You probably wouldn’t be too happy about this.

Sometimes, in other words, the best way to handle an unhappy customer is to usher him or her out the door as quickly as possible. Why make the customer wait any longer? They’re already miserable!

Mobile developers and content producers, I’m talking to you here. When customers go to delete their accounts, let them leave without any hassle. Show some dignity! They have already demonstrated that they dislike your service. 

Just recently, a high profile company got into hot water for pestering its customers when it posted a long-winded apology in the issue resolution screen of its mobile application, which appears after customers delete their accounts. The company did this in response to a negative incident that went viral and caused many people to jump ship.

Whether or not the message was sincere, it missed the mark entirely. It read as a last ditch effort to stop the bleeding.

If this was my client, I would have advised them to post the message on their blog, or send it out in an email blast. It could have also been posted on their website. This would have been the classier thing to do.

So remember: Before posting any type of content, think about how it will be perceived by your customers. And if you have any doubts, ask for a second opinion.

But what does the Infinite Monkey Theorem have to do with content marketing? More than you might think!

When looking to establish a relationship with a third party content vendor, you can’t judge on writing alone. It is just as important to select a content vendor based on your judgment of the writers behind the words. When you find the right content producers, they will share your vision and seamlessly become an essential part of your marketing team.

But if you don’t take the time to get to know the writers behind the words, you just might end up going bananas trying to get your writers in line with your goals. So in the interest of helping you conduct your exploratory research, let me tell you a little more about what I believe about content marketing.

Every business is a customer service business.

I believe that every job, regardless of industry, is a customer service job. As a customer service specialist, it is my duty to meet or exceed every deadline. I approach last minute, emergency press release requests with the same degree of care as I would a long-form whitepaper. Your marketing department has enough to worry about already—let us worry about your content.

Don’t be a thought leader. Lead the thought leaders.

Many businesses want to leverage content to position key employees as thought leaders—influential and authoritative voices within your field. But in my experience, the sentiment rings hollow in most cases. A lot of the self-proclaimed thought leaders I see out there today are generating stale, repetitive content that looks just like the stale, repetitive content of all the other thought leaders out there. In order to truly make an impact, you’ve got to develop a content strategy that gets ahead of the pack and sets the tone of the conversation.

If you’re not ruffling feathers, you’re not trying.

The average consumer today is bombarded with content around the clock, wherever they go. So it should come as no surprise when your neutral and objective content fails to engage your audience—they have plenty more of it to choose from. But if you’re willing to stand up for a cause, experiment with a new medium and take creative chances with your work, you have significantly increased your chances of standing out.

When selecting an independent content vendor, you have to be just as mindful of the work you receive as you are with the writers who produce it. There are plenty of good people who can write good content. But to take your brand to the next level, you’ve got to find the right people that can generate great content.

Keith Batter, known as “The Machine” due to his ability to provide quality content on a tight deadline, earned his degree in Creative Writing from Colorado University. Keith’s interest in a multitude of topics imbues his writing with valuable insights that resonate with readers in many fields. His work experience spans industries as diverse as hospitality (Thistledown Inn Bed and Breakfast), insurance (American Income Life Insurance), sales, journalism, publishing and even a brief foray into politics as a community organizer during the 2008 presidential election. In his spare time, Keith is difficult to find. Equipped only with a guitar, notebook and a liter of water, he frequently disappears deep into the forest with his wife and dog to evade civilization and wax poetic about the nature of existence.

These techniques may increase your selling and influencing effectiveness. To begin, you need to better understand how the brain functions, and what it responds to and comprehends. Renvoise and Morin state that the brain has three distinct parts, and that you want to direct your messaging to the “decision maker”—the so-called old brain, or what the authors call the reptilian brain.

The reptilian brain is much less developed than the other two parts of the brain: the new brain, which processes rational data, and the middle brain, which processes emotions and “gut” feelings. Yet, it’s this old brain that makes the decisions. While it takes input from the other two areas of the brain into account, the reptilian brain makes the final call.

