Andy Crestodina - Content Chemistry: An Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing

Copyright 2013 by Orbit Media Studios, Inc. All rights reserved. Content Chemistry: An Illustrated Guide to Content Marketing Paperback - Published 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law. Printed in the United States of America. ISBN: Paperback: 978-0-9883364-0-7 ISBN EPUB: 978-0-9883364-1-4 ISBN Kindle: 978-0-9883364-2-1

Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome to Content Chemistry

This book is the result of thousands of conversations with hundreds of companies over the last 12 years. On January 1, 2000, I started the new century with a new career on the web. Since that day, Ive immersed myself in nearly every aspect of digital marketing. In April 2001, I co-founded a web design company called Orbit Media Studios with my great friend Barrett Lombardo. Today, Orbit is an award-winning team of 30 specialists with hundreds of happy clients and nearly 1,000 successful projects.

Through all of that experience, Ive learned many things about digital marketing. The book youre reading now is a compilation of the most important and effective lessons Ive learned.

The simplest way to summarize all of it goes something like this

To be successful, websites must do two things: 1. Attract visitors, and 2. Convert those visitors into leads and customers. In order to do this, web marketers must do two things: 1. Create content, and 2. Promote it. Ive learned that content makes the difference between success and failure on the web.

The structure of this book is based on those four aspects, broken into two sections: Lecture and Lab. The Lecture section includes the theory of web marketing, which consists of attracting visitors (traffic) and getting them to take action (conversions). The Lab section covers web marketing in practice, which is creating content and promoting it.

By the time you finish reading this book, you should have a solid foundation of all the main topics as well as a good understanding of the specific actions youll need to take to succeed on your own. Youll know which actions lead to which outcomes. Youll know where youre going and how to get there.

Beyond this, my hope is that your new insights into web marketing will motivate you to get started and stay active. I hope you realize that web marketing is enjoyable because its creative, something both social and analytical. Theres nothing intimidating about it. You may discover that, yes, web marketing is critical to modern business, but its also a lot of fun.

Andy Crestodina

Strategic Director, Orbit Media Studios @crestodina | Google+ | LinkedIn

Who This Book is For

This book is for people who are interested in improving their marketing, increasing sales and growing their business. You dont need to be a social media celebrity or a best-selling author. You do need to be yourself. And regardless of who you are, its almost certain that youre well suited for content marketing.

If you are a thoughtful and detail-oriented person who enjoys researching and writing well-considered articles, content marketing is for you. If youre a fast, informal writer who can produce quick posts based on todays news, content marketing is for you.

If you are analytical and prefer digging through data over chatting with people, content marketing is for you. If youre a social person who would rather connect with people than analyze numbers, content marketing is for you.

Introverts and extroverts, number-crunching researchers and big-picture thinkers, content marketing has something for everyone. However, you must write. All content marketers have this in common.

How to Use This Book: Experiment and Measure

This book is called Content Chemistry for a reason. As in chemistry, content marketing is about experimentation and measurement. Like a chemist, well mix chemicals (content), add energy (promotional activity), and observe and measure the reactions (analytics). Then well repeat or try something new.

• Experimentation: These practices will continue to evolve. Techniques should be adapted to suit your business. Its an ongoing process of trial and error, and gradual improvement.
• Measurement: Virtually every aspect of web marketing is measurable, much more so than with traditional advertising. This is part of the fun but also a necessary part of the work. If youre not measuring results, youre not doing content marketing.

Results will often be unexpected, but the purpose remains constant: we seek awareness, relevance and trust.

There is no need to read this book cover to cover, so feel free to jump around. Each page has insights and ideas for you to try. Depending on your skill level, you may skim the lecture ().

The techniques in this book are intended to demonstrate the concepts. I have tried them all and found each to be successful. Once you understand both the theory and practice, I invite you to try a little chemistry of your own!

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the art and science of pulling your audience toward your business. It is based on the concept that there are relevant prospects looking for your product or service right now. If you can connect with them, if you can help them and teach them, some of them will become loyal customers.

Content Marketers create and promote useful, relevant information with the goal of attracting and engaging website visitors, and then converting those visitors into leads and customers.

We do this by creating, publishing and promoting content that is relevant to our clients and prospects. We use blogs, search engine optimization (SEO), social media and email marketing.

Content marketing is sensitive to the behaviors and psychology of potential buyers. Whether were looking for jet engines or consulting services, a wedding DJ or a local florist, we are more likely than ever to look to the Internet before making a decision to act. Every day we search, we research, we read recommendations and we seek advice from experts.

Where traditional marketing aims to interrupt and distract, content marketing aims to attract and assist.

The Evolution of Marketing

To understand the future of marketing, we must first understand the past. Lets take a brief look at the history of marketing.

1950-1994 Traditional Marketing

In the beginning

Marketing was dominated by advertising and that meant buying media. It meant buying space in newspapers and hoping consumers would notice before they turned the page. It meant buying time on TV and hoping consumers would keep watching when the show cut to a commercial break.

Businesses sent postcards and letters to our homes and called us during dinner, pushing out their messages with whatever budget they could muster. They hoped that consistent, repeated distractions and interruptions would convince us to buy. Some businesses still do.

But that magazine ad had limited space and the TV commercial had precious little time. If the ad budget was cut, the message disappeared completely.

And it was always so hard to tell what was actually bringing in sales. There was an old saying among marketing executives: I know Im wasting half of my advertising budget, I just dont know which half.

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