On Thursday, January 28 we talked about “Selecting the Right Content Marketing Tools” on our #Pipelinemarketing Blab Channel with guests Douglas Karr, Founder Marketing Tech Blog and Scott Abel, CEO and Chief Content Strategist for The Content Wrangler. The discussion centered on what tools are the most effective, and what tools produce the greatest content marketing results.
Our moderator, RenderTribe CEO Peter Dean, asked some great questions and we got some great answers. Here are the questions and some highlights from the conversation:
Q1: What tool(s) have you found most effective in driving real traffic to your website? What do you look at because there are so many things out there?
Doug talked about how in his industry people often sign up for a content marketing tool and then regret it because they have a terrible time adopting. He said people need to map out their processes from research to composition, to design, through production within their company first. This method points to what kinds of resources they have to apply towards a new tool. A lot of companies define the process and then define the tool around it; but companies struggle because they adopt it and don’t have the resources. Or they may implement a tool that’s too simple and have a lot of resources. He said they use SEMrush and BuzzSumo to produce content.
Scott said asking about tools might not be the right first question. People are often schooled by how they were introduced to computers or software. They were given a computer, with folders, and then encouraged to go buy software. They would then install it on personal computers at home, but then when they went to work there was a level called the IT department who restricted installation of software. We don’t have that restriction level anymore so we can implement any SaaS software we want, which is not always the best approach. To Doug’s point, you need to scale to resources.
Doug said he loves the fact that there are a lot of tools because it allows him to find the tool that fits his specific process.
Q2: What is the first step you would take to discover the process and find the tool to fit into it?
Scott said sometimes companies want to rapidly find the right answer to doing better work and they try to clone the successes that they see. It is important to start with analysis. He gave a quick tip: there’s a tool called the Content Analysis Tool (CAT) Contentinsight.com to create a content inventory of everything on your website, what language it’s in, what files are attached to it. Once someone does this exercise they can discover the content that is no longer relevant, products not used, and they can find out what they have first and then decide what they want to do.
Doug said companies are usually concerned about output rather than what prospects are looking for. They can still provide value and curate content if they are helping with ancillary problems as well.
Scott also said there are so many things we want to do and, as a result, sometimes things can get out of sync in small-medium businesses. Wittyparrot can help people move towards organizing intelligent content. With this tool, they can find re-useable pieces of content by dragging and dropping them into documents, and build a repository for other people who need to communicate on their behalf. If they aren’t going to buy a one-stop solution, it’s important to know someone who knows about APIs to connect the tools together. The one-stop tools aren’t always the answer because they are really just a bunch of tools put together.
Peter spoke to Doug and asked, “You have probably been through this process a lot. Do you have any examples of ways you have gone from a small set of tools to figuring out a way to put the pieces together?”
Doug replied what we are looking for in mapping out processes is what the pain points are and how they are solving a problem. Mapping your problem and resources is going to be the answer to the problem. E.g., when I do write, I don’t get any leads. That’s a pain point so we have to glue together pieces to solve the problems. They could be missing something as simple as including a CTA.
Scott said he’s taking a CRM, Word Press and a conference planning software and “pasting” them together. He is trying to map categories, called tracks, at a conference and then working backwards to find a CTA based on who you are (value proposition has to be different). It may be easier for large companies to control, but not small companies.
Doug said he thinks Jay Baer said the average blog post at a company costs $900 per post. Now reverse that, look at analytics to see what your customers or future customers are going to; work on what makes sense.
He also said marketers are often worried about safety because of the nature of their jobs so they select the big company like Salesforce, which is safe. They also may want to learn more about a big company like an Oracle so they can bring value to the next job
Scott weighted in, human beings sometimes are flawed or have characteristics which makes them naturally adverse to risk. The world that we live in now requires us to think differently. We have to open our minds up about outside opportunities and view it through a business filter to make good decisions.
Summary Statements and Blabber Resources
Doug said talk to your agency or “people” who have used these tools before and have the experience (someone who is agnostic to a specific system). @douglaskarr
Doug provided a link to his website: Marketing Tech Blog to learn more information about content marketing technology.
Scott said his goal for this year is to refer people to other experts. Sometimes it’s helpful for people who are in a specific industry to talk to an expert in that field. @scottabel
Scott provided a link to his website: The Content Wrangler to get help thinking differently about you produce, manage and deliver content experiences.
We encourage you to watch the Blab recording on Content Marketing Tools- it’s only 30-minutes and you will be sure to learn something new! You should also sign up to receive notifications about RenderTribe’s upcoming Blabs and events.
