The Brand as Publisher with @SimonPenson #VCBuzz

The Brand as Publisher with @SimonPenson #VCBuzzContent marketing is the foundation of marketing success: It’s where your business success starts and ends. To succeed, content should be placed at the core of business operations. Today we’ll talk about tools, tips and examples of how to execute this all-encompassing content marketing strategy.

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About @SimonPenson

.@SimonPenson is former print editor and currently speaker, writer & founder of @zazzlemedia. Simon is into content strategy, creation & distribution mixed with SEO and social.

Connect to Simon on Linkedin

Questions we discussed

Q1 How did you transition from print media to digital marketing? What’s your career story?

I started as a journalist obsessed with using content to create audiences. I ran my own sites and could see the audience migrating!

It was obvious audience was moving online & yet content wasn’t taken seriously. @ZazzleMedia was created to change that.

We called it content marketing but we want to move it on to the end game – brand as publisher.

Q2 What’s best way to explain “The Brand as Publisher” concept? I, for one,  LOVED your @Moz quote:

“Imagine yourself as THE leading consumer magazine for your market.”

For me Brand as publisher is the idea of putting content front & centre of your brand. I wrote about it here.

It means a change in mindset to become a brand that informs and entertains through content and monetizes with products and services.

What would your content output look like if you were the leading magazine in your space? Put that front and centre on and off page! And Brand as Publishers cuts across every channel – email, brand, social, search, influencer, paid…EVERYTHING.

It’s a big, brave change but is the future for all market leaders!

Q3 Let’s talk about those “pillars” of the approach!

Structure is important to ensure u see positive ROI from brand as publisher. We work through several stages to maximise opportunity.

The process explained in that post borrows the best of digital & print publishing thinking to create a channel agnostic strategy.

We created a toolkit to help build a brand as publisher strategy. You can get it for free here.

There are lots! The obvious one is Redbull – media company that sells drinks! Patagonia are also good at it.

While it would b easy to say something like Coke the biggest reward would come from reinventing a so-call…

Video will explode, especially live video. Those that win will move away from campaigns & towards true ‘always on’.

Q4 How do you define and explain the ROI of that approach? … because you know, most business owners will just respond “Show me the money”

ROI is very important to me too. The initial phase must include proper GA set up to understand the value across every channel.

You must measure across search, social, brand, influencer buzz & more. Starts with top of funnel & ends with revenue growth.

Audience growth, visitor growth, return visits, sentiment, dwell time, visits by channel, conversion, revenue…the whole 9 yards.

Content drives every one of those from top of the funnel to conversion & then retention.

You need to set expectation. It doesn’t happen quickly & never ends but think 12 months not 12 days!

Q5 What are your favorite content marketing tools?

The best are those that help you understand who your audience and customers are, what content they consume now and where.

Great content starts & ends with that. For this we use everything from Comscore & social data 2 Hitwise, ahrefs & Hubspot/CRM tools.

If you’re creating content an investment in a CRM is very smart. Create content to download and build a picture of your audience.

We have had most success with @HubSpot but there are a lot in the space.

Our previous content marketing chats:

 

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