The Great Content Marketing Experiment: London 19th May 2010

Can you prove that content marketing works?

More specifically, is it possible to create a piece of business content, from scratch in a day and use it to gain 1,000 clicks?

I don't mean funny videos or viral games. We're talking business content, and we have no ready-made Twitter following of millions. We're trying to do it the hard way - and we're trying to do it live in front of 150 senior marketers at the IDM B2B Marketing Conference on 19th May 2010.

Let me explain and, at the same time, let me invite you to get involved...

The Conference
The IDM B2B Conference is a prestigious event in its 7th year that attracts many leading senior UK marketers. It is a paid event [and a reasonably expensive one at that], held in a very select location somewhere in London, UK. This year, the theme is "Change Is Good".

The Challenge
I was asked to present a session on content marketing, and I originally offered to talk through "7 steps to better content marketing" - where I planned to cover topics such as tips on creating good content, repurposing, distribution channels etc. But then I realised that the audience probably wanted to see it all working in practice... This is not a technical audience. In fact, we are talking about some fairly sceptical people who have yet to fully embrace the world of social media. So we decided instead to put content marketing theory to the test, and to show how social media marketing - if sensibly applied - can work on a business level.

So we gave ourselves the task of actually creating our own content and doing it live on the day - and aiming for 1,000 clicks by the end of the day.

The Content
First of all, as an example of how content marketing should work, we needed to create some interesting content. And with over 100 senior marketers from big brands in attendance, it made sense to use their expertise. So I asked them all a question: "What is the single biggest benefit of social media to your brand, and what is the single biggest obstacle to achieving it." It's a question I always ask, and it's one that always provokes an interesting answer. I am taking the responses and putting them into an e-book entitled "Threats & Opportunities: the Future of Social Media as viewed by the UK's most Senior Marketers." This is the content that I want to make available to the online marketing community - proving the validity of content marketing. [below is what the cover will look like!]



The Complications
We're not just creating written content. Because we would like to make the point about how important it is to use different formats for your content, we will also be filming delegates and putting their answers on YouTube, Vimeo etc. On top of this, we will of course be tweeting enthusiastically about the event, with the aim of letting lots of people know about the ebook and videos and - we hope - approaching our target of 1,000 clicks.

The Community
But, of course, the main point is to convince traditional marketers that content marketing can work. We want them to see that putting honest, informative information out onto the social networks is better than using them as broadcast channels for sales messages.

And we also want to show them that creating good content is not about big budgets, professional polish and high production values - it's about the content.

This is where I need your help!

This is why I would be deeply indebted to you if you would help spread the message by linking to the content on the day [next Wednesday, 19th May]. The link is here. I will also be blogging from here on the day and will add other links to videos etc on the day.

With your help - via Twitter, blogging or any social media route you think will help - we can get the 1,000 clicks we need, and also publicise how content marketing is a viable form of marketing [albeit, in this case buoyed by the community that believes in it!]

I really hope you will be able to join in and help convince the audience on the day that content marketing does work!

I thank you all in advance and will report back after the event.