Content Marketing Programmes

Keith Feighery

Outline• Overview of Content Marketing Programmes• Class exercise• Managing Content Marketing Initiatives• Content Marketing for Business to Consumer• Relevant Case Studies • Content Marketing for Business to Business• Relevant Case Studies• Project Pitch

What is the purpose of your content?

Owned Vs Paid Vs Earned Media

What should Your Content do• Content = valuable and useful information NOT just canned

marketing messages• Focus on what a customer needs rather than what you sell

– Address user needs in all published content• Valuable communications is what differentiates you from

competition• Marketers are publishers today – i.e. think like media co’s• Customer relationships don’t end with a payment

– Use content to increase retention rates• Without good content, community is impossible• 90% of corporate websites talk about “How great they are”• Buyers are more in control today than ever – not sales

organisations

Leveraging Owned Media Assets

• Recognise the value in your owned media assets – Websites, mobile applications, digital conversations/interactions etc.

• Brands/Businesses are becoming publishers and media outlets– No limits to what an organisation can publish online for the

consumption of their consituencies• Become trusted knowledge experts in your business or sphere of

operations• Establish trust and develop relationships with customers and

prospects– Be engaging, entertaining, educative, informative etc..– Allow user participation and transparent engagement

Advantages

• Creates demand generation and awareness through value add publishing

• Creates a less-frictional way of converting prospects into sales– When used in conjunction with lead management systems

• Helps build long-term relationships rather than one-off sales • Creates stickiness to your owned media assets (rather than to

paid ones)• Once started, provides an ongoing process and framework to

control and publish valuable information

Content Mktg: Success Vs Failure

• Characteristics of Success– Understanding the informational needs of your customers– Knowing how those informational needs mix with your marketing

goals and objectives – Mapping content schedule to user profiles and buyer cycles– Being consistent (content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint)– Listen and continually evolve the program

• Characteristics of Failure– Always selling, rather than informing and educating – Not listening, thus not evolving the content program– Waiting for perfection to come before you deliver the content.

Content Types

Content types

• The content and digital media on your Web site, blog other content managed systems, partner sites etc..

• Facebook/MySpace/Bebo fan pages and posts• Tweets, status updates• E-mail newsletters• Blog posts, reader comments and reactions• Whitepapers, case studies, webinars, podcasts• Videos, demos, presentations, and custom animations• Product/service reviews• Forums• Articles and other intellectual property or knowledge sharing –

professional contributions etc.

Who creates the content• Internally

– Find employees who are knowledgeable and want to write– Re-purpose content that has been created over time for different

media• Partners, customers and third party experts

– Publish whitepapers, webinars, eBooks, articles etc…with partners• Customers

– If you create a community you can allow them to create feedback, suggest ideas, generate comments, develop engaged community etc..

– You can allow customers to make product recommendations – crowdsourcing

Purposeful Content

• Attention - your content needs to get noticed - and not just by anyone - by the audience you've targeted. Awareness - once people have engaged with your content, they should have some thoughts about your company - preferably favorable ones worth remembering.

• Mindshare - we need people to spend enough time with our content to actually "get" the ideas it's sharing.

• Anchor - once people have ingested the ideas, your content needs to work to make sure that those ideas take precedence in forming how your audience thinks about the topic.

• Action - your content is sent out on a mission to get people to DO something.• Conversation - beyond the action your content requests, it needs to ensure that the audience has a

clear enough understanding that they can now talk with others and share your ideas with them in their own words.?

• Confidence - the learning your content provides needs to help people feel certain that they know what they need to take the next step...and just what that might be.

• Competence - your content must provide evidence that your company can actually do what it says it can.

• Invitation - content must entice people to spend more time with your company - whether through opting in for a newsletter, attending a webinar, subscribing to an RSS feedAuthority - content must inspire reliance on your company for consistently valuable insights

Sales Funnels

Traditional Funnel