Building Your 2016 Content Marketing Strategy

Why is Content Marketing Important?

Did you know 88% of B2B marketers report using content marketing?

Yet only 30% say their efforts are effective and only 32% have a documented content marketing strategy.

… Coincidence? I think not….

Content marketing can be confusing, challenging, and frustrating. Thereare constantly new ways to engage customers, improve visibility and increase findability.

It’s not a shock that in order to succeed in marketing, you need a content strategy.

But how do you get started? What’s needed?

Document Your Strategy

Create on a core outline and actionable steps

Build your case for using content marketing: What user pains/problems are you solving

(why are you needed)?

What channels will you be using?

What content do you want to produce?

What are the goals? Your measurement of success?

What are your top priorities?

Re-assess your strategy regularly and adjust as needed

The Content Marketing Institute found that those who document their content marketing strategies were more likely to consider themselves effective, felt less challenged, and were able to justify spending more of their budget on it

Identify Your Audience

Identify exactly who your audience is across your platforms (YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.)

Use your first hand knowledge and research to further develop exactly who your target market is and how to market to them

Highlight what your audience’s pain points are and how they interact with different types of content

Personalize/customize your content, copy, etc. based upon the audience

of consumers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content, and are more likely to buy from that companySource: Custom Content Council

61%

Fill the Funnel

Regardless of the buyer’s journey - you still need to ensure to fill their journey with relevant, engaging, and educational content. On average, users download 9+ assets during the purchase process.

Focus your content creation and re-purposing efforts on the user’s pain / problems and hot topics/news stories

Create content in multiple formats to increase your findability and shareability

Keep video in mind Facebook and Twitter introduced auto-playing videos in user

newsfeeds, and Google is now following suit by introducing video ads in its search results. The video trend isn't going away soon so take advantage of it.

The video don't have to be professionally produced--they just have to be engaging.

65-80% of the buyer journey is done before a prospect speaks to salesSource: IDG Enterprise

Test and Optimize

Track shares, downloads, and likes across platforms ANDdevice

How are users finding your content and what they’re actually doing with it? Are they sharing it? Liking it? Uploading it to Pinterest?

Analyze what content, topics, etc. are doing best on what channels. What are your most clicked-on headlines and buzzwords. What content types earns the most engagement?

Just because a blog post does well on LinkedIn doesn’t mean it will resonate with your Twitter audience

Optimize based upon your success metrics and goals

Increase your change of success by posting/distributing similar content

Don’t forget to optimize your

content for mobile –it’s a necessity!

Improve the User Experience

Ensure that users can easily engage with your content, regardless of device:

Can users quickly filled out and submitted with the push of a button?

How fast do your pages and content load?

Is your messaging and content above the fold?

Do users know what to do once they get to your site?

Are you gating/ungating the right content?

Do users have to unnecessarily click to get to your content (example: driven to a download button vs. being sent to the asset once submitting a registration form)?

Implement responsive, adaptive design to your site and content

Source: FATbit

Post and Distribute

Optimize for SEO “Along with engaging visuals that boost the

chances users will dwell on your pages longer, supplementing with optimized meta descriptions, alt tags, and targeted keywording is imperative to round out an effective SEO strategy” – Impress

Find relevant influencers on across platforms/channels and share your content with them

Embrace social media (paid and organic)

Social media as just one part of your holistic content marketing campaign. How will you integrate from one platform to the next? All channels must work together seamlessly and offer the same quality, optimization, and personalization to the user

Create cross-promotional opportunities by identifying what type of content works offline and how it intersects with your online efforts

Take advantage of new trends for content distribution (Example: Twitter’s Moments)

of buyers say they are more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media

71%

Content optimized for SEO lead to a 2,000% increase in site traffic and a 40% increase in revenueSource: Search Engine Journal

So Where Do You Fit In?

Source: Content Marketing Institute

For more information on partnerships and how you can get started, contact Amanda:

Resources: http://impress1.com/connect/blog/entry/top-3-digital-marketing-trends-for-2016-which-you-should-

be-starting-in-2015.html

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2016_B2B_Report_Final.pdf

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/24-eye-popping-seo-statistics/42665/

http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics

http://www.powercontent.com.au/mythbusting-social-media-marketing/

http://kapost.com/content-marketing-facts/

http://www.stateofinbound.com/

http://www.idgenterprise.com/report/customer-engagement-2014