We are all publishers now

According to a recent survey from the CMI, 31% of marketing budget allocation is going into Content Marketing. 56% of Marketing Directors plan to increase this proportion over the next year.

Every brand is now a publishing company and marketing folk need to adopt publishing techniques in producing content. We attended a conference recently by Raconteur and they outlined a number of simple principles that people should follow when producing content. The key points were…

Getting it right

The key components of a good piece of content marketing are;

• Timeliness. Be first and don’t procrastinate. It is critical to have an opinion first rather than produce content two weeks after a topical news item. Don’t worry about the commas and fine tuning the word selection.
• Make it relevant and authentic.
• Engaging. Provide expert commentary backed up by data and insight.
• Consistent. The standard was should be consistently high. Don’t compromise on quality just to keep the frequency of output high. As Plato said “Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”
• Headlines. Headlines are more important than ever before. With mobile usage so high the article headline can be the only chance to capture attention.

Pifalls

The main pitfalls of publishing content by organisations are:

• The wrong objectives. The focus is on sales when it should be on developing fascinating content.
• Lack of editorial skills. Common mistakes include trying to say too much and present too many arguments or a lack of data or poor data sourcing.
• The writing is not engaging enough. 71% of people are turned off by ‘sales pitch’ content.
• People are unwilling to relinquish control (e.g. too many people involved in sign off which can delay the publishing date or create an article with too many different perspectives).