curation, creativity, and coordination

These three concepts form the base of the pyramid because without all of these elements your content marketing efforts will fail.  Here’s what I mean:

Content curation: You’ve probably heard content marketing referred to as “thought leadership.” To be a thought leader, you’ve got to know what everyone else is saying, make sense out of it, and then add something original to the conversation. This means your entire content team will need to spend time reading industry blogs, following industry hashtags on Twitter, and keeping their eyes open for new ideas and trends. Sometimes, this research and reading doesn’t seem to accomplish much, but without soaking in industry content it’s hard to create anything notable yourself.

Content creativity: At the beginning of each content marketing engagement, we hold a brainstorming session to get everyone to think creatively about content. However, content creativity goes far beyond the initial brainstorming session. Creativity  may come in the form of getting through that first sentence when you’re facing a nasty case of writer’s block or finding the perfect way to fix that awkward sentence when you’re in editing mode. You can’t consistently create quality content without creativity.

Content coordination: Content marketing is complicated. If you’re doing it right, you’ll have several blog posts a month, drafts flying back and forth, and several writers fighting for space on the schedule (or begging for a deadline extension). Not to mention that you also have to distribute that content, report on whether or not it’s working, adjust your next efforts based on those reports, and incorporate whatever new social sharing site has come out that week. Content marketing flounders without an organizational maestro to take charge and coordinate efforts.

You might think it’s weird that there is no actual content on the base of the content marketing pyramid. Yet without curation, creativity, and coordination your content will not be supported by a sound foundation.

The middle: Blog posts and website copy

The middle section is a huge part of any healthy content marketing menu. Without quality website copy and blog posts, your content marketing program will be malnourished.

Blog posts build your brand’s following, secure SEO results, help nurture prospects along the buying cycle, and provide fodder for social media outlets. They catch attention and draw readers back to your website. For many content marketers, blog posts represent the bulk of content marketing efforts. Compared to other types of content, blog posts are relatively quick and easy to create, and if one blog post isn’t the best thing you’ve ever had on your site, that’s OK — you’ve always got the next one.

However, blog posts do not stand alone in the middle of the content marketing pyramid. Without thorough, compelling website copy, the chances of your blog’s readers turning into qualified leads are low.  Sure, potential clients may fill out your contact form because they loved one of your blog posts, but I’ll bet they took a look at your website copy first. Fail to reflect your organization’s unique value proposition in your website copy and you’ll fail to capture leads from your content marketing efforts.

The almost-top: Videos and case studies

Videos and case studies earn their spots on this level for two very different reasons, so I’ll break it down:

Videos. Everyone learns in different ways, and while one person may be content to read blog posts all day, another may want to watch a two-minute video to get a sense of how you think and who you are. While videos aren’t absolutely essential, they give site visitors a sense of the legitimacy of your business. Creating quality videos can be time consuming and expensive compared to drafting a blog post, so you might not be able to create one every other week, but you should definitely consider video as a way to complement your text-based content offerings.

Case studies. One of the most compelling ways to sell is by showing off the good work you’ve done for others. No matter how brilliant, informative, and interesting your blog posts and website copy are, potential clients or customers are going to want to know who else has worked with you successfully. Short, simple case studies are a good way to show this whether you’re mentioning them in a blog post or sending them to a potential client when responding to an initial inquiry. However, be wary of overwhelming your audience with case studies because it can come off as too hard a sell. Instead, choose the absolute best work your company does, and showcase it when it’s relevant.

Videos and case studies aren’t the only types of content that fit in this category — you could throw infographics and interactive portfolios in here as well. The point is, website and blog copy isn’t always enough. You should have different kinds of content for the different kinds of thinkers whose attention you hope to attract.

The top: Webinars and eBooks

Content such as webinars and eBooks are essential for capturing leads. People are generally willing to submit their contact information in exchange for significant content like this. Once you have that, your sales team can contact any qualified leads.

However, you’ll be hard pressed to get people to sign up to download a webinar or eBook if you haven’t already convinced them of your expertise by giving them quality content that is easily accessible as well. Build a readership with your blog, and then turn that readership into leads by requiring information in exchange for the content on the top of the pyramid.

What does your content marketing pyramid look like? Have a content marketing food group to add? Please comment below!

