Helena B Communications

ExpertisePR for Marketers

Helena Bouchez helps marketing thought leaders raise their profiles with prospects and influencers via expertise PR.

Content in a bottle

As marketers, we’re accustomed to creating content for our clients. And with whatever time is left over, we dash off the occasional blog post on our digital parchment, which we roll up and stick into a bottle called a blog, and throw into the Internet sea. And then we wait.

If we’re lucky, someone finds the bottle, reads and is excited by the note and writes us a letter (email) in response.

More often, not.

If not, it could be the content but more likely it’s the vehicle. A content strategy addresses both. Most importantly it establishes guidelines that  will not only ensure your content will be delivered to its audience in a boat rather than a bottle but also increase the chances that they will read and indeed write you back.

Feeding the Content Monster

My latest post for MarketingProfs.com Daily Fix blog went live today. Titled “5 Tips for Interviews that Produce Great Content,” it’s the product of an interview with DishyMix host and master interviewer Susan Bratton.

Most of my posts come from information gleaned from interviews of other experts. This does two things: allows me to learn something new while also giving me something new to pass onto the Marketingprofs.com audience. Twofer!

Interviewing, however, is just one way of generating ideas for content. Check out “100 Sources of Blogging Inspiration” – http://bit.ly/drOUeD This resource came my way via Twitter and content marketer @michelelinn, whom I met at a breakfast roundtable at the Marketingprofs B2B Forum this past May.

The other resource I wanted to make available again, less transiently, is this blog post by @therisetothetop “5 Predictions On The Future Of Marketing, PR and Advertising Agencies.“  http://bit.ly/bGma2T

Also check out my new coaching program: Unique Great and Visible: Coaching for Marketing and Technology Thought Leaders. It’s a super cost effective solution for individual consultants and very small businesses. Longer white paper  here.

[Image from io9.com in promotion of "Welcome to Monster Isle," a cool kid's book.]

Cognitive Surplus Is All In Your Head

I do not have time to write this blog post.

I have a press release to write, two to post on pitchengine.com; another content strategy document to draft; numerous pitches to get out, another Marketingprofs Daily Fix blog post to create based on notes from an interview I did with someone three weeks ago. 

Add to that, I have added expertisePR coaching to the services I provide, and need to communicate that to my network, as well update this website to explain what it entails.

So, as you can see, I have no time. Except, what’s this? A blog post. Oh.

This realization, courtesy of the first 48 pages of Clay Shirky’s new book “Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age.” The Penguin Press: 256pp., $25.95. 

Read it.

(Image by Robbert van der Steeg  www.rvandersteeg.nl )

We’re All Internet Marketers | Third Tribe

We’re all Internet marketers, now. Clients who are considering engaging you look at your website and LinkedIn profile to confirm your expertise. As marketers, most of the assets we produce for our clients end up online. It makes sense then, to expand our reach, to create a way to use what we  know to generate passive income as well, whether from  e-books, on-demand webinars or income streams from affiliates that are related to your business but that do not compete with it. All serve your audience, and allow them to engage at different levels, depending on what they need and what they can afford.

The best place to learn how to do this, bar none, is Third Tribe. Third Tribe was founded by Brian Clark of Copyblogger, Darren Rowse of Problogger, Sonia Simone of Remarkable Communications, and Chris Brogan of New Marketing Labs.

It is THE place to get information about truly effective Internet marketing techniques, information that comes not only from the Clark-Rowse-Simone-Brogan quartet, but also from others they think exemplify the Third Tribe mindset (not too spammy, not too soft). Read more about the Third Tribe mindset. (Note: It’s an affiliate link, so if you join I get credit. Yay!)

How do I know Third Tribe is the real deal? Because about five years ago, I flew round trip from Chicago to L.A. in one day to take a class with one of the best known names in “First Tribe” Internet marketing.  I also spent hundreds of dollars on the “supporting” materials, which he had available “in limited quantities” at the event. But once I got everything home, I found I wasn’t able to do a thing with it because (besides not being comfortable with the communications approach, which is based on manipulation and fear rather than service) there was no support. No one to explain the steps. Just me, cognitive dissonance and 37 CDs. Fail.