Hence, to be a successful communicator, marketers must know how to get through to the reptilian brain. The reptilian brain is fast but primitive. According to the authors, it only responds to six types of stimuli—and those do not include the written word. They are: things that affect its own well-being and survival, emotions, visual images, tangible items, contrasts, and things with a clear beginning and end.

Here’s how these six types of stimuli play out in marketing communications:

1. Self-centered: General considerations about others do not permeate this part of the brain. It’s all about “me.” The reptilian brain has no patience or empathy for anything that does not immediately impact its existence. To address this primitive consideration, your marketing messages should address your audience’s pain points—not be about your products/services. What can you do for Mr. Reptile? He doesn’t care if you’re No. 1 in your vertical or you won such-and-such award.
2. Contrasting: Opposites attract the reptilian brain—helping it to decide. Sharp contrasts, like hot/cold, equal safe decision making when you’re primitive. Without contrast, the old brain enters a state of confusion, which slows action. The reptilian brain is wired to look for contrasts that signal disruption. It will give priority to changes in the environment.
3. Tangible: The reptilian brain scans the environment for the familiar and friendly, tangible and immutable. It cannot process concepts like “integrated approach” and “scalable architecture” without effort and doubt. Complicated language will slow down your message, automatically turning it over to the new brain for decoding. In modern parlance, this means your audience will want to “think” about what you’ve said vs. acting on it. Use simple jargon to inspire faster decision making.
4. Beginning and end: The reptilian brain has a short attention span, which has huge implications for how you should construct communications. Put the most important content upfront—and repeat it at the end. Anything you say in the middle may easily be overlooked. For the reptile, it pays to be alert at the beginning and end of interactions because that’s where any dangerous change or risky new factor is likely to originate.
5. Visual: We’re familiar with the primitive response to visual images: Something that looks like a snake will cause us to react long before we’ve recognized what the object really is. This implies that visual processing enters the old brain first, leading to a very fast and effective connection to the decision maker. When you use visual stimuli in your communications, you guarantee the reptile brain will latch onto it.
6. Emotional: The primitive brain is strongly triggered by emotion. Neuroscience shows that emotions create chemical reactions that directly impact how we behave and how we remember events. Messaging with intense emotional content is a valuable marketing asset.

To significantly improve the effectiveness of your marketing communications, and make a major, lasting impact on potential buyers, make sure your messaging not only meets the requirements of the new and middle brain—with sound reasoning and pain point resolution, respectively—but that it also addresses the beast within.

As with her writing and editing, Peg brings her finely honed attention to detail and her adherence to high-quality standards to bear in her role as managing editor of Content Boost. As team leader, she encourages her staff to strive for excellence in the copy they craft and in the relationships they forge with clients, striving for an optimal customer experience. She caught the marketing bug after seven years as an editor and supervisor at Gartner Inc., the world’s leading IT research and advisory company, and was drawn to the spirit and talent exhibited at Content Boost. Tracing back to her early days working local beats as a journalist, Peg consistently digs deep for insights that bring value to her writing. Outside the office, Peg loves to read when she’s not trying to keep up with her cycling buddies or the weeds in her garden. She can be found enjoying the local scene in her hometown of Fairfield, Connecticut.

Here are three questions to ask yourself before leaving Ft. Lauderdale:

Are we in touch with our customers’ core needs?

One of the great parts about exhibiting at ITEXPO is getting a chance to speak face to face with the people who are using, or are thinking about using, your company’s products and services. As you talk with others, you’ll get a better sense of whether your company’s vision is aligned with their biggest questions and concerns. Use this information to guide your marketing strategy in the coming weeks. 

Are we doing a good job explaining our services online?

Check and make sure your company’s website, blog and social channels are easy to find and communicate, in layman’s terms, exactly what your business offers and how you help solve problems. Keep your messaging simple, but provide a sufficient amount of information so that customers will view your business’s website as a learning resource.

