"We Don't Need to Hire a Marketing Firm."

by Steve Fodor

I had the opportunity to discuss a new Web site project with a client recently. During our conversation, I heard something that I hear quite often: “We tried to manage our site ourselves. We gave it to our IT person. But, building content for the site kind of lost focus over time.”

The truth is, you can manage your Web site and social media programs yourself without the help of a marketing firm. There’s no “secret magic” for creating a branded presence with today’s plethora of new media venues. In the end, though, media (meaning social media, Web sites, blogs, publicity and paid media) is just a collection of tools. It is up to people to make real impact with these tools. A carpenter may own a wonderful collection of tools and even know how to use them. But a skilled carpenter may not be the best resource for designing a building.

Creating a positive brand perception comes from generating valued content for your audience. If you’re not generating branded content that is of real value, your brand perception won’t be of much value either.

A marketing firm can (and should) add value to your branded content efforts by:

1. Developing a message strategy for your brand.

2. Interacting with and researching your audience and the media serving your audience to identify trending topics.

3. Creating and managing an editorial calendar.

4. Writing, posting and managing relevant, branded content.

5. Monitoring and responding to audience interaction with your branded content.

Most of all, credible marketing firms are expert communicators. They are staffed by people with journalistic and marketing backgrounds that know how to research and communicate relevant content that will serve as a catalyst for your brand. Credible marketing firms not only understand and own the right collection of tools. They have the people and the expertise to design and build brands with those tools.

It’s not enough to have “quantity” be your branded content strategy. There’s enough clutter out there. Quality and relevance of branded content wins over quantity. Ask yourself this question: If you don’t have the people on staff with the time, dedication and expertise to manage your branded content strategies, are you really conducting your marketing efforts with the utmost efficiency?

The More Things Change...

by Steve Fodor

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I just read an article about branded content. How marketers communicate with customers, go to market and increase brand loyalty has changed dramatically in just the last year. In fact, 32% of marketing communications budgets were dedicated to branded content in 2009. That’s a heck of a lot of blogging, Facebook interaction, YouTube videos and other forms of branded content.

You could say branded content is the new face of public relations. The media dynamic has changed. You now can go straight to end users without the media controlling your message. That opens endless possibilities. But, it also sacrifices the implied endorsement from reputable editors and media.

So what’s the key to branded content as a marketing strategy? If I had the answer to that, I’d be out fishing now instead of working for a living. But one thing always stands out in everything I read about branded content: your content has to be valued information that customers desire and not just a sales pitch. In other words, you must become a valued information provider and not just a product purveyor to elevate your brand above commodity status. And the only way to do that is to employ good, old-fashioned research to determine what information your customers and prospects need. In marketing “buzzword-speak” that means determining latent needs (there…now I can justify spending money on marketing books prior to the Amazon Kindle).

Even though the media dynamic has literally been turned upside down in recent years, that’s why I say “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” If you don’t understand your customer and if you can’t differentiate your brand beyond product features and price, you’re always going to be a commodity. Branded content has now become the most visible “face” of your brand. Think about that. And think about who is handling the face of your brand. Do they really understand how to generate valued content?