Progressive content writing and content marketing companies are developing digital content that is "authentic, useful and perfectly suited for the Internet generation," says Seth Godin, former dot com exec and author. And we certainly agree with what Seth said. We have always held content writing and marketing as the equal heavyweight to web design.

The art of digital content writing and marketing has never changed. Talented writers craft content that is relative and interesting to an audience. Long before "storytelling" become a digital thing, it was called storytelling. Great content writing requires an interesting topic, offers insight, introduces new thoughts and arrives at a conclusion. This can be entertaining, informative, motivating, questioning, educational, horrifying, funny, sad and any other range of emotion that powerful writing can evoke.

All hail the introduction of digital tools and distribution channels! We are incorporating, of course, new digital tools and channels to deliver great content to specific audiences across multiple touch points. Today's reader consumes content in shorter chunks and headlines. And if they can be hooked with a relative headline and intro paragraph, chances are strong that they will read, share, comment and bookmark your content. All of that being done on devices of all types through distribution channels of all types.

PROGRESSIVE CONTENT WRITING & MARKETING IDEAS

1. Branded Content is Vital - Now, when we say branded content, we're not talking about stuffing posts and stories with a brand's name. We focus on brand qualities that users will deem important to them: transparency, authenticity, original, trustworthy, reliable and factual. Branded content speaks to your expertise and unique company qualities that your team members and customers like. It's not fake because that kind of writing is easily uncovered and dismissed. Branded content represents the qualities and standards that you want to convey to the world. This type of content writing builds brand affinity with an audience because they can see it from business transactions to customer service to real customer experiences.
2. Provide Value to the Audience - Remember, progressive content writing assumes the duty of providing value to an audience, not to keyword stuff a sales pitch. The audience will realize value in content through how it helps them accomplish their own goals and how comfortable they feel with the story you're telling. For example, we write content every week for a regional OB/GYN practice and our value delivery is through content associated with having a baby or raising a newborn. So we write about new products, new technology, pregnancy trends and lifestyle content that brings value to the reader's pregnancy journey.
3. Creating Micro Moments - Micro Moment content is written for instant gratification from a user. The audience is searching for fast actions because they are ready to act on something. This content serves their need to "go now," or "purchase now," or "do now." For example, we blend in regional event calendars for some of our content clients based on the relevancy of the audience's lifestyle to our client's brands. If the audience has interests like mountain biking or kayaking, we distribute branded content on events that are happening at the moment they are looking. It works well.
4. Use New Digital Tools - Content writing and content marketing require the complementary digital tools to place content in the moments on the devices that an audience uses. A great example here is the AI Chatbot. The AI Chatbot is an evolving content tool that anticipates the needs of a website visitor when they interact with the bot. Users want instant knowledge about the product or service being offered, as well as current information about their previous orders or account. Our job as content writers is to use digital tools to deliver highly-relevant content through these channels as the user needs it. AI enables the content we write to match the queries the audience submits. The FAQ section on your website is another great tool. Google likes this type of content and will reward you with higher placement when it is built correctly.
5. Content Pillars and Clusters - This is a genius content marketing move! **CAUTION** The content that you write for the pillars and clusters must be of high quality and highly relative to your offering. Google will recognize fake or stuffed content. So the pillar is a single topic keystone page where the content clusters will live. For example, if you sell pecans, your Pecan Pillar Page (say that five times quickly!) will highlight your broader content on pecans. Then the clusters are long-form content articles and blog posts that dive into deep details on the pecan world. Pillar pages are broad and clusters are in-depth content pieces. You may even earn a Spot Zero designation on Google as the pecan guru.

We believe that there are no shortcuts or magic formulas to creating content that is highly relative, useful and perfectly suited for an audience. It takes skill, experience and time to produce quality content. Writing exceptionally strong content is indeed a skill and an art.

As a professional content marketing company, we integrate progressive content writing ideas into our client strategies and executions. It's a commitment that we have always taken seriously on behalf of our clients. Lazy content writing earns lazy results. And generic content writing earns generic results.

We only focus on writing exceptional content coupled with highly-relevant digital tools to get the job done right. The first time.

For more information on how content writing and content marketing can benefit your brand, please contact Jay Joyce at jay@theideapeople.com or call 704-398-4437.

Digital marketing is indeed the skill to perfect for any size company that needs to target online customers. And digital marketing works well at scoring hits, visits, brand awareness, etc. But why is standard digital marketing failing at producing qualified leads for a sales team to pull through to conversion? Why is digital marketing on its own so average at producing results?

There are so many digital marketers and agencies who claim to be "experts" in their field. They do know how to post a post and generate new page likes. They also know how to manage PPC campaigns and buy social media ads. They may even be good at adding exclamation points on every post, driving energy and excitement to an audience.

But where are the results? How much has standard digital marketing impacted your sales and profit? Are you running a digital campaign but seeing no results in the conversion column? There is a 93% chance that you are. Standard digital marketing is real good at masking the real issue of generating qualified leads and driving them through your conversion process. That is why we suggest moving to a more enterprise marketing approach to building sales pipelines and interacting with your physical sales team.

MOVE FROM DIGITAL MARKETING TO ENTERPRISE MARKETING

Alright, so there's another slightly new term you need to learn: enterprise marketing. How is enterprise marketing different from digital marketing? Enterprise marketing builds focus on exponentially increasing qualified leads to your enterprise, whether there are 10 people or 1,000+ people in your company. And it's a collaboration between digital strategies and your real team sales strategies.

