Get Content. Get Customers. How to use content marketing to deliver relevant, valuable, and compelling information that turns prospects into buyers (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: content types, customer retention, customer education, Smart Marketers-Best Practice Success Stories, Put Content Marketing, Northern Trust (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Get Content. Get Customers. Will Change the Way You Think About Marketing!

Your job as a marketer: Make it easy for your buyers to buy from you.

But making it easy for them may be hard for you, unless you can execute an effective content marketing strategy. And that almost certainly means changing the way you think about marketing.

Why content marketing is vital to business success in the 21st century:

In the last few years, buyer behavior has changed dramatically. Your buyers are now increasingly knowledgeable about what they want to buy. They aren't surfing aimlessly, hoping to be influenced by marketing messages that arrive out of the blue. They want to make up their own minds based on their own information-gathering. Therefore, buyers need content that makes them smarter and more knowledgeable.

Vendors who provide that content will win. Simply put, all the rules have changed. You need to approach the marketing game with a brand new marketing mindset. Those that can adapt will flourish. Those that don't...well... think of dinosaurs.

From the Publisher

Smart marketers around the globe are using the concepts from this book to create customer-focused, innovative organizations. Bottom-line-driven multi-nationals are moving mega-bucks from traditional media to content marketing initiatives because it drives both sales and profitability.

Moreover, many practitioners have been able to eliminate traditional marketing strategies altogether. In fact, as the authors illustrate with in-depth case studies, even very traditional companies have successfully deployed content marketing strategies in print, online, and in person.

As the book proves, the transformation from traditional to content marketing often requires both a new mindset and a new skill set. Although that's easier to say than to do, we are convinced that you and your team must make that transformation.

You may be concerned about the risks of making dramatic changes in your approach to marketing within your organization. We urge you to concentrate instead on the risks inherent in failing to make the changes necessary to compete for the new breed of buyer. We all know that many otherwise-smart companies remain mired in prehistoric marketing methodologies. If you're hesitating, think once again about the fate of the dinosaurs.

We don't know what caused the dinosaurs' demise eons ago. But, when it comes to the demise of marketing dinosaurs in the twenty-first century, we know for sure what will kill them off: the failure to develop and deploy successful content marketing strategies in the face of a game-changing metamorphosis in the business environment.

Don't be a marketing dinosaur. Start implementing your content marketing strategy today, and, as they say over at Nike, "Just do it."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Voyager Media, Inc.; 1st edition (May 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 098018780X
• ISBN-13: 978-0980187809
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #553,933 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, a book that explains how I can put content marketing to work, June 7, 2008

By	maxbookfan (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

I have been hearing that content is king for years, but now I understand how that applies in a world where buyers hate all the advertising that bombards them. That explains why our traditional marketing efforts don't work anymore and why we need a new content marketig approach.
My biggest aha from the book is that moving to an effective content marketing strategy means changing the way you think--but may be even less expensive than old-fashioned advertising and marketing.
Get Content. Get Customers. shows how and why changes in old-line media, buyer behavior, and technology have empowered--and required--smart marketers to "think like publishers" as the authors put it. That means understanding what problems and solutions are absolutely critical to your customers and providing rich content that provides meaningful answer to those challenges.
I loved the case studies which detail how content marketing has paid off on the bottom-line from a one person kitchen designer to Best Buy, a multi-billion dollar seller of kitchen appliances and high-end electronics. Every case study offers ideas that even small companies can put into practice.
Finally, the book provides a step by step illustration of how a hypothetical company can roll out a content marketing strategy that will really pay off.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Reading for Everybody in Marketing, June 29, 2008

By	Bob Leonard (Sarasota, FL) - See all my reviews

I'm familiar with Barrett and Pulizzi from their blogs. And I'm a true believer in content marketing. So when I heard they had a book coming out, I was first in line to buy it. I was eager to see what kind of content they were going to deliver, and they've lived up to my expectations.

'Get Content. Get Customers.' goes well beyond the information available in their blogs, on their websites and in their print articles. These guys are high caliber professional writers and it shows. The book is a great read, but it's much more than that.

I had pens, highlighters, and those sticky page markers at hand while I read. I highlighted passages, wrote notes in the margins, and transcribed business ideas into a notebook. It reminded me of college, only I don't remember ever being as jazzed about my studies as I was devouring this book.

Barrett and Pulizzi went well beyond an academic treatise of what "content marketing" is. They took the Harvard Business School approach and told the stories of 15 different companies and how they leveraged content marketing for business success. You get all the hows and whys. The stories are fun to read and, like every well told story, they're memorable.

This book should be required reading in every business school in the country. It explains a fundamental shift in the way products and services are sold, and every person in business needs to understand it.

It belongs on every professional marketer's bookshelf - well-thumbed through and dog-eared.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Business Book For Small Business, July 3, 2008

By	Shawn Connors (Kalamazoo, MI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Most contemporary business books should be in the humor genre as far as small business owners are concerned. Not Get Content Get Customers, this slim book deserves your roughest treatment. Mark it up, dog ear it, spill coffee on it, and tear through it. If there was one book you could keep out of your competitors' hands, this would be the one.
With traditional media becoming less effective, and almost all our new clients telling us they looked at our Website (HopeHealth.com) before calling us -- it was time to re-think our marketing from top to bottom. Get Content Get Customers is a step-by-step "get er done" guide to making your business visible to anyone who may be interested enough to search for your ilk.
Once the rules of the road are established, the case studies are invaluable. No theories here. It's all real world, tested advice. It's clear Pulizzi and Barrett, the authors, believe in Content Marketing because the subject matter is delivered with passion, and makes for an interesting and "relevant" read.
This advice is easy-to-follow, and easy to implement. Garden variety websites, enhanced with free downloadable software are all you need. Then only your creativity is the limit to how effective your content marketing will be. Highly recommended!