You can also manage the account access of these additional users.

The team members you invite will be able to do the following:

1. Post on your behalf.
2. Add / delete feeds and social profiles
3. Edit your settings
4. View stats
5. Set their own email delivery preferences

As account owner / administrator you will solely control:

1. Adding / deleting team members
2. All billing information and details

To add additional team members you will need to have an Ultimate or Enterprise dlvr.it plan. The Ultimate plan allow for one additional team member, while the Enterprise account allows for 10 additional team members.

Check out the details on how to add team members to your account.

To help you navigating this new complex world, we’ve assembled some insights and tips from the expert speakers at the upcoming 2013 Content Marketing Strategies Conference May 7-9, in Berkeley, CA.

Arnie Kuenn on the importance of SEO.

Arnie is the President of Vertical Measures, an SEO expert, and frequent speaker and author.

What we’ve concluded from all the changes in the past 2-3 years in the world of content marketing is that Google really wants to convince you of one thing: creating great content is the way to go. That being said, SEO is still just as important. You must optimize, optimize, optimize: your content, image tags, videos…everything! Then you need to promote it. Distribute it. Get backlinks to it. Professional SEO’s understand this and are implementing these tactics better than anyone out there right now.

Maria Ross on the importance of the brand story.

Maria is the Founder of Red Slice, brand strategist, author and speaker.

Being consistent means identifying and articulating the key things for which you want your brand to be known, and ensuring you deliver that promise through everything that you do. Brands get into trouble when they promise one thing but fail to consistently deliver it through every single customer touchpoint. You can’t possibly be all things to all people so choose wisely and focus on those messages.

Scott Frangos on Google+.

Scott is the Founder & President of WebDirexion, chief optimizer and speaker on Google+.

Even as more features are added to Google+, marketers have yet to wrap their strategic and tactical minds around ways to take full advantage of the existing G+ system.  Here are four initial brainstorms:

• Use a community(s) to build interest for a Google hangout on a business topic, then stream the hangout live and save it on your YouTube channel.
• Build your circles wisely, then use the post to circle emails and calendar scheduling to invite the right people to an online or offline event.  Be careful here — all the SPAM cautions apply.
• Authors and thought leaders — brand your Google+ location with a personal URL — mine is ScottGooglePlus.info
• Have a smart surf of “Google “Ripples” to see what people are buzzing about and listen to prospects, competitors and colleagues about a particular post, topic and website.

Lindy Roux on content creation.

Lindy is the Principal Content Strategist at Siteworx.

Businesses often don’t fully realize the amount of content they actually need to create, review and ultimately map for their website. With the investment your company is making in redesigning your website, why risk your site’s success by not properly addressing the content? To prevent this, I highly recommend that content be considered a managed risk, just as any other component of website development.

James Citron on mobile content distribution.

James is the CEO & co-Founder of Mogreet and mobile marketing expert.

When content is shared to consumers by MMS, brands have the option to include prompts to share the received information across social channels.  And there are major benefits to the brand for including social sharing in messages. First, it empowers the customer to share the amazing, exclusive branded content with their friends and family.  Secondly, it activates word of mouth marketing, increasing the trust factor dramatically. Content shared by friends is much more likely to convert into higher database opt-ins than content shared by a brand, alone.

Getting started with content marketing can seem a bit overwhelming – not enough time, resources or knowledge. Take our three day crash course May 7-9, 2013 and learn from your peers including  case studies by brands including Red Hat, New Belgium Brewing, FOX’s hit show Glee and much more.

The role of content in text message marketing

The basis of any successful marketing program is a question of scale. If you can activate 40% of your fan base, the larger your fan base, the higher the potential of your program’s ROI.  Yes, when it comes to marketing, bigger is better.

The bigger the size of the database, the bigger the results.

So just how do businesses entice customers to join a marketing database?  What makes a customer or prospect willing to share their personal information with a brand in exchange for content?  Value!

The more valuable your program content is to the end user, the more likely they are to engage and act.

Understanding Content Value

In each relationship between a business and a customer, there is a value statement.  For GLEE, FOX found that the most valued content their mobile fans wanted was the upcoming show’s song list.  This makes perfect sense.  GLEE is known and loved for its amazing, musically-themed programming.  So when FOX noticed fans asking for this information on social and blog channels, they initiated a text marketing program as a way to distribute this content on a medium that allowed fans to receive and react with the content in real time.

Creating + Sharing Valuable Content

Not all brands have it as easy as FOX. After all, a TV show creates content every day! Teen retailer Charlotte Russe found coupons were always in demand, but simply distributing coupons did not deepen customer loyalty.  So, Charlotte Russe created programming to support coupon distribution.  In their Mystery Date campaign, the team at Charlotte Russe created a story arc that allowed fans to choose one of three perfect men (mystery dates).  Fans chose the man of their dreams by text and received a video by Mr. Perfect back, as well as a coupon for redemption.  By turning couponing into an engaging story-based program, CR found a much higher redemption rate (and increased their database dramatically at the same time).

Empowering advocacy with content

But businesses can do even more with compelling content.  When content is shared to consumers by MMS, brands have the option to include prompts to share the received information across social channels.  And there are major benefits to the brand for including social sharing in messages.

• First, it empowers the customer to share the amazing, exclusive branded content with their friends and family.
• Secondly, it activates word of mouth marketing, increasing the trust factor dramatically. Content shared by friends is much more likely to convert into higher database opt-ins than content shared by a brand, alone.

Each of these programs was designed with the customer in mind.  In each case, the brand managers understood their target audience and the types of interactions and content that resonated best with their audience. They were able to generate huge successes by creating programs their customers wanted, distributing it across a medium they use daily, multimedia support text messaging (MMS).  By employing a customer-first mentality with content creation, these brands succeeded in engaging, activating and creating loyal brand fans.

To learn more about content marketing, text message marketing or Mogreet, visit www.mogreet.com

Hear more from James on mobile marketing at the Content Marketing Strategies Conference, May 7-9, 2013 at The Claremont Hotel Club & Spa in Berkeley, CA.

About the author

Widely regarded as one of the country’s foremost experts on mobile marketing, James Citron is the co-founder and CEO of Mogreet, the leading multimedia text messaging marketing platform. Over the past five years, James has created one of the country’s most successful mobile marketing companies, serving marquee brands including Bloomingdale’s, Jack in the Box, and FOX television, among others.

5 Steps to getting the right marketing content to the right people at the right time

One of the biggest struggles between sales and marketing stems from understanding what sales needs to turn a prospect into a customer and what marketing has the bandwidth to produce.

It’s a battle that repeats itself regardless of company size or industry focus. To help remove some of the animosity from the relationship, it helps to have everyone on the same page and understand the multiplication mindset.

1. Set Objectives – Traditionally, marketing has created content and handed it off to sales teams to use how and when they see fit; a “one-size-fits-all” approach that no longer works. Before marketing can better assist sales, both have to determine their main objective for content – brand awareness, lead generation, sales, customer retention, thought leadership, and so forth.
2. Know Your Buyers – Take time to identify the people with whom you want to connect and understand them intimately. By creating personas, both sales and marketing will identify and understand common characteristics of a group of people with whom you want to connect. It outlines their perspectives, fears, drivers, and content needs.
3.  Understand Your Buyer / Retention Cycle – Many companies focus on generating leads and closing the sale, then forget about customers until it’s time for them to buy again. That’s a big mistake. Sales teams need to think about retention and renewals as much as the original sale. What matters most to your persona during each phase? How does their content needs change?
4. Right Time. Right Place. Right Content.  - What marketing content you use when depends on the persona and where they are in the buyer / retention cycle. Now that you understand your personas, and the breadth and depth of content that you can create from a single source, it’s easier to map that to the buyer / retention cycle and deliver the right content that engages them with the right message when they’re most likely to pay attention.
5. The Multiplier Effect– This is where sales gains empowerment and marketing can catch their breath. On average, teams can create 12 additional pieces of content from a single white paper. Here are just a few examples once you have the main piece created:

