Arnie Kuenn is the president of Vertical Measures, an Internet marketing agency that delivers search, social and content marketing services. Kuenn is also the author of Accelerate! Moving Your Business Forward Through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing.With more than 20 years of experience, Kuenn is a marketing expert and valued Zerys partner.
We recently had the chance to talk with Kuenn regarding content marketing opportunities and best practices for agencies.
What is the overall theme of your book - Accelerate! Moving Your Business Forward Through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing?
It’s the short version of a content marketing how-to book. I really tried to write it geared towards small-to-medium sized businesses so that they could follow a step-by-step approach on how to get started. So it pretty much covers the whole eight step process for content marketing.
In relation to content, what do you mean by convergence?
It’s one thing to write the content and post it on your blog or on your website, but then people still need to hear about it. I then talk to people - making sure that they do promote and distribute the content thought social media and search channels.
So search is a bit hard because you can’t really control if it shows up in Google or Bing search results. As long as you optimize the content you’ll give yourself the best chance, but certainly with social you can post the content on places like Facebook, tweet it on Twitter, or if it makes sense to be on LinkedIn- be on LinkedIn.ing sure that they do promote and distribute the content thought social media and search channels.
And today, Pinterest is really, really powerful. Especially in the travel or cooking space. e-commerce clients that have a lot of products are doing well by posting them on Pinterest. So there are a lot of ways to draw people back to your specific content and your website. That’s how I would integrate it.
What is your take on the debate between content quality and quantity?
I would always err on the side of quality. We’ve done that here at Vertical Measures in marketing ourselves. We’ve really tried to slow the pace down and instead focus on much longer, more in-depth, valuable content. Whether it’s business-to-business or a consumer site or whatever it is - I would say no matter what - quality should come first.
What do you think has led to the boom in content marketing?
I think what has really helped a lot is Google (with their Panda and Penguin algorithm updates). They have sent a very clear message to anyone that’s paying attention that it’s all about really good, high quality content now. So when Google speaks…a lot of people listen.
You can tell if you look at the amount of searches for the phrase content marketing – it’s really spiked up in 2012 and I do attribute that to Google making it so.
What do you predict for the future of content marketing?
I think content marketing is going to get more pervasive, and just more a part of everybody’s daily marketing approach.
But I do think everyone needs to pay much more attention to mobile and those kinds of platforms. Is your content ready? Do you know how to engage people in a local or mobile way? I see that as a big component of content marketing as we move into the future. And video, of course, is getting bigger and bigger every year. That will have to be included in the mobile approach as well.
What do you think of outsourcing content?
I do think that contractors and outsourcing can be a really great way to get 80% of the work done, and we use them all the time for that exact reason: to get us started.
When it comes to content marketing, what do many people struggle with most?
I see so many people with analysis paralysis. They are trying to think about: What would be the best thing to do? How often should we post? I think what changed for us a few years ago is when we just decided to dive in and quit asking questions, and quit wondering what we should and shouldn’t do and just started to produce content.
It’s also tempting to assume you need to do it all. Unless you are a pretty large business, you aren’t going to be able to do it. Focus on what comes natural and what is comfortable for you and your organization and just do those few things really, really well.
About
Arnie Kuenn is the president of Vertical Measures and author of the award winning content marketing book Accelerate! Moving Your Business Forward Through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing. Vertical Measures specializes in providing strategic search, social and content marketing services, designed to help businesses grow by obtaining more traffic and conversions.
Mr. Kuenn has held executive positions in the world of new technologies and marketing for more than 20 years. He served on the 2008 Arizona Super Bowl Marketing Committee and is a founder and past president of the Arizona Interactive Marketing Association (AZIMA).
Arnie is a frequent speaker at conferences such as PubCon, SMX, SES, American Marketing Association, Online Marketing Summit, Social Media AZ, and the ASU Cronkite School of Journalism. Arnie is also an instructor for the Content Marketing Institute and the Online Marketing Institute.
You can find Arnie on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn.