How do the answers to these questions inform our content strategy?

Now is the ideal time to do a content gut check, and compare what you see on your blog to your experience at ITEXPO. Take a look at the topics, and consider whether they really resonate with customers.You should also pay attention to the language you are using, and see whether your tone and style are appropriate for your brand.

Want some direction? To learn more about how Content Boost can help, click here. And stop by booth 829 to meet the team!

As a content marketer with limited social skills, I seized upon the opportunity to ask a number of these small business owners about their experience with content—and I must admit that I was shocked by my findings.
While a majority of the individuals I spoke with were familiar with the principles of content marketing, none of them had actually developed a content marketing strategy. When I asked why, I received the same reply over and over again.

My business is too small.

While I wanted nothing more than to issue an exasperated response to these fledgling business leaders, I resisted the temptation, kept busy with a few appetizers and reoriented the conversation halfheartedly towards the Super Bowl. But having taken time to reflect further upon their responses, I recognized that Content Boost is uniquely positioned to help business owners like these.

Here are just a few reasons why no business is too small to benefit from working with Content Boost.

Scalability: Content Boost is designed to create and deliver a customized content strategy that meets your business needs. You can solicit our services for a single piece of content on an as-needed basis. You can also sign a contract ranging from a month to a year. You can scale your program from a few hundred words per month, up to tens of thousands. That means as your business grows and your needs change, we can grow and change right along with you.

Expanding your network: Why do small businesses stay small? Because they don’t do enough to engage with potential clients and expand their networks. Content is a pivotal element of building your customer base. You can use content to build a more robust, professional website. You can use Content Boost to produce sales enablement documents, white papers or case studies. You can use our work for your email marketing campaigns or social media posts. Bottom line: there’s no wrong way to use Content Boost.

Greater productivity: Many entrepreneurs start their own businesses because they want to work, and live, on their own terms. But in some cases, the owners of these startups end up burning out because they have to play too many different roles themselves—even if that role falls outside of their skill sets. Working with Content Boost, small business owners can offload as much of their marketing strategy as needed. This will free you up to focus your attention on the day-to-day responsibilities that nobody else can accomplish.

If you’re ready to learn more ways that working with Content Boost can help your small business succeed, click here.

Keith Batter, known as “The Machine” due to his ability to provide quality content on a tight deadline, earned his degree in Creative Writing from Colorado University. Keith’s interest in a multitude of topics imbues his writing with valuable insights that resonate with readers in many fields. His work experience spans industries as diverse as hospitality (Thistledown Inn Bed and Breakfast), insurance (American Income Life Insurance), sales, journalism, publishing and even a brief foray into politics as a community organizer during the 2008 presidential election. In his spare time, Keith is difficult to find. Equipped only with a guitar, notebook and a liter of water, he frequently disappears deep into the forest with his wife and dog to evade civilization and wax poetic about the nature of existence.

Your business will benefit from attendance at ITEXPO regardless of your vertical. The show will highlight the latest developments in the technology and communications sector. It’s the perfect way to keep your finger on the pulse of the industry.

ITEXPO is the place to get up close and personal with solutions—and the teams behind them—that can help grow your business. You’ll learn about some of the most disruptive technologies on the market–and have a chance to engage with innovative startup leaders, as well as leaders from more well-established businesses.

Content Boost will be there, along with Marketing Automation Partners, to pass on our expertise in best marketing practices—from SEO to online communities to automating campaigns. Please, join us for the following workshops:

Content Boost and MAP Workshops—Room 302, Wednesday, Feb. 8

Introduction to Marketing Automation (9:30 a.m.): Jeff Dworkin, president of Marketing Automation Partners, will tell you how to turn marketing automation (MA) from a “buzzword” into added value for your business. You’ll learn how to unscramble multiple marketing technologies into a cohesive array of functionality for a best-of-breed MA solution.

