If there is one thing the marketing experts agree upon, it’s this:

Marketers need to “Think like a Publisher” and develop a continual stream of remarkable content.

Here are recommendations from top marketing experts:

• Paul Dunay, who heads global services marketing for Avaya and authors the excellent blog Buzz Marketing for Technology told me we’re in an “arms race around thought leadership.”
• Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot, in his excellent CEOs Guide to Internet Marketing presentation said marketers need “lots and lots of content.  They ought to think like a publishing company — like Disney.”
• In his book, Purple Cow, Seth Godin makes the case that all marketing sounds alike — which is why a purple cow would stand out.  The book is all about transforming your business by being remarkable.
  

  Purple Cow

In my mind’s eye, I hear marketers questions.

What’s remarkable content?  And how do I get it?

That’s not an easy question.  Unfortunately, remarkable content is a lot like art.  I can’t explain what art is, but I sure know it when I see it.  I bet you feel the same way about art.

Remarkable content, like art, is measured by the viewer, and not you.  Van Gogh would not boast about his art.  Instead, he would craft a great painting and let people tell each other about it.

That’s the measure of remarkable.  Do people talk to each other about it?  Do they Tweet about it?  Do they talk about it on FaceBook or Linkedin?

Just like remarkable only matters in the eye of the recipient, you’ll want to make it easy to consume.  Van Gogh’s paintings would not have become famous if no one had seen them.  But you live in a vastly more complex would than the Great Master lived in.  He was pre-Internet, cable tv, telephone, cell phone, etc.

The noisy and complex world of today means the only way to get though is to make it bite-sized and easy to consume on whatever device (PC, Mac, iPhone, Blackberry, etc.) they choose to use.

And the user experience matters.  When they consume your content, you want them to take action.  You’ll want them to visit your website to get further information.  This means you need a great landing page that engages them and matches perfectly with the remarkable content you shared earlier.  You want them to consume your remarkable content and share it with others.

There’s one other great definition of remarkable.  If you stop sharing content, the recipient contacts you to complain.

So how does one develop remarkable content?  Brian Halligan suggested you have a “Get Found Content” team on your marketing staff. You’ll need to partner and hire outside the box.  For instance, HubSpot hired a former reporter for the New York Times and a music major fresh out of college, Rebecca Corliss.  The reporter creates content and the music major creates videos, like the excellent You Outta Know (InBound Marketing) Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot, and Rebecca are pictured at right.

You can learn much more about demand generation by visiting Find New Customers.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is President of Find New Customers. Lead Generation Made Simple Find New Customers helps client implement best practices lead generation programs to find and acquire new customers.

He’s also the author of the highly acclaimed white paper entitled How to Find New Customers (complete with re-Tweet links).  He’s also the co-author of Prospect Driven Marketing along with Arthur Germain of the Communication Strategy Group.

He can be reached at jogden at findnewcustomers.net