Content Marketing Your Guide To Growing Your Business with The Stuff You Already Know

Content Marketing Your Guide To Growing Your Business with The Stuff You Already Know

Nicole S. Green-Naviglia SVP, Director of Strategic Planning, Mullen & Frank About Women Director, Consumer Strategist, CEB Iconoculture Vice President, Consumer Engagement, Carson-Dellosa Publishing Owner, shake Teach for America Kumon VolunteerSpot Musikgarten www.shakeinsights.com

34+ Actionable Ideas.

What IS content marketing? The Very Official Definition: Content marketing is the strategic marketing approach of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

Content marketing is EARNING attention by providing something of value and not being boring.

Why Content? Consumers trust less and expect more. They need a reason to share, interact with, and choose your brand. (If you don t do it, your competitors will.)

What can content do? Earn your brand attention, preference, loyalty, and advocacy Drive traffic to your site/store/event Generate leads

Content as lead genera-on You don t want to gate all of your content but try a mix with some premium- gated content as a lead generator! (S-ll, free.)

What are we talking about? Video Graphics/infographics/photos Blogs Webinars Podcasts Articles Printables/Pinnables/postables/shareables Quotes Guides Tips n Tricks Lists (listicles) Pretty much anything you can create, consume, and share.

Where should content live? Any place your audience can easily access and share it with others. Website Blog Social Media sites YouTube Email

6 Ways To Do It Well

1. Be Relevant to your audience and your brand. How? Know your audience. Know that while you live and breathe your brand, they don t. What else are they into? Start specific and build broadly.

Sharing Messy Memories No More Messy Classrooms 10 Organization Tips Cool Projects and Lessons Using Paper Towels Getting Kids to Clean Up At Any Age 101 Ways to Clean with Paper Towels

2. Make it mobile-friendly. 56% of online content is now consumed via smartphones (44%) and tablets (12%). Just 44% is consumed on computers. Millennial Media Report and ComScore, May 2014

3. Make it EASY for your audience to shareable in just one click.

Easily shareable

4. Brand It! Add a small logo or web address to your own content.

5. Make it VISUALLY INTERESTING! Less words. More images. Photos & graphics bring content to life & increase reach. Small budget? Take your own photos of your people, location, customers, products, events, ideas...get creative with filters and collage apps like PicStitch Tell a story or a how to with photo collage apps

6. Be Well-Organized.

ü Lots of well- organized, easily navigable content ü Super- relevant ü High- quality, well- wri>en content ü Things for kids to do makes this a valuable resource for mom

Great headlines LOVE checklists

Your Content Creation Guide or How To Never Suffer From Content Block Ever Again

8 Reliable Sources 11 Never-Fail Formats 10 HOT Topics

8 Content Sources That Will Never Let You Down 1)Subscribe to Google Alerts or Talkwalker Alerts. Scan headlines for ideas and see what customers, competitors and category leaders are talking about. 2)Read the comments. Not just on your own content but your competitors and category leaders, too. Read Twitter streams. Read Facebook comments. Read the comments on Instagram. 3)Search Reddit. This is a never-ending source of questions, comments and unfiltered opinions on almost any topic. 4)Follow current events. There is always something happening in the news that you can comment on for your industry just be careful not to connect your brand message to a current event in a way that feels inappropriately opportunistic.

Epic Fail: Right aier the Boston Marathon Bombing

A -mely and tasteful tribute

8 Content Sources That Will Never Let You Down 5)Dig through your sent mail. We write emails that explain our company, products, process, feature or benefits. Use those emails to publish non-proprietary content. 6)Talk to customer service. What kinds of calls, questions, comments or complaints are they getting? Boom. Content. 7)Use Your Social Media Analytics. See what other pages and brands your followers follow to get to know them. 8)Spy on The Competition. Let your competition do the research for you. See what posts and content are being shared and liked. Don t copy. Adapt, optimize, make it your own.

YES! It s perfectly OK to share content from other sources as long as you link to it and give credit. This is a fast and free way to see what types of content your audience likes.

11 Proven Content Formats 1) Get Trendy. Trend season in the media runs October to January as people look back on the previous year and make new years predictions. Don t worry if all your trends are spot-on! Just make sure they re somewhat informed. Throw in a few wild cards for buzz. 2) Connect to Pop-Culture. Pick the hottest show, star, or song and find a way to connect it to your brand. 3) Open Your Doors. Share what goes on behind the scenes at your company company events, community service events, show your employees at work. 4) Spread a Little Sunshine. Highlight people, places and things in your industry that are giving back, shaking up the status quo or succeeding. 5) How To s and DIYs. Moms love time- and money-saving ideas. Or just give her advice on how to handle almost anything from a picky-eater to a school bully to awkward conversations.

11 Proven Content Formats 6) Make Lists. Can you sort long-form content into a list? Rank order a Top 10? Create a helpful checklist related to your brand or category? 7) Give stuff away! Like Downloadable PDFs and ebooks. Require an e-mail address and it s a great lead generator. 8) Host a Q&A. Interview an employee, customer, blogger, or someone interesting to your audience. It can be audio, video or text or a live Q&A on Twitter or Facebook. 9) Question of the Day/Week. Let people ask you or your community a question. Scholastic does the 10 o Clock Question on Facebook every day and they aggregate these into a searchable archive. 10) #TBT (or any day of the week.) Share a throwback memory, product, ad, packaging, or technology from 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago. 11) Go for the Ego. Personality quizzes or lists in the vein of What Your Favorite App Says About You, or Five Types of Moms Which Are You?

1) Money/Budgeting 10 HOT Teacher Topics & Themes 2) Freebies saving, managing and making the most of it 3) Organization 4) Lesson Ideas 5) Tips, Tricks, and Shortcuts that save time and sanity 6) Creative Ideas (teaching, class, crafts, parties, etc.) 7) Education and Learning Opportunities 8) Technology (Devices and Apps) 9) Professional Development Opportunities 10) Parent Relations Increasing Parent Participation, etc.

Nicole S. Naviglia www.shakeinsights.com nicole@shakeinsights.com