Planning template
Do you have so many ideas but aren’t sure what you should tackle first? Here’s a spreadsheet you can use to prioritize.

Content questionnaire
What do you need to cover at a content marketing kickoff? To make sure all of your bases are covered, check out this template from Debbie Williams that sets the foundation for an editorial strategy.

Buyer persona
This straightforward buyer persona template from Barbara Gago is a great way to help you document your buyer needs.

Content mapping template
Marketers talk about mapping content, but how do you do this?  Here are a  few templates from Barbara Gago that walk you through the process.

Editorial calendar
If there is one tool I can’t live without, it’s my editorial calendar. Here’s a template to help you get started.

Template for tracking keywords
Elise Redlin-Cook shows you how to research the right keywords to use in your content and SEO efforts and then provides a template to help you stay organized.

Web page template
You want your web pages to drive action, but how do you do that? Brody Dorland shares the template he uses to create effective web content.

Social media conversation calendar
Debbie Williams shares the social media conversation calendar she uses to develop content strategy for social media while making the process efficient and consistent.

Facebook engagement spreadsheet
In this popular posts, Nate Riggs outlines five ways to interpret the free data provided by Facebook Insights, and he shares the spreadsheet he uses to keep track of the data.

Sales communication template
As a content marketer, you’re producing useful content and trying to get the word out to your prospects, but does sales know what you are doing? Here’s an easy-to-use template from Dianna Huff for a monthly email that provides sales with details about the company’s marketing initiatives.

What other types of templates would help you do your job better? Let us know in the comments below!

This year, QR codes are on the rise, popping up at every interactive conference, in magazines and books and anywhere you can print the fancy little squares. You’ll find some interesting statistics on consumer adoption of QR codes in this fascinating presentation by Austin & Williams.

A recent recent report published by ScanLife, estimates that 30-40% of all smart phone users have, at one time, downloaded a bar code scanning application. The report also revealed:

• 61% of all scanned bar codes are from Android operating systems, compared to Apple’s 20% ownership of market share.
• The top five US cities that have adopted QR codes are New York, Houston, Chicago, San Antonio and Las Vegas.
• The largest demographic that has adopted the use of QR Codes are 25-34-year-olds, with 35-44-year- olds close behind.
• 26% of QR code users earn an annual income of less than $50,000, and 35% make between $50,000 — $100,000 per year.
• There was a 1,600% increase in mobile bar code scanning in 2010.

Adoption momentum

From an adoption standpoint, it’s probably going to be some time before QR codes make it out of the hands of Internet geeks and into the mainstream. But the trend is beginning to gain momentum.  My gut tells me that widespread adoption will occur faster than we think largely because of the marketing and consolidation of the QR code reader market and deeper integration with smart phone operating systems.

As consumers become more used to technology adoption in general, the habit becomes much less scary for us. Couple that with the rate that new startups are pumping out shiny objects and the widespread success of platforms like Facebook, Groupon as well as Andriod, and suddenly, the barriers are much less intimidating.

Beware the gimmick syndrome

My trip to SXSW this year was a virtual QR code frenzy.

A dense crowd of tech-savvy humans who knew what to do with these fancy little squares descended upon Austin as they do each year. This audience created the perfect environment to experiment with applications of QR code technology.

Some of the applications were very effective. Some were not. Some were simply annoying.

For instance, we saw a ton of shirts displaying QR’s. Good idea, right?  Not so much. Notice the slight fold in the individual’s T-shirt?  Good luck getting an application like QuickMark to actually process that image and bring up the link.

Then there were the cupcakes. While tasty, this was a completely failed use of the technology in my opinion.

If you think the shirt was difficult to scan, you should have tried these little snack items.

But don’t worry. My frustration was quickly calmed by the yummy icing.  I never made it to the landing page as the company would have liked me to. In fact, I couldn’t even tell you one thing about the company. Can you see the problem with this gimmicky approach?

Doing it right

44Doors is doing QR codes right in all directions.  While this is a paid platform, they are light years beyond the free QR Code generators you can find online.

One of the case studies that caught my attention immediately centers on 44Doors’ work with Kendall Jackson Wines.

By placing a QR code on the label or as a tag around the neck of the bottle, Kendall Jackson can offer its customers all kinds of different information at the point of purchase. It’s relevant, timely and unique, which can influence the ultimate purchase decision.

6 things to know about using QR codes in content marketing

When you are thinking about using a QR code as part of your interactive strategy, make sure you consider these important points:

1) Know where your audience is and what they need when they encounter your QR code.
Many users are not tech savvy and do not know what a QR code is. Provide some instructions to educate them on what QR codes are, what they do, and how to use them.

2) Suggest a QR code reader for your audience to use.
For less savvy audiences, you may want to suggest one or more QR code readers they could download. Make sure to recommend what you know works, and make sure readers are compatible with both Andriod and iPhone OS. Here are some readers I recommend:

• UpCode
• QuickMark
• ScanLife
• Barcode Scanner
• QR Droid 4 Beta

3) Use an appropriate call to action.
Where do you want to take your audience so that they can take the next step? Once they land, what will you ask them to do?

4) Create the right landing page.
Once the QR code is scanned, make sure the information you deliver is relevant to where the end user is at that place and time. Location is a critical factor.

5) Display QR codes on a flat surface.
If you’re QR code is wrinkled or folded, your audience will have trouble scanning it, get frustrated and move on.

6) Always keep it simple.
Essentially, a QR code is a conversion point in real life. Don’t get too fancy or clutter up the code with noisy and distracting images and graphics.

There’s plenty more to consider.  What else would you add? How would you use a QR code in your marketing?

Of course, there are companies out there that have great web writers internally, but most don’t. And the thought of a company turning a great website strategy (that we slaved over) into an ineffective “brochure site” gives me heartburn. But sometimes you have to pick your battles.

In cases where we give in and let the client take the content reins, we at least want to make sure they are equipped with a template that gives them a fighting chance to produce effective webpage content that drives action. Here is a template we like to use, and an explanation of what’s included.

 Download the Template

Website content template components

Pre-writing questions: Before starting any given page, you really need to wrap your heads around the primary goal of the page and to whom this page is targeted. What’s their pain? What’s in it for them? Where are they in their buying process? And what keywords or phrases would they most likely use to search for your solution? The best writers are those who can put themselves in the buyer’s shoes and write as if they are having a one-on-one conversation with that buyer.

Typical web page structure and formatting guidelines

After years of experimenting, most of us web folks have the best practices of website content nailed down, and we feel like this template covers the bases. Here are a few key elements:

• Headlines: As with most media, a great headline or page title can make or break a page. But specific to web content, it’s important to remember the SEO aspects. Integrating a major keyword/phrase into a headline and programming the page title with a relevant <h1> tag can add some nice Google juice.
• Sub-headlines: Visitors scan before they read, so creating enticing, benefits-focused sub-headlines can really boost the odds that your page will be read. I like to run a “scan test” on every page  to see if I can get the gist of page by just scanning the page title, subheads, and call to action.
• Images:  I’ve always had an interest in neuropsychology, and I couldn’t help but devour Susan Weinschenk’s book, Neuro Web Design back in 2009. Throughout the book she talks about how we subconsciously process everything we see on a website, but she summarizes that “stories and pictures are the most powerful ways to get and hold our attention and persuade us to take action.”Let’s not forget about Google. Optimizing your image’s file name and alt tag with a keyword/phrase provides the context Google needs and validates the relevance of your page.
• Bulleted and numbered lists: I love bulleted lists, and evidently you do too since you’re still reading this! Lists make content much easier to digest. Even the slightest indention and bullet will draw the reader’s eye. Oh, and Google likes these too.
• Calls to action: Despite the intelligence level of your site visitors, people don’t want to have to think when they are browsing websites. Obvious command-oriented calls to action are key in moving visitors through your website. And don’t be scared to make the call to action a BIG BUTTON. Bigger is better, but don’t make it look like a banner.

Post-writing checklist

Finally, the template includes a checklist of items and reminders you can use to ensure your page is good to go. Of these items, I think the most important one is to just get another set of eyeballs on it. If you’re writing the page, you’re now too close to it and  no longer qualified to edit it.

If you start using this template, realize that not every page on your site has to follow this exact format. Modify your content structure and formatting so that it accomplishes the goals of the page. When in doubt, test.

If we’ve missed anything that you feel needs to be included in this template, please tell me in the comments.