Content Strategies for Building SEO (10 a.m.): Peg Ventricelli, managing editor of Content Boost, will share content strategies for building SEO. It’s both tougher and easier than you might think. She’ll explain why the right content is key—and how to create it. You’ll learn how to leverage content and other techniques to move your website higher in search engine results.

MA Will Never Replace Salespeople (10:30 a.m.): Jeff will address how to align your organization’s sales team with a marketing automation (MA) platform. He’ll describe ways to ensure sales doesn’t feel cut out when an MA platform is introduced. Salespeople will learn how to use MA to enhance their performance.

Live Event and Third-Party Lead Acquisition (1:30 p.m.): After lunch, Jeff will explain how MA is more than a digital marketing tool. He’ll tell you how to feed the top of the funnel using live events, content syndication and even print and television to deliver leads.

Building Your Content-Driven Online Community to Achieve Marketing Results (2 p.m.): Rich Tehrani, TMC CEO, will take the stage at 2 p.m. to share his insights on how your business can stay on the cutting edge of technology and marketing best practices by building a content-driven online community. You’ll learn how to better connect with your target audience, improve your online visibility and establish your brand as a thought leader.

The Role of Content in a MAP Implementation (2:30 p.m.): Jeff and Peg are back to ensure you know how to optimize your MA implementation. Your MA needs fuel to deliver on its promises—and that fuel is content. They’ll teach you how to use content along the entire customer life cycle to boost customer engagement and, ultimately, sales.

To register for ITEXPO, click here.

To learn more about how content can drive marketing outcomes—and how Content Boost can help, please visit the Content Boost booth—# 829.

As with her writing and editing, Peg brings her finely honed attention to detail and her adherence to high-quality standards to bear in her role as managing editor of Content Boost. As team leader, she encourages her staff to strive for excellence in the copy they craft and in the relationships they forge with clients, striving for an optimal customer experience. She caught the marketing bug after seven years as an editor and supervisor at Gartner Inc., the world’s leading IT research and advisory company, and was drawn to the spirit and talent exhibited at Content Boost. Tracing back to her early days working local beats as a journalist, Peg consistently digs deep for insights that bring value to her writing. Outside the office, Peg loves to read when she’s not trying to keep up with her cycling buddies or the weeds in her garden. She can be found enjoying the local scene in her hometown of Fairfield, Connecticut.

Here at Content Boost, we’re a team of utility players. Our writers can produce any type of asset, on any subject, for any purpose, at any time. There is no binding way to use our services.

So while you may approach us looking for blog posts, keep in mind there are some other ways to use Content Boost. Here are some examples of what we can produce:

Educational materials: Maybe you still have some work to do before you go to market. For example, you may need to educate your customers or even new hires about your brand. We can help by producing materials that inform readers about your company and its vision. E-books, for instance, are very useful for this purpose.

Keynote presentations: Preparing for a keynote address can be a stressful experience, especially when you are strapped for time. Instead of writing your own speech, brainstorm with a content producer who can articulate your vision and provide you with a polished, well-researched presentation.

Written correspondence: Suppose you have to write a letter to convince someone (like a congressman, town official or board member) to take a particular course of action. This will require savviness and persuasion. So it makes sense to use expert bloggers, who know how to convince readers to take action.

Biographies: It’s just not easy to write your own biography. We can help make that sound good, too.

If you have a project that you need help with, don’t be afraid to ask! Connect with a sales associate today, who can provide more information about how you can benefit from a Content Boost package.

To get started, click here.

Following content marketing best practices is certainly advisable, but strict adherence to these principles can also lead your organization down a dangerous path—there is a distinct possibility that your audience will get bored.

Frankly, I see this happen much more often than it should. Every brand wants to project a professional image. Every business leader wants to be viewed as a thought leader, the smartest person in the room, the only one that can create a truly educated customer base.

There’s nothing wrong with these goals. But if you follow best practices too closely for too long, your content can become stale, sterile, and, worst of all, forgettable.

It cannot be forgotten that we are, by nature, social animals. We need to debate, engage and laugh. We need to have fun, and we crave unforgettable, unique experiences. Do you really think that at the end of the day, the targets of your content marketing campaigns are discussing your latest blog post around the dinner table?

If you want to make sure that your content gives your audience a truly delightful experience, effort to introduce elements of guerilla marketing into your campaigns. Guerilla marketing is a term first coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book, “Guerilla Marketing”. The idea is to circumvent traditional media channels in favor of unpredictable, entertaining and personable campaigns which leave a lasting imprint that leave individuals yearning to learn more about your brand.

Levinson conceived of guerilla marketing as a way for organizations to establish direct contact with customers, helping marketers with limited budgets compete with larger competitors. However, I believe that businesses of any size can benefit from engaging in a guerilla content marketing campaign.

This is particularly true given the state of today’s marketing landscape. Not only are today’s consumers more educated than at any other point in history, but they’re being bombarded with brand messaging from more directions, more steadily, than ever. Energizing your content with guerilla marketing elements can help you break through to a fatigued audience.

So before you sit down to craft your next piece of content, ask yourself one question: is my audience having fun?

While traditional guerilla marketing suggests that businesses take to the streets to engage their audience, you can do it just as easily sitting in front of your computer. Reach out to customers on social media or email. Welcome them into the process of content production. If you can find a way to make your marketing department’s messaging one of the best parts of their day, it is a distinct possibility that you will have earned their loyalty for life.

To learn more ways to leave a more lasting impression with your content marketing strategy, talk to an experienced content vendor today.

Keith Batter, known as “The Machine” due to his ability to provide quality content on a tight deadline, earned his degree in Creative Writing from Colorado University. Keith’s interest in a multitude of topics imbues his writing with valuable insights that resonate with readers in many fields. His work experience spans industries as diverse as hospitality (Thistledown Inn Bed and Breakfast), insurance (American Income Life Insurance), sales, journalism, publishing and even a brief foray into politics as a community organizer during the 2008 presidential election. In his spare time, Keith is difficult to find. Equipped only with a guitar, notebook and a liter of water, he frequently disappears deep into the forest with his wife and dog to evade civilization and wax poetic about the nature of existence.

In today’s digital-driven age of the customer, every business’s No. 1 goal must be to rank high on search engine platforms, like Google’s. Being visible in search engines is paramount for drawing consumers to your website. To achieve this objective, the vast majority of marketers—76 percent of B2C marketers and 88 percent of B2B marketers, according to a MarketProfs and CMI report—rely on content marketing to attract and retain consumers and, ultimately, drive profitable customer action.

Unfortunately, at best, only half of marketers consider their organizations effective at content marketing. This speaks to the relative complexity of crafting content that helps produce search engine optimization (SEO) for brands. Indeed, the report reveals that the top challenge for content marketers is producing engaging content.

So, as a business owner eager for success at website marketing, here are some key skills to look for when determining who should create your content:

Unique and informative content creation capabilities: The best content gains attention and will be shared. Your writers must be creative when crafting original content for your website on a consistent, ongoing basis. Knowledge must be poured into content produced so that it helps establish your brand voice as an authority in your industry. Your writers must be adept at conducting research that helps them achieve expertise in the topics they write about for your brand.

Keyword selection and usage expertise: Google and other search engines collect and analyze content on your website to rank your pages. Does your internal team know how to unlock the full potential of words and phrases that reflect optimally on your business? For best results, your writers must be skilled at choosing keywords that center around what your key targets would type in search engines to find a solution for their needs. Toward this end, your content producers should understand the attributes of short-, medium- and long-tail keywords, as well as how to access tools that can help generate high-performing keywords, such as LSI Keyword Generator and Google’s Autocomplete. Your writers must also understand how to remain credible to search engines by avoiding keyword stuffing.

