During the past month Brandpoint has attended Content Marketing World in Cleveland and Social Media Expo East in New York City – two premier conferences in the content marketing and search industries.
Amid murmurs of King James being in town and squabbles overheard on New York City streets, we managed to build on current relationships, network with industry thought leaders, and revel in the knowledge and insight presented by the keynote speakers at each conference. Looking ahead to 2015, here are a few of the main points we believe to be most essential for helping our clients create meaningful content, increase their reach and influence more conversions.
Answering “what’s in it for the customer?” & other key notes from @smx and #CMWorld
Content Marketing World (CMW)
Andrew Davis: An enthusiastic content marketing speaker and the best-selling author of the book Brandscaping, Davis delivered a presentation that really spoke to our Brandpoint writers.
- As more companies practice the churn-and-burn method when it comes to creating content, they tend to forget that good content tells a story, and good storytelling inspires readers to act. Davis mentioned three important ways to tug on your readers’ heartstrings and entice them to act after reading your content – suspense, empathy and emotion.
- Storytelling needs to build suspense by depicting situations your readers can relate to. By doing so, they will, in turn, create empathy for a subject or experience. Now this is the hard part. Writers need to harness the readers’ emotion and influence them to act, further pushing them along on their purchasing journey.
Ann Handley: A queen of content, Ann Handley is a wonderful keynote speaker and author. She most recently penned the Wall Street Journal Bestseller, Everybody Writes.
Handley’s presentation cemented what Davis so flamboyantly proclaimed – the future of content is writing. Handley noted that every piece of content needs to have a goal and answer the question: “What’s in it for the customer?”
Kevin Spacey: Yes, the Kevin Spacey, star of American Beauty, The Usual Suspects and House of Cards. Spacey capped off a truly memorable Content Marketing World conference with an insightful presentation focused on delivering quality content regardless of the platform.
Spacey spoke from experience, as he currently stars in a political drama, House of Cards, broadcasted on the streaming service, Netflix. He knows firsthand that no matter the platform, people will come if you create quality content. The Academy Award-winning actor shared his beliefs on quality storytelling and spoke at length about the inherent human desire for conflict to drive engagement. He also spoke of the need for authenticity to solidify credibility, and the importance of listening to your consumers, customers and fans or followers so you can better answer their questions and make changes to accommodate their wants and needs.
Social Media Expo East (SMX)
As a vendor at SMX, we spent hours talking with potential customers about our services and how we differentiate ourselves. We found that it all comes down to quality and availability.
Google held workshops to teach conference attendees about Google Instant and shared a remarkable piece of data: Google has found 30 trillion unique URLs on the web and crawls more than 20 billion pages per day. Competition is intense for almost every industry, but if you can provide quality content and make yourself available to your customers through social channels, you can separate your business from the pack.
Traffic is certainly important to the success of content marketing efforts, but watching the flow of users on your website tells us what is working and where we need to make adjustments. It’s imperative your users are following the right flow to make a conversion. In order to do this, our content marketing strategists at Brandpoint provide monthly reports, detail key metrics and offer suggestions about where to make changes to better stand out.
Learn more about all of Brandpoint’s services from content marketing strategy, development and distribution to social media management. We are here to help your company create exceptional content and inspire your audience.
