By Kim Ann Zimmermann, Managing Editor
When Kyle Lacy, now the Senior Manager of Global Content Marketing for ExactTarget, was selling air time at a radio station, he got this piece of advice: When you go into someone’s office, take a look around at the pictures on their walls. It will give you a clue to their interests.
“That advice still holds true today,” he told an audience at Dreamforce. “Our job is to create content that fits the buyer.”
Lacy added that content should evoke emotion. He started his presentation by showing pictures taken of dogs under water. “It’s simple, it’s funny and it gets me every time I look at them.”
Chris Moody, VP of Marketing at Compendium, which was recently acquired by Oracle, echoed the sentiment that short, interesting pieces can get the job done. “You don’t always have to have these big, major pieces of content. It doesn’t always have to be amazing. Amazing doesn’t scale.”
Moody said that content can be put into three buckets: high-, medium- and low-effort. Low-effort content, which he defined as content generated by users, employees and partners, can be the most effective.
User-generated content, which many find the most trustworthy information, is important for building relationships with prospects. “Trust, loyalty and rapport are really the bedrock of every interaction,” said Marcus Nelson, Founder & CEO of Addvocate, an employee advocacy platform. He added that 90% of people trust recommendations from people they know, 70% trust online reviews, and 14% trust advertising.
