James Farley certainly gets it … probably had it down before anyone else? What you may be asking? The concept of what it takes for content marketing success, of course. The concepts, no, laws of content marketing. Getting people talking about your content and your business. And certainly essential for success.
You just can’t say it. You have to get people to say it to each other.
James Farley
Content marketing tactics such as blog posts, feature articles, optimized website copy, white papers, social media content, and press releases move consumers along a specific path. Content marketing generates awareness of your brand, product, or service; inspires consumers to engage and consider you; converts them into leads and sales; and creates advocates. Lots to gain, yes?
But there is a tremendous and ever-growing completion for these gains, isn’t there? Often it seems almost a bridge too far. So we need to know how to write the best content. It starts with a subject told in a different way and a catchy headline. But you must hold the audience with useful details throughout your article.
See our article on the secrets to a winning social media marketing strategy.
So you need to work hard to go after these potential gains. Discover how content marketing exposes consumers to your brand, engages potential customers, and converts them into leads and sales.
The following are 12 laws of content marketing for ensuring the success of an online content marketing strategy that even small businesses can successfully implement today:
Do your homework
Start with a plan and process for researching the market and knowing your customers. This will provide many ideas for developing compelling, relevant content of interest to your specific market’s customers.
Listening
Success with social media and content marketing requires more listening and less talking. Read your target audience’s online content and join discussions to learn what’s important to them. Only then can you create content and spark conversations that add value rather than clutter to their lives.
Gain trust
Content marketing faces the same reader scrutiny and skepticism as traditional advertising. Being genuinely helpful is the only way to engage prospects to gain their trust and build strong relationships.
Content personalization
Content must be personalized to increase its consumption and influence. It must inspire the actions you desire. Your goal? Get the right information detail to the right decision maker on a just-in-time basis.
Collaborate
As a content marketer, you need to find partners to help you spread your message. Whether that’s a business partner, a co-marketer, an influencer, or a blogger when you collaborate more people get in the know about the work you are trying to do. The other neat thing about collaborating is that by working with different groups of people, you potentially will introduce your story to a whole new audience of people who are not familiar with your work.
Influence
Spend time finding online influencers in your market who have quality audiences and are likely to be interested in your products, services, and business. Connect with those people and work to build relationships with them.
If you get on their radar as an authoritative, interesting source of useful information, they might share your content with their own followers, which could put you and your business in front of a huge new audience.
Timeliness
Nothing beats timeliness in terms of the value of information. Timely insights score big with your content consumers. Stay on top of your market and continually refine your ability to report on what is going on now.
Original thinking
Content readers are searching for new ideas not rehash. They value original thinking highly. Offer it. Create well-conceived original themes and content. Original thoughts trump quantity any day. It’s better to have 1,000 online connections who read, share and talk about your content with their own audiences than 10,000 connections who disappear after connecting with you the first time.
Reciprocity
Don’t expect others to share your content and talk about you if you don’t do the same for them. So, a portion of the time you spend on social media should be focused on sharing and talking about content published by others.
Simplicity and clarity
Does your content meaning jump out to the reader? Can they get the meaning easily without deep thought? Simplicity in understandability and readability are essential factors that will drive your content’s success.
Learn as you go
Don’t think you can execute ‘drive-by’ content that will succeed. Plan and refine continuously. Use analytics and reliable tracking tools to know what is working best and follow these paths.
Compounding
If you publish amazing, quality content and work to build your online audience of quality followers, they’ll share it with their own audiences on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, their own blogs, and more.
This sharing and discussing of your content opens new entry points for search engines like Google to find it in keyword searches. Those entry points could grow to hundreds or thousands of more potential ways for people to find you online.
Accessibility
Don’t publish your content and then disappear. Be available to your audience. That means you need to consistently publish content and participate in conversations. Followers online can be fickle and they won’t hesitate to replace you if you disappear for weeks or months.
This is your time to create successful content marketing. With good continuity and persistence helpful, relevant content will be able to develop lasting relationships with your customers. Lead with initiative and own the moment. Dive in today and notice how much your business improvements grow.
Remember this simple fact. Stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in. Let your content marketing success be your difference maker. From maximizing quality to increasing your online entry points, abiding by these 12 laws will help build a foundation that will serve your customers, your brand, and — perhaps most importantly — your bottom line.
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of word-of-mouth marketing. And put it to good use.
It’s up to you to keep improving your creative marketing efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today.
More reading on marketing and advertising from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Are you one that works too many hours? They probably don’t pay you by the hour, do they? More about results than time, right? Certainly, all three are a yes answer for me. And I like to find ways to reduce time on simple, mundane tasks. So my favorite online writing tools add a great deal to making my work life easier.
We’re living in an age where online writing tools make learning writing skills much easier and more fun than it’s ever been. Learning such skills is and always will be an important part of our continuous learning. In fact, you might say that today it’s more important than ever. Online writing tools make it easier to achieve, too.
