7 Changes Forward-Thinking Marketers Need to Consider in 2017. Here are seven changes those industries have experienced — and what specific actions marketers can take to improve their content marketing programs in the coming year. Don’t think prospects should be able to watch whenever they have the time (they likely will never have the time or they’ll forget when they do have time). Though marketers have been using free and low-cost email survey programs to ask basic questions to gain general input for years, Levesque’s Ask formula shows that there is a point when marketers recognize the exponential value in asking their audience increasingly detailed questions that can fuel their product and service development. Change 3: Redefine crowdsourcing as a custom or premium content marketplace Stock photography has been around for a long time, but 500px takes it to a new level. Change 4: Increase adoption of direct-marketing techniques by content marketers The use of direct-marketing tactics by content marketers is reflected in the trend toward simpler home pages offering a provocatively titled incentive with a newsletter sign-up form at the top that doesn’t even require a visit to a landing page. What forward-thinking content marketers should do: Simplify the promotion of your list-building opportunities. It offers links to posts on its own as well as other sites. Change 7: Break the topic habit – and focus on serial content I have been crusading against the prevailing view of content as an ongoing series of disconnected topics rather than monthly themes addressing different perspectives. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).
As the season of reflection is upon us, it’s an ideal time to explore how much our industry has changed — and what lies ahead. As someone who has been in publishing and marketing for many years, I have seen the industries evolve a great deal.
What can enterprise marketers learn from publishing and marketing organizations? Here are seven changes those industries have experienced — and what specific actions marketers can take to improve their content marketing programs in the coming year.
Change 1: Use scarcity as an incentive for immediate response
Companies often posted video recordings of their free webinars that are available indefinitely. However, I have spotted a trend in which companies limit the availability of the recorded webinar to 24 or 48 hours so they can promote the opportunity as “view now or lose the opportunity,” creating a sense of urgency for prospects.
What forward-thinking content marketers should do: Offer time-limited access to some content, such as webinars, to motivate attendees to take action in a short time span. Don’t think prospects should be able to watch whenever they have the time (they likely will never have the time or they’ll forget when they do have time).
Change 2: Increase emphasis on survey-based products and services
Marketers have escalated their willingness to involve prospects and clients in the content ideation and production process. Author Ryan Levesque detailed this initiative in his 2015 book, Ask: The Counterintuitive Online Method to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy…Create a Mass of Raving Fans…and Take Any Business to the Next Level.
Though marketers have been using free and low-cost email survey programs to ask basic questions to gain general input for years, Levesque’s Ask formula shows that there is a point when marketers recognize the exponential value in asking their audience increasingly detailed questions that can fuel their product and service development.
What forward-thinking content marketers should do: Break the “I-am-the-expert” model, and replace it with an ongoing process of using your audiences as the true experts in your content development.
Change 3: Redefine crowdsourcing as a custom or premium content marketplace
Stock photography has been around for a long time, but 500px takes it to a new level. 500px calls itself “a photo community for discovering, sharing, buying, and selling inspiring photography powered by creative people around the world.”
What sets 500px apart is its Quests feature. Marketers can define the photographs they’re looking for and incentivize photographers to take photographs that meet their criteria within a specific time. Air New Zealand used this crowdsourcing photography site for It’s a Numbers Game. In this case, the qualifying photographer received air travel for two from anywhere in the world to New Zealand.
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