Lisa Merriam, Host: 00:01 Content marketing is nothing new. Michelin Guides have been pumping up a tire company for over a hundred years.00:07 But back when old media was king, it took big budgets in teams of specialists to reach customers.

00:14 The dawn of the internet, the availability of easy-to-use design and editing software, and new ways to reach people have powered a content marketing revolution.

00:25 The American Marketing Association caught up with board member and content marketing specialist Keith Reynolds for some tips on modern content marketing.

Keith Reynolds, Content Marketing Expert: 00:34 Everybody needs to be involved, from senior management on down, across all your functions, involved in producing the content and providing the information that your customers need.

00:46 Content marketing versus advertising. It is a push versus pull strategy.

00:50 With content marketing. it’s like farming. Advertising is like hunting.

00:54 When you go out into the field hunting,  you are randomly looking for food and you bring it home that night.

00:58 With a an agrarian approach, you’re planting seeds in the spring and you tend them as a process throughout the summer.

01:09 And at the end of the year you’ve got enough food to last you for the winter.

01:14 To get started with content marketing, you have to have a strategy.

01:17 Think of it as seven buckets. You have to have a big idea that connects with your audience. You have to really know your audience and their needs and their goals and objectives.

01:25 Then you have to have an editorial strategy and calendar that’s going to produce information that’s relevant to them.

01:32 And then you have to have publishing and distribution of your content so that you’re putting it out in places where people can find it.

01:38 You also then need a community of events and tactics so that you’re taking your media out to where your customers are.

01:47 You also have to have marketing automation that ties it all together and creates a closed-loop system so that your marketing and sales systems are talking to each other, and you can do attribution

and reporting and analysis, which means

02:00 You also then have to have a sales model. How does your sales team use your content. And finally an ROI model how are you going to make money.

02:09 With traditional media, you base your value on the sale of advertising and sponsorships.

02:14 With content marketing, you’re basing it on the value of a lead to your business and keeping customers.

Lisa Merriam, Host: 02:21 Content marketing is now a must-do activity for any company that wants to build reputation, generate leads, and establish long-term relationships with customers.

02:33 And that’s brilliance in marketing.