Self-publishing is on the rise, and job markets are far more competitive than they’ve ever been. These are just two examples of how our ability to communicate with words will affect how successful we can be.
I love to read, learn, and try new things. Like new tools for my content marketing. Often, I’ll see something that I want to try, save, and connect with other new apps I am using. Ideas that come from previously unconnected planes of thought, as Mootee states. There are many apps for workers looking to improve productivity like me that can be a big help in this regard. And less wasted time? Yes, splendid for that also.
But what does “great content” really mean? And is “great content” really enough?
“Content is like an arms race right now. Even publishing epic stuff isn’t sufficient. To stand out, you need to give your content that extra “umpph” that makes it spread like Nutella. Content like this.” – Brian Dean
This makes you think: What writing tools were you not using two years ago that today you can’t imagine living without today?
So here are my favorite online writing tools in 3 categories:
Online writing tools … editing
Wordcounter—Wordcounter ranks frequently-used words in any given body of text to help you see if you’re overusing any particular words. It also helps to locate keywords.
Hemingway—Hemingway helps you write like the great man himself; simple, clear, and bold. Short sentences boost readability by 58%. Run your content through The Hemingway App at the proofing stage. Then use it to simplify long sentences that may be hard to read.
Cliche Finder—As the name suggests, use this tool to help you spot any cliches in your content.
Grammarly—Grammarly helps you hone your writing skills by finding and correcting any errors. More errors than a standard word processor.
Autocrit—This is an online manuscript tool for fiction writers. Quickly self-edit your work anytime, anywhere.
Online writing software … writing
My Writing Spot—This clutter-free online writing workspace features autosave capability, a word counter, and a built-in dictionary/thesaurus. It also contains document groups for organization and collaboration.
Ohm Writer—The original distraction-free ambient writing space, and still a favorite with writers of all kinds all over the world.
Write Space—This is a Google Chrome plug-in that provides a fully customizable text editor right in your web browser.
Brainstorming
Stormboard—A versatile multicolored collaborative space where you can add sticky notes, photos, and videos to a shared wall.
Wridea—Wridea is a web service that lets you share, organize, and improve writing ideas collaboratively.
Bubbl.us—This is a fun and simple mind mapping tool. It enables you to organize and plan ideas. It also can present them to colleagues in a clean and stylish manner.
Easily the best note-taking app on the app store. Hands down my favorite. Evernote will not only store out the notes you tap onto the onscreen keyboard but also the notes you record with your voice. You can even store photos and synchronize your notes with your Mac or Windows-based PC. You can also geotag notes to make them location-based.
Evernote is an organizational tool that you can use as a storing place for short notes, or as a place to collect all your thoughts—links, photos, notes, checklists—for larger projects. An app that is super versatile.
You can take notes, create to-do lists, record voice reminders, and save your ideas and URLs to websites you visit. Access to Evernote is available on almost any device, and you search through your notes by keyword. Stacks, Notebooks, Notes, and Tags, are how you keep track of everything in Evernote. It’s a great app for eliminating clutter and staying organized while working on multiple projects or collaboration with several clients. Amazing.
Scanner Pro
ScannerPro is one of those Evernote-related apps. It is designed for quickly getting a hard document into digital form for easy sharing and sending. Scan documents, business cards, receipts, and more by taking a picture with your iPhone, and then save or send the document. By linking ScannerPro with Evernote, you can go entirely paperless by taking pictures of all your papers and then saving them to Evernote. Photos will be saved, and we’ll recognize the text in them, making all your documents searchable and accessible from anywhere.
Goodreader
Working with PDF documents is something I regularly do, and this app is a good way to do it. It has many features that make viewing and editing PDFs productive, including full markup capability.
There is a file manager built into Goodreader that works with both local files and those stored in primary cloud storage services.
The bottom line
Ponder for a moment … the iPad, Cloud computing, and Apps. A few years ago, they barely existed. Now they’re an integral part of our lives.
That swift journey from nonexistent to indispensable seems to happen a lot these days. But it gives us unlimited access to improve our learning and utility for idea connection.
What are your favorite productivity apps that you can’t live without? I would love to hear your recommendations.
Need some help in building better customer insights from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer base?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job of growing customer insights and pay for results.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new insights that you have learned.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
Check out these additional articles on customer insights from our library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Seth Godin was quoted as saying: We don’t have an information shortage, we have an attention shortage. Seth certainly gets it … probably had it down before anyone else. What you may be asking? The concept of what it takes for content marketing success, of course. Secrets? Probably not. But certainly essential for success.
Content marketing tactics such as blog posts, feature articles, optimized website copy, white papers, social media content, and press releases move consumers along a specific path. Content marketing generates awareness of your brand, product or service; inspires consumers to engage and consider you; converts them into leads and sales, and creates advocates. Lots to gain, yes?
