Since my invitation to the Content Marketing World meeting in Sydney apparently got lost in the mail, I’m attending vicariously through its web site and tweets.

One speaker that caught my eye (not my ear, as I wasn’t there and still bitter) was a rep of the Australian Football League, an organization’s whose AFL Media site is being lauded as a showcase for thoughtful content marketing on a huge scale. Among his tips that might apply to any business were:

1. Storytelling is at the heart of content marketing. Your company’s story may not involve scantily clad young men running around a elliptical field, but it likely has its own points of interest that can be used to connect with others. (To find them, however, you may have to work with someone not as close to the subject as yourself.)

2. Determine your content “dead zones.” For AFL Media, those were Wednesdays, when everyone was pretty much over what happened the previous week and not yet fired up for the next. As noted, these zones will be different for every brand, but company’s should trust their analytics to ensure posting when the audience is most engaged.

3. Tell it, warts and all. As the speaker and I share a journalism background, I can understand his desire for genuine, credible news – good and bad. That said, this particular tip might be best for the largest brands that remain under the public microscope and need to tell their story their own way.

4. Try, test and discard if necessary. The gaping maw of digital media can be intimidating, but its upside is the ease with which you can change and adapt your strategy as you learn. The bottom line: Be brave. After all, you could have the next “Barney Cam” (look it up).

The Public Relations landscape may have changed drastically over the past couple of years, but the basics remain the same.  The following nine tips can help keep you grounded as you contemplate the world of social media, viral videos and blogger relations.

1. Fortify Your Message – You must have a strong, carefully crafted and well-written message to get make your story stand out. Make sure you position your story appropriately upfront to gain the most exposure for your message. For best results, be news worthy.
2. Build Strong Relationships with the Media – Know the journalist, blogger, producer or editor and the publication they write for before picking up the phone or sending an email.  Engage with the media online (e.g., comment on a Facebook post, re-tweet) even when you’re not pitching them a story. LinkedIn is also a great way to connect with media professionals and to highlight your own work.
3. Create a Plan – Like any other business function, strong results can only happen with an effective strategy and supporting plan. What are your goals? Who are your target audiences? What is your timeline? What are your metrics for success? Use your answers to these questions to create an effective plan that is comprehensive and realistic.
4. Be Creative in Media Choices –  Your communications plan will help you whittle down the infinite number of traditional and digital media outlets available today. With your plan in hand, choose the types of media venues that target audiences read/watch and that may have an interest in what your pitching, then determine which journalists you should be talking to at those publications.
5. Recognize the Value of PR – A prominent mention in a respected media outlet or a Facebook post that has been shared and re-shared can be worth more than an entire ad campaign. And, the mention of your product or service in the media is free!
6. Be Accessible – Media professionals prefer to work with people who are accessible and easy to work with. Always ask them what their deadline is and what they need from you in order to meet it. Also be sure to offer the additional elements they need to round out their story:  photos, customer references, analyst references and additional sources, if necessary.
7. Follow-Up – One phone interview or email is often not enough. It is important to be in contact with journalists on a consistent basis with compelling information that demonstrates what you are pitching is viable, credible and worthy of coverage.
8. When in Doubt, Seek the Advice of a PR Professional – Public Relations is a business discipline; seek out a PR professional for advice and counsel when appropriate. They can be invaluable business partners.
9. Never Give Up! – You may not get the results you expect the first time around. Keep trying – persistent people get noticed!

It’s easy to get caught up in the hub bub surrounding content marketing. But, before you start churning out content, make sure you know if your video, white paper, blog post, Tweet, etc. will really be valuable to your customers. Or, as The Guardian put it in a recent article, “…for content marketing to succeed, brands need to produce authentic content that clearly resonates with the consumer.”

Like your marketing strategy, your content marketing strategy should be backed by data and research about your customers. To do this, more and more brands are scrapping their demographics in favor of creating buyer personas – detailed descriptions of who buys your product or service. These personas are examples of people you’d like to influence that you can turn to again and again when you are considering what content to create and how to distribute it.

