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12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website

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12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website.

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  • 1.12 Types of Content Marketing ToolsThat Go Beyond Your Website

2. About the AuthorMarcia Kadanoff is the CEO & Founder of OpenMarketing, an online marketing services Marcia Kadanoff, CEO of Open Marketingagency based in San Francisco. In her role, Marcia works with clients ranging fromprofessional service firms to clean technology companies in creating compelling contentand lead-generation campaigns.When shes not helping clients get found online, Marcia is a frequent contributor tomany tech publications such as Marketing Profs, Clickz, and Mashable. Also, Marcia isrecognized speaker on SEO, marketing automation, and return-on-investment marketing.Previously, Marcia worked as a marketing executive at Apple, as VP of Marketing at SunMicrosystems, and co-founded the largest independent direct marketing agency on theWest Coast Miller/Kadanoff/Huber Direct & Interactive. She has an MBA from Stanfordand a BA from Harvard. But please dont hold that against her.You can follow her @openmkShare This eBookwww.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 3. IntroductionOne of the questions we get asked most often starts like this,OK I think I get content marketing and why it works. You publish content aboutyour product or service and through search and social media that content getsfound by people who need what you are selling. But what kind of content worksbest?The short answer is that there are 12 essential types of content you can utilize as part of any contentmarketing plan. Throughout this eBook, our focus will be on content that can extend your brands reachbeyond your website or blog. Theres no single type of content that works best for all companies andprospects. The key is having a diverse portfolio of content you can pull from. Publish PublishChooseChoose DiversifyDiversifyExtend Extend Your Content Content Type Your Portfolio Brands ReachYourContent YourBrands Content Type PortfolioReachShare This eBook www.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 4. Here are the 12 types of content anda brief run down on each of them1 Videos & Motion Graphics7Podcasts2 Webinars & Webcasts 8Reviews3 Infographics9Presentations4 Q&A Content10Apps & Tools5 Case Studies & Success Stories11 Curated Content6 eBooks & White Papers12eNewsletters Share This eBook www.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 5. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website 5Videos & Motionemot1 ionaGraphicslenga gement deo contYes, video belongs in your content plan, but not for the reasonsyou think. We hesitate to create video with the intent to go viral.th vienInstead, we typically recommend to our clients that they usewi tingvideo early on to create awareness. After all, no other mediumengenders emotion the way video does.marketConsider this video actually properly speaking this is an exampleof motion graphics from a Palo Alto-based start up calledWealthFront. Here, the companys objective was to attract a world-class designer to their team:http://www.wealthfront.com/designerwantedThis video did not go viral but it did get seen by almost everyonein their target market (web/UI designers in the Bay Area). Theres apony in there folks.Share This eBookwww.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 6. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website 6 Webinars &To see a video of the webinar, click here. This webinar wasnt your2 usual talking heads. What we have here is Scott Abel (who blogs as The Content Wrangler) and Val Swisher (CEO of Content Rules) with Webcaststhe Grammar Girl herself Mignon Fogarty.Tired of webinars? Well so are we. We thought this was an old warhorse worth retiring until recently when we fielded a webinarthat saw 1500 people (!) sign up to learn more about grammar.Thats rightGrammar.Tips For Appealing Webinars1 Avoid talking heads. Make the webinar appeal to your prospect by focusing not on2your objectives but on the types of problems your prospects are facing that your product or service can solve.Dont go at it alone. Consider reaching out to your favorite3 blogger or pundit and ask them to act as the MC, with yourbrand acting as the sponsor.And remember, no one ever bought anything because you4 boredthem to death. Webinars should be informative,educational, and perhaps even entertaining. Share This eBook www.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 7. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website 7 Infographics3I have a confession to make: I have a love/hatething going on with infographics right now. On the one hand, I love em. Done well infographics will drivea ton of traffic to your website. How this happens is through thevelocity of shared links I share a link to an infographic with youover Twitter, you find the infographic useful and retweet it, andthis behavior repeats itself hundreds, thousands, or millions oftimes.Now Heres Where the Hard Part Comes InInfographics are well graphics. So if you make yours compelling, itwill get picked up and showcased on sites like Cool Infographics orGOOD. This sounds like a good thing until you realize that everyoneis sharing links that reference back to coolinfographics.com andSourcenot your site. So whose traffic are you driving here? (This questionhttp://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1206/the-generation-falls into the Jeopardy category: Traffic Building Initiatives That that-doesn-t-shut-down/flash.htmlDont Drive Traffic) To make sure you are driving traffic to the rightplaces, such as your website, always post your infographic with anembed code. Dont know how to create an embed code? Heres ablog post that we prepared that can help.Share This eBookwww.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 8. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website8Q&A Content4 Q&A content is found on sites like Quora or in theAnswers section of LinkedIn. The content here isntDoes this contentmake me look fat? all that sexy (it tends to be all text) and it may not befindable in a search engine like Google. Still, we like Q&A contenta lot, mostly because we know that people who post questionshere tend to be further along in the buying process.Answer the Question!When answering the questions on these sites, make sure youanswer the question (Duh!). People get mighty irritated whenyou try to sell them on your stuff prematurelyso dont. Behelpful, pay it forward, and make it apparent where your product orsolution addresses their needs. Got a great example of a dialoguethat worked for you and one that backfired? Wed love to see it.Its easyto see the dialogues on Quora and LinkedIn, but its notso easy to close the loop and understand how the conversationresulted into a lead or sale.Share This eBookwww.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 9. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website 9 Case Studies &5Success StoriesCustomers cant generalize worth a damn. Which means you aregoing to need multiple case studies, sometimes called successstories, for every demographic or business segment you havepenetrated. Ideally, youll serve up these case studies in a way thatallows your potential customer to see or experience their problembeing solved through your product or service. A Case Study Without SEO: A Lost OpportunityConsider this case study on best design From Sun Power (not ourclient). This case study is one of a series by Sun Power presumablydesigned to speak to a specific benefit. But when we did a searchon best design solar panel or best designed solar panel Sun SERVICE OR SUCCESS Power did not show up on page 1 of the search results. StudiesPRODUCTSTORYfrom Optify and others show that 60-70% of buyers arent going toget any farther than page one.This is an opportunity lost. Case studies work throughout thebuying process but especially during the early stages when theShows solution to customers problems buyer is still trying to define their problem and the products andsolutions that can solve them. Make search engine optimization apriority when it comes to case studies.Where Do They Belong?Case studies can be content you place in the media, on your ownwebsite, or behind a web form in which case to pun terribly youare using the case study as lead bait. Share This eBookwww.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 10. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website 10eBooks & WhiteThe market research firm Sirius decisions has found that 6depending on your categorysome prospects will visit your websiteup to 60 times before making a purchase. For this reason, we usePapersvisitor tracking/analytics software to collect data from the prospecteach time they visit. We interpret the data in such a way to tellus where the prospect is in the buying process. Some leads areeBooks are what back in the day we called White Papers. But innurtured until they are ready to buy; others are handed off to salestodays post-literate age, buyers arent going to sit still long enough so they can get involved to answer the prospects questions andto read long-form content. eBooks recognize this by re-inventingclose the sale.the boring, old White Paper into a fun read. Remember, no oneever bought anything because they were bored to death.Heres the latest eBook we produced for our client, Content Rules.EBooks can make sense both early and late in the buying cycle SIMPL RUL #6 EEFlabby Content Will Cost You Dearly The buyer is looking to get educated about the category Early and how your product or service can solve their I have said this so many times before: When it Thats real money. If you can trimeven 10% of your words, you will start comes to localization, keep your content short and problem.sweet. Mainly short. The sweet part is up to you.to see signicant savings: 500,000 10% = 450,000 wordsA savings 450,000 words 15/word 8 languages = $540,000of $60,000.Why? Because abby content is expensiveto translate. Lets review the way you pay forThe buyer is comparing your product or service to Laterothers on his or her short list.translation. Translation companies charged by theword/by the language. For example, you need totranslate 1,000 words into 8 languages. The averageTo make your content skinny, remove all needless words. A needless word is anyword that does not affect the meaning of the sentence. Here are a few examplesof flabby sentences:cost per word is $.15. The math looks like this: Our soware is absolutely the simplest to install. This soware is very easy to install. It can be seen that the installation is simple.Either way, it makes sense to make eBooks available only AFTER 1,000 words 15 per word 8 languages First, create a new form.your prospect has filled out some kind of form.Another place to trim your copy is to substitute single, simple $1,200 words for phrases.That doesnt look too bad, does it?But, lets say you have 500,000 words. For exampleInstead tryHeres the math: Our software works on a varietyOur software works on various of platforms.platforms. 500,000 15 per 8 words wordlanguagesIf you eliminate needless wordsfrom over 40 companies. I have foundand simplify your writing, yourthat it is easy to eliminate 10% of the $600,000 readers will have a much easier time words. Often, we can eliminate 20% ofunderstanding your content. Increasedthe words. The savings really start tocomprehension as a side benet add up.writing skinny copy. So, put your content on a diet. YourI have analyzed over 5 million words wallet will thank you. www.contentrules.com 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.Download this ebook on Slideshare. Share This eBookwww.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 11. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website 11 Podcasts7Your Podcast Podcasts are video or audio programs you canstream ondemand or make available for download. iTunes SpreadPodcasts are relatively easy to create and are easy for Store Contentpeople to watch or listen on iTunes.Currently, there isnt much competition for shelf space if youwant to call it that for a podcast than there is for an iPhone Clean and Non-Commercial Contentapplication. However, a podcast does have to get submitted and If distribution through iTunes is your goal, you need to keepapproved in much the same manner as an iPhone application. yourcontent clean, have enough technical chops (youll need toprepare an RSS feed), and make sure the content you produce isHeres a great example from Etsy (not our client) called Handmade not blatantly commercial.Portraits: Alabama Chanin: Target Buyers with In-Depth Content Produce your podcast targeted buyers later in the buying process who are eager to go in-depth on your product or service. Podcasts are particularly good at delivering what we call the back story behind your product or service.Watch this with your eyes closed and youll see that this podcastworks equally well in audio-only mode. Share This eBook www.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 12. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website12ReviewsHeres an example from Zendesk (not our client).8Reviews are the type of content that attract buyersin the later stage of the buying process, when theIn switching to Zendesk, weve seen a dramatic spikein customer satisfaction right o the bat.Ryan Riddle, Customer Support Manager, Boxbuyer is comparing products or services on theirshort list. The best reviews are objective and come from peoplewho are seen as either:1 2 3 Similar toSomeone who has Someone the the buyer expertise that thebuyer trusts buyer valuesThink Walter Mitte (everyones favorite everyman), WalterKohn(the Nobel-Prize-winning chemist) or Walter Mossberg(Principal Tech Columnist of All ThingsDigital in the Wall StreetJournal). If you cant get reviews from one ormore of the Waltersthen go for another W with the wisdom ofcrowds approach.Basically, this means getting a lot of reviews and making most ofthempositive. This works if the review is short but as weve all seen before,Effective Review Placement somereviews are quite hefty. If you have a longer review such asReviews can be used on your own site. Often we place excerptsananalyst report, handle it the same way youd handle an eBook:from the best reviews on landing pages because testing shows thatput the review behind a form and make the downloadsomethingthis placement lifts response by as much as a full percentage point. you can leverage to generate leads. Share This eBook www.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 13. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website 13 PresentationsSlideshare and Optimization 9 Business-to-business buyers and consumers who are making a considered purchase will trollWe recommend that companies set up a channel on Slideshareto house presentations previously given at trade shows and otherindustry events. By doing this, Slideshare will not only optimizeyour content for organic search but will drive additional traffic tothe web looking for information to aid them in theyour website due in part from the slide hosting services 60 millionbuying process. Presentations can help buyers get educated aboutmonthly unique visitors. In the end, you get findability withoutthe category in early stages of the buying process and understand having a pay a dime for it. One of our friends calls this marketingyour product and services and what it can offer at later stages.using other peoples money.Bigger AudienceOptimize Content Drive Trafc Increase Findability Marketing Using Other Peoples MoneyShare This eBookwww.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 14. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website14 Apps & Tools The Tools Purpose10The Wealthfront tool is for people working at startup companieswho have just gone public and need to diversify out of theircompanys stock. The idea is to bring people to the tool so asApps & Tools are often used early in the buyingto acquaint them with the need to diversify out of their own process when the buyer is not yet aware theycompanys stock. Notice how the Wealthfront is pretty low-keyhave a problem. A great example of this can be foundwhen presenting its service as the solution to the buyers problem.at Wealthfront, a company we talked about earlier when weThis is intentional. If you are too commercial at this stage of yourdiscussed videos. relationship with the prospect you risk turning them off. Post-IPO Stock Simulator EMBED Google IPO Date: 19 Aug 2004 IPO Price: $85 By Wealthfront Going Above and Beyond$700K Stock value if never sold Reach out to bloggers and getthem to write about your tool or Strategy A $600K Sell 10% each quarter for 10 application. quarters $500KAllow Bloggers To Embed Strategy B Sell 10% of the remaining shares Even better, do the extra work to $400K each quarter 10% solid for $55Kmake your application a widget,Value$300K Strategy C so it can get embedded on the Sell 50% up front and 10% each of Stock Stock bloggers website. quarter thereafter at IPO: $200K Strategy D $100KSale ProceedsSell all immediately post-lockup $100K Proceeds earn: $0K6% per year S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S12/18/06 A M J J A OF M 2004 2005 2006 2007 Selling Permitted Note: This simulation cannot predict or guarantee the performance or outcome of any pending or future IPO.Selling Prohibited Share This eBookwww.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 15. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website 15 Curated ContentShare-Worthy Organized Content11Take a bunch of blue objects, carefully collect them,and organizethem into a pinboard on Pinterest called azure and what haveWe were thinking Pinterest when we created this youdone? Created an entirely new form of content worthy of category although there are many other forms ofsharing. curated content we could talk about. For those of younot familiar with Pinterest, this is a newish site where you canWhile curated content could fit almost anywhere in the buyingcreate a pinboard of visuals and make them available to othersprocess, we think that Pinterest specifically works well early on toin the Pinterest community. The site has experienced skyrocketcreate awareness. This is especially true for products or servicesgrowth and has come out of nowhere to become one of the 3 or 4with a visual component and/or with a strong appeal to Pinterestslargest web properties in the US. primarily female demographic. A longer discussion of Pinterest isavailable on the Open Parachute, OpenMarketings blog. What happens when you pin content and organize it into a pinboard on Pinterest? Pin It to a Board Share it withthe community Find similar contentOrganize contentCommunityLikes & RepinsCreate AwarenessShare This eBookwww.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 16. 12 Types of Content Marketing Tools That Go Beyond Your Website 16 eNewsletters12Does anyone read email newsletters anymore? Is this still a valid form of content? Yes and yes. eNewsle er Every single one of our clients uses email and everysingle one of them generates more leads the day we drop an email Clickthrough Linknewsletter and for a handful of days afterwards.Readership DevelopmentOnce a month seems to be the minimum frequency required toDirect trafc tostay top-of-mind with most customers and prospects. One of our your websiteclients the naming firm Eat My Words gets terrific results froman emailing that goes out 3-5x per year tops. However, this is morethe exception to the rule.User Friendly DesignMake your eNewsletter design easy to skim with links that direct Mailing Frequency Buying Cyclepeople back to long-form content on your website. There can belinks that take people offsite, but the majority should direct traffic toyour website.Make Sure They MatchTurn Customers Into AdvocatesE-mail works to keep you top of mind with prospects and existingcustomers, throughout the buying cycle as well as afterwards, whenyou want to turn customers into advocates and evangelists for yourMailing Frequencybrand.Consider the category. A lot of companies need naming but notvery many companies need naming services 1X per month. So aKeep Track of the Resultsfrequency of 3-5X per year may work well precisely because it betterTo measure results, you are going to need some kind of visitormatches the buying cycle.tracking and analytics software that goes beyond Google Analyticsto support inbound marketing and/or marketing automation. Share This eBook www.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 17. LearnMore Get More Leads. Accelerate Sales. Go beyond your website with content marketing + inbound marketing. WebsiteFacebookE-mail openmarketing.comfacebook.com/openmk [email protected] Share This eBookwww.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 18. Resources1Designer Wanted2The Content Wrangler Content Rules Grammar Girl3Cool Infographics GOOD How To Create Embed Code For Your Infographic4SunPower is Good for the Planet and the Blackwood Familys Pocketbook68 Simple Rules to Globalize Your Content Now7Handmade Portraits: Alabama Chanin10 Strategies for Selling Your Stock Post-IPO11 Where does Pinterest fit in your content marketing strategy? Share This eBook www.openmarketing.com | 415.578.7060 2012. Open Marketing Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved.