Content Marketing Strategy Workshop

Content Marketing Strategy Workshop August 24, 2015 // New York City Michael Brenner Head of Strategy, NewsCred @BrennerMichael

Goals for Strategy Workshop  Understand what an effective content marketing strategy looks like  Determine where your content will live. Understand important site elements  Understand Editorial Strategy and gain clarity on editorial mission and topics  Brainstorm content ideas  Understand distribution best practices  Determine the measures of success @BrennerMichael

Content Marketing Strategy

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Just 3 Things . . .

The world has changed.

Most content stinks.

Attract people through stories they love.

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Content today must compete with pictures of babies and kittens.

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Content marketing trends

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“ We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in, and start delivering what people are interested in.

� @BrennerMichael

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We tune out the noise. @BrennerMichael

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“ The buyer journey is nothing more than a series of questions that must be answered.

�

- IDC -

@BrennerMichael

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

Awareness

Begin decision process

Consideration Align IT with business objectives

Identify business problem

Explore technology options

Preference Determine solution strategy

Establish requirements/ build RFP

Assess ROI

Research products/ vendors Research solutions

Make decision

Build short list

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Ann Handley: “Take your brand out of the story. . . . . .Make your customers the hero.�

What Brands Publish Our Natural Instinct

Content Marketing

What Customers Want Charity

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Exercise:

Why does your brand exist?

What purpose does it serve?

Your Brand Purpose

Content Marketing

What Customers Want

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Content Marketing Defined “Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

-Content Marketing Institute •

Not advertising or PR

•

It is continuous not campaign-based

•

Customer-focused, not brand-focused

•

Seeks to answer customer questions across the buyer journey

•

Owned media = An asset for your business with LTV and ROI @BrennerMichael

The Promise of Content Marketing:

To earn your audience . . . . . . versus buying it!

@BrennerMichael

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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.

Paid Distribution

6.

Focus on Content Subscribers

7.

Track Content Marketing ROI @BrennerMichael

Now: 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

Overall:

?

Paid distribution

Focus on Content Subscriptions Measurement template / ROI defined @BrennerMichael

Why is it important to have a documented content strategy?

Content Marketing Mission Statement Become a destination for [target audience] interested in [topics]. To help them [customer value].

This will help us [content marketing goals] • Earn your audience’s attention vs. just buying it • Reach, engage and convert NEW buyers

AmEx Open Forum Example: Help Small Businesses Do More Business. To become the largest source of inbound leads.

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What Is Your Content Marketing Mission Statement?

Become a (premier?) destination for [target audience] interested in [topics] to help them [customer value].

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Steps to crafting a content strategy

Discovery • Current

State • Target Audience • Business Case • Mission Statement • Budget

Destination Branding + Design • Branding • UX • Platform

Roles + Responsibility • Who

Editorial Strategy

does what? • Structure • Tech Partner • Topics • Agency • Types • Sources • SEO

Distribution + Optimization

Measurement • Business

Case KPIs • Define report • How often

• SEO • Platforms • Paid • Owned • Earned • Email

Newsletter

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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

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60-70% of marketing content goes completely unused. *Sirius Decisions

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TWEET THIS!

Behind every piece of bad content is an executive who asked for it.

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Conduct A Content Audit • • • • •

Content Type Audience / Target Buyer Stage Primary Destination Performance

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Look at Content by Buyer Stage Early-Stage Content 6%

Late-Stage Content

Early Stage Middle Stage Late Stage

66%

28%

Middle-Stage Content

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Your Business Goals Select one or more from the list (or add your own): 1.

Create affinity for your core products and brands

2.

To reach new potential buyers with unbranded search

1.

To retain existing customers

2.

Upsell existing customers / retention

3.

Convert them through digital offers, paths to sale @BrennerMichael

Joe Pulizzi: “Don’t build your house on rented land.”

- Publish On Your Own Content Hub -

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Consider Your Destination and Branding

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Design Structure 1) 2) 3)

4)

5) 6)

Categories across the top show visitor what space you are in Images help humanize the site and break text Published content horizontally shows frequency (add dates and authors) Share buttons encourage social sharing Mid-stage offer on right Newsletter/subscription sign up

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Categories across the top show visitor what space you are in

Images are authentic and create context for the content

Author bylines show authenticity and the dates show frequency

Share buttons encourage social sharing

Recommended or Most Popular

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Heavy call-to-action + subscription

Define Content Marketing Roles and Functions

Content Marketer / Editor

Community Manager

Analytics

Designer

Curation

Contributors

SEO / Paid Specialist

Strategizes,

Distributes content across social channels, engages online communities, and contributes to content projects.

Defines best/ worst

Brings content to life through the user experience and rich visuals.

Fines and re-

Any content creatorblogger, photographer, designer — who contributes to your project.

Manages the paid distribution of content online.

writes, and oversees content projects to ensure brand consistency and alignment with business objectives.

performers, conversion optimization and measurement

purposes the best content from your business and from around the web.

communications.

