The New Rules of Marketing and PR
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the long tail, YouTube, TiVo, and blogs, spending big bucks on TV
ads is like commissioning a portrait was back in the nineteenth cen-
tury: It might make you feel good, but did it bring in any money?
Instead of deploying huge budgets for dumbed-down TV commer-
cials that purport to speak to the masses and therefore appeal to no-
body, we need to think about the messages that our niche audiences
wait to hear. Why not build content specifically for these niche audi-
ences and tell them an online story about your product, a story that is
created especially for them? Once marketers and PR people tune their
brains to think about niches, they begin to see opportunities for being
more effective at delivering their organization’s message.
Buyer Personas: The Basics
Smart marketers understand buyers, and many build formal “buyer
personas” for their target demographics. (I discuss buyer personas in
detail in Chapter 10.) It can be daunting for many of us to consider
who, exactly, is visiting our site. But if we break the buyers into dis-
tinct groups and then catalog everything we know about each one,
we make it easier to create content targeted to each important demo-
graphic. For example, a college Web site usually has the goal of
keeping alumni happy so they donate money to their alma mater on
a regular basis. So perhaps a college would have two buyer personas
for alumni: young alumni (those who graduated within the past 10
or 15 years) and older alumni. Universities also have a goal of re-
cruiting students by driving them into the application process. So
the effective college site might have a buyer persona for the high
school student who is considering college. But the parents of the
prospective student have very different information needs, so the site
designers might build another buyer persona for parents. And a col-
lege also has to keep its existing customers (current students) happy.
In sum, that means a well-executed college site might target five dis-
tinct buyer personas, with the goal of getting alumni to donate
money, the high school students to complete the application process,
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and the parents to make certain their kids complete it. The goal for
the current student aspects of the site might be to make certain they
come back for another year of studies and to answer routine ques-
tions so that staff time is not wasted.
By truly understanding the needs and the mindset of the five
buyer personas, the college will be able to create appropriate con-
tent. Once you understand the audience very well, then (and only
then) you should set out to satisfy their informational needs by fo-
cusing on your buyer’s problems and create and deliver content ac-
cordingly. As mentioned earlier, Web site content too often simply
describes what an organization or a product does from an egotistical
perspective. While information about your organization and prod-
ucts is certainly valuable on the inner pages of your site, what visi-
tors really want is content that first describes the issues and
problems they face and then provides details on how to solve those
problems. Once you’ve built an online relationship, you can begin to
offer potential solutions that have been defined for each audience.
After you’ve identified target audiences and articulated their prob-
lems, content is your tool to show off your expertise. Well organized
Web content will lead your visitors through the sales cycle all the
way to the point when they are ready to make a purchase or other
commitment to your organization.
Understanding buyers and building an effective content strategy to
reach them is critical for success. And providing clear links from the
content to the place where action occurs is critical. Consider Mike Ped-
ersen, who is widely acknowledged as one of the leading golf fitness
training experts in the United States, having taught thousands of
golfers the fitness approach to playing a consistently great game of golf.
Pedersen runs an online business providing products for golfers to im-
prove their game by getting in better shape. Pedersen’s site
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and his
Perform Better Golf blog
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are chock full of content created specifically
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for a narrow target market (buyer persona). “I write for the sixty-year-
old golfer who has rapidly declining physical capabilities,” says Peder-
sen. “I like to call it targeted content. When I write an article, I’m
targeting a very specific element of golf for my readers. The article
might be targeted to a small aspect of the golf swing, for example, and
the guys I write for know how it can help them.”
Pedersen offers hundreds of free articles and tips on his site and
blog, such as “Golf-Specific Warm-ups” and “Golf Muscles Need to
Be Strong and Flexible to Produce More Power in Your Golf Swing.”
“Most golfers don’t prepare their bodies before they play golf, and
they aren’t able to play a good game,” he says. “I write to be easy to
understand and offer exercises that help people to prepare quickly
and efficiently.” Each article includes multiple photos of Pedersen il-
lustrating how the exercises should be done.
