how to build a content marketing strategy

How to Plan and Build a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

#thinkcontent

Michael Brenner NewsCred – Head of Strategy @BrennerMichael

Agenda

•  The key factors for content marketing success

•  The core components of a content marketing strategy

•  How to utilize content across the buyer journey

•  How to work with NewsCred to document your strategy

and achieve success

#thinkcontent

Content Marketing Success

Building a Successful Content Strategy

Working with NewsCred: Crafting a Successful

Content Strategy

Utilizing Content Across the Buyer Journey

There’s been a fundamental shift in the way we create,

consume, and share content.

Every single day…

4.75 billion piece of content are shared

1.8 billion photos are uploaded and shared

500 million tweets are posted

700 million snapchats are sent

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5

“ Marketing used to be about making a

myth and telling it. Now it’s about telling a truth and sharing it.

- MARC MATHIEU - Unilever

”

#thinkcontent

6

I have no patience for useless things.

7

“ The buyer journey is nothing more

than a series of questions that must be answered.

- IDC -

”

#thinkcontent

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

“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 Customer, Not brand-focused

•  Seeks to answer customer questions across the buyer journey

•  Owned media

Content Marketing Defined

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Behind every tweet, share, and purchase is a person,

like you and me.

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Put Your Customers’ Needs First. Make them the hero.

Our Natural Instinct

Content Marketing

Brand Purpose

What Customers

Want

Charity

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“

We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what

people are interested in.

- CRAIG DAVIS - ”

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Unique Point of View Trap

Too easy to become consumed with your story, not your customers.

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Six key factors to content marketing success:

1  Document content strategy

2  Have someone in charge of content

3  Consistently publish quality content

4  Map content to buyer journey

5  Balance Paid, Owned, Earned Media

6  Track Content Marketing ROI

#thinkcontent

Content Marketing Success

Building a Successful Content Strategy

Working with NewsCred: Crafting a Successful

Content Strategy

Utilizing Content Across the Buyer Journey

•  Delivering content your audience wants

•  Managing content as an asset (with an ROI)

•  Thinking and acting like a publisher

What is a Content Strategy?

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Why is it important to have a documented content strategy?

3 Steps to Building a Content Strategy

1 Why? What’s the Business Case?

3 What? Show results tied to your business objectives.

2 How? Team, actions, and budgets needed.

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Content Marketing Roadmap

•  Budget •  Destination

•  Frequency

•  Amplification / Optimization

•  Collaboration (Who does what)

Discovery Destination Team Topic Models Customer Journey

KPIs / Reporting Optimization

•  Business Case

•  Current State

•  Budget

•  Branding/Design

•  Platform

•  Firm Integration

•  Who does what?

•  Agency

•  NewsCred

•  Distribution

•  Structure

•  Topics

•  Types

•  Content by Stage

•  Conversions

•  Subscriptions

•  Define report

•  Who / when?

•  Content

•  Platform

•  Distribution

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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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Commit To Measuring Your Results

Awareness / Reputation: Classic Brand / PR objectives. SOV, SOC, and press mentions. With Whom? On What Topic?

Measured by?

Reach: Who is the target Audience? What are their online interests? How can we measure?

Engagement: Drive deeper relationship with the brand. Measured by time spent, bounce rate, social shares

Convert: Subscribers, Leads, Sales

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Define Content Marketing Roles and Functions

Content Marketer /

Editor Strategizes, writes,

and oversees

content projects to

ensure brand

consistency and

alignment with

business

objectives.

Community Manager

Distributes content

across social

channels, engages

online communities,

and contributes to

content projects.

Designer Brings content to life

through the user

experience and rich

visuals.

Contributors Any content creator-

blogger,

photographer,

designer — who

contributes to your

project.

SEO / Paid Specialist

Manages the paid

distribution of

content online.

Analytics Defines best/ worst

performers,

conversion

optimization and

measurement

communications.

Curation Fines and re-

purposes the best

content from your

business and from

around the web.