• Blogs: Generate multiple posts that cover why the problem is a problem, the solution (your unique point of view) and the impact the solution has on an organization.
• Videos: Consider both internal and external. What does your subject matter expert have to teach about the subject? What’s something that proved most valuable to a customer?
• Webinar: Think “how to” and give hands-on information that allow attendees to listen, then immediately use what they learned.
• Infographic: We all like pictures, and they help make statistics and new processes easier to relate to.
• Publish an eBook: look for common themes and questions and then create an eBook that addresses them.
• Develop an App: Can you help your customers by making life easier for them through an app?
• Create a community: If you hear the same questions from customers over and over, this may be the time to bring them together. Connect them both online and off and help facilitate connections that prove valuable for them.

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Hear more from Carla on “Understanding content’s role in sales enablement” at the Content Marketing Strategies Conference, May 7-9, 2013 at The Claremont Hotel Club & Spa in Berkeley, CA.

About the Author:

Carla Johnson has a 20+ year career helping organizations build stronger brand engagement and sales through content marketing and storytelling. Her clients have included companies such as Motorola Solutions, Sybase, VMware, TeleTech, Encana Oil & Gas and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She’s a consultant to the Content Marketing Institute, a frequent speaker, contributing author to “Advice From The Top: The Expert Guide to B2B Marketing,” and numerous high-tech, industry and business publications.

Google Plus — a Key Toolset for Content Marketers:

There were 1 million+ business and brand pages created on Google+ in the first six months.  G+ currently has over 400 million personal users.  Google+ has come a long way in a year and a half, and is now deemed essential for SEO, and key to local business results.

Google+ is continually woven into all things you do with Google — in search, on calendars, in gmail, hangouts, etc.  It’s social with circles, new communities, and video hangouts.  And, it’s a proven SEO builder.  In working with clients, it is one of the big 4 networks on which we focus along with LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.  How can B2B Marketers make all this work for them?

• Remember that Google+ IS Google.  It is not just another social network — it is at the heart of all things Google.  Your advantage is that you don’t always have to be logged into G+ to take advantage of amplification and reach options.
• The key is being social.  Create circles.  Your advantage as a marketer is that all studies over the years show that people buy after making an emotional connection with those they feel they know.  Google+ is ideal for this, but you have to resist the urge played out by many Content Marketers to simply robo-post links to content.  That’s not social.

At the heart of the network are your circles, so here’s a short overview video on them:

•  There are two types of accounts on G+ — a personal account, and a business page (similar to the way Facebook operates).  Both offer different marketing opportunities with the personal account allowing you to create circles of colleagues, prospects, and industry experts. The company page is key for reviews of brick and mortar businesses, and for general SEO for all businesses. You can follow both individuals and businesses on G+.
• Google is looking for coding clues to “relationships” between entities online.  One popular example is that when you are the author of content, you can signal that from your Google+ personal and company pages.  This will help for SEO and Google will show your G+ profile pic in search returns when you are the author of content for content in a search.
• Google is YouTube, and integration of videos is a key factor in Google+.   This is an advantage to marketers because videos give you a better chance to emotionally connect with prospects.

Even as more features are added, marketers have yet to wrap their strategic and tactical minds around ways to take full advantage of the existing G+ system.  Here are four initial brainstorms (we’ll do more in our Berkeley workshop, and also continue coverage online):

• Use a community(s) to build interest for a Google hangout on a business topic, then stream the hangout live and save it on your YouTube channel.
• Build your circles wisely, then use the post to circle emails and calendar scheduling to invite the right people to an online or offline event.  Be careful here — all the SPAM cautions apply.
• Authors and thought leaders — brand your Google+ location with a personal URL — mine is ScottGooglePlus.info
• Have a smart surf of “Google “Ripples” to see what people are buzzing about and listen to prospects, competitors and colleagues about a particular post, topic and website:

Above, Google Ripples for Content Marketing World are shown, and you can hover over each person who has posted about this particular URL and see what they said.  Larger circles show an origination post, with smaller circles capturing those that reshared it — a gauge of influence.

