Chances are your business is using content marketing as part of your overall marketing plan. The objective of content marketing is to deliver valuable information that will engage your audience. Consumers are tuning out the more intrusive marketing tactics. What they really want is great, customer-focused information that helps them make a decision or solve a problem. That’s what content marketing delivers.

I actually like The Content Marketing Institute’s definition of content marketing the best: “Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

So when it comes to content marketing, as a marketing professional, your job is to create and share valuable, free content to attract and convert prospective buyers into customers and engage existing customers so they are repeat buyers. The content you create and share should be closely related to what you sell without selling.

The purpose is to build relationships, awareness, branding and overall establish your company as an expert in your industry. You want to educate people and gain their trust so they do business with you.

There are many types of content that form a content marketing strategy including:

• Blogging
• Guest blog posts
• Social media posts and sharing
• Email marketing
• Infographics
• PowerPoint presentations
• Podcasts
• Standard videos
• Micro-videos (i.e. Vine)
• Public Speaking
• Webinars
• Articles

It’s up to you to know what is the best way for your brand to reach those potential and current customers. Just remember the power of great content marketing can make a person stop, read, think and behave differently. The return on investment for content marketing can be huge if executed correctly. And, it really doesn’t take a significant investment!

On September 20, little did I know I would have a lesson on my latest opportunity to adapt to a new obstacle. I attended Camp Gladiator’s annual CG games, a fitness competition that pushes athletes to their limits.

We were there to do a fun run of the obstacle course. I was amazed, inspired by the competitors and already planning my training to be there as a competitor in 2015. I knew I could do this and wanted to do it!

Two hours later after a fall on the monkey bars, my adaptability was tested. My ACL was toast and needed reconstruction. Out with the goal to compete in CG games in 2015, new plan to be 100% recovered in a year.

Life happens, your professional life happens, business happens. To be successful in all areas in the current world that changes in a nanosecond, how can you ensure success?

To set your business up to prosper, it has to be flexible in any conditions. Here are three ways to ensure your business is adaptable:

1. Stay on top of market trends. Including customer insights, competitors, economy, employment, technology and laws and regulations.
2. Talk to your customers. Get feedback and respond.
3. Create and foster an innovative culture. Be open to new ideas from all levels within the organization.

Companies must constantly evolve to changing dynamics in society or an industry to be successful.

A couple adaptability examples:

• In the technology sector, you can easily see the winners and losers. As we switched from fax machines and snail mail to email and text, from bulky desktop computers to handheld devices, from Mapsco to built-in navigation systems, many organizations had to adapt. Apple was once considered dead. Look at them now. They innovated and adapted and are winning.
• In August 2001, the opening of The Shops of Willow Bend, an upscale shopping center with mostly high end tenants, opened shortly before the September 11, 2001, attacks. Retail sales nationwide entered a slump. When it first opened, the mall’s tenants included Escada, Bruno Magli, Burberry, Armani Collezioni, Montblanc, Nicole Miller, Diesel, D&G and Loro Piana among others. The economy and environment dictated the need for change. Today, they are focusing on opening national retail chains versus luxury stores. This year, the center was sold to Starwood Capital Group for more than $1.4 billion.
• In February 3, 2013, lights go out at SuperBowl XLVII. One hundred million viewers turn to social media to find Dunking in the Dark. That’s all. Oreo, you are genius and a perfect example of adaptability on the fly! Rock on!

Customer’s basic needs don’t change, but how they satisfy them do. Successful brands stay on-top of this.

Wish me luck on my surgery next week? Maybe I will blog about it …

I recently came across an article on CNN’s website titled, “Facebook launched my startup” talking about entrepreneurs who relied exclusively on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to start their small businesses. The story featured five small businesses and, as I flipped through each of them, up popped a picture of a friend and her business partner and their Dallas-based, three-and-a-half-year-old business Smocked Auctions. Their success in a short period of time is a true testament of how social media alone can have a profound effect on businesses.

After they used their initial investment to buy inventory to sell, Smocked Auctions had no extra money for marketing and advertising so they turned to Facebook and began weekly auctions to sell their goods. Almost instantly they attracted 20,000 followers and the rest is history. They now have more than 450,000 followers on Facebook, 10 full-time employees and are on track to do $5 million in sales this year. And although they have added an e-commerce site, Facebook still generates 65% to 70% of their sales.

Now, it’s hard to think of life before social media even though many sites aren’t even ten years old! But it has become pretty clear that social media is a must for all businesses. There are many benefits of social media marketing including increased exposure, competitive advantage, increased traffic, new leads, increased sales and improved search ranking. But I think the biggest benefit of social media compared to traditional marketing is the ability to communicate with customers and a target audience on a daily basis.