Pedersen relies on search engines to drive much of his traffic, and
his site is number one on search engines for important phrases like
“golf training.” He also works with partners and affiliates, and he is
the featured golf fitness expert for Golf magazine’s Web site,
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gener-
ating even more traffic for his own site. Pedersen says that key to
everything about his business is targeting his buyers directly with
content specifically for them. His focus on his buyer persona of the
older man who loves golf but is physically able to do less in declin-
ing years is relentless. “I rely on getting into the consumers’ mind
and feeling their pain and their frustration,” he says. “It is easy to
write what I think, but much more difficult to write about what my
buyers are thinking. With these guys, my target market, if they don’t
do anything now, they physically can’t play the game that they love
in future years. But I’m a forty-year-old, really fit, healthy guy. If I
just wrote for myself, I’d be shooting myself in the foot because I’m
not the target market.”
Pedersen makes his money by selling products such as his flag-
ship Golf Fitness Training System for $150 (the system includes
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DVDs, books, and manuals) and membership for his online Golf
Training Program. He also offers individual-topic DVDs and exercise
supplies such as weighted golf clubs. At the bottom of each article
on the site, there is a clear path and a call to action. “I’m diligent
about links from every page both to something free and to the prod-
ucts page,” he says. For example, a recent offer read, “Do you want
to learn how your body is keeping you from a near perfect golf
swing? Get my Free Golf Fitness Ebook and find out!”
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When people register on the site for a free offer, they are added to
Pedersen’s 40,000-person e-mail list to get alerts on significant new
content added to the site and blog, as well as special offers. The ma-
jority of e-mail messages he sends are alerts about new content and
contain no sales pitch at all. “I know that if I provide valuable con-
tent, then I’ll get more sales,” Pedersen says.
Think Like a Publisher
The new publishing model on the Web is not about hype and spin and
messages. It is about delivering content when and where it is needed
and, in the process, branding you or your organization as a leader.
When you understand your audience, those people who will become
your buyers (or those who will join, donate, subscribe, apply, volun-
teer, or vote), you can craft an editorial and content strategy just for
them. What works is a focus on your buyers and their problems. What
fails is an egocentric display of your products and services.
In order to implement a successful strategy, think like a publisher.
Marketers at the organizations successfully using the new rules rec-
ognize the fact that they are now purveyors of information, and they
manage content as a valuable asset with the same care that a publish-
ing company does. One of the most important things that publishers
do is start with a content strategy and then focus on the mechanics
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and design of delivering that content. Publishers carefully identify
and define target audiences and consider what content is required in
order to meet their needs. Publishers consider all of the following
questions: Who are my readers? How do I reach them? What are
their motivations? What are the problems I can help them solve?
How can I entertain them and inform them at the same time? What
content will compel them to purchase what I have to offer?
Tell Your Organization’s
Story Directly
Ben Argov uses his Wine Storage Blog
14
to highlight good wine stor-
age practice. His company, Le Cache Premium Wine Cabinets, sells
furniture-quality wine storage cabinets primarily to individuals,
helping them showcase, protect, and properly age fine wine. Al-
though most of his product ends up in wine enthusiasts’ homes, an-
other major market is upscale hotels, restaurants, and resorts.
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In a
competitive industry with at least a half-dozen U.S. manufacturers of
furniture-quality wine storage cabinets, Le Cache stands out because
of the blog and because of Argov’s active participation in online wine
industry forums and chat rooms.
“All of this is to establish us as the good guys in the industry,”
says Argov. “We want to be seen as the leaders, and we do that
through the blog and by participating in the community.” Argov’s
Wine Storage Blog staked out a position in the industry as being
straightforward and approachable. “We assume people want good
quality finish and hardware, so we use the blog and our postings on-
line to be honest brokers and to be seen as very knowledgeable
about our products,” he says.
