49 Independent School Content Marketing Topics

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Here are two facts. First, content marketing has been proven to be an extremely successful means of differentiating and driving results for businesses and organizations. Fact number two – independent schools should be doing way more content marketing.

Stop. Let’s make sure we understand what content marketing is. According to the Content Marketing Institute:

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

In very simple terms, content marketing is providing parents or prospective parents with information or experiences (think video) they will consider valuable and will share with others. The real point is that by providing this content, a school demonstrates both its expertise and its ability to relate to the interests and concerns of parents. Great content can make a school’s website or social media platforms a hub for those seeking valuable information or expert opinions.

To be clear, content marketing is not news about the basketball team’s big win, your school’s state-leading performance in standardized tests or a video from the latest science fair.

Content can be delivered from a resource section on your website, through blogs, in e-newsletters, videos, prezi-type presentations, via social media platforms, Vine videos or even apps if your school has one. Content is most effective when it’s written or developed by people within in a school – heads of school, educational leaders, faculty, administrators, lay leaders, staff people and maybe even students. Content marketing also works best when its themes align with your school’s brand or experience and when its part of a plan. This post provides some useful perspectives.

If you think about content marketing as a form of knowledge transfer, you would think that schools, which are wells of knowledge, should be overflowing with ideas for content marketing. And yet, when I talk to schools about content marketing the response I inevitably get is “what would we talk about?”

So, in the interest of making it easier for schools to get going with their content marketing planning, here are 49 suggested content marketing topics for independent schools.

1. Pre-literacy activities you can do with your child
2. The pros and cons of standardized testing
3. How to help your child with homework
4. How do you know if your child is gifted
5. Age/grade level book recommendations
6. How to prepare a pre-schooler for Grade 1
7. Activities at home to build fine motor skills
8. How do know if you should hire a tutor for your child
9. How to talk to children about terrorism
10. What exactly is critical thinking?
11. Humorous conversations overheard at school
12. Suggestions for educational apps
13. A teacher’s view of parent teacher conferences
14. Is being perfect a healthy goal?
15. The school day from the perspective of a front office staff member
16. Until what age should you read to your children?
17. The most outrageous rumors heard in the parking lot
18. How to watch TV with your children
19. What does 21^st century learning really mean?
20. How to help your child build self-confidence
21. What your children really does with the lunches you pack
22. The pros and cons of teenage cynicism
23. When is it too early to talk about college prep?
24. How to help your children learn from receiving a poor grade
25. The pros and cons of student competition
26. A teacher’s perspective on managing teenage angst
27. What’s better? – Summer camp or summer jobs
28. Do students need to know cursive writing anymore?
29. Strategies for improving SAT scores
30. Managing the transition to high school
31. How you can help your child find a school/career path
32. Is it really bad to be a helicopter parent?
33. The academic benefits of participating in athletics
34. How to help your child cope with the stress of exams
35. The best ways students can study for tests
36. The best excuses for not having homework done
37. Is it ever ok to complain about the mark your child received on a test?
38. How to argue with your teenager
39. The synergies of STEM
40. Where do teachers go to learn?
41. How do you know if your child is over programmed?
42. The differences between bullying and arguing
43. What to do when your child says, “I have no friends”
44. The challenges of raging hormones in a high school classroom
45. The funniest excuses students have used for being late
46. Some school-related signs that your child needs glasses
47. How students are using their phones in the classroom
48. Do students really need to know how to tell time?
49. Strategies for surviving car pool

 You can see that topics don’t always have to be serious. They just have to be interesting or of value. I figure that if I could come up with 49 topics, there must be thousands more that you can write, blog, video, prezi or talk about.

What do you think?

Have you used any of these for your content marketing? Which ones do you hate? Which do you love? What’s the state of content marketing at your school?

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.netPhoto 

4 ways to change your customer relationships forever

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Forget about customer satisfaction. Your real goal ought to be customer transformation.

Every now and then you come across an idea that is just brilliant. Do yourself a favour and read a Harvard Business Review post from a couple of years ago called, "Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?" In it, Michael Schrage a research fellow at MIT Sloan School’s Center for Digital Business, argues that just meeting the needs of customers or even addressing their pain points, isn't good enough.

His assertion is that most business owners see customers only as a means to the end goal of growth or profitability. True success however comes from making the customer the raison d'etre of all business activity and asking the question, who do you want your customers to become? Shrage turns the classic approach to innovation on its head. Instead of asking how can we design better products and services, the more powerful question is how can we design better customers. Think about Apple. Ten years ago, their customers never imagined the ways in which a smartphone would impact their lives.

It's a powerful idea. But does it have practical application for the 99.9% of businesses that lack the god-like aura of Apple? Can a manufacturing company or a professional services firm really transform the lives of its customers? The answer is a resounding yes but it demands that you answer an incredibly challenging question. For my business, what do I want my customers to become? Do you want them to use products differently or implement new processes or take a more sophisticated view of an industry? Another way of looking at it is what is the intersection point of a better state of being for my customers and improved business performance for me?