What you will find at Third Tribe is information. Tons. You can take the info and run (go it alone) or if you want some hand holding (that would be me) there is a robust community that you can tap into.

How much? $47 a month. A steal, considering the resources. That’s why it’s going up to $97 a month on June 1. Still a steal, by the way. Anyway, check it out. Those of you who know me know I give endorsements very sparingly.  If you want to build a successful Internet business, Third Tribe Marketing will help you. Here’s the link again: Third Tribe Marketing. Let me know what you think in the comments.

MPB2B Takeaway Series #5 – Lead Planning & Nurturing

Fresh off the presentation by Mitch Joel, Author, Six Pixels of Separation, preceded by a mountain of Tilapia and risotto for lunch.

I’m currently obsessed with lead generation and nurturing as most of my clients are marketers, and so are, in general, not as attuned to the sales process as they (admittedly) probably should be. Since the whole purpose of undertaking an expertise PR program is to make getting the door opened easier, I’m naturally concerned that they know how to do that. And so, I am here, at “Lead Planning & Nurturing that Converts More Customers.”

Our speaker:  Carlos Hidalgo, President, The Annuitas Group. Annuitas is a process consulting and technology (marketing and sales automation) company whose mission is to help clients get measurable return on their sales and marketing practices.

The changing B2B Buyer

Buyers are much, much more educated now and usually won’t talk to sales person until develop a short list based on Internet-based research. There is also more than one buyer, now are dealing with “buying units.” (Like a committee. Each person looks at project differently) We’re all turning to each other to share information. New dynamic is that the buyer is now driving the process. Buyers are more informed and seek information independent of sales. (more…)

MPB2B Takeaway Series #4 – B2B Mobile Marketing

Gah! Sorry folks, I have no idea what happened, but somehow, this post has self-destructed.  I will try to reconstruct the content off the slides at some point.

MPB2B Takeaway Series #3 – Engaging Prospects with Content

Day two of the MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2010. Fortified with a sausage biscuit and a coffee sweet and light, here we go with another live one, from this morning’s first session “Unleash the Power of Content to Engage Prospects.”

Kicking things off: Stephanie Tilton, Content Marketing Consultant, Ten Ton Marketing

Buying cycles are long and getting longer and there are a lot more people involved in the decision making process. Prospects are bypassing sales until very late in the cycle. The irony is that a lot of time prospects are not finding information they want. Companies who are delivering that content are winning — bigtime.

This puts even more pressure on marketers, as prospects are not engaged with sales reps like they were before. Need to develop content that engages until they’re ready to engage with sales.  David Meerman Scott “Create the kind of online content that your buyers naturally gravitate to.”

How to do this? It’s called Content Marketing. (more…)

MPB2B Takeaway Series #2 – From Tradeshow to Qualified Lead

Sitting around the old horseshoe, waiting for the Interactive Discussion Group: Strategies for Making the Most of Your Tradeshow Investment to begin, led by Bob Knorpp, President of marketing consultancy The Cool Beans Group. Bob also is part of the MPB2B “pit crew” and is collecting key takeaways to present tomorrow at the conference wrap up. In other news, the bandages I put on the back of my heels to keep blisters from forming (new shoes), have failed. Ow.

This is a long post that discusses everything tradeshow, soup to nuts: booth, pre-show promotion, in-show promotions, giveaways, sweepstakes, events, data capture/date rules, and follow up.

(more…)

MPB2B Takeaway Series: #1 – SEO and B2B Marketing

This is the first in a series of quick and dirty posts from the MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2010, which is taking place NOW (May 4-5) at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, Mass. Bonus: The  boil water order was lifted this morning, so that inconvenience is over with, much to the relief of the conference staff, I’m sure.

Today I will be spending about half my time in a classroom and half on the floor interviewing and drawing helpful information off the show floor.

