Marketing isn’t for small businesses. It’s for small businesses that want to grow. If you want to grow, if you want your revenues to go from $500,000 to $50 million, then you better start marketing and branding your company now.
There are situations where it is strategically more important that content be delivered rather than be good. And there are strategies where the content’s quality is more important than its frequency.
Not every company can be a leader in everything, but every company can be a leader in something. If your competitor launched a weekly e-newsletter, maybe you should launch a daily blog, a weekly podcast or a monthly magazine. Maybe the last thing you should do is exactly what they’re doing.
If I could only give one piece of strategic advice to any business owner, I would say this: Own and distribute proprietary content.
Most of the “Top Ten” type articles I see about improving your blog are filled with platitudes, like “Post regularly” and “Post relevant content.” Some drill down a little and offer ideas for the types of content you could post. I want to go a step further and offer something specific. Here’s one tip to improve your blog. This will be most useful for people who are using a blog to promote and/or report on a conference, convention or meeting.
I believe that a content marketing strategy can help any organization grow and prosper, but it takes more than a list of tips and platitudes to make it work. It requires a shift in perspective. If you’re a stakeholder or a consultant, it often requires persuasion and—worst of all—patience.
The challenge that a lot of my peers face is how to convince their bosses that spending the time and money on a content strategy will pay dividends in the future. Once that hurdle is accomplished, they face the practical challenge of implementing a content strategy. Anyone can set up a blog. Everyone should know that you need to post to your blog regularly. But it’s quite another thing to determine why projects languish and how to give them momentum.
Sway Engine is a fledgling business, so I still hold down a day job running the communications department at at trade association. When I started just over a year ago, the department operated like a traditional magazine publisher. The staff were responsible for generating revenue through a monthly ad-supported magazine. The association also had a [...]
I love the term ‘content marketing.’ I use it to describe what I do because I think it’s important to make the distinction between Sway Engine’s expertise and what other marketing communications firms do. I don’t get frustrated or upset when a prospect or client doesn’t “get it.” As the only one responsible for business [...]
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