The path to changing the reality of your customers begins with a very practical question. How can you  begin to transform the lives of customers today? Here are 4 ways.

Engage. You can't begin to think about making customers' lives better without knowing who and what your customers are today. Give them tons of opportunities to tell you about what they want and need. That can be done using social media or various forms of market research. Or better yet, go out and meet with your customers. In person. Nothing can replace the power of a face to face conversation.

Inform. Make sure your customers are up to date with the latest trends and best practices. Yes, they should be subscribed to your blog and receiving of all your case studies. But you can also point them to other sources of information – industry sites and newsletters, conferences and webinars for example.

Connect. Create communities for your customers. Give them the opportunity to talk to others in the same industry or those from different industries with similar challenges. How? You can create online forums or social media communities. But the low tech approach may be the best. Introduce your customers to other customers – one-on-one or in gatherings. Enable them to develop the relationships that will make a difference to their business.

Inspire. Help customers set the bar higher. Empower your customers to see beyond their current realities and imagine something better - whether its a new product, process or ultimately better results. Provide your customers with white papers that detail the cutting edge of the industry. Connect them to inspiring people. Talk to them about – or better yet introduce them to – businesspeople who dared to dream. Share your own aspirations.

The reality is that by making your customers both the means and the end goal of business success – by putting them at the very centre of what you do, you not only have the potential to transform your customers, but you will create a truly powerful relationship with them. No pricing strategy, customer satisfaction plan or quality assurance program can match the impact of transforming the lives of customers.

What do you think?

Is the goal of customer transformation reasonable and attainable? How would you achieve it? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Content marketing can't close the sale

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It takes a person to do that.

I read an article last week that promoted the use of content marketing in automobile sales. It started by detailing the way the Internet has changed the relationship between salesperson and customer. Salespeople used to have exclusive access to product and industry knowledge.  With it came credibility. They were the experts. Now that consumers can use online resources to know just as much as the salesperson, the power balance in the relationship has shifted.

So, how does the salesperson re-gain control? The article suggested that the solution was for salespeople to use various content marketing techniques. A post on the Dealer Communications site makes the point that product information is ubiquitous online and that consumers are actually looking for perspectives to help them parse all the data. That in turn provides opportunities for salespeople to provide consumers with unique insights using blogs, videos and other online content.

As I was reading this, I kept thinking about a famous quote from the hugely successful insurance salesman Ben Feldman. “Sales is 98% people knowledge and 2% product knowledge.” I began my working life as a headhunter, which is the most challenging sales environment you can imagine. My experience then and throughout my career has proven the wisdom of Feldman's words.

It seems to me that content marketing addresses the product knowledge portion of the quote. But that’s only 2% of the sale. What about the other 98%? Sooner or later, the sale must be consummated in a personal meeting. What happens then?

The same Dealer Communications post makes the following assertion. “When customers consume your self-published content prior to sale they have a stronger connection with you.” Really?? This assumes that sales connections are built on the knowledge or perspectives of the salesperson as opposed to the salesperson’s knowledge of the customer.

In his Sales Lion blog, Marcus Sheridan talks about using content marketing to boost the sales of a company that installs inground pools. The company changed its sales approach from a traditional model to one where a request for a quote is met with an invitation to review the company’s vast online resources (blogs, videos, e-books). I found the next two steps in their sales process astounding:

Once a potential customer educates themselves through our content, they tell us the pool and options they want, at which point we send them via email an actual quote.

If the customer reviews the quote and agrees to its terms, we then go out to their home to confirm there are no hidden costs and write up the contract.

It would appear that we’ve gone one step further and virtually eliminated the salesperson. The first personal contact with the company is to confirm the details of the order. According to e-how.com the average cost of an inground pool is $20-30,000. I’m not sure about you, but there’s no way I would make a $20,000 buying decision without seeing someone. And even if I was prepared to do the preliminary work online, my interaction with the company rep would have huge impact on my decision. Content marketing may deliver the salesperson to my doorstep but it’s her sales ability that’s going to close the deal.

Even companies like Zappos that do all their business online have staked their success on the quality of the personal interaction with the customer. Tony Hsieh’s mantra of Delivering Happiness cannot be rendered by content alone and the training and selection of their customer service reps is now legendary.

In talking about great salespeople, Enterprise Rent-A-Car CEO Andy Taylor  says, “the people who are the most successful are the ones who listen most closely to the customer.” Continuing, he adds, “We follow the two ears, one mouth rule here.” Sales success is built on asking tons of questions and listening carefully to the answers. Moreover, sales is always a transfer of emotion. The only way to close a sale is to deliver what the customer has told you she wants in an way that makes her feel good about her decision. Content marketing can’t do that.

There’s no question that content marketing is valuable to the sales cycle. It can definitely generate leads and it can even help to qualify prospects. But capitalizing on that value and making the sale is going to take that 98% of people knowledge. The bottom line is that to improve sales results your human resources are still more important than online resources.

