July 25, 2011 by Dave Lutz
A growing number of your supplier members are shifting their focus to content marketing.
They realize that traditional push marketing by itself is dead.
By hosting their own webinars, virtual conferences, online communities and providing whitepapers, research and content, they compete for your members’ time and share of mind.
Junta42, a content strategy company, defines content marketing as “The art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling.”
Content marketing is “Non-interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty.”
Content marketing sounds like the value proposition of many associations. And therein lies the opportunity, rather than a threat.
Association leaders and meeting professionals need to consider how to react to the rapid growth of bias-free content marketing. If your mission includes education consider a co-opetitive (cooperative competition) approach. If you try to compete against those who have more trust or influence than you, you will lose.
Here are three ways you can leverage content marketing to align with your goals and the goals of your supplier members:
Ask your supplier members, practitioners and vendors to guest post on your blog, write for your publications or speak on a Webinar. Leverage all of your platforms with their content. Remember, content marketing isn’t selling.
Don’t make this about picking favorites, spreading the wealth or pay to play. It’s about curating the best information for your customers. Reward those that are most innovative and helpful by giving them more opportunities and access.
The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) recently made exhibitors apply to participate in their tradeshow. To exhibit, each company was required to demonstrate their company’s innovation in their booth.
SAE realized that engineers respond best when they learn something at each booth. Like most of us, they hate slimy sales pitches.
Content marketers give away solutions to problems, not just tsotchkes.
To increase the value of your exhibition, provide more informal education on the show floor.
Some associations frown on having suppliers or vendors present at conferences. They fear these presenters will follow the Glengarry Glen Ross ABC selling model of “Always Be Closing.”
Smart content marketers adopt the ABH model–Always Be Helping. They want to provide value to your conference attendees.
If you locate an influential and innovative industry company adopting the ABH mindset, explore ways to cooperate instead of trying to compete. Consider working on a joint research project, e-book or a whitepaper. They might even have a killer new idea that will help make your annual meeting a hit.
Content marketers also like to push the envelope. If you partner, be prepared to move fast.
For more information, check out Marketo’s infographic that compares content marketing to traditional advertising.
Adapted from Dave’s People & Processes column in PCMA’s July edition of Convene. Reprinted with permission of Convene, the magazine of the Professional Convention Management Association. © 2011.
Why are associations and meeting professionals slow to partner with suppliers that use content marketing? Is it really content marketing that attracts and influences or the conversations that occur around content marketing that attracts?
Filed Under: Attendance Marketing
Dave: great article. I agree with you on the importance of content marketing. While the benefits are quite clear, however, it does require a shift in mindset: a content marketer, by definition, is a “mini media company.”
And this requires hard work – many organizations and associations do not have “content” as a core competency. But of course, they need to, in order to succeed at content marketing.
Content marketing requires an investment in resources, time and energy. Content marketers need to write, edit, curate and share. Organizations that allocate resources to “social media” ought to make a similar investment in content.
great post as always. Love the idea of asking vendors/ suppliers to guest blog. I always offer to do this when a convention hires me to speak. it is so surprising how many take me up on it. Likely because the blog is really a static platform that isn’t actively used or updated.
MOre more more i love this topic
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‘@Dennis, couldn’t agree with you more. Any company that is investing in social media must also have a content marketing strategy. That strategy needs to include curated material, as well as, original thoughts and opinions. Social media is just an outpost that gives the curated and original content legs.
Traditional broadcast marketing is nearly dead. We’ve shifted from always be selling to always be helping mentality. Thanks for the comment!
@Jody, we’re big advocates on having a conference blog and getting speakers to pen posts. It extends learning, builds anticipation and gives participants a reason to return to the event website. All good stuff!
Can you tell we’re on a content marketing kick lately? I highly recommend that those interested in this topic subscribe to Content Marketing Institute and Marketo. Their posts are so relevant to how marketing is changing to feed major account sales.
Dave, As always, you offer great insight and good advice. Thanks.
Per your tips and Dennis’ comments too – event organizers have a reoccurring treasure trove of easy to produce content to fuel their content marketing programs, and provide partnership opportunities that exhibitors and sponsors want. It’s call their annual meeting and all of the keynotes and the dozens of educations sessions they produce every year. The same holds true for an organization’s mid-year events and education conferences.
All of that content can be captured, Live Streamed, syndicast by sponsors, made available on-demand, and rebroadcasted in hybrid events, that partners would love to sponsor and simultaneously fuel their content marketing strategies too. And similar to a trade show booth, these delivery methods can also generate qualified leads for sponsors – something most traditional sponsorships can not do.
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