First up, Veronica “Niki” Fielding, CEO, Digital Brand Expressions speaking on “SEO—Now More than Ever, a B2B Marketer’s Best Friend.” She actually talked about a whole boatload of stuff, but here are some key takeaways pertaining mostly to content:

Take heart marketers, if copy works for human beings, will work for search engines. Write for people.

Also think about starting to incorporating multimedia, as all other things being equal, Google will rank your site higher, because it wants to serve up more than text-based content.

More and more, it’s about refreshed content so you need to keep your website current. Again, all things being equal, meaning compared to a competing site that is just as optimized, continually refreshed content will train search engines to come to site more often.

Another tip: Every key word should have its own page of content on site that supports that keyword. Rule of thumb: For ever 250 words of copy, your keyword should appear five times,  written in a way that makes sense to a person. Search engine practices are always evolving but their goal always will be to create an ideal experience for person doing the search.

Blogs: Is it better to be host them internally on your website or externally, on a separate website? Answer: When it’s separate, it will be another site that will show up in the search rankings. However, if you don’t have a great way to continually refresh the other content on your site, then your blog should sit on your website.

Larry Davis, VP of Marketing, PTS Data Center Solutions

SEO has helped to increase sales — website search is #3 lead source (20% of leads). Number one source is from our sales folks. DBE also has been instrumental helping to improve experience for user once they get to the site. Hot point: The ongoing battle of visual appeal vs. content. Who wins? The answer:It depends on your audience.

For example, PTS customers are essentially engineers, CIOs, VPs of IT, etc.  They want content; information and education. The PTS website has over 300 pages of content, each optimized to a key word. (Over 300 roadside stands! –Ed) Does it work? If you search on “data center consulting” PTS comes up first, over much bigger companies.

Trend worth watching:  Content syndication: content from partners that is syndicated on privately labeled web pages.

Caveats: Real SEO takes time to take effect. It’s an investment. Think months, not weeks to start seeing a return. Black and white hat techniques may provide instant gratification but might not serve you long term.

Also, most SEO organizations don’t optimize their own sites because they don’t want their competitors to go to school on them. Check out their client’s sites instead. Similarly, if you do a good job, your competitors will steal or “scrape” your content, sometimes wholesale. To deter them, you can provide an abstract and make people log in to get the whole article. However, be sure to leave enough content outside the wall for the search engines to play with.

The Benefits of Narrow Positioning

In my latest post for the Marketingprofs Daily Fix, I interviewed David C. Baker, owner of ReCourses, Inc., which provides individual consulting, seminars, speaking, and writing exclusively for firms in the marketing industry (design, advertising, public relations, interactive, and in-house), on a topic we are both passionate about: Positioning. (See “5 Insights on Narrow Positioning.”)

In the interview, David focuses on the bottom line benefits of narrow positioning, which is to say, making your business less relevant to most clients so that you can maximize efficiency and profitability working with a select few. But from an expertise public relations standpoint, narrow positioning also makes it a lot easier to become known for something and recognized as an industry expert on it.

The biggest problem with being general is that to gain recognition, you have to be more places, all the time. Imagine the difference between having to work a crowd at a big party of 100 people versus an intimate cocktail party of 15. Getting to those 85 additional “people” takes a commensurate amount of additional effort. And because there are so many more people competing for everyone’s attention, the probability of them remembering you is dramatically diminished.

The moral of the story is: You either need to narrow down your positioning or be prepared to work 10x harder (and/or spend 10x as much money if you want someone to help you) to raise your profile among prospects and influencers who are monitoring 10x more information outlets.

P.S. If you are a narrowly positioned marketing thought leader attending the Marketingprofs Business to Business Forum 2010 it in May, contact me — I will be there live blogging/tweeting the event and will be doing brief interviews and a round up on this topic for some of my live blog posts and as fodder for follow-up article on the conference. If you haven’t registered yet, click the badge below for a $200 discount. See you there!

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