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Margie ClaymanMargie Clayman

Marietta, OH

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Archives for October 2012

If You Cannot Do Content Marketing, Do Not Do It

October 25, 2012 by Margie Clayman 21 Comments

This past week, MarketingProfs, in collaboration with the Content Marketing Institute, release a report called B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America. The report represents two very particular, very important trends that I find extremely disturbing in the online world today, so with respect and no bashing, I want to talk about this report a little bit and tell you what bothers me about it.

First, some background. It’s hard to go to any blog site these days without encountering a post about content marketing. More than Pinterest even, content marketing has grabbed the hearts and minds of social media practitioners. In fact, content marketing has become such a focus that it has continued the trend of marketers drowning out anything that is NOT content marketing. Content marketing, if you read most of these blog posts, is just about shoveling out stories and using those stories for your blog, your Facebook page, your e-newsletter, and more. If you are not doing content marketing right now, it seems to be insinuated that you are really missing the boat.

The first few slides of the report seem to support the fact that content marketing is an increasingly powerful tool in the B2B world. The first slide notes that 91% of marketers polled are doing some kind of content marketing. The fifth slide shows that 87% of marketers polled use social media while only 3% use “content marketing” in print. A few slides deeper and you find out that 54% of marketers polled plan to increase their content marketing over the next year. This all looks pretty good for the content marketing fan club.

However, when you get to slide 19 out of the 23 total slides, you find something quite shocking. Of the marketers polled, only 36% felt they were using content marketing effectively. To me, this should be the headline of the study, and it certainly adds a different aura to the information already cited. Marketers want to invest more time and money into content marketing but they aren’t sure that what they’re doing now is working? Marketers want to continue to increase usage of social media to distribute content marketing, but they aren’t sure their content is good?

What is going on here? To me, this seems like a breaking news problem.

If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that these marketers probably read a lot of the same blogs I do. They read about how stories regarding their company, their corporate leadership, their products, and more would entice customers to get to know them better. They listened to the folks who said that content marketing is about relationships and how it’s not transactional. I would guess that these marketers felt the urgency of jumping into content marketing and just started writing without any plan as to how best to distribute that content. Maybe these marketers started blogging but aren’t getting a lot of comments or shares because they are writing about things that their audience doesn’t care about. Just like social media, I would hypothesize that these marketers heard that content marketing was the big new thing and they jumped into the swift tides without a plan or a life jacket.

This brings me to my other concern about the report. There is no mention, really, of integrating content marketing as a tactic into anything else. Interestingly, it is noted that marketers found in-person events most credible – that would be trade shows and conferences among other things. Social Media may supplement those events but it is not the core of the issue. There is no talk about how increasing an investment in a tactic you aren’t good at may impact you negatively if you are leaving behind things that have worked. There is no indication that the marketers were asked if they were integrating their social media/content marketing efforts into other areas of their marketing campaign. It’s all content marketing, all the time. Again, this is all the more disturbing if over 70% of marketers polled feel they’re not even doing content marketing well.

Writing good content has ALWAYS been important to marketers. Marketing master David Ogilvy was all about content. In fact, he developed ads that looked more like editorial pieces because they were so full of content. Case studies, press releases, radio spots – all of those have depended on strong content. If the content was not strong, the effort would fail. Nothing has changed but where content is placed and how it is approached. You still need to figure out what kind of marketing materials are most likely to attract future customers. You still need to figure out what kind of content they like. While talking about storytelling is popular these days, some companies may find that their customers find that sort of content too fluffy. They want “how to” hard information. Conversely, perhaps you are providing solid “how to” information when your audience really wants to see a more human side of your company.

You MUST do the work. You MUST have a plan. And you should not be wishy-washy about whether what you are doing is working or not. Slapping blog posts onto a site and then sharing those posts via Facebook and Twitter is not a strategy. It will not work unless you plan it out, and you will not know it’s working for you unless you have a methodology for tracking it.

I know it is tempting to jump on to whatever the hot topic is amongst social media practitioners. A few months ago it was Pinterest. It’s been content marketing for awhile now. If you can’t do it effectively, whatever it is, do NOT do it. Either ask for help or stick to what does work for you. Just because content marketing is a social media darling does not mean your company will shrivel up without it. It does not mean it’s a perfect match for you. You must be the advocate for your own company. Do not throw money at whatever the bloggy tides tell you is hot now.

Make sense?

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/o5com/4912022499/ via Creative Commons

 

Filed Under: Marketing Talk

#hungertohope – a campaign for World Hunger Day – Please Share This Post

October 15, 2012 by Margie Clayman 3 Comments

If you’re like me, you really like food. Personally, I’m a big breakfast person. Give me some sausage gravy ‘n biscuits, some eggs, maybe some hashbrowns, and of course a hot steaming cup of coffee, and I am one happy camper. Of course, when I go out to eat I almost always leave food on my plate. Sometimes, as I’m sitting in a beautiful, climate-controlled, fully sheltered restaurant, I actually lament that the servings have gotten too ridiculously big or too small.

To far too many people in the world, all of this is so beyond the realm of their reality that you might as well try to explain to them that you ride a unicorn to work every day and sometimes Santa Claus comes with you.

Razoo and Yum! Brands are working with the World Food Programme tomorrow to try to change this disparity in fortunes. Razoo and Yum! Brands are hosting a giving day tomorrow. What does that mean? That means for 27 hours, starting at 12 AM ET on October 16th, Yum! Brands will match every donation up to $10,000. Pretty fantastic. When you consider that many people giving just $10 could get us there in no time, it also seems entirely 100% doable.

