A Content Marketing Network may be defined as “a group composed of individuals and/or businesses involved/interested in Content Marketing, who choose to be connected in order to exchange pertinent and relevant information regarding such and, to assist each other in better developing themselves in that particular format of marketing.”

A Content Marketing Network will also attempt to bring in new members and potential customers to the network through information dissemination via different means. The bottom line of a Content Marketing Network is to assist its members in obtaining more customers and sales.

Now, you have pointed your company’s electronic marketing in the right direction geared towards more content and less flash. Q: What else are you missing? A: Creating and belonging to a Content Marketing Network. How? Read on.

Today, on the internet, there are several tools for organizing your Content Marketing Network. You may start your own groups on websites such as FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter and Linkd.

Your next steps are to set up an account, look for individuals with similar interest, become “friends” with them and ask to join your network group.

In their study conducted in February 2009, “The Participatory Marketing Network (PMN), an organization dedicated to helping marketers transition from push and permission marketing to participatory marketing, today announced the results of a new study showing that marketing emails aren’t relevant to Generation Y. The majority of Gen Y consumers do welcome direct brand interactions through email, but they want more ability to control, organize and manage the interactions…While online marketing continues to evolve, traditional email communications from marketers have remained surprisingly stagnant,” said Michael Della Penna, co-founder and Executive Chairman “For email to remain relevant for today’s ‘iPhone generation,’ brands must introduce new thinking and innovative features that give users more control and allow them to participate in a mutually beneficial relationship with them.” (www.pmn.org)

Firstly, let’s make one thing very clear – the ONLY type of information you want to disseminate to your Content Marketing Network is …content. It may sound redundant but, it is not. It is easy to fall into the trap of wanting to revert to the old ways with flashy websites. This will only attract visitors for a short period of time and they, most likely, will never return. Why? There is nothing on your website of substance. Members of your Content Marketing Network will be interested in the latest trends in Marketing and how to apply them to fit their particular widget or service. Therefore, the larger your network is the greater the amount of information that will be exchanged.

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As clearly stated in the excerpts, above, simple marketing emails are no longer sufficient to attract potential customers. People now want to be able to “organize, control and manage” the information they receive. They also want to be able to participate, contribute and share their particular area(s) of expertise with others. Here are some tools which you should consider to use with your Content Marketing Network:

• Informative and regular newsletters will keep them abreast of what is going on with the latest trends.
• Blogs are not only good when it comes to information dissemination. They also allow readers to participate through comments and questions.
• People love quizzes. Quizzes enable visitors not only to interact but, to test their knowledge AND learn.
• Rankings provide visitors with information as to who is considered to the The Best in their particular area. It also provides them with an incentive, if amongst those ranked, to improve their standings.
• Videos are now the latest rage in Content Marketing Network. People tend to be more visual. Also, it takes less time to see a short video than to read 5 pages of text. Videos also provide a sense of “personalization” –normally, it is the viewer, his/her computer and the video.

People also like statistics. Below, are figures which denote just how ineffective email marketing is considered by Generation Y consumers. An important point lies in the fact that over 51% of them choose a Content Marketing Network as an option. “Findings from PMN’s Gen Y research, administered to the exclusive Gen Y panel at the Lubin School’s IDM Lab, include:

• Marketing email is less relevant Gen Y consumers – only 28 percent of those surveyed believe the email they get from companies is relevant
• Gen Y consumers are eager to see “innovative services” that allow them to better control, organization and manage email coming from brands. Specifically,
• 78 percent would like their email client to automatically categorize and delete expired promotional messages
• 62 percent would like [to]communicate directly with retailers about their favorite products in exchange for getting the best prices from them
• 44 percent say they’d subscribe to an email service that collected and summarized multiple offers of interest to them
• 32 percent say they’d share promotional email offers with members inside a social network and open emails from others
• More than half of Gen Y consumers (51 percent) say they’d join a separate social network dedicated to managing brand interactions.” (www.pmn.org)