Joe, known as the godfather of content marketing, is the founder of Content Marketing Institute: the leading education and training organization for content marketing.
He also founded the largest in-person content marketing event in the world.
Today, Joe talks about all the key takeaways and hot topics from Content Marketing World 2017.
Content Marketing World 2017
Launched in Cleveland in 2011, Content Marketing world brings people from around the world together to learn, educate, and discuss content marketing strategies.
What kind of people attend? Well, just about everyone including folks working on podcasts, blogs, and print media. Even people in public relations and communications departments come to learn about building successful content marketing strategies.
Since 2011, CM World has grown from just 600 attendees to over 3,500 from 50 different countries.
Every Company Must be a Media Company
At this point in the game, just about every business must produce valuable content if they want profits.
That’s why all companies need to think of themselves as a media company.
Joe says in order to do that, businesses should find a specific audience and present them with relevant content – but don’t sell them anything just yet.
Building an Audience
According to Joe, 90% of successful companies put substantial effort into building an audience. And not just any audience: an audience that likes, knows, and trusts them.
In order to do this, companies need to stop talking about themselves and what they know to a broad audience. Instead, businesses should narrow their audience down.
Talk to customers, talk to sales. Ask customers about problems they face.
Once you get that information, you can develop relevant, useful, and interesting content to help your audience solve problems.
This is an important strategy for building authority which, hopefully, and eventually, will cause your audience to display profitable behavior.
Joe says it’s important to tell stories that evoked emotions and make a deep impression on lives.
Producing and Delivering Content
In the beginning, businesses should put about half of their effort and resources into producing high-quality valuable content. The other half should go into promoting that content to the targeted audience.
After you’ve grown your audience a bit, that ratio should change to about 70% content creation and 30% promotion.
For building an audience and developing customers, Joe recommends subscription-based methods like e-newsletters.
What about social media? Joe says these tools should be used on an as-needed basis because platforms like Facebook want to monetize you as well. That means businesses aren’t in full control of their audience – Facebook is.
What’s the Next Big Thing?
Joe recommends keeping an eye out for major mergers and acquisitions. He says this could drastically change the landscape and everyone needs to prepare for that.
Joe Pulizzi just released his fifth book, Killing Marketing, which you can find on Amazon.