So, what can you do? I’m so glad you asked.

Step one – donate here – World Food Day Donation Page

Step two – send out these tweets from 8:30-9:30 AM ET especially (hint – schedule them into HootSuite or TweetDeck *NOW* and then you won’t have to worry about it):

  • 925 million people do not have enough to eat. Join me this World Food Day and make a difference! #hungertohope http://hungertohope.razoo.com
  • Undernutrition contributes to 5M deaths of children < 5 years old each year. Fight hunger today! #hungertohope http://hungertohope.razoo.com
  • ¼ kids – roughly 146 million – in developing countries are underweight It’s World Food Day, help them: #hungertohope http://hungertohope.razoo.com
  • 1/3 of deaths of kids < 5 years old are caused by undernutrition. This World Food Day, help them. #hungertohope http://hungertohope.razoo.com
  • The 1st 1,000 days of a kid’s life are critical to tackle undernutrition. It’s World Food Day, help them: #hungertohope http://hungertohope.razoo.com
  • It costs $0.25 per day to provide a child with all vitamins and nutrients needed. Fight hunger today! #hungertohope http://hungertohope.razoo.com
  • Malnourished mothers give birth to underweight babies who are 20% more likely to die < 5. Help them: #hungertohope http://hungertohope.razoo.com
  • Climate change will push 24 mil children into hunger by 2050. Help @yumbrands feed them World Food Day. #hungertohope http://hungertohope.razoo.com

Write your own blog post to help spread the word.

You can also get twibbons and other shareable stuff for Facebook over at the blogger resource kit.

Pretty easy stuff, but we can make a HUGE difference over the next day. This is a great effort that Razoo and Geoff Livingston have put together. We have the easy job. Let’s get er done.

Image Credit: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/x2jjan7tjmegxgu/RumjzRwKsG#f:PHI_20120125_WFP-Voltaire_Domingo_0004.JPG

Filed Under: Crafts and Charity

An open letter to the Presidential candidates

October 3, 2012 by Margie Clayman 20 Comments

Dear President Obama and Governor Romney,

I’ve cut short my watching of your debate and I probably will not watch the remaining two. While our country is more polarized than perhaps it has been since the Civil War, I find that my disillusionment with both of you is equal.

When you talk about classes in the United States, you talk about those poor people who make $250,000 or under and then people who have done “very well for themselves” like you both have. I do not see that you understand what happens at wage levels below $250,000. There is a world of economic levels under that bar. There is the level at which I once lived, when I had to forego hot dogs for Memorial Day because I couldn’t afford both the hot dogs and the buns. There’s the level I and many people I know inhabit, grateful but not necessarily comfortable. There are people who have nothing at all. To me, $250,000 would be a massive life change for the better. To me, $250,000 is “doing very well.” You are not talking to me.

You both talk about the creation of jobs but you do not acknowledge that the times have changed. Many of the manufacturing jobs will NOT be replaced because automated programming has replaced the need for trained machinists. Customer service jobs have been outsourced or have been replaced by social media. People who have been out of work have tuned into social media gurus who have sold them snake oil sold in a bottle labeled “Fake it till you make it.” I’m not sure either of you have any idea what any of that is all about. You are not talking to me.

You both toss about the term “pre-existing condition” as if it was just words. Do you understand what that means? I could tell you. Many people I know could tell you. Pre-existing condition is a great way for insurance companies to label you as risky. It’s a great way for them to charge you more. It’s a great crutch the healthcare industry uses to get you on more medication and to get you to more appointments because your health is at more risk than the “normal” person. If you are not wealthy, you can end up doing things like cutting pills in half to make them last longer. Do either of you have any experience with that kind of scenario? You are not talking to me.

Gentlemen, I am not yet 35 years old. When you talk about “younger people” needing to approach medicare in new ways, you reference people in their mid-fifties. You assure the American people that current retirees are fine. What about me? What about my generation? You might remember us as the generation who had to leap into jobs six months after graduation because our college loans started coming due. We started our adult lives deep in debt. Your plan extends to kind of cover people who are ten years away (maybe, if they’re lucky) away from retirement. Do you not have any plan for me? Is it just assumed I will have nothing to cushion me in my old age? You are not talking to me.

You equate Donald Trump to a small business. My family owns a small business, sir candidates. I can tell you about the vast chasm that separates our reality from that of Donald Trump. But if something like that needs to be explained, you simply don’t get it. Neither of you. You are not talking to me.

Your words may be pretty, your faces may be splattered with smug smiles, and you might enjoy, Mr. Romney, telling Jim Lehrer all about how you want to cut funding to his PBS employer. But you both lost me and my confidence tonight. Both of you. If I was not a woman, had women before me not fought and been ostracized for the right to vote, I would simply skip the privilege of going into the voting booth. I am left bereft of hope for my future after this debate, gentlemen. Whomever of you wins will take me nearly to my 40th year of life, and you are not talking to me.

A leader must understand, in my opinion, the people he or she is leading. Not just the people who attend the $50,000/plate dinners. All of the people. Even scumbags like me who go to work every day, 7:30-5, who don’t have fancy cars or more than two rooms to my name. I’m one of the people you’re supposed to touch with your ideas. And your touch has done nothing but left me cold.

You should have been talking to me.

You should both be ashamed of yourselves.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeannerene/4907249541/ via Creative Commons

Filed Under: Musings

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