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Hear more from Scott on “How to make Google+ a big win for the social side of your Content Marketing strategy” at the Content Marketing Strategies Conference, May 7-9, 2013 at The Claremont Hotel Club & Spa in Berkeley, CA.  Scott’s Google+ Professional Marketing Tactics will show you evolving ways to use this important network to reach measurable campaign goals.  He’ll cover best practices, new features, how to measure results and work efficiently, and look at some real world case studies.  Many Content Marketers deploy the “trusted industry expert” tactic, and Google+ is ideal for this — you’ll get practical, how-to details so you can add the tactic to your own game right away.

Don’t forget to register now for the Content Marketing Strategies Conference.

About the Author:

Scott Frangos, Founder of Webdirexion, the Content Marketing Agency (see ScottGooglePlus.info), is a career Advertising and Marketing professional with a specialty in Website development optimized for SEO and Conversions.  His Agency uses Google+ in their daily work, including virtual meetings with clients via Google+ Hangouts.  He currently teaches a course on “WordPress Content Marketing Power” online, and serves as chief Optimizer with an intense focus on Google+ for Webdirexion.  He also enjoys coffee, tai chi, and pizza.

Quick links to each program:

Facebook for business
Twitter for small business
Dlvr.it Promoted Stories

With AdSense, you know what to expect when advertising. You know if you spend $50 in clicks, you can pretty much estimate your return. When you start anything new, including promoting content through social networks, it is a gamble. Will it work? With the increasing amount of time prospects are tethered to social networks,  it is prudent business to test the ad performance across social.

How do you reduce the risk of promoting content in social media? I have used this simple, yet effective plan, with hundreds of clients. I included the step-by-step approach along with a infographic at the bottom that visualized the process.

Step 1. Understand how prospects use each platform

Google AdSense is fueled by people looking to fill a particular need (i.e. clothes, food, shelter, directions). Social networking is fueled by the status updates, sharing, and connecting. Your prospects are using search engines very differently then social networks.

This means promoted content ads in social media require a different approach to the creative.

• AdSense creative: “<insert your company name> has what you are looking for.”
• Promoted content creative: “Hi, how are you today. What can I help you with?”

Promoting content in social starts with creating compelling content that moves prospects to invite you into their lifestream. 

Putting this to work.

1. Create content that addresses a customer’s need. Imagine a customer walking into your business, what questions did they ask you before they bought your product/service? Create a blog post that addresses that question.

2. Make content searchable, snackable and shareable.Customer’s attention is fragmented across devices, social networks, websites, blogs, search engines, apps, etc. Create a piece of content ONCE and map where you send it as well as where it might be shared.
   • Searchable: optimize the blog post for search
   • Snackable: consumers are on the go, consuming content in small bits through some sort of lifestreaming interface. Make your blog post easy to scan – use bullets, indents, big sub headlines and visuals.
   • Shareable: Don’t make the headline too long so it gets cut off in Twitter’s 140 characters but make it compelling. Enable your blog with all the easy sharing buttons

3. Set your content free. The last mile of content creation is distribution. Often time’s distribution is an afterthought. Most of our prospects media consumption habits have shifted, we have to shift with them. We have to meet our consumers where they are. It is no longer, ‘build it and they will come.’ We have to be invited into their lifestreams. You do that by being where and when they are on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. (learn how dlvr.it can help scale syndication to social.)

Social media is a real-time focus group at scale. It can help you determine very quickly and accurately what to use in your promoted content programs. 

Step 2. Measure the success of your content

I believe in simple metrics. Especially as a small business, you don’t have time to pour through screens of data trying to figure out how to move your business forward. If you’re like me, I want to digest a few key metrics that will have the biggest impact. There are three key metrics to help you reduce risk when promoting content in social media. Measure actionable data that has the biggest impact on helping you create compelling content that moves prospects and lowers your media cost.

1. Content Analysis

• Create a list of headlines ranked by activity generated (clicks, retweets, sales)
• Continue with what works in paid media (see more on this below)
• Change and republish low performing stories (try a new headline)

2.  Demographic Analysis

• Discover what resonates with different social groups
• Determine what content to create for each group
• Direct paid media to the exact audience

3.  Sentiment Analysis:

• Surfaces future story ideas and direction
• Serves as a signal for future product, sales and marketing ideas
• Supplies keyword and category data to inform paid media

Step 3. Grow with promoted content

At this point you should have found 1.) What content performs best 2). Who it resonates with 3). What categories and keywords provide the best signal for you to buy media against

Check list for paid media buying

1. Assemble the assets

• Targeting: Keyword, category, demographic
• Content: Re-purpose what resonated with earned & owned audiences

2. Add tracking link appends (example UTM codes with Google Analytics)
   • Example: http://dlvr.it/?utm_source=dlvr.it_blog&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=Dlvr_blog_distr

3. Measure. Apply the same measuring techniques from Step 2 above.

Summary

1. Distribute. Syndicate your content where your customers are
2. Measure. Social media is the new focus group. A few key metrics can minimize your exposure
3. Grow. Use what content resonates with your audience and use it to attract a similar audience through social ad buying

Q&A time with Maria Ross:

We were enjoying a blog post you wrote, The 10 must-have messages you need for your brand.  In the post you speak about, “consistency in your branding and messaging.” How does a business keep to the message without sounding robotic?

Maria: Thanks, I enjoyed sharing that post with my tribe! Consistency should never be confused with “robotic.” Two different things. Starbucks is consistent in terms of quality and convenience. You always know what you will get when you walk into a store anywhere in the world. Same is true of Apple. You expect fine design, cool features and sleek usability. You expect the same look and feel so you know its Apple.

Being consistent means identifying and articulating the key things for which you want your brand to be known, and ensuring you deliver that promise through everything that you do.

Brands get into trouble when they promise one thing but fail to consistently deliver it through every single customer touchpoint.

You can’t possibly be all things to all people so choose wisely and focus on those messages.

In terms of content and messaging, this means knowing your brand voice and personality and ensuring everything you write conveys that tone. It means understanding your core benefits and hammering on those within the context of whatever content you’re producing. It does not necessarily mean saying things the exact same way each and every time, but using scripts or having soundbites and creatively tailoring them to the context is what will help you stay consistent and fresh, all at the same time.

We often hear the following from small business, “Of course <insert big brand x> can do content marketing, they have big budgets.” What advice can you share with a small business when kick starting a content marketing program that doesn’t break the bank and is consistent?

Maria: Content marketing is the most inexpensive marketing tactic you can employ on a budget! You write your own editorial in your own voice, you build your own fan base, you determine your frequency, and you can create content once and repackage it a hundred different ways. And it can set your company up as a thought leader. I can’t imagine anything more affordable! And it is usually a heck of a lot more effective than spending hundreds of thousands on one ad or one billboard (which is all you’ll get if you have a tight budget). Content marketing can live on forever and be used in a variety of ways.

• I’d advise starting with a simple blog. Just once a week if that’s all you can do. Think of all the questions people have about your industry or offerings and build an editorial calendar of which topic you will cover each week. 
• After that, you can easily jump to sharing those posts through social media channels to expand the reach (again, all this costs is time). 
• Next, you can engage your budding audience by asking them what topics they’d like to see, or offer a form on your website for them to submit questions. You can take great blog posts and pitch them as stories to the press, or repackage it as a more in-depth report or podcast for which people need to sign up for your email list to access. An ad, an event…all of those things are good and have their ROI but they will cost way more and once they’re done, they’re done. 

Content marketing is a much smarter, and less expensive, investment – and brands today need to ditch the hard sell and build a relationship over time by offering value upfront. Content marketing is a great way to do this.

We only have so much time in the day. What is the one consistent thing we should not ignore per day, per week, per month that will help us build our brand?

Maria: I think the biggest thing is to engage in every activity with brand intention. What are we trying to say, who are we trying to attract, what is our personality and voice?  Once you build a strong brand strategy and determine your value, your voice, your ideal customer, you need to look at every activity through that lens.

Throwing something out there without considering the brand consistency or perception is a waste of your time and can actually harm your brand.