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Editorial Strategy

April 27, 2015

What we’ll cover in this section: • Thinking and acting like a publisher • Mapping keywords to the buyer journey • The “persona filter” • The importance of imagery • The impact of volume on reach and conversion

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What Are We Going to Write About?

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Unique Point of View Trap How brands can become consumed with their story, not their customers.

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The Biggest Mistake Brands Make With Content Marketing Is Making The Content All About Them Think and Act like a Publisher!

Effective Editorial Strategy •

Thinking and acting like a publisher

•

Create the content your audience (actually) wants

•

Build an audience, then monetize it

•

Manage content as an asset with an ROI @BrennerMichael

How do you give a pile of bricks order?

•

What are different ways you could organize content?

•

Consider recurring themes / series / trigger events

•

Look at publishers in your space

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Reach, Engage and Convert the Right People.

What is Content Marketing?

(10-3000 X)

Who is the best Content Marketing provider?

(2-10 X) Middle-stage

Brand Searches

NewsCred Content Marketing software is how awesome?

Search / Social Volume

Early-stage Searches

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Research Keywords, Then Filter By Personas Persona

Stage

Questions/Concerns

Keywords

Main

Early

What is [your solution]

[your solution]

Middle

How to succeed with [Your solution]

[your solution]

Late

How much is [your solution]

[your solution]

Persona

Stage

Questions/Concerns

Keywords

Secondary

Early

Xyz

Xyz

Middle

Xyz

Xyz

Late

Xyz

Xyz

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Utilize the Right Mix of Content Custom Content Share on-brand stories and recipes which are created specifically for your brand.

Licensed Content Boost credibility, publishing cadence, and direct traffic with a high-volume of fully-licensed, compliant content.

Community Content Leverage content from customers, employees, influencers that grows and engages your community.

Content Mix (Monthly Average) Licensed Content User / Employee

30%

50% Licensed Custom Social Custom Content

20% @BrennerMichael

How To Rank For SEO? The 3 Vs (Content Mix)

Volume

Value

Variety

Number of posts on the topic

The best answer on the internet

Text, images, video, slides @BrennerMichael

Imagery matters

60,000 X the brain processes images faster than text.

78% of consumers say that the quality of a product image is “very important� in selecting and purchasing a product

94% more total views on content featuring compelling images than content without images.

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Case Study: Bloomberg uses stunning imagery to bring “dry� topics to life

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‘Big Data’

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‘Technology’

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‘Intraday Settlement Compresses Trading Cycle’

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‘Transform Data Into A Strategic Access’

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‘Intraday Settlement Compresses Trading Cycle’

The Impact Of Volume On Reach and Conversion • • • •

•

Publishers publish every day on each topic, category or theme Organic Traffic goes up with each new article published Diminishing return? (see below) Optimize content budget vs. paid distribution budget Increasing frequency will increase Organic + Social % of Total PVs

A few times a year

< monthly

1-2X per month

1-2X per week

1 per day

More than 1 per day

Blog Post Brainstorm

Content Amplification and Distribution

What we’ll cover in this section: • The Converged Media approach • Best Practices for Distribution: • Email • Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram) • Paid

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Maximizing the Reach of Your Content A â&#x20AC;&#x153;converged mediaâ&#x20AC;? approach utilizes paid, owned, and earned media to deliver content the audience wants and maximizing the reach of that content.

Paid Social Influencer

Maximize organic buzz, social engagement, and PR

Organic traffic & SEO

Leverage your owned content and channels

Quickly grow your audience & jumpstart engagement

Converged

Paid Content Distribution (Outbrain, Sharethrough)

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Social networks dominate content discovery

Social media can have a real impact on your bottom line.

78% of consumers said that companiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; social media posts impact their purchasing decision

30% of buyers say that social media is very important in making their purchasing decisions

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Best Practices: Overall •

Establish a unique voice and stick with it

•

Maintain a consistent cadence

•

Be transparent and authentic

•

•

Give due credit to authors and sources

Respond to fans (and haters) in a timely manner

•

Truly know your audience

•

Have variety of content: original, licensed, UGC (see below)

•

Play to the strengths of each platform: post the content that makes the most sense

Other people’s content

Your helpful posts

Promotional

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Tactics for distribution 1. Ad networks (example: Google AdWords)

2. Organic Social (example: LinkedIn) 3. Paid Social (example: LinkedIn Sponsored Update)

4. Native advertising (example: Sharethrough) 5. SEO 6. Lead nurturing (both paid & earned) (example: newsletter)

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Tactics for distribution 1. Ad networks (example: Google AdWords)

2. Organic Social (example: LinkedIn) 3. Paid Social (example: LinkedIn Sponsored Update)

4. Native advertising (example: Sharethrough) 5. SEO 6. Lead nurturing (both paid & earned) (example: newsletter)

@BrennerMichael

Email

Benefits of email newsletter distribution 1. Keep your audience engaged 2. Free distribution channel

45% of NewsCredâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s traffic came from

3. Provides instantaneous trackable results

email

4. Nurture and convert leads @BrennerMichael

Newsletters are Vital for Identifying Trends and Takeaways

•

Digestible content: Top 2 posts are infographics.