With so many social media platforms available it’s important to be educated about each of them and know which is best for your business as far as reaching your business goals. Here is a list of the most popular networks:

• Facebook – Still the leading social media network
• Twitter
• You Tube – More popular than cable television
• LinkedIn – The largest professional business network
• Google+ – Now the second largest social network
• Pinterest – The fastest growing social network
• Instagram
• StumbleUpon
• Digg

As powerful as social media is, it really is crucial to succeed in today’s business environment. Make sure you take a strategic approach to your social media plan and make sure it works with your other marketing initiatives.

Our Chief Rocker enjoying the opening festivities with Megan and Landon Wood of Lily Jade.

Branding and marketing are more art than science.

In fact, it’s one of the reasons it’s so rewarding. There is no “one size fits all.”

Blogging could be a necessary part of your digital strategy. It’s the perfect way to deliver messages near and dear to your brand and engage your audience.

So, when we heard about the first annual The Hundred Event, we didn’t think twice about participating ourselves.

Hosted by four lovelies, Grace Patton, Bridget Hunt, Lauren Knight and Megan Graham, the event brought together a talented group of small business owners and bloggers intent on learning and sharing best practices. There is a distinct entrepreneurial spirit in this group. People came from all over to partake in the delicious food, warm ambiance and shared knowledge.

We discussed many blogging styles. What do they have in common? Imagery is key to them all. Whether it’s still or video – good photography is non negotiable.

Here are a few of my favorite photography takeaways and recommendations, compliments of Jenni Dawson of J.Noel Photography:

• If you have a good camera, shoot in manual.
• If you don’t know how to use that great camera, invest in the Extremely Essential Camera Skills Tutorial and learn how.
• Afterlight is a handy app for photography on the go. It’s super easy and really adds a textural element to pictures taken on your phone.
• Pic Tap Go is perhaps my favorite app. It costs $1.99 and is worth every penny. There are several filters to choose from. Pic Tap Go saves your “recipes” for future use.

Enjoying the Peacock Alley Block Party under the super moon.
Lauren Knight, Laura Busby, Beth Dotolo
Photos courtesy of Awake Photography

This 4th of July, my family was on the lake. For the first time, we went out to the middle of the lake in a boat to watch the fireworks. It was exciting to be on the water and have a 360 view of the sky lighting up in celebration of our country. My two young boys snuggled up with me looking up at the sky and eventually fell asleep in my arms (that hasn’t happened since they were babies). For me, it was a perfection. For them, not so much …

Is your brand, product or service perfect? Of course! No one ever says, “My baby has imperfections.” If customers view your brand as less-than perfect, there is a perception challenge. Your customer’s perception is your business’s reality.

The Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” Ad Campaign of 2013 is one of my all-time favorites! A woman describes herself to a forensic artist and strangers who have met the woman that day do the same. The result is two images that are very different. The tagline is, “You are more beautiful than you think.”

How interesting would it be if brands could do this? If executives and employees could describe their products and services and customers do the same. How would the pictures differ?

In 2009, Domino’s Pizza had a perceptions issue. What did they do? They listened, responded and communicated how they were changing, resulting is amazing business results. Watch this Domino’s Pizza Turnaround.

Perception is reality.

Three ways to do a brand perception reality check:

1. Outside Business Consultants
2. Customer Intercepts, Focus Groups & Surveys
3. Social Media

Outside Business Consultants come in many forms; research firms, advertising, marketing and PR agencies, executive coaches, assessments, mystery shoppers to name a few. The value an outside partner can bring to your business is an objective view of your customer’s perception

Customer intercepts, focus groups or surveys are feelings and attitudes of your product or service. When asked, people will give you insights on areas to improve or let you know to stay the course. A very simple first step is a suggestion box in retail locations. You can get some really great ideas!

Social Media has opened the customer conversations wide open! Leverage this opportunity to listen, watch, collect and engage with your audience. People have immediate access to your brand to share in a public forum their likes, dislikes and desires for your product and services. Are you listening? Are you taking action? Social media allows you to respond immediately to customer feedback.

Listening to your customers and being open to feedback is an important business strategy to ensure your products and services are aligned with your customers’ perceptions.

My oldest son’s journal entry on my perfect 4th of July night: “On 4th July at night we did not get to see that much fireworks.” It was not his best 4th of July, our perceptions of the evening differed greatly, but perception is reality.

The other day, I saw a quote a friend had posted from Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” This is so true and I live this with our clients every day!

