Marketing Rewired: Developing a Fool-Proof Content Strategy that Drives Bottom-Line Results

1. © 2016 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. Marketing Rewired: Developing a Fool-Proof Content Strategy that Drives Bottom-Line Results Rich Pearson · SVP, Marketing & Categories · @pearsonisms

2. © 2016 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. Content marketing works 2 60% Of people are inspired to seek out content after reading content about it Of B2B buyers increasingly rely on content for purchasing decisions Content marketing produces 3x more leads per dollar than paid search marketing ~70% 3X

3. © 2016 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. Yet most of us claim we aren’t effective at it 3 88% of marketers said they used content marketing 30% of marketers said they were effective at content marketing

6. © 2016 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. 6 The only way to win at content marketing is for the reader to say, ‘This was written specifically for me’”. wonder why offices ever existed.- Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group - Jamie Turner, CEO of 60 Second Marketer

7. © 2016 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. Define your content structure 7 CONTENT HUB B2C CATEGORY ONE (How To’s) CATEGORY TWO (Design) CATEGORY FIVE (Development) CATEGORY FOUR (Distributed Teams)

8. © 2016 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. Creating great content takes great people 8 Unfortunately, great people are hard to find... 320% More marketers report trouble finding content marketing professionals over last year

10. © 2016 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. 1010© 2016 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. Job openings unfilled after three months Build your own team… in 4+ months

12. By 2020, nearly half of the U.S. workforce will be freelancing The freelance talent pool is exploding 53M Freelancers in the U.S. now

14. © 2015 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. Tracy G. Content Strategist Danila V. Content Manager Druv A. Content Producer Firmo S. Writer The best answer for most? Build a hybrid team IN-HOUSE TEAM AGENCY Mariana M. Marketer

15. © 2015 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. The Situation: A global e-commerce marketplace had a major initiative to boost SEO traffic to their site. To create the content, the marketing team had to source dozens of writers across a wide range of categories and topics—and engage them quickly to meet their ambitious goals. The Solution: Their content marketing team sourced a team of more than 30 writers to develop in-depth and well- researched, long form content for the site. Results: Developed more than 10,000 articles | 300 articles per quarter 7 days to source more than 30 writers Scaled content created by 5x with freelance writers 15 In just 7 days, I was able to source a team of more than 30 writers to develop long-form content for our site. Content writers: high quality content at scale

16. © 2015 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. The Situation: Global CPG firm was spending over $8MM for an annual program where each division needed to produce a rich media video. The Solution: Formed a team of video production specialists from around the globe with careful consideration to time to results, quality, and cost savings. Results: Delivered equal or better quality on results Cost of $800k (10% of baseline cost) 70%+ savings and 50% reduction in cycle time on 90 videos Turnaround time decreased dramatically 16 It’s amazing, not only did we save money, but the platform’s freelancers raised the bar on the actual quality of the videos as well. Video Production: Delivering quality at the right cost

17. © 2016 Upwork Inc. Proprietary and confidential. Do not distribute. 4 pillars of successful content marketing 17 Source: Content Marketing Institute, “2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends” 1 Start with 3 simple questions. 2 Define your content structure. 3 Build a great team. 4 Launch. Measure. Tweak. Repeat.

18. 1 Just get started. You’ll lose months waiting for the perfect plan. 2 Map your content to each stage of your funnel. 3 Be prolific (within reason) and see where you get traction. 4 It takes 60 days to build your content marketing muscle. 5 Once you hit ~100 posts, spend 30% of your time optimizing old posts. 6 Don’t measure your content marketing team solely on conversion. 7 Your tip here . . . 7 content marketing takeaways