Discover how content marketing
exposes consumers to your brand, engages potential customers, and converts them
into leads and sales. The
following are our recommendations for ensuring the success of an online content marketing strategy that
even small businesses can successfully implement today:
Influence
marketing
There is nothing more valuable than contact with people who already have popular website. Do not try to ask them to promote you, better option is to some ego-bait stuff (like interview) with them then ask them for guest blog.
Are you one that believes that creativity can be learned? We are among that group. We also believe in suggestions for innovative thinking can boost team creativity through effective collaboration. Through a series of sparks and not a single flash of insight. Certainly our way of thinking on influence marketing.
In-depth articles
Forget
about writing average blog posts. Instead of this write some 10X stuff – 10X Content is the
Future.
Combine techniques
It is a mix of skills you already know but from your perspective. For example, I used to check the volume of keywords trough Google PPC and Bing PPC program then make a new content map strategy.
SEO strategy plan … competitors
Tools
designed for spying on your competitors cover just 50% of this job. Check every
post, comment and article your competitors push. This way you can measure what
strategy could be fruitful for your business.
SEO
strategy example … content
Not
just SEO’d and unique but also useful. Your content should be shared and liked.
Your goal here is to be noticed and mentioned and receive as much attention as
possible.
Promotion
No matter how good your content is, you won’t get any benefit from it unless you promote it. Hard. Remember 99% of perspiration and 1% inspiration.
Content comes first
A
website with brilliant content can do great with or without SEO, a website with
bad content will not survive with or without SEO, a website with good content
can become even better with SEO!
So,
what is considered good content?
Original Content (articles, text, images, videos, presentations, infographics, comments, etc.) – No copies or re-writes of existing articles
Content published on
your website first – Even if it’s your own content,
if you have already published it on another website then it’s not good for your
site.
Content that includes text as well – Try to have text to accompany your non-text content. For example, if you post videos on your website try to add a text description as well. If you add images try to describe in words what the image is all about.
Content that is well researched – Users don’t want to read quickly prepared posts and neither does search engines. If you are writing about a certain topic or answering a question make sure that what you write is justified and covers both sites of a story. Long articles are proven to rank better than short articles.
Posting frequency – 2 things are important when it comes to posting frequency.
The first is to have fresh content on your website and second to establish a publishing strategy and stick to it.
Keyword
research
–
is the main driver of successful SEO. In order to improve your search engine
ranking, you’ll need to first analyze keywords that are relevant to your
industry.
Sound
link building
–
it’s simple: High-quality link building produces greater results.
Creating
quality content
–
Don’t let poor content affect your site’s search engine rank. It’s vital that
you offer engaging and useful information to keep your visitors coming back.
When
you go about implementing SEO strategies –and in order to guarantee a
favorable search engine ranking–try following these methods to improve your spot
in SERPs.
Content-marketing
strategy
Every website should have a content strategy focused on your top keywords. When you create content such as blog posts, videos, whitepapers, research reports, and webinars, it gives people something to link to. In addition, the content you create can rank by itself in the search engines.
For example, if you write a blog post on “How to Pick an SEO Company,” there is a possibility it will rank for some of the keywords you use in the title and in the body post, especially if the post gets linked to from other websites or shared a lot on social media. It also helps if your website as a whole already has significant-high-quality links.
This
results in high domain authority, which translates into better rankings for all
of your content. In addition, regular content creation shows Google that your
website is alive and active. By sending this fresh content signal to Google on
a continual basis, it will result in better rankings for your website as a
whole.
SEO
strategy plan … generate quality backlinks
Having
an influencer and content marketing strategy will help you develop backlinks to
your website, but it is also important to actively be seeking ways to get
people to link to you. Some of the best ways to do this are to write for a
large publication, do industry interviews and recommend your powerful content
to people who matter.
In
addition, you can also use tools like Majestic SEO to see who is linking to
your competitors. Once you identify the links to your competitor’s sites, you
can analyze these links, learn how they got them and implement a similar
strategy for your website. For example, did they donate to a charity causing
the charity to link to their site? You can do the same thing.
Be
mobile-friendly
In
2015, there was a major Google update known as Mobilegeddon. This meant that if
you did not have a mobile version of your website by April 21, 2015, you lost a
significant amount of your rankings in the mobile version of the Google search
listings.
So your website needs to be mobile-ready. There are three types of accepted options for a mobile site in Google’s eyes: responsive design, being set up on a mobile subdomain or use dynamic serving. Google also now ranks websites higher that apply SEO for their apps. So if you have an app, make sure you are taking the time to implement application SEO.
The bottom line
Since as much as 90% of what we learned in a life-time always come to us via visual cues, we should constantly enhance our perceptual sensitivity to the environment, according to information scientists.
So, more than 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci was right when he said, use all our senses, especially our sense of sight. Our power of observation and imagination depends on it. Productive thoughts often have their origins in the combinatorial play and dynamics of sensory inputs from environmental cues.