Forward-thinking efforts of companies like Ford and Mashable jumped into early company adoption and use of the network. Though Google has announced brand pages are coming soon, it’s discouraging the use of personal Google+ profiles as branded company pages.

So what are we to do? How can content marketers like you and I apply this new social network in our everyday business practices?

Here are three ideas you can steal to get you and your content marketing team started with Google+.

1.  Google+ can help with content marketing and distribution

Distributing other individuals’ and businesses’ content is not a new idea for content marketers. We all understand  the web is a business sandbox where playing nicely and supporting the marketing efforts of others pays long-term dividends as long as content marketers remain genuine with their gestures of support.

When we share the content of business partners, industry influencers and even our competitors at times are more likely to share the content that we create. Up until Google+ came along, content sharing was a cumbersome process at best:

1. You identified the third-party content that was relevant to your target audience.
2. Relevant content sources were set up in readers or alerts, most commonly using Google application for RSS or email delivery.
3. That content was read, vetted, and then re-posted using a combination of third-party tools, such as browser applets and plugins, social media engagement dashboards, and URL shorteners (e.g., Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, etc.).

Following these steps in a daily distribution routine result in a high numbers of clicks, lots of copying and pasting, and lots of movement between browser tabs and desktop applications. But it also requires a significant investment of human time and energy, which can be costly.

Google+ Sparks might be one of the coolest and most overlooked features that Google+ has to offer content marketers.  Essentially, Google+ Sparks provides an easy-to-use version of Google alerts that lives directly in your Google+ dashboard.

What makes Google+ Sparks valuable is that once the content is delivered as a result of your search, you can immediately share it across your various Google+ Circles with one simple click (more on Google+ Circles below). There’s no need for any copying or pasting or even the use of a browser plugin or applet to share within your networks.

Tip: While there’s a lot of room for Google+ Sparks to grow with enhancements, for now it can be a pretty effective tool if you know your way around Boolean search operators. For reference, the previously mentioned link will take you to a complete list of boolean search operators  you can bookmark and use to narrow your results.

2.  You can use Google+ Circles to get the pulse on popular content

Another advantage of Google+ is the speed of real time, coupled with the ease of sharing mentioned above.

Google+ users, who today for the most part include early internet adopters and influencers, are busy nearly every minute sharing content within the system. This provides an opportunity for you to set up specific circles of the individual users who share content that’s most relevant to your customer audience. And, if you’d like some help finding those content influencers, you can always pay a visit to the new Google+ User Directory.

Tip: You can set up as many circles as you like. I’ve recently developed a five-point framework that you can use to organize your Google+ Circles, starting first with a broad focus and then narrowing to smaller, niche circles.

At any rate, using Google+ in an almost inverted way to source content and share it across your business’s other social media channels will  save you time and enhance the third-party content you share.

3.  Google+ can be used for content marketing team collaboration

I think the world will soon discover the real benefit of using Google+ lies in team collaboration.

Today, project management and business collaboration tools hosted in the cloud are scattered and, for the most part, limited in terms of features and integration with the other software we use in everyday business operations. Sure, corporations with enough dollars have had Sharepoint for years, and it works decently. Smaller companies use applications like Basecamp and Highrise or Zoho Projects to create efficiencies among content marketing teams.

Google+ has the most potential to completely revolutionize the way  content marketers collaborate by providing the following features free of charge:

1. Google+ Circles can be used to capture the updates and information of a group of collaborators of any size and in any location. You can create as many as you wish.
2. Google+ Huddles brings the idea of simple, proven and real-time chat rooms directly to your screens or mobile devices.
3. Google+ Hangouts lets you virtually meet as a group with a few simple clicks, giving you the advantage of seeing the non-verbal communication of your fellow collaborators while providing some additional sharing features.
4. Google+ Sparks helps to keep you in the know on whatever you want, making it as easy as a click to share that information with your teams.
5. Google+ Plugin plugs neatly into your browser, giving you real-time visibility to team communication without having to look for it.
6. Google Search Home Page now comes with a handy navigation menu that gives you  one-click access to almost all the other products we use on Google today. I’m willing to bet we will see maps integration soon.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about Google+ and if you are already using it in any of these ways. Feel free to chime in on the comments with war stories, questions or ideas of your own.

Sound fair?

