Most book reviews start by telling you about the author and content, and end with telling you whether you should read it. This time I’m going to start by telling you why should you read this book; it’s important.
The reason why you should read this book?
Content Marketing is the hot topic of the moment, and Jon Wuebben’s book is about as comprehensive a guide as you’re going to get currently. Whether you’re a content marketing novice or a have already dabbled, Content is Currency has something for you.
Having said that, we can now get back into the usual swing of things.
Jon Wuebben is CEO of Content Launch and a content strategist. Content is Currency is the follow-up to his 2008 book, Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web, and in it he takes an in-depth look at the hows and whys of creating content for the web – both desktop and mobile (and about time – things have changed massively since 2008!)
The ability to create engaging content is becoming increasingly important in today’s digital landscape. The prevalence and power of search and the virality of social, means that content is a powerful medium for organisations to spread their messages. Being able to make the most of these channels is good for both your brand and your bottom line.
Content is Currency is set out into three parts:
What is Content Marketing? – in this part Wuebben looks at the basics of content marketing, including analysing your current presence, performing keyword analysis and competitive research, and optimising your content.
Content for the Web – here Wuebben delves into the different sorts of content (from articles to press releases and beyond) and how you can create content that has impact.
Content for Community and Mobile – in this part, which will be the one that I suspect most people will be drawn to initially, Wuebben details best practice around the use of blogging, email, video and audio, including how to make this content work on mobile devices.
Within each part, the subject is broken into a number of chapters, each dealing with a different element of content marketing. The progression through the chapters is logical and they are filled with good examples to help highlight the tips and techniques within, making it easy to absorb. There are also Case Studies at the end of each chapter that reinforce the approach. Although unavoidable, some of these examples and Case Studies will date, especially where screenshots are included, but this is a minor point, and doesn’t significantly detract from the longevity of the book’s use – as I said, it’s impossible not to have this issue where you are using real-life examples
Content is Currency is a book that you could read from cover to cover, if you so wished, but it is equally as useful as a coffee-table style dip-in guide. And although some of the content may date, it is still a comprehensive guide that provides real value to marketers and agencies alike. In a fast moving ever-changing environment like the web, making our content work across multiple channels and devices is so important – the lessons in Content is Currency will help you to make this a reality.
Have you read Content is Currency? What did you think? Have you changed your thinking on content marketing, or implemented changes since reading the book? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Disclaimer: This is an independent review based on a proof copy of the book supplied to me. I have no business relationship with Jon Wuebben or Content Launch. I have not received any monetary incentives or payments. I don’t need to write this bit, but I think it’s always good to be completely transparent.
In the past, many companies tried to graft digital strategies onto existing offline campaigns. The results were uncoordinated campaigns that failed to make the most out of the opportunities that an integrated approach could bring. They were, in effect, two separate campaigns.
The same thing is happening today, but this time it’s regarding mobile strategies. Here are four reasons why mobile marketing shouldn’t be an afterthought.
Reason #1: It will cost you more
While it’s possible to create a separate mobile marketing strategy around your existing marketing, it will cost you more in the long run.
Reason #2: Your campaigns won’t be truly ‘integrated’
Planning campaigns to be multichannel from the start allows the savvy marketer to make the best use of mobile as a communication channel. Marketing synergies can be created by linking offline and online channels through QR codes to drive consumer activity at the point of interaction – be it on packaging, posters, or any other touch point – rather than later on.
The immediacy of mobile marketing increases our ability to influence the customer. In fact, according to the Mobile Marketing Association, 70% of all mobile searches result in action within one hour! Whether that search is driven from offline or digital marketing activity, the opportunity that mobile marketing provides are too great to ignore. An integrated multi-channel approach to marketing will ensure that you capture the broadest possible audience into the sales funnel.
Reason #3: You won’t be taking advantage of the opportunities that mobile makes available
Mobile marketing provides a new set of opportunities to marketers. The hardware capabilities of the mobile devices allow for new approaches to customer interaction.
Not only does the camera on a mobile device enable QR codes, it also allows foraugmented reality experiences, where our message can be overlaid over the real world.
Geo-location is even more exciting. Marketers are now in a position to communicate with consumers at, or close to, the point of sale. Traditional approaches, such as discounts and coupons, can be delivered directly to the consumer as they approach a store, or during the purchasing process.