Ability to build links that drive traffic to your site: Your content producers need creativity and patience to achieve this most challenging search engine strategy. Building links on other websites takes time and energy, and is best accomplished with appealing content (e.g., company blogs). Natural links are free but require that other sites truly like what you’ve written. It also helps to spread the word through other channels to garner the largest possible readership. Writers can also build unnatural links by leaving comments on other sites, but must be careful to avoid appearing spammy, as Google penalizes junk links.

If your in-house staff fall short in some of these areas—or simply don’t have the time to get content right—your best recourse for ensuring that your website marketing bears fruit is to partner with a content vendor.

As with her writing and editing, Peg brings her finely honed attention to detail and her adherence to high-quality standards to bear in her role as managing editor of Content Boost. As team leader, she encourages her staff to strive for excellence in the copy they craft and in the relationships they forge with clients, striving for an optimal customer experience. She caught the marketing bug after seven years as an editor and supervisor at Gartner Inc., the world’s leading IT research and advisory company, and was drawn to the spirit and talent exhibited at Content Boost. Tracing back to her early days working local beats as a journalist, Peg consistently digs deep for insights that bring value to her writing. Outside the office, Peg loves to read when she’s not trying to keep up with her cycling buddies or the weeds in her garden. She can be found enjoying the local scene in her hometown of Fairfield, Connecticut.

Every year, millions of people around the world make resolutions—to try new things, be healthier, travel more. So if they can do it, why can’t your marketing department?

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you don’t need to make any changes. According to the most recent research from the Content Marketing Institute, only 6 percent of B2B marketers self-assessed their content marketing strategies as sophisticated. Unless you can confidently claim to be in that small minority, I would strongly urge you to consider using one of the following resolutions yourself.

1. Move beyond the blog. For many businesses, their content marketing vision begins—and ends—with blogging. While this is unquestionably an important part of the equation, it is also just the tip of the iceberg. Multimedia can draw attention from users that might otherwise pass you by. Try adding another dimension to your content efforts this year, be it webinars, videos, infographics, or another medium altogether.
2. Say something provocative. Say what you will about our President-elect. One thing is for certain: he earned himself a lot of free publicity during his campaign by making provocative statements. Many of his supporters even lauded him for “telling it like it is.” Your content gives you an opportunity to take a stance on topics that you feel passionate about. You’ll never be able to satisfy everyone, so why not take a stand for what you believe in and generate some free buzz for your business at the same time?
3. Take time to write every day. In order to have a highly successful content marketing strategy, you’ll need to be sure to publish new material regularly. In fact, the more you can put out new content, the better. Challenge the members of your marketing department to carve out some time to write every day. Maybe you’ll need to wake up a few minutes earlier each day and jot down some thoughts over your morning coffee. Maybe you can extend your lunch break. Wherever you can find the time, make the effort to become a more disciplined writer. Flexing your literary muscle every day will give you the discipline needed to develop a more consistent content marketing strategy.

Of course, New Year’s resolutions sound great on January 1^st. But it can be difficult to sustain these changes over the course of an entire year. If you find yourself struggling to keep up with these resolutions, consider partnering with a third-party content vendor that can help your marketing department succeed.

Keith Batter, known as “The Machine” due to his ability to provide quality content on a tight deadline, earned his degree in Creative Writing from Colorado University. Keith’s interest in a multitude of topics imbues his writing with valuable insights that resonate with readers in many fields. His work experience spans industries as diverse as hospitality (Thistledown Inn Bed and Breakfast), insurance (American Income Life Insurance), sales, journalism, publishing and even a brief foray into politics as a community organizer during the 2008 presidential election. In his spare time, Keith is difficult to find. Equipped only with a guitar, notebook and a liter of water, he frequently disappears deep into the forest with his wife and dog to evade civilization and wax poetic about the nature of existence.