Get Content. Get Customers.

"Get Content. Get Customers." is well thought out, easy to read and highly relevant. While the title might lead one to believe that it's all about the web, the book effectively ties together all elements of modern-day marketing and links them to the spinal column of the internet. I am amazed that in a field changing as quickly as modern marketing that the authors have been able to get much information into the book that is this timely. I found easy to follow-constructs, timely examples and dozens of items which will lead me to do additional research and continue learning.

I'm familiar with Barrett and Pulizzi from their blogs. And I'm a true believer in content marketing. So when I heard they had a book coming out, I was first in line to buy it. I was eager to see what kind of content they were going to deliver, and they've lived up to my expectations. 'Get Content. Get Customers.' goes well beyond the information available in their blogs, on their websites and in their print articles. These guys are high caliber professional writers and it shows. The book is a great read, but it's much more than that. I had pens, highlighters, and those sticky page markers at hand while I read. I highlighted passages, wrote notes in the margins, and transcribed business ideas into a notebook. It reminded me of college, only I don't remember ever being as jazzed about my studies as I was devouring this book. Barrett and Pulizzi went well beyond an academic treatise of what "content marketing" is. They took the Harvard Business School approach and told the stories of 15 different companies and how they leveraged content marketing for business success. You get all the hows and whys. The stories are fun to read and, like every well told story, they're memorable. This book should be required reading in every business school in the country. It explains a fundamental shift in the way products and services are sold, and every person in business needs to understand it. It belongs on every professional marketer's bookshelf - well-thumbed through and dog-eared.

Get Content Get Customers is one of the first books to offer a combination of articulate and intelligent ideas on why you should use content to market in the Post Advertising Age along with real world examples of how to do it. There are a surprising number of companies that are already using content to engage with customers and this book has unearthed a wide range of different companies with different needs all united by using content to reach customers and prospects. For those marketers who are timidly wondering whether they can switch their dwindling ad budgets into more engaging and more efficient channels, prevaricate no more. The time is now and the proof is here - I really found it to be a compelling bible to doing business through the medium of narrative marketing and story-telling.

You might think it's obvious that marketers need to provide their current and future customers with valuable content that they might actually want to read. Unfortunately, that's the exception rather than the rule. Authors Pulizzi and Barrett explain exactly why we need to make dramatic changes in the way we market our products and services right now--to create content marketing strategies that will work in the 21st century. Key points in the book: -Traditional media outlets, particularly in the business-to-business arena, are less and less viable as effective marketing tools. While trade publications suffer, lots of businesses are creating their own print and online publications that cut out the middleman. -Buying habits have changed so dramatically in the past decade that what used to work well sometimes no longer works at all. Some companies--and they provide examples that include a British law firm, a US software company, and a one-person franchisee--have abandoned traditional marketing vehicles completely in favor of content marketing. They rely totally on content that they create. This includes magazines, eNewsletters, websites, and blogs. -The vast majority of buyers do all their research online before ever contacting the companies they might do business with. This means that if you don't have an excellent, customer centric website you are putting your business at risk. -You absolutely must devote either internal or external resources to consistent content creation. Otherwise, it just won't get done. -You've got to measure the outcome of your content marketing efforts from the get-go. Too many marketers fail to set up any kind of measurement plans. There is lots of serious stuff in the book but it's a fun read with more than a dozen detailed success stories from which we can draw practical lessons. My copy is already dog-eared and underlined everywhere

I have been hearing that content is king for years, but now I understand how that applies in a world where buyers hate all the advertising that bombards them. That explains why our traditional marketing efforts don't work anymore and why we need a new content marketig approach. My biggest aha from the book is that moving to an effective content marketing strategy means changing the way you think--but may be even less expensive than old-fashioned advertising and marketing. Get Content. Get Customers. shows how and why changes in old-line media, buyer behavior, and technology have empowered--and required--smart marketers to "think like publishers" as the authors put it. That means understanding what problems and solutions are absolutely critical to your customers and providing rich content that provides meaningful answer to those challenges. I loved the case studies which detail how content marketing has paid off on the bottom-line from a one person kitchen designer to Best Buy, a multi-billion dollar seller of kitchen appliances and high-end electronics. Every case study offers ideas that even small companies can put into practice. Finally, the book provides a step by step illustration of how a hypothetical company can roll out a content marketing strategy that will really pay off.