In my view, our thinking cap is often governed by how far we can stretch our power of vision and imagination.
Need some help in finding ways to grow
your customers? Such as creative
ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers? Or perhaps finding
ways to work with other businesses?
So
what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only
the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the
effectiveness of collaborative innovation. And put it to good use in adapting
to changes in your business environment.
It’s
up to you to keep improving your learning and experience with innovation and
creativity efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor
may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that
it is within you already.
All
you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day
you learn and apply new lessons.
Try.
Learn. Improve. Repeat.
When things are not what you want them
to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Are
you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself
and your team?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Check out these additional articles on business and its performance from our library:
The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all but goes on making his own business better all the time. Yes indeed, Henry Ford. Chipotle creativity for customer growth is a winner.
Are you one that believes that creativity can be learned? We are among that group. We also believe in suggestions for innovative thinking can boost team creativity through effective collaboration. Through a series of sparks and not a single flash of insight. Certainly our way of thinking.
Yes, Chipotle marketing is making it’s business better and better all the while. And their growth is all about a very successful marketing strategy.
Of course, if you are a competitor in the fast-food industry, you know this. Or if you have noticed the growing number of Chipotle restaurants, you likely know this. Chipotle marketing creativity is clearly winning the day.
Chipotle, while not a small business, does have many marketing characteristics similar to those of small businesses. They work with a small budget, barely advertise on TV and do their own work in-house.
Related post: Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study
How’s that possible? Have you noticed it? It is hard not to notice, isn’t it? Let’s examine the reasons their marketing strategy is so effective:
Tagline and brand
The heart of Chipotle’s marketing strategy is its brand. The brand is built into and reflected by its tagline … Food With Integrity.
It means they serve the best sustainably raised food products with great taste, nutrition and value. And it means a commitment to source organic and local use dairy from cows raised without the use of steroid hormones.
They clearly understand that their brand is not about them. Rather it is about how potential customers see them, feel about them, and talk about them. They realize that their brand represents their current and future relationships.
Their goal is to deliver an emotional connection and a personality to their food and service. And they are doing it very well.
Content marketing
Chipotle put content marketing to very effective use. It recently announced it would become the first U.S. restaurant chain to remove as many GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) foods from its menu as possible.
To complement the announcement, and to curb any skepticism about the source of their products, the company created and released a three-minute video commercial on YouTube called “The Scarecrow.”
To attract your dream customers, you’ll want to connect with them using social media, and videos are the best way to do that as well. Videos are the most popular type of social media content and are more likely to be viewed than text or image posts.
Videos also get shared more on social media with video posts generating 12 times more shares than text and video posts COMBINED! The reality is clear: If you want to capture and keep your customers’ attention, you’re going to have to start putting yourself in front of a camera.
The video content marketing strategy was to appeal to emotion to make it extremely impactful. And it has been a huge success and it has been extended with a new video series.
Website development
The website is the marketing center of this firm’s marketing. Its design is simple, yet contains the means to integrate all the strategy elements we discuss today.
It encompasses several ways to allow two-way client engagement, including email and many frequently asked questions along with consumer information about their products.
Little to no selling. Their strategy reflects the belief that pushy sales pitches turn customers off, but personally relevant and interactive engagement switches them on.
You can’t help but notice that all the material is put into the language of the customer community.
Embrace public issues
This practice keeps several public concerns front and center in their strategy at any one time. The company takes its messages on the issues to potential clients via their website as well as all their marketing channels.
All of the issues on their agenda represent those that the public majority supports.
Chipotle advocacy advertising
Most of the issues that the company decides to support are introduced into their marketing as advocacy advertisements.
These create very strong brand reinforcement.
Social media marketing
Chipotles’ put social media marketing to very effective use. They are very active with videos and storytelling and on Facebook and Twitter. All of these do an excellent job of customer engagement and presenting their story.
All channels are used to engage and share all their material in a conversational manner. Always looking to engage. They do an excellent job of driving new potential clients to their website.
Related post: 11 Steps to Media Framing Messages for Optimum Engagement
Examples for adapting to change
A very progressive company that keeps up to speed on customer trends as well as public issues. They certainly are always eager to adapt their business to new things.
And certainly always looking to try new things throughout their industry, to include marketing.
Lots to learn from Brian Carter and The Carter Group.
Short and sweet messages
80-90% of the marketing messages are 15 seconds. Very simple and to the point or objective.
As we said previously, many topics are used to produce many messages so as not to over saturate the market with the same ideas.
Integrating the elements
All of these strategy elements complement the firm’s brand and messages. The integrating elements?
The brand and the customer educational element. The key is to have a central theme for the brand. This is the most important part of the strategy.
The bottom line
Make your thinking vivid by including what comes naturally to you. For example, you may not be able to imagine sequences of images very well, but you may excel in imagining other modalities such as smell, touch, and sound.
