Effective Content Marketing: What it takes?

I met Manfred Shi during a training sessions on Content Marketing that I was conducting as part of the BCG Rise Academy’s 6-month SGUnited mid-career pathways program designed to build high-demand business and digital skills amongst Singapore workforce.  He stood out to me by virtue of his active participation and loads of questions. He kept me on my toes as a trainer. I am not surprised now that I know that he is a seasoned digital marketer himself! That’s what I love about being an educator. You learn a lot yourself while teaching.

He invited me to talk about effective content marketing on a talk show that he hosts with two of his friends called the Three Marketeers Show every Wednesday at 10 PM Singapore time on both Facebook and YouTube. His other friends included Andrew Wong: An email marketing strategist, owner of Antz Digital and co-host of the show, and Jason Gan: Founder of Tribeup Academy and a Facebook Ads expert. I accepted his invitation happily.  It was indeed an honor to be in the company of such experienced marketing people.

Some of the gems that came out:

It’s not what you SAY that matters. It’s what they HEAR that matters.

Your goal in every communication is to influence your Target Audience (change their current attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and behavior). Stories are the most effective way to exert influence.

He sent me a list of questions to cover:

1)What is content marketing and how does it work?
2)What are the types of content marketing?
3)What skills do I need for content marketing?
4)How do I start a career in content marketing?
5)How do you measure and improve your content?
6)How do I create a Content Marketing Strategy?
7)Which comes first? Keyword Research or Content Writing?
8)Can you share some good content writing example?
9)What is the difference between content writing and content marketing?
10)Is content marketing copywriting?

Find out by watching this episode if I covered it all or not. It was a free-flow conversation format that I loved. It was fun, light hearted and yet insightful. I learnt so much from these awesome marketers or should I say ‘3 marketeers’. Check out the conversation on this episode on YouTube as well as Facebook.

I recommended some tools and books as part of this episode. One is a fabulous book by Kendall Haven called Story Smart. It is an amazing read into what it takes to communicate effectively so that your content and messaging will have the power to influence behavior and actions of others.  If you want to know what other books I recommend, check out this post on my top ten recommended marketing books.

I also talked about this awesome app that you can download on your mobile and get to read, listen to watch the summaries of some of the best books out there. What’s unique about this app is that it is a fraction of a cost compared to other similar tools or apps.  Storyshots – check it out. It has an awesome ‘Black Friday’ offer which comes with a 60 day money back guarantee.  You can thank me later for telling you about it.