After the first ever Content Marketing conference in NZ I have:
- 15 pages of scribbled notes
- 23 new linkedin connections and
- 5 key take-home points which I’ve summarised in the article below
5 lessons from NZ’s content marketing conference
Disclaimer: Each of these concepts have been adapted, tweaked, and massaged by me, but the credit of course ultimately goes to each of the presenters (list of speakers)
- Be ready for anything
- Don’t forget email
- Be mobile
- Give, give, give
- It takes guts
1. Be ready for anything (key point from Justin Flitter)
- It’s easier to leverage an existing online trend (eg, planking, no make-up selfie) than to try and create your own trend
- To put your spin on what’s happening and get noticed you need to be super fast (we’re talking minutes, not days!)
- If you’re going to be ready for anything, there’s simply no time to outsource to a graphic designer or content creator, you need to have the skills available at a moments notice
2. Don’t forget email (inspired by Roanne Parker)
- In this socially driven age, it’s easy to forget that email is the hub off all things (everyone needs an email address to exist online)
- Email is still the number one medium for generating action (no one can argue this point)
- But like the other channels, content and context is king (no matter how hard you try, you can’t annoy people into doing business with you)
3. Be mobile (highlighted by Anna Connell)
- Just because you create content on a desktop or laptop, doesn’t mean it’s consumed there
- Make sure every piece of content you create works on mobile (or don’t bother creating it)
- And mobile aside, Anna came up with my favourite one-liner at the conference (I’ll share it with you shortly)
4. Give, give, give (Brendan Livingstone amongst others)
- Customers don’t care about your business
- Customers only care about their problems and interests
- Help customers solve their problems (with content) and if they ever need what you’re selling they’ll buy from you
- In fact, if you solve their problem they’ll try and buy from you even if you don’t have a product to sell them! (Jared Gulian)
5. It takes guts (key point from Justin Flitter)
As an organisation, it takes guts:
- It takes guts to be part of the conversation (to jump in and have an opinion)
- It takes guts to deliver real value (without fear of your customers seeing or stealing it)
- It takes guts to resist the temptation to make everything an offer or sales pitch
- It takes guts to play the long game when everyone else is going for quick wins
And the best one-liner from the conference?
“Go forth and content!” Yes, it turns out that content can be a verb! (thanks Anna Connell)
A special thanks to Conferenz for putting on the event, I’m super excited about putting my learnings into action with my clients.