Reason #4: Purchasing behaviour is changing and mobile is becoming more important
The beauty of a mobile device is that it is with your consumer almost all the time and gives them access to information on the move. As a result, people are changing their browsing habits by accessing information away from the traditional desktop browser.
By embracing mobile marketing now, you’re not just getting ready for the future, you’re making the most of now. The mobile era is here already; don’t get left behind.
This article was republished at Unbounce as a different version with a focus on QR codes (it was edited from the original). This article is included here only for the purposes of showing the editorial process – from first submission to published article. As stated in my previous post, I’ll leave it up to you to tell me whether you think the quiz structure works or not.
Image credit to fuzzysaurus on Flickr
There are many ways to get people to your landing page, but it’s not the channels that you use that ultimately drive conversions, it’s something else entirely. And that’s where many marketers go wrong. You see that guy in the picture above; you don’t want your users to feel like that do you, just because of something you did, or didn’t, do?
But all this negativity, it’s a bit heavy. Why don’t we lighten it up a bit by taking a little quiz? You know the type: just read the questions, decide on whether you would A, B or C, then total up the number of A, B and C’s. It’s just like reading Seventeen magazine again. Just promise me you won’t look down the page to see the answers…
Question 1
You’re sitting in your kitchen having breakfast. You’re reading the back of the cereal packet for the third time in the last five minutes, when you see a QR code tucked away next to the ingredients panel. By visiting the site you can find out exactly how many calories are in a single cheerio. Do you:
A. Immediately start looking elsewhere on the box for a URL, spilling cereal on the table when you look on the bottom of the packet, then, when you find it, run upstairs to your desktop PC to find out more.
B. Get your Android phone out of your pocket. Scan the code. Go to the Website.
C. Do nothing. What is this QR code business anyway?
Question 2
You’re at the store. You’ve got a new box of cereal to replace the one you dropped on the floor during breakfast. Standing in the queue you notice a sign on the counter offering discounts for regular customers, with double-discounts at your local store. All you have to do is check in on their Website. Do you:
A. Steal the sign surreptitiously when the cashier isn’t looking and run home to check in from the comfort of your home. Then realize you left your cereal at the store.
B. Take out your iPhone. Go to the URL. Check-in. Get a discount.
C. Do nothing. Who wants to check-in? Check-ins are for airports.
Question 3
You’re home from the store–and slightly out of breath from the run–so you turn on the TV. An advert for a new, even bigger TV catches your eye, and they’ve got deals for their Twitter followers. The links to their offer pages are right there in their Twitter stream. Do you:
A. Scribble the Twitter name down on a piece of paper, then hunker down in your home office to follow them on your 32″ widescreen monitor. Yeah baby!
B. Pick up your brand new Samsung Galaxy. Fire up the Twitter app. Search for the account. Follow it. Click through to their deals landing page right there on your phone.
C. Twitter? Why would I want to know what the world is having for lunch?
Okay, that’s it. It’s time to tot up those answers.
How did I do?
If you got mostly A’s:
Okay, those who answered mostly As are online, but missing a big piece of the picture. The good news: of anyone out there, marketers have the most to gain from this audience as it moves from desktop-bound activities to mobile converts.
The way people access the Internet is changing. They’re moving away from a reliance on the desktop browser and moving toward the mobile device. And that change in browsing habits is having a knock-on effect in our offline behavior. We’re much more likely to use mobile devices to inform our purchasing choices, either in-store or in our downtime.
The three scenarios outlined above show just a few of the ways in which smart retailers are using these changes in customer behavior to their advantage. The use of QR codes to connect offline printed media with an online presence is rising and they can be an efficient way to drive traffic to your landing page. There’s no fiddly typing of URLs on a tiny keyboard, you simply scan the code and are taken directly to the website. It’s also possible to brand QR codes with a logo for maximum brand impact.
Using advertising at Point of Sale is also a great way to appeal to a captive audience. By catching shoppers at the point of purchase, you have the opportunity to influence the decision-making process. If a customer is already with you, you want to make sure they come back again. The ability to geo-locate customers through their mobile devices can be used effectively to serve local offers and generate customer loyalty. Adidas successfully used geolocation to support six popup stores in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
And finally, there’s good old social media. Social networks, especially Facebook and Twitter, are becoming an integrated part of many companies marketing strategies, with the importance of these channels increasing year over year. It’s also true that the a growing percentage of activity on both these platforms is from mobile devices (55% on Twitter, 33% on Facebook). Chances are that, if you’re driving people to your social media presence, there is a good chance they are doing it on a mobile device.