Enterprise Marketing for the Win

First off the bat, we use enterprise marketing to fill sales pipelines with qualified targets. The focus is on conversion. While digital marketing looks at the digital footprint of your company, enterprise marketing looks at your company as an entity. Yes, we use digital tactics to drive the pipeline, but we also deploy stronger marketing and sales tactics through research, stronger content writing, broader audience set targeting and more-refined online campaigns. Plus we balance this with your sales team so we work in tandem.

Enterprise marketing is focused on increasing your qualified prospect pipelines. You may already be getting leads, but they're the wrong leads. Or the leads may be too small in value and a waste of time.

1. The Enterprise Marketing Calling CardsDecision Influencers - these are the bottom players in a company. They are the workers and the people producing a service or product. And in the enterprise marketing world, they are important to drive recommendations up the chain, even if their own reasons are tied directly to just their tasks.
2. Middle Management - these career people are line managers, sales managers and operations management. Their evaluations and recommendations are key to the C-suite on purchase decisions. Middle management is important.
3. C-suite - the C-suite is where decisions and purchases are made. These are typically division or market segment decision-makers or they are the ultimate decision makers, like an owner or CEO. Of course, these are key people to reach.

What is missing from digital marketing in these sales pipelines? There's no relationship with the top or the middle. Enterprise marketing addresses relationship selling with digital tactics. And each of our three market audiences are important in driving a relationship with the real decision maker.

Enterprise marketing works in tandem with your direct sales team and customer service team. We visually "see" who your top customers are and we chart a course of building online pipelines for those people while your team makes physical contact with them.

We see enterprise marketing as a "one-two" punch to pull qualified leads through the sales pipeline. And we've seen this technique work with companies to sell wider, sell larger and sell more often to target prospects.

To learn more about enterprise marketing, please contact Jay Joyce, at 704-398-4437 or email jay@theideapeople.com. We uniquely have the direct selling and the digital strategy experience to build an effective platform for your successful pipeline.

It's an interesting position to own a 21-year-old web design agency. We've seen, heard, experienced and "done" everything. Twice. And being in the creative and technology business affords us opportunities to experiment, adapt and change with trend after trend.

So we ask ourselves often, "where are we going next? What is the next world we can conquer? How do we grow the next generation web agency?" Without a doubt, this is where all of our experience kicks in. 21 years of experience that creates a whirlwind of forward momentum. That's what we like. So how will we make this happen?

GROWING THE NEXT GENERATION WEB AGENCY: WHAT'S NEXT?

1. CLASSIC MARKETING IS ALWAYS IN VOGUE

"Drafting a well-written letter, enclosing a current agency brochure and business card still makes viable impressions," said Jay Joyce, president, The Idea People. "Nobody sends letters anymore and that is the best reason why we still do it today." Writing a business letter gives a prospect a physical experience with our brand.

2. SET A MARKETING STRATEGY&FOLLOW IT

We preach this to our clients so we do it internally as well. Our chief content officer, Adam Frazier, has developed a multi-week content schedule of topics that are important to our target clients. "We use the content schedule as a guide for our marketing plan so all of our content and advertisements align each week," says Joyce. "If Google notices it and likes it, our clients will, too."

3. EMBRACE NEW

We met a new and awesome "sustainable" advertising company called CruiseCarts. Their founder, Dustin Wilson, has created a viable and needed service of carrying people around the city in his special CruiseCarts. Oh, and he carries them for free! He generates revenue by selling advertising on his carts. "We thought this was a fresh and exciting way to place our brand name in front of influencers and decision makers across the city," says Joyce. "It will work well with the mix of everything else we will do."

4. DON'T ABANDON OLD TECHNOLOGY

Enter WBT-AM 1100 radio. It's one of the oldest radio stations in the country and has been a crown jewel in Charlotte for generations. "We know that our target market listens to news-talk radio. They always have," said Joyce. "We are sponsoring news updates and the Rush Limbaugh update every weekday. It will work well with the mix of everything else we will do."

5. TAKE ON AN EARTH CHANGING CHALLENGE - IOT

Bring on The Internet of Things (IoT). Sensors and devices talking to each other create a mega mountain of data. As a web and mobile app developer, this was a natural growth opportunity for The Idea People. "Let's do something that breaks rules and breaks new ground," said Bill McCown, agency director. "Let's go into new territory and lead the campaign for The Internet of Things here in the Carolinas." Needless to say, this will work well with the mix of everything else we are doing.

6. SPEND MONEY IN SOCIAL ADVERTISING

Bingo. We offer this service to existing clients and it works well with the mix of everything else we do for their company. "Yes, social advertising is expensive, and, yes, it does work," said Joyce. "I think we have the best social advertising person in Charlotte and he can work miracles for our clients. We are looking forward to having this sync up with everything else we are doing."

7. VIDEO. VIDEO. VIDEO.

Did we mention video? We created a video content series called "The IdeaCast." We produce video content for our agency addressing two audiences every week: the influencers and the decision makers. "Video content takes patience, planning and dedication to commit to developing and broadcasting it every week," said Joyce. "Video is easily shared, promoted, liked and delivered across any social network or device. Video will work will with everything else we are doing."

Growing the next generation web agency will be challenging, exciting and rewarding. "We love generating new ideas as a team," adds McCown. "The thrill of generating new ideas, building a strategy, executing the plan and then monitoring the analytics adds the fuel to our momentum. We already see results after just 2 weeks."

Every brand and company should find new ideas, energy and passion to push forward in their marketplace. We help brands move forward. Leaps and bounds are desired, but we can live with slow and steady.