Content Marketing Showdown: Eugene Farber vs. Murray Lunn

Q1: What is your approach to creating a long-term content plan for your projects?

It really depends on the project and how big the project is. But I think that breaking down your content plan into steps helps you focus on smaller action items to help you attain the greater goal.

For example when I launched Content Strategy Hub, I actually started with an outline of a product I could create down the line that would be related to the new site. Because I started off with a business mindset, something I didn’t really do with my previous blog, I forced myself to think in terms of a monetization strategy from the get go.

Then I broke up the content I needed to produce into stages: pre-launch, launch and post-launch.

The pre-launch content was something that I needed to have on the site when it launched so people wouldn’t be coming to an empty one-post blog. The launch content was intended to create a social buzz and make an immediate impact. The post-launch content is there to at least stabilize the current status of the blog in terms of visitors, subscribers, etc.

And it’s worth noting here that I use “launch” very loosely. You don’t have to be launching a brand new website or blog to create “launch” content.

Q2: What is your process for developing content? (Research, Trends, SEO, Etc)

The process depends on what the goal fo the content is, and also where I’m posting this content.

For example, I have a niche site where some of the blog posts are created strictly with the goal of earning affiliate income. Once I find a product to promote, I then optimize the post for that product in terms of on-page SEO so that the post will rank high in the search engines for people researching that product.

With Content Strategy Hub I have a much different approach. I tend to think more in terms of big-picture and long-term content flows. For example, some posts may be building on previous ones. But the tactics and approach changes from week to week because I am not always working towards a goal. I wish I was. But time is a bit limited at the moment.

But I force myself to create new content at least once per week – so sometimes the content will be an interesting thought or lesson that relates to the overall blog topic. It’s not necessarily optimized for SEO. And it’s not necessarily following any trend. It’s just an insight.

These types of posts just add to the overall content inventory and quality of the site. If I find the insight interesting, hopefully my readers will too. And if they find it interesting, hopefully they’ll come back for more.

With the niche site I mentioned earlier, I want the visitor to leave the page and go to the order form for the product – different strategies are necessary to obtain different results.

Q3: Once published, how do you promote and market your content?

Every time I publish a new post I share it on social networks. I also send out emails to my list – not every time I publish something, but every once in a while. I’m still testing the best way to go about emailing my list.

I’ve found that LinkedIn is a big source of traffic for me. It’s really the perfect network because it is full of people that fall into my target audience. As long as you are in the right groups on there, or even have your own, you can drive a lot of visits to your posts.

Q4: What, in your opinion, is the most under used strategy for online content?

I’ll share two things. One is a strategy of sorts – and the other isn’t so much a strategy as it is a tool.

As far as strategy goes, I don’t see too many people trying to drive action with their content. And I have to admit that I don’t do this myself sometimes. Sometimes I’ll publish a blog post because I feel like I have to publish one and don’t go the extra step to tie into an action the reader can take. But that’s what content is all about if you’re doing it for business purposes – you’re trying to drive action. And recognizing this will not only help create individual pieces of content that help you attain your business goals, but it’ll also help you with the big picture.

The other thing I want to mention is keeping a content inventory. This is a tool more than a strategy, but I found that having a content inventory helps me see the big picture easily and quickly. I keep a simple excel spreadsheet and it helps me see what I need to edit, what I’m missing and what I can do to try and achieve the results I want. I’m definitely not the most organized person in the world, and often I prefer the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach, but this one simple tool has made a world of difference for me. It helps to keep your content up to date.

Q5: What will the future be for content production and marketing?

If I had to guess I’d say more businesses will start publishing, and probably doing a mix of publishing and curation.

It’s pretty hard for me to give an objective answer to this because I’m so knee-deep in the subject. To me it seems like everyone is running a WordPress blog, building email lists and publishing content. But that’s just not the case. Far from it. It just seems like it is to me because that’s what I surround myself with each day.

I recently looked at the Google Trends graph for the term “content marketing” and it is a recent phenomenon. In 2011 the search term exploded. Before that it was practically non-existent. I think we’re still at the early stages of content marketing being a standard practice. So, at least for the near future, we’ll just see more and more companies creating content and finding ways to deliver it.

I don’t even want to guess what the future holds if we step out into a bigger time frame. It seems that things are evolving so rapidly that pretty soon we’ll have computer chips in our brains constantly feeding us celebrity news and cat pictures. One thing is for certain though, if there is a way that a company can deliver its content to you, they’re going to find a way to do it. VIdeos on cereal boxes? Who knows!

