Dave Rohrer, Sr. SEO Strategist at Covario, will be speaking about content marketing at Pubcon NOLA on Tuesday March 18, 11:30a 12:45p in Salon C. He will also be speaking on the In-House Team Building and Training panel on Tuesday 4:00p 5:00p on Salon A.

Dave started his online career in 1999 as a web developer where he quickly gravitated towards SEO and online marketing. He spent 10 years in-house as an online marketing manager and SEO manager where he gained a deep understanding of how all facets of online marketing work together. In his free time he is helping startups with their SEO and PPC campaigns

You are speaking at Pubcon NOLA about Content Marketing. Can you give us some hints on what you will be discussing?

I am going to cover two Ps of content marketing – process and pivot. I am going to give the audience some ideas on how to best organize themselves to create content and then measure what is working to pivot as they need.

You have been an in-house SEO and worked at an agency so you understand the importance of content marketing in regards to SEO to businesses. What do you think businesses need to understand?

Not everything you do is going to blow up and drive 100s/1000s of links, retweets, likes, or plus ones. You should have an overall strategy with lots of small projects and a few “go big or go home” projects mixed in. This overall strategy should have goals, metrics and be tied to the business itself but be flexible enough to jump on opportunities as they come up.

What are some content marketing mistakes that make you cringe?

There are many, but two that quickly come to mind are:

1. People assume that ‘this’ is going viral

2. ‘This’ should be easy and not cost anything. Even with the best content, plan, and outreach you aren’t guaranteed anything. Your audience may not care, your timing may be off or a competitor will launch something similar just a week prior (had it happen). Nothing is easy and doing diligent research, creating visuals, hiring developers and writers all cost time and money.

What are 3 general recommendations you could make to any business in regards to content marketing?

Just three is all I can give? For any business I think I would ask myself these three questions prior to any new project and then answer them prior to moving forward:

1. What is the goal of this project, how does it fit in with our overall marketing strategy and how are we going to judge its success?

2. What is our budget and resources to put towards it?

3. What is our overall plan for research, production, and promotion?

Do you have a favorite content marketing #fail?

Does Pepsi Clear count? How about New Coke? I don’t know that I have a favorite specific fail that comes to mind. I do however count any project that is being led by someone that has perhaps seen “Field of Dreams” one too many times a #fail

You have to build it right and promote it! It takes hard work and luck for something to go BIG.

If people want to learn more about effective content marketing strategies what resources would you recommend?

I think you can learn quite a bit from just looking at different companies/industries and seeing what is working and failing. What have your competitors tried and what has worked/failed for them? I’d also suggest watching for the type of content people share on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest that you know but more importantly what your target customer shares. You can always create a Private List on Twitter and “follow” people and companies. I also suggest checking out what this guy Matt does and says. Lastly, I suggest giving a read to Todd’s  “The Link Baiting Playbook: Hooks Revisited” which I often use to help brainstorm ideas on how to frame a project.

Do you have any recommendations for Pubcon NOLA attendees?

Put down your phone and/or laptop. Tell your husband/wife/boss that you have to go. Then go to the exhibit hall, go to sessions, go to dinner and events and meet people from the conference. My goal at every conference is to try and meet and then get to know at least one or two new people. I’ve written about this in the past (Pubcon Networking Above and Beyond), and so has Ralf, and the key take away is just this – get out and network and meet people! If you want another example I can give you a recent tweet from Joe Hall where I personally know and have met 8 of the people (Joe included) on that list through conferences over the years.

Fun Possible questions – (conference fodder)

• Biggest Pet Peeve – Having to repeat myself (sorry Mom, I understand now!)
• Mac or PC? PC – I tried banning Apple products, but the wife snuck one in (and
• eventually more)
• Beach or Snow? I live in Chicago, have you heard about our winter? Beach please!
• Beer, Wine or Neither? I will look to George Thorogood on this – “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” but please hold the scotch
• Star Wars or Star Trek? Original Star Wars

Thanks Dave!

We really appreciate your time and fantastic answers. We will see you on March 18th! If you haven’t been able to hear Dave speak yet I highly recommend you go see him at Pubcon! You can find Dave on Twitter @Daver.