I struggled not to be overly promoting my workshop in a preview session...

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I was speaking at the Insurance Marketing and Communications Association Annual Meeting in the Twin Cities twice on one day in 2019. Here’s the setup:

I was doing an 1-hour session at 2:30 p.m., discussing the future of content
In the morning, I gave an 8-minute version of the 2:30 talk! Some called it a preview!

So were other breakout presenters. It was kind of preview of our sessions later! That was super hard because preview means that you also want them to come to your session later! Thinking movie trailer here. LOL.

Of course, I wanted to keep referencing my later session:

As I will share at my 2:30 ….

I will go deeper into that at 2:30…
SEE. ME. AT. 2:30.
Are you planning on seeing me again at 2:30?

But, of course, this is an example of conversion content. And content with the goal of conversion must be even more informational and educational than ever in true content marketing. So, no constant pitching!

Conversion content drives sales by being helpful – @ctrappe #contentmarketing #digitalmarketing

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Slide 15 and on in this talk from Content Marketing World 2018 talks about that:

How B2B publishers can use content marketing to drive audience engagement from Christoph Trappe

I will be at Content Marketing World again in 2019. If you please on attending feel free to use TRAPPE19 for $100 off.

So during my session it was hard to just keep it educational! But I did a good job not pushing my session too much, according to some I asked about it later.

There was really no need to mention the session at all, honestly. As soon as I was done, the moderator went up to the podium and said:

“If you want to hear more about this topic, see Christoph at 2:30 in <whatever room it was.>”

That was the call to action. Just use the preview session to share knowledge and intrigue people to maybe want to find out more.

It’s harder than it sounds, but it is indeed good content marketing when done well.

And I only had 8 minutes, so no way to give everything away from the later session anyway!

Good content marketers sell by sharing knowledge @ctrappe #contentmarketing

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I’m a full-time content marketing and publishing executive and I do this all day long, every day! If it’s hard for me, I can imagine it’s hard for others!

That’s why I’m sharing this today. It’s not easy and it’s easy to fall into habits we think are necessary. But to adjust and evolve our content we: