Content Marketing:The anti-promotional, counter-intuitive approach that is

winning over modern consumers.

(Part 2 of a 2-Part Series)

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable,

relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience—and, ultimately, to drive

profitable customer action.”-Content Marketing Institute

First Off, What Is It?

Non-Interruption Marketing:Content marketing communicates with prospective

and existing customers without selling.

How Does That Work?

80% of business decision-makers prefer to receive company information in a series of articles rather than in an advertisement.

70% reflect that content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company.

60% feel that company content helps them make better product decisions.

-Roper Public Affairs

What’s Driving the Movement?• The proliferation of mobile platforms and Internet-connected

devices means that consumers are increasingly in charge in the production-consumption cycle.

• Audiences consume content on their own terms: when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it.

Engaging stories—not banner ads—are resonating with customers.

Consumers reject banner ads at rates

over 99%.The average click-through rate for

display ads is 0.11%.

-NewsCred

Marketers need to shift their mental dispositions away from selling products and towards publishing conversation-driving

content. They must think like magazine editors, creating compelling stories that touch each of their customers and address their

needs and pain points.

Buyers Connect With Content That…• Answers a question: what do they need to know?

• Relieves a doubt: why would they think your solution wouldn’t work?

• Simplifies complexity: makes the issue easy to understand.

• Provides a path: shows them how to get their desired end result.

• Corrects a misconception: discredits misinformation and explains why.

• Mitigates a risk: proves your solution’s credibility and builds

consumer loyalty and trust.

The 3 Traits of Compelling Brand Stories:

1. Shareable (aka SOCIAL)

Stories are inherently social and social media is about making connections. Create content that motivates

people to share.

2. Visual

Emotive images, especially in video format, get shared the most. This trend is supported by the rise of visual-

centric social networks: Vine, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook timeline.

3. Mobile

“Mobile storytelling” is now synonymous with brand storytelling. Nearly 2/3 of Americans own a

smartphone and this number continues to rise (Pew Research Center). Consumers are developing co-

dependent relationships with their mobile devices and such devices are the chief platform through which

commercial content is received.

As seen in Part 1 of this series:

VISUAL Content builds brand engagement:

90% of information transmitted to

the brain is visual, and visuals are

processed 60,000 times faster in

the brain than text.

E.G., Land Rover’s New Instagram Campaign:

Working with Y&R New York, the brand has launched a pair of Instagram accounts (@solitudeinsawtooth and @brotherhoodofwonderstone) that stitch together dozens

of Instagram photos into seamless panoramas that encapsulate a unique visual narrative of each location.

How to create shareable, visual content:

• Listen to your target market—what stories are they sharing? What meta-narratives are they following?

• Leverage SEO: Set up search streams with relevant keywords.• Engage with your audience; ask them to participate in your

campaigns.• Emotively convey classic story structures; evoke inspirational

feelings.• Strategically build momentum: schedule your social channels

to release content at the same time; target influencers and amplifiers that will share your content with a large and captive audience.

Beyond the Basics:

A Content Marketing Strategy Blueprint

1. Define your key goals and associated deliverables.2. Craft a mission statement.3. Document your strategy.4. Prioritize the topics you plan to cover.5. Strategically choose content formats.6. Craft a social media channel plan.7. Make use of SEO.8. Hire a managing editor to lead your content marketing team.9. Plan how to communicate your KPIs (key performance indicators).10. Analyze the performance of each content piece to find out what is working and what isn’t.

1. Define your key goals and associated deliverables:

First ask, “Why am I implementing a content marketing strategy?”

Continually check in with how content marketing is supporting your over-arching business goals. Set clear metrics for ensuring deliverable success.

2. Craft a mission statement:

1. AUDIENCE: research and craft detailed buyer personas of your target market.

2. PRODUCT: what information will your content provide?3. OUTCOME: what will your audience be able to do once

it has consumed your content?

Commit to specific objectives along 3 key marketing lines:

3. Document your strategy:What differentiates successful content marketers?1. They have a clearly documented strategy in written

and/or electronic form.2. They regularly review and refer to the documented

plan.60% of B2B marketers with a

written strategy rate their success highly, compared with just 32% of

those with a verbal strategy.

4A. Prioritize the topics you plan to cover:

Tailor your topics to best engage your target audience:1. Profile your database through a survey.2. Use Google Analytics to see which posts and pages

are resonating with your audience.3. Compile user comments. Talk to people.4. Categorize your content according to identified

topics. This will make it easier to measure which topics are working and to curate and repackage those that are.

4B. And Don’t Stop There…

High-quality content will get lost in the abyss if it lacks strategic micro-content.

Micro-content: a short abstract of full content. E.g., a 15-word quote from a blog post, an eye-catching graphic

from an infographic, or a 6-second Vine from a video interview. Delivers a condensed form of full content to audiences, peaking

their interest and lowering the entry barrier for longer-form productions.

Perfectly suited for sharing on social platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, where users are reluctant to post clunky white papers.

5. Strategically choose content formats:

Great content is undermined by inconsistent broadcasting schedules. Make sure to release content in a regular and timely manner, and

understand the user expectations of each format.

6. Craft a social media channel plan:

Social media is an essential driver of brand engagement. Use it judiciously, guided by the following lead questions:

What is the goal for this channel?What is the desired action?What is the specific type of content the audience

wants to get in this channel?What is the right tone for this channel?What is the ideal velocity?

7. Make use of SEO:Search is increasingly focused on semantics (the context of a search) rather than page and keyword rankings. Marketers should readjust how they measure success by focusing on 4 components:

1. Volume: how much content you’re presenting to prospective clients.

2. Velocity: the speed at which your content moves.3. Variety: the combination of blogs, eBooks, social posts, videos,

and other formats you’re creating.4. Veracity: how your content is perceived—why Google should

present it to searchers.

8. Hire a managing editor to lead your content marketing team:

This person should understand…

• Content ideation and prioritization• Content categorization• Finding and managing writers• Content flow and scheduling• SEO • Editing, curating, and repurposing• Measuring ROI and communicating content

effectiveness

8. Continued:

86% of the most effective B2B marketers have someone who

oversees content marketing strategy; only 46% of less

effective marketers do.-Content Marketing Institute

9. Plan how to communicate your KPIs:Select and define the high-level metrics most critical for evaluating your content marketing program’s performance, such as the number of email subscribers earned, completed registration forms, sales increases, etc. Communicate the progress in something as simple as a spreadsheet:

10. Analyze the performance of each content piece to find out what is working and what isn’t:

1. Audit the content by platform.2. Decide which information you want to collect (e.g., key

audience, format, topics, buying cycle location, etc.).3. Determine which KPIs relate to each piece of content.4. Calculate a baseline for each metric to determine what

is performing above or below average.5. Regularly update your tracking document.

Key Take-Aways:

• Content marketing is not a tactic—it is a long-term strategy.

• Successful content marketers document, track, and prove the value of their efforts.

• Visual, relevant, and social content drives brand engagement.