You may be excellent in infusing your visualization with emotional charge and great feelings. DO not feel compelled to stay within any single modality but make your visualizations and imagination vivid and rich by including numerous modalities.
Your senses are wonderful tools for you to engage while unleashing the power of the imaginative mind. Make it colorful and exciting. Make your imagination your ally and your best friend.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
How would you like to be able to create awesome content marketing so interesting that people can’t help but be drawn into reading your subject? It’s every marketer’s dream – to hit on something that’s both entertaining but also refreshingly honest. One way is to use content marketing creativeideas and video.
Although very few of us can claim to fulfill such a tall
order on a consistent basis, there are companies out there who have completely
revolutionized how people see them – so that they’re no longer just another “me
too” player in a crowded sphere. Wouldn’t that be great to join that crowd?
Everyone is blogging, so you should to right?
Although blogging can be a great way to generate traffic, it takes time before
you will see results.
Content marketing works, but it takes a few years before you see great results. So if you are going to create a blog, be willing to invest 2 years before you are happy with the results, as this video says.
In his book, Contagious, Wharton professor Jonah Berger showed that one of the key reasons people share content online is because it arouses a person’s emotion. His point … content has to go beyond just being useful; it has to be unforgettable. Rather than trying to churn out quantity, take the time to figure out what kind of emotions move your audience.
In doing so, it’s important to remember
that not all emotion is created equal. In his research, Berger identifies that
certain kinds of emotions – those that get people “aroused” like awe, passion,
and anger – are much more likely to drive shares than those that make people
feel toned down – like sadness, relaxation, or contentment.
Don’t be afraid to rock the boat.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your
job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight
gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most
important is your next step. Call today.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add
in the section below?
Do you make continuous improvement a focus of your marketingstrategy? Most of the best marketing strategies we study and follow certainly do, and that is an awesome way to do marketing. Yes, the innovative marketing ideas of NASA marketing is making their messages better and better all the while. And their success has a ton to do with their marketing strategy. Of course, if you are a family with interest in space and science you certainly know this.
Have you noticed? It is hard not to notice, isn’t it? Let’s examine the reasons their marketing strategy is so effective:
Brand identity
Youthful, magical, fun, and family oriented making this organization true to its space brand.
While establishing a differentiated meaning for a brand is tough, perhaps the greater challenge facing marketers today is the growing number of places consumers touch a brand. It’s become incredibly more complicated to execute a brand promise. This is what we call bringing the brand to life.
Consumers are interacting with brands in myriad new ways, but brand organizations have to move much faster. They have to show greater agility and responsiveness to potential followers actions and reactions. This often must be at warp-speed in this rapidly changing environment.
The heart of the NASA marketing strategy is their brand. The brand is built into and reflected by its tag line … the happiest place on earth. They understand that their brand is not about them.
Rather it is about how their community sees them, feels about them, and talks about them. They realize that their brand represents their current and future relationships. Their goal is to deliver an emotional connection to their public products. And they are doing it very well.
Creative marketing campaign ideas … real time marketing
In their recent book, Marketing the Moon (MIT Press, 2014), Scott and Jurek trace the Apollo-era collaboration between private industry and NASA’s internal public affairs office. They contend that the massive campaigns launched then were some of the first deployments of what we’d call brand journalism and “real-time marketing” today. In fact, what Mars One is doing, with reality TV, brand partnerships, and an upcoming book called Mars One: The Human Factor says Scott is largely “the same as Apollo — but updated for today.”
Lansdorp would be lucky to recreate that success: in July of 1969, 94 percent of American televisions were tuned to the Apollo 11’s moon landing. And such widespread enthusiasm for the event was the culmination of a decade-long campaign to educate the public. At NASA’s inception in 1958, the agency hired public affairs staff “not as pitchmen, but as reporters,” according to the authors, a move largely at odds with the rise of a glamorous, oily advertising industry like the one portrayed in Mad Men.
NASA’s PR staff were broadcast- and print-media veterans and they served up copy like a newsroom. The team grilled engineers for stories churned out bylined articles and sent press releases meant to be copied verbatim by news outlets. They produced pre-packaged broadcast segments that often made it straight to the airwaves. In the early days, the office largely strove to introduce and explain complex technologies, tech that had previously been used mostly by soldiers and military men, to both the press and the public.
It was a task that, for over a decade, private companies involved in spaceflight were eager to augment. As a government agency coordinating with the military and Congress, NASA ultimately dealt in the release of information and facts. But private companies who earned NASA contracts often employed more glamorous tactics, including colorful press kits and advertisements for the watches astronauts wore, the Tang they slurped from packets, the cameras they used, and the companies like IBM that helped build their spaceships.
NASA did, however, enforce some restrictions. The agency’s photos were taxpayer-funded, so private companies could use them in advertisements without paying to license them — as long as NASA’s public affairs office approved how they were used. But NASA found itself blindsided by what would become its most in-demand asset: the astronauts themselves.