If you got mostly B’s:
Well, you may be preaching to the converted here. These customers are true mobile surfers. They may be part of a growing demographic that accesses the Internet primarily through a mobile device, but for marketers this doesn’t always translate into best practice for campaigns unless their landing pages are optimized for mobile browsing. Take a look at your company’s web presence, whether it’s a campaign landing page or the main company website. Would they work in the scenarios outlined in the quiz?
If you got mostly C’s:
Well. Those who scored mostly C’s are in need of a digital refresher course. But don’t worry, more and more become converted online shoppers and eventual mobile users everyday. Keep trying to engage them.
But what has all of this got to do with landing pages?
There’s a change taking place. The way that people access the internet is changing, and with it, the way that they are accessing your Web pages. Mobile devices are becoming more and more prevalent and we can no longer predict how and where users interact with our brand, so we must be prepared to support every potential channel and engage prospects wherever they choose to engage with our products.
The unforgivable sin for a landing page is a poor user experience. If you’ve done the hard work and directed people to your page but the user experience is a poor one, you’re simply throwing away time, money and effort. Creating a strong user experience, regardless of how the user accesses your page, is paramount. By making sure your landing pages are mobile-optimized, you’re giving yourself a head-start on the road to conversions and revenue. By making it easy for you users to read and navigate the content on your landing page you will increase conversion rates. Leave them trying to read tiny type on a tiny screen and you’re fighting a losing battle.
Don’t be left out. Engage the customers who choose B.
Although the name on the post might not be mine, Unbounce published a second article on the 9th March – “The Cosmo Guide to Landing Pages and QR codes – with Infographic”. The article, which was originally written with less of a focus on QR codes and more on multi-channel landing page traffic drivers, was originally titled “Landing Pages: the unforgivable sin” and as an interesting example of the editorial process I’ll publish the original article here shortly.
The idea behind the article was to highlight the different ways in which a landing page could be reached, given that an increasing percentage of web traffic is through mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. The gimmick to get the reader engaged was to use a magazine-style quiz (did you get mainly A’s, B’s or C’s). I’ll leave it to you to decide whether it works or not.
This week I attended the Ogilvy Keynote as part of Social Media Week in London. It was a good keynote, full of valid, open discussion around the topic of ‘Socialising the Enterprise’, with contributions from IBM, Ford and American Express. But that’s not what this post is about.
It’s not about chips either, but bear with me, it will make sense eventually.
At the end of the keynote, I was prompted to tweet the following:
Ogilvy keynote just finished. Main thought – people should stop tweeting and start listening… lots of good discussion— James Gardner (@bumblearse) February 14, 2012
What was it that possessed me to make my feelings known, apart from the bloke next to me who spent the entire hour and a half on his iPhone? Simply the fact that if we are not careful, we will be so distracted by technology that it will become our master, rather than our tool. If we as individuals are to make the most out of these gatherings here’s a few reasons why we should think about not tweeting (or posting, I’m social-media-network-agnostic)
1. Tweeting is a distraction
We like to think that we can multi-task, but it’s really not true. By tweeting your way through a presentation you’re not giving it your full attention. If you’re going to make the effort to attend, make the effort to participate fully.
2. Random quotes with no context have little value
Just because someone said something that sounded good at the time, like “culture eats strategy for lunch”, it doesn’t mean you have to repeat it verbatim (or in text-speak) to your followers. 140 characters is not enough to provide any context to what is being said and it just comes over as a bland statement. If I said “long ones are better than short ones” whilst eating a plate of chips, would you tweet that? Why does culture eat strategy for lunch; that’s what people want to know. Which brings me neatly to…
3. Don’t just repeat, think
If you’re attending an event and you’re lucky enough to be in the audience, and even better, the event is really turning out some valuable learnings, don’t just regale us with quotes, give us your opinion. Step back for a moment and think about how those learnings affected you, or your business, or your understanding of the subject. Think about it and then tell us why it should matter to us. It’s too easy to just take what others say as gospel, especially when they are sitting on a stage – don’t fall for it, you matter just as much.
