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First, while this piece is about content marketing, it focuses on the “getting started” steps. A lot of people call these steps “content strategy.” This article goes a little beyond that, getting to best practices and a few favorite tools.Kicking off any content marketing process starts with the strategy, then moves into some basic process planning. This is how we do it at Portent: - Existing content inventory - Competitive analysis - Drawing conclusions - Building the “machine” around best practices, tools and people #1 is the most mechanically-involved task, because you have to grab a lot of data and mush it all together. #2 is the shortest. #3 and 4 are the most demanding (for me, anyway) because I have to suss out impossible-to-automate marketing stuff that’s essential to success....
You want to be writing the right content, right?
I mean, if you're not getting anything out of your blog, why are you (or your content creators) spending hours researching, writing and formatting?
This article will break down the 10 most important pieces of content and how they can be used in combination to attract readers, generate leads, nurture those leads into signups and those signups into upgrades....
The way I see it, demand generation is the direct opposite of the old-school cold-calling approach. It's the process of turning cold leads into warm leads, then guiding those warm leads down your funnel towards a sales conversation. And for those who fall out of the funnel, it's the process of establishing regular touch points with them until they (a) become customers or (b) tell you to get lost.
What demand generation is not is a campaign. The goal of demand generation is to establish relationships, some of which can go on for months or even years before the prospect is ready to enter a sales conversation....
Marketers are ramping up their technology investments to better understand consumer needs and behaviors. Technologies to power social marketing, digital commerce and marketing analytics are the highest priorities, per July 2015 research.
Gartner surveyed more than 330 organizations in the UK and North America on their 2015 marketing budgets and 2016 expectations. Almost two-thirds of respondents said that social marketing and digital commerce were leading technology investment priorities.
Additionally, 61% of marketers said that marketing analytics were a priority and more than half of respondents were prioritizing tech for customer experience and advertising operations.
Some 58% of respondents said they were more likely to engage with brands online only if “it’s really easy and asks nothing of me.” In addition, 48% of respondents said they’d prefer brands to simply entertain them rather than ask them to do anything at all.
More disturbingly still for attention-hungry brand managers, the report also found that respondents “resent doing anything that appears to benefit the brand more than it benefits them.”
So what’s a lonely brand to do? And how did expectations get so high?...
I recently attended a workshop in which we created a customer-journey map for content planning. Before doing this exercise, I had only a fuzzy notion of what a customer-journey content map might look like, how to make one, and why anyone would bother.
It turns out, this map looks like a spreadsheet. You make one by filling the cells. You bother because doing so helps you answer the perennial question, What content shall we create?...
Most marketers say traditional advertising is the most effective means of influencing buying decisions, yet consumers say advertising is one of the least-trusted influences, according to a recent report from Experticity.
The report was based on data from a survey of 217 senior marketing executives in North America and 300 North American consumers.
The marketers surveyed rank advertising, public relations, and content marketing as the most effective tactics for influencing buying decisions (83% rank each as effective); moreover, 78% of marketers plan to increase their investment in those three areas.
In contrast, less than half (49%) of consumers say they trust advertising from brands.
The buying influences that consumers say they put the most faith in are recommendations from friends and family (83% trust), online reviews (76%), and third-party experts (70%)....
Let’s start with the name: Cheese Posties is a genius monicker for a subscription service that delivers grilled cheese sandwiches to your door. That cannot be denied. Only an idiot would try.
But, is it not utterly barmy to send sandwiches through the mail? Dave Rotheroe doesn’t think so. He raised nearly $4,200 (€3,809) on Kickstarter – nearly double his original goal – to create the service, which he says will start shipping at the end of August or beginning of September.
Subscribers will be presented with a series of questions including ‘Sweet or savory?’ and ‘Are you vegetarian or gluten free?’ Cheese Posties will then determine which gourmet grilled sandwich to ship to them that week. Note: They’re planning to send sandwiches to the US, UK and Europe....
Marketers are trained to put their best foot forward and ignore the downsides of their products. This is about doing the exact opposite: finding your weakest points and showcasing them for all to see.
In a simplified way, this plan template asks who, what, when, where, why, how, and how much questions that any good plan answers.
But it also details interesting brand dilemmas like the specific business case, how much branding your content hub should have and where it should live. It goes through the team, topics, and customer paths, and forces you to think through which metrics you can measure and how you will optimize....
The exponential growth of content marketing has revealed an interesting skills gap that is hindering the efforts of companies to transform content marketing from a promising set of experiments into an agile, scalable, strategic function in the business.
As brands expand their use of content and rich media assets to deliver engaging experiences to their customers, they are using a whole new lexicon and set of skills. Teams responsible for content planning, production, and measurement must be able to work together, speak the same language, and be focused on a common set of tasks even when geographically dispersed.
