Small Businesses, learn how to use content to market your business, sooner the better!

“In the digital age, every business is in the publishing industry.” – I picked it up from an article in Haffington Post and is absolutely a fact.

 

We are in a bloody complicated marketing ecosystem these days. The market and economy we live and work today are radically different from the ones in which many of us started. It’s not news that the landscapes of media buying and selling are fast changing. Availability of diverse platforms to consume media/ data/ news/ information or changed usage behavior of the readers/ consumers is another complicated subject. No one seems to have found a must-work or must-do model as yet, and I don’t see there will be a readymade solution to fit for all will ever be possible in the future. Which is why, it is not only the media owners, traditional or new, but also the marketing bosses are confused with which model to follow, whom to believe and what new thing to embrace.

Content marketing – is it really a new concept?

Then in the recent years this ‘content marketing’ concept flew in from somewhere and seems it has some solid sense in it. Many marketing gurus argue that Content Marketing is a game changer. They believe, it is not a nice to have ‘thing’ anymore, but a must-have strategy for any organization / any product/ any industry if they want to survive in a competitive market scenario.

The definition of Content Marketing is amorphous. In simple terms, Content Marketing is nothing but providing carefully composed, professional, useful and free content to your customers without actually ‘selling’ your product and/or for that matter without “interrupting” their comfort. It is giving away valuable content/ knowledge in order to build a relationship with your ideal audience that leads to trust, loyalty and sales.

Come to think of it, it’s not even a new concept as many Marketing experts claim it to be. In 1891, August Oetker, the German who invented baking powder, used to sell small packets of baking powder with recipes on the back of the packets. In 1911, he published a very successful cookbook which is still available and popular across continents (nearly 20 million printed copies) in many languages. Leading tire manufacturer from France, Michelin, used to publish Michelin Guide in 1900 to provide auto-maintenance advices and were distributed free of cost. Look around yourself, it has been always there. The concept of trade publications/ business media has been in the action for more than 200 years, is a form of content marketing.

Recently, content marketing has become much more prominent, especially where digital and online marketing is concerned.

It is helping, not selling!

I can’t emphasize more that an ideal Content Marketing strategy is subtle and non-aggressive. It’s just talking to your customers without any apparent greed or immediate money motive. It surely has a long-term benefit, as a properly composed Content Marketing strategy will help win your customers’ hearts and thus their loyalty eventually. When you provide relevant and useful contents for your customer’s benefit (may be about your own product, or of the industry, or a trend, or anything which may be useful to your client) without expecting any direct ‘purchase’ in return, then it is a typical Content Marketing exercise.

Your content should aim to educate your customers what they should know and what parameters they should understand, in line with your products or services, so that when they are ready to make a purchase they ‘trust’ you enough to do business with you.

From a small business’ perspective…

It’s very unique situation out there for small & medium sized entrepreneurs (small businesses/ SMEs). Small businesses have different issues depending on where they are in their lifecycle. New start ups require information on creating awareness. Mature business houses need help building capacity and established companies often have issues maintaining margins and face steep competitions.

However, most SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) are more willing to try out a new thing, pro-digital and want see the difference after employing content marketing strategy more than bigger organizations. Content Marketing Institute surveyed and found that small business marketers are more likely to have a documented content strategy when compared with their peers at both smaller and larger organizations. B2B small business marketers are using social media more frequently than they did last year. The biggest jumps have been in Google+ (40% to 61%), SlideShare (24% to 40%), Instagram (9% to 23%), and YouTube (62% to 75%). CMI also believes that believes although adoption rates for social media are high, B2B small business marketers are unsure of its effectiveness.

Some SMEs, on the other hand, are orthodox and paranoid with the changes around. They stay away from the new marketing tactics, never almost employ a marketing specialist let alone a marketing agency, run customer management strategies with ‘we know them well’ perceptions. Some of them have a website (usually with a design from early 2000 which neither can be marketed with effective SEO nor provides usual catalogue information to the prospective clients) with quite unprofessionally presented contents. These unique breed normally assume that having a website is same as going digital and being equipped with all e-marketing tools. Thankfully, with aggressive SEO support and website design shops mushrooming around, things are slightly changing in the last few years – mainly in people’s mind. An approach of ‘I do everything as I used to know’ is OK only for those nearing retirement from the business and don’t have any transition or succession plan. They also need to understand that client retention is equally important as new client acquisition.

Do I need content marketing as an SME?

