It seems that I’ve been mowing the lawn every five days, most likely because I probably am.  Before the mowing begins, I dutifully pick-up all the sticks, no shortage of them this summer, along with some waste from the neighbor’s dog who obviously prefers our yard to his, or maybe it’s a her.  Over the years, this type of preparation has no doubt spared me a trip or two to the walk-in clinic.  But it also allows me to focus on the art of lawn mowing, which is, of course, nothing more than winning the pennant for the best lawn in the neighborhood.  Like the Cubs, I’m winless; the good news is that it’s only been for nine years.

I approach the writing of content the same way.  Like the Boy Scouts say, “Be Prepared.”  It doesn’t matter what the delivery platform is for your content – a TV commercial, newspaper ad, brochure or Web site – if you’re not practicing the process of VOC, you’re not developing content the way the pros do.  VOC is Voice of Customer and it’s where all good content begins, and ends, because your approach to VOC shouldn’t ever end.

Content that might be compelling to you isn’t necessarily compelling to your customers.  But how would you know one way or the other?  You wouldn’t unless you asked them.  How frequently do your customers want to receive your content and in what delivery form?  You won’t know until you ask them.  And how do you know what subject matter resonates the strongest so you can purpose your content accordingly?  You won’t know unless there’s a mechanism for your customers to respond to you — like a blog, a feedback loop or a social media portal or gateway.

All of this VOC work is done upfront when you’re launching a content marketing strategy, but it’s also done all along the way to make certain your content remains on target.  And there’s no shortage of acquisition strategies to compile and synthesize your VOC data.  Focus groups, less formal listening sessions, one-on-one interviews, on- and off-line surveys, trade show intercepts are just a few of the techniques for acquiring VOC.

So, now’s the time to stop selling and telling and start listening. Preparation is critical to great content marketing; in fact, it’s the only way to play it safe.  So is picking up sticks and other unwanted debris before you mow, which I’ll take any day over shoveling.

Make it simple. That’s it. The single thing that will increase the “share power” of your Facebook posts is to keep them as short and simple as possible. And we’re not just talking word count here. We’re talking about capturing the essence of your idea so that it’s compelling, yet simple to grasp.  So compelling and easy to understand that the reader will share it in the social sphere.

 Social scientist and viral marketing guru Don Zarella (donzarella.com) conducted a study of Facebook data over a long period of time and identified some key features of posts with “share power.”  I found five of the findings especially interesting. 

 Add Numbers to Your Title.  That one was easy to apply to this article — even though using a numeric in this instance wouldn’t typically make it past a proofreader.  It seems that Zarella found that in Facebook, titles with the digits 1 to 9 outperform text only titles. Not very creative, but more effective, I guess. 

Write to a Second Grade Reading Level.  When he matched the level of sharing among posts with reading grade levels, Zarella’s results revealed that the higher the share rates, the lower the reading level.   Facebook posts written at second grade reading level generated about 32 percent more shares than average.  The first paragraph of this article, when tested using the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test scores about a 5^th grade reading level — which, if it were a Facebook post would have resulted in about 15% more shares than average.  Guess I need to shorten my sentences and use more words with one syllable. 

Post on the Weekend.  Facebook users are most likely to share posts on Saturdays and Sundays.  While Zarella found that the volume of URLs introduced into Facebook are highest on weekdays — especially on Wednesdays and Fridays — stories published on the weekends tended to be shared on Facebook 15 to 40 percent more often. Then again, this could be due to the fact that more than half of U.S. businesses block the use of Facebook and other social networks in the workplace.

Verbs Speak Louder than Adverbs.  The use of action words trigger the most sharing, followed by important nouns.  In fact verbs trigger about 2 percent more shares than average and adverbs trigger almost 3 percent less than average.  Trigger is an action word, isn’t it?

 Sex Sells. Okay, this is not so surprising.  But from a linguistic content standpoint, posts with the word “sex” are at the very top of the list for posts with share power.  What’s surprising is that “sex” is the least often introduced word introduced into social media feeds.  I used it twice here in an attempt to reverse that trend.

When a company embraces customer engagement as a core marketing strategy, that company has moved well beyond customer satisfaction.  Those companies realize that satisfying customers is not enough.  Customer engagement means connecting to customers and prospects on such an emotional level that they have a need to seek you out for credible information, to interact with you, even contributing their perspectives and opinions about your brand.  The deeper they engage, the more connected they become.  The more connected they become, the more committed they are and the more they recommend your brand to others. 

Gallup Consulting, creators of the CE¹¹ customer engagement metric, categorizes customers into four distinct groups ranging from actively disengaged to fully engaged.

Gallup defines actively disengaged customers as emotionally detached and actively antagonistic. It defines fully engaged as emotionally attached and rationally loyal — your most valuable customers. Gallup CE research proves how valuable they are — , customers who are fully engaged represent an average 23 percent premium in terms of share of wallet, profitability, revenue, and relationship growth over the average customer. 

So, if customer engagement is the best new measurement of marketing success, then content marketing has to be the best new marketing strategy to achieve that success. 

Today’s customers have big appetites for information.  If you’re not continually feeding them fresh information — meaty, relevant and very valuable information designed to satisfy their different appetites — you’re not marketing. We’re talking content like white papers, case studies, insights into product application, and video demonstrations.

Further, if you’re not delivering that content in ways that can be easily measured, you’re not evaluating your level of customer engagement.  You need to use highly measureable Web-based media channels — like Web sites and social media. 

Then drive customers and prospects to the places they can find you’re content — otherwise you’re just wasting your advertising and promotion dollars. The value of traditional offline media advertising increases when you leverage it to promote your content, rather than be your content.

So if you want to be among those world-class companies who have embraced customer engagement as their new objective for marketing effectiveness, start by creating compelling content.  Offer that content in easy-to-measure places where your customers hang out. Then use your promotional budget to take people to those places and measure your level of engagement.

Do you consider yourself a Creator, Critic, Joiner, Spectator or Conversationalist? In a recently published Ad Age article, Josh Bernoff provided a chart that defined each of these levels of social media participation. According to North American Technographics Empowerment Online Survey, seventy percent of U.S. adults online are categorized as Spectators — they read blogs or tweets, listen to podcasts, or watch video from other users at least once a month. Less than one in four adult online users are categorized as Creators — those who publish a blog or web pages, upload original videos, audio or music, or write and post articles or stories.

Why are 3 out of 4 online users passively absorbing the content that 1 in 4 is providing? Perhaps it’s because an overwhelming 3 out of 4 of us really don’t understand what social networking is all about.

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So you’ve published your blog.  Hopefully, you’ve used all the basic “on-page” SEO strategies to help build readership and following for your blog as you developed it —  providing detailed quality content, adding compelling and keyword friendly titles, leveraging anchor text and paying close attention to your URL structure and descriptions.  But you’re only half finished with your SEO plan if you haven’t considered the “off-page” SEO strategies that encourage link building.

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It should come as no surprise that more people than ever are using coupons. In fact, according to a recent study, 72 percent of consumers are using more coupons than they did six months ago.

What is surprising is the range of primary sources people prefer for coupons. While newspapers and magazines remain the primary source for just more than half of those surveyed, preferences are changing. According to the survey, 42 percent prefer some form of digital coupon. Further, a full 80 percent said they’d be more likely to increase their use of coupons if those coupons were tailored to their interests and delivered online.

The lesson here? Variety, with a decided lean toward digital.

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These are critical times for manufacturers and they demand critical and highly strategic thinking. And that goes for the Web sites of all manufacturing companies, regardless of their size or product mix. Here’s why: in a recent research study by BtoB Magazine, it was revealed that 90 percent of industrial buyers go to the Internet at some point in the buying cycle. While this is not exactly a head-scratcher, the fact that more than 50 percent of buyers actually begin the purchasing process online should be a wake-up call for companies to start taking their Web sites very seriously.
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One degree of separation might be an interesting discussion in social settings, but 360 degrees of integration is the marketing discussion that matters most.

If it were me, and I had direct responsibility for overseeing a marketing department, working with an advertising or public relations agency, or even prepping for a future relationship with an agency, I’d ask for one thing — and you should, too.

Ask for a list of 150 off-line and online marketing ideas — 75 traditional ideas and 75 interactive and digital ideas. Accept nothing less.

Work with your team to flesh out the very best strategies; perhaps five of each. Then take the 10 concepts, drill them down, write a two-page brief on each one of them, and spring into action.

Integration is essential, but the love-fest we have with the Internet sometimes causes us to forget that you still need to drive online traffic with offline activities. Yes, I know that 2008 was the first year we spent as much time in front of a computer or handheld screen as we did a television screen, but guess what? I still receive catalogs, my mailbox is still full of junk, I subscribe to newspapers (this one) and magazines, I notice billboards, watch television and listen to the radio.