Don’t just go on autopilot – I’d rather see a company do a few things really well, than try to do a lot with no brand direction. For example, I used to get emails from a winery touting their newest wines. Someone clearly had “send an email to our subscribers about this vintage” on their To-Do list and yes, I got an email. But it had no brand personality: it was plain, boring, looked like a business form letter (the last thing I want to think of when enjoying wine!) and did not get me excited about the wine at all. In fact, it made me assume they understood nothing about a good wine experience, so I didn’t buy from them.  In the quest to just, “get the marketing activity done,” their non-branded choice actually made a brand statement – and one I’m sure they would not want! They offered no “brand cues” on where their wine should live in my mental file drawer: Fine wine? Casual pizza night wine? Expensive? Cheap? Your brand helps customers make sense of you in a crowded marketplace and if they can’t figure you out right away, they’ll go elsewhere.

About the author:
Maria Ross is a brand strategist, author and speaker who believes cash flow and creativity are not mutually exclusive. As creator of Red Slice (www.red-slice.com), she advises entrepreneurs and SMBs on creating irresistible brands. Prior to that, she spent years guiding marketing strategies for both start-ups and global brands, including Discovery Networks, Monster.com, and Business Objects. Maria has written two books:  Branding Basics for Small Business and Rebooting My Brain. She has appeared in numerous media outlets, including MSNBC, ABC News, NPR, and Entrepreneur Magazine.
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There is still time to register for the Content Marketing Strategies Conference, May 7-9, 2013.   The conference is the only event to specifically focus on helping companies of any size gain practical ‘how to’ advice on content marketing SEO, content distribution optimization, content ROI, and learn from case studies by brands including Red Hat, New Belgium Brewing, FOX’s hit show Glee and much more. Participants are guaranteed to walk away with an action plan to kick-start or enhance any content marketing program no matter how large or small. Discount codes are available!

Learn from Rob on how to get Advocates to create five-star product reviews, compelling user stories, plus thousands of positive posts, Tweets, pins, and more – without paying Advocates or giving them swag. Your Advocates are a powerful yet untapped content creation engine!

Here’s a sneak peak at Rob’s presentation:

How to turn satisfied customers into ‘Brand Advocates’

Are you leveraging your highly-satisfied customers (AKA “Brand Advocates”) to generate product reviews, videos, testimonials, and more? If not, you’re missing a major content marketing opportunity.

Content created by Advocates is highly trusted and influential. According to Nielsen, 92% of consumers trust peer recommendations. Only 53% trust content that you create and post on your website.

Here are five ways to turn your Advocates into a powerful content marketing engine:

1. Identify your Advocates. Ask your customers the “Ultimate Question” for loyalty: “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our company or product to your friends?” Customers who respond 9 or 10 are Advocates.
2. Encourage Advocates to rate and review your products. Seventy percent of consumers trust online reviews, Nielsen says. And 67% of consumers don’t buy after reading only one to three negative reviews, according to Lightspeed Research. Make it easy for Advocates to create online reviews by giving them review applications.
3. Enable Advocates to create stories about their experiences with your company or products. Ask them to tell you about their “Kodak moment.” Stories bring your brand promise to life in a very authentic way. Here’s an example of a story created by an Advocate of Rubio’s Restaurants, a California-based fast casual eatery famous for its fantastic fish tacos. (see attachment.)
4. Make it easy for Advocates to answer prospects’ questions. Zuberance’s Advocate Answers application enables prospects to ask Advocates questions about why they purchased your products or services. A VOIP company has generated over 3,000 leads via Advocate Answers. These are highly-qualified leads – these are prospects who are taking time to ask questions, indicating strong purchase interest and intent.
5. Amplify Advocates. Enable Advocates to publish and/or share the content they’ve created on shopping sites, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and elsewhere by including social sharing widgets in content creation forms.

Creating content can be costly and time-consuming. Don’t overlook the most powerful weapon in your content marketing arsenal: your Brand Advocates!

Hear more from Rob at the Content Marketing Strategies Conference, May 7-9, 2013 at The Claremont Hotel Club & Spa in Berkeley, CA.

