the cmo's content marketing report card: 5 steps to operationalize a content marketing program...

1©2014 Skyword

How CMOs can spark profit-generating

conversations with technology decision

makersby operationalizing content marketing

Caitlin Roberson — VP, West

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I wanted this…

… But I clicked here, because I hadn’t heard about this.

And I DEFINITELY didn’t care about this.

Forbes

Once upon a time…

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What is content marketing?

Marketing is identifying or creating a market for your product or service. Content marketing is building this community using content.

– Brian Honigman

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Are you ready to move forward?Are you ready to

move forward? The game’s changed.

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We used to control how information is delivered.

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Now buyers do.

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It’s become harder to stand out.

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Enter, content marketing.

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93 76 94

These numbers tell a story:

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93 76Percent of B2B

marketers who use content

marketing.

Percent of CMOs who will increase

2015 content marketing

spend.

Percent of purchase

path governed

by content.

Sources: Content Marketing Institute, CMO Council, Digiday

94

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ROI reported

by IBM for 2014.

390%Return

reported by an SMB for

2014.

2X

Sources: Skyword

And these may explain why brands are scrambling for a piece of the content marketing pie.

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Content is important.

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Especially for SaaS companies, where the recurring revenue model has primed customer

expectations.

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“There’s no excuse for not understanding your metrics, for not providing great customer service, for not understanding the role of customer success, for not doing intelligent lifecycle marketing,

for not doing great content marketing…What was hard and innovative 5 years ago is #TableStakes now.”

— Christoph Janz, Point Nine Capital (on Twitter)

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“Content marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools startups can employ. Blogs are powerful drivers of awareness and creators of purchasing intent which ultimately lead to new customers, new employees or other new opportunities.

“This is doubly true as buyers are educating themselves before contacting sales teams to a far greater extent than ever.”

— Tomasz Tunguz, Redpoint Ventures

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And yet …

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Executives are panicking, esp about budgets + tech.

Half of CMOs report worrying about managing the intersection of marketing + tech in 2015…

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They need to figure it out: Their budgets will out-size CIO budgets in 2017.

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• Less than half (35%) of content marketers document their strategy, which shows many don’t understand this process is a simple, repeatable science — yet.

A few things are going on:

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• Marketing teams struggle to find and retain qualified talent.


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• Marketing teams struggle to find and retain qualified talent.

• Most marketers haven’t closed the data loop to prove content’s business value.


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Source: Gartner, IBM CMO Study 2015

It’s a lot.

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But, there is hope…

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But, there is hope…5 Steps: Deliver ROI with Your Content

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Your Content Marketing Report Card

5 categories30 points possible for each150 points total

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1) Magnetize your message.

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Like any engaging conversation, a successful content

marketing program factors in:

And filters topicsaligned with your Brand

People you’re trying to influence

Topicsthey love

21 3

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Today’s tech executive must

power innovation + mobility w an

infrastructure that’s scalable + secure.

Source: “The Human CIO”, IBM

Start by understanding your decision maker.

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Then, activate empathy networks,

with a storytelling approach.

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Brands have always sold by telling stories.

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How did you learn not to “cry wolf”?

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• Why change?• Why change

now?• Why change

now with [your brand]?

Storytelling creates a buying vision when it answers these questions:

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• Lead with third-party stats• End with proof points

The Exoskeleton of a Buying Vision

Tools:• Social listening• Competitive landscape

analysis• Trends research

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1 + 1 = 5The enterprise incubator

Collaboration happens when people create something better together than alone. To unleash that potential,

people must connect. This is especially true for enterprise Sales, Marketing and

IT teams. To few are cashing in on pooling their talents.

Still, as change accelerates, and knowledge gets more specialized, businesses will only win by co-innovating.

Let’s create a publication that spotlights how real-life enterprise

professionals are doing big things, TOGETHER.

36©2014 Skyword 36© 2014 Skyword Inc, Confidential. All rights reserved.

It’s not just about athletics. It’s about life skills.

Performance for the future

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1) How well do you know who you’re talking to, and what s/he care about?

2) How consistent does your team conduct social listening and trends research?

3) Do you lead with ideas and innovation, to make information sticky?

Do you own the conversation?

Rate yourself: 1-10 points per question


2) Risk-proof your strategy.

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8 seconds.

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10 : 10

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REACH

ENGAGE

CONVERT

3X

2X

X

Content Ratio

This is why content needs to span the entire funnel.