To maintain control over the astronauts’ public profiles, the agency signed a deal with Life magazine, essentially granting the publisher exclusive rights to the astronauts’ lives. Until the contract ended in 1962, the magazine ran cover stories featuring the astronauts and their families (“Making of a Brave Man,” “Astronauts’ Wives”) and spun off a handful of books as well, including a collection of first-person space tales. As Scott and Jurek write, “The astronauts and NASA worked with Life … to carefully craft the image of the astronauts, not as military men, but as middle-class average family men thrust into service for the good of their country.”
Innovative marketing ideas … content marketing
Build excitement: Let’s face it; NASA is not a low-cost organization. By providing custom touch points filled with useful and exciting content, unique to each families’ touch, NASA strategy is helping to build excitement. It works, and it’s brilliant.
Personalize: All customers are unique, have different needs, especially in travel. Since this is not a one-size-fits-all world, what everyone needs is different from just about every other person. NASA takes advantage of that and delivers value somewhat unique for each family.
Times have changed since NASA’s early space travel to the moon, but their marketing ideas are still amazing.
NASA case study … the power of prizes
Most people recognize Charles Lindbergh as the man who achieved worldwide fame when he made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris in 1927. But relatively few people know that Lindbergh did it to win a $25,000 prize (worth approximately $340,000 today) offered by a New York City-based hotel owner.
Lindbergh’s story unfolded nearly a century ago, but it continues to serve as an example of the extraordinary things people can accomplish when incentivized by awards, public honors, and cash prizes, as well as the ingenuity unleashed by competition on a level playing field, where underdogs can make their mark. Recognizing the power of this principle, in 2009 President Obama urged Federal agencies to pursue “high-risk, high-reward policy tools such as prizes and challenges to solve tough problems.”
Answering this call, NASA has increasingly turned to public competitions as a source of fresh ideas to help meet engineering challenges in aeronautics and space exploration.
“Prize competitions have become a keycomponent in NASA’s toolkit for developing technology and solving problems,” says Gladys Henderson, executive of the Agency’s Prizes and Challenges Program. “Because we only pay for success, we have found them to be remarkably efficient regarding getting the job done—which is a win not just for NASA but ultimately for taxpayers.”
The Agency’s flagship effort in prize competitions dated to 2005 when the Centennial Challenges Program was established to engage the public in advancing technologies relevant to NASA missions. After proposing a set challenge for competitors—say, to build a robot capable of finding and collecting geological samples from a large field with varied terrain—along with precise criteria for success, NASA holds an event. Teams use either their funds or outside investments to develop a technology beforehand and then bring their creations to the competition.
Social media marketing and NASA
There aren’t many businesses or brands in the world that can rival NASA’s social media game. While the stereotypical image of NASA employees is that of serious people wearing lab coats and discussing incomprehensible rocket science, the premier space organization showed the world that it could form connections with even those people who have an aversion to science.
Today, NASA boasts of over 120 million followers across all social media sites, on which it handles over 500 accounts. While you may think to gain such a massive following wasn’t a particularly difficult task for NASA (after all, they’re posting pictures of space, and who isn’t interested in those, right?), the organization put a ton of effort into making it happen.
NASA marketing … educate and entertain
One thing that has boosted NASA’s popularity on social media sites is their unexpectedhumor. As one of the foremost pioneers of technology in this century, no one could have faulted NASA if they had decided to adopt a serious and scientific tone for their social posts. But the company did what no one expected – they were funny. Using a first person voice peppered with witty phrases for their spacecraft deployed on extra-terrestrial missions, NASA brought a whole new dynamic to engaging audiences on social media.
The space agency has also taken to sharing the latest cosmic images, sent by its various spacecraft, on Instagram even before they’re released to the media. Since images of nebulas, galaxies, black holes, and the like are instant attention grabbers (a cursory look at their Instagram page will tell you what I’m on about), NASA capitalizes on it by providing information about the cosmological entities which most people would otherwise have no interest in learning about. Astronaut Scott Kelly’s regular posts during his year on board the International Space Station also proved to be a great hit on social media.
Advertising ideas for small business … web site
The NASA web sites are the physical center of this Agency’s marketing. Their designs are very user-friendly, yet contain the means to integrate all the strategy elements we discuss today. They encompass several ways to allow two-way client engagements, including live chat, email, and telephone.
Again little to no selling, as they let their accomplishments do the marketing. Their strategy reflects the belief that pushy sales pitches turn customers off, but personally relevant and interactive engagement switches them on. You can’t help but notice that all the material is put into the language of the client community.
It’s the stories
In 2016 NASA’s Astronaut, Scott Kelly returned from a one-year space mission aimed to test the limits of human endurance in space. While in space using the hashtag #AYearInSpace, millions of spectators followed the year-long adventure and its near endless stories.
Astronaut Kelly tweeted, posted content on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook (including Facebook Live Sessions), and Snapchat. NASA looked to engage a whole new audience, by using platforms that millennials would use. As a result, they sparked fresh interest in younger generations.
