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<title>Jan Kelley Marketing Blog - Mary Fearon</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Jan Kelley Marketing Blog - Description]]></description>
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<pubDate>Sat, 19 May 2012 10:38:37 -0400</pubDate>
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<title>Lessons from the Pool Man</title>
<link>http://www.jankelley.comblog.php?blogId=170</link>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:47:09 -0500</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[Earlier this fall I attended the World Content Marketing Conference in Cleveland, Ohio.&nbsp; We arrived in town the night before the official start of conference. We boarded the Rapid Transit System from the airport to the hotel travelling among a handful of local Clevelanders&hellip;and one outgoing pool man from Virginia.
And, that&rsquo;s where we got our first lesson in content marketing. Marcus Sheridan, one of the conference speakers, owns a pool company and he shared with us how he started using content to drive traffic to his website and increase sales in a depressed market.
The formula was simple. Identify what people want to know when they&rsquo;re shopping for a pool company&hellip;and answer their questions. This was unchartered territory for a trade business and it paid off big time.
His results are incredible. His website, &nbsp;http://www.riverpoolsandspas.com/ became the most popular pool website in the US. His company can&rsquo;t keep up with the demand.&nbsp; And he did it all just by serving up the relevant, useful content his potential customers are looking for.
I forgot all about our friend, the pool man, until my dad, who likes to share articles on marketing, business and current events, forwarded me an article from the Globe and Mail: How to come up with 100 ways to create content. And, there he was, Marcus Sheridan, one of the industry's content gurus.
For anyone wondering what the heck to talk about in their next blog, Facebook Post or Tweet, look no further than your customers&rsquo; top 25 questions...and answer them.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-marketing/sales/how-to-come-up-with-100-ideas-to-create-content/article2239490/]]></description>
<author>mfearon@jankelley.com (MaryFearon)</author>
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<title>Public Relations  The New 101</title>
<link>http://www.jankelley.comblog.php?blogId=166</link>
<pubDate>Sun, 16 Oct 2011 12:21:02 -0400</pubDate>
<description><![CDATA[Public Relations is the practice of connecting organizations to their key stakeholders. By establishing and cultivating positive relationships with them, we gain important insights into their needs and interests. We also create advocates for who we are and what we do. They support and tell our story for us.
I've always believed an effective communications program should be a part of any marketing effort, but until recently PR was an afterthought to many companies and most marketing campaigns. A relatively small budget allocated to media promotion or an event to complement the large advertising spend.
For years the PR discipline has focused on identifying and influencing a few key opinion leaders in any given sector &ndash; driving journalists to support our brand in print; tapping into industry experts to endorse our products or holding attention-getting events to shine the spotlight on what we have to share. These tactics remain useful tools of the trade, but we have the opportunities today to reach more people, in more meaningful ways, more rapidly than ever.
Technology is changing and communications along with it. That's nothing new, but what is new...are the behaviours people are adopting to connect with others. Where our sphere of influence used to centre around a few friends and family, people can now search for and find individuals and groups with the very same interests as their own &ndash; both on a personal and professional level.
More and more people rely on their own ability to search and connect with peers who help inform their decision making process.
This is great news for marketers &ndash; more influencers, more channels and an unlimited window of opportunity to reach them. But it's crowded out there and people have less and less time to focus on even the most interesting information. So, how do we break through the clutter? We need to be even more focused than ever before. We need to target the right people and be meaningful and relevant to them - always.
Everyone is an influencer. Every brand is trying to identify, engage and mobilize their ambassadors. And that's how public relations and traditional marketing programs are working together like never before.
Successful organizations today will be able to identify who specifically they're talking to, they'll understand what is relevant to them and they'll be able to deliver content that meets those needs. And, none of this has to do with promoting their products (directly, that is).&nbsp;]]></description>
<author>mfearon@jankelley.com (MaryFearon)</author>
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