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6 content marketing takeaways from the French Resistance

6 content marketing takeaways from the French Resistance

By Bhaskar Sarma 3 Comments

D-dayAround this time back in 1944, the events depicted in Saving Private Ryan played themselves out in the cities and the countryside of France.

The Allies and the Nazis were locked in vicious battles, and the good guys were winning.

But if you think about it, the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944 should have been a major disaster for the Allies.

This was no lopsided US v. Taliban situation and the Germans were sitting behind the Atlantic Wall– coastal fortifications made up of concrete and guns and radar and designed to make Hitler’s Europe impregnable to a seaborne invasion.

The Nazi supply lines were also less prone to stretching and disruption.

But all that counted for nothing. When the rubber hit the road, the Germans were rapidly pushed back and Paris was liberated in August 1944, effectively ending Hitler’s 4 year old reign over France.

How did that happen?

[Read more…] about 6 content marketing takeaways from the French Resistance

So your boss thinks social media for business is hokum?

So your boss thinks social media for business is hokum?

By Bhaskar Sarma 3 Comments

Social media for business is bogus?

To be fair to your boss, she might be right 2 times out of 10. But it’s more likely that social media is going to benefit your marketing goals if you have a well thought out strategy.

So how do you convince your boss that social media can get more leads, drive sales, cut costs and build relationships with your customers?

First, some data.

  • 63.7% of US Internet users are regulars on some sort of a social network (Emarketer, February 2011)
  • Worldwide, on an average, users spent the highest amount of time online (4.6 hours/week) on social networks. (TNS October 2010)
  • Social media grabbed the highest percentage of leads (74%) when pitted against other emerging lead generation channels like virtual events (Unisfair, May 2010)
  • 57% of SMBs say that social media has been beneficial for their business (Ad-ology Research, November 2010)
  • LinkedIn generates the highest conversions (61%) for B2B marketers (Hubspot State of Inbound Marketing 2011)

[Read more…] about So your boss thinks social media for business is hokum?

5 corporate blogs that are not doing it right

5 corporate blogs that are not doing it right

By Bhaskar Sarma 9 Comments

mistakes_blogging

[Updated on 22nd Aug 2014]

Corporate blogs are powerful weapons in the marketing arsenal. There is one caveat, however.

You need to do them correctly.

Mess up your blogging and you would be wanting to rewind and get back to the days when all communications with outside were routed through the PR department . A website with a sucky corporate blog is worse than a website with no blog.

So what are the pre-requisites for a corporate blog?

Corporate blogging 101

The basic aim of a blog is to connect, mainly using text, with your core audience at a different level than the rest of the website content. You get to write in a lighter, more informal tone. You get to make jokes. You get to introspect, to muse and to predict how things are going to change.

In short, a corporate blog transforms your company from a faceless, remote and monolithic enterprise to a bunch of people with emotions and feelings.

So when you are setting up a corporate blog you need to make sure that certain rules about conventional marketing copy are ditched. To make your job easier here is a checklist of some best practices concerning corporate blogging [Read more…] about 5 corporate blogs that are not doing it right

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