Problem: Content marketing
Learning Objectives
1. Different types of content
and content creation.
2. How can your companies content stand out from the rest? (not end up
in the spam folder?
LO1: Different types of content and content creation
1.1 Attachmedia
Interesting infograph about the difference between traditional publicity and content marketing.
Here we see the different channels and how they differ in traditional publicity and content marketing.
We also have some advantages and disadvantages of both.
Content marketing (technique that develops and distributes valuable content, destined to attract, acquire, and retain an objective public) is being discussed more than ever before.
Content marketing entails understanding exactly what your clients need to know in order to supply them with the most useful resources
without seemingly wanting to sell them something. In this post Panda and post Penguin era, content marketing is a fundamental strategy of SEO.
Editing valuable content directed toward a specific user is suitable way to generate sustainable link baiting, social media buzz,
and to feed the bots with fresh and frequent content that which, for us, means also having a higher quantity of indexed pages, such as in a blog.
Source: http://blog.attachmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Content-Marketing-final-en2.jpg
1.2 Different channels in content marketing and how are they used?
The recent CMA webcast “Killer Construction Content” demonstrated that content is king!Content marketing is becoming foundational to a modern marketing program. Content supports such goals as awareness, customer retention and lead generation. Marketers are transforming into authors and publishers.
Content marketing is the creation and distribution of educational and/or compelling information in multiple formats to attract and/or retain customers.
Types of content were identified in a 2010 benchmark study from Marketing Profs and the Content Marketing Institute (Link Here). Social media ranked first, followed by such tactics as eNewsletters, blogs, whitepapers and more.
Source: http://www.constructionmarketingassociation.org/blog/content-marketing-is-king-for-construction/#.VlNNx4u_JmA
1.3 Content marketing matrix
This matrix shows how a company can use content marketing. They have to think of what they want to achieve with their customers.
If a company knows that they can start brainstorming about how they're going to use the channels they chose.
They can combine different channels and find the perfect content marketing mix that is totally adapted to their target group.
Source: https://www.hallaminternet.com/2014/b2b-content-marketing-10-best-examples/
1.4 Interesting examples of different content marketing tools and how they can be used in B2B
Creating Guides
Guides can be a fantastic way to appeal to your audience and bring them to your door.
Use and build your personas to write guides for your target audience. They may not convert straight away, but there is more to it than that.
You want to assert yourselves as experts in your field, build up your brand awareness and bring people to your website where they can sign up for your newsletter,
engage with you, enquire about your products or services and then eventually become your clients or recommend you to their business associates.
Content marketing is part of the long game, it is not a quick fix and should be part of a far-reaching strategy.
Simply Business: Google+ Guide for Small Businesses
Simply Business offers business insurance. They have made a wide range of guides for small businesses to help them learn about
digital marketing from social media to Google Analytics that are nothing to do with business insurance. Why?
Here’s why…
Simply Business have developed a number of guides targeted to their prospective clients.
Their guides to Google+, WordPress, Google Analytics and Youtube are all targeting small businesses for a reason.
They know that small businesses will find this content useful and the simple interface they present the information in is appropriate
for someone at a small business who is having a juggle a number of responsibilities,
someone who needs a helping hand without necessarily needing to go into too much technical detail.
Simply Business have targeted small businesses perfectly and created content tailored to their exact needs because
they want to be on their radar for when they need Business Insurance.
They may want them to sign up to a newsletter, they may want them to move around their website or they may just want
them to recognise their name and associate it with knowledge, expertise and most importantly, trust.
WordStream: Whitepapers
WordStream offer software to help the effective management of PPC campaigns.
Unlike Simply Business, they offer advice directly related to what they offer.
The reason for this is that they have a completely different clientele.
They are targeting the digital marketing managers, executives and even PPC specialists found in
larger companies and agencies whereas Simply Business are targeting the small business generalists.
WordStream’s white papers include:
These are targeted to those already using AdWords and have an already established knowledge of the subject area and this is exactly
the type of people they are targeting with their product. In order to download these white papers,
an interesting party must give their email address, phone number,
business type and even the monthly PPC spend of the business.
And there you have it, a qualified list of new prospects.
Video Content
Videos are often thought of a flashy and fun. When someone refers to video in the same sentence as content marketing you
will usually expect a reference to a Coca Cola, TNT’s add drama video or Dove’s Real Beauty viral video campaigns.
These are great achievements and are entertaining but these are B2C businesses.
The world of B2B can be very different, virality is not necessarily what you want or need.
The following three examples show three very different approaches by three very different B2B businesses.
Moz: Whiteboard Friday
Moz is a company that offers a range of digital marketing tools, most specific to the SEO industry.
They run a sustained video campaign called Whiteboard Friday.
Every Friday they release a video of one of their employees, associates or a respected figure in digital
marketing teaching in front of a whiteboard for around 10 minutes. Recent topics have included:
These are very specialist subjects, targeted at the knowledgeable digital marketing executives, consultants and managers
in an agency or company. It is no co-incidence that these are the exact people that will be using their product,
buying their product and nudging their senior figures to purchase the products for their use.
A sustained campaign like this allows the audience to stay interacted and engaged with the content for weeks,
months and even years. There is no need to attempt to sell a product in these videos.
Moz have successfully established themselves as industry experts, so when you are on the lookout for
specialist tools in that industry they are always going to be top of the list.
F-Secure: Brain Documentary
F-Secure is an anti-virus, cloud content and computer security company based in Finland.
Offering services for businesses they are wanting to appeal to the IT professional and the small business director.
Not only do they want to get themselves on their radar,
but they want to assure the IT professional that they are as knowledgeable and interested as they are as
well as showing the managing director that they are to be trusted as a respected source of expertise.
What’s the best way to show people you are knowledgeable, respectable and enthusiastic about your industry?
Make a documentary about one of the turning points in your industry, of course!
The Chief Research Officer for F-Secure made a short documentary about when he tracked down the two brothers
who created the first ever computer virus and asked them some questions about their creation of the virus named
“Brain”. The documentary is short (10 minutes), interesting to anyone with any sort of tech-y interests and does
well to allow viewers to warm to a company in, what can appear to be, quite an alienating industry to those that
do not have an in-depth technical knowledge.
Guttridge: Product Videos
The two video examples we’ve taken a look at so far are probably still edging on the ‘cool’ category and as
I’ve said the myth that content must be cool to be effective does not hold.
Let’s take Guttridge as a prime example.
Guttridge is a bulk materials handling equipment manufacturer.
They have been using videos to demonstrate the function of their products.
This may not be entertaining or catchy but it certainly serves an extremely important purpose;
demonstrating their product and how it works to those who are interested in purchasing it.
This content is close to the conversion side of the scale and does the extremely important job of informing,
qualifying and potentially even converting prospects. This content may not be “cool” but why should all content
entertain when it can convert too?
Demonstration videos can be extremely effective in manufacturing-type industries where trips to suppliers and
the chance to try out a machine can be rare and expensive. This is a fantastic example of appropriate and
effective content marketing in the B2B sector.
Case Studies
What has become apparent is that focusing on conversion and content to support conversion can be very
effective for the B2B marketer. Case studies are a fantastic example of this, you are able to not only show off
the high profile companies you have worked for and demonstrate what you do, but also share your most
impressive results.
Petrofac: Case Studies
Petrofac is an oilfield service company. Traditionally these very niche industries can be difficult to understand
and hard to get information out of. Petrofac, however, breaks the mould in this respect.
Their case studies are a prime example of this.
The ability to choose a case study based on service and type of project not only allows a prospective client
to find what they are looking for, but also understand the distinct services the Petrofac offer.
 With almost 20 different case studies available, Petrofac offer their prospective clients every opportunity to find out about what they are able to offer, their credentials and their successes. Case studies are more than just showing off about, they serve multiple purposes. Case studies allow you to educate and convert potential clients simultaneously. The element of education in a case study is even more important when it comes to complex niche industries where transparency and trust are key. Tools
We all use tools on a day to day basis. I could easily reel off a long list of online tools, bookmarklets and extensions that I use on a daily bases and I am sure most professionals could. We all need tools to streamline our working, so what better way of gaining the visibility of your prospective clients?
IMPACT: Blog Title Generator
IMPACT are a branding and design agency. IMPACT’s main clients are likely to be marketing managers and business owners or directors. The vast majority of these professionals will recognise the importance of creating engaging content online through their blog or website and offline by contributing to magazines and publications. The majority of businesses who would be interested in involving themselves with a branding and creative agency are likely to be digitally minded. These digitally minding companies are also likely to have a blog where they create engaging content.