Hell ya, you do! Admit it, buying and selling (and marketing your brand and products) practices are not what it used to be. Its more than a decade now yellow pages were last seen. Today, customer’s first port of call is undoubtedly the internet. As a buyer yourself in your daily walks of life, you are almost 70% through the conventional sales funnel before you actually ‘express the interest’ to buy something, don’t you? Same goes for the Purchase Managers too. Nearly 90% of the Purchasing authorities are internet savvy enough to do proper research online before making a decision. It is a buyer-driven environment, period (unless you are selling iPhone for the Apple fanatics who queue up overnight to buy a newer version of the phone every time it is launched)!

Content Marketing is being regularly used by all major corporate houses – from Microsoft, P&G, CISCO, Audi, HSBC, Apple, LG, eBay to the city-specific real estate developers. Smaller business houses and even single man business owners also use it and swear by it. Why? Simple, because it works. Advertising is selling and shouting. Content Marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. Content is often desirable by your customers as it helps in their surveys, research and understanding. Search Engines (Fine, say it, Google!) seek out to good contents and rank them. Good contents get spread around with social networks/ word-of-mouth. Content achieves for you what advertising is supposed to achieve with huge expenses.

The purpose content marketing is very simple: ATTARCT, EDUCATE AND ENGAGE. It institutes a stronger brand value at the end of the day.

Further, Content Marketing helps to establish your brand as a thought-leader in your industry, thus, strengthens your relationships with your customers.

How a small business goes about it?

Agree, as a SME, possibly you need fight your battle everyday in this ever more competitive market/ depressed economy to keep your clients happy, you give more than what is needed to maintain your niche specialization, you work hard with your core team to take your company and brand to the next level and you don’t quite have the luxury of a fat marketing budget to try out something new and fancy always. You are always short of time. You also get lost in gigantic definitions of modern marketing tools advised by an expert you decided to hire.

However, if you still see the advantages of a Content Marketing and want to take a plunge, I will not underplay the related challenges. It can be hugely time consuming, somewhat expensive without a specific and immediate ROI on sight. You will constantly need to be creative in your content and its presentation. It is quite challenging to find new and quality content regularly which can portray your expertise, establish your opinion, engage your clients and finally attract new business. As per Content Marketing Institute, content production issues top the list of challenges for B2B small business marketers last year and this year.

Still, dear small business owner, I would strongly advise you to market your content. Why? Because your customers are probably looking for answers to the same questions online. Build your web copy, blog posts and articles around these questions and you’ll earn major traffic while establishing yourself as an industry expert.

Let’s see quickly how to go about it.

1. Make a realistic forward-looking budget: It’s time to put your money where your mouth is. Small business owners today cite customer attraction and retention as two of their most pressing concerns, but many set aside minimal budgets for marketing. Change your thinking – quicker the better. The dilemma for many business owners, though, is when the DIY approach is actually less cost-effective than getting outside help. A professional website design, proper branding, content writing, SEO exercise – all these are jobs that SME’s frequently try themselves before realising they need more expertise. Specialist freelancers often provide the most cost-effective solutions.
2. Understand WHOM you need a content marketing strategy for: Do a thorough research whom the content is for, what the content should be, what state the current industry is in, where the product is in the PLC, what your competition’s standing, what is your brand recognition level amongst your target audience etc. It is utmost important that you understand what media your target audience is most familiar with and usually seek out to.
3. Decide on the JOURNEY: I am deliberately not asking you decide on the DESTINATION. Most successful marketers argue that Content Marketing is no longer an exercise or a strategy for a specific outcome. It is, on the other hand, a culture and way of modern marketing in today’s complex environment. You really need ask a few key questions to yourself. What is the objective of your Content Marketing strategy? New business opportunities? Or, want to create a community for your cause? Or, simply want to do some sort of CSR by spreading knowledge? Or, interested to create your brand as an authoritative figure in your industry?
4. Decide on WHEREs: The best modern marketers don’t rely on just one or two approaches to reach and engage their audiences. In fact, the most effective ones use several platforms and multiple tools for wider exposures. Users’ consumption habit and your objective are the key words here which would ascertain which platforms/ tools are more suitable for you. The digital media world gives away plethora of platforms and tools to choose from and effectively utilize their enormous strengths to reach out to your target audience. The list below is just a few examples of tools which will ‘amplify’ your contents –
   • Blogs
   • Microsites
   • Print and digital publications
   • Social media conversations
   • Visual content
   • Podcasts
   • Webinars/ webcast
   • Video
   • Apps
   • User-generated content
   • Proactive content to trade-media
   • Multichannel experiences
   • E-newsletters
   • Pay-per-click advertising
   • Case studies
   • White Papers/ Business Books
5. Decide on WHATs: Once you have identified your target audience (may not always have to be your direct customers or prospects), their preferred media platforms and your broad objectives from a Content Marketing exercise, now it’s time to work on WHATs. What is so valuable that you must provide to your target audience and they will gladly accept it? Is it statistics? Is it data? Is it white-papers? Survey results? Something revolutionary? Or your expert opinion on a subject in your industry? That’s a decision you and your chief marketing person would have to take after considering point 2 and 3 above. Content points should always be linked with your core product value and company’s identity; else it would be a futile exercise. Once you have a direction, you need to make it attractive. It is fine to be a little casual in your contents as long as it is not too over-the-board funky (especially for b2b environment). But be careful – don’t be casual in content marketing exercise. This is a serious business as writing content and presenting it in a most desired style (text, images, cartoon, visuals, podcast, video or whatever you decide to go with) is a highly specialized job. The most effective content marketers publish new content daily, or at least weekly. Think like a publisher. Once you understand your target audience, you will be able to focus on what’s-in-it for them. It is always advisable to have a content calendar which the audience can refer to and expect what is coming up in next few weeks/ months (building up the anticipation/ positive surprise).
6. Decide on HOWs: Let’s produce some killer contents. With today’s huge digital media impact on people, the web-users have become annoyingly pickier. Your content and presentation need to STAND OUT and you can only stand out by becoming AWESOME. Your content is awesome only when it genuinely provides value to your target group. Feel free to ‘partner up’ with like-minded content groups. Your content can be ‘crowd sourced’ too. The next step is to make your content findable and searchable. Your awesome content is totally useless unless they are easily found and used by your customers/ target audience. The best way to ensure your content gets all the exposure you deserve is to distribute strategically.

