Content marketing watch – a new more absorbing Pampers website

Content Marketing Watch is our weekly opinion piece on the latest news from the digital sector.

The Pampers website is a great application of the principle of content marketing – by providing content that is of real value, Pampers has created an engaging web presence for its customers. There is no hard sell of the pamper range on the site. Product placements are subtly targeted within highly relevant and useful information depending on the options (e.g. baby, toddler) selected.

Called the Pampers village (from the concept that it takes a village to make a child) the website provides articles, videos and newsletter to provide valuable information to help parents such as

• nutrition and health advice for mothers
• feeding and development for new babies
• bedtime and potty training for toddlers

There are web 2.0 elements such as forums, blogs and commenting to create the sense of the village with people sharing experience, rating articles and staying connected. In addition there are a range of practical tools available such as

• a pregnancy widget that can be downloaded onto your PC
• a baby name finder
• an Out and About Guide for those child friendly restaurants and cafes

What we like about this site is that is built around a simple concept of building a long term relationship with the customer through content.

Pampers know that the lifetime of one of their customers is from the time when they become pregnant to when their child is potty trained. The site cleverly provides content that is relevant as each stage of their child’s development allowing Pampers to build their relationship over time

You can read another analysis of the website on David Meerman Scott blog.

Content marketing watch – Googles new SearchWiki

Content Marketing Watch is our weekly opinoin piece on the latest industry news; covering the areas of content marketing such as analytics, online marketing, content optimisation, search engine marketing and digital marketing.

We don’t know if people have truly realised the full implications of the latest development from Google Labs, SearchWiki.

Away the from the techincal detail the bottom line is that this new feature provides customers with an additional way to switch off the messages they don’t want to receive and to rate your content.

It adds to our case that your SEO strategy should not focus on just achieving a high ranking for your key search terms. With Searchwiki if the content isn’t relevant your page could be removed or worse negative user generated comments could adversely affect your brand. Where does that leave you. You have to drive your online marketing strategy from the principle of providing content that delivers value to your customer, which is Content Marketing.

In more detail, the new search feature allows you to customise your search results when you are logged into your Google account. You can promote a search result so that the next time you do the same search it appears where you can find it easier. It also lets you add notes and see the notes other people have added for your search results. You can find out more by watching the video below.

Content Marketing Watch – why the public sector should blog

Content Marketing Watch is our weekly piece on the latest industry news; covering the areas of content marketing such as analytics, online marketing, content optimisation, search engine marketing and digital communications.

To blog or not to blog is a contentious issue for the public sector. Supporters see it as a way for Government to engage in dialogue with people and bring a human face to what is often perceived a souless bureaucracy. The more skeptical see it as communications minefield.

At w00tonomy we believe that blogging is right for the public sector.

Having worked for years with people in the public sector we are always been struck by the disparity between the portrayal of the public sector as impersonal and the passion that many people in the sector feel for their work.

Online we believe one of the main reasons for this is that public sector bodies seek to manage all communications through corporate sites. These sites clearly serve a purpose by providing us with a single source of facts and information but by their very nature they speak with only one voice. The price you pay by limiting your use of the Internet in this way is that you loose engagement and personality.

Blogging provides a way for the public sector to bring that expertise and passion to the surface. It doesn’t have to be from a single person – it can be from a team or a department; you can also invite contributions from experts and interested groups in the field.

To illustrate, here are some “in the field” examples of how blogs are being used in major policy areas from across the pond.

• Environmental. The Energy Savers blog is a vehicle for discussion and education around environmental issues for the home, workplace and travel.
• Transport. A blog like this would be of great interest to those in Edinburgh who are trying to deal with the roadworks around the city; the Fast Lane Blog provides a forum for transport officials to discuss and explain public transport policy. The content is provided not only by the team but also by guest bloggers
• Foreign Policy. Its not just the social issues that can be dealt with through blogs. Dipnote is website where participants are given the opportunity to discuss important foreign policy issues with senior Department officials.
• Health. Secretary Mike Leavitt has set up a personal blog for his department in which he talks about the health challenges facing the States at home and abroad.
  

Mike Kujawski has pointed out there are key questions the public sector body needs to answer before setting up a blog

• Which person or team can write/represent the agency?
• Can you generate enough content of interest?
• What is the level of commitment to the blog?
• What content are you going to produce?
• What are your review processes?
• How will you mange comments?

If at the end of considering these questions you decide not to set up a blog, there are potentially thousands of blogs out there that may still be talking about you so you need to be listening and commenting. 

Content Marketing Watch: ScotWeb2, the web and the public sector

Content Marketing Watch is the latest feature section to be added to our interviews and opinion pieces. For those of you in the industry who are looking to maximise the most value from the content on your site each week we will have a piece on the latest industry news; covering areas of content marketing such as analytics, internet marketing, content optimisation, search engine marketing and digital communications.

Hotfoot from ScotWeb2 – a get-together of those with an interest in the public sector and the internet. Organised by Alex Stobart, a recovering civil servant, 

The highlights, apart from my workshop on making the most of content, were talks by James Munro of PatientOpinon and Simon Dickson of Puffbox.

James’s described how his site offered patient feedback on NHS services. He demonstrated that inviting the public into the conversation, even with negative comments, led to positive outcomes. He also demonstrated PatientOpinon’s automated tagging system for comment, which was one of my “wow” moments of the year.  

Simon Dickson caused everyone’s ears to wring with his revelation that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website cost £19.2m, with the CMS alone costing £1.47m.  Staggered by this he set up a business that builds websites using WordPress, which costs zilch.

This event was a great start to the coming debate over how public sector websites embrace the future.

Content Marketing Watch – improvements to Google Analytics

Content Marketing Watch is the latest feature section to be added to our interviews and opinion pieces. For those of you in the industry who are looking to maximise the most value from the content on your site each week we will have a piece on the latest industry news; covering areas of content marketing such as analytics, internet marketing, content optimisation, search engine marketing and digital communications.

An essential element to optimising you site content is having the right measurement tools. Google Analytics seems to get better and better and the rational of using its free service instead of a licence product is becoming more compelling, especially in these hard times. Recently Google has announced 7 new improvements to Google Analytics that will see it become more like an enterprise solution. If you are current Google Analytics user then you should see these enhancements rolled out over the next few weeks. The new enterpise features are

• Improvements to the user interface
• Improvements to the management interface
• Integration with adsense
• Custom reporting
• Advanced segmentation
• Motion charts
• New API

Google has created a few videos in its YouTube channel to help explain these changes in more detail. We particluarly like the video on the new motion charts.