Content leverage

Content leverage is using every  piece of content  in multiple ways to get the highest return on investment from each piece of content. Obviously, content is not valuable unless buyers are aware of it and are engaged with the material.  This requires marketers to deliver the content in new, interactive ways and channels. Borrowing from Newton’s first law, content in motion will tend to stay in motion and be more effective as a result.

Let’s track the life of a single blog article to bring these practices to life and show how a marketer can leverage content to its best use.

Developing content derivatives

An executive writes a compelling blog article based on new research from a survey of customers and prospects. The blog post explains how the research findings uncover an important buyer issue, validates the market need for the vendor’s solution, and highlights that solutions exist to address the issues identified in the research.

A research-focused post helps in the early stages of the buying cycle to inform  buyers that  solutions are available  to  make improvements.  In this scenario, marketers can develop content derivatives such as:

1) Research White Paper: The marketing team develops additional content based on the original blog post to create a white paper. However, keep in mind that research indicates buyers prefer shorter white papers; the recommended length is four to six pages.

2) Infographic: Research and best practices recommend converting content into an infographic to illustrate data that can be  quickly understood and enhance a call to action.  The elements of an infographic can be weaved into the white paper and other materials to make the data “come to life.”

3) PowerPoint: The presentation is an overview of the research findings on the market opportunity, a summary of the white paper and the executive’s best practice recommendations, which can be uploaded on Slideshare.

4) Live and On-Demand Webinar: The executive leverages the PowerPoint to present a live webinar, which is also recorded for on-demand playback.

5) Video and Podcast: The executive is interviewed in Q&A form to create a series of short and compelling videos and podcasts. Creating transcripts of each interview can provide additional content leverage.

To improve the connection and engagement of today’s busy buyers, more marketers are moving beyond traditional options to leverage interactive media such as:

1) Microsites: The marketing team develops and publishes a collection of related research and advice to a best practices microsite, providing buyers with a single resource to facilitate each step through the buyer’s journey.

2) eBook: The team  converts the key white paper content and PowerPoint into a visually compelling eBook, an interactive overview of the research, and key points  that an executive can quickly read  to understand main concepts and recommendations.

3) Mobile Content / Applications: The team converts the research into content optimized for mobile devices and creates a “Solution Finder” application to help users find the right solution  based on which piece of the research matches customers’  specific priorities / pain points.

4) Multi-media White Papers: The team enhances the white paper presentation with embedded video and podcast recordings, helping buyers feel more connected to the executive.

5) Interactive White Papers: Today’s buyers demand content be more relevant and concise. To deliver a personalized white paper, the marketing team should consider assembling and customizing the content for each buyer. This content customization can be developed on pivot points, which matches content to the buyer’s industry, location, size, role in buying cycles and pain points. The content is put into an interactive software application to survey the buyer on his profile. From there, a customized white paper is delivered with content precisely matching the buyer’s profile.

6) Interactive Diagnostic Assessments: Most buyers struggle to understand whether research issues are  relevant or applicable to them and whether addressing the issues should be priority.  The marketing team may consider a diagnostic assessment to gather and benchmark the prospect’s opportunities against industry peers and leaders. This can illustrate to buyers the competitive costs of maintaining the status quo versus the competitive advantages of adopting new solutions that can address priority issues.

7) Benefit Calculator: Without a business case, today’s economic-focused buyers are hard pressed to allocate budget and pull the trigger on an investment. The marketing team can tap the research to create a customized, interactive benefits calculator that will quantify potential benefits for prospects.

Putting the content in motion

The traditional ways to connect and engage buyers with valuable decision-support content is evolving to incorporate more channels and social sharing.

Traditional channels use promotions, excerpts, and links to the content in order to increase awareness and engage buyers.

Some of the traditional channels that the marketing team leverages to promote content include:

1) Website(s): Promote and link to the content from the main company website and microsites, not forgetting to promote the content via portals in support of sales / channel enablement.

2) eNewsletters: Include excerpts and links in regular newsletters as value-added content.

3) Banner Advertising: Use banners to promote the content as a call to action for users.

4) Paid Search: Use targeted keywords and content as a call to action.

5) Traditional Advertising: Place promotions and links from traditional advertising to the online content.

The one issue with these traditional channels is that they are paid advertisements and have a low trust rating.  However, social content placement is often earned and is trusted more than traditional advertising  by today’s skeptical buyers.

