2. Conference Overview
• Cleveland, Ohio - 2 days of
seminars
• Hosted by the Content Marketing
Institute
• 2500 attendees
• 33 companies with 7+ employees in
attendance
• 36 Fortune 100 companies
represented
3. CMI
Research
Takeaways
Content Marketing NEEDS
structure: a department, a process
and a strategic plan that is written
down.
Great content marketers publish
daily or more frequently.
Effective content marketers look
beyond traffic and reach to visitor
quality.
Most effective content types: in
person events, webinars and
videos.
4. S
People don’t buy raw
meat, they’re inspired
to eat a steak.
Our goal is to create moments of inspiration that trigger the urge to act.
5. S
Don’t let the quest for
engagement get in the way
of the ultimate goal – a
sale.
More isn’t always better – qualified is better.
7. If you won’t put money
behind it, why do it?
If you’re content isn’t good enough to be worthy of paid promotion, it’s not good
S
enough.
8. S
Personalization is the
key to successful
content marketing.
It’s not genuine if it’s not personalized.
9. To create video on a
budget, partner with the
people already making the
S
videos.
REI partners with existing ski video creators to generate ski season content.
10. Let other people write your
S
blog for you.
The new corporate blog is a compilation of influencer content.
11. S
Ideal content mix =
65% original
25% curated
10% syndicated.
12. Your analytics are wrong.
Facebook and Google Analytics usually don’t agree, which means someone is
S
wrong.
13. 22 million page views per year
1.13 page views per session
27 seconds = avg. time on site (2 second sound byte)
14. S
Don’t let data get in the
way of good.
Content is not a direct sales tool.
15. The best content marketers
S
are journalists at heart.
The agency mindset is “what does the client want to say,” the journalist mindset
is “what does the customer what to know.”
16. S
Strong attachments are
formulated in the same part of
the brain that processes
emptions.
Brand attachment has a high correlation to sales.
17. Facebook fans convert at
higher rates than non-fans
even with the same targeting.
S
It’s still valuable to have Facebook fans.
18. On Facebook you are interrupting
S
babies and cat videos. On
LinkedIn and SlideShare people
are seeking out business content.
19. S
Administer a group on
LinkedIn to better engage with
prospects.
20. “On brand” does not mean “all
S
the same.”
When it comes to content, brand standards should be treated as guidelines not
rules.
21. Actionable Items
Create a strategic content marketing plan
and write it down.
Gate coupons, giveaways and high value
content with email and preference info and
start creating buyer personas.
Use retargeting and paid advertising
channels to push relevant content to your
different buyer personas.
Scale company blogs by engaging industry
influencers to blog for you.
Repurpose existing content by “slicing and
dicing” into smaller segments.
Add UTM tags to all content links.
Administer an industry group on LinkedIn,
in addition to your brand page.
Add your Twitter handle to business cards.
Notes de l'éditeur
These are the key takeaways from recent research conducted by the Content Marketing Institute.
As marketers, we’re too focused on moment of purchase. We need focus more on inspiring emotion, not reason (emotion leads to actions, reason leads to conclusions).
The great social reach-around – we get so wrapped up in providing better “engagement metrics” (which we created to appease bosses/clients) that we stop focusing on the ultimate goal, which is converting sales. More comments or likes doesn’t always equal more sales – fewer likes from more qualified customers = better sales.
We are only as good at social media marketing as we are at content marketing. Facebook is not a great platform to invest in if you aren’t also investing in quality content.
Traditional ads placed on genuine content perform better than the same ads on other platforms (ads are more effective when used w/ the knowledge content delivers). For the highest ROI, publish content to see what performs well organically – then promote the best content via paid channels. The combination of content + paid advertising = 4x ROI for Kraft (they use retargeted banner ads and email marketing to promote personalized content to specific users.)
Kraft moved from magazine (generic) to personalized content via digital (email, targeted banner ads). They use an in-house tool to place followers in buyer personas and deliver content that is responsive to likes/dislikes of each persona. **Actionable Insight: start collecting emails and personal data to place your fans into personas. Then use personalized content engage with them about topics they are interested in. The key is to get someone to come back to your website a 2nd time (first time is task specific, second time is primed to convert).
ALSO: go through old content and repurpose it to be used again – slice and dice a larger video into smaller segments.
Have a set group of category influencers who blog for you a couple times a month. It’s a scaled way to manage quality content.
When you see “direct” in your google analytics, it really means we don’t know. Traffic coming from Facebook and Twitter apps, for example, can’t be tracked because they don’t use referral strings, so they get categorized as direct traffic. Additionally, Traffic from search ads on engines other than google show up as organic traffic. **Actionable Insight: Place UTM tags on every link to accurately track where traffic is coming from.
The website www.nooooooooooooooo.com is a one page site, with a 2 second sound clip – but google analytics says it gets 1.13 page views per session, and 27 seconds avg. time on site. That’s impossible. I repeat – you cannot blindly trust analytics data.
Content is how you rope people in – then use direct sales tools to convert your leads. You cant judge a video by how many customers it converted. Content changes attitudes and perceptions and primes people to become customers via direct sales tools.
Strong brands have 2x ROI of brands without strong attachments. Attachment is different then favorability (attachments are connected to self-contextualization). Promotional messages have higher short term traffic, but brand messages have longer term effects on brand attachment which is more closely correlated with sales. Highest ROI is from a combination of promotional and brand messages. In order to form attachments, you need to form an emotional connection with the user. The most powerful emotions: affection, connection (empathy), and passion.
But its only valuable to have “real” fans – i.e. relevant fans. Lots of likes is not valuable unless they are people that are actually interested in the brand and engaging with the content.
Target Facebook advertising using your email list to gain relevant likes.
For successful B2B marketing, choose the appropriate publishing platform.
Groups give you the option to send weekly emails to all group members, it feels more genuine than a brand page, it’s a great way to get user generated content and create real discussion. You can also see group members’ profiles (which is not true of brand pages), and if the group is active and well-administered LinkedIn will promote it (for free).
It’s important for content to stand out and be visually different based on the platform, the audience, etc. If you have a stodgy brand but you’re targeting millenials, your content needs to look different, and be appropriate for that audience. You can still have the same brand values without making all your content look the same.