Q1: What is your approach to creating a long-term content plan for your projects?

I generally take into consideration how much I’ll be interested in the topic over the few years. Personally, if I’m bored after the initial research than I generally don’t follow through with the project.

Knowing that I’m going to be passionate about what I’m working on shows what I need to do.

What I generally do is to map out the structure of the website. I have a design background so we had to wireframe all the time. Doing wireframe and mock up’s helped reveal where the website needs to go; the content, then, fell in line with the overall direction.

Once I have a seed idea (main topic), I begin to explore what else people want to know about said topic.

For example: I recently bought a tablet PC so I had a good list of questions I needed answered. I started kicking around ideas and did some searches and found that many people had the same questions – idea for a website? Possibly.

From that point, I’d map out how the website would be structured – the main content pieces (evergreen) – and then the support articles that will all lead back to the main articles and reviews.

Q2: What is your process for developing content? (Research, Trends, SEO, Etc)

Generally speaking – I go with what I’m currently working on or what I’ve accomplished with recent projects.

I find the best way, for me, to create content is when it’s fresh in my mind.

I have many different projects that let me try out different industries.

I also freelance so I get to work with a whole range of companies that are in different areas of their growth; some are small, others are big – each need different content based on their customers knowledge of the industry and their products.

Sometimes I’ll also start a new project just to try out a new strategy.These sites may not last but they’re little research modules. I’ll get hyped up about something new on my mind, setup a site, and begin testing different elements like the structure, tone, and subject of the content.

I also fall back on the type of content that generally has lasting effects and link baiting like list posts, reviews, tutorials, and round ups.

Design blogs have always been major inspiration of mine and they continue to do extremely well with their content direction and strategy- I model a lot of my own work around the types of posts that do well in their audience but focus them at my own.

So, all-in-all, I’m doing a mixture between real-time testing and using best practices that were developed by design bloggers.

From there, it’s all a matter of setting the pace.

Q3: Once published, how do you promote and market your content?

I actually don’t do a lot to get my content found. I used to be very active in commenting, sharing posts on social networks, and building links through social bookmarking websites but Murlu (and many other projects) are more or less passion projects so I get the content completed and then begin working on the next.

However, if I’m pushing out something that I feel particularly proud of than I’ll generally reach out to my small network of blogger friends and associates.

Q4: What, in your opinion, is the most under used strategy for online content?

Interviews, discussions, and rebuttals.

I’ve always noticed that the posts that seem to do the best are ones that have a lot of opinion from A-list bloggers and influential people.

My thought is this: you can certainly try to make an amazing post on your own but if you tap into your community – they’re likely to help your content get found.

Anything that adds an additional layer of sociability is big in my book – I don’t use it all the time because then it doesn’t show that I can come up with my own content but I like to use it, from time to time, when there’s something worth discussing – such as this post.

The other element of all this is rebuttals. A great comment can become a new blog post in its own.

Responding to your comments through a new blog post doubles up on creating new content and giving a “shout out” to the person who may come back – leave more comments – and even help share the post because they’re getting the spotlight on your blog. This is really subliminal but it works wonders just like if you did an interview round up from authority bloggers because you know it’s going to get shared.

Q5: What will the future be for content production and marketing?

I think companies are going to wise up on the whole content thing but it’s going to take a lot of time.

Hell, there are still a huuuuge amount of companies that still don’t have websites; beyond that, they still need to create social profiles and get active there. So, the reality is that many businesses are far from implementing a robust content strategy and marketing campaign at this time but it’s going to happen.

Once businesses can see the effects of content for their company – they’ll be hooked.

I definitely see a future where many more businesses will be using online video, social discussions, and online media that crosses over to the offline world for their everyday customers.

Mobile is taking the world by storm so people don’t need to sit in front of the computer anymore – they’re now walking around the stores and looking at their online shop for deals and goodies.

Being present through a website with great content for search engines – content for social networks to kick up discussions – and active on mobile networks is where it’s at – let’s just hope we see businesses finally getting on the ball with this one.

There ya have it: Eugene and I going head-to-head about the same subject. There’s a lot of great information to dig out of this post because you get two sides of the story. While you’re at it – take a look at Eugene’s ebook: 87 Ways to Dominate Your Content Strategy or pick up his new product – Strategic Content Launch Pad.

What did you think of this “vs” post and the topic?