What is of the biggest challenging in writing a blog?
Thinking of ideas.
And there we have it. IMPACT have created a blog idea generator to try to gain the attention of these marketers
and business owners who are most likely to buy into their services. Another example of great, targeted content
marketing.
Imagery
Imagery might sound like an odd one but you’ll know exactly what I mean when I begin.
Imagery is just a still image whether it is a photograph, graphic or infographic you can use imagery as a type of
content to appeal to your target B2B market in a number of ways.
Maersk: Photography
Maersk, the Danish transport company has had unprecedented success by using photography as their main
driver behind their approach to social media. By using grand and beautiful photographs taken of and from
the largest ships in the world in action they have managed to garner over 2 million Facebook Likes with a high
level engagement with their posts on Facebook, Twitter and Pintrest. This is unprecedented in the B2B industry.
Maersk have played to their strengths here. They do extraordinary work and travel extraordinarily far which
makes for extraordinary images, so why not promote that. If people associate Maersk with exotic, grand and
images where they are shown to be transporting goods then that is their mission accomplished.
Source: https://www.hallaminternet.com/2014/b2b-content-marketing-10-best-examples/
1.5 Create content that follows the buyers journey. Which content to use when?
I like how the writer of this article thinks because she is right when she says that a lot of marketeers
only create content to attract and support new customers. This strategy is very useful.
Especially the pyramid with the different tools and when to use them is really useful if your company
wants to retain their customers and attract new ones. I also like the 'new' purchase cycle. It can give
insights to different companies who always keep holding the old cycle.
A common mistake content marketers make is only creating content to attract and support new customers.
But most don’t create content for the whole buyer’s journey.
This post from Michelle Nickolaisen gives you a strategy to design content for each step of the
Buyer’s Journey.
The buyer’s journey isn’t a complicated concept.
The name tells you everything you need to know: it’s the journey a person goes on as they become a buyer.
Traditionally, it’s been split up into three areas
Awareness: Everything up to and including the customer becoming aware of their need and starting
to research options—hopefully, finding your business in the process of their research.Consideration: During this stage, customers have typically narrowed their options down to 2-3 choices, and move on to researching each of them more in depth (and directly comparing pros/cons). For larger B2B transactions, this is also the stage when the person doing the research may have to present that research to higher-ups for buy-in. Purchase/Decision: Naturally, this would be where the customer decides to buy, based on their research (and possibly, interactions with your team via email, phone, or social media).
Given that customers are, on average, 57% through the sales process before they even contact a sales rep,
it’s obvious that having useful content on your site is a must-do. But if you’re only basing your content marketing
strategy on that three step journey, you could be missing out.
Older material will show the buyer’s journey as a straightforward process, but as the sales process has
become more complex and multi-touch, the path your buyers take has, too.
This maze-like graphic from Lori Wizdo at Forrester has a representation of what the new buyer’s journey
often looks like, from inbound marketing to becoming a buyer or influencer and everything in between.
Even this more linear version from Business2Community isn’t a simple three step process:
And, of course, there’s the fact that the journey a customer goes on doesn’t end when they become a customer.
If you stop creating content for people after they become a customer, you could be ruining your retention or
making customers feel like you left them in the cold as soon as you got their money.
With that in mind, for this article, we’ll be talking about a bigger buyer’s journey that covers everything from
the pre-purchase stages to becoming a repeat customer.
Developing content for people in the pre-purchase stage
To get started creating content for people who aren’t customers yet, but should be, you can talk to your
current customers. Ask questions like:
This will give you a decent jumping-off point for on-site content, whether it’s blog posts or
FAQ/knowledgebase entries. You’ll want to be careful about constructing too many blog posts specifically
about your product and its benefits/differentiators, though. Nobody wants a hard sell on a company blog
and as soon as they get the merest whiff of blatant self-promotion, they’ll click away.
The Content Marketing Institute also has specific suggestions for types of content that work well in the
pre-purchase stage. Digital agency Adido has some suggestions, too:
Case studies are a great tool to use at any stage of the process, and this stage is no exception.
You can contact current customers to see if they’d like to be featured on your site (which, of course, they
probably do!). Once they say yes, you can send questions that include the above questions—
but also talk with them about what they’ve done with your product or service.
Remember: customers don’t care about what differentiates your product until they see how those
differences help them.
You can see this strategy in action at the Buffer blog, with these case studies from Hubstaff and Canva.