You also need to measure content marketing results. You must track your content marketing to ensure that it yields new opportunities and desired results. You need to determine in absolute terms what success looks like and the matrixes to measure them. For example, this could be generating more direct sales, generating more leads or more dialogues with existing customers. Measurement tools need to be put in place to ensure that the business goals are being met. But then that’s a different chapter altogether and let’s keep it for the next time.

I would end this article with one simple message – “seek professional help”. Content marketing highly skilled job since it is all about attracting the right target audience and getting them to take appropriate action as a result of engaging with your content. It doesn’t appear out of thin air. It requires both budget and expertise!

All the best/ Pranjal

—-x—–

Image is borrowed from the internet.

This article was first published in Pulse @Linkedin on 1 July, 2015

Obituary to a trade publication and it’s amazing ad sales guy!

The big news:

On 29 June 2015, Microsoft Corp announced that it is shutting down its display advertising business and handing operations over to AOL and AppNexus. About 1,200 advertising sales jobs at Microsoft will be impacted, with some positions to be moved to AOL and AppNexus.

The not-so-relevant backdrop:

“You don’t understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there’s no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back – that’s an earthquake.”

…well, that was meant for Willy Loman, the salesman, a magnificent career option until recently. Willy’s death in Arthur Miller’s 1949 play ‘Death of a Salesman’ definitely was not intended to forecast the collapse of an exciting profession of display advertising salesmanship. But the world seems to be rapidly moving towards a similar situation with the information businesses, although Miller had possibly no clue of what was coming up 50 years down the road.

The must-told story (oops, the obituary!):

It’s a story of a successful advertising sales person and his employer, an eminent trade publisher. (Novice note: A trade publication, unlike a consumer publication, covers a specific industry for people who work in that industry. Trade publications therefore cover an industry in more minute details than a consumer publication might.) The successful sales person’s remarkable sales career started with a local yellow pages publishing company, an iconic sales job for the freshers and wannabe media pros. His tireless efforts on telesales, numerous cold calls a day and his amazing influence over the street corner businesses made him a super star phone book advertising sales guy in no time. He soon upgraded himself with the know-hows of display advertising, became skilled at advertising agency/ media planners’ game …and like many moved to a bigger publisher, a renowned trade press who used to ‘respectfully’ identify their publication as the bible for the industry. Our successful sales person was almost a magician who mastered the art of promoting, presenting and persuading any prospects into a new campaign and hypnotizing the existing ones for massive upsells. Both the publishing company and the successful sales person were real sense business builders. They brought amazing creative branding opportunities to the print publishing business, such as, belly band advertising, inserts, innovative double-spreads, artistic gatefolds – they did it all and seen it all, happily and successfully!

