Content marketing is a huge buzzword. But what doesn't it really mean for your business. And how do you find the resources and the budget to execute a content marketing strategy today?
In this presentation, delivered at MarketingProfs B2B Forum, I provide the 7 key factors to content marketing success. I outline a roadmap that any business can follow to achieve content marketing success. I demonstrate how you can deliver the content your buyers need at each stage of their journey, and I explain how focusing on subscribers can be the key to success.
Download the presentation and reach out to me for more details or to get your own customized content marketing strategy.
Hannah Brady - Powering Up Your Brand with Content @ Force24 All leads
How To Build Your Own Content Marketing Plan
1. Michael Brenner
Head of Strategy
NewsCred
@BrennerMichael
How To Build
Your Content Marketing Strategy
Slides: slideshare.net/michaelbrenner
2. Agenda
• The key factors for content marketing success
• The core components of a content marketing strategy
• How to utilize content across the buyer journey
• Companies doing it right
3. Just 3 Things . . .
The world has changed.
Most content stinks.
Attract people through stories they love.
24. “The buyer journey is nothing more than
a series of questions that must be
answered.
- IDC -
”
25. Awareness Consideration Preference
Online Communities
Search Engines
eBooks
Email Newsletters
Editorial Articles
White Papers
Podcasts
Case Studies
Online Videos
Webcasts
Virtual Trade Shows
Product Literature
Trial Software
Online Vendor Demos
Begin
decision
process
Make
decision
Identify
business
problem Establish
requirements
/ build RFP
Align IT with
business
objectives
Explore
technology
options
Research
solutions
Determine
solution
strategy Assess ROI
Research
products/
vendors
Build
short
list
26. Ann Handley: “Take your brand out of the story. . .
. . .Make your customers the hero.”
Our Natural Instinct
Content
Marketing
What Brands
Wants To Talk
About
What
Customers
Actually Want
Charity
27. How brands can become consumed with their
story, not their customers.
Unique Point of View Trap
28. Key Factors To Content Marketing Success:
1. Documented content strategy and mission statement
2. Have someone accountable for content
3. Consistently publish quality content
4. Map content to consumer journey
5. Balance Paid, Owned, and Earned Media
6. Focus on Content Subscribers
7. Track Content Marketing ROI
29. Give Yourself a Grade . .
Best Practice R Y G
Have a documented content strategy?
Have someone managing content
Content hub maps to the consumer journey
Publishing quality, volume and variety
Social activation of content
Paid distribution
Focus on Content Subscriptions
Measurement template / ROI defined
Overall:
D
35. Business Innovation (launched March 27, 2012)
A“Content Hub” to attract engaged visitors instead of buying them
To help businesses
leaders grow through
technology and
innovation.
To reach and convert
leads we would have
never seen!
http://blogs.sap.com/innovation
36. Organic and Social: Up and to the Right
0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000
30,000
35,000
UniqueVisitors
Traffic from Organic, Social & Referrals
37. Key Factors To Content Marketing Success:
1. Documented content strategy and mission statement
2. Have someone accountable for content
3. Consistently publish quality content
4. Map content to consumer journey
5. Balance Paid, Owned, and Earned Media
6. Focus on Content Subscribers
7. Track Content Marketing ROI
38. Why is it Important to Have a Documented
Content Marketing Strategy?
Source: CMI
39. Content Marketing Mission Statement
AmEx Open Forum Mission:
“Help Small Businesses
Do More Business.”
Outcome:
The largest source of
inbound leads.
40. What Is Your Content Marketing Mission Statement?
Become a (premier?) destination
for [target audience]
interested in [topics]
to help them [customer value].
41. Steps To Crafting a Content Strategy
Discovery
Destination +
Branding
Roles +
Resp.
