Getting found on the web is a growing concern for every business. Using SEO copywriting techniques, Content Marketing sends more targeted traffic to your website and isn’t expensive to implement. A growing trend in 2012 marketing plans and budgets, maybe the best news is this proven tool lends itself well to outsourcing. If you’re trying to “do more with less” in 2012, get a content marketing strategy in place.

What Is Content Marketing?

It’s creating and disseminating information (content) across many platforms to get your target’s attention and retain existing customers. Content marketing supports brand awareness and generates higher quality sales leads. The content supports your brand, extends your message, and should be compelling enough to be share-worthy.

Who Uses Content Marketing?

The trusted researchers at Marketing Profs just teamed with the Content Marketing Institute to find out. Their survey (B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends) polled 1,092 leading marketers worldwide and discovered 9 out of 10 B2B marketers now use content marketing strategies. Professional services firms lead the survey in the most use of content marketing (94%), with Healthcare following closely at 89%.

Why Invest in Creating and Distributing Content?

It helps your audience find you, which is called “inbound marketing.” It’s a very effective way to market directly to your specific audience. Other than the cost of developing the content (using SEO copywriting techniques), there’s no barrier to entry.

Where can I Market my Content?

Your content marketing strategy can cover marketing venues including:

• Articles, case studies and white papers (highlight your expertise)
• Presentations (make sure they are online and tagged for SEO)
• Blogs (write yours and promote it on others’ blogs)
• Social media (write posts strategically)
• eNewsletters (yes, it still works)
• Videos (YouTube is a huge SEO opportunity)
• Podcasts (be heard as well as seen)
• Electronic magazines and ebooks….and whatever will be created next!

How Much of my Marketing Budget should I Dedicate to Content Marketing?

Survey results showed B2B marketers spending 26% of their marketing budget on content development and promotion.  Smaller companies spent more, and over half of the companies surveyed planned to increase that content marketing spend in 2012.

What’s the Best Way to Create Content?

Outsourcing to a content development pro was the strategy of choice. An increasing majority of B2B marketers (62% according to the study) outsource content marketing. Why? Struggles with knowing what to write (41% of respondents) and producing enough content (20%) lead to the need to outsource content creation. In our experience, companies can clear these hurdles by:

1. Developing a strategic Editorial Calendar with leverage across every platform for each piece of content created: new website content drives a blog article, which creates an opportunity to tweet and post, etc.
2. Creating a sustainable process for consistent content marketing: an interactive online Editorial Calendar assigns responsibilities and generates email reminders to maintain accountability.
3. Tracking and growing content distribution: always seeking and cataloging more complementary sources for targeted traffic.

Online marketing for medical practices: choose your provider carefully!

This morning I did a quick free website review for a potential client, a solo practitioner in the health care field. They use a service “specialized in their industry” for web development services. No doubt they are charged a monthly fee of some sort for SEO (search engine optimization) and website maintenance. I don’t know for sure. The site, while pretty generic, was appealing enough on the front end, the part patients and potential patients would see. Short of suggesting that an email marketing signup form could be a helpful addition, along with some social media interaction, I didn’t make many design recommendations. But within three minutes of reviewing their website, I found this information in their back-end code:

1. Over 100 keywords stuffed on the home page.

There should be less than this number of keywords by a factor of about 90%! Among the “helpful” keywords jammed into their code: “doctor, Doctor, DOCTOR, help, Help, HELP, hospital, Hospital, HOSPITAL,” … you get the picture! This was not a surprising result to me, as it used to be a common “seo” practice. However, it’s a big “no no” as Google is hip to these shenanigans. What the practitioner might be surprised to know: this code can actually result in the website being penalized by search engines. Why pay for that? I did, however, get a healthy free chuckle out of “help, Help, HELP.” I happen to know that the Hippocratic oath contains advice to practitioners

2. Local search keywords missing completely.

Of the more than 100 keywords on the home page, the number that related to the practitioner’s name, location, or service area? You guessed it: zero! As a practice with a small, local service area, they are missing the boat here. Patients searching for them after a friend recommended their name, or knowing they practice in a certain town, will surely enter that information when doing an online search for a medical practitioner. Information on name and location are important keywords in marketing a practice online.