Creating buyer personas is a complex process that involves bringing together customer and non-customer interviews, as well as internal and external research and analytics. Of those companies that have taken the time to tackle their brand personas,  many are using them for their overall brand strategies and to determine the success of individual campaigns. The smart marketers are also using them to make sure their content aligns with their customers needs.

For more information on brand personas:

NBC News Kills The Demographic, Personifies Its Viewers Instead

Companies That Totally Get Their Buyer Personas

4 Common Persona Mistakes to Avoid

Last night was a big night for the Sarasota Film Festival (SFF) and for Next-Mark. The festival announced their line-up for this year’s festival during a gala for premiere sponsors at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, attended by Next-Mark’s Steve Wroczynski, Director of Creative Strategy, and Joe Grano, President.  Next-Mark’s graphic design work was featured prominently throughout the event space.

View all 222 films in the SFF line-up by visiting the SFF Film Guide. The line-up includes the films below as well as narrative feature, documentation feature, and independent visions competitions:

• Opening Night Film: BLACKFISH, directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite
• Closing Night Film: FRANCES HA, directed by Noah Baumbach
• Centerpiece Films: THE SPECTACTULAR NOW, directed by James Ponsoldt and RUNNING FROM CRAZY, directed by Barbara Kopple

Tickets are on sale this Friday, March 15th, at 11:00 AM for the general public and may be purchased online via the SFF website, on mobile devices using SAMY, or in person at the SFF box office located within the Regal Hollywood 20 at 1993 Main Street.

The 15th Annual Sarasota Film Festival will take place April 5-14, 2013.  Events will be held throughout the Festival at some of the most beautiful and exclusive venues in the Sarasota area, allowing celebrities, filmmakers, film enthusiasts, media and even student filmmakers to experience what happens when Hollywood hits the beach.

Our new newsletter, “The Next Big Thing in 2013,” is now available for download. In our latest edition, you’ll find links to timely articles on marketing trends for the year, as well as a little news of our own. Download the newsletter (pdf).

Recently, an article, “Why Butler Basketball Holds The Key To Organizational Success,” on Forbes.com talked about Butler University’s amazing basketball program success. In just a few years and without vast resources and budgets, Butler has risen to national attention.  A Final Four darling, this Indiana institution came within an eyelash of defeating perennial powerhouse Duke for a national championship in 2010.

Reminiscent of another small Indiana basketball program, featured in the iconic film, “Hoosiers,” Butler relies on the essence of teamwork to succeed: the Butler Way.  It strikes us that what works on the court will work in business as well.

Among the principles cited are: humility, passion and a commitment to excellence, unity, servanthood (making teammates better) and thankfulness (learning from every circumstance). Furthermore, it is demanded of all Butler coaches and players that they live these core values, place the well-being of teammates before individual desires, embrace the process of growth and demonstrate toughness in every circumstance.

A focus on, and dogged adherence to, these success elements can bring a business endeavor to the same pinnacle – a peak some may view as unlikely, but which may not be unlikely at all.  And that’s a business advantage.

As Norman Dale, the coach in “Hoosiers” preached:  “Five fingers: one hand. Team, team, team.”  Butler is showing us the way.

(Author’s note: Small bias here, my son is a freshman business major at Butler – enjoying college life and learning a lot about business and sportsmanship too!).

Forbes recently divulged the following “5 Surprising Marketing Trends for 2013.” Though the article was targeted at small businesses and entrepreneurs, there just may be something for organizations of all sizes to learn in this look ahead.

1. Smarter social media

They’re preaching to the choir here, but we agree that not all social media sources are suited to every industry. Theoretically, according to Forbes, this will be the year when small businesses “become confident and adept enough at social media integration to pick the specific platforms that make the most sense for their business.” (Hopefully, others will follow, thinking before engaging and wasting time on sometimes half-hearted efforts that produce no return.)

2. Simplicity will reign supreme

Pushed to the edge of overstimulation by bright, flashy, complicated input, consumers in 2013 supposedly will respond to marketing strategies that re not only simple in nature, but promote goods and services that serve to simplify the individual’s life, or even just their customer experience. (Fingers crossed. We know we, at least, would enjoy a rest from glitz and Gangnam.)