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Define The Business Case, Workflows, Gain Organizational Buy-in

•  Make sure all stakeholders understand your mission statement and business goals •  Determine who needs to sign off on content

•  Set approval processes for publishing and sharing content in order to cut down on

back-and-forth

•  Leverage technology to automate that entire process is a great way to get ahead

Consider Your Destination and Branding

#thinkcontent

Content Marketing Success

Building a Successful Content Strategy

Working with NewsCred: Crafting a Successful

Content Strategy

Utilizing Content Across the Buyer Journey

Conduct A Content Audit

A Content Audit will help you: •  Give you a true sense of scale

•  Identify gaps

•  Seize opportunities for content repurposing

•  Determine performance issues

•  Evaluate content quality

•  Improve your information architecture

Look at Content by Buyer Stage

Early Stage Middle Stage Late Stage

66% 28%

Early-Stage Content

Late-Stage Content

Middle-Stage Content

6%

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Where in the journey do we want to connect?

Online Influences Discover Consider Decide

•  Reviews

•  Comments

•  Blogs

•  Forums

Why buy? •  Educate

•  Search

Why buy now? •  What

•  When

•  Who

Why buy from you? •  Trust

•  Capability

•  Capacity

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Defining Topics

What are we going to talk about? •  [Sample at left – SAP “The Customer

Edge” blog keyword analysis]

access adaptive analytics basement bench best binds brand brandlove buyers canada center chief contact

content contextual customer david december digital don’t earlier edge email engage

engagement examples experience extreme fanbase ferragamo free global good grows highlights

holiday kind luxury marketing media meerman mensch news officer premium process product

providing resolutions roots roundup sales scott sell service shark showstopping social story strategy

s u r v i v a l t a n k t e c h n o l o g y t h e i r t h i n k i n g t i m e l y w e e k l y w h o l e y o u r

#thinkcontent

Content across the buyer journey

NewsCred’s best practices for utilizing content across buyer journey

Top of the Funnel Quality, licensed content around broader, shareable topics that drives visibility

and engagement

Middle of the Funnel A combination of licensed and custom content that’s not only useful and timely,

but also hits on niche topics specific to your offering and solutions. Potentially gated.

Bottom of the Funnel Custom content promoting your products and services: case studies, product

offers, customized demos, etc.

Customer Stage Consistent cadence of TOFU/MOFU content as well as personalized

recommendations, service options, case studies, etc.

Awareness

Retain

Evaluation

Purchase

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Show me the money!

Licensed Content Custom Content Social Content

Utilize The Right Mix of Content

Licensed Content Boost credibility, publishing cadence and

direct traffic with a high-volume of fully-

licensed, compliant content.

Custom Content Share on-brand stories and recipes which

are created specifically for your brand.

Social Content Leverage snackable content through UGC

that engages your target audience.

Custom Content Share on-brand stories and recipes which are created

specifically for your brand.

Social Content Leverage snackable content through UGC that

engages your target audience.

Licensed Content Boost credibility, publishing cadence, and direct traffic

with a high-volume of fully-licensed, compliant content.

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33

Distributing your content “Even great content needs a push!”

Average Hollywood movie splits 40-50% production with 50-60% distribution

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Maximizing the Reach of Your Content We believe in a “converged media” approach utilizing paid, owned, and earned media to deliver content the audience wants and maximizing the reach of that content.

Paid Social Influencer/ movable media

Leverage your owned content and channels

Maximize organic buzz, social engagement,

and PR

Organic Traffic & SEO

Quickly grow your audience & jumpstart

engagement

Converged

Native Ads (Nativo) Paid Content Distribution (Outbrain, Sharethrough)

Earned Paid

Owned

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Distribution Recommendations •  Make sure your social accounts demonstrate interaction •  4-1-1 Rule: 4 of your posts, 1 influencer post, 1 publisher post

•  Follow and mention influencers, publishers in each topic

•  Help your authors build social presence

•  Test paid distribution with LinkedIn and Outbrain

•  Measure engaged visitors from paid vs. organic visitors

•  Based on time on site or pages per visit

Client Influencer Publisher

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Blog Benchmarks

Uniques Per Month

346,400

Time Spent On Site

46 Seconds

Pages Per Visit

1.3 Average Bounce Rate

85%

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Define Key Measures and Targets

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Organic and Social: Up and To The Right

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

35,000

Un

iqu

e V

isit

ors

Traffic from Organic, Social & Referrals

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Content Marketing Success

Building a Successful Content Strategy

Working with NewsCred: Crafting a Successful

Content Strategy

Utilizing Content Across the Buyer Journey

No matter where you are in your journey, NewsCred can help.

