There are several videos about Sheridan's story, but for me, this one stands out because Seltzer digs out the details. We find out how content became Sheridan’s best saleperson, and exactly what kind of content he posted. I especially like this story because it is about selling swimming pools, not the latest high tech gear that has a lot of intrinsic interest. No, nothing with that much sizzle, swimming pools. If this approach can work selling swimming pools, it can help sell anything.   

Read all of Seltzer's helpful commentary about his interview: How to Use Content to Increase Your Sales

For salespeople, a well written story about a successful user, who has a situation similar to a potential customer, is a big help in closing a sale. But buoyed by positive feedback from the sales department many marketers overuse this type of content and apply it for less appropriate functions. The problem is that while customers in “similar situations” find user stories interesting, customers with dissimilar situations do not.

If your user story is written about a Fortune 500 customer, potential small business readers will yawn. Don’t expect a big city retailer to be interested in reading a user story about a small town store. Other kinds of content more easily cross these divides, for example, trend stories in a small market can be as relevant in a big one. I spend many years with a trade magazine where we were always amazed at the extremely low readership scores that user stories received. Where routine articles in the publication would be read by anywhere from 40 to 60% of subscribers, user stories consistently received scores in the 10-15% level.

In a study I will be releasing through Alethea Research in January, I tracked the customers of 34 different suppliers in a market and asked them to check if they felt if supplier provided “user stories,” motivated them to be more likely to want to buy products from the sponsoring suppliers. About a third (36%) said user stories positively motivated them, but this was a significantly lower score than many other content forms received. In addition, the customer bases of the individual 34 companies had different scores. For the customers of the company with the lowest score, only 29.6% said user stories positively motivated them. At the other end of the spectrum, 49.3% of customers of a different company said they were motivated by user stories. That's about a 20% spread between them. Lower scores seemed to go to companies whose products and solutions were better established and understood, companies with products that were generally newer or more unusual received higher scores. There seems to be less interest in reading user stories about prodcuts that are well understood or more familiar.

Bottom line: marketers need user stories. If you can create a series of them covering the typical usage situations of your products you can help your sales staff close sales. Keep in mind that the popularity of user stories will vary company to company, and product to product, depending on how new, unusual, or newsworthy products are. But just because your sales staff loves user stories don’t think they will help with your web site's search engine optimization (SEO), build readership for your newsletter, or provide down-loadable content to fuel a lead generation program. For those functions, there are other kinds of content that will do a better job. To hear more about my content usage study, sign up for my "Marketing Broadcast" newsletter.

The number of websites alone has doubled in the past three years (chart below). More sites, more content.

Total Sites Across All Domains
August 1995 - November 2010

 

Today, smart content developers are shifting their efforts from content creation to UNIQUE content creation.

Research your market.

Before you can create content that is new, you need to know what kind of information is common. It is not enough to understand your reading habits, you need to know about everyone else's.

Hire journalists to tell your story.

There is big difference between a company announcement and a great story. Journalists are trained to find unique stories. It is a skill in its own right.

Hire bloggers to tell your story.

People who write in a market every day know what is commonly covered and what is not. Bloggers can often find different stories.

If you can become a provider of unique content you change the dynamic of the content flow around you. Why? Because you become a content originator, not just a content repackager.

In 1997 my book, Tough Calls, came out. As the first national release of an unknown business writer expectations were low. My publisher told me most business books sell less than 3,000 copies in their lifetime and if I could hit that number I should be happy.

But my book had a secret weapon build into it: an imaginative survey that offered new insight into problem customer behavior.

Within a year of the book's release I had been asked to share survey insights with appearances on CNN, CNBC, Wall Street Journal TV (twice), and The Fortune Business report. Book sales were bolstered by international translations. The Korean edition alone hit the 3,000 copy mark.

You can click on the picture to see a video clip from four of my 1997 television appearances. Unique content sells!

During that same 3 year period the cost of buying a banner ad in terms of CPM (cost per thousand) dropped by half. While lower costs are good for marketers, the added complexity means more time spent int he evaluation process.

Targeting online audiences gets harder with every passing year because there are more online destinations competing for attention and in need of evaluation. This trend has not slowed down. From 2008 until 2011 the number of online destinations has increased by about 40%.

But there is also opportunity here. As media become more fragmented it becomes easier to make your media buys more tightly focused. Want to reach a highly influential sub-group in your target audience? There could be an influential newsletter or blog. The key is to constantly evaluate the medial landscape in your markets. Sound like a lot of extra work? Yes. But there is opportunity to gain advantage for those willing to spend the time. Download the Bain study

This change may have shaken up how marketers see SEO as well.

In 2010 when the "Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Benchmark Survey" asked respondents from search agencies to pick the "most effective" SEO (search engine optimization) tactic, 83% chose “keyword research” as the top selection.

One year later, in the 2011 version of the same survey, there were some small changes. The name of the "top box" selection was changed from "most effective" to "very effective," and the mix of tactics changed.

But the biggest change: marketers now consider "content creation" as the top SEO tactic pulling ahead of last year's winner, "Keyword" choice.

In just one year, "content creation" has clearly moved to the top of the SEO agenda. Blogging, the tactic renown for pumping fresh content into websites, more than doubled in importance moving from 15% in 2010 to 31% in 2011.

While content moved up, several "traditional" SEO tactics showed big drops. “Keyword search” dropped from 83% to 43%, title tags from 50% to 42%.

If you want better SEO, think about your content!

See the 2010 result See the 2011 result

While this kind of information is interesting to people inside the marketer’s company, customers often see it as just promotion. How many people are thrilled to get ongoing promotions in their e-mail in box? Not many. 

