Colin Lamont -

Content Marketing Gems of the Week

January 4, 2013 | By Colin Lamont | No Comments">No Comments

Happy New Year! Each week we scour the Interwebs to find a few great articles on content marketing for your reading pleasure. We hope you enjoy this week’s stash:

Unbounce’s Angela Stringfellow takes an in-depth look at building a successful editorial calendar in her most recent post.

Kylie Jane Wakefield posted a stylish infographic to the Contently blog about “How Consumers Digest Branded Content.“

One of my favorite quotes from Scott McKelvey’s interview with Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute on marketing trends for 2013 would have to be:

“ Instead of talking about your products and services, which most people don’t care about, you clearly define your target audience – aka, your reader – and develop useful information to them on a consistent basis. Over time, you position yourself as a true expert resource. And when customers are ready to buy, they buy from you.” – Joe Pulizzi

Social Media Explorer’s Barry Feldmen produced a worthwhile read with his article “Content Marketing: The Beautiful Buzz and the Hellacious Hangover.“

To round-out our first “gems of the weeks” for the new year, Patricia Redsicker of Social Media Examiner did great research in her article titled: “8 Content Marketing Trends for B2B.“

If you have any gems we missed make sure to add them in the comment section.

19 Dec

Bubbles, Content & Differentiation: An Investor’s Perspective

December 19, 2012 | By Colin Lamont | No Comments">No Comments

Om Malik of GigaOM interviewed Bill Gurley, a VC at Benchmark Capital, on the history of investing, what investors are interested in seeing from startups and entrepreneurs, and the opportunities that lay ahead. This video series is full of interesting, insightful knowledge, developed from Bill Gurley’s long and eventful history as a venture capitalist and working with startups.

The 6 video sections:

What it takes to be a VC
The role of venture capital
How network effects reshape local commerce.
What it takes to survive downturns.
Beyond the obvious: What are the opportunities in venture capital?
On Above The Crowd

Technology: Painting a White Space

There were 3 sections that I enjoyed, in particular. The first was how Gurley sees the evolution of technology opportunities, and the role VC’s play in that space:

“Painting a white space: Imagine a canvas and putting technology where it wasn’t before. Venture is all about applying it [technology] to the next edge of where you can go.”

The Value of Longform Content

Next, Gurley talks about the evolution of his blog, which had started as a fax when he was on Wall Street, moved to email, and now to his blog postings. On his analytical writing style and expertise of the material, he references that Jeff Bezos requires his executives write 6 pages of prose to bring into each executive meeting.

“Going through the thought process of organizing something into that long of a narrative actually requires you to sit down and think about it – a lot more detailed than you would putting 3 bullet points on a PowerPoint slide.”

“Almost everything that I write about is at least 6 months in the making. It’s kind of at the end of me maybe having used it for my own personal uses, and I’ve thought through something in a very detailed way and come to some kind of conclusion that I feel will offer something to the community that will be perceived as valuable.”

What’s striking to me is the 2 concepts Bill Gurley introduces in this passage. Firstly, his writings are based on his experience and expertise. He’s been using or working on the nuggets of information for six months, having had time to test and expand on whatever concept he’s now writing about. That is to say, he’s using empirical knowledge on a subject in which he’s now an expert or well versed in.

Secondly, he believes in the utility and power of long-form content. Organizing one’s thoughts and considering all sides of an argument can help shape one’s point. Doing so in a longer format requires the necessary work, research, and thoughtfulness be put into an post or article. One that isn’t as impactful if done in a PowerPoint slide or quick and short presentation.

Are You a Freshmaker?

Lastly, Bill Gurley recounts one main feature that the buy side analysts on Wall Street (and undoubtedly what VC’s) look for out of Startups and Entrepreneurs:

“Differentiation, sustainable competitive advantage, and doing something that can’t be copied.”

What’s the secret sauce, the defensible position, and why will that work to your advantage to acquire long-term customers or generate revenue. One of my colleagues returned to Seattle this week, having moved and lived in San Francisco for the past few months. After meeting countless entrepreneurs and examining hundreds of startups that received funding she described the tech investment climate in San Fran as “smoking hot”. The difference Arianna noticed between Seattle and San Francisco was that in order for a startup in Seattle to receive funding they need to prove 1) they have a great idea (a tech pain point they can solve), 2) they need to show traction in sales (people are willing to pay for their product), 3) a strong team and 4) a defensible position. In San Francisco if you have a 1) great idea and 2) a great team there are investors that are willing to take the risk.

Wisdom for the Entrepreneur and the Investor

The interviews are probably best suited for entrepreneurs at startups. While VC’s are typically talking to an evolved startup (ie. past seed or Angel funding), Gurley has a such a good grasp of bubbles and wild valuations that his wisdom and knowledge is worthwhile to anyone starting or investing in a business.

Groupthink and Herd Mentality is Dangerous

Building a startup, we need to keep reminding ourselves that investors and customers alike have certain criteria and standards they’re looking for in your product or service. For Bill Gurley, as an investor and having lived through several bubbles where money was flowing wildly at almost any idea, and eventually the bottoms fell out and the only ones standing were those that had real, sustainable value. He recounts:

“You can’t make money with a consensus accurate prediction.”

As an investor, even if you accurately predict the success of a company, if you’re making that investment when everyone else is doing the same, it’s hard (or impossible) to really extract value. Changing the context to startups, if you’re building a company that’s doing the same as others, it won’t produce differentiation or value.

A Towering Intellect

Having worked on the buy side of Wall Street 20 years ago (as a securities analyst for a mid-cap fund) before starting my technology career in Seattle, I’m always drawn to analytical thinkers with parallel experiences to mine. At 6’9″ Bill Gurley clearly towers over most others. But I’d argue it’s due to his intellect and thoughtfulness. In these interviews, Gurley humbly provides some great insights and experiences about his career that he hopes will help people and companies following in his footsteps. I enjoyed these interviews immensely, and hope you will too. If you want to gleam more insights from Bill, check out his blog Above the Crowd and follow him on Twitter @bgurley.

10 Dec

Say it…and Spray it!

December 10, 2012 | By Colin Lamont | No Comments">No Comments

It’s no longer surprising to see marketing professionals shift significant parts of their budget to content marketing campaigns. Between the continued importance of search engines, and the proliferation and adoption of social media channels, customers now have access to a vast breadth of information that influences each purchase making decision.

The Fragmentation of Influence

How customers source pre-purchase information has undoubtedly evolved, but the dramatic change occurring year-to-year is still surprising. According to Google’s Zero Moment of Truth, people in 2011 consumed an average of 10.4 different sources of information before making a purchase decision. This is a giant leap from the 5.4 sources of information people viewed before making decisions in 2010. The funnel continues to fragment into various touch points, and brands need to be prepared to have a meaningful presence.

For example, before purchasing a new widget, a user will have already seen 10.4 sources of related information, such as:

Tweets and Facebook posts via their network
Articles and reviews from experts comparing products
Online and offline ads for competing products
61% will have searched online before making a purchase
Conversations with friends, family, and coworkers

All of these conversations and touch points both directly and indirectly help form each user’s opinion on the product options before making a decision. Companies must be ready to create and share useful and meaningful content to connect to users and help them learn about their products, benefits, and company.

Content is still King

In the world of Content Marketing, “Content is King” still holds true, but only if that content is deemed valuable. Companies can help influence peoples’ purchase decisions in two impactful areas with Content Marketing:

1) Providing quality content in their social feeds

2) Creating relevant website content to improve their organic search results (SEO)

The first point involves companies connecting to potential customers through engagement and interaction across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. through the sharing of interesting content.

On the second point, search engines like Google and Bing run complicated algorithms that take in user searches and deliver a list of results that they believe are most relevant. These algorithms take into consideration:

Relevancy of keywords used in the page they’re pointing to
Recency of the post, article, or content
Authority of who’s shared and linked to the content
Number of people who’ve shared and linked to the content
Length of time readers stay on the content before leaving

Two Worlds Collide

In recent years, however, the correlation between sharing and high ranking search results is extremely high. If you create meaningful, useful, interesting, and relevant content, users will share it and search engines will point to it:

(Graphic courtesy Mashable)

5 Tips to Make your Content Strategy a Winner

Create an Editorial Calendar: Make a list of content ideas around events, product launches, employee spotlights, specific product or service features, and keywords for which you want to rank highly on search results. These content articles will help build out our website, or more typically, the corporate blog on your site. Assign concrete due dates for when these pieces of content should be completed.

Build-Up your Social Audience: Use tools like FollowerWonk to find influencers in your industry, and build a relationship with them. Leverage social media to get your articles and content in front of as many eyes as possible so that they can share your content with their audience.

Encourage Employee Advocacy: Your own employees, their friends, and their families can be great ambassadors of your brand. Re-tweeting, liking, commenting, and sharing companies content on their personal channels is key. The initial traction on social platforms is difficult to earn, so give your content a jump-start and encourage your staff to engage with the companies content right away. This is easier to accomplish if you also include your employees in the content creation.

Get your experienced members involved: Remember, your content has to be valuable in order for others to share it. If your marketing team is creating all of the content on their own then it will quickly lack depth and sound repetitive. Every company has a wealth of untapped knowledge inside their company walls from non-marketing employees. Have your marketing team collaborate with executives and group or division heads in order to tap into their vast knowledge base and strengthen the voice of your company’s brand.

Leverage Connections: Featuring an influential guest on your company blog can benefit both the guest and your company. Both parties receive a boost in exposure, and the guest is incentivized to share with their audience.

Expertise is Believable

As Edelman’s 2012 Trust Barometer shows, leveraging internal and external experts can be monumental in developing thought leadership and getting attention for your content.

The marketing landscape has changed. To get the mindshare of an audience, you need to stay active and become useful to this audience of potential customers and influencers. If you’re not there, you can be assured your competition will be. But remember, you have all of the knowledge, resources, and connections around you already. It’s now up to you to organize and execute.

(Slide images courtesy of Jay Baer’s YOUtility Presentation from his Explore Portland Keynote)

16 Nov

One Comment">One Comment

Becoming a Content YOUtility to Convince Your Customers to Trust You

November 16, 2012 | By Colin Lamont | One Comment">One Comment

Yesterday at the Explore Portland conference, keynote speaker Jay Baer presented his talk ”Becoming a YOUtility”. His basic premise is that the new method of convincing customers to trust your company is by providing useful information that suits their needs. Ultimately, having earned their trust will lead to their purchase of your product or service.

“If you sell something today, you create a customer today. If you help someone today, you create customer for life.”

In today’s marketplace, the potential customers’ need for information has become priority number one. And the funnel of findability is fragmenting across social media networks and utility sites.

What Are Some Of These Sites?

Quora
Cha Cha
Angie’s list
Siri (competitor to Google)
Facebook

Jay pointed out that of social media users, 30% say social media responsible is responsible for their purchase. Online customers have access to a wealth of information from the staggering 173 million blogs online today. This number is only set to increase in the years to come.

“YOUtility is marketing so useful, people would pay for it”

Jay framed his talk to cover 3 areas of marketing, and how the context has changed over time:

1. Top of Mind Awareness – TV/Radio/Newspaper/Magazine Ads to Online Ads

15-20 years ago, brands were moving to online ads for both immediate exposure and immediate feedback. With online ads, marketing would get the word out and customers response online would tell you how your brand outreach worked.

2. Frame of Mind Awareness – Search

About 10 years ago, customers found a better way to find out about brands. With Google and other search engines to clue in to what they’re looking for, customers would use search to narrow in and find useful sites or information to make a more informed buying decision.

3. Friend of Mine Awareness – Content Streams

Today, companies compete against a user’s friends and family for visibility in their content streams across social media. Thus, brands need to provide hyper useful information in order to compete for awareness.

During his presentation, Jay stressed the following points :

1) The number of sources consumers need to make a decision is increasing.

In the 2011 study, Google’s Zero Moment of Truth, it found that customers in 2010 needed an average of 5.3 sources of information to make a buying decision. In 2011, that number increased to 10.4.

2) Customers talk to a real person as a last resort, not as a first step.

In today’s marketplace it is becoming rare to find individualized customer support throughout all steps of the purchasing process. Jay mentioned that B2B customers only contact a sales rep after 60% of the purchase decision has been made.

3) Trust is key.
Trust is something that needs to be earned.

“We used to build loyalty with people, now we build loyalty with information.”

Who do consumers trust?

66% trust company experts
50% trust regular employees
38% trust CEOs

How companies create this content is not a trivial exercise. This cannot be one person’s job, but instead needs to be a shared responsibility, leveraging each individual’s expertise to help create content that customers deem useful. This “insourcing” of information is a trend Jay sees as not only on the rise, it’s critical to companies succeeding today in the changing social marketplace.

As Jay pointed out, “The difference between helping and selling is just two letters.” But the change that’s taken place in how a brand gains awareness and develops trust is monumental. It dictates that your outward focus needs to be helping potential customers: Don’t a Caveman, be a “Youtility”.

11 Oct

Spotlight

Startups are Tough Mudders, No Doubt.

October 11, 2012 | By Colin Lamont | No Comments">No Comments

In “Startup lessons from the ‘Tough Mudder’ race,” Kevin Nakao, CEO and co-Founder of the startup MeritShare, equates the 11 mile endurance run / obstacle course ‘Tough Mudder’ race to the difficulties encountered at a startup. He interviews his race team members, seemingly all from high-tech startups, about the challenges in training and running in the race and how those instances are similar to the hardships, opportunities, and rewards of launching a company.

What’s interesting is to see that only 22% of participants in ‘Tough Mudder’ finish the race. Depending on which study you reference, startup survival and success numbers differ highly based on economic factors (consider dot com boom startups’ success profiles versus mid-2000′s or today’s startups). Market segment, location of startup (read: availability talent and investors), investment round, and amount of financing all contribute to the varying return numbers. But one study, “Returns to Angel Investors in Groups” (PDF), from the Kaufmann Foundation and Rob Wiltbank of Willamette University, looked at 500 Angels from 86 Angel groups with 1,137 exits.

They found:

50% returned less money than Angels invested
60% returned less than 2x
10% of the companies returned 80% of all dollars returned to the Angels.

Maybe startups have a better return than the finishing percentage of ‘Tough Mudder’ racers?

Not an apples to apples comparison, but perhaps Kevin is short-changing his racing accomplishments?

As one of Kevin’s team members alludes to, you do tend to remember those difficult situations in more vivid terms. It’s when you face danger or fear and somehow pull off a success that these accomplishments resonate deep in our memories. As to Kevin and his team’s philosophy “it’s only interesting if it’s hard to pull off” – I fully agree. If you’re doing something easy, there’s probably not the prospect of large success. And if it’s too simple, somebody else has probably already done it, or a bigger company can copy it in no time, and put marketing dollars behind it, or leverage existing customers to become users quicker than you can.

The notion that luck favors the bold, or luck favors the prepared always seems a bit too cute in real world circumstances. While I agree you do make your own luck, I also have come to accept that luck favors the lucky, it’s better to be lucky than good, and starting with more assets than less helps contribute to your creation of luck.

Though Kevin was talking about the race when he said ”along the way, you get water, bananas, and electrical shocks,” it is also an appropriate explanation for the life at a start-up. You may get some incremental wins, investments, and help along the way, but you also get beat up, emotions frayed, bank accounts depleted, unforeseen battles erupt, and you get the occasional shock to your system. It’s part of the expectations in launching and growing a company. As one investor remarked to me last week, if it was easy to do, everyone would be launching companies.

photo credit: NathanF via photopin cc

27 Sep