Using social media-focused channels, marketers connect and engage with influencers and the buyers’ communities via:

1) Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn Posts and Links – Beyond just links to promote the content, marketers post key excerpts of compelling findings and advice. These posts are liked and forwarded by other members.

2) YouTube & Slideshare Posts: Based on the type of content, the marketing team leverages specific social channels for sharing content such as YouTube for videos and Slideshare for PPTs and PDFs.

3) LinkedIn Discussion Groups and Quora: Marketers determine what key questions would be compelling to discussion groups  to attract group members’ comments on the research and findings as well as to  collaborate on additional opportunities, best practices and solutions..

4) Influencer Links: Marketers make influencers aware of the content and findings / advice, prompting several influencers to write about the content and pass along excerpts / links.

5) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Search engines prioritize links to content that are seen as  timely, relevant and valuable to the community. To optimize SEO, marketers still need to be sure that content is tagged properly and contains important keywords. Additionally, marketers must ensure that content is back-linked,  liked, promoted and linked to/from other independent and influential sites.

6) Article Syndication: Marketers convert the blog post and other content into article form, and get digital and print publishers to feature / promote the article because they feel it will help their readers.

The bottom line

When an author develops a blog article or other  piece of marketing content, it’s key that the marketing team leverage the content in multiple ways by creating derivatives to put the content in motion. This strategy should include creating multiple traditional and new interactive media derivatives that engage buyers with content through traditional and social channels.

This graphic illustration of  a single piece of content from a research oriented blog post can be used to derive multiple pieces of content to connect and engage buyers via multiple channels  and facilitate the buyer’s journey that can help drive content marketing effectiveness.

Have you tried this approach? Anything you would add to the graphic above?

I also hope this post opens dialogue regarding what plugins you are using to reach more eyeballs and bring more value to your audiences.

A Caveat

The one thing I love about WordPress is also the thing that can wreck a site. WordPress gives you the ability to add new widgets, features and functionality with ease, but you need to be careful not to clutter your site with things that are “nifty,” but not necessarily valuable. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

If you need a great case for simple sites, read Erin Kissane’s recent book, The Elements of Content Strategy. She talks a lot about the intersection of content, user experience, design and how to provide your visitors with a great content experience. With that caveat out of the way, let’s geek out!

Productivity Plugins

Editorial Calendar – If you are  blogging, the WordPress Editorial Calendar plugin will allow you to add post ideas/drafts within a calendar interface so you can plan ahead and ward off writer’s block.

Content Scheduler – Content governance is being talked about a lot these days, and the Content Scheduler plugin is a nice little tool for facilitating this practice. When you write/edit a post or page, you can specify a date in the future when this content should be reviewed. Plugin settings let you determine what happens when the expiration date is reached.

VoicePress – VoicePress adds a little microphone icon to your post/page editing screen and allows you to verbally dictate your content. As I’ve mentioned on CMI before, I’m a fan of “talking it out.”

Optimization Plugins

Search Engine Optimization –There are a host of SEO plugins that can ensure your content gets as much Google juice as possible. The most popular is the All In One SEO Pack.

XML Sitemap – This is a must for any website regardless of its purpose or platform. Google XML Sitemap automatically creates and updates an XML-based sitemap, which is a more efficient and the preferred way for search engines to index your website’s pages and blog content. And when you launch a new blog post, this plugin automatically pings Google to let them know that some new “spider food” awaits.

Webmaster Tools Verification – Getting your site “verified” through each search engine’s webmaster tools service is an often overlooked but important step when launching a new website. As a site owner, you should have a webmaster account setup in Google, Yahoo and Bing. With those accounts, you can now get your site “verified” in each search engine, which basically tells them that you’re a real person (not a robot) connected to a legitimate website (not a spam site). Sites that are verified rank better than non-verified sites. As you’re going through the verification process, one option is to add a meta tag within your site’s header code. The Webmaster Tools Verification plugin makes it easy to add these verification meta tags within your site’s header code.

Caching – Keeping my tech speak to a minimum, let me just say that you should have a caching plugin installed on your WordPress site to help your site load faster for visitors. W3 Total Cache is the most recommended plugin, and it is very easy to install and configure, regardless of your technical ability. Just sticking to the default settings should provide a noticeable speed increase, but tech folks will love the advanced options to tweak performance even more.

