the art & science of content promotion [inbound 2014]

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The Art & Science of Content Promotion

Kieran Flanagan

Marketing Director (EMEA), HubSpot

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Download these slides:>> http://slidesha.re/1xEUeqU

<<Take the Poll:

>> inbound.org/kieran <<

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Content Marketing?

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You know what frustrates the hell out of me?

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“Build it and they will come”

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Guess what?

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No one’s coming

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and ...

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“Content is King”

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There are 27,000,000 pieces of content shared every

day

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There are 27,000,000 pieces of content shared every

day

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Those phrases are relics from the past

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Just “doing content”is no longer your competitive advantage.

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93% of B2B marketers and 90% of B2Cmarketers are using content marketing today.

Source: http://bit.ly/1njPq0e

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Content is proving a struggle for marketers.

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Only 42% of B2B and 34% of B2C marketers believe they are effective at content marketing.

Source: http://bit.ly/1njPq0e

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When it comes to content, the best marketers know that …

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… self promotion is good!

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To be truly effective at

content marketing, we need to excel

at promotion. #INBOUND14

@Tweet this

@searchbrat

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The notion that you can simply create interesting content people will magically find is a lie. If you build it, they won’t necessarily come. You have to treat your content executions like a product and launch them the same way you would launch a product.

@jaybaer

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The Science

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The success of your content campaigns starts with creating the right goals.Do you want to generate awareness, inbound links, qualified leads, blog subscribers or grow your social following?

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We want to generate 200 qualified leads for the sales team.Let’s figure out the right metrics to aim for.

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We know that 10% of all leads we generate are qualified.

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What’s the total number of downloads we need?

Qualified Leads / Qualified Lead Rate = Downloads

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What’s the total number of downloads we need?

200 / 10% = 2000 downloads

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We know the average conversion rate of our landing pages is 50%.

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What’s the total number of views we need?

Number of downloads / Landing Page Conv Rate = Views

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What’s the total number of views we need?

2000 / 50% = 4000 views

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We need a promotion plan to generate 4000 visits to our landing page, which will result in 2000 downloads and 200 qualified leads.

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Distribution Channels

Available Audience

Engagement (CTR)

Engaged Audience

Blog 50,000 6% 3,000

Email 10,000 3% 300

Facebook 8,000 2.5% 200

Twitter 1,000 0.5% 5

Co-promote 30,000 1.5% 450

Plan where to get those visits and downloads from.

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Distribution Channels

Blog

Email

Facebook

Twitter

Co-promote

Experiment with ways to add more distribution channels.

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Distribution Channels

Available Audience

Blog 50,000

Email 10,000

Facebook 8,000

Twitter 1,000

Co-promote 30,000

Grow your available audience on each distribution channel.

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Distribution Channels

Available Audience

Engagement (CTR)

Blog 50,000 6%

Email 10,000 3%

Facebook 8,000 2.5%

Twitter 1,000 0.5%

Co-promote 30,000 1.5%

Optimise conversion paths to improve engagement CTR of each channel.

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Distribution Channels

Available Audience

Engagement (CTR)

Engaged Audience

Blog 50,000 6% 3,000

Email 10,000 3% 300

Facebook 8,000 2.5% 200

Twitter 1,000 0.5% 5

Co-promote 30,000 1.5% 450

The bigger your engaged audience the more successful your content campaigns will be.

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Segmenting your data like this can help you make better decisions about your promotion plan.

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The Art

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In HubSpot, production and promotion are treated equally.If we spend 10 hours creating a piece of content, we spend at least that amount of time on the promotion of it.

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There are 3 key parts in the launch of any content campaign:

Prior to Launch Week of Launch Ongoing

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Prior to Launch

#1

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The best promotion plan in the world can’t save bad content.Even if you are a distribution ninja, you can’t save content that sucks.

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You need to ask:Who are we targeting with this content?Why are they going to love this content?What action do I want them to take?How will they find it?Why would they share it with their friends?

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Gather insights to make your content better.There is a lot of data we can use that will help us publish content that is more likely to get shared.

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Socialcrawlytics identifies your competitors’ best content and top performing social networks.

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Buzzsumo will show the most popular content for chosen keywords and selected domains.

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It has an alerts feature that will tell you when content from selected domains is getting shared a lot.

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Open Site Explorer will let you see what content from competitors is getting linked to most.

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Quora can help you find questions on relevant topics that have gotten a lot of engagement.

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Consider your promotion plan before ever hitting publish.What can you include in your content that will help it get shared more widely?

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Have industry experts provide quotes and commentary for your content.

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This will help it get a lot more shares.

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Include some unique data in your content.

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It will help generate more shares and engagement.

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Co-create content. There needs to be value for all parties.

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Create your outreach lists well in advance of your launch.The more time and effort you put into choosing the right people for your outreach lists, the better your results will be.

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Find ways to split your bloggers & experts into tiers.

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Create a promotional pack for your high prioritybloggers. Help them to look awesome.

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Create a promotional pack for your high prioritybloggers. Help them to look awesome.

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Prepare email templates for your different tiers.Outreach is time consuming. You want to have templates that convert well and can be easily reused by your team.

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The Pre-Launch Checklist

Ask the right questionsGather insightsPlan promotion early (quotes, stats, data, co-create content).Create outreach lists (break them into tiers)Create blogger promotional packsPrepare email templates

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Week of Launch

#2

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Do a soft launch of your content.Start by seeding the promotional packs to your priority list. Make them look good by letting them leverage the most valuable parts of your content first.

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Then make your big splash!Your campaign’s main launch should be treated as rigorously as a product launch. All your efforts should be heavily coordinated.

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Make sure your launch email is successful.Yeah, email is still a really important distribution channel in 2014.

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1. Consistent branding ensures the receiver knows who it’s from.