Brands create content marketing teams from different sources — in-house, agencies, and freelancers. This structure creates the potential for a modern-day Tower of Babel – people try to communicate with one another, but each speaks a different language and they differ on what content marketing is....
83% of marketers cite lead generation as their top goal for b2b content marketing, but when the focus is on driving enquiries, it’s easy to get caught up with too much product promotion.
If you want to build a successful content strategy, it’s time to ditch the content you want to create and start producing content that fits with the concerns and interest of your audience using accurate, data-driven buyer personas.
By following these 6 steps you’ll build an effective, persona driven content strategy, and create lead-generating content in the tone and style your buyers want to see....
Consider this: Each month, U.S. consumers are engaging with media across a spectrum of devices. In Q4 2014, traditional TV reached an average of 285 million viewers each month with more than 181 million of these consumers watching time-shifted TV. In terms of mobile and computer users, 122 million viewers watched video on a smartphone, 146 million watched video on the Internet and 164 million people used an app/web on a smartphone. Radio is also a vibrant means of engaging with content, reaching 258 million listeners per month.
While the average American adult spent nearly a week (149 hours 14 minutes) on average watching traditional television each month in fourth-quarter 2014, other ways to connect with content were desirable as well. In that same quarter, U.S. adults spent well over 15 hours each month watching time-shifted content, close to 30 hours using the Internet on a computer, and over 43 hours using any app/web on a smartphone!
In addition, consumer’s monthly time spent listening to radio was also a resounding 58 hours and 36 minutes.Consumers are also spending a lot of time on social media: 133 million are connecting via computer, 142 million are using social media on an app or smartphone, and 124 million are using social media on the web on a smartphone....
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Perhaps most reflective of this has been the award-winning juggernaut of REI's #OptOutside campaign, which won the Titanium Grand Prix on Saturday. If for some reason you weren't one of its 6.7 billion media impressions, essentially the company closed its doors on Black Friday, encouraging its employees and everyone else to get out into the outdoors. Beyond the ad, starring REI chief exec Jerry Stritzke introducing the idea from a wide-open office, the brand also created a helpful online guide to hiking trails and other outdoor activities around the U.S.
By encouraging us to drop out of the annual shopping day, the outdoor retailer aims for more sales and brand loyalty. The company said the brand's social media impressions went up 7,000%, with 2.7 billion media impressions in 24 hours, while overall the campaign attracted 6.7 billion media impressions, 1.2 billion social impressions, and got more than 1.4 million people to spend the day outdoors. Meanwhile, more than 150 other companies joined REI to close their doors on Black Friday, and hundreds of state parks opened up for free.
If Cannes is the ad and marketing industry's Oscars, than this is arguably Best Picture. The Titanium category is meant to honor work that breaks new ground, crosses boundaries, and pushes the industry forward. The win adds to the campaign's Media and Promotions Grand Prix, picked up earlier in the week, and its run of wins at other industry awards like the D&ADs, and Best of Show at the One Show awards in May....
Social strategy. Digital strategy. Mobile strategy. Content strategy. Everyday we’re being urged to create a new strategy. But with all the chatter about new channels, it seems we may have lost sight of the concept of an overall Marketing Strategy. And this gap has huge implications for marketing effectiveness. The tactical programs we create need to rest on a single foundation, otherwise we’re just sending dollars out the door. Case in point, the biannual CMO Survey just released by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, the American Marketing Association and Deloitte revealed that “marketers are expected to nearly double their social media spending in the next five years even though most can't show the impact of social on their business.”
Ya’ll as we say here in Texas, social media, direct marketing, public relations, advertising, etc., are not strategies -- these are tactics, and each of these tactics can potentially be deployed to support any number of strategic options. Marketers, I issue you a call to arms, it’s time to get serious about marketing strategy.
Marketing strategy, not a channel or touchpoint or tactic, is how your organization will achieve its mission. It is the critical link between marketing objectives and marketing programs and tactics. Your strategy selection (and just as importantly what is not selected) provides focus and enables your organization to concentrate limited resources on building core competencies that in turn create the sustainable competitive advantage needed to pursue and secure the best revenue opportunities....
When everyone on your content team works from the same core content strategy statement, your organization has the best possible chance of getting the results you seek.
I’m not talking about an editorial mission statement or vision statement. Those types of super-high-level statements typically get crafted once and apply to everything everyone does from then on. A core content strategy statement is more flexible and more performance-oriented, and you can create as many as you want. You might create one for a given content marketing initiative or for a specific audience. You can make it broad or narrow.