What do you think?

Forget about Viral. Think Strategic.

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If you want to create online content that will propel your business or organization, stop thinking viral and start thinking strategic.

First, let's be clear about something. Online content refers to videos, case studies, white papers, photos, blog posts, tweets, and anything else you post online (on your website or elsewhere) to market your business, school or organization.

Part of the inspiration for this post has been John Moore’s Talkable Brand video series. It’s really well done - informative, entertaining and inspiring. If you have any responsibility for marketing in your organization, you should watch it.

The third video in the series makes the case that Talkable is Bankable - if people are talking about your brand, they will consider buying your product. That’s pretty hard to disagree with.

But in the process of proving the effectiveness of word of mouth, I believe he has dispelled any promise that marketers may hold out for their content going viral. Citing a variety of sources, John presents the following data:

• The maximum number of people with whom we can have stable relationships with is 150

• 80% of our conversations are with the same 5 to 10 people.

• 62% of our conversations are with our strongest ties – spouses, family and close friends

• 80% of cell phone calls are with the same 4 people

• The average Facebook user has 130 friends and the typical Facebook user directly communicates with just 4 friends each week

What I see in those statistics is that people communicate in small circles. While this deals primarily with personal communication, my sense is that business communication isn’t much different. Our network of trusted sources is fairly small. The only hope then for any online content going viral is in the overlap between these circles of influence and I wouldn’t bet on that happening very often.

It also tells me that I may have 500+ Linked In contacts and over 1000 Facebook friends but the number of people who are going to really take action based on what I say or post is relatively small.

Add to the mix some research that was posted last month by Emarketer that showed most most consumers don’t mention brands on Facebook or Twitter. Perhaps even more surprising is that most internet users say they first learn about new brands, products and services from offline print media or word of mouth. Only 24% said they most frequently or often hear about them on Facebook or Twitter.

All of these stats say the same thing to me – don’t even think about content going viral. It’s not going to happen.

Instead concentrate on creating content that is strategic. Your content should be:

• Targeted – speak to the needs and interests of the segments most likely to buy your product

• Valuable – give users something (perspectives, information, creativity) that they can’t get anywhere else

• Original – your content should distinguish you from your competitors

• Believable – it’s got to be a genuine reflection of your organization and make promises that are deliverable 

• Brand aligned – content must enhance the experience you want users/customers to have when they interact with your company

• On message – make sure the language and positioning inherent in your online content is consistent with what’s on your website and in offline material.

If that’s not enough, my colleague Ruth Zive has 67 Content Strategies for you to consider in her new e-book. It's a great resource.

In the end, the promise of a million hits may be sensational, but the results driven by strategic content are far more attainable and ultimately more valuable.

Shared content beats paid content and what you can do about it

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OK, now we have the proof of what we all thought was true in the first place.

Content delivered through social media sharing is more effective than the same content delivered through paid advertising.

A piece from Ad Age Digital summarizes a study conducted by GE using the social media site BuzzFeed and facilitated by Vizu, a digital advertising measurement firm. The “GE Show” was distributed on BuzzFeed using both paid advertising and sharing. Attitudes of those who watched it each way were tested. In addition, a control group that had not seen the online piece at all was tested.

All three groups (sharing, advertising, control) were asked the question, “"What comes to mind when you think of General Electric (GE)?" Overall, 77% of those who saw the content via sharing had positive responses to the question compared to 55% who saw it via advertising and 42% who didn’t see it all.

The study also measured something called “brand lift” by specifically measuring the number of people that responded to the question using the word “creative.” The calculation reported wasn’t clear to me but the contention is that there was a brand lift differential of 138% between those who were exposed via sharing and those not exposed at all.

So what do businesses and organizations that are just a wee bit smaller than GE do about this?

I looked at some of the content. It’s pretty slick. Great quality video combined in some cases with neat interactivity. And it’s on message. Not the kind of content that’s within the budget of most marketing departments. It makes me wonder that if the content was good but not amazing would there still be a 20 point spread in positive reaction between those who viewed it via sharing and those via advertising. Probably not but its an academic point for most of us.

The message for most businesses is don’t worry about paid advertising. Just start creating content – white papers, video testimonials, case studies, how-to guides, handy reference material. Don’t bet on your content going viral and being seen by millions (hundreds would be very good). You’re better off concentrating on developing content that is of value to your target audience and then distribute it using a well-planned social media strategy. Better yet, find ways to have your customers participate in content creation. There are tons of online resources that will help you with all of that. If that doesn’t work for you, I can connect you with a very creative marketing firm that can help.

The results of the GE study are hardly startling. Research shows that word of mouth is more effective than advertising every time. You may not be able to duplicate GE’s results but if nothing else this study should tell you that if you’re not thinking about content marketing, it’s time.

That’s my take on this research and how it relates to the majority of organizations. What’s yours?