A/B Testing – Max A/B is a relatively new plugin that gives you the ability to create two versions of a page and easily facilitate a split test that will run for a specified time period. I’ll be the first to say that I don’t test enough, mostly because tests and testing platforms can be cumbersome to set up. I don’t have an excuse now.

Mobile Optimization – These days, you should be paying attention to how your website visitors are interacting with your site via mobile devices. If your mobile traffic is significant, you should have a mobile template or mobile CSS stylesheets in place. If that isn’t justified yet, the WPTouch plugin for WordPress is a nice option that helps you create a mobile theme for your website/blog in minutes.

Content Amplification Plugins

RSS Syndication – Your WordPress site already provides an RSS feed, but tracking and managing your RSS subscribers is not a native feature within WordPress. Google’s Feedburner is a great tool to handle all this and the FD Feedburner plugin is easy to configure and deploy. Grab your site’s RSS feed, burn it in Feedburner, copy/paste your new Feedburner feed URL into the plugin and Feedburner will start providing you with great stats on the fans that can’t get enough of your content.

Social Sharing – We all know how content can spread online, so providing a sharing mechanism is a must. There are several WordPress plugins for adding this functionality, including: SexyBookmarks, AddToAny, AddThis and ShareBar.

Podcast Syndication – If you or your clients are delving into podcasting, you’ll need to configure a podcast syndication plugin that helps convert your RSS feed into an iTunes-ready podcast feed. Podpress and Blubrry PowerPress are two well-supported plugin options that come equipped with full iTunes support and audio/video players that make it easy to embed your media files within your posts.

Most Popular Posts – Inevitably, some site visitors would rather just skip to the best stuff. Adding the WordPress.com Popular Posts plugin references your site stats and provides a list of your most popular posts in the sidebar widget.

Related Posts – I’ve always liked giving website visitors the ability to dig deeper into certain topics. When your blog content supports the various product/service pages within your website, the Yet Another Related Post Plugin will automatically display a few post headlines that relate to the current page topic. It’s up to you where you want the headlines to display (below your content, sidebar widget, etc.).

Conversion Plugins

Contact Forms – Regardless of your website’s purpose, you need to provide a way for site visitors to contact you. Although you may prefer to be contacted via a phone call or email, realize that prospects may be doing online research at midnight in their underwear. If they find what they want on your site and want to initiate an inquiry, they need to have that ability at that moment. Using a plugin such as Contact Form 7 gives you the ability to easily create a contact form that will email you their contact details.

Email Subscription – If email is part of your marketing mix, you’re probably using a service like Constant Contact or Mailchimp. Most major email service providers now have plugins that allow you to add an email subscription form to your WordPress site.

Pretty Link – This plugin can be used in several ways, but from a conversion standpoint I like using Pretty Link to create simple, contextual URLs that can be used in email marketing, print media and traditional advertising situations. For example, a landing page is created for a tradeshow promotion. The WordPress URL might be quite long, but Pretty Link lets you create a short, “pretty” URL with the tradeshow name (yoursite.com/cmworld) to improve memorability, click-through rate and conversions.

Feedback Plugins

Commenting Systems – A commenting function obviously comes standard with WordPress, but adding a plugin like Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across the web. You may also want to check out Facebook Comments for WordPress. Here’s a great article for more on that.

WP-Polls – Need to poll your visitors? WP-Polls makes it easy.

WP Survey and Quiz Tool – The more we know about the needs, wants and pain points of our customers, the better chance we have of creating valuable content. WP Survey allows you to create and publish a survey and put it virtually anywhere within a WordPress page or post.

Analysis Plugins

Google Analytics – You obviously want to make sure your WordPress site is plugged into Google Analytics (or another analytics program) to monitor the effectiveness of your content. Google Analyticator is my preferred plugin as it’s easy to set up and provides a traffic graph from the last 30 days right on your dashboard.

Blog Stats – While Google Analytics will give you a robust set of stats, it’s nice to have a simple stats program you can dig into without leaving WordPress. Jetpack by WordPress.com offers a host of tools including a stats module that displays your daily page views, top posts, top pages and top keywords.

What other content-marketing-related plugins are you using?