Recently I’ve attended two marketing events: the Content Marketing Show in Brighton and Digital Marketing Show at the London Excel.
Whilst listening to all these industry experts it became evident that over the past year there has been a sudden resurgence in real creativity.
Here’s a quick debrief of what I learnt from both exhibitions…
Each presentation displayed a shift towards amplifying content, and how to get that content across to your customer exactly how and when they want it…
…which leads to analysing the behaviour of your target audience.
It’s no longer about simply defining who your audience are, but understanding them, and this can only be done by producing great stories and making the most of online sources.
Branded3
Laura Crimmons at the Content Marketing Show (@lauracrimmons)
Laura Crimmons discussed the use of Brandwatch to research the behaviour of your audience.
Brandwatch is a useful social media monitering tool for a bit of good stalking.
It allows you to filter out the conversations that really matter in order to see what your target audience do, what sites they keep visiting, and the overall drives behind their actions.
This data is then categorized and captured to be transformed into relevant, real-time content.
Try out the demo here.
Chamber of commerce @brightonchamber
“Know your audience by using data. Market research, demographic analytics, social listening tools, social analytics #contentmarketingshow”
Hootsuite
Dan Spicer at the Digital Marketing Show (@DanSpicer)
Dan Spicer began with an interesting summary of social media behaviour over the past years…
2012 = year of the “follow me”
2013 = year of engagement
2014/15 = year of advocacy
It’s now all about targeting those niche communities and generating specific content around your product.
In order to do this you need to listen to the key conversations around your product, and use twitter to join in with them.
This is just as important as instigating a conversation.
“Stop worrying about technology, start worrying about who trusts you”
Dan also predicted that by 2017 a quarter of businesses will lose market position due to social business incompetence.
PLLYNN WRD @Pollage
“#SocialMedia Respect the platform, story tell & use the 80/20 rule for your content @DanSpicer @DMSLDN”
Katapult
Martin Broadhurst at the Digital Marketing Show (@MPBroadhurst)
In Martin’s talk, he made it clear that it’s not just the big social media sites that we need to keep an eye on; small forums are just as important for gaining an insight into our target audience.
Boardreader is a new search tool that enables you to quickly and efficiently search forums around a specific topic.
See below how you can select the ‘topics’ tab, which shows how many times the phrase ‘timber decking’ was discussed over the past few months.
It also states what sites these discussions took place on and on which month it was most popular.
The ‘forums’ tab then lists the specific forums for you to access conversations…
Omobono
Matthew Walko at the Digital Marketing Show (@MatthewWalko)
Matthew discussed the art and psychology behind storytelling for B2B companies, and how this has more impact on consumers than facts and figures.
When brainstorming new content, think of putting a customer as the hero, creating a conflict, goal, a solution… it’s all about making content relevant in a surprising way.
Create an exaggerated conflict to generate rich, exciting material. This is what will drive your content.
Claudia Bucello @Joey_cla
“Make the customer the main character @DMSLDN #DigitalMarketingShow #contentmarketing”
Red rocket Media
Stephen Masters at the Content Marketing Show (@mastertips)
Stephen discussed ‘episodic memory’- an interesting factor into how we associate feelings and images with particular memories.
“It’s all about playing with people’s emotions.”
Storytelling shapes our feelings.
Paint a picture using sensory language, create those “memory breadcrumbs” for the reader to connect with.
Make your messages memorable using catchphrases, highlights and cliffhangers…
…Most importantly, provoke thought and familiarity. Make them want more.
Wirehive @wirehive
“hooked on a feeling” stirring emotions creates deeper memories #contentmarketingshow @mastertips @RedRocketMedia”
I-COM
Mindy Gofton at the Content Marketing Show (@justhipper)
Mindy also mentioned a great tip for digital marketing agencies…
“Get your clients to understand the marketing process by setting expectations.”
Content doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t always lead to immediate links.
So persuade your customers to help out by supplying technical information, sitting in on brainstorming sessions, supplying former contacts in the field that could help with case studies.
All in all…
Both events were a true reflection of how only the empowered construction marketers, focused upon creating content for social, will succeed.
Gain an immediate competitive advantage by acting immediately.
As Dan Spicer stated, don’t be the ones to get left behind.
“Learn, iterate, evolve.”
To find out more about producing effective, measurable content download our Content Marketing E-book here.
