Nuggets of Goodness from the Content Marketing Retreat
Before I get into said “nuggets”, let me start off by saying that Whidbey Island, just north of Seattle, WA, is amazing. Langley, a charming little community on the island, hosted the 2nd Annual Content Marketing Retreat created by the Langley Center for New Media. Though we were there for business, the warm fireplace of our waterfront hotel room (at the Boatyard Inn), the view of the Puget Sound, and the sound of waves hitting the sea wall below us put us Kansas City kids in a happy place.
The retreat brought together some of the top content marketing minds and technologies in the industry for two days of presentations and intimate discussions on the nuts, bolts and future of content marketing. We were happy to be a part of it and our very own was one of the featured speakers. Here’s a little recap of some of the nuggets of wisdom that stuck with me.
Pemco Insurance is an Inspiration
Rod Brooks, V.P. & CMO of Pemco Mutual Insurance Company, kicked off day one with a great story that I wish all CMOs worldwide could hear and embrace. He recalled in detail the tale of the research and strategy process that he and his team went through to combat a downward growth curve. A hefty amount of customer research helped them to realize that no one wants to talk about insurance. People don’t even want to think about it and the only time they do think about it is when something bad happens. So, what the heck is your marketing and content strategy supposed to look like when your products and services are the last thing they want to think about?
During their customer research process, another interesting story became visible. Strike that. Dozens of interesting stories became visible…the unique stories of the very unique customers who love Pemco. Their “Northwest Profiles” campaign was born. Here is a company that is throwing their product/service content out the window and direcly focusing on telling unique customer stories. We love every bit of this. Here’s profile #48.
Rod also spoke about some of their social media efforts, in particular he talked about an overall focus of moving his team from using the “nouns” of social media (just using the tools), to the “verbs” of social media (actually engaging with people).
Lastly, Rod talked about his New Year’s resolution to exercise more and this really hit home for me. Not because I could stand to lose a few pounds myself, but because a high-performance marketing effort takes daily training, learning and activity, just like training for a marathon. Your competitors are training every day. Are they going to run circles around you? Are their marketing efforts going to leave you in the dust?
Don’t Forget About Keywords
Tim Frick, CEO of Mightybytes, provided a great framework for leveraging both existing keyword data (from your analytics) and keyword research to help guide your content strategy and editorial planning efforts. We’re certainly fans of that.
Awesome Curation Success Story from Curata
Pawan Deshpande, CEO of HiveFire/Curata, talked about the ins and outs of content curation and provided a great case study from one of their clients, Verne Global. Long story short, through Curata’s automated curation platform and microsite development service, Verne Global’s Green Data Center News (http://www.greendatacenternews.org) site has become the top site for news and information within the green data center niche, so much so that Verne Global’s competitors have approached them to advertise on the site. Good stuff.
Don’t Get Lost in the Metrics
Robert Rose from the Content Marketing Institute wrapped up day one with several great pieces of advice, one of which really echoes what we’re about. Near the end of his presentation, he pulled up a slide that read…“Content marketing isn’t hard”. The more we can keep it simple and focus on just getting it done, the more successful we’re going to be.
Day Two – Demo Day Pics!!
Day two of the retreat gave us the opportunity to do demos for attendees, so here are a few pics of future Divvyers! Thanks to all who attended and it was great to meet so many smart marketers!
