Has Apple Defined a New Medium, Again?

January 20, 2012

Yes­ter­day Apple ignited a firestorm of debate on the sub­ject of dig­i­tal books, and the future of the pub­lish­ing indus­try, book dis­tri­b­u­tion, and likely con­sumer con­sump­tion pat­terns. They announced their goal of fol­low­ing through on Steve Jobs’ man­date to trans­form text­book pub­lish­ing. I believe that what they’re doing is spark­ing the emer­gence of a whole new medium, one that takes aim at text­books first. Here’s why…

Tagged as: content strategy, digital publishing, digital textbooks, enhanced ebooks

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Bloggers, Get Ready for “Responsive Web Designs”

January 16, 2012

With more peo­ple access­ing blogs and web­sites from smart­phones, con­tent own­ers need to check out their exist­ing page designs to ensure they are “smart­phone friendly” — opti­mized for mobile usage. Experts advo­cate “respon­sive web design” strate­gies as a way to design for web + mobile con­tent. The ques­tion is, what tools are avail­able today?

Tagged as: content optimized for mobile, content strategy, Headway, responsive web design, WordPress

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OMG, It’s a “Transmedia” Problem

December 2, 2011

Yes­ter­day I blogged about an emerg­ing chal­lenge fac­ing small busi­nesses — adapt­ing their web con­tent so it’s more usable and acces­si­ble for peo­ple who use smart­phones or tablets to go online. It’s amaz­ing what you can learn in a day by sim­ply focus­ing your atten­tion on a busi­ness issue. From Jakob Nielsen, the usabil­ity guru, I’ve […]

Tagged as: Brand Strategy, content strategy, transmedia design, user experience

Revised on January 16, 2012

Success Factors for Marketing Automation

April 28, 2011

For­rester has iden­ti­fied the key fac­tors that are most likely to spell suc­cess or fail­ure when it comes to imple­ment­ing B2B mar­ket­ing automa­tion plat­forms (report pub­lished April 2011). Com­pa­nies that rush to imple­ment with­out the right con­tent or agreed-upon processes are unlikely to achieve sat­is­fac­tory pay­back from their invest­ment in mar­ket­ing automa­tion. For­rester cau­tions that […]

Tagged as: buyer journey, content strategy, marketing automation

Creating a Content Strategy Maturity Model

April 11, 2011

B2B mar­keters need to take a more holis­tic, strate­gic approach when it comes to craft­ing con­tent strat­egy. This means look­ing beyond tra­di­tional web + email silos to the broader busi­ness con­text and mar­ket­ing objec­tives. This post intro­duces a draft con­tent strat­egy matu­rity model that can some­day be used for orga­ni­za­tional assess­ment. (Today’s it’s an “alpha stage” work-in-process.)

Tagged as: content strategy, content strategy maturity model

Revised on April 18, 2011

2011 Topical Summary by Wordle

March 31, 2011

It’s always fun to review the themes and ideas that have emerged in this blog, as a way of mark­ing both the pas­sage of time, but also the inte­rior con­ver­sa­tion. For the author or con­tent cre­ator, it’s a plea­sur­able feed­back device. Even bet­ter, when that sum­mary is visual: I’m happy to see Wor­dle reflect some […]

Tagged as: content strategy, Wordle

Real-world Example, Part 2

March 25, 2011

[Con­tin­ued from “CMOs Expect More from Con­tent Strat­egy”] Here’s a prac­ti­cal exam­ple: think­ing through the con­tent strat­egy for home heat­ing and cool­ing sys­tems. This exam­ple illus­trates the logic for a sin­gle cus­tomer sce­nario, home­own­ers who have already pur­chased and installed a new heat­ing sys­tem via the manufacturer’s dealer and installer net­work. Con­tent strate­gists will need […]

Tagged as: content strategy, marketing strategy

Content Strategy for Marketers

March 15, 2011

A curi­ous aspect about the hype sur­round­ing con­tent strat­egy for mar­ket­ing is the lack of agree­ment on what it means — or clar­ity on whose bud­get should fund con­tent strat­egy devel­op­ment. Like the blind men with the ele­phant, we draw dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions based on vary­ing frames of ref­er­ence and pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ence. Our per­spec­tives also dif­fer based […]

Tagged as: content strategy

Revised on April 20, 2011

The Dark Side of Content Marketing

March 4, 2011

Con­tent mar­ket­ing offers tremen­dous promise, but there’s a dark side to it: loom­ing con­tent chaos, cou­pled with a seri­ous skills short­age that could limit its poten­tial impact. This chal­lenge con­fronts con­tent mar­keters in orga­ni­za­tions of all sizes. Here’s why.

Tagged as: content management, content marketing, content strategy, digital assets

Revised on March 27, 2011

If You Want Great Leads, Plan to Offer More Relevant Content

February 17, 2011

A recent sur­vey of B2B CMOs by Mar­ket­ing­Sh­erpa reports that 76% of CMOs say gen­er­at­ing high-quality leads is their most press­ing chal­lenge. A related issue is the increas­ing num­ber of peo­ple and buyer roles involved in com­plex pur­chase deci­sions. This has impor­tant impli­ca­tions for con­tent mar­keters. Here are some of the key find­ings, show­ing the […]

Tagged as: B2B, buyer personas, CMO, content marketing, content strategy, messaging architectures

Revised on March 27, 2011

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