May Madness! Sign up in May and get a super-low price. You save $300! Sign up as a team (2+ people) and save even more! Limited to just 200 attendees. (Last year it sold out!) Sign up for either the Publishing Executive track or the Camp Niche Ad Sales Training track. Register Now!

All new 2012 Niche Digital Conference brochure coming soon! Request a brochure and we'll send you one soon!

Bring your whole revenue team! Publisher • CEO • Advertising Dir. • Advertising Rep • Content Editor • Publishing Director • Marketing Director • Audience Development

Please fill out the information below.
* All Fields are required

The Ten Commandments of Content Marketing

By Joe Pulizzi, Executive Director, Content Marketing Institute

Modern publishers are more and more also marketers. Publishers as content marketers try to attract and retain customers with compelling and valuable content that is consistent, has a call to action, and tells a story. What's the catch? Most publishers don't think they are doing a very good job with social media, blogs, and other content creation and marketing. Here's how to do it better:

1. Specific content marketing goals. Figure out your ultimate goal (customer retention, recruitment, web traffic, sales, lead generation or nurturing, etc.) - then you can figure out how to measure results. Create compelling stories with calls to action.

2. SUPER-niche content. Focus on one part of a niche market. If you are publishing in the pet industry, focus on one pet-related area like issues for pet owners who travel with their dogs.

3. Focus content on customer pain points. Use Facebook, Twitter, keyword analysis, surveys, and even just talking to people to find the key issues, and then create relevant content.

4. Make your content the best in the industry. Your content has to be better than everything else out there in the digital space for your industry. Great content is unique, useful or fun, well executed, and matches the media channel. Does your content stand for something? Can you create your own category or invent a story? Does it position you as a top industry resource?

5. Stick to a schedule. Schedule out your activities and stick to it. A sample plan could include: daily (Twitter or blog posts), weekly (e-newsletter), monthly (webinar), quarterly (e-book or magazine), bi-annually (reader event), and yearly (large research project). Repackage content for use in other media channels. A podcast can become a print article, tweets & Facebook posts, blog posts, white papers, and a case study.

6. Employees are a key part of your content. Encourage employees to blog, use social media, podcast, write articles, etc. This will help position you as the expert in your industry and provide quality content.

7. Build online relationships and great offline content to spread your message. Be active! Find out what blogs and websites customers in your market are looking at. Read and comment on them, and participate in LinkedIn and Yahoo! answers.

8. Have a Chief Content Officer. Have someone who manages and owns your story and content.

9. Insource or Outsource your content to experts. If you can't produce content, find people who can. Hire a freelance journalist, a content agency, or search out internal content providers.

10. You must have top-level support for your content marketing efforts to succeed. Get management on board!

These ten tips are highlights from Joe's keynote address at the annual Content Marketing Retreat. You can find examples and a lot more information in the video!