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2. Have a clear value proposition.

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3. Dominant call-to-action (CTA).

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4. Include a relevant image.

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5. Make it easy to share.

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6. The personal touch really helps.

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Make sure your launch email is successful.1. Consistent branding2. Clear value proposition 3. Dominant call-to-actions (CTAs)4. Include a relevant image5. Make it easy to share6. Personal touches really help

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Launch your content on Facebook.You can only launch the content once on Facebook, so make it good.

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Use an image. Photos generate 53% more likes & 104% more comments than the average post.

Source: http://bit.ly/ITzLHt

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Keep your post length short. They result in better engagement.

Source http://bit.ly/1k8Bomc

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Launch your content on LinkedIn.LinkedIn is increasingly becoming a platform that has content and user engagement at the heart of it.

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Follow the same guidelines you used to post on Facebook.

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Use LinkedIn groups and blog posts to help promote that update.

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Use LinkedIn groups and blog posts to help promote that update.

There are 200 conversations taking place per minute in these groups. http://bit.ly/1nwvJCr

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Organic promotion on Twitter.Unlike other social networks, promoting the same content a number of times is a good thing on Twitter.

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The life of a tweet is really short. 18 minutes of potential.

Source: http://bit.ly/OdCfTL

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Use Followerwonk to analysewhen your followers are online.

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Use a tool like Social Inbox to schedule tweets for those times across the week.

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Tweets with visuals have 5x more engagement when compared to text-based tweets.

Source: http://bit.ly/1heAEWw

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There is a 17% increase in retweets when you include a stat.

Source: http://bit.ly/1lTruRq

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Even better, include an easy way for people to tweet stats from the blog posts launching the campaign.

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There is a 19% increase in retweets when you include a quote.

Source: http://bit.ly/1lTruRq

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Paid Content amplification helps.Seeding content through paid channels is a great way to get an initial bump in interest. But remember, great promotion can’t save sucky content.

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For paid Twitter ads the same rules apply. Remember:Visuals in tweets have 5x engagementStats get 17% more retweetsQuotes get 19% more retweets

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These are real people actually sharing our paid ad.

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Experiment with your targeting.

1.23%

0.79%

0.00%

0.20%

0.40%

0.60%

0.80%

1.00%

1.20%

1.40%

Niche Broad

Twitter Engagement

Increase by 55%

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Find niche topic experts to target, and then target their audience.

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Find niche topical experts to target and then target their audience.

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Facebook has a lot of targeting options.You need to invest a lot of time & effortTest different ad placements & formatsTest different audiences to targetYes, that’s a whole lot of testing

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Certain Facebook ads are better for content amplification.

Right-Hand ColumnLow performance & price. Good for retargeting.

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Certain Facebook ads are better for content amplification.

News FeedHighest CTR & Engagement. Far better ad type for content amplification as it can generate additional organic results.

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Custom Audiences allow you to get more granular with your targeting.

[To Add]

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Target by interest lists to get your content seen by the right people.

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On LinkedIn keep your target audience really tight.Clicks are costly so narrow down your audienceCreate 8 sets of ads and continually refresh themLike Facebook, keep testing ads & targeting

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Keep targeting really tight on LinkedIn, your cost per click tends to be higher.

[To Add]

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There are a growing list of options for paid content amplification.StumbleUpon Paid DiscoveryReddit’s Self Serve PlatformOutbrain & Taboola Content Discovery Platform

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Leverage your online web real estate to promote your content.

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Don’t forget there is a good chance your customers already like you and will share your content.

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Guest blogging isn’t dead.Look for opportunities to create valuable content for blogs within your industry to help promote your content campaigns.

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Bufferapp wrote 60 guest posts that helped them generate 100,000 customers.

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There is a growing number of platforms you can add valuable content to.

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Complete the rest of your outreach for the lists you created in the pre-launch phase.

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Remember, that’s all to be executed in the week of launch.You want to create as much interest as possible in that first week. The quality of your content will then ensure that interest gathers pace organically.

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Launch emailLaunch on social (organic)Content amplification (paid)Promote across online real estateGuest blogging opportunitiesComplete outreach

The Week Of Checklist

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Ongoing

#3

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Don’t just love your content for a week and never think about it again.

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There is a whole lot of leverage in re-promoting your content.

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Look at content that has performed well and where opportunities to repurpose exist.

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You can leverage existing content that has already proved to be popular.

Extra leverage from existing content.

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Look for opportunities to improve the organic performance of that content.

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Create content leaderboardRevamp popular contentOptimise historical content

The Ongoing Checklist

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Now put it all together …

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Plan for goals & metrics

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Prior to Launch

• Ask the right questions• Gather insights• Plan promotion early

(quotes, stats, data, co-create content)

• Create outreach lists (break into tiers)

• Create blogger promotional packs

• Prepare email templates

Plan for goals & metrics

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Prior to Launch

• Ask the right questions• Gather insights• Plan promotion early

(quotes, stats, data, co-create content)

• Create outreach lists (break into tiers)

• Create blogger promotional packs

• Prepare email templates

Plan for goals & metrics

Week of Launch

• Launch email• Launch on social (organic)• Content Amplification

(paid)• Promote across online real

estate• Look for guest blogging

opportunities• Complete outreach

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Prior to Launch

• Ask the right questions• Gather insights• Plan promotion early

(quotes, stats, data, co-create content)

• Create outreach lists (break into tiers)

• Create blogger promotional packs

• Prepare email templates

Plan for goals & metrics

Week of Launch

• Launch email• Launch on social (organic)• Content Amplification

(paid)• Promote across online real

estate• Look for guest blogging

opportunities• Complete outreach

Ongoing

• Content leaderboard• Content revamp • Optimise historical content

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Thank You