Content marketing

Many companies will have gone through several iterations of their web site over the years, but how many have really revisited the content? Too often it is the same material in a new wrapper. In the Internet era so much has changed, much of it in the favour of b-2-b companies  and away from traditional media owners. Company information pre-Internet took a number of well established routes to reach customers and prospects - advertising, press releases, exhibitions, mail shots and brochures - and still does. Pretty much all of this can now be done online, although arguably not the face-to-face experience of exhibitions in quite the same way. Companies used advertising in publications to reach their target audience by selecting magazines with the relevant readership profile because this was the only way. The magazines built the readership by providing fresh content each month through a mix of reporting, features and by editing press announcements. Generally both traditional media publishers and company marketing people have been slow to recognise that everyone can be a publisher now. Think about the most common question customers ask when you see them on an exhibition stand or when making a sales call - "tell me what is new."  Showing a new product or service is what salesmen use to get an appointment, it is a door opener. Now think about the company web site. Does this highlight what is new? Many do not. Just as customers are reluctant to see a salesmen without something new to say, so web sites need to be constantly evolving to retain the interest of returning visitors. You may not always have new products, but you can have something new to say about them and visitors need to know this once they reach your site. Little details such as displaying the current date rather than saying last updated 2007 are simple clues that the site is regularly maintained and the product information is likely to be up to date as well. That is why we advocate putting news right there on the entry page. Not only does it show there is content that they have not seen before and is worth looking at, but indicates the site is being kept current. You would not pick up a magazine you had read before would you? So marketing content is essential these days.  A simple answer is to add a Virtual News Office linked to your site with RSS feeds and teleprinter style headlines on the home page.