Note that using Buffer is a part of the process, but it’s not the full focus of the posts.
And make sure to check out the below resource from Neil Patel at QuickSprout, which covers the lessons
he’s learned in using case studies to grow sales.
Developing content for current customers
Content marketing isn’t just about acquisition. It can also be a powerful tool for retention when used to engage
with current customers and make them more successful. When creating content for people in this stage,
you’ll move past the more 101 level topics and talk about specific strategies or tactics they can do to reach
their goals.
Again, you can get a lot of ideas from talking to your customers. See what problems or questions they have
now that they’ve become customers. Are they using your product but not getting the results they want?
What’s causing that? Review your support tickets for commonly asked questions.
You can create tutorials for your blog based around the information you gather, and you can also add entries
to your knowledgebase/FAQ with that same information.
When creating case studies for this stage, you’ll focus on how customers have used your product to grow
their business or make their lives better. There’s a decent amount of overlap here with case studies created for
people in the pre-purchase stage. The main difference is that the case studies you create for people specifically
in the post-purchase, putting-the-product-to-use stage, will cover more advanced topics.
A great example of a company that works in case studies for current customers is KISSmetrics.
Their blog is widely acknowledged as an industry leader in the realm of online marketing and conversion
optimization, and most of their posts are geared towards a wider audience. But about one in every ten
posts is an in-depth tutorial on how to use KISSmetrics to get specific results, like this one on
Another example would be this post I wrote for Bigcommerce, showcasing the steps one of their customers
took to use A/B testing effectively. Note that everything in the post is tailored to Bigcommerce users,
but the tools and strategies discussed are still applicable to non-customers—making the post more likely to
be shared.
Developing content for long term/advanced customers
This is very similar to the previous section, but you’ll be able to go much more in-depth with case studies,
tutorials, and other content you create. Here, you’re creating content that helps customers get past the
“my results are good enough, but they could be better” plateau. If your product is set up with tiered options or
subscriptions, you’re creating this content for the people who need the more advanced feature set.
If not, you’re creating it for customers who have been around for a while and have the basics down pat.
Again, the example of KISSmetrics is a good one. Their tutorial posts are a healthy mix of posts geared
towards beginner friendly features (like viewing traffic sources) and posts that wouldn’t be as useful to
beginners or people just starting their business, like the aforementioned customer loyalty post.
How to decide on your ratios
Okay, you have a list of content ideas for each of these stages. How do you figure out what the correct mix of
content is? Should you have more advanced content, or more beginner content?
There isn’t a one-size-fits all rule here, but you can create a data-based theory about what will work best by:
Reviewing your current customer base. You can do this by the age of the customers
(as in, new customer vs. customer for a year vs. customer for 2+ years) or the tiers of your product
(beginner features, intermediate features, advanced features), depending on your business.
For example, if 50% of your customers are using the advanced features, that indicates you need to tailor
your content strategy accordingly.
Reviewing your current content and results. If you have analytics installed on your site (and you
should), you can look at your current content to see what gets the most engagement.
Don’t just look at pageviews—look at conversions to email subscribers or purchasers, too.
Even if you don’t have a huge archive of blog posts, you can look at how people interact with the answers
on your FAQ page. If people are more interested in or engaged with content that speaks to current customers,
then your content marketing strategy should lean that way.
Looking at the overlap and differences between one and two. By comparing and contrasting
these two data sets, you’ll start to notice some patterns that can be applied directly to your content marketing.
You’ll want to have some beginner content, no matter what—it keeps new people coming to you and converting
to customers. But by looking at what people are actually reading, and what your customers currently look like,
you’ll know how much intermediate and advanced content to start adding into your strategy.
Once you’ve figured out the ratios you should aim for, based on this information, you can go back through the
sections above and brainstorm topics for each category. The result? A content marketing strategy that helps
people in every stage of the buyer’s journey—from research to getting the most out of your product.
In short, here’s what you need to know:
what content is getting engagement and results.
Source: http://wpcurve.com/create-content-follows-buyers-journey/
LO2: How can your companies content stand out from the rest? (not end up in the spam folder?)
2.1 How to stand out: 9 tips
Interesting slideshare about how a company can stand out from their competitors.
                 
Source: http://www.slideshare.net/rosssimmonds/content-marketing-growth-hacks-that-will-help-you-stand-out
2.2 Instagram, snapchat marketing
This author made not only the 9 tips to stand out but also a instagram and snapchat guide to use in marketing.
