The Main Artery

Cardiovascular issues are a potential hotbed for content marketing.

Content marketing is getting a ton of buzz right now, and in my opinion, cardiovascular marketing rises straight to the top in terms of categories that could really do it right.  Our target audiences are clamoring for information about complex diagnoses, procedures and lifestyle management.  It’s a category where the customer actually wants us to provide relevant content.

But how do you develop a content strategy that will really work?

TopRank’s Online Marketing blog recently posted an interesting round up from five “expert” content marketers.  Here are some highlights:

”Even when you are marketing to your entire audience or customer base, you are still simply speaking to a single human at any given time. Worry less about sounding professional and worry more about creating remarkable content that other humans can relate to.” Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs and co-author of Content Rules

“Nobody cares about your products and services except you. This knowledge is essential to great marketing because it gets your organization away from just yakking incessantly about your products and services. What your buyers do care about are themselves and they care a great deal about solving their problems (and are always on the lookout for a company that can help them do so).” David Meerman Scott, Marketing Strategist, Speaker and author of Real-Time Marketing & PR

”There is no market for your messages. Become a resource for your communities in your communities. They’re looking for insight, answers, direction; keys to unlock solutions that they did not know existed before you. The key is empathy. And to find this key takes research and understanding. Develop content based on what inspires interaction today and then build bridges between those conversations, communities and you.” Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks and author of Engage!

”Content marketing can be scary. Staring at the little blinking cursor can paralyze even experienced content creators. To make it easier, focus first on “atomizing” your existing content. (Thanks to Todd Defren for that term).

Be a digital dandelion. Take one of your existing white papers (or other form of comprehensive content) and deconstruct it. Make it into five blog posts. And a Webinar. And a podcast. And a Slideshare presentation. Each of those content modalities will have different audiences, so you’re building reach. Plus, each of those content modalities will be found and indexed by your most important customer – some guy named Google.

Repurposing and repackaging your content makes your content marketing task easier, AND more effective.” Jay Baer, Social Media Strategy Consultant and co-author of The Now Revolution

”Stop Writing about Everything. So many brands create content and try to cover everything, instead of focusing on the core niche that they can position themselves as an expert around. No one cares about your special recipe. No one cares about your iPad review, that has nothing to do with marketing automation. Find your niche, and then go even more niche.” Joe Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing Institute and co-author of Get Content, Get Customers

So what are the key takeaways?  I think these experts are telling us to remember that content marketing shares the same basic tenets for success that we know to be true for other tactics:

• Be human.
• Be conversational.  Avoid technical jargon.
• Talk less about our products, procedures and services.  Focus more on what they can do to improve patients’ lives.
• Be relevant.
• Focus.
• Be consistent.
• Use message frequency to our advantage.  Re-purposing the same content for use in multiple tactics, e.g., blogs, whitepapers, e-mail, etc. is really no different than the “old-fashioned” concept of a media mix that delivers a consistent message in TV, radio, print and outdoor.

Let me know what content marketing strategies are working for you.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 21st, 2011 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Education/Events, Engagement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.