Source:http://paidcontent.org/article/419-pew-online-news-users-dont-want-to-pay-or-look-at-ads/Pew Internet Project – 2010—Online advertising: The same survey looked at attitudes to online advertising: 81 percent said they didn’t mind online ads but 77 percent said they either don’t click on them (42 percent) or “hardly ever” click (35 percent). Younger users and the most frequent online news users are slightly more likely to pay attention to ads but not by a large enough number to suggest online advertising is a slam dunk.Shift from push to pull requires a huge degree of new thinking and processes.
Company culture (goes beyond the marketing dept - enterprise level demands, breaking down silos)Resource & Staffing - new skillsBudgets (content isn't "free")Service provider relationshipsNeed for TrainingAbility to not focus on bright shiny objects, but instead strategyIntegrating content with advertising and other marketing initiatives
Content marketing, or creating and publishing media rather than “renting” advertising time and space, has always existed. Emerging digital technologies, platforms and channels now enable any brand to function as a media company, with very real advantages: building branding, awareness, trust, purchase intent, word-of-mouth, lowering acquisition costs and increasing engagement with target audiences. Unlike advertising, content initiatives are continual, placing new demands not just on marketing organizations but also across the enterprise as a whole. This report, based on qualitative interviews with 56 brands and agencies, looks at how organizations are shifting priorities and resources to strategically and effectively leverage content marketing to amplify marketing messages while lowering advertising expenditure. We believe there are four stages organizations evolve through in their quest to market efficiently with content. Not every company will reach every stage; the pinnacle is more aspirational than real for most. Yet to effectively market with content organizational change and transformation must be driven from the top level of the organization. Left to the marketing department alone, success will be limited. New skills must be developed and training offered, both in digital technologies as well as in job functions more aligned with the responsibilities found at a newspaper, magazine or broadcaster than in classic marketing functions. Content requires more speed and agility than does marketing, yet at the same time it must be aligned with metrics that conform to the business’ strategic marketing goals.
Rebalancing, or realigning resources, budgets, staffing, company culture and agency and service provider relationships, will make marketing organizations both more effective and prepared to meet ever-changing digital challenges. Organizations that rebalance now will enhance and improve their marketing initiatives, spend more effectively, and align to meet changing consumer expectations.
Opt-out vs. Tune-inEpisodic vs. OngoingOwned and Earned vs. Bought
Content marketing, or creating and publishing media rather than “renting” advertising time and space, has always existed. Emerging digital technologies, platforms and channels now enable any brand to function as a media company, with very real advantages: building branding, awareness, trust, purchase intent, word-of-mouth, lowering acquisition costs and increasing engagement with target audiences. Unlike advertising, content initiatives are continual, placing new demands not just on marketing organizations but also across the enterprise as a whole. This report, based on qualitative interviews with 56 brands and agencies, looks at how organizations are shifting priorities and resources to strategically and effectively leverage content marketing to amplify marketing messages while lowering advertising expenditure. We believe there are four stages organizations evolve through in their quest to market efficiently with content. Not every company will reach every stage; the pinnacle is more aspirational than real for most. Yet to effectively market with content organizational change and transformation must be driven from the top level of the organization. Left to the marketing department alone, success will be limited. New skills must be developed and training offered, both in digital technologies as well as in job functions more aligned with the responsibilities found at a newspaper, magazine or broadcaster than in classic marketing functions. Content requires more speed and agility than does marketing, yet at the same time it must be aligned with metrics that conform to the business’ strategic marketing goals.
Content marketing is owned and earned media.Unlike advertising, which is push messaging in rented time or space in print or broadcast media, content marketing is pull marketing, the marketing of attraction, in media that belongs to the organization creating the message. This can be a social channel, such as Facebook or YouTube, or a wholly owned web site or app.Creating and publishing media places enormous new demands not only on marketing departments, but on the enterprise as a whole.Due to shifts in consumer attention, companies are challenged to move beyond episodic, short duration “push” campaign initiatives into longer-term, often continual “pull” content marketing initiatives that require new strategic approaches. To continually attract and engage consumers requires companies to develop new skills. They must learn to think and to function as publishers, producers and often, as community managers. Content creation and distribution places new and continual demands on the enterprise as a whole, not just the marketing department. And frequently, content necessitates operating in real-time environments, including evenings, weekends and holidays. To meet this challenge, organizations must rebalance.They must evolve from advertisers into storytellers. Advertisers interrupt consumers with messaging that’s overwhelmingly ‘me’ oriented: my product, my service. Storytellers attract, beguile, entertain and inform. They are sought out and revisited. Often, they’ll enter into dialogue with their audience. They’re attuned to nuanced reactions and will adjust their narratives accordingly, whether a shift in tone of voice or a deeper dive into what was originally just a backstory.
