Get Content, Get Customers
This excerpt from a new book explains how to develop a content marketing mindset - and a process to match - within your organization.
By Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett
Jul. 06, 2009
By now you understand the irreversible trends that are changing the face of marketing. You also understand why it's possible for organizations like yours to think and act like publishers so that you can provide valuable content that makes you a trusted source for your current and future customers.
That's the all-important beginning of developing a content marketing mindset. But, because content marketing is a relatively new concept as it pertains to all media, it will not come naturally to you and your organization. Moreover, there is a skill set that media companies have developed over centuries that is probably brand-new to your organization. As you begin to think like a publisher, you will also need to learn how to create the kind of high-quality content that emanates from great publishers and great corporations.
Developing and executing content marketing initiatives that work take time, effort, and expertise. It's extremely difficult to extract content from organizations that have no experience with content marketing. This excerpt from our new book, Get Content Get Customers: Turn Prospects into Buyers with Content Marketing will help software companies craft a roadmap to a successful content marketing strategy.
Why the Reluctance to Move Away from Traditional Marketing Strategies?
Today, most companies are still using traditional marketing approaches that they may have been using since the middle of the twentieth century. There are several reasons for this:
Or maybe you work in the kind of organization where no one even realizes that traditional marketing is no longer working.
Despite its success with content marketing, Pinsent Masons used to be a strictly traditional marketer. In 2000, the company was still cranking out traditional brochures by the thousands. They were easy to produce, but they contained the same boring, company-centric, feature-laden content that is found in most traditional marketing materials. For the most part, business executives who receive marketing materials like these toss them out soon after receiving them.
The business development folks at the firm finally realized that they were spending money on something that no longer worked- if it had ever worked. So as part of an overall content marketing strategy, the firm launched a magazine that was designed to be read and valued by its target client base.
Making this change required the same kind of shift in mindset that will be required of all marketers from now on. It also required an investment in people, time, and processes. As you will read, Pinsent Masons has achieved dramatic positive benefits from the shift away from traditional marketing toward a multifaceted content marketing strategy.
That's the all-important beginning of developing a content marketing mindset. But, because content marketing is a relatively new concept as it pertains to all media, it will not come naturally to you and your organization. Moreover, there is a skill set that media companies have developed over centuries that is probably brand-new to your organization. As you begin to think like a publisher, you will also need to learn how to create the kind of high-quality content that emanates from great publishers and great corporations.
Developing and executing content marketing initiatives that work take time, effort, and expertise. It's extremely difficult to extract content from organizations that have no experience with content marketing. This excerpt from our new book, Get Content Get Customers: Turn Prospects into Buyers with Content Marketing will help software companies craft a roadmap to a successful content marketing strategy.
Why the Reluctance to Move Away from Traditional Marketing Strategies?
Today, most companies are still using traditional marketing approaches that they may have been using since the middle of the twentieth century. There are several reasons for this:
- Most companies are set up to sell products, not to provide relevant and valuable information to customers and prospects.
- Most companies have well-worn marketing paths that are easy to follow. Going off the beaten path into uncharted territory is intimidating.
- Most companies have strong relationships with media partners that may go back decades. It's not easy to break those relationships by pursuing a brand-new content marketing strategy.
- Many companies aren't measuring their marketing, so they aren't even sure what is and what is not effective.
- Many companies lack both the right people and the right processes to implement a new kind of marketing.
- Many businesses are reluctant to abandon traditional marketing tactics for what they may believe to be unproven content marketing practices.
- Most companies lack content marketing role models from which they can learn best practices.
Or maybe you work in the kind of organization where no one even realizes that traditional marketing is no longer working.
Despite its success with content marketing, Pinsent Masons used to be a strictly traditional marketer. In 2000, the company was still cranking out traditional brochures by the thousands. They were easy to produce, but they contained the same boring, company-centric, feature-laden content that is found in most traditional marketing materials. For the most part, business executives who receive marketing materials like these toss them out soon after receiving them.
The business development folks at the firm finally realized that they were spending money on something that no longer worked- if it had ever worked. So as part of an overall content marketing strategy, the firm launched a magazine that was designed to be read and valued by its target client base.
Making this change required the same kind of shift in mindset that will be required of all marketers from now on. It also required an investment in people, time, and processes. As you will read, Pinsent Masons has achieved dramatic positive benefits from the shift away from traditional marketing toward a multifaceted content marketing strategy.