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Content : Dating Progressive levels of commitment + branded details

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Produce and leverage multiple content types in the customer journey including: Articles, eBooks, whitepapers, infographics, and videos.

Impactful stories are told in multiple content types +

formats…

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A E C Nwareness

• Re-active storytelling

• Audience-driven

• Trending topics

ducation

• eBooks• Infographics• Customer

stories• Long-form

asset support

onversion

• Video• Innovator

spotlights• Events• Webinars

urture

• Email campaigns

• Innovator spotlights

• Customer stories

Aligning directly to audience(s) + individual decision-

making processes.

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A E C Nducation



asset support

onversion



urture

• Email campaigns



Most B2B tech brands are currently doing THIS alright:

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A E C Nwareness

• Re-active storytelling

• Audience-driven

• Trending topics

ducation



asset support

onversion



urture

• Email campaigns



But they MISS driving audience demand with top-of-

funnel content:

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Regular listening and conversation analysis

of social networks

Collaborative monthly topics planning among

key stakeholders

Analysis of search trends, volumes, and consumer demand

Skyword conducts regular analysis of search and social consumer trends to identify content opportunities. In addition, monthly topic planning

aligns all content efforts to broader marketing efforts and content production.

Recap: You do this by analyzing social conversations +

search trends…

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May June July August September October November December January February March April May June July August September0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

80,000

Irregular publishing/low

volumes

Consistent monthly publishing/increased

volumes

Actual Skyword client data, monthly page views, in the consumer technology industry.

With the flexibility to publish regularly, scaling up or

down as needed.

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1) Searchable 2) Snackable3) Shareable

At all times, content must be three things:

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Consistency is key

Break-through requires 3 to 7 repetitions.

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Source: Sysomos research, IBM CMO study

Above all, Sales & Marketing values two things:

1. Thought leadership that’s validated by third-party research

2. Fact-based assessments of products + services

Know your personas’ content consumption habits.

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“When it comes to content, I’m one of four (of five) CIOs

who prefers information that’s:

• News-driven • Relevant to my

industry• No more than 150

words”Source: Sysomos research, IBM CMO study

Like these, of today’s C-level IT executive:

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Cloud

Storage and Sharing

Secrets

Mobility Innovation Collaboration

Ensuring Secure, Scalable

Infrastructure

BYOD Trends

Astonishing Productivity

Hacks

The Best Travel Tips

Pursuing Work-Life Balance

Inspiring Entrepreneurs

in Teams

Equipping the Virtual Workforce

Powering Face-to-

Face Connections

Communication Secrets

Management &

Leadership Spotlights

Sparking Productivity

Select recurring content themes + sample topics.

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Monday

ListicleIn-Depth ‘How-To’ Feature

Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Set a starting publishing cadence, to test.

Innovator Spotlight

News with Analysis

Tips & Tricks

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Know the difference: Non-branded, branded and lightly-branded publishing destinations

Create a conversion strategy.

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Case Study IBM SecurityFor IBM Security, it’s not about selling services—it’s about sharing news and analysis for information security professionals.

• Create central information hub to connect both IT and security professionals

• Become the voice of information security through thought leadership content

• Empower IBM internal subject matter experts and external influencers to blog on behalf of IBM

• Show business value of content marketing within a division of a large enterprise organization

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Case Study IBM Security• Launched SecurityIntelligence.com and

increased traffic 494% in the first year

• On-boarded 150 internal and external contributors to drive content production for the website

• 1 in 10 site visits turn into business engagements

• 3.5% of site visits turn into marketing responses

• 15,000 marketing responses with average cost of $25

• $19 million in sales opportunities for IBM

• $1.2 million in savings, compared to content curation and other media spend

• 390% ROI in 2014

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Understand the difference: Non-branded, branded, lightly

branded

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Content should be one click away

If it looks like a landing page, buyers will bounce

An important note:

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1) Does your strategy reflect formalized personas and buyer content consumption preferences?

2) How effectively does your conversion strategy fill pipeline? (Is your funnel ratio working?)

3) Do you publish on an owned destination?

How strategic is your brand?



3) Build a balanced content team.

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What brain capital exists in-house?

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What about your company’s partners?Consider:

Partners Resellers Customers Referral

sources Former

employees Venture

backers Board

members

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Known influencers will up-level your results, as well.

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A diverse contributor team incentivizes sharing.

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(Most C-levels depend on middle management for fresh ideas + execution)

So, consider two-tiers: executive, mid-level contributors.

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But how do you find contributors?

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Case Study IBM Midsize InsiderFor IBM, it’s more than IT solutions — it’s about helping midsize IT professionals think differently in the work they do every day.After developing a reputation for being a costly

solution for midsize businesses, IBM had to extend its offerings beyond its core solutions to break this mold.

IBM recruited a highly relevant team of authors from the midsize-business and IT worlds.

These contributors regularly publish news-oriented and advice-giving stories that inform IBM’s target audience about the trends taking place in the industry.


IBM Midsize Insider ResultsIBM’s Midsize Insider program achieved the following resultsto date:

• IBM Wins 2013 Digiday Award for Best Content Marketing Program

• Acceptance into Google News

• 4,500+ professionally crafted, search-optimized articles

• 30+ writer relationships

• 365MM+ social impressions generated

• 890,000+ page views

• 85,000+ social engagements

• 2.4% CTR from MidsizeInsider.com to IBM.com Solutions Pages

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1) How well do you evangelize in-house subject matter expertise?

2) How strategically do you ‘share the microphone’?3) Is your contributor group sufficiently diverse?

Are you leveraging influencer networks + knowledge?



4) Streamline a scalable workflow.

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Re-cruit

Subject mat-ter experts

Journalists, Videogra-

phers

Refine

Train on standards, voice

Mea-sure

Develop cal-endar

Assign

Mea-sure

Optimize &Publish

Ensure global scale.

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Case Study Priceless CitiesFor MasterCard, It’s not about issuing credit cards—It’s about connecting with a global audience around their passions and love for their cities

• Built a website geared toward a global audience that profiles the amazing cultural events taking place in the world’s most-beautiful cities

• Connected with local writers and videographers to produce authentic written and video content about each city

• United global cities around citizens’ love and pride for their communities.


Priceless Cities ResultsExpanded from pilot study in one city to global campaigns, that are slated to include five continents:

• USA: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami

• Canada: Toronto

• Europe: London, Munich, Moscow

• Asia: Dubai

• South America: The Caribbean, Brazil

* Each program features local teams of contributors and editors, creating content for local markets

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1) What’s your process for finding and training qualified talent?

2) How well have you formalized brand voice, guidelines?

3) Are you managing a defined workflow process all in one place?

Can your model can scale with company growth?



5) Close the feedback loop.

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Retaining motivated contributors is as important as

reporting. Millennials– Promotion-seeking– Likes flexibility,

freedom and accolades

Generation X– Prioritizes time w

family

Baby Boomers– Warm to teaching

opportunities (impact)

– Thinking about retirement

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Create a reward loop.

?!

Intra-company announcements

Public recognition

SPIFs Bonuses,

MBOs Suggested

tweets with @mentions

Roving trophies

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Drill into content’s impact on profit.

Report on anonymous + known leads viewing the most pages on your site

Receive MA email alerts about which companies view your site

Enable salespeople to monitor leads’ email + web activity on your CRM

Create URL links in MA platform

Append URL parameters to links w/in content + social to gain insight into information in hidden fields.

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“My team directly

influenced 27% of booked

business in Q3 with our content.”

— Patricia Travaline VP

Marketing, Skyword

Know your ROI.

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1) Have you identified and communicated which KPIs matter most?

2) How connected is your team with your results?3) What’s your process for comparing — and optimizing —

performance across topics, channels, and contributors?

Do you measure what matters?


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Are you ready to move forward?Are you ready to

move forward? • Crawl: 10-30 points• Walk: 40-60 points• Run: 70-90 points• Sprint: 100-120 points• Win: 130-150 points

Your Results

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1) Start with a big idea, based on competitive research. Deploy a storytelling approach that’s sticky.

2) Map content themes to progressive buyer interests. Formalize your conversion strategy. Delight your customer with varied content types.

3) Incorporate and automate social, SEO, and back linking rules.4) Always lead with fresh ideas. Make your content searchable, snack-

able, shareable.5) Publish on an owned property — as often as you want buyers on your

site. 6) Build a well-rounded contributor team. Empower internal SMEs and

partners. Share the authorship microphone.7) Motivate contributors to stay invested. 8) Invest in a content workflow that can scale with global projections.9) Close the feedback loop. Define and test KPIs. Measure consistently.

Tweak.10)Produce profit reports. Uplevel your place at the revenue table.

10-Step Checklist

the cmo's content marketing report card: 5 steps to operationalize a content marketing program...

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