K-Swiss and agency 72andSunny raised eyebrows in 2010 when they debuted a campaign for K-Swiss’ new Tubes shoe fronted by the foul-mouthed, burned out HBO’s Eastbound & Down’s pitcher character played by Danny McBride.The campaign was notable for a few reasons, not least of which was the simple fact that a marketer was putting its brand in the hands of such a spectacularly non-aspirational (fictional) athlete. But the campaign also marked an unusual three-way co-branding exercise, simultaneously promoting Tubes, season 2 of Eastbound, which was scheduled to launch a month after the campaign broke, and a Hollywood star on the rise.Powers’ return is an indicator of the success of that inaugural campaign, and not just as a giant Eastbound promo. The videos earned millions of views online (a million on FunnyorDie), resulted in a 1256% increase in Facebook fans and landed the brand atop the “biggest buzz” list in industry trade Footwear News. Perhaps more to the point, K-Swiss also reports a 250% increase in online sales post-Powers.K-Swiss has continued making the Powers videos to promote other products after the success of its Tubes sales. SOURCE: http://www.fastcocreate.com/1679194/kenny-powers-returns-for-second-k-swiss-campaign
Jamie Grenney, VP of Social Media and Online Video for Salesforce:“Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company -- more than 67,000 customers use our cloud platform and apps to help run their businesses. Of the various social media channels we use to engage our community, YouTube has emerged as the most important for our business because it allows us to deliver a rich and concise message with perfect fidelity.We looked at a number of different approaches to publishing video both on our own website as well as other sites on the web. Given that YouTube is such a large percentage of online video, we knew it was a platform that we couldn't overlook. View counts are weighted heavily in search and are an important part of what makes a video interesting to other viewers.Today, all our video content is hosted on YouTube and we use the YouTube APIs to serve up videos in branded players on our website.”SOURCES:http://www.slideshare.net/Salesforce/video-creation-for-b2b-marketers (updated stats vs. interview below)http://ytbizblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/five-questions-for-jamie-grenney-senior.html
Sales are a criterion when new apps are considered for development at GE, but utility matters just as much, as does speed-to-market. As far as GE is concerned, the time to develop apps for customers is now, before the wow factor wears off and while the company can still impress customers with an app's added value. Ease-of-use is also key. One app, geared to engineers in the field, is avilable on the iPhone, but also on the iPad. Why? "Because engineers wear gloves."Transformers: This colorful and vivid app allows customers, GE sales teams, and field service engineers to remotely monitor and diagnose GE transformers and transformer stations that supply electricity to homes and business around the country. The real-time sensor data helps improves efficiency and problem solving, which benefits both GE and its customers.
Content audit - Assessing current content and determining how to make it work best with SEO principles - what content should be used as-is? Tweaked? Thrown out?-- Try to find a CASE STUDY that talks about content siloing - does it work?2. Keyword Research is only the beginning - Tons of SEO data is locked up in social graphs - how do you access that?3. Editorial calendar - include what keywords each piece of content will focus on -- Factoring in where content should be places in the site IA to create stronger SEO content silos – all part of the editorial calendar – more on this later, in education and training4. Connect to specific measurement KPIs 5. Focusing on the long-tail - The highest search volume words don't always represent the way the content writers would prefer to position their products - how to handle these problems? How can content be drafted and implemented to focus on the longtail? -- Some of the content examples in the balloon chart are much more longtail - win on lots of keywords that draw small amounts of traffic over time
Based on SEO research, your Keyword List is a list of words and phrases most critical to your business, products and services when it comes to being found on the Web. If you don’t have an SEO expert on staff, anyone and everyone involved in content creation should receive foundational training in SEO and how to appropriately use keywords (and other SEO principles) in content creation.
An editorial calendar establishes what content will be created when, in what format, and for which content channel. A digital editorial calendar also tracks the connections for that content, including how the content will be repurposed and amplified in social media channels.The editorial calendar should contain a list of all content approved for publication. It should address the questions: how much content, how often, and specifically when it will publish. It includes content requirements, responsibilities and a schedule.Source of editorial calendar example: http://www.findandconvert.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/editorial-calendar-sample.png
Slice 'n' dice: example: write a speech, create a deck, video speech, blog speech, post video to YouTube, deck to Slideshare, transcribe presentation. extract charts and infographics. Make the talk a whitepaper. An ebook. A column. Maybe it can be a webinar, or a training sessions.
Not Free: Certainly, content marketing reduces media spend, but the more mature a company’s content marketing efforts, the better they understand that effective content initiatives require significant investment in internal staff, production and distribution resources, and often new sources of strategic support. Culture: Rebalancing requires deep departmental integration and cultural shifts across the enterprise, as well as education, training and new digital skill sets for staff within and beyond the marketing organization. Integrate: Increasing confidence in and reliance on content marketing is causing marketers to reevaluate, and often to cut back, on advertising and shift those dollars to content production and distribution. For optimal impact and maximum success, content and advertising should be integrated, or at least interrelated. In tandem, the two can more fully express a brand story. Bright, Shiny Objects: In their enthusiasm for marketing with content, we found many marketers who we interviewed for this report distracted by channels and technology at the expense of strategy and fundamentals. Organizational Change: We believe that over the next five years, content marketing will permeate the organization. Led by the marketing department, finding, producing and disseminating content both internal and external to the organization will become a core marketing function, but it will require cross-departmental support, primarily in the form of input and creation from senior management, sales and product teams. To seek out stories, trends, questions and the other “raw materials” of content marketing, shoe leather is a requirement. Like beat reporters, those charged with creating content must continually travel throughout their companies and indeed, their industries, to keep a finger on its pulse and to find the stories and ideas that can be turned into content.
Where is future content confidence held?SEO people need to be at the table at this point in the game in order to plan for the SEO of these new types of media.How do youoptimize non-textcontent?How do you optimize for mobile - one of the largest "confidence mediums" in the chart?Educational content is really easy to optimize but it's going down in confidenceLink strategies - social graphs in search - link strategies and keywords - that will all tie in here