About the Author:

Rob Fuggetta is the world’s leading expert on brand advocacy. Fuggetta is the author of the ground-breaking new book, “Brand Advocates: Turning Enthusiastic Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force.” Published by John H. Wiley & Sons, Inc., Brand Advocates shows how forward-thinking companies are leveraging Brand Advocates to build their brands and businesses – and how you can too! Fuggetta is the Founder & CEO of Zuberance, a social media marketing company that manages and powers Brand Advocate programs for leading brands. Prior to founding Zuberance in 2008, Fuggetta was the Chief Marketing Officer at Genuity, a Verizon spin-out. He also was formerly a partner at Regis McKenna, Inc., the legendary high tech marketing and communications firm in Palo Alto, where he co-led the global Apple account.

Often times the last mile of content marketing, content amplification, is forgotten or perceived to be too time consuming or expensive.

Join content syndication thought leader and dlvr.it’s CEO & co-founder, Bill Flitter, at a free webinar, Thursday, April 11, 2013 from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PST.

Bill will discuss how content amplification can make or break a content marketing program with tips and tricks you can take advantage of regardless of your company’s size or budget.

Click Here to Register

This free webinar will explore how to create an effective content distribution program and include:

1. Tips to scale a content marketing program beyond your blog
2. How to amplify your content while saving money in the process
3. Identify where to find free data to help guide your paid distribution programs

Register now for the Free Webinar: How to Leverage Earned and Owned Media to Create Effective Paid Media Programs hosted by Vertical Measures.

You can also hear more from Bill at the Content Marketing Strategies Conference, May 7-9, 2013 at The Claremont Hotel Club & Spa in Berkeley, CA.

Marilyn tells a great story below. To hear the detail behind the steps, attend Marilyn’s session at the conference on May 7-9, 2013 at The Claremont Hotel & Spa in Berkeley, CA.

Understanding the Value of Content by Empowering Your Sales Teams

Inspiration hits you at the oddest moments. Our marketing team recently decided to submit for an award. The award recognizes marketing teams that have worked to strengthen the relationship between sales and marketing. For those that have worked in either, or in my case, both departments, you know that there often exists animosity. Sales feels like marketing doesn’t do enough to support them and marketing feels like sales is lazy and doesn’t follow up on hard earned leads. Of course, neither is often the case and usually poor communication is the root of the problem.

As I often do, I looked to my kids for some insight on how to play well with others.  Walking through the door I was bombarded with their stories about that day’s events. Most of these stories centered on the friendships my kids have at school. Listening to my 4-year old relay his day I began to develop ideas about what makes a best friend. Activities like sharing, playing, providing a purpose, and making someone feel important were all key relationship building blocks.

Content, constructed to the needs of your sales team, can aid in building this relationship.

Oftentimes content is created by marketing, with very little input from sales.  Sales is left without an understanding of what content is available, why it was developed, and how to properly position the information. The work of content creators can be incorrectly used, or left dormant.  Very little activity and engagement results from the hard work of many. Both camps are left frustrated and rendered ineffective.

Marketing must learn to align and collaboratively develop content with their sales organization.

Content should educate and empower sales.

Sales can leverage the knowledge that your prospects and customers crave.  Your sales organization must transition from a transactional and reactive team, to thought leaders who challenge the mindsets of customers.  To do this you must have a strong understanding of your sales process.

• You need to audit what content is currently in use with both marketing and sales origins.
• Content should be mapped to the buy cycle of the customers and new content should be managed with input from both sales and marketing.
• Most importantly you need to ensure your sales teams understand the value of the content so they can communicate the value to their prospects and customers.

Empower your sales teams and realize the benefits through improved engagement, increased revenue, and a happier work environment.

Hear more from Marilyn at the Content Marketing Strategies Conference, May 7-9, 2013 at The Claremont Hotel & Spa in Berkeley, CA.

About the Author:

Marilyn Cox is the Director of Marketing Communications at Cincom Systems.  She classifies herself as a left brain mind living in a right brain world.  Her focus is content development to enable and align marketing and sales strategies.  While not geeking out over marketing analytics she enjoys Ironman training in solitude and Ironmom conditioning with her two children.