Marketers who use newsletters as a promotional tool are missing the bigger opportunity of creating a newsletter that acts as a direct channel to customers. It is not hard to do. Instead of sending promotional newsletters, build ones with content which is 80% non-commercial information that customers want to read and 20% company promotion. When customers are sent information they want to read about, they often look forward to receiving it. When newsletters with customer centric content are sent out: 

• Customers read them more regularly.
• Newsletter open rates go up.
• More customers subscribe. 
• More customers stay subscribed.
• Newsletters can be sent out more frequently (2x per month or weekly). 
• The newsletter builds a positive brand image.
• No one gets accused of being a spammer.
• When the newsletter carries a promotion, it goes to a wider audience that is more receptive to the sponsors messages.  

A newsletter that first follows the informational needs of customers and not the promotional needs of the sponsoring company open an ongoing marketing channel of communication to customers. Creating a channel to customers it is a much bigger win than just sending promotions and hoping for the best. 

A CNN meteorologist said the path of the storm was heading for New York. Great, tell me something I didn’t know.

Click. An MSNBC meteorologist had the same information but was in a storm center surrounded by a lot of hi-tech monitors. He must know his stuff.

Click. A local TV station had a guy I had never seen introduced as, “the weather man you have trusted all these years.” I’m not sure I’ve ever trusted a weather man.

Click. The Fox station had a reporter broadcasting from a New York City subway station which had been just closed because of the approaching hurricane. She was interviewing a British family who were heartbroken to have their family vacation cut short. Their disbelief that the legendary subway system of New York, one of the greatest cities on earth, could be humbled by a storm was palpable. As a New York City resident I could totally relate. I sympathized with the tourists who had had their lives disrupted, just as mine was.

By realizing that television is fundamentally emotional medium Fox had created content that got to me on an emotional level. As the other news organizations fought out over which meteorologist had the best credentials, the most gear, or longevity, Fox was broadcasting the emotional side of the story. In case anyone has not noticed, Fox is winning the cable news ratings wars.

Here is a list of the number of people who watched the top 10 cable news shows in August 2011 as compiled by Nielsen. The top five shows are from Fox. In addition:
• MSNBC’s top performer, The Rachel Maddow Show, trails at #15, behind 12 Fox shows.
• CNN’s top performer, Anderson Cooper 360, trails at #25 behind 14 Fox news shows.

Here the top 10 watched cable news shows for July 2011:
1. The O'Reilly Factor Fox News -- 2.793 million total viewers
2. Hannity Fox News -- 2.059 million total viewers
3. Special Report with Bret Baier Fox News -- 1.815 million total viewers
4. On the Record with Greta van Susteren-- Fox News -- 1.658 million total viewers
5. Fox Report with Shepard Smith Fox News -- 1.576 million total viewers
6. Nancy Grace HLN -- 1.350 million total viewers
7. The Five/Glenn Beck Fox News -- 1.325 million total viewers
8. Your World with Neil Cavuto Fox News -- 1.231 million total viewers
9. The O'Reilly Factor (11PM Repeat) Fox News -- 1.179 million total viewers
10. Dr Drew HLN -- 1.140 million total viewers

In addition...
15. The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC -- 974,000 total viewers
25. Anderson Copper 360--CNN -- 760,000 total viewers

With Fox’s right leading commentators and Republican connections the political implications of this, cannot be underestimated.

At trade conferences I have heard heard CNN spokespeople defend their low ratings compared to Fox in the following ways:
“Right wing issues are more black and white and are more easily dramatized.”
Ridiculous! A content strategy first attracts an audience, persuasion comes second.

“Offering a balanced approached is naturally is going to be less dramatic.”
Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! One of the most interesting things a news organization can do is to contrast opposing points of view.

In case anyone from CNN sill cares about ratings, it is easy to understand Fox’s content strategy because Roger Ailes, the man who build Fox from the ground up, wrote a book where he explains it. The parts of the book about television have nothing to do with left vs. right wing politics and everything to do with attracting audiences, gaining attention, and persuading.

Ailes recognizes that TV is an emotional medium and human beings, are emotional creatures. Here are some quotes from Ailes’ book, You are the message.

“Emotion is the double-edged sword of communication. When emotion is positive and genuine, there is no more constructive and powerful force of persuasion. But when emotion is negative or insincere, it creates a wall between the person sending the message and those receiving it.”

“People want to see a communicator have a range of emotions.”

“… facts provide the information and emotion provides the interpretation. You’ve got to bring something personal to the communication process. Otherwise, you’re wasting people’s time. You’re wasting your own time. To be a really good communicator, you have to start by knowing how you feel personally about what’s going on. Then, once you’re aware of your own emotions, you can more easily communicate in the right tone to others.”

CNN takes pride in not being politically left or right leaning and tries to run stories right down the middle of the political spectrum. Yawn. There is a huge difference between analytically balancing the left and right perspective versus passionately seeking the greater truth that supersede them both. Where is the passion CNN? It's all around and you ignore it. Go to any journalism school and hire the young passionate journalists desperate to fight for the greater truth that supersedes the left and right political agenda. Hire investigative journalists willing to risk it all to find stories that people can believe in. Are there any Woodward and Bernsteins at CNN today? I don't think so. There is no passion in mitigating between left an right. Go back to your journalism roots and fight for the truth.

TV is an emotional media. A successful content strategy must take that into consideration. To win the ratings war CNN will need to rediscover its passion.

The news experts who say that Fox is winning the ratings war because they have a right wing bias are simply wrong. Fox has found its passion, and that attracts an audience. CNN has not.

Wake up CNN!

See the top 30 cable news shows of July 2011