6 Steps to Great ContentHow to Raise the Interest of Your Audience

Michael BrennerSenior Director Integrated Marketing and Content StrategySAP

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Inspirations

My Post 6 Steps To Great Content

Joe Pulizzi’s Good To Great Content Marketing

Hubspot’s Crush Your Competition With Inbound Marketing

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We all create content . . .

. . . and most of it is simply AWFUL.

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The buyer journey starts with a search . . .

• What is real-time analytics?

• What is cloud computing?

• What is Big Data?

• What are mobile solutions?

• How are companies benefiting from Cloud, mobile, in-memory, analytics?

• Who are the top vendors in cloud, mobile, in-memory, analytics?

DO WE HAVE AN ANSWER?

Search volume of early stage keywords is 13X that of branded terms.*

* Average for Enterprise Software categories. Results may vary for different categories. Some #ENSW sub-categories see much higher multiples.

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Content used to be easy . . . Today, YOU are the news!

50 years ago, Gallup released research that said delivering news is the most effective way to attract people to your business…

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Why is most content so boring and AWFUL?

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Because most content does this…

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Good content is emotive, helpful, entertaining…

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The Challenge: Become Like a Publisher

Have the content our audience needs . . .

. . . distributed in the channels they use.

Created, Curated and Syndicated content to create conversations• For each buyer journey stage

• For all “personas” that influence the buying process at each stage

• For all their media channels

Is the content you produce, deliver or use focus on the audience?

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My View on Joe’s 6 Characteristics…

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6 Steps To Content That Isn’t Boring

1. Have a focused mission,

platform or content destination

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Business Innovation from SAP (launched 27 March)

To become a destination of business innovation insights ... through education and information on how companies can Run Better though innovation.

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Business Innovation from SAP What makes it different?

1. No selling / promotional content

2. Mix of Traditional and Dynamic content

3rd Party Analyst whitepapers

Blog “conversations”

News feeds from trusted sources

3. Social sharing prominent

4. Subtle branding and “call to action” to explore SAP

5. Landing Page for SAP’s new Advertising campaign

EN: blogs.sap.com/innovationDE: blogs.sap.com/germany (launching in 2 weeks)

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6 Steps To Content That Isn’t Boring

2. Opening up new content

or media markets

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AMEX Open Forum

•“Help Small Businesses Do More Business”

• All original content• articles, blogs, research, surveys, contests

• Community / connections• Find an expert

• White labeled services• SEO, Creative, (new) BusinessApps

• Heavily branded / CTA “Apply For A Card”

• Personalization

• 1.5M visitors per months

• “Largest source of new card members”

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6 Steps To Content That Isn’t Boring

3. Chief Storyteller

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Get Shared(Social)

Get Leads(Conversion)

Get Found(SEO*)

STORYTELLING

The role of storytelling (my take)

*search engine optimization

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Bad time for print media. Good time for journalists!

• Content strategy is much more than marketing.

• It reaches across all areas of the business.

• It requires support from customers, partners, employee-experts

• Seeks content that gets shared, created and enhanced by readers

• example: Julie Roehm, SAP, SVP, Customer Storyteller

• example: Bob Evans, SAP (former Chief Editor, InformationWeek)

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6 Steps To Content That Isn’t Boring

4. Leveraging employees in

content creation

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SAP Forbes AdVoice

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The Rise of The Employee Evangelist

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6 Steps To Content That Isn’t Boring

5. Removing the brand

from the story

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Example: Adobe’s CMO.com

•News, research, blogs, articles and commentary

•Targeting CMOs

•Very subtle branding

•Limited personalization

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6 Steps To Content That Isn’t Boring

6. Build Community

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Example:The SAP Community Network: 2.5 Million Members

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1,200,000unique individual visitors each month

30,000new members per month

9,200active bloggers

3,000+discussion posts per day

375+discussion topics 272,000

total contributors

230+Countries & territories

345blogs per month

9,300,000total messages

Community: The only way to achieve scale

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So . . . What Can You Do?

1. Get Social

2. Start Blogging

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The Personal Brand Continuum –

We all have a story to tell!

B2B Marketing Insider is dedicated to sharing marketing tips that drive real results like sales, leads, and higher customer loyalty, focusing on topics such as lead generation, search marketing, online media, and social strategies.

Timo Elliott is a 20-year veteran of SAP His popular Business Analytics blog tracks innovation in analytics and social media, including topics such as augmented corporate reality, collaborative decision-making, and social network analysis.

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Tips for personal branding success

• Define audience and set objectives • Why are you talking?

• Who are you talking to?

• What’s in it for them / you?

• Build it in to every day• Scan, filter, read, connect, write, respond

• Social media success = minutes per day

• Have a goal: 2 blogs per week Tues / Thursday

• Build relationships of mutual benefit• Retweet me, I might ReTweet you!

• The new content rules• If it isn’t a keyword, no one cares

• Titles matter

• Bullets help

• Tell stories: Hero, a quest, a journey, an obstacle and a resolution

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Thank You for Your Attention!Email: michael.brenner@sap.com

My Blog: B2B Marketing Insider

SAP: Business Innovation

Social News: Business 2 Community

Twitter: @brennermichael