How to make content that converts: got an idea for ADMA Forum 2009?

by Mark Pollard on March 19, 2009 · Comments

in Presentations


I’m talking at the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) Forum in July. It’s a two-and-a-half-day conference for direct marketers and will feature Joseph Jaffe, Mark Buckman from Commonwealth Bank, Stephen Noble from Forresters, Fi Bendall and a bunch of others.

I want your help
So, I’m putting together the content for this workshop over the next month and I’d love your input – whether you’re attending or not – on how to make it better than it could be if I just traveled solo. And I promise to share the output of it with you.

The topic: How to develop content strategies that convert
I’m a big fan of content. It’s why I made my first website in 1997. It’s what I read online during the day, it’s what I watch at home, it’s what I listen to in the car. Like many of you, I’m surrounded by content most of the time… but I don’t feel that many marketers and strategist are really understanding the bigger opportunity… actually, the bigger need for it.

The description of what I’m intending to talk about is as follows:

If you only think about one-off campaigns and once-only search engine optimisation, your online content is missing a trick. Why? Well, the online world never stands still and, just like you, your customers are online every day looking at… content. Wouldn’t you prefer it to be yours?

This session will make you fall in love with creating content that’s useful to your customers and give you tools and techniques to implement immediately.

You’ll learn: how search has changed and what to do about it, how to source content insights from free online tools, who’s doing content in interesting ways, and how to get more out of your brand and your budget with the new rules of content.

You’ll get: a content strategy-on-a-page template, links to free online tools you can use straight away and an over-arching content idea specifically for your business… if you ask.

How you can help
What I would love from you is ideas…
- How could I make this 40 minute session awesome?
- How could I make it even more useful and memorable?
- What sort of ‘live technology’ could make it interesting?

Share and I’ll share back :) Please.

Photo courtesy of Liminal Mack.

If you enjoyed the read, please leave a comment. Feel free to follow me on Twitter

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Tagged as: ADMA, Content strategies

  • I’m by no means an expert on viral content. So I’ll leave that particular discussion to someone who is. However, not all interesting, useful content is intended to be viral. (Well, not primarily anyway.)

    Here are some quick thoughts to include in your discussion of HOW to write:

    1) Don’t hype! In my experience, readers are sick to death of hype. In fact, many buyers of my SEO ebook have told me they bought the book BECAUSE my sales page isn’t hype.

    2) Use a conversational writing style. Even C-level readers have conversations, every now and then, you know! Conversational writing is friendly and easy (quick) to read.

    3) Start sentences with conjunctions!

    4) Use transitional devices to create flow between sentences and paragraphs. (e.g. “What’s more...”) Read more on this at http://www.divinewrite.com/blog/copywriting/wha... .

    5) Tell a story (but still lead with your main point).

    And here are a few to include in your discussion of WHAT to write about:

    1) Think of all the questions you get asked by customers and prospects. These questions show you what people are interested in. Once you start thinking about it, you'll probably find there are hundreds of topics you could write. You may even have some of them partly written, already, in your instruction manuals or installation guides, etc.

    2) Monitor the ‘Most Popular’ and ‘Up-and-Coming’ pages on some social bookmarking services (like Del.icio.us & StumbleUpon – which has a downloadable toolbar for Firefox). Also try some niche-specific services. (e.g. Sphinn is a great Internet related social bookmarking service.)

    3) Check out some news services (like Google News & CNN.com). Also, look for some niche-specific news services (e.g. InternetNews.com is an Internet related news site.)

    4) Sign up to Twitter. Twitter conversations cover an amazingly diverse range of topics, including the news. In fact, I find I usually hear the latest news first on Twitter.

    Can’t think of any more off the top of my head. Hope these help.

    Cheers, Glenn (Twitter: @divinewrite)
  • Hi Mark - if you have access to an attendee list, perhaps you might consider requesting attendees submit some of their particular challenges/pain points in advance and use a handful of these as examples throughout your presentation.
  • My advice Mark - have Twitter running whilst you are presenting. You will get instant engagement amongst the crowd, it can lighten the mood and also allows people not in the room to engage with you.

    Check out this post from a guy I work with Steve Clayton - http://blogs.msdn.com/stevecla01/archive/2009/0...
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