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Top 4 Takeaways From Content Marketing World 2015

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It’s been a week since one of the biggest content marketing events took over Cleveland, Ohio… Content Marketing World. This event hosted over 3,500 attendees with many of best and brightest in the content marketing industry.

If you missed this event — we’ve got you covered. We’ve curated the top four takeaways from this event from the most influential content marketers out there.

So… What happened at #cmworld this year?

Does your content pass The Mom Test?

Jay Baer, founder of Convince & Convert, made noise with his “Mom Test”. According to Jay, content is emotional and creates an informational bridge between commerce and consumer. In order to create emotional content, marketers must have passion for their content pieces.

So, how does the Mom Test work? Think of it this way: a mother’s love is unconditional, and she isn’t afraid to tell you the truth… so if something sucks, she’ll tell you.

Ask yourself when you’re creating a content piece, “would this pass the Mom Test?”

If you think it would fail… then it’s likely going to be ignored by your target audience.

Jay’s main point is that we don’t need more content marketers, we need people with passion and desire and who ultimately love what they do. The passion to connect with people and feel they are making a difference with their content.

Are you still doing content marketing without a strategy?

Kristina Halvarson, CEO and founder of Brain Traffic, explains brands are struggling with content marketing because they don’t have a documented strategy. Companies with a documented strategy are four times more effective with their content marketing than those who don’t have one.

Kristina offers useful tips on how to be more strategic with your content marketing efforts:[list type=”icon-check-empty”]

 

  • Think “better,” not “more.” In other words, quality over quantity.
  • Ask the journalistic questions early. The most important question to ask is why? Why are we creating this content? Without asking questions the content created will be useless. Great questions create a great content strategy.
  • Figure out when to say no. As content marketers we are always generating new ideas but in the end we have to learn to say no to some strategic ideas.
  • For starters, pick one problem. Do not tackle all content issues at once. Choose one and start there.
  • Tie content to business goals. Each piece of content you produce should link to one of your business objectives. Without goals there’s no point producing content.
  • Focus on the user experience. Content should be user friendly on all devices our audiences have access to. As Kristina said, “A good user experience leads to good business results.”

[/list]

Start with a strategy and map out your goals, tactics, and KPIs. With a plan in mind, you’ll be more successful than you would be playing by ear.

Content can be informative without being boring

But how?

Tell a story.

David Beebe, VP of Creative and Content Marketing at Marriott, says you can’t just talk about your brand, you need to add value for your customers and make the content informative and interesting.

We discovered one of the most popular tweets last week was this quote from David…

Screen Shot 2015-09-18 at 11.25.40 AMBy providing engaging content pieces to your audience, you’re presenting your brand as credible and trustworthy.

Dust off old content and repurpose it

How many times have you created a content piece that you share once and never gets used again?

Without a repurposing strategy, you’re hiding some of your best assets. You put the time into creating these assets… it’s time to share them! Amy Higgins suggests with a proper repurposing strategy, you can have quality and quantity.

One of Amy’s keynotes from Content Marketing World was to create a “content galaxy”, the largest content piece would act as the sun — the stars, moon, and planets would be the supporting assets.

In other words, break down your larger content pieces into smaller bunks — blogs, infographics, social media graphics, Slideshare presentations and ebooks. Need help repurposing your content? Our blog The Top 6 Ways to Repurpose Your Content show you how one piece of content can translate into multiple pieces.
Did you go to Content Marketing World 2015? Let us know your insights from the event by commenting to this blog or connecting with us on our social channels: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

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