Adapting to change
The NASA marketing strategy is in a state of continual change with new and creative ideas. A very progressive organization which keeps up to speed on consumer trends and needs. Certainly always eager to adapt their expertise to new areas. And certainly always looking to try new things, to include marketing.
Sharing the unexpected
NASA utilizes all the main marketing elements, channels/platforms to engage potential clients. All channels are used to engage and conversationally share all their material. They are always looking to engage and learn and serve customers.
NASA’s mission to achieve the unexpected extends to its marketing initiatives, which have developed over time into a tremendously effective program.
Following the 2008 Twitter announcement that spacecraft Phoenix had found water on Mars, the NASA Twitter account gained 75,000 followers and became the eighth most followed account on the platform at the time.
This feat was the first big step in NASA’s development of an organization-wide social ecosystem that was designed to turn “NASA enthusiasts into brand ambassadors.” As a federal agency, NASA cannot fund promoted or sponsored content, yet over time it has been able to grow a large and loyal following using the organic content.
NASA’s social team publishes content to nearly 15 platforms, the agency’s Twitter handle boasts over 17 million followers, and the Mars Curiosity Rover handle alone has 3 million followers. NASA has nurtured followers-turned-ambassadors whose fandom is so serious that they stepped in during the government shutdown (while NASA was unable to tweet) with the #thingsnasawouldtweet hashtag, eager to keep the agency’s mission alive and well, even when NASA itself could not.
Today, the NASA headquarters include a specialized social team that uses a single, unified social platform. The team’s success centers around the concept of what NASA deputy social media manager, Jason Townsend, calls “brute force coordination” – regular communication across teams and levels, both top-down and bottom-up.
NASA has utilized its marketing prowess in many ways. Its technological prowess is storied, but it was its marketing genius that set them apart from everyone else. Use a little of NASA’s businessinsight in your content marketing campaign and enjoy renewed and continuous business success.
For a different way of marketing see our article on Marriott Marketing.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
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All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Do you make continuous improvement a focus of your marketing strategy? Most of the best marketing strategies we study and follow certainly do, and that is an awesome way to do marketing. Yes, the innovative Disney marketing strategy is making their business better and better all the while.
And their growth is all about their marketing strategy. Of course, if you are a family with children or grandchildren you certainly know this.
Too often we obsess about using digital techniques to DRAG customers to our website or social media accounts. But it’s so much easier to show up where they already have an established community — in real life or on the web — and just be a helpful, friendly human being in that environment.
Have you noticed? It is hard not to notice, isn’t it?
Let’s examine the reasons their marketing strategy is so effective:
Marketing, at its best, is about the future. Unfortunately, we spend most of our time stuck in the past. We research what already happened and extrapolate forward to produce a plan. It’s not that we’re lazy, we simply know a whole lot more about the past than the present or the future.
Here is an interesting story about how Pablo Picasso, the famous Spanish artist, developed the ability to produce remarkable work in just minutes.
As the story goes, Picasso was walking through the market one day when a woman spotted him.
She stopped the artist, pulled out a piece of paper, and said, “Mr. Picasso, I am a fan of your work. Please, could you do a little drawing for me?”
Picasso smiled and quickly drew a small, but beautiful piece of art on the paper. Then, he handed the paper back to her saying, “That will be one million dollars.”
“But Mr. Picasso,” the woman said. “It only took you thirty seconds to draw this little masterpiece.”
“My good woman,” Picasso said, “It took me thirty years to draw that masterpiece in thirty seconds.” [1]
Picasso isn’t the only brilliant creative who worked for decades to master his craft. His journey is typical of many creative geniuses. Even people of considerable talent rarely produce incredible work before decades of practice.
We already know that marketing is becoming more social, local, and mobile, just as we know that big data and new interfaces such as touch, voice, and gesture are becoming increasingly more important. What comes next?
Some excellent examples are shown here.
Brand identity
Youthful, magical, fun, and family-oriented, and true to the brand.
While establishing a differentiated meaning for a brand is tough, perhaps the greater challenge facing marketers today is the growing number of places consumers touch a brand. It’s become incredibly more complicated to execute a brand promise. This is what we call bringing the brand to life. Consumers are interacting with brands in myriad new ways, but brand organizations have to move much faster, with greater agility and responsiveness to consumer actions and reactions, which can be at warp-speed in this rapidly changing environment.
The heart of Disney’s marketing strategy is their brand. The brand is built into and reflected by its tag line … the happiest place on earth. They clearly understand that their brand is not about them. Rather it is about how the potential client community sees them, feels about them, and talks about them. They realize that their brand represents their current and future relationships. Their goal is to deliver emotional connection to their services. And they are doing it very well.
