What Content Marketing Is All About And Why It Matters

What Content Marketing Is All About And Why It Matters

Dani Mansfield. Content [email protected]

Read Builtvisible’s full introduction to content marketing at builtvisible.com/introduction-to-content-marketing/

“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

A few examples

What can Content Marketing do for you?

• Build reputation

• Grow community• Increase traffic

• Generate leads• Reach new audiences

• Create ambassadors

• Establish brand thought-leadership

• Communicate CSR• Drive more sales

• Increase retention

Content Marketing across the Sales FunnelAwareness: Broad, sharable content that inspires and entertains

readers. Activity on wide range of channels. Brand visibility.

Research: Provide useful an d educational information and tips for

customers to help them solve their related problems. Build trust.

Purchase: Consumer stories and testimonials, present content that spells out what makes the brand unique. Build trust and help action.

Retain: Keep conversations going through top of funnel and middle of funnel content.

Awareness

Research

Purchase

Retain

Strategy

Content Marketing and the Sales Funnel

Awareness: Broad, sharable content that inspires and entertains

readers. Activity on wide range of channels. Brand visibility.

Research: Provide useful an d educational information and tips for

customers to help them solve their related problems. Build trust.

Purchase: Consumer stories and testimonials, present content that spells out what makes the brand unique. Build trust and help action.

Retain: Keep conversations going through top of funnel and middle of funnel content.

Awareness

Research

Purchase

Retain

The Content Marketing Lifecycle

Research

Plan

Produce

Promote

Monitor &

Evaluate

Manage



Content-focused componentsWorkflowWhat processes, tools, and human resources are required for content initiatives to launch successfully and maintain ongoing quality?

GovernanceHow are key decisions about content and content strategy made? How are changes initiated and communicated?


People-focused componentsSubstanceWhat kind of content do we need (topics, types, sources, etc.), and what messages does content need to communicate to our audience?

StructureHow is content prioritized, organized, formatted, and displayed? (Structure can include communication planning, IA, metadata, data modeling, linking strategies, etc.)

Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute

Content marketing is not about “what you sell” it’s about “what you stand for”.

Create an overarching mission statement to keep content focused and to screen and tweak concepts.

Statement should identify:

− The core target audience

− What will be delivered to the audience

− The outcome for the audience (what they gain)

Mission Statement

Research: Data-Driven Insights

Audit your own content to learn about the scale, quality and location of your site’s content.

Content Audit

Quantitative Inventory• Catalogue of site content, includes for instance:• Content format• Page type• Content location• Traffic• Shares

• Can offer a quick clear overview of the amount and complexity of your content

Qualitative Inventory• Analyses the quality and effectiveness of the content

• Best practice assessment – evaluates content against industry best practice• Search optimisation• User friendliness• Copy quality

• Strategic assessment – evaluates content against strategy• Messaging• Call to action

− Where can your online audiences be found?

− What are they passionate about?

− What content topics and types do they share?

− Which sites do they read?

− Who are they influenced by?

− When is the best time to reach/engage them?

Audience Research:What Should You Be Asking??

Creating audience segments/personas is an important part of forming a highly targeted strategy.

User Research Methods

• User interviews – an in-depth, structured conversation with a user, usually conducted in person.

• Focus groups – A moderated group discussion, where several users answer your questions en masse.

• Survey - a series of multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and open-ended questions

• Site analytics – detailed statistics about how visitors use your website.

• Search and keyword analytics –measurement of internal search queries (on your site) and search engine queries.

• Contact analytics – measurement of how and why users contact

• A/B test of landing pages - a comparison of how different versions of a landing or product page performs on your live site

• Customer Service Analysis – a look at most frequently asked questions, issues, and requests your customer sales people get from users

• Syndicated research – research conducted by an independent company or organization, often sponsored by multiple companies within an industry.

• User testing – sit and watch someone interact with your content.

