E-Marketing Strategy: 3 Tips for Winning Buy-In for Your Content Marketing Strategy

If ads are blocked, traditional digital marketers usually turn to SEO. But, as I explained a few articles back, SEO is dead. Google's Panda update, their Penguin update, and the launch of (and moderate success with) Google+ all make clear that the days of link-building, keyword stuffing, cloaking and other attempts at search engine manipulation are over. Dead. In the ground. Stop dumping money in the hole. Google has ushered in the age of intelligent search where it can determine whether or not readers actually like content. Invest in content.

3. Make Assurances That The World Will Be OK.

Once you've broken down for your executive what's not working and why, provide them with the solution—valuable content, brand-building, meeting customers, establishing trust. It's "slow marketing" as Kat Meyer of O'Reilly Media calls It. All of these new tactics, luckily, are now easier than ever with the flood of digital tools at our disposal—content management systems, social media, incredibly powerful data tracking and analy­sis tools, etc. This paradigm shift represents a huge opportunity to create lasting and loyal customers. Isn't that worth more than purchased traffic spikes?

Digital and social media has torn down the ivory towers and leveled the playing field. Customers and companies now stand beside one another. The high-priests of marketing and executives of all stripes will need to come down and get grubby with the rest of us. And, once they do, they'll learn it's not so bad. BB

J.S. McDougall cofounded and recently sold Catalyst Webworks, a web design and marketing firm specializing in the book publishing industry. He is the author of eight books about conducting business online, including #tweetsmart, Start Your Own Blogging Business and Content Marketing. He is currently a content strategy consultant and living with his wife in Massachusetts.