3. Misleading (I’m being polite here) keywords.

Marketing the practice online shouldn't be a headache.

Ok, so this is a healthcare practice. Their focus is on health maintenance and wellness for families. Keywords on their About page included “myspace, paypal, Viagra, Zoloft, Alli, Chantex, Advil” and other basically irrelevant topics. No doubt the practitioner did not request to be advertising for “myspace,” is not focusing on only providing wellness services to those taking “Viagra,” and wouldn’t want the practice name and location to be handled as an afterthought – which it is. The page has nothing to do with “myspace,” “Viagra,” or even “Advil” and again Google will see that its keywords and on-page content do not jive.

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What bothered me most is that if I had not taken a quick three-minute peek into the website as part of a complimentary website audit, this practitioner would have no idea about these results. Why would they? They’re busy serving patients, not looking over the shoulder of their website maintenance service – which is as things should be! This is why practitioners like this hire firms like SmartSite Consulting – so they don’t have to become experts in online marketing, search engine optimization, etc. I have years of personal experience in the healthcare industry myself, and know many medical doctors, specialist practitioners, and associated wellness practitioners (nutritionists, chiropractors, massage therapists, etc.). They are busy enough serving patients in this crazy health care environment we keep trying to reform. One would have hoped that a service specializing in their industry would at least offer best practices in internet marketing, helping practices be most successful. Call me Pollyanna, but I don’t think Viagra needs this kind of marketing help. Surely their pharmaceutical marketing budget far outweighs what this small local practitioner can afford for some online marketing of their practice!

Before you ask yourself how much your marketing spend should be this year (and where it should be allocated), ask yourself what your measurable goals are. Management guru Steven Covey advocates for beginning any activity with the end in mind, and this is a perfect example of why. Begin with the end goal in mind, and make it as specific as possible. What are your marketing/sales targets, and how will you know if the many elements of your marketing spend helped you get there? If you aren’t measuring this, you can’t know which tactics are most effective in driving sales, and therefore deserve the most investment.

Marketing is becoming more and more measureable with the internet marketing tactics like social media, website promotion, blogging, pay-per-click advertising, link building, and (more effective than you may think…) email marketing. Tactics are also creating better lead qualification and, therefore, clearer follow-up sales opportunities with yet more measurement options to consider.

Marketing Makeover #1: “I want more business.”

Of course, but how much more? What kind of business? Do you need one good repeat customer, or one hundred quick sales? Are you looking for more volume or more margin? Do you need more business or better business?

The Reveal:

 “I want X number of brand new customers who will buy X number of products or services from me. The tactics most likely to get me there are: _____________________________________________ “

Fill In the Blank options may include: 

• adding targeted landing pages to my website
• creating a professional PPC campaign
• launching an effective blog to drive traffic to my site

Marketing Makeover #2:  “I need more customers.”

Have you also considered selling more to existing customers? How effectively are you assessing the changing and growing needs of your existing customer base? Creating new products to meet those needs? How often are you reaching the right decision makers within existing customer organizations? Are you sure they know everything you can do for them?

The Reveal: 

 “I need X number of new customers and these tactics are likely to bring them in: _______________”

Fill In the Blank options may include:

• create more online advertising
• improve effectiveness of my followup
• use social media to increase inbound marketing efforts

“I also want X number of existing customers to buy X% more products or services from me. I’ll likely make this happen by: ____________________________”

Fill In the Blank options may include: 

• launching a quarterly email newsletter
• offering special discounts on new services purchased by existing customers
• surveying existing customers twice this year to assess their needs

Marketing Makeover #3: “I need to spend more so I’ll get more traffic to my website.”

Do you need more traffic, or better traffic? Do you know how much traffic you have, where it’s going, and whether it’s turning into new business? How do you measure whether traffic is turning into sales? Have you assessed where your traffic is coming from?