Innovative Disney marketing … content marketing
Build excitement: Let’s face it; Disney is not a low cost vacation. By providing custom touch points filled with useful and exciting content, unique to each families’ post-purchase, Disney is helping to build excitement. It works, and it’s brilliant.
Personalize: All customers are unique, have different needs, especially in travel. Since this is not a one-size-fits-all world, what everyone needs is different from just about every other person. Disney knew that and deliver a book that is unique for each family. They send a book that was specific to their hotel and reservation details … all the information needed in a custom 15-page book. It works, and it’s brilliant.
Times have changed since Walt Disney’s days but his marketing ideas are still amazing. Let’s take a look at a few of Disney tactics:
Continuous promotion – If there was one thing Walt Disney did well it was promoting his business. And he did so continuously. He made sure he kept his organization in your mind. When it came time to think of going on vacation, to a movie or any of a number of other things Disney always came to mind.
Build lifetime value – Go to a Disney attraction today and find people who have been coming back for decades and many times at that. Disney keeps their customers so happy that they keep coming back, again and again.
Web site
The Disney web sites are the physical center of this firm’s marketing. Their designs are very user friendly, yet contain the means to integrate all the strategy elements we discuss today. They encompass several ways to allow two way client engagements, including live chat, email and telephone.
Again little to no selling, as they let their products do the marketing. Their strategy reflects the belief that pushy sales pitches turn customers off, but personally relevant and interactive engagement switches them on. You can’t help but notice that all the material is put into the language of the client community.
Innovative Disney marketing … it’s the stories
The story is king – Walt knew that the story was the real reason people enjoyed his attractions. Even today, every Disney feature has a story behind it. People relate to these stories. It’s just part of the human condition. They are great at engaging people on a human level. Their stories abound at every turn.
Customer immersion
Always something new: Disney fans keep coming back because there’s always more to see. Disney’s motto isn’t “Lots of Rides”—it’s “The Happiest Place on Earth”. And Disney maintains constant interest by making sure there’s always something else to notice.
Interesting, interactive queueing areas for the rides.
Sporadic “spontaneous” performances by Mary Poppins or Alice and the Mad Hatter at various times of day.
Rides like the Jungle Cruise that are strikingly different at night.
Holiday theming. Different fireworks displays. “Limited-time only” eatables.
In the experience
Continuous theming: If you take away the theming, there’s nothing particularly special about Disneyland’s rides. Tame roller coasters, generic log flumes, perfectly ordinary carousels—off-the-shelf mid-range rides you could go on at any theme park. In fact, several nearby parks have far more extreme and exciting rides.
The thing is, Disney’s theming isn’t just slapping a few cartoon animals on the sides of rides. It’s all about the unique experience, complete and, in its own way, classy.
Engage customers directly: Disney was often seen walking around Disneyland talking to visitors. At other times he’d go to see a Disney movie and get people’s reaction to the picture. This was one of the ways Walt did his market research. You can follow this model also. Don’t always use a marketing research firm or some kind of online research tool, such as Google Analytics. While these are very worthwhile, there’s no substitute for interaction with customers. Get views about your products and services straight from the people who use them.
Details and more details: Enter any Disney property and you will see attention to detail everywhere. You know that something special is ready to happen. This is a key element of any content marketing campaign. Even the street signs on Disney properties pay attention to detail. They are rabbit ears with arrows on them. The company could have used normal street signs but where’s the magic in that?
Adapting to change
Disney parks are in a state of continual change with new entertainment. A very progressive company that keeps up to speed on consumer trends and needs. Certainly always eager to adapt their parks expertise to new areas. And certainly always looking to try new things, including marketing.
Can you change? Of course, you can. Everybody changes every day. But how versatile, agile, and quickly can you adapt yourself and your organization to stay relevant in today’s society?
Organizations are always evolving. What’s different now, is that we set a new speed record of change on a daily basis. Technology gives us unprecedented possibilities. And this sea of opportunities is pushing the traditional bureaucratic, controlled and hierarchical organization into an identity crisis.
Social media
Disney utilize all the main social media channels/platforms to engage potential clients. All channels are used to engage and share all their material in a conversational manner. They always looking to engage and learn and serve customers.
Short and sweet messages
80-90% of Disney marketing messages are short and to the point. As we said previously, many topics are used to produce many messages so as not to over saturate the market with the same messages.
Integrating the elements
All of these strategy elements complement the firm’s brand and messages. The integrating elements? The brand and the client educational element. The key is to have a central theme to the brand. In Disney’s case, the themes are all built around a family focus, fun, dreams, and happiness. Integration of all elements is the most important part of the strategy.
Walt Disney was a genius in many ways. His technological prowess is storied but it was his marketing genius that set him apart from everyone else.
Use a little of Walt’s business insight in your content marketing campaign and enjoy renewed and continuous business success.
Here’s the thing, the Disney dream isn’t just a new way of marketing, and it’s really a new way of running a business. They certainly understand this concept well and are using social marketing to rapidly promote their business.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.