Hold onto your hats, because Marty Weintraub is one of the most knowledgeable thought leaders in the word of search marketing–and he’s got some pretty intriguing things to say. Marty is author of “Killer Facebook Ads” and CEO of aimClear, an online marketing agency. We sat down and talked tech the other day… here are some of the highlights.
Heather: Marty, please give me your opinion on what “content marketing” means and how it’s changing the way marketers look at what they do?
Marty: Here are some signs of great content marketing:
- When they call from the television station to interview you.
- When there’s something about your business on the front page of the newspaper, in a community of 2.5 million.
- Or when the media is contacting you as an expert on something.
Everyone says that content marketing is about creating remarkable content. I’ve heard it so much at conferences (with nothing behind it) that it almost makes me want to puke. It’s the great cliché: “Oh, the way you do great content marketing is to write remarkable content.” That is largely true. When you create amazing, high investment content that has built in audiences, it works really well.
Heather: How do you define high investment content?
Marty: Basically, if you could either figure out a slant, or do research that’s important to factions, and present that content where it’s data driven… whether you make a remarkable video, whether you interview 11 people, whether you cover six conferences, or whether you interview thought leaders about things that are conflicted in the community… there are so many ways to invest in deep content.
If you create content about things that matter to people in the actual world and you do it in a classy way, then you host the conversation. You cause it.
But really great content comes from asking the question, “who am I marketing to and why do they give a s#&t about this?”
Suffice it to say that that kind of investment with thought almost always works. It might not always be a homerun where winds up on CNN or something. In fact it rarely will. As a rule, the more you invest in fantastic content the more it will pay, but that’s a very time intensive thing.
Heather: I’ve heard you mention the concept of vanity baiting. Can you talk about that for a minute?
Marty: Vanity baiting is just like what you do in life, where you say I’m the home builder, and here’s my buddy the brick layer. It helps your business to do that because then the brick layer refers back. It’s distribution of wealth. It’s doubling the networking.
When you’re doing content—whenever you cite complementary and non‑competitive resources as a true reference for your readers—that always works.
Just like you can link to Wikipedia to explain a technical term to a reader, you could have a pre‑researched spreadsheet of complimentary and noncompetitive publications. You can systematically move through that at the intersection of what’s really good for all parties by design, complementary and noncompetitive.
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Do you like the more intensive and technical aspects of internet marketing strategies? Stay tuned for more from my interview with Marty Weintraub.
Warm Regards,
Heather Lutze
Author, Internet Marketing Speaker, Trainer and Consultant