Leadership development coach and author of The Leader's Digest blog, Suzi McAlpine.
These days it seems everyone's a publisher. From posting on social media and emailing newsletters to blogging and publishing e-books, more and more businesses are creating and sharing content as a means of marketing themselves.
But with an increasing amount of material out there, how are businesses making sure their content is hitting the mark and actually engaging the audiences they're wanting to reach?
This week I've interviewed a handful of businesses about their content marketing efforts and what they've learned about what works in their respective businesses.
Leadership development coach Suzi McAlpine didn't even know what a blog was when it was first suggested to her that she start one. But since she began publishing her blog, The Leader's Digest, in 2012 it's evolved into one of the top 100 socially shared leadership blogs in the world.
Content marketing is the only form of marketing McAlpine does in her business, and it all centres around her blog, which she also shares through social media channels. One of the key things she's learnt about growing an audience has been to keep readers front and centre.
"If I think about who I'm talking to it's absolutely CEOs and senior executives, so I have to start with topics that really resonate with them," she says. "At the same time I think what's been really powerful is being able to find my own voice. If you look at the early posts in 2012 there was probably less of me shining through - I'm a little bit more irreverent than what comes through in those - but I'm finding now I can really use my authentic voice."
Lisa Wilson is the international communications manager for beauty brand Trilogy Natural Products, which undertakes a number of kinds of content marketing - from blogging and posting on social media channels, to joining forces in media and blogger partnerships.
Our biggest learning has been that content has to be relevant to be engaging, so know your audience, understand what they're looking for and what channels they like to communicate through.
Wilson says the company tries to keep a 50/50 mix with any of its content, so that half of it is product-related and the other half is "interesting, inspirational or educational content that also helps tell our brand story".
"Our biggest learning has been that content has to be relevant to be engaging, so know your audience, understand what they're looking for and what channels they like to communicate through," she says. "And be customer-centric. Rather than thinking about what we want to be telling people, we try to flip that on its head and think 'what are our customers wanting to know?'."
The number of fans, followers or 'likes' is a common currency in the world of social media, but Wilson says that doesn't necessarily tell the whole story when it comes to how good you are at getting your message across.
"I think what's much more important than the size of your following is how engaged they are, because the whole point of social media is it's a two-way conversation," she says.
Another strong message from those interviewed is the importance of creating the right content for the right platform.
"Businesses will sometimes take a piece of content that's meant for elsewhere - so they'll take a print advertisement, or a TV commercial - and just place it on their Facebook page and expect it to work," says Sam Stuchbury, creative director and founder of Auckland-based creative, social and content agency Motion Sickness Studio.
"But it doesn't because it's a completely different platform and people engage with it in a different way. Content needs to be specifically designed and executed for the platform where it's being placed."
Stuchbury also emphasises the importance of having a strategy behind all the content a business produces so the messages are cohesive, provide value to consumers and fit with the overall brand. Creating original content is another factor he cites for success.
"There's so much content on the web now that people can share easily, so I think it's important to create your own stuff to stay fresh and capture people's attention," he says.
Anya Merryfield manages brand and communications at the GridAKL innovation precinct in Auckland's Wynyard Quarter, where all content is created inhouse. It's a strategy that Merryfield says helps them create tight messaging that closely reflects the brand.
"We're really passionate and interested in our community, and I think it's that inherent understanding of what interests us that allows us to know what will interest our audience," she says.
Keeping a close eye on analytics is also important to learn about what works and what doesn't, so content can be tailored.
"We measure the usual suspects like time on page and pages visited after first engagement with content, lead generation, visits to website, rates of engagement overall and so on, and keep an eye on our content drill down and how often our content finds its way into people's hands. Because we're constantly measuring we can hone and re-hone each piece as we go," she says.
Trial and error are all part of the journey with content marketing, and many of those interviewed talked about the need to constantly refine the way they tell stories, and experiment with new types of content and publishing platforms.
Jude Turner is the owner of Crave Home - a homewares specialist, which has a physical store in Birkenhead and an online shop. Over the past six months Turner has ramped up her content marketing efforts, growing the firm's Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram presence and its email newsletter.
In that time she's learnt lots about what works for her audience; giveaways on their Facebook page get lots of traction, for example, and rather than being turned off by posts about new products, followers actually like them because it helps them "keep up with what's new and cool", she says.
"Our follower numbers on all three of those social media accounts have grown, but I think more importantly it's just got the Crave Home name out there a bit more," she says.
"For me, success with this is primarily about growing brand awareness and perception at the moment - I figure the sales will come; getting our name out there and having more people learn about us, what we sell and why we're pretty great is my main measure of success at the moment. I think it's a pretty good ROI."
Suzi McAlpine is a leadership development coach and author of The Leader's Digest blog.
Why did you start your blog?
I met [communications consultant] Amy Cunningham at a party and we started talking about my work as a leadership coach and educator. She said to me 'you should write a blog'. To which I replied 'sure, that sounds like lot of fun' not really having any idea what a blog was!
So I really was a novice, but there were two reasons I wanted to do it. One was around developing thought leadership. My strategy isn't about using the blog as a source of direct income; it's very much around providing tips and assistance about leadership to my key audience.
The second reason is it's a creative outlet for me. In my role as an executive coach I'm so fortunate to learn vicariously through my clients and I see so many common challenges that senior leaders face.
So I thought the blog was a really good way for us to all learn collectively in a creative way. I love doing it, and it's just gone from strength to strength. We did our first post towards the end of 2012 and it's since been named among the top 100 socially shared leadership blogs in the world.
How have you grown your audience over that time?
One of the biggest learnings I've had since I started the blog is to always start with your readers in mind. If I think about who I'm talking to it's absolutely CEOs and senior executives, so I have to start with topics that really resonate with them.
At the same time I think what's been really powerful is being able to find my own voice. If you look at the early posts in 2012 there was probably less of me shining through - I'm a little bit more irreverent than what comes through in those - but I'm finding now I can really use my authentic voice.
What I'm trying to do is engage my audience, so we have conversations. So I think it's important to ask your audience what they want to read about. I do that verbally with clients and at the end of each post. And I just love it when people comment back, even if they completely disagree with me.
A common theme I've found among the posts that resonate is the personal stories - the ones that communicate that authenticity, a bit of vulnerability and a bit of my own life.
There was one I did recently around values set - where I had a sick child and I had to make some choices around that which affected my professional life - or another one I wrote about being a recovering perfectionist. These are things that a lot of my clients struggle with too, so they really resonate.
What channels have you found best for reaching your audience with your blog content?
Content marketing is the only marketing I do for my business, and all of it is driven via my blog. So whenever we publish a blog it goes out on all my platforms - Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
For me, Twitter has worked really well, and finding that out was a learning process. Especially when you're starting, you have to be comfortable with the fact that it's about trial and error and just constantly measuring and analysing your readership.
I was surprised that Twitter has been so good for us; I was a Twitter novice, but now I'm a Twitter freak. I also use Twitter to post quotes, start conversations, retweet conversations with other leadership experts around the world and also just to sometimes comment around things I've noticed.
You mentioned you don't use the blog as a direct income stream, so what tangible impact have you seen it have on your business?
We measure our performance through some clear goals and KPIs, which we analyse and tweak. We can track exactly how many followers we have, which posts resonate the most and on what platforms they're reading the content.
So, for example, that's how we've found out that Twitter is really powerful for us. Overall, what the blog has done is really raise my profile, and off the top of my head even in the last two months I've had at least three new pieces of work come directly from people reading my blog.
Do you have any other words of advice for aspiring business bloggers?
I think one of the most important things is to get an expert to help guide and train you and keep you accountable. We're only just starting with The Leader's Digest but I wouldn't have been able to achieve what I have without Amy. It's been such a team effort, because I was such a babe in the woods when it came to content marketing. I don't know if I ever would have got where we are now, or to where we want to continue to go, on my own.
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