The Reveal:

“I need X number of website visitors to do this every week:  ____________________________”

Fill In the Blank options could be:

• fill out a contact form for my sales staff to follow up on
• request a quote on a particular item or service
• get a personal followup phone call from a qualified salesperson

“I also want to inform my spend by:  ____________________________”

Fill In the Blank  options  should include:

• tracking traffic sources more closely
• seeing what content attracts the best leads
• reevaluating my keywords for relevance

“Then I’ll know where to spend $X:  ____________________________”

Fill in the Blank options might be:

• SEO enhancements and some PPC ads
• organic search improvements with better content development
• new conversion forms and some inbound linkbuilding

Marketing Makeover Realization:

Unless you know what you want to achieve, you can’t know how to achieve it effectively.

1. Fear of the Unknown. These are new vehicles, and new users can be unsure about their return on the investment. How much to invest, how long an investment is required, and what potential returns will result are all valid questions for a business owner to ask. But just because these tools are “new,” does not mean they should be feared, nor that they will soon become irrelevant. Remember seeing your first Personal Computer? I do. (Okay, so that tells you I’m not in my thirties anymore. But it also tells you I have some perspective.) Weren’t you a little mystified about just how the darn thing worked? Were you going to lose your data? Was it safe? Sometimes we still have these worries, but we don’t let them stop us from benefitting from an awesome piece of technology.

2. Stranger Danger. The point of social media is to contribute, contribute, contribute….and then they will come. Like in the movie, Field of Dreams, remember? It is a bit of a leap of faith – put information out there, and “they” will come. Who is “they”? “They” are the people and companies who are interested in what you have written about, which of course should be quality information that is also in some way relevant to your product or service! Some business owners start using Twitter and feel a bit freaked out that “someone” is following them online. But the type of “stranger” following you on Twitter is someone with interest in your business, not a stalker or some insane zombie wandering out from amidst the corn. You don’t know them – yet. But you should, because they are your next new customer. They are no more frightening than any business prospect ever was, even though yes, they found you online. Scary? Not.

3. Writer’s Block. It can be daunting to conjure up topics to write about, especially when you know you should consistently be posting something of value in order to get results. Will you have enough material? Creating an editorial calendar to map out potential topics for the year can make this less overwhelming. You’re in your line of work, hopefully, because you have interest in it. Share that interest! Once you start dreaming up potential blog topics or FaceBook posts you may find it difficult to stop. If you’re really stuck, another idea is to collaborate with a complementary business and ask them to write a guest article for your blog. You can even ask a customer to contribute something, which they will find flattering. Or if they don’t love to write, just ask a close customer what they’d like to know more about, and you’ve got a great new topic that others are probably wanting to know about as well. One of my clients makes compost, for instance. They could write a blog post for a local garden center’s blog in Connecticut or Indiana (they have operations in both) about how to compost at home or what the benefits of organic compost are. People reading it will appreciate finding a good local resource for quality compost that will benefit their newly planted spring pansies (purchased at said garden center!), no doubt.

4. Resource Constraints. These days, this is a real biggie. Some smaller companies may worry they need to hire someone practically full time to keep up with social media requirements. Not so. Hire a good writer with the intelligence to learn your business and experience with social media, on a project basis or on a small retainer. You have now cleverly outsourced your social media needs without blowing your entire marketing budget for the year. You just found one great resource to call on if you’re reading this! Get in touch with me here:  contentbyleslie@gmail.com. I’ll offer up tons of topics and great writing to help you clear your social marketing hurdles and get off an running!

Got another hurdle ahead that I didn’t think of? Let me know what it is, and challenge me to solve it!

GreenCycle, with locations in both Connecticut and Indiana, produces natural landscaping products from recycled organic material. Their website is designed for performance, with search engine friendly architecture, keyword rich content, smart image tags, and more. We also incorporated social media, a new inbound marketing tool for GreenCycle. Launching a Facebook page for the company and adding a blog, called “The comPOST” (check it out for some great organic gardening tips!), GreenCycle now has effective ways to draw traffic and qualified leads to its website. The site was built in WordPress, giving Greencycle a robust content management system they can use in-house to keep their content fresh and their marketing efforts current. Check out www.greencycle.net, get some great ideas for your springtime garden, and maybe even choose the delivery option for your seasonal mulch needs! They’re a local business that really knows what it means to be “green.”