I introduced the idea of the core content strategy statement in Why You Need Content Strategy Before Editorial Planning, which I ended with a promise to follow up with another article. This is it. Explore the three things you can do to keep your content ideas on-strategy every time:...
To say native content has grown since last year would be an understatement. In 2014, Pressboard combed through 1,500 pieces of content for our "best of" list -- this year it was closer to 7,000. To give you an idea of how far the space has come, we had to buy VR headsets just to review a couple of the entries.
2015 was the year that native content moved from experimental to fundamental and nearly every major publisher and brand discovered the power of stories, instead of ads. Here are some of the best from the last 12 months...
To improve the impact of content marketing, companies need to put together a data-driven content marketing strategy, part of which includes looking at buyers’ personas and buyers’ goals.
Below are five steps to build a to connect buyers’ goals to your content marketing strategy.
Here are 5 steps you can use to connect your content to buyers’ goals....
An idea doesn't have to be unique to be great. In fact, there are some really awesome examples of great marketing out there that you can lean on to inspire your next project. (Austin Kleon calls this concept "stealing like an artist.")
But finding these examples isn't always easy. That's where we come in. We've collected 12 places on the web where you can browse and search for examples of great marketing -- including website design, design in general, email marketing, and social media pages. Check them out, bookmark them, and use them to inspire your own marketing strategy.
Get 50 brilliant examples of website design now by downloading our free flipbook....
Our biggest challenge and opportunity was to establish a connected marketing technology ecosystem that would deliver “seamless experiences in a complex omni-channel world” that would change “consumer behaviors” that we believed prevented our growth. So, more than just bringing a sleuth of enterprise and emerging marketing technologies, we focused on how we could “apply” them to address behavioral issues like “trust,” “stigma,” “trial” that would eventually maximize the life-time value for our brands.
The key to success for most brands is to shift the focus from channels and technologies to the human behavior and becoming customer obsessed, both in strategy and execution.
It was a fascinating journey for me, and my biggest takeaway has been a firm belief that, at the end of the day, it was always about the “human”, her needs, desires, and finally her behavior — and not about the technology or the channel. The key to success for most brands is to shift the focus from channels and technologies to the human behavior and becoming consumer obsessed, both in strategy and execution....
B2B content marketers are intent on pushing their products/services in content pieces, whereas their audience is looking for substantive ideas, according to a recent report from the Economist Group and Peppercomm.
The report was based on data from poll of 500 global business executives who were asked about what they look for in content, and 500 global marketers who were asked about how they're building their content strategy.
Some 75% of executives say their primary purpose for seeking out content is to find ideas, the survey found. However, 93% of marketers say the intent of their content is to directly promote products/services....
A content marketing strategy works as your guiding light when it comes to the planning, production, promotion, and measurement of content. Taking the time to create a solid strategy might seem like more work up-front, but it will reduce your workload over time and make your content more effective.
Now (before you start) is the time to think through your objectives and build a content marketing strategy that will elevate your social media efforts to the next level. We’ve put together a helpful walkthrough that will guide you through each step of the process...
Earned media is the new PR. It’s not only just an organic by-product of your social media or content marketing strategy.
Earned media isn’t a media entity in terms of being a set collective communication outlets or tools used to store and deliver information or data. Nor does earned media meet the 15 characteristics of a media entity.Instead of screaming ME, ME, ME, earned media gets someone else to mention you or your business on one or more media platforms....
Brief-writing is the unsung art of content marketing. Get it right and you dramatically increase your chances of hitting a home run. Get it wrong and you’re more likely to win the lottery (it’s possible but don’t hold your breath).
And since most marketers aren’t the ones actually writing or designing or producing the content in their editorial calendars, the brief is the most important place to exert leverage and make an impact on the final product. It all starts here.
So what goes into a great content brief? The usual stuff plus six critical extras you don’t see in many briefs....
According to the “Customer Experience Optimization Report” by Econsultancy and Ensighten, 96% of company marketers and agency respondents (including vendors and consultancies) consider customer experience optimization somewhat important or critical.
Marketers who take pride in their customers' experiences can leave a major (paw) print on their organizations. In fact, 94% of marketers and 79% of agency respondents say that higher engagement and conversion rates are among the many benefits of customer experience optimization. Better brand perception and loyalty (66%, 47%); renewal, cross-sell, and upsell (50%, 41%), and increased average order value (22%, 29%) are also benefits for marketers and agency professionals, respectively....
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![Wonder What Content to Create? Try a Customer-Journey Map [Template] | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/PrvWQ3EiXv1Xn1MMMUbw5zl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
![Keep Your Content On-Strategy With This Single Statement [Templates] | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/PgZENjM22NAhc1RglFuNBjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
An excellent content marketing strategy blueprint and recommended reading if you want a step-by-step guide. 9/10