And here’s the kicker: I actually know other people who do this, too.

The point is, you need to look at all the possibilities. Even the largest e-commerce-only companies do massive amounts of public relations. And conversely, the largest manufacturing and service companies — who rely on traditional spend — have some of the most sophisticated and comprehensive Web presences.

At TMA+Peritus, we have three brand principles that guide us:

–Our point of view. We spend too much time and money trying to be understood, and not enough time understanding

–It’s not about breaking through, it’s about being invited in

–The more your customers interact, the more they’ll transact.

So, take your 10 terrific ideas and ask yourself if they meet these time-tested principles. If the green light still is on, go for it.

Integration, at least in the marketing world, is not complicated. It’s enjoyable, productive and profitable. Best of all, it flat-out works.

Tom Marks

Public relations — it’s the darling return-on-investment marketing tool of the recession. Why? It’s measurable — you can track how many pick ups your press releases receive or how popular your blog is. You can interact with a wide variety of audiences on their terms — using language and platforms, like Facebook or email , they’re most comfortable with. And you can engage with people and get their thoughts and feedback — giving you direction that helps you grow your business.

The problem is most people think PR simply consists of press releases. Yes, this “push” tactic still has a valid place in PR, but press releases alone are simply a monologue. You need to start a PR conversation — engaging with your audience by integrating “push” and “pull” PR tactics. Here’s an example.

Push. It started with the client’s business goals — reaching C-level executives. A series of monthly press releases (sent to C-level-specific publications and news sources) were planned, starting with a release concerning the recent in-house personnel promotion that addressed clients’ recession concerns and how this newly promoted person would help address them.

The first release scored. An editor of an online publication asked if the newly promoted person would be interested in submitting an online article that — you guessed it — reached C-level execs. Pull.

That article led to a monthly online column — effectively pulling in readers who could link from the article to the client’s site. Does this happen with every release? No. But if you start with a business goal, carefully select your media outlets and address the concerns of your audience, you at least have a chance.

The “push” press release becomes part of a conversational PR web that allows audiences to “pull” in the information they want. The client’s press release morphs into an article, then a column, a Facebook posting, the inspiration for a blog, the impetus of an online survey, the basis for a white paper, the stimulus for a case study, the conversation piece of a webinar and the theme of a trade show presentation.

It’s all PR — the vital sharing of information — that your audiences can choose from, share and talk about using the platforms they’re most comfortable with. Choice empowers them. And when you give them voice through blogs, forums, online surveys or group pages, it helps empower you. A little push, a lot of pull and — heave ho — you’re engaging in conversations and sharing insights that can help grow your business and brand presence.

Michelle Rothmeyer is the Senior Public Relations Specialist at TMA+Peritus.

A few weeks ago, I talked about the importance of reviewing and mining analytic data. This follow up article will look at the success and failures of the article from a purely analytical perspective.

Search Engines: We received one hit on the keywords: “using analytics data”. Checking out Google, we currently rank #2 on this term. This is a hollow victory, we are ranking well, but it doesn’t appear that people are searching for this topic.

Referring Sites: According to the data, 68% of the people who came to this page came from a social media referral (Facebook, Twitter, Plurk). This tells me that when we write an article, and share the link via social media channels, we drive additional traffic to the site.

Top Landing Pages: The good news is that the blog entry is the #3 entry page on our site.

Top Exit Pages: Approximately 53% of the people who landed on this page left the site. This tells me that people who read the article were not interested in additional content on the site.

So what does the data tell me?

Our site is being crawled and indexed by Google, unfortunately the ‘analytics’ subject is not driving many visitors to our site.

Our blogging strategy also includes distributing links via social media, which is working very effectively.  This was measured by both referring sites and the fact the article is a top three ‘landing page’ to the site.

The article didn’t generate many leads to other portions of our site. This is telling me that in addition to discussing the importance of analytic data, I need to do a better job of communicating that we at TMA+Peritus use analytics as part of measuring the success of our on-line marketing services.

Understanding the data inspired me to write this follow up article, which should do two things: 1) Drive additional traffic to the original article, and 2) should expand our sites value on ‘analytic’ keywords.

Of course, you can bet I will use Analyics to measure this prediction.