From Content Strategy for the WebBy Kristina Halvorson, Melissa Rach

Look into suggested and related search queries

Break data into monthly volume to explore seasonal trends

Identify new content pages based on keyword groups with significant volume

Keyword Research

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the social channels and content strategies of a client’s brand and its competitors.

Aims to segment the wider audience to determine an ideal format, focus, style, and placement strategy for future content in order to maximisechances of success.

Audience Profiling

− How is their site and content organised?

− What topics do they cover?

− What content formats are they using?

− How do they position their brand identity and voice?

− How do they interact with their digital communities?

− How is their content performing?

Understanding Competitors: What Should You be Asking? ?Looking into your competitor’s content can help you identify and understand important opportunities.

Planning

“Your data is your eyes not your brain”Colleen Jones, author of Clout: the art and science of influential web content

Insights informed content

Content Ideation

Content audit

Keyword research

Audience research

Competitor insight opportunities

Businness Objectives & Marketing Themes

Social Trends Research

Content Campaigns

Heavy weight “big ideas” content rooted in deep research and insight. Often gated. Embodies key vision, values and marketing messages:

Core Content

• Print books

• E-books• Guides

• Whitepapers• Research studies

• Long-form video

• Tools

Mid-light weight content deriving from source material in core content. Diversify and improve accessibility and consumption through use of different formats. More focused and concise:

Derivative Assets

• Video

• Infographics• Case-studies

• Articles• Slide shares

• Webcasts

• Podcast

• Quizzes• Games

• Long-form and short-form blog posts

Simple low-cost content focused on expanding reach and starting conversations. Reuses and repurposes messages from core content for this purpose.

Promotional Micro-Content

• Social media content

• Curated content • Newsletters

• Blog comments • Participation in blogs and forums

Determine what you want each content piece to achieve, and through which channel:

For example:

Set Objectives

• Build followers and likes

• Improve search visibility• Increase sign-ups

• Increase brand engagement

• Increase email CTR• Generate leads

Production

Focus on quality, not quantity, even when it comes to quick and simple on-site content:

According to a recent survey by Acrolinx, 59 percent of respondents said that bad grammar and spelling mistakes would prevent them from purchasing from a website.

Quality not Quantity

Characteristics of Quality ContentCharacteristic Description

Usable and Findable The content is easy to find, access, and read.

Clear and Accurate The content is understandable, organised cohesively, and correct.

Complete The content meets customer needs with the right amount of content for the situation.

Consistent The content across the website or interactive experience is similar in style, tone, and approach.

Useful and Relevant The content meets user and business goals. It is timely and pertinent.

Colleen Jones, Clout, 2011

Great Examples

‘Dumb Ways to Die’ by Metro Trains Melbourne (2012-2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq-‐GYfRjxhMhttp://dumbwaystodie.tumblr.com/

‘New Ideas’ by Sprint Business (2015)

https://business.sprint.com/new-‐ideas/?INTNAV=Header:NewIdeas

‘Experience Curiosity’ by NASA (2015)

http://eyes.nasa.gov/curiosity/

Distribution

Internal LinksHome pageRelevant landing pagesFrom your most popular past content

Metadata Strong title tag (50-60 characters) Targeted h1Targeted meta description (160 characters)

Social mark-upEngaging social mark-up for easy sharingAlways include image in social mark-up

On-site Optimisation

Influencers

Contact influencers to comment on and share the pieceEncourage your sources to read, share and link to content

Social media

Contact people who have shared similar content

Create 20+ snippets for diversified social media sharing:Variations of the titleShort quotes from the contentStatistics from the content, etc.Share on tumblr feed

Email marketing

Test titles on social media

Third party sites

Contact people who have linked to similar content

Other:

Turn into slideshow to host on SlideShareAmplification tools (e.g. Outbrain, StumbleUpon)PrintEvents

Off-site distribution

Read Builtvisible’s full introduction to content marketing at builtvisible.com/introduction-to-content-marketing/

Thank you

Dani Mansfield. Content [email protected]