Loading ...The Web has drastically changed the way business is conducted. Fortunately, it not only provides many new opportunities, but it also, simplifies certain tasks. According to David Meerman Scott, Author of World Wide Rave and New Rules of Marketing and PR, there were essentially three ways to generate attention before the Web.
As he explains to WebProNews, these ways were buying advertising, the media, which he calls begging, and a sales force. These tactics work well for generating attention offline, but online, it’s a different story. Generating attention online requires marketers to create content just like a publisher.
Scott says the old rules make it hard to generate attention. However, the new rules allow any organization to earn attention, if it creates valuable information. He points out that organizations need to stop thinking like marketers, advertisers, and public relations specialists, and instead, think like publishers.
Once businesses create content, what can they then do to get people to share it? According to Scott, most companies talk about their product, which is not what users want to hear. He advises businesses to create content for their target market, or as he likes to call it, their buyer personas.
“It gets an organization away from talking about themselves in an egotistical way,” says Scott.
In reality, consumers only care about themselves and solving their problems. As a result, Scott suggests that marketers create individualized content for each of their buyer personas.
Once this is done, he recommends creating trigger points to encourage users to share. These trigger points could involve contests, humor, blog posts, videos, and many other ideas. If the content is good, then users will naturally share.
Lastly, Scott says marketers need to point users back to a place where some type of action can take place. Once again, as long as the content is valuable, it will draw users back to make a purchase.
Are you creating valuable content for your buyer personas?
Blah, blah, blah, that is 10 minutes of nothing. Must be slim pickings to have to regurgitate these obvious concepts and try to make them sound like new ideas.
Abby is very cute though.
By the way your Facebook application parameters are invalid.
Ten minutes of simple commonsense for sure, but stuff people should take to heart.
The idea of creating content and giving it away without any need to get an email address in return is appropriate as email is now very problematic with email providers and ISP’s routinely blocking/classifying emails as spam, even confirmation emails.
This is another timely video from WebProNews.
Congratulations, and keep them coming.
Thanks Andreas.
Rick – I’d love to see what you are doing considering you already know all this stuff. Why not tweet me a link.
David
Great interview Abby and valuable information from David. When you give away and e-book in exchange of an email address you are not really giving it away for free. You are actually just trying to find a way to engage that person who already showed interest in what you have to say. There is nothing about that.
It is however already known that if you create great information you publish freely you not only get the attention you deserve but also gain loyal readers and customers. We can take as an example blog such as Techcrunch, Problogger or JohnChow just to name a few and even search engines that we all use for free on a daily basis.
You can still achieve your conversion goals just with patience without asking for an email address upfront.
The team at WebProNews has done it again!! You have brought us a candid interview with David that is a wake-up call in a way as most of what David talks about is already in the public realm but most people never really pay attention to it and, most importantly, actually DO something in that direction.
Kudos to you at WebProNews and do keep those channels open for us to soak in all the gems that are out there!
Tom Njiri
http://www.tomasitransfer.com
Mombasa Kenya
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Hello Sir,
Ten minutes of a simple SEO tips. It very useful tips.
thanks sir…
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I think what Scott shares with us regarding ‘creating content that people want to share’ is very useful. In short its: create appealing content, make it easy for people to share, include a call to action to share, and direct readers to a ‘virtual doorstep’. I’m not sure if I understood this last point correctly but I think it is one of the points which isn’t shared so much.
My interpretation is that directing people to the same place for their contribution (be it blog comments, twitter, FB comments, youtube vids etc…) creates a sense of community. People will be more willing to contribute if they know there is someone listening and that an actual conversation is actually going on. This is something I learned from SeoMOZ who have a great community.
Am currently working on a project to achieve the same thing and it is very exciting.
Your information is really precious. I wants to add a little more that If you write between your field or make good research and provide quality contents people will not only like them, they will also share with the world. Just give the honest information about the topic and as much guide you can do to get good response from them. And at then end ask them for their feedback or a question relevant to that article. This will encourage them to comments and a long conversion will start on. As these strategies will work for any internet marketing business. Hope you found my tips useful.
What’s the news?
Fully agree. Your insights ring true – we are all too often guilty of trying to sell ourselves/ our products rather than actually identifying the ‘real’ problem of the client and how/why we are in a position to help them. Like the concept of shifing focus to publisher mentality vs. traditional marketing/advertising/pr. Well articulated article.
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a sales force. These tactics work well for generating attention offline, but online, it’s a different story. Generating