28 Content Marketing Tips from the Content Marketing Masters

I went to a fantastic content marketing retreat today, put on by Langley New Media. The speakers were amazing -- knowledgeable, entertaining, and very human. There were so many great ideas and discussions, not just between speakers and participants, but also online in real-time.

I swear I'm the only person left of the planet who doesn't take technology to a conference. Just my pen and paper. And, for the most part, I'm so distracted by what the presenters are actually saying that I forget to take notes. But I did feel a bit left out of the Twitter party, so I thought I'd share my tidbit take-aways with you here. There were tons of great nuggets and this is only a small handful of them...

1. Determine your content goals, and then choose ONE.
2. Focus on a niche, and then get super niched.
3. Don't talk about yourself.
4. The sweet spot is the blend of informative and entertaining.
5. Know what people are thinking about today.
6. Know what people are thinking about when they're not getting paid.
7. Know what your competitors are doing in content marketing.
8. People don't care what you sell. They react to what you stand for.
9. Make sure the audience you're targeting is the market that's buying.
10. "Hide the pill" of important information inside the entertaining stuff.
11. Solve people's problems.
12. Your content should relate a quest or challenge. 
13. Tell stories about people, not products or services.
14. Talking heads are boring.
15. A story needs a beginning, a middle, a conflict, and then an end.
16. Content is a renewable asset. Ads are non-renewable assets. 
17. Connect with people through content.
18. Use a content calendar and identify daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual content.
19. People trust other people like themselves. They don't easily trust corporations or the media.
20. A good information architecture supports business strategy.
21. Taxonomy and content programming can help content to flow efficiently.
22. Niche print magazines are here to stay and have a place near and dear to people's hearts.
23. Do more listening than talking online.
24. Connect with the key online influencers in your market.
25. Distribute content through multiple channels, in multiple formats, in many conversations.
26. Lorem ipsum is shit.
27. You can't manage what you don't measure.
28. Make sure that what you measure is relevant to your key stakeholders.

My apologies to the presenters for not capturing all of their key ideas. But I've listed their names below, and Twitter handles where I could, so please check them out to learn more about their particular focus in content marketing... they're a crazy-smart bunch of people!
 
Joe Pulizzie  @JuntaJoe
Russell Sparkman @fusionspark
Terri Nopp
Jack Penland
Hanson Hosein @hrhmedia
Eleanor Fye @eleanorfye
Kevin Lund
T.A. McCann @tamccann
Bill Flitter @bflitter
Drew Davis @TPLDrew
Matt Heinz @heinzmarketing