A brand is more than just advertising or a logo or social media or a tag line – it’s how your customers perceive your business. And everything a company does, whether intentional or not, shapes the perception of their brand.

Creating a strong brand identity is critical in this day and age when a world of information is at our fingertips and we are given many different options for purchasing the same product. Some of the most successful brands are those that give you a reason to like them and not just the product. Brand is more than just your product – it’s also your reputation.

In order to build a strong brand, the following objectives must be achieved:

• Have a vision – know where your brand is going. At the end of the day, what do you want your brand to be when it grows up? What’s its highest calling?
• Have a personality – what are the four adjectives that describe your brand
• Find your unique position in the marketplace – define your target audience, the frame of reference and your competitive set
• Define the club that your customers want to be aligned with and know why they want to be affiliated with your brand

Once you have defined these critical things, make sure you have internal buy in. Is your team convicted about them? Is everything you are doing internally and externally communicating your brand strategies? Are your customers or clients connected to your brand strategies?

Once you have asked yourselves these questions and are living it inside and outside your company, here’s what to do next:

• Have a branding and marketing strategy – recognize market trends and respond to consumer demands to get ahead.
• Deliver a consistent and unique message. Make sure your message aligns with your brand’s values and personality.
• Be creative! You want to stand out from the competition and creativity and innovation will get you noticed.
• Know your competition.
• Manage your reputation – It’s hard work to build up your reputation but even harder work to maintain it. Make sure you are listening to what people are saying about your brand. People are most likely to do business with companies they like and trust.
• Make sure you are everywhere your customers are looking.

A strong brand is invaluable to win the battle for customers. It’s important to spend time investing in building your brand. After all, your brand is what your customers come to expect from you. It’s the foundation of your marketing strategy and something you don’t want to be without!

Make Waves … I remember the email that started it all, seems like only yesterday …

Patti Johnson, CEO and founder of PeopleResults, sent it a few short years ago.

She hired a company to assist her in redesigning and updating her company’s website and received round three or four of creative. She forwarded the concepts to me to get my opinion and eventually partnered with Front Porch Marketing to manage the project.

First step, we had several brand strategy meetings to outline the PeopleResults brand architecture.

Next step, we used the brand strategies to drive the website creative.

Along that journey, we recommended:

• Adding a blog to the site ~ you can subscribe to it here. It ROCKS!
• Then, defining the social media strategy for the brand and the individual partners
• Conducting team and individual social media training
• Creating a social media content calendar and blog schedule
• Developing a team marketing bar where team members could present their individual marketing ideas and several other initiatives, but trying to keep this brief

And, the rest is history.

We initiated change with smart, concise thinking tailored for key personalities at PeopleResults: the PeopleResults Partners. From there, the strategies were clear, and together we built fresh path forward for the leadership team and brand.

Patti recently credited me for starting her journey that resulted in, “Make Waves: Be the One to Start Change at Work and in Life.” For that, I am very honored and humbled. It was a team effort though. Without her courageous leadership, a trusted, two-way partnership and the willingness of the leadership team, it wouldn’t have happened.

The book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Indie Bound and Walmart.

Wave Maker out!

I know, I know, it is about time!

We are finally launching our blog where our team will share our perspective on current events, new technology, branding and marketing insights, thoughts and wacky ideas that we hope you will find entertaining.

We also hope you can learn a lil’ bit more about us, who we are, what we do and the impact we have on businesses today.

We encourage you to be part of the discussion and subscribe by e-mail or RSS. Also, join our Facebook and Twitter discussions or follow us on Instagram.  

We are Off Our Rocker, that’s what makes us who we are.

We take our work and business seriously, sometimes maybe too much so, but ourselves, well … not so much.

Rock on!

Creativity and inspiration come in many forms. And, collaborative creativity rocks.

So … What inspires us on the porch? What gets our rockers going? A lot, to be sure!!!

So you are asking yourself, to blog, or not to blog, that is the question. Really?

We say yes! How else does one share the pearls that all of us might be thinking, but don’t get around to verbalizing? Share. Please share.

All of us enjoy having someone else validate our offbeat humor. Think about it this way.

There are many different ways to communicate. Condensing to 140 characters will get the tweet out. Facebook captures our pics and thought bubbles.

Make no mistake, we love social media!! Nothing gets us rocking like a fabulous tweet or Twitter conversation. But sometimes it just doesn’t do justice to the topic. So, we say blog on!

If it seems insurmountable and you don’t know where to start, think of it this way Shakespeare penned (and we do mean “penned”) 37 plays and 154 sonnets in his short 52 years. Think of that as your typing by the light of the fire.

And since brevity is the soul of wit … our work here is done.