3. Campaign-based marketing ill take a break

According to Forbes, the problem with focusing on a tactic that involves a set group of marketing activities and processes centered on one theme is that it operates on a company-based timeline. As consumers operate in real-time, the theory goes, social media and web sites will become the primary drivers of marketing in 2013. (For our nickel, marketing campaigns often can make good sense unless they detract from, or dilute, the power of the brand.)

4. Marketing will be more tied to revenue generation

In 2013, it is envisioned, marketing’s worth will start being weighed against sales growth vs. lead generation. This could entirely change marketing’s key performance indicators, according to Forbes, and lead to more effective marketing altogether. (Music to our ears. As a business strategy company, as well as a communications firm, we’ve always measured ourselves by the impact of our work on our clients’ growth and profitability.)

5. Mobile will get its due

Based on the fact that more people purchased smartphones than PCs in 2012, Forbes sees mobile strategy as a “bigger, boler line item on every major marketer’s strategy this year.” (As in social media, the trick will be knowing when to jump in and how best to do it.)

So there you have it:  Marketing in 2013 will be smart, simple, real-time, sales-focused and available on your phone.

Easy enough, huh? Not really. But we can help. Give us a buzz and get 2013 off to a roaring start for your company

It’s interesting that companies that never would advertise in a publication outside their target market will still jump feet first into every social media network they can find. This enthusiasm can leave them treading in water or being pulled under in quicksand – while no one notices.

But how do you know which network is right for your business or organization?

The answer is found in finding the outlets that reach your market and suit your content. And even if they all do that in some shape or form, it still my involve tailoring to suit specific audiences on the varied sites.

It can be complicated, but a recent article on the Ragan’s Health Communications News site recently provided some research tips, including:

• Facebook Insights – If you are the owner of a business page on Facebook, the Insights tool will give you data on age, gender, location, new “likes,” “like” sources (mobile, timeline, on-page) and more.

• LinkedIn Follower Insights – If you are the owner of your company’s LinkedIn page, you can get information on career levels, industries, job functions and locations of your connections.

• Followerwonk – Twitter doesn’t provide follower data, but this free tool can break down your Twitter followers by location, gender, social influence and language, and show the most frequently used terms in their profiles and tweets.

• Google Analytics – Among other features, this platform allows you to sort by social referrals with the Traffic tab, seeing which pieces of your content were shared and which drove visitors to your site.

The article also suggested a little competitive research, allowing you to learn from others’ social network savvy (or lack of same). And Pew Research recently released a report on more specific demographics (i.e. Pinterest users are mostly women; Facebook users generally under 50).

So there are a lot of things you can do on your own. Or you can ask us for help. We’ll be happy to assist you in making the most of social networking.

Most likely.

Do you have expertise in your industry? Do you have useful information that would appeal to clients and prospects? Can your product or service resolve a problem or challenge they face?

If the answer is “yes,” white papers can be an integral component in establishing your market leadership and drawing users to your web site to order or download them.

In that regard, here are some tips for creating effective white paper content:

– Save readers’ time by succinctly explaining a specific challenge that exists, i.e. a new regulatory mandate, and advising them how to successfully address it. You don’t have to name your own product or service – often it’s best not to – but you can show how its unique features and benefits are integral to the solution.

– The topic, in and of itself, may be boring (laws and regulations generally aren’t written to entertain), but the impact is not – or you wouldn’t be writing about it. Take the subject to the personal/corporate level with examples and just overall good writing.

– Break it up. Charts, graphs and quotes not only pull the reader through the copy but also highlight key points.

– Start with an outline, which is approved by all appropriate persons before writing begins. There are many ways to attack one subject, and opinions can vary on key points. An outline provides the writer(s) with a clear goal and manages the expectations of the client/manager.

There’s more, of course, but this is a start. If you need help initiating or maintaining a store of white papers, give us a call. We stand ready to help.