Content marketing tips with Adam Franklin

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Here are my favourite parts of Timbo Reid and Joe Pulizzi‘s podcast on content marketing on last week. Either watch the video or read the transcript!

Bonus: Download the 33 free templates from the book Web Marketing That Works.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z52agBi8spk&rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Here is the transcript:

Hi there. It’s Adam Franklin, and welcome to this YouTube video.

Now it is the week of content marketing. The Content Marketing World conference is coming to Sydney, and I’ve just listened to a fantastic podcast between Timbo Reid, from “Small Business, Big Marketing,” Australia’s number one marketing podcast, and his interview with Joe Pulizzi, the founder of the Content Marketing Institute.

Now I really enjoyed it. I was nodding my head in approval the whole way through. So what I really wanted to do was distill my three key take-homes from the podcast and drill it down into a couple of minutes. You can certainly listen to the full podcast, and I’ll include that in the blog notes.

Tip One – give information away

The three key take-homes for me are, firstly, I guess the basis of content marketing, and the fact that you’ve got to give information away. It’s got to be valuable information in order to attract people into your business, rather than doing the traditional outbound method, which is just bombarding people with adverts.

One of the things that was uncovered for me with this interview is the fact that, yes, you do need to be giving information away. A lot of people have this objection to that, because, “What if I give too much information away? How much is too much information?”

Now what this podcast reinforced is that the more information you give away, the better, because if you don’t, one of your competitors will, and then they’re going to get all the credit for it.

Secondly, if you do give away more of this information, then people are against that sometimes, because they think, “Well, what if somebody comes along and actually applies this information and does it themselves?” Well, that’s great because they’re the do-it-yourself types, and they’re a completely different type of client to the people who are actually going to paying you money to do it for them.

So you should be giving information away. If you don’t, your competitors will. And if you do, you’re not only helping the DIY types, which is great, but you’re also proving your expertise to the people who are more inclined to outsource and then getting you to do it for them.

Tip Two – think like a publisher, not an advertiser

Now the second point that was made in this interview is the fact that content marketing is all about thinking like a publisher, rather than thinking like an advertiser. So if you pick up your favourite magazine or your favourite newspaper or your favourite TV show, it’s all about publishing stories that are interesting: things that the user or the viewer or the reader is actually interested in. Whereas you compare that to the advertising mentality, they’re just really slotting adverts or interruptions in between the parts that you’re actually there to read or listen to or watch.

Rather than thinking like an advertiser and arranging space in other people’s shows, create your own show. Create information that is more like the leading trade publication in your industry, that people actually want to read. If you go about creating information like that on your blog, on your YouTube channel, sharing SlideShare slides, you name it, there’s a lot of different ways to be sharing this information. But if you go in with the mindset of a publisher, then that is the way you should be doing content marketing.

Tip Three – content marketing takes a little time

The third and final tip that I got from this podcast is the fact that if you want fast results, forget about content marketing. If you want fast results, go ahead and buy ads because content marketing is more like a marathon than a sprint. It takes time, and you’ve got to build up your content and build up your relationships with the people who subscribe to your content. Whilst it won’t get you fast results, in the long run, it’s the only way to go, because every time that you buy ads or run ads, not only are you interrupting people and you’re renting space on somebody else’s platform, it gets more and more expensive. Every time you want attention you’re going have to fork out money to buy in the form of advertising. Whereas if you’re building up your platform and your content marketing system, and if you’re publishing blog posts and YouTube videos, then you don’t have to fork out money each and every time you want attention because you’ve earned it and you’ve built it up over time.

So there are the three take-home messages from the podcast with Timbo Reid and Joe Pulizzi. So that is: give information away – that’s valuable. If you think you’re giving away too much, you’ve probably got the amount right because it’s actually going to be valuable to the person receiving it.

Secondly, think like a publisher. Emulate the magazines and TV shows that you really like to watch.

Then if you want fast results, you’ve got to buy ads. Content marketing is a long-term game. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

So that’s a wrap. I’m Adam Franklin. On Twitter it’s @Franklin_Adam. I look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Connect

You can connect with Tim Reid and Joe Pulizzi on Twitter (@TimboReid and @juntajoe) and catch the full podcast of their interview, #125 Content Marketing with Joe Pulizzi.

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About Adam Franklin

Adam Franklin is the co-author of Web Marketing That Works. He also released 33 free marketing templates (free download). He is co-host of the top rating iTunes podcast, is an international social media speaker and marketing manager of Bluewire Media.