courtesy of BMA Chicago
Here’s one of the best, most succinct videos I’ve seen defining quality content marketing. It was done by a former client of mine, George Stenitzer.
A few years back Tellabs, a manufacturer of telecom and optical networking equipment based near Chicago was a major client of mine. I have telecom experience so I enjoyed the material and enjoyed working for George. He was smart, demanding yet reasonable and always provided feedback to my team, both positive and negative. He is a former newspaper guy who worked hard to get beyond the forest of telecom acronyms to speak simply in terms of customer benefits.
The massive consolidation in telecom in the aughts left too few carriers and too many equipment vendors. The writing was on the wall for Tellabs, and George knew it. In late 2013 the company was purchased by a private equity firm – here’s GigaOm with a good overview.
George has launched his own content marketing consultancy – Crystal Clear Communications – and he nails it in this video. It truly captures the spirit of giving valuable information to prospects before asking anything of them, and the need to have the discipline to stick consistently to topic and publishing cadence. [Here’s direct link if you don’t see embed below.]
Of course executing on everything described in the video is challenging, especially when it comes to prospect nurture and conversions. A company needs a good analytics package, the knowledge of how to use it and a healthy culture capable of embracing the publisher mentality. But following the principles laid out here by George are prerequisites for content marketing success.