This can be interesting if your company has target audience on these platforms. Here are the two links.
Snapchat: http://www.slideshare.net/rosssimmonds/uncensored-guide-to-snapchat
Instagram: http://www.slideshare.net/rosssimmonds/the-ultimate-guide-to-instagram-marketing
2.3 Content marketing vs brand journalism
What’s the Difference Between Content Marketing and Brand Journalism?
PR and marketing teams are leveraging each other’s strengths to meet new audience demands,
giving rise to content marketing and brand journalism as desired skill sets.
Both are involved with creating content that audiences find interesting and useful, but does that mean
they are one in the same? Can the terms “content marketing” and “brand journalism” be used interchangeably?
Content marketing
The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as:
The practice of creating relevant and compelling content in a consistent fashion to a targeted buyer,
focusing on all stages of the buying process, from brand awareness through to brand evangelism.
The buying process is guided by buyer behavior, which progresses in the following four stages:
Even though content marketing intends to generate leads, the material should not read as an advertisement or
sales pitch.
Victoria Harres, vice president of strategic communications at PR Newswire, explains: “Content marketing is
about sharing information that has real value to your target audience and educates your potential customers;
not about your products, but topics that strongly support what you sell.”
The goal of content marketing is to increase the demand for a product or service through useful information.
Brand journalism
Many companies are hiring freelance journalists or building in-house news operations to create editorial-style
content that engages target audiences. These stories are meant to connect on a personal level and create a
favorable impression of the brand. Some would argue that brand journalism is biased because it is being told by
a company that intends to sell products or services, but Maria Perez, director of online community services for
ProfNet and PR Newswire for Journalists disagrees:
“Consumers want more from companies than just products and services – they want to know companies care
about them, about their goals, their dreams, and their lives. When done right, brand journalism allows companies
to connect with consumers more personally than through a traditional ad.”
Perez continues:
“Look at sites like P&G Everyday from Procter & Gamble, Backing America’s Backbone by U.S. Cellular and
HSBC News and Insight from HSBC Holdings; they’re tapping into millions of consumers and sharing tips on
parenting, personal finance, and business management. The articles are written by professional journalists, and the
quality of information rivals that of traditional media sites.”
The goal of brand journalism is to find and tell the stories that convey a brand’s “personality.”
Bottom line
Content marketing and brand journalism are not identical practices, nor are they mutually exclusive.
Understanding their similarities and differences can help define specific and measurable business goals.
Join the conversation about content marketing and brand journalism on the upcoming ProfNet #ConnectChat
on Tuesday, March 3, from 3 to 4 p.m. EST on Twitter. Our featured guest will be Bonnie Harris, founder and
president of Wax Marketing To follow the chat or ask Bonnie a question, just follow the #ConnectChat
hashtag and remember to include it in your tweets.
Source: http://www.prnewswire.com/blog/whats-the-difference-between-content-marketing-and-brand-journalism-12173.html
2.4 The buzzword 'content marketing'
I chose this article because of the quote: ' Red Bull is a publishing empire that also happens to sell a beverage.'
This is where content marketing is all about and I thought the viewpoints of the writer are very interesting and
they gave me other thoughts about the subject.
Just as businesses and other website owners were being strategic about content
long before the phrase ‘content strategy’ was coined, we were all marketing with content long before ‘content marketing’ became the buzzword it is today.
Intelligence marketing, thought leadership, advertorials, infomercials… all these classic marketing formats
were developed to meet business goals – sales, conversions, brand engagement – by adopting an essentially editorial approach. Content marketing in its many forms adopts the same basic mechanism today.
Content marketing is about engaging prospects and consumers with informative or entertaining content
they’ll want to use or consume for its own sake, rather than pushing or interrupting them with direct sales or promotional messages. That’s not to say, of course, that this isn’t a commercial activity – just that the consumer has changed, and so must the way we market to them. FROM INTERRUPTION TO PERSUASION
Online – where most of us live a lot of the time now – the way we interact with brands changes.
Even in high e-commerce mode, we might begin our journey with a question, essentially a request for information. The business that’s made the effort to anticipate my question – and been generous enough with its expertise to try and answer it – will have the best chance of being found in search, and may well predispose me towards a sale too. Another big trigger for the online user is peer opinion. As social media shows us several million times a day, we’re much more likely to be pulled towards what our friends like than we are to respond to an old-fashioned commercial push. So brands need to create content that’s worth sharing in its own right. Inevitably, such content tends not to work if it’s too brand-focused.