Argov also frequently posts on Mark Squires’s bulletin board on
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eRobertParker.com,
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the premier site for wine enthusiasts. The bul-
letin board gets millions of page views every month. “A topic will
come up, and if it is appropriate we will pop in,” he says. “There is a
healthy debate, and if it is an important topic, we use the blog to
promote our point of view. We do our job to say how we think wine
should be stored but then bring people back to the blog for more in-
formation.” Because Argov is well-known in the wine enthusiast fo-
rums and chat rooms and has been blogging since March 2005, he’s
seen as an authentic and valuable part of the community.
It also helps that each blog post and forum comment turns into
search-engine-marketing fodder to drive more traffic. The effort is
paying off. “We send out customer surveys to people who purchase
our cabinets,” Argov says. “We ask questions like ‘How did you hear
about us?’ and ‘What did you use to research the purchase?’ We have
learned that over ninety percent of our customers have found us or
researched us online. In fact, we know that many of our sales are
coming from places where we don’t even have physical dealers, so
we know that the business has to be coming from our blog and par-
ticipation in the forums.”
Know the Goals and
Let Content Drive Action
On the speaking circuit and via my blog, I am often asked to critique
marketing programs, Web sites, and blogs. My typical response,
“What’s the goal?” often throws people off. It is amazing that so
many marketers don’t have established goals for their marketing pro-
grams and for Web sites and blogs in particular.
An effective Web marketing and PR strategy that delivers com-
pelling content to buyers gets them to take action. (You will learn more
about developing your own marketing and PR strategy in Chapter 10.)
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Companies that understand the new rules of marketing and PR have a
clearly defined business goal—to sell products, to generate contribu-
tions, or to get people to vote or join. These successful organizations
aren’t focused on the wrong goals, things like press clips and advertis-
ing awards. At successful organizations, news releases, blogs, Web sites,
podcasts, and other content draw visitors into the sales-consideration
cycle, then funnel them toward the place where action occurs. The goal
is not hidden, and it is easy for buyers to find the way to take the next
step. When content effectively drives action, the next step of the sales
process—an e-commerce company’s “products” button, the B2B corpo-
ration’s “white paper download” form, or nonprofit’s “donate” link—
are easy to find.
Working from the perspective of the company’s desire for revenue
growth and customer retention (the goals), rather than focusing on
made-up metrics for things like leads and Web site traffic, yields sur-
prising changes in the typical marketing plan and in the organization
of Web content. Web site traffic doesn’t matter if your goal is revenue
(however, the traffic may lead to the goal). Similarly, being ranked
number one on Google for a phrase isn’t important (although, if
your buyers care about that phrase, it can lead to the goal).
Ultimately, when marketers focus on the same goals as the rest of
the organization, we develop marketing programs that really deliver
action and begin to contribute to the bottom line and command re-
spect. Rather than meeting rolled eyes and snide comments about
marketing as simply the “T-shirt department,” we’re seen as part of a
strategic unit that contributes to reaching the organization’s goals.
Content and Thought Leadership
For many companies and individuals, reaching customers with Web
content has a powerful, less obvious effect. Content brands an or-
ganization as a thought leader. Indeed, many organizations create
content especially to position them as thought leaders in their mar-
ket. Instead of just directly selling something, a great site, blog, or
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podcast series tells the world that you are smart, that you under-
stand the market very well, and that you would be a person or or-
ganization that would be valuable to do business with. Web content
directly contributes to an organization’s online reputation by show-
ing thought leadership in the marketplace of ideas. See Chapter 11
for more on thought leadership.
In the next chapters that make up Part II of the book, I will intro-
duce blogs, news releases, podcasting, online forums, viral market-
ing, and social networking. Then in Part III, I’ll present a guide to
creating your marketing and PR plan (Chapter 10), followed by de-
tailed chapters with “how-to” information on each technique. Con-
tent turns browsers into buyers. It doesn’t matter whether you’re
selling premium wine cabinets or a new music CD, or advocating to
stop sonar harm to whales; Web content sells any product or service
and advocates any philosophy or image.
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II
Web-Based
Communications
to Reach
Buyers Directly
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