Editorial
Strategy
Distribution
Measure +
Optimize
• Current State
• Audience
• Objective
• Mission
• Budget
• Branding
• Destination
• Structure
• Partners
• Agency
• You
• Topics
• Types
• Sources
• SEO
• Organic
• Paid
• Owned
• Earned
• Email
• KPIs
• Template
• Cadence
• Optimize
47. Conduct A Content Audit
• Content Type
• Audience / Target
• Buyer Stage
• Primary Destination
• Performance
48. Building the Content Marketing Business Case
1. Reach early
stage buyers
2. Engage new buyers
with your brand
3. Conversions you would
have never reached
49. Building The Business Case
1. Reach early stage buyers
• Fair “Share of Conversation”
• % Unbranded Search traffic on your website
• Banner effectiveness at driving brand visits
• Cost of advertising / search landing pages with low organic and social traffic
• Cost of organic and social website traffic vs. paid
2. Engage new buyers with your brand
• Time spent, Bounce rate on content vs. advertising landing pages
• Cost / Repeat visits, Time engaged with your brand
• Subscribers, value per subscriber
3. Conversions you would have never reached
• Cost per lead, Pipeline touched, Cost per registration (content or events), Cost per sale
• Content % source of leads
• ROI vs. Avg. Marketing ROI
53. Casper’s Van
Winkles
• Effortlessly combines
national housing news with
articles on inspirational
interior design, celebrity
homes and company
updates.
• Up to 6 new posts per day
• Distribution and large
audiences across Facebook,
Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter
and Google+
57. Reach, Engage and Convert
the Right People.
Early-stage Searches
What? And Why?
Middle-stage
How?
Brand Searches
Who?
How Much?
Search/SocialVolume
What is Content Marketing?
Why is it important?
(10-3000 X)
How Do I Create Great
Content
(2-10 X)
Who’s the best
Content Marketing
Platform?
58. Publishers Publish Everyday on Each Topic
• Traffic AND Conversion goes up with volume
• Diminishing return? (see below)
A few times
a year
1-2X per
month
< monthly 1-2X per
week
1 per day More than
1 per day
59.
60.
61.
62.
63. Xyz Early Xyz
Late Xyz Xyz
Persona Questions/Concerns
Xyz
Middle Xyz Xyz
Keywords
Xyz Early Xyz
Late Xyz Xyz
Persona Questions/Concerns
Xyz
Middle Xyz Xyz
Keywords
Stage
Stage
Research Keywords, Then Filter By Personas
64. Utilize the Right Mix of Content
Custom Content
Share on-brand stories and recipes which are
created specifically for your brand.
Community Content
Leverage content from customers, employees,
influencers that grows and engages your
community.
Licensed Content
Boost credibility, publishing cadence, and direct
traffic with a high-volume of fully-licensed,
compliant content.
65. Content Mix (Monthly Average)
Licensed Custom
Social
Custom
Content
20%
User /
Employee
50%
Licensed
Content
30%
68. Brands need to take the phrase
‘acting like a publisher’ literally.
”
“
Dietrich Mateschitz
Founder + CEO, Red Bull
69. BufferApp Blog
Lesson for Brands:
Think bigger than yourself and
what you sell. Help people
with their biggest problems
and you will earn their
attention.
70. CapGemini
Content-Loop.com
• Licensed content on Linked Sponsored
updates
• Drives to branded Content Loop
• Offers to deeper content
• Recommendations to connect with
experts
Results:
~1M visitors / year
+ 3K new LinkedIn followers per week
+ High Quality Leads
+ Sales / ROI
71. Maersk
• Amazing photos that appeal to their
audience
• Thousands of likes per post
• Massive Brand Engagement, Loyalty
74. Key Factors To Content Marketing Success:
1. Documented content strategy and mission statement
2. Have someone accountable for content
3. Consistently publish quality content
4. Map content to consumer journey
5. Balance Paid, Owned, and Earned Media
6. Focus on Content Subscribers
7. Track Content Marketing ROI
75. Steps To Crafting a Content Strategy
Discovery
Destination +
Branding
Roles +
Resp.
Editorial
Strategy
Distribution
Measure +
Optimize
• Current State
• Audience
• Objective
• Mission
• Budget
• Branding
• Destination
• Structure
• Partners
• Agency
• You
• Topics
• Types
• Sources
• SEO
• Organic
• Paid
• Owned
• Earned
• Email
• KPIs
• Template
• Cadence
• Optimize
76. 3 Tips For Content That Converts:
1. Less promotion.
2. Answer your customer questions.
3. Focus on subscriptions and CTA.
77.
78. Your audience wants stories.
Created just for them.
Will you give it to them?
Michael.Brenner@NewsCred.com
@BrennerMichael
Slideshare.net/michaelbrenner
Notes de l'éditeur
Ant that can be your brand
We’ve all asked the question, why content marketing?
To set the stage, there’s been a fundamental shift in the way we as consumers consume and share content. Momentous amount of content being created, consumed and shared. An amazing amount of content, the real question is how does a brand stand apart?