•

The BuzzFeed effect: 4 of top 10 articles had headlines with words like: "top," "best," "most.”

•

Know your audience: 35% of top 20 articles have the mention of "content marketing" or "content marketers.”

•

Stats matter: 70% of top 10 articles have numbers in the headline.

•

Stay familiar: 25% of top 20 articles have a brand name mentioned in the headline - Ello, Vice, BuzzFeed, Nike, and Red Bull.

@BrennerMichael

Steps to creating an email marketing plan

Who will manage?

What content will you include?

Determine sending frequency and goals

Make a schedule

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Creating a Social Media Content Plan

Just because you can publish to every social channel, doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean you should.

Find out which channels are most important for your audience and focus on 2 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 3 to start.

@BrennerMichael

Where is your target buyer?

Cheat Sheet:

@BrennerMichael *Buffer, Pew research 2013

Pros and Cons Pros

Cons

Facebook

Everyone is on it!

High competition

Twitter

Younger, tech-savvy crowd who loves information

Need to be able to keep up with cadence

LinkedIn

Highly-targeted. Very educated audience of business professionals (great for B2B)

B2C companies need to figure out

Instagram

Younger audience.

Hard if click-through is end-goal or text-heavy content

Pinterest

TK

TK

@BrennerMichael

Best practices across social channels

The positive feedback loop of social: Build an audience, share great content, engage on each platform.

Tag brands/people where appropriate 1. Good social media etiquette

2. Great way to show influencers some love 3. Can be a great way to get more followers

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Know the art of the hashtag

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What Is the ideal cadence for each channel?

Suggested Cadence

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Instagram

Pinterest

2 times per day, 5-7 days per week

1 tweet per hour

2x per day

Varies (best to test). 1-2 times per day ď&#x192; 2/3 times per week

On the low end, try for 5 pins/day. If you have more content you can go up to 30/day (Best results from 15-30 pins/day)

@BrennerMichael

Overwhelmed by that last slide?

1. Don’t be afraid to post the same piece of content multiple times.

• Use the headline once • Use a quote from the article once (or many different quotes different times!)

• Grab a stat from the article and share that 2. Pre-schedule tweets… but have an action plan in place for real-time.

3. Evergreen content is your friend!

4. Ask your writer/team to come up with multiple tweets per each article @BrennerMichael

Paid Distribution

Even great content needs a push The average Hollywood movie spends 50-60% of production budget on distribution.

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Paid Social Twitter: promoted tweets, lead generation cards, web cards, etc.

Facebook: boosted posts, ad sets

LinkedIn: sponsored updates, ad campaigns â&#x20AC;˘

Unsure about what platform and what ad to use?

â&#x20AC;˘

A/B test until you get it right - companies who test are 75% more likely to show ROI for content marketing than those who fail to test their strategies.

Help new audiences discover your content with Outbrain or Taboola • “Recommended For You!” Get in front of audiences who are

Best choice for budget distribution

Already reading content

about your topic on other sites but who you aren’t already reaching. @BrennerMichael

Measurement

Three key metrics to measure for Brand Awareness Website Traffic • Visits • Time Spent on Site • Pages consumed per visit Social Engagement • Followers • Shares • Reach Content Consumption • Subscriptions • Content Downloads

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Define Key Measures and Targets

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Organic and Social Traffic: The Health Of Your Program 35,000

Traffic from Organic, Social & Referrals 30,000

Unique Visitors

25,000 20,000 15,000 10,000 5,000 0

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@BrennerMichael

What to track and when Track top content / shares / topics on related sites monthly • • • • • •

• •

Top 50 Influencers 10 Blog Sites Terms You Need To Know 10 Predictions For… What Is [Keyword]?

Infographics SlideShares Videos

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Social KPI Overview: Audience size + Engagement Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Brand Awareness

Page likes, page visits, impressions, reach

Followers, impressions, reach, follower/following ratio

Company page likes, page views, visitors

Engagement

Post likes, comments, shares, clicks, â&#x20AC;&#x153;stories createdâ&#x20AC;?

RTs, favorites, replies, @mentions, clicks, engagement rate

Likes, comments, shares, clicks, engagement

Lead Generation

Link clicks to form or gated page, blog subscribe

Lead generation card clicks, link clicks to gated page, blog subscribe

Link clicks to form or gated page

@BrennerMichael

In Conclusionâ&#x20AC;¦

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 @BrennerMichael

Hope youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re excited to create amazing content!

Thank you! @BrennerMichael