Content Marketing World has wrapped up in the US for another year and a highlight of that is always the Content Marketing Awards, which honour the very best examples of content marketing in the world. The Brand Newsroom team takes a close look at what the best content marketers are doing and what lessons there are for the rest of us.

Here are some key take-outs:

•  Keep your finger off the selling button. Your articles should provide information, not push product.
• Build trust with your audience first. Build your reputation as a publisher.

“People get tired of people selling to them.” — Nic

• You can still make sales from your content marketing — that is after all the point of marketing — you just have to be clever about it. A hyperlink to a product page can build revenue without bashing the consumer over the head with an obvious call to action.
• Use the content to build your subscriber base then market directly to the subscriber base via email.

“The money play for brands is not in the news, it is not to always be selling, but to be really strategic and think about the audience and that subscriber base. That’s where you can really sell to them, on the email.” — Sarah

• The lesson from Sainsbury’s content marketing project win is to know your audience. They have 50,000 magazine readers every week with a 35 per cent open rate and a 31 per cent click-through rate, which says people value it and when they see it, they open it. Why? Because Sainsbury’s is getting the content right.
• Do one thing really well. Sainsbury’s mastered the magazine and built their audience before they moved into other areas.
• View yourself as a media company. It’s a change in mindset but it will pay dividends, as Marriott Hotels has shown.

“The theme through all of these is how much respect each of these organisations has for their audience and for building that audience.” — Sarah

Here are the links you might need

• Here’s a link to the Traction News. 
• The Content Marketing Institute’s Joe Pulizzi took a deep dive into all the CMWorld “project of the year” finalists here. 
• Sarah mentioned a Contently article about hotelier Marriott calling themselves a media company. You can read that here. 
• And here’s the link to that social media governance survey for West Australian companies, Sarah mentioned at the end of the podcast.

Have you heard the one about…

Recently James, Sarah and Nic took a close look at the digital marketing strategies of the Clinton and Trump campaigns in the current United States election.

And here’s a discussion about the differences between pitching a story idea to public and commercial media outlets.

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For more information about the show, visit the Brand Newsroom website, where you can join the Brand Newsroom Community and receive exclusive content and opportunities to meet James, Nic and Sarah.