Michael Rabinovici

Content Marketing – Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends for 2012

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Content marketing is gaining an increasingly important role for B2B marketers, and in companies’ overall marketing strategies .  Below you will find a link to the 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends survey put together by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs.

For purposes of the research, the survey defined content marketing as follows: “Content marketing/custom media (sometimes called custom publishing, custom content, or branded content) is the creation and distribution of educational and/or compelling content in multiple formats to attract and/or retain customers.”
Here are some highlights:

• On average, B2B marketers employ eight different content marketing tactics to achieve their marketing goals.

• 60% report that they plan to increase their spend on content marketing over the next 12 months.

• Marketers, on average, spend over a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing.

Industries with the highest rates of content marketing adoption:

• Professional Services………………………………..94%

• Computing/Software…………………………………93%

• Advertising/Marketing………………………………89%

• Healthcare……………………………………………………….89%

• Business Services……………………………………….84%

• Manufacturing/Processing…………………….83%

For a free copy if the report – Click Here

How is your company leveraging content marketing?  What results are you experiencing?  Leave a comment below or email me at michael at ar-com.com

 

 

 

Michael Rabinovici

Don’t spend another cent on your branding campaigns until you read this

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Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Martin Goldfarb, co-author of the just published book, Affinity Beyond Branding.
Martin is perhaps best known as the official Liberal Party pollster from 1973-1992.  He also happens to be one of Canada’s most successful entrepreneurs and a leading expert in the study of human behaviour as it relates to the marketplace and society.

He has consulted to numerous corporations, including Ford Motor Company, DeBeers, and Four Seasons Hotels.

Once you listen to my chat with Martin, you will appreciate that this book and the experiences he shares are worth their weight in gold.  Listen to the podcast here. 

Get your copy of the book here.

Michael Rabinovici

The Case for Podcasts – Doubling the odds that your marketing message will be remembered

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As many of you know, I have long been a fan of podcasts as an effective marketing tool. My reasoning was, and continues to be, twofold:  First, anecdotal evidence demonstrates that a significant portion of your audience prefers to consume content by listening to it as opposed to reading it.  Second, many C-level decision-makers no longer read and review product and service options while in the office, where their time is at a premium, but rather while driving or working out.  In these latter settings, audio content trumps all other types of content for obvious reasons.
As our rationale was mostly based on anecdotal evidence, I am always on the lookout for science-based empirical evidence to buttress my thinking.  I recently came across a study from sparkinsight.com (see graphic below) that proves our podcast thesis – after two weeks, we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, and 50% of what we see and hear.

So, you ask, what is the best way to leverage the power of the spoken word?

Here are two suggestions:
1.  When promoting a new product or service, consider creating two short (15 minutes) podcasts: one with an internal expert and the second with a satisfied customer or partner.  The first positions your company as an expert or thought leader, while the second represents the third-party social proof for that positioning.  We call it the “1-2  integrated marketing punch”.
2.  If your company lists its management or partners with pictures and bios on its Web site, create a very short (5 minutes) podcast with each of them.
Remember: by simply adding a podcast to your marketing mix, you are doubling the chances that your audience will remember your message.

More Formats: Better Learning (2)
The second concept related to neuroscience is the idea of assisting people to interact with your content in multiple ways. The concept of “multimodal learning” explains that people are more likely to learn and retain information when it is presented in multiple modalities, such as written (visual) and aural (auditory) at the same time. Your content will get more attention if you offer people multiple formats by which they can consume it.