Our team of strategists can help you:

•  Document your content strategy

•  Build Business case / Define ROI

•  Content Audits

•  Buyer journeys

•  Content Mix

•  Build / Source Content Team

•  Distribution strategy

•  Provide metrics and ROI guidance

#thinkcontent

We’re helping some of the world’s largest brands with their strategy:

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Ways to work with our Strategy Team

1  Ongoing Strategy Engagements

2  One-Day Strategy Workshop

3  Multiple Strategy Sessions

4  Strategy Health check

5  Custom engagements

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Sample content strategy exercises we’ll help you with

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Brand Map Framework

Audience

The content that you publish largely depends on your target audience – their interests, behaviors and motivations. This demographic plays a key role in your content creation and distribution process. The publications you license content from, the topics you write about and the distribution channels that you use.

What is your target demographic? What kind of publications does your audience read?

What social channels does your audience frequently engage on?

What events does your audience care about?

Brand Strategy

Understanding your brand's identity is key to understanding the type of content that your brand should source and create. Content marketing should always convey your unique brand personality consistently, from the photos that you publish to the blog posts that you create.

What is your brand’s ambition or purpose? What is your brand voice? What are the design principles of your brand’s visual identity?

What owned assets (color, typeface, etc.) signal your brand?

Content Strategy

Our mission is to help brands simplify and scale their entire content marketing process: content planning, discovery, creation, publishing, distribution and measurement. Understanding your current process and challenges as well as your future goals will help us shape a content marketing strategy unique to your brand, resources, internal creative/compliance processes.

Who is the organization responsible for your content strategy?

What does your current content workflow look like?

Do you currently use a mix of content types (original, licensed, social, etc.)?

What do you like about your content marketing strategy and what do you want to change?

What are your content pillars?

What are your SEO keyword priorities? What longtail keywords are you interested in?

What type of content do you want to feature?

What products or services (if any) do you want us to keep in mind?

Are there specific geographic regions or cities we should keep in mind?

Which social channels would you like to prioritize? What is your ideal content cadence?

Distribution Strategy

Distribution is just as important as the content itself. It is important to understand which channels will reach your target audience and how you should share content across each channel.

What channels do you use for organic distribution? What channels do you use for paid distribution? What demand generation programs do you use?

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

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SUCCESS METRICS

MEDIA METRICS What do we measure?

KPIS: BUSINESS OBJECTIVES Is our content producing the desired result?

ROI: MEDIA PERFORMANCE How efficiently is our content and distribution working to produce the desired result?

CONTENT PERFORMANCE

•  Impressions •  Social shares •  Time spent •  Return visits

•  Is our content being seen? •  Are people engaging with our brand & content? •  How much time are people spending with our brand and

are they returning?

•  What is our cost/value per exposure, action or view?

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT

•  Subscriber / audience size •  Share of voice •  Audience penetration across org

•  How large is our audience? •  What’s our share of voice in a market/ channel? •  Is engagement growing across the workflow chain of a

single organization?

•  What is the cost/value per point of share? •  What is the cost/value per active audience member?

BRAND AWARENESS

•  Brand lift •  Perception / attitudinal change

•  Are we creating awareness? Is our message memorable? •  Are we changing perceptions?

•  What is the cost/ value per point of lift?

LEAD GENERATION AND SALES

•  Behavioral conversions •  Lead generation •  Sales lift

•  Are people discovering and understanding our product & service offering?

•  Are we driving quality leads? •  Are we driving overall sales?

•  What is the cost per qualified lead? •  What is the multi-touch attribution cost? •  What is the cost per sale?

How To Implement A Successful Content Marketing Strategy Key Takeaways:

1  Commit to publishing content that your customers actually want

2  Figure out what questions your customers ask (Google) what content

they share (Social) and what channels they use.

3  Start publishing content

4  Distribute the winners

5  Measure what works

#thinkcontent

michael.brenner@newscred.com

sales@newscred.com

#thinkcontent | @newscred

Thank you!

Learn more about our strategy services: http://newscred.com/learn-professional-services

Enter our raffle for a free

Content Strategy Workshop: http://newscred.com/content-strategy-workshop-raffle