Book Review: Global Content Marketing by Pam Didner

Content Marketing on a global scale has many challenges. In Asian markets – as we have discussed before – it is not as simple as translation into the local language. Cultural differences, religious beliefs and local laws and regulations are among many factors to consider.

Pam Didner, a leading Global Content Marketing Strategist and renowned speaker, has released her book “Global Content Marketing”. With her years of experience, Pam outlines the best practices in global content marketing which are insightful to both new content marketers as well as expert practitioners in the field looking to scale their content to a global level.

The 4 P’s of Global Content Marketing

Inspired by the original 4 P’s of marketing namely Product, Price, Place and Promotion, Pam lists the 4 P’s of Global Content Marketing: Plan, Produce, Promote and Perfect.

• Planning involves collaborating with all the stakeholders in each region and country to devise the strategy aligned to the business objectives before moving forward.

• Production involves creating good content after identifying the target regions’ needs, desires, pain points and challenges, using appropriate tools and software.

• Promotion involves distributing the content in the target markets through paid and social media. The content should also match the trends and the best practices in the distribution channels.

• Perfection of the content involves measuring and optimising the distribution in an ongoing loop.

Having led enterprise launches as Intel’s Global Marketing Strategist, she stresses the need for the headquarters to support and listen to the geographical counterparts. In an insightful case study, she also recounts her own personal experience in working with the headquarters as the lead in creating global personas for Intel.

According to Pam, the traditional sales funnel might be linear but today’s customer has a non-linear purchasing behaviour, constantly hopping in and out of the funnel. They might consume awareness-related content first and then might go through a deployment guide. They might return only weeks later return to consume product videos. Good content strategy has to take into account this behaviour.

On the Power of Words and Content Curation

Pam illustrates the power of language and words further by citing a paper authored by researchers in Georgia Tech. This paper examines the most successful projects on the crowdfunding website Kickstarter and finds a persuasive pattern in the phrases used.

In the promotion stage a healthy mix of original and curated content is ideal. Choosing third party content can not only save resources but it can also be good at establishing thought leadership. Pam recounts her conversation with Jason Miller of the Marketing Solutions Group at LinkedIn in a case study. Jason describes the “Big Rock, Small Rock” approach to content production at LinkedIn. The ‘small rock’ refers to the frequent posts on LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions Blog and the ‘big rock’ to long-form content like presentations and e-books. It’s a fascinating insight into the content strategy adopted at a global network.

She describes her interaction with Debi Steigerwald, the digital marketing director at Vology. Vology offers IT services and solutions for SMBs and larger enterprises. They create original content with just $1000 a month and set an excellent example for making the best content out of limited budget.

The Future

Pam goes on to elaborate how evolving technology will influence the future of content marketing by changing our consumption patterns. Insights from big data are bound to let creators tailor their content to meet individual needs. The move to “mobile first” will hasten and there will also be more focus on user experience to allow audiences to consume content easily. Pam says that despite all these drastic changes coming our way, the 4P’s of Global Content Marketing will still remain the same.

Pam Didner’s book is a fantastic resource for content marketers looking to scale their content globally. Readers may go to the book website to use her supplemental materials for their business with appropriate citations.