How to Plan and Build a Successful Content Marketing Strategy Michael Brenner NewsCred – Head of Strategy @BrennerMichael #thinkcontent 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 Utilizing Content Across the Buyer Journey Working with NewsCred: Crafting a Successful Content Strategy Every single day… There’s been a fundamental shift in the way we create, consume, and share content 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 #thinkcontent “ 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 I have no patience for useless things “ The buyer journey is nothing more than a series of questions that must be answered ” - IDC - #thinkcontent 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 Awareness Begin decision process Consideration Align IT with business objectives Identify business problem Explore technology options Preference Determine solution strategy Establish requirements/ build RFP Assess ROI Research products/ vendors Research solutions Build short list Make decision Content Marketing Defined “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 #thinkcontent Behind every tweet, share, and purchase is a person, like you and me #thinkcontent Distribution Recommendations •  •  •  •  •  •  Make sure your social accounts demonstrate interaction 4-1-1 Rule: of your posts, influencer post, 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 #thinkcontent Blog Benchmarks Bounce Rate Pages Per Visit 85% 1.3 Average Time Spent On Site Uniques Per Month 46 Seconds 346,400 #thinkcontent Define Key Measures and Targets #thinkcontent Organic and Social: Up and To The Right 35,000 Traffic from Organic, Social & Referrals 30,000 Unique Visitors 25,000 20,000 15,000 10,000 5,000 #thinkcontent Content Marketing Success Building a Successful Content Strategy Utilizing Content Across the Buyer Journey Working with NewsCred: Crafting a Successful Content Strategy 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: #thinkcontent 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 #thinkcontent Sample content strategy exercises we’ll help you with #thinkcontent 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 you like about your content marketing strategy and what 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 you want to feature? What products or services (if any) 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 you use for organic distribution? What channels you use for paid distribution? What demand generation programs you use? Persona Stage Questions/Concerns Keywords Xyz Early Xyz Xyz Middle Xyz Xyz Late Xyz Xyz Persona Stage Questions/Concerns Keywords Xyz Early Xyz Xyz Middle Xyz Xyz Late Xyz Xyz #thinkcontent SUCCESS METRICS MEDIA METRICS KPIS: BUSINESS OBJECTIVES ROI: MEDIA PERFORMANCE What we measure? Is our content producing the desired result? 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? 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? Are we creating awareness? Is our message memorable? Are we changing perceptions? •  What is the cost/ value per point of lift? •  What is the cost per qualified lead? What is the multi-touch attribution cost? What is the cost per sale? AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT •  •  •  Subscriber / audience size Share of voice Audience penetration across org •  •  •  BRAND AWARENESS •  •  Brand lift Perception / attitudinal change •  •  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? •  •  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 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 michael.brenner@newscred.com sales@newscred.com #thinkcontent | @newscred ... Current State Budget •  Platform Firm Integration •  Agency NewsCred Distribution •  Topics Types •  Conversions Subscriptions •  Who / when? •  Platform Distribution •  •  •  •  •  •  •  #thinkcontent... Any content creatorblogger, photographer, designer — who contributes to your project performers, conversion optimization and measurement purposes the best content from your business and from around