Unfortunately they had quit and breathed their last recently! Honestly they have not been keeping too well nearly a decade. They had a lot of potentials and could have done much better for much longer. But their deaths were inevitable – largely for their own mistakes.

Technically today I should be talking of their celebrated past and not the flaws. After all their vividly flourishing glory days lasted for decades! You are allowed to hate me for criticizing and judging them at this e-wake. They, at the end of the day, did not take good care of themselves and that’s just not cool to me.

The great trade-press company the successful sales person worked for were the kings of their industry. They never were and never did strive to be the glossy shiny consumer magazine to be picked up at the supermarket payment counters or at the gas stations, but they were ‘strong’, ‘proud’ and ‘needed’ by the industry leaders. They had offered exclusive content, hard news, excellent features and industry gossips for insiders and wannabe insiders alike.

During the beginning of the new millennium when the content migrated to online, they did not know what to do. They were not organized and equipped to go to a war with the free online content (may not be of same great quality of the great trade publishers) era. The successful sales person and his team were badly slapped on the face by the abrupt transformations in the buying and selling habits. They kept on blaming on the economy/ recession and kept pushing the old loyals only to get negligible positive outcomes.

Then this great new concept of having-a-website-of-your-own in the name of being e-revolutionized got into them in an already somewhat complex information dissemination ecosystem. Like most early days conventional publishing houses, this great trade publisher put their print content on a website. We can’t blame them for not learning the user psychologies or not comprehending search engine power during the e-infancy days. These things were just developing as the internet started to overwhelm the conventional news and information businesses. Our publisher grew up this big with the intelligent thinking of ‘stick to your core competencies to excel greater heights’ and internet was not one of their favourite domain. They refused to accept the fact that internet was all set to bring in a ground-breaking new media revolution. They did not realize putting their content online and behind a pay-wall is far from being digital publishing.

A news website was made and launched, however lousily, the publisher needed to earn money to cover the losses in the print. The sales team including our hero, the successful sales person, also went thru’ several classroom trainings to learn the necessary industry jargons. Selling banner sales on their website soon became their forte.

(Novice Note: Theoretically, the health of the trade media has been driven by both advertising and readership. The profitability of trade media depends on market expertise and revenue from subscription and advertising both (since as most costs are fixed). While large media companies benefit from economies of scale in sharing resources between publications, trade publishers must compete successfully by serving smaller focus group/ industry as an expert, investing heavily into a unshakable content strategies – develop content unparallel, create authority and strong niche – so that subscription revenue is not compromised with.)

The nail on the coffin was when they decided to find the middle ground with their content strategy as a result of intense pressure from the successful salesperson and his colleagues in the commercial team (also due to the anxiety over a prolonged depressed economy and gradually tumbling print revenue). Of course, compromising content is the easiest way to tarnish their long standing reputation as an industry’s knowledge bank. The editorial staff, embarrassingly for any publishers, made joint calls to the clients to sell package deal/ advertorials/ buy-this-get-that-that-that-free kind of services (value added editorial support in exchange of a few extra advertising bucks? Well, not a bright idea!) Sooner the editorial integrity and clean/ unbiased content strategy went for a toss, which quickly was discovered the readers. After all, who wants to read articles and reports in an expensive business publication manipulated by the advertisers? Circulation, as a result, took a nosedive.

When ‘paid’ circulation almost got to an alarmingly unsustainable level, the great trade publisher toyed terms ‘selected distribution’, ‘exclusive mailing list’ and ‘focus distribution’. They gather the audacity to claim a large print numbers to the advertisers for a free distribution to a ‘carefully handpicked industry leaders’. However, sadly, numbers claimed were not true. Unethical business practice does not have a long run. The faithful advertisers obviously spotted this quickly and their support in form of advertising dollars started to evaporate in no time.

Interestingly, by this time the advertisers understood the real game in the world of changes and started employing communication experts/ qualified marketers who understand the knowhow of ‘result oriented’ and ‘measurable’ marketing weapons. Digital marketing, business blogging, white papers, social media, content marketing are the stories thereafter. Marketing became more sales oriented than ever before.

One day, they decided to give up! And story ends here with the sad downfall of a great era of trade publishing and display adverting selling.

Or does it actually?

Well, honestly, ‘death’ is a hugely exaggerated term to use here! Not all of them died and not all of them will give up. The better ones will live with their past splendor and dazzling core competency of great content even if they will have to change their turfs or get out of their comfort zone. They will realize and act on the revolution and be brilliant with their business yet again:

• Evolve or get eliminated. Be pro digital or simply just retire – the traditional publishers don’t have a choice left. I will not elaborate on this point on the how’s and why’s. Fact of the matter is – being digitally wise is not a destination anymore, nor is it’s a matter of a media platform(s). The new media concepts will continue to progress and there will forever be e-innovative ways of reaching out the target audience and the conventional publishing houses need to come to terms with the changes. The Association of Magazine Media (MPA) launched Magazine Media 360° Report in 2014. Digital magazines are going strong and growing – 14 of the top 15 highest grossing Lifestyle iPad apps are magazine brands. While MPA’s reports are focusing on US and only for consumer magazines, but they are excellent way to understand global trends for magazines (and link with trade press). The report has also further proven deep engagement of the readers with digital edition magazines.
• This is not even news that the biggest growth area in local media this year also will be in online marketing, growing from 30% from 2012 representing a little more than $24 billion.  Newspapers, trade press, consumer magazines, radio stations, cable TV, local TV, direct mail and OOH continue to lose share because their clients are investing dollars in new media that they used to spend in traditional.
• Marketers are looking for added value – not just some free publicity or a free write up/ interview of their bosses. They need efficient and effective media products at the right price. The advertisers’ ultimate goal is to get help in generating leads and increase sales. Everyone is concerned with the bottom-line implications these days. The publisher’s approach must be to ‘exceed customer expectations’, period.
• The publishing house needs to develop and recruit Account Managers and Sales Directors capable of operating as “business partners” to the marketers, rather only an ad salesman. They need to listen to their customer’s needs and address them so that they don’t make the advertiser fit the salesperson’s offering and available inventory.
• More business will come from key accounts. Endless surveys said key clients contribute up to 70% of the total adverting revenue in a trade media business, a figure which never was more than 30% just a decade ago. Account Managers need to have high relationship management skills and a high level of understanding of the customer’s business needs, problems, pressures, priorities, uncertainties and ambitions for the future.
• Content Marketing already is playing a major role for the marketers in reaching out to the target audience without actually ‘hard selling’ advertiser’s brand. The traditional advertising money is being reallocated to SEO, business blogging, white papers, technical books, smart emails, PPC, banner advertising and other online ad services that generate website traffic – which is ultimately where potential customers do their research before they buy and readers keep themselves updated. As a result, digital media apparently become more measurable and successful for business owners/ marketers. Are the trade publishers facilitating business blogging to the content writers? May be they should!
• Sure, many traditional trade publishing companies behaving contemporary these days (else they wouldn’t have survived thus far)! They sell online inventory that competes with alternative online channels. However some these traditional publishing companies find that online revenue is not predictable and yields small margins. To make it further more complicated, advertising sales managers don’t always understand how to sell the online business options competitively and they can’t be bundled with the traditional media offerings to cover up the revenue the publisher is losing elsewhere.
• There is this enormous new focus on inbound marketing last few years. Other than spending most of their marketing budget on outbound marketing on banner ads and traditional ads like TV, radio, print ads, inbound marketers attract visitors, convert visitors to leads and leads to sales. The trade publishers will have to be expert to enable their advertisers to analyze data by identifying ways to increase traffic to their website, thus, generating more leads and sales for the business owners. Businesses that have figured out how to use the internet to “get found” by potential customers and then convert them to customers, are shifting their budgets away from traditional advertising to inbound marketing. Big Data already have started showing its power and it will have to be a part of trade publishing business soon. By embracing big data is getting down to business with the nitty gritty, publishers will have now access to information on everything from sales to search terms.

I would like to end this rather lengthy article with a simple thought. The trade publishers and their advertising sales people will have to understand that eventually advertising revenue will go down or possibly dry out totally. The content has been the king and will be the king again and also will be their brand identity and bread-earner. Until whenever possible to stay ahead of this advertising sales game, they will have educate themselves of ‘digital marketing’ tactics and will have to empathize with the business-owners. Evolving the sales approach will require the sales person to become a customer advocate, helping facilitate the purchase, pricing, implementation, and stakeholder education necessary to achieve progress.

Publishing is indeed an exciting industry and will remain so for the smart ones…

All the best/ Pranjal

—x—

(This article was first published in LinkedIn PULSE on 3 July 2015)

(Images borrowed from the internet)