‘Redefin[ing] customer relationships based on serving, educating, and entertaining customers with content
necessitates a shift away from the “I” of a brand or product toward the “you” of the customer, writes Rebecca Lieb in her Altimeter report, Content: The new marketing equation.
‘Content that is too product- or brand-focused does not travel well digitally, whereas content that stands
on its own merits as entertainment, storytelling, education will be shared and passed along.’
So, as marketing guru Seth Godin puts it, businesses must move from interruption marketing to permission
marketing. Brands have become the new publishers, and what they publish has to be searchable, shareable – and actually worth looking at on its own merits.
‘Content marketing,’ says Godin, ‘is all the marketing that’s left.’
CONTENT MARKETING BY NUMBERS
Stats that demonstrate the commercial advantages of editorial-led marketing – and business’ uptake of the
approach – are not hard to come by:
them with content marketing (Custom Content Council)
their leads (Hubspot)
Visual content marketing tactics such as video, imagery and infographics have a big role to play here too.
Use of video as a content marketing tactic has risen from 52% to 70% year on year in 2013, according to a survey of global marketing decision-marketers by copypress. Articles containing relevant images gain on average 94 per cent more total views than articles without images, according to Skyword. And both tweets and Facebook posts with images have significantly higher user engagement rates than those without. BEST-PRACTICE EXAMPLES
So who’s doing content marketing well? In B2C, the best-known example of all is probably Red Bull.
Red Bull is a massive content marketing industry all of its own, with an archive of over 5,000 videos,
50,000 images, and a range of high-octane sports events to its name – and not an energy drink in sight. It sells a lifestyle, a story – one that can be summed up in a single word: ‘adrenaline’. In orchestrating Felix Baumgartner’s Stratos jump from the edge of space, the brand created around 15 videos a day in the period leading up to and during the jump, earning over 360million YouTube views.
Red Bull has the sort of budgets and production values that many pure-play publishers can only dream of.
As Mashable’s James O’Brien puts it:
‘Red Bull is a publishing empire that also happens to sell a beverage.’
The great thing about content marketing, though, is that every brand can tailor the approach to suit their
needs and resources. Even very niche businesses can benefit massively. I love the story of Louis E Page, an old-school distributor of mesh and fencing. The company has launched a helpful and very informative blog, written in an engaging homespun style, which sets out to do nothing but answer customers’ questions about how to choose and use mesh and fencing. Since it launched, Louis E Page’s sales leads have increased by 850 per cent. MEETING THE CHALLENGES OF CONTENT MARKETING
So everyone’s a publisher now. What could possibly go wrong?
For one thing, marketers struggle to find the skills and resources to plan, create and sustain all the content they now need to produce. This is especially true in b2b, where products and services are often complex, lead times can run into years, and content often has to go through a complex stakeholder sign-off process. The biggest challenge in b2b in 2013 is producing enough content, according to a recent Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs report.
The key here is to focus not on creating individual pieces of marketable content, but on putting in place a
content marketing strategy that helps you embed a publishing operation in your organisation. AVOIDING INFLATING THE CONTENT BUBBLE
Another challenge – in a world where everyone from contract publishers to SEO agencies to creative shops is
rebadging as a content marketing agency – is the content bubble. In the content economy, we’re in danger of creating a situation where the number of content creators outnumbers the market of potential consumer of that content. Two million blog posts are written each day, 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month and 278,000 tweets are sent every minute. As The Guardian’s Charlie Brooker wrote recently about his decision to rest his weekly column:
‘I've been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of jabber in the world… a vast cloud of blah I felt I was contributing to every
seven days.’
The result is a vast content bubble – a proliferation of poor-quality content we all have to fight to be heard
over. Too much rehashed, me-too content could easily create a situation where the C-word (content) replaces the S-word (spam) as consumers’ number one marketing bugbear.
So to make sure your output isn’t just adding to the steaming heap of content landfill, it’s vital to focus on
quality rather than quantity. Look to produce fewer pieces of content, but ones with legs – ideas that are rich enough to be reused in different channels, can make a whole series rather than a single execution, and/or can generate lots of user response, which can itself seed more content ideas.
