Andrea Edwards discusses how content marketing has fundamentally changed and now requires competing for customer attention against highly engaging social media personalities and influencers like the Kardashians. She emphasizes that customers are over 90% through the sales process before ever contacting companies due to the influence of online content. Therefore, companies must focus content on serving customers by helping them succeed and improve their lives rather than self-promotion. She advocates moving content to the heart of business operations and culture by empowering all employees as brand ambassadors using their authentic voices to engage with customers.

1. Content Marketing is
Fundamentally About
Competing for Attention
With the Kardashians
Andrea Edwards
Head of Content Marketing & Training
Novus Asia
@AndreaTEdwards
/CommunicatingAsiaPacific
/AndreaEdwardsAsia
www.andreatedwards.com

3. Avid Social User
+
Top 100 Social
Seller Singapore
on LinkedIn

5. Today’s reality.
Your customers are 90% of
the way through Your sales
cycle before they even
come to You?
And what about the rest?

6. Where are they?

7. But they’re also
being entertained

8. Really important stats
15%
of people trust recommendations
from brands
84%
trust recommendations
from people they know
Reference: wersm

9. And the noise
is REALLY
ramping up

10. It took
Twitter 3
years to get
to 1 billion
Tweets
Now there’s
a billion
every 2 days

11. In 2012
80,000 posts on Facebook
Now 4+ million
700k Google searches
Now close to 5 million
25 hours of video uploaded on
YouTube
Now 150 hours
EVERY minute

12. So what’s the
magic? How can you
be where your
customers are,
influencing them?

13. To earn the right to your
customer’s time, your content
must be awesome, it must be
all about the customer, and it
must be at the heart of
everything you do as a brand

14. Content must sit at the heart of business
CONTENT

15. Bringing the content heart to life
A content organization is lead from the top
It’s a complete cultural change, from ‘this is
what we sell’ to ‘how can we serve you?’
Senior executives must have a strong social
presence (+ blog) – sharing ideas, views,
experiences
Employees must be embraced into the fold,
but it is senior leader buy-in that really
brings content to the heart of business

16. Retention & recruitment is a
top priority
Stories appeal to potential recruits – it helps
them understand the business and the people
Employees want to work for a company that
has strong values, they want to be part of
something meaningful, they want to
contribute to the stories
Employees who are embraced into the story,
stay

17. A content organization is
customer obsessed
To write stories for customers, you have to
understand them
Who are they holistically? What do they
care about? What’s top of mind?
Integrate customer service & feedback into
the content strategy, align to your business
strategy

18. What is content? How
should we think about it?
I believe it’s anything that
starts a conversation

19. Content marketing IS NOT speaking about
your brand, products or services – that’s
marketing, still relevant, but different
It’s about speaking to the whole customer
Helping them succeed
Keeping them informed on relevant issues to them
Improving their lives
Answering their questions
“If you want to sell me a camera,
tell me how to take great photos” CMI

20. The 6 levels of Content Marketing
• Level 1 – Content Marketing? What is it?
• Level 2 – We have a corporate blog & branded social accounts
• Level 3 – We have a company-branded blog, with a good mix of
outside contributors
• Level 4 – We leverage employees by using software to pass
targeted marketing content to their social networks
• Level 5 – We help employees – nearly all of them – create content
in their own voice and then feature their insights on our site,
demonstrating their expertise as a way to incorporate their
personal brands with our corporate brand
• Level 6 – We have moved beyond our business and now
incorporate the entire ecosystem of our company –
customers, partners, influencers, associations, and so on
Inspiration: OP|EN for BUSINESS!

21. We must skip to level 5 & 6
• It’s the time of the genuine Employee Brand
Ambassador
• Everyone has a voice, a style, a view, supported by the
business. Senior or junior, you’re harnessing the talent
you employ
• But it’s not enforced marketing
• It’s about establishing employees personal brands
alongside the corporate brand
• It’s trailblazing stuff, it’s innovation, it’s putting employees -
the ultimate reason customers do business with you -
at the forefront of your story

22. Because today it’s not
about you!
It’s about your customer and
the value you deliver to them
If you can consistently put
yourself in your customers’
shoes, you can’t lose
This new world is all about
giving – it’s where you can
really shine

23. The 1/9/90 % rule applies
SupportersCreators Lurkers
You and your team must be in the top 10%

25. dominates as the
“entry network”
of choice among
CEO’s
Of CEOs with only 1 network,
73% chose LinkedIn
Nearly half of all social CEOs are only on LinkedIn−
presumably because of the unmistakable business benefits

26. There’s a lot of talk about
the Sharing Economy
But really, we must focus
on a Giving Economy

27. All of this is
culturally challenging
Cultural – America Vs rest
Our role in our communities
Still selling & telling
Limited understanding of benefits to us and our business
We need to transform our thinking and put content at the heart of
business – content focused on the customer

28. Today, it’s time to
Be brave & bold
Use social data
Be customer obsessed
Move content to heart
Inspire brand ambassadors
Train and reward stars
Feed amazing content to shine
Create a giving culture

29. @AndreaTEdwards
AndreaEdwardsAsia
andreatedwards.com
Communicating Asia Pacific
@NovusAsia
Novus Asia
Novus Asia
WeAreNovusAsia