Ant that can be your brand
Core components the way we need to think. We need to think different.
The secret to content marketing is that its not that hard. There are obstacles, but what we’re going to do is give you our secrets and let you know what’s worked for other brands to drive a content marketing strategy.
The secret, content marketing is relatively simple. The buyer journey is just a series of question to be answered and we as brands have a role to play. Its simply to answer the customer questions.
A more complex view, content marketing explained on a page. What types of different content we consume at different parts of the buyer journey.
Awareness, we’re wanting to learn, get our questions answered and read thought leadership.
Consideration, we want more types of content.
By Preference, there’s less thought leadership and learning, and more about what makes your brand different.
As a brand, our natural instinct is to talk about ourselves. Customers are asking questions, they want to be informed and entertained, but we can’t just do that because that’s just charity.
So the way we balance is make your customers the hero of the story.
Take your brand out. How do you do that? You solve their problems at every stage of the journey.
So we started with research. We looked at the differences in search engine traffic between thought leadership search terms like “Big Data” versus SAP product terms like “HANA.” Not surpirisingly, we found that there were many magnitudes more search queries across nearly every one of our categories. The only exception being in ERP and Business Intelligence, wehere SAP and Business Objects have strong brand affinity for those solutions.
----- Meeting Notes (10/13/14 15:01) -----
This would be a really useful exercise for Content Loop.
Then we looked at how much traffic SAP.com received from these non-branded searches. What we found was shocking! 99.9% of our traffic came from branded search terms. Or those prospects who are alreasy very late in the buying process. These are visitors who already know who we are and what we sell. But our portfolio had changed drastically. We needed to reach early-stage buyers in our newer solution categories.
Organizationally, content is a complex problem to solve. So we teamed up with the SAP.com team, the SAP Newsroom (Global Communications) and the advertising and branding team who had been spending money every year or so building advertising landing pages that had no organic or social sharing and were discarded as each campaign ended. We built Business Innovation. Our mission was to deliver on the promise of Pull Marketing, to become a destination of business insights for early-stage buyers. We wanted to earn traffic instead of buying it. And for those visitors who came from paid advertising, we wanted to provide a learning experience that was consistent with our brand image. The hope was that they would like and share the content with their connections, thus achieving the benefits of an integrated paid, owned and earned media strategy.
Are we gaining traffic from organic and social. Up and to the right.
Effective content marketers are 5 times more likely to have a DOCUMENTED content strategy.
Help your customers with something. Do their jobs better, become heroes. You need to fill in the blanks.
Help your customers with something. Do their jobs better, become heroes. You need to fill in the blanks.
Corporate websites bounce rate are down at 40% because the only people going there are those who want to be there
No matter where you are in your content marketing strategy, NewsCred's Strategy Services team can help ensure you're successful.
Not only do we provide 24/7 global product support, but we also offer daily editorial curation and can help set your long-term strategy with customized consultations, workshops and brainstorms.
Corporate websites bounce rate are down at 40% because the only people going there are those who want to be there
Help your customers with something. Do their jobs better, become heroes. You need to fill in the blanks.
Is it an on brand or off-brand strategy? Depends on your brand and goals.
Timeline – totally unbranded. Off-branded domain. Branding that’s almost invisible.
Monster – you can see its completely in line with their corporate website. Logo, typography, similar structure.
Pepsi pulse – completely reinvented their website. Seeking to be a destination about anything about pop culture.
Tracking over the course of a year.
A content audit is important because it helps you understand the level of the content issues you have. Help you determine where you have performance issues.
A lot of people jump to topics. Google trends, competitors, online properties serving needs. Thinking about topics and architecture is an important step.
Help your customers with something. Do their jobs better, become heroes. You need to fill in the blanks.
Key words appropriate
Finding the right combination of licensed content, original content and social content is key to executing a well-rounded content strategy.
Licensed content gives you an easy way to access a high-volume of content from credible sources, allowing you to boost publishing cadence.
Original content gives you the ability to share hyper-targeted stories which resonate with your audience and are optimized for SEO.
Social content allows you to always stay topical and publish content that is buzzworthy and trending. Co-created content.
We call this combination The Rule Of Thirds – a starting point. AS you’re publishgin you can optimize.. Diversifying your content strategy allows you to scale in a way
Help your customers with something. Do their jobs better, become heroes. You need to fill in the blanks.