Don’t miss the opportunity
Social Media gives us the ability to communicate. When people communicate we can achieve amazing things (see the ArabSpring for details). However, it’s good communication that we need, not communication for its own sake. Let’s make sure we think before we speak (or tweet), not just for our benefit, but for those that are listening too.
I’m happy to say that I’ll be speaking at the 2011 Money in Mobile forum this June. Alongside Nick Lansley (Head of R&D for Tesco.com), Russell Buckley (Former MD of Admob), Ilja Laurs (Founder & CEO of GetJar) and Andy Smith (Industry Head of Mobile for Google), I’ll be looking at how a great customer experience is central to making money from your mobile channels.
It promises to be a good event, with a wide range of speakers looking at the subject from many different viewpoints, from understanding the underlying business models to front-end user experience challenges. You can find more details about the event at the website: http://moneyinmobile2011.thebln.com. If you’re going to be attending and would like to catch up on the day during one of the networking sessions, please contact me.
At the end of March, my first article for Smashing Magazine was published. Designing for the Future Web looked at how the web is evolving to become available across an ever-increasing range of devices, from phones to TVs, and how we must change our thinking on design to accommodate this changing landscape. It generated some good conversations, with very differing opinions brought to the discussion.
Following on from my previous blog about the future of the internet not being mobile, it seems fitting to stay on a related subject: content. Why related? Simply because as we change the way we interact with the internet, so we also change the way we interact with content.
In the past, B2B marketing has leant heavily on the crutch of the whitepaper – or something very similar – as an incentive to engage with an audience. In return for your data you get a big impenetrable chunk of copy in PDF format. As a consumer it takes time and effort to sit down and consume, and you’re probably lucky if 25% of the information is completely relevant. That’s if you can read it; have you tried reading a designed-for-print PDF on a mobile device? It just doesn’t stack up any more.
We’re now more sophisticated in our approach to information gathering; we consume information in highly relevant, but smaller chunks. We want access only to the key information and we then build outwards from there to find the supporting information that is right for our business. And what is this information? Opinion pieces, articles, news items, blogs entries, tweets: all from different sources. Rather than accept a single viewpoint we create a mesh of information ‘chunks’.
There are a couple of good examples of this approach to information gathering that are coming online: QWiki creates short illustrated presentations from multiple sources of information and plays them back to the user. It’s definitely worth checking out – if you can get an invite to the alpha. Quora is a user-created bank of questions and answers that are short and straight to the point. It’s already being seen as an essential tool for journalists in the technology arena, but will surely make the jump to a broader audience based on its initial success.
So, as B2B marketers, what do we do to create great digital content?
I believe it’s important to have a clear content strategy, based on three principles:
1. Present information in a format that is designed for screen, not print.
You wouldn’t dream of putting the ceiling of the Sistine chapel on a postage stamp and expecting people to engage with it. Digital data should be presented in its natural form: text-based, searchable and linkable. ‘Chunking’ data makes sense for information consumption, information display and information linking. By breaking down our whitepapers into small easily-digested elements, we can increase relevancy and display it more clearly on a wider range of devices.
2. Use multiple channels to reinforce your message.
The internet has freed users from the shackles of a single opinion. Take advantage of the fact by making sure that you are spreading your message across multiple communication channels. This should include user-generated content, ‘official’ content and journalistic content for a blend of opinions. If it is done right, this builds trust in the message through weight of – hopefully – positive opinion.
3. Create your own mesh of information for the user.
Don’t let your content live alone. Let your consumers explore your content at their own pace and in their own order. Make sure you include external content in the information web you build so as to reinforce your own messaging, and don’t be afraid of what you don’t control.
Creating content will always be a challenge, but we now have the opportunity to provide a much richer and more convincing experience for our consumers and clients. No more whitepapers for me…
The near-future of the internet is mobile, but as B2B marketers we must be aware of how internet usage is changing in the long-term, and what this means for our campaigns and communications. Thinking in terms of individual channels and devices will only limit our ability to fully deliver for our clients in the future.
So how is the internet changing?
1. Our ability to access the internet is becoming ubiquitous
The most amazing thing about the internet is arguably not the content, but the creation of the infrastructure that carries it. Millions of interconnected computers, millions of miles of cable to carry data between them, and all the protocols and hardware that direct traffic from one place to another. This process hasn’t stopped yet, and being ‘online’ is becoming a more and more ubiquitous experience. The data on the internet is available through many channels and in many locations.
2. We are increasingly using web-based services, not web-based content
More and more we are basing our internet usage around key services and applications, such as Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and Spotify. Users are blending these services together to create their own online experience: Facebook for social life, LinkedIn for professional life, Delicious for bookmarks, Remember the Milk for tasks, Spotify for music. These services feed information to us, rather than us having to seek it out, which makes our online life more integrated with our offline life.
Some of these services are tied to a single device, but the majority are available wherever you are, and it is this portability that makes them so useful. For example, Netflix allows you to watch movies online, but not just through your PC, you can access them on your Xbox, PS3, Wii, iPad and internet-enabled TV or Blu-ray player as well.
3. The content available on the web is changing
In 1990, most traffic on the web was based around FTP (File Transfer Protocol), which took up 57% of the available bandwidth, but twenty years later video owns 51% of this bandwidth. Standard web-based traffic such as web pages and other downloads is now only 23%, down from approximately 55% in 2000. Video is the big growth area and the available content is growing rapidly. The ability to access this video-based content is also growing, with users no longer restricted to their PC. Cisco’s latest forecasts see 66% of mobile data usage being video-based by 2014 (see Figure 2 here)
What do these changes mean for those of us in the business of creating content?
It’s important that we aren’t overly rigid in our approach to creating content; we mustn’t think in terms of devices. Today we are producing mobile apps and web-based sites to deliver our services, but in a few years’ time we may be looking at a completely different landscape where it is impossible to know exactly where and how our content is being viewed. Some of these changes – Internet TV for example – may be game-changing as the distinction between online and broadcast blurs even further.
In some cases, we may well be faced with the decision to concentrate on particular devices and channels at the expense of audience numbers, or to take a more general and less tailored approach that can be viewed across the widest spectrum.
Regardless of which route we take, the ability to deliver a consistent experience across all channels is paramount, and our ability as an industry to understand the options and deliver this consistency will be crucial.
…there, I’ve said it. I love my iPhone, and so do millions of people worldwide, but it’s going to lose the mobile OS war.
Not because Android has the best user experience, it doesn’t. Not because it has the most apps, it doesn’t. But because Google understands one thing: it’s not quality but quantity that counts.
Android is an open source Operating System (OS), meaning that anyone can pick it up, play with it, and deploy on their mobile device. As a result Samsung, Motorola and HTC are already onboard: any one of these three manufacturers is competition for Apple, let alone all three together. In units produced they’ll simply swamp Apple.
It’s exactly the same battle that Microsoft and Apple fought 20 years ago, and we know who won then. Microsoft’s product appealed to the largest number of developers who created a cornucopia of applications, from freeware to shareware to paid software, giving the end-user a real choice. Apple, whilst maintaining strict quality control, would only ever have a small developer community, and thus, less choice.
Apple should be flattered, in both cases the competition have followed their lead: Windows copied Mac OS and Android copied iOS (the iPhone’s operating system). But in the end, Apple, in their search for perfection, will again be overtaken by the mob.
Of course, there are other players in the market. Symbian still leads the pack, but is for all intents and purposes the sole domain of Nokia. Then there is Palm’s WebOS, which was recently bought by HP. WebOS has been in decline for a number of years, I don’t expect to see it make a recovery without significant investment. Finally there is RIM, known for the Blackberry. They have a very large corporate following, but are starting to lag behind because of the robust, but basic, user experience they offer. As with WebOS, it will take some investment to start to slow the rise of Android and iOS as serious business systems. Together, Android and iOS make up 25% of Smartphone sales, growing rapidly where their competitors are losing market share, but they also account for 65% of mobile page views and 67% of mobile internet and app usage; far outweighing the competition (see slide 12 of Morgan Stanley’s Internet Trends 2010 research for more information).
So what does this mean to Marketers?
Mobile is the marketplace of the future, there’s no doubt about that. In the short-term a fractured market is going to make things more complicated, with multiple major mobile operating systems to support, but long term it’s going to help as the shakedown of the players leads to a dominant set. iOS is the current ‘beau’, but the Android is moving. Preparing now and developing the ability to deliver slick and focused applications will pay dividends for marketers and clients alike. Get ready for the rise of the robot…
Most book reviews start by telling you about the author and content, and end with telling you whether you should read it. This time I’m going to start by telling you why should you read this book; it’s important.