And if it’s not realistic to create, look to curate. Platforms like slideshare, visual.ly and Pinterest facilitate
the sharing and curating of relevant content. As content proliferates, users need trusted filters to help them sort out what’s worth a share of their highly-coveted attention.
The 5 Ss of marketable content
You need to put in place the skills, resources and processes to make sure that your content is…
Searchable: Search engines reward sites that deliver regularly refreshed content of a high editorial quality.
Whether it’s for education or entertainment, your content needs to deliver both quality and impact.
Shareable: As well as the benefits of gaining peer approval for your content, the social shares it attracts
will also boost its search rankings.
Supportive: You can project yourself as an authoritative brand that’s generous with its expertise by
anticipating users’ questions and telling them things they didn’t know. But first, you have to make sure you understand your users’ information needs.
Specialist: Your content must come from within your information niche – the intersection between your
domain expertise and your users’ content needs and interests.
Sustainable: You need a publishing process in place that allows you to generate ideas, populate an
editorial calendar, and create relevant, effective content on a sustainable basis. TOWARDS A CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
To create engaging, shareable, search-friendly content on a sustainable basis, you need a publishing plan
that addresses key questions like these:
Goals and audience
Production and distribution
Measurement
Source: http://curve.gettyimages.com/article/brands-as-publishers-inside-the-content-marketing-trend
2.5 Interesting tips how your brand can make content that isn't boring publicity about your brand
Why Your Branded Content Shouldn’t Always Be About Your Brand
Creating branded content that doesn’t specifically showcase the brand through its products or services can be a
tricky prospect for many businesses. A company may have spent years developing its brand image — and brand content to support it — yet agencies are increasingly advising clients to create content that barely mentions its own brand or products. Let’s explore some of the reasoning behind this. Who is it for, and what are you trying to achieve?
The main problem with heavily brand-oriented content marketing lies in how you are defining your target audience.
By its nature, heavily brand-oriented content appeals to a relatively small number of followers who are already loyal
to your brand. Chances are that they’ve bought your product or service and liked it, so they’re potential repeat customers. That’s great, and it’s good to keep them engaged, but brand content targeted toward existing customers is very different than brand content aimed at attracting new customers, who may not have your brand in their consideration set. This, ultimately, is where your business should focus its content efforts in order to increase its market share. Don’t get content marketing confused with advertising
It’s an easy mistake to make, and we all think we know the difference. Advertising is a method of selling a specific
product or service range, whereas content marketing consistently targets a relevant consumer audience with engaging, helpful, and/or entertaining content and encourages them to take action.
The lines are somewhat blurred because many organizations still struggle to produce content that doesn’t explicitly
aim to sell their products. Content marketing shouldn’t do this, nor should it involve you preaching about your brand essence. If it does, chances are consumer interest in your content will suffer — and so will its chances of ever achieving its marketing purpose. That can be a fairly universal goal for any content marketing campaign. It’s a more subtle approach to improving your brand image, gaining vital inbound links and shares, and eventually increasing online conversions.
Just try reading a heavily product-focused blog:
 Reading this product-focused branded content would likely make a consumer more skeptical about its value: We’ve all come across incredibly transparent articles that are trying to cross-sell items at every turn, a fusion of press-release hyperbole and call-to-action advertising with an underlining of self promotion.
This sort of branded content will also be considered too “self-serving” for readers to empathize with it.
Blog posts similar to the one above generally receive very few social shares and links, as they do not engage or educate in any way. Some marketers might argue that these types of posts encourage conversions, but why would consumers actively read/share a post that is worded like an advert?
If the above example of a blog post had been based around what type of wine to drink with specific meals,
then it may have had a chance of attracting more attention in the form of social shares and links.
Less product-oriented blog content is more likely to be perceived as educational or entertaining, thereby
encouraging repeat visits. Ironically, in the end, which blog would do more for your brand? What are your targeted personas interested in?
When you are creating a content marketing plan, it’s vital to consider at whom the content is actually aimed.
Before you begin producing content, you should develop a list of personas, and then you can tailor each piece of content to a certain persona. Also develop a list of influencers that hold a large following of a targeted persona.
What are they sharing? What are they talking about? What type of content really gets a discussion going?
Do your research to identify what content is doing well within your industry, as this will also help you define your personas.
The key here is not to approach content marketing like an advertiser looking for sales figures. Instead, think
about what content will genuinely interest or help a certain persona or attract the attention of an influencer. Again when it comes down to heavily promotional branded content vs. an unbranded approach, the latter will gain more traction in the form of social shares and links.
If you’re operating in a niche that rarely elicits social discussions, then you may need to have a bit of fun with
your content to even be able to receive a positive response. Perhaps the real interest lies in an area not directly related to your industry. For example, Charmin provided one of the best campaigns of recent years with its “Sit or Squat?” mobile app. This app was developed for the user to be able to find a nearby public restroom that was highly rated by other users on a series of performance indicators (such as cleanliness, convenience, etc.).
A toilet paper brand is hardly the most luxurious of niches, yet it managed to create a campaign that can actually
help its consumers in an entertaining way. How much more useful is this type of campaign for improving brand perception compared to an old-fashioned “Charmin versus competitors” piece of content?  If it’s branded, make it unique
Of course, you don’t need to forget about creating branded content altogether. However, if you’re going to do it,
then you need to make sure it is innovative and worth sharing. Companies like Oreo are great at branded content marketing, and at one point the company was even posting out “real time” branded images based around global events happening on that day. Obviously, this is easiest with a popular and iconic product like an Oreo, so use your discretion.
Other brands need to take a page out of Oreo’s book and avoid self-appreciating content that nobody in their
right mind would share. In other words, brands need to start thinking like regular people instead of old-school, call-to-action marketers. In other words, aim to connect with your buyer personas through their interests, as opposed to pushing your own products or services. This is the crux of the idea behind a less-branded approach to content marketing.
People or sites that share content are much less likely to do so if they feel like they are being roped into
endorsing a brand. Huge brands, such as Coca-Cola or Nike, can generally be excluded from this theory because their brands are so entrenched in our culture that people don’t even feel as though they are promoting something when they share brand content from these companies.
Red Bull is another great example when it comes to content marketing. Its content campaigns encompass
what its brand is all about, yet rarely use any calls to action.  Take the brand’s Supersonic Freefall stunt. Imagine if Felix Baumgartner did a sky dive from space, and once he touched down to earth, he drank a can of Red Bull straight to camera. It would ruin the whole concept and likability factor of the campaign. Shockingly, this is what many companies are doing with their content marketing — admittedly on a much smaller scale — by making it too self-serving and obvious. Key takeaways
1. Don’t get content marketing confused with old fashioned call-to-action advertising: Call-to-action
advertising (like the example below from Volvo) obviously does have its place in the marketing mix. However, when it comes to developing a content marketing strategy, you should ensure that your idea, tone, and layout stay away from this type of format and more toward the British Airways example.   2. Find out what your customers are sharing:
3. If it’s branded, then make it innovative:
4: Ensure your brand content has an approachable tone:
Source: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2014/03/branded-content-shouldnt-always-be-about-brand/
LO3: How to involve the consumer in the content creating process?
3.1 Interesting article about why it's important to involve the consumers
Here you can find an interesting article about why it's important to involve the consumers in your content marketing
campaign and how you can do it.
Article: http://www.postano.com/blog/the-importance-of-integrating-consumer-led-marketing-into-your-strategy
3.2 Very recent article about why it's important to involve customers and how to do it.
How to Include Customers in Your Content Marketing
Customers are at the heart of your business. Of course, they provide your business with the revenue it needs to keep
going. But did you also think about the fact that they can help you grow your audience?
When your customers get involved in your content marketing programs, the power of your efforts increases by
leaps and bounds. With customer-centric content marketing programs, you can:
Laying the groundwork for customer-centric content marketing
Before you begin any of the campaigns below, take a moment to think about your audience.
Answer the following questions before you decide which of the three methods discussed would work best for your
company:
What medium? – Where is my audience most active? Facebook? LinkedIn? Twitter? Yelp? Pinterest?
Instagram? YouTube? Vine? The place you should contact your audience to gain their participation is where
your audience is strongest.
Will I use a hashtag? – Do I want to avoid including my company’s name in the tag in case the hashtag
Tone and content? – Am I a serious brand? A light-hearted brand? Do I focus on technical information? Am
I a world-traveler? Stay true to your branded tone and content even while you are working with your customers.
Motivation? – What will motivate my audience to participate? Are they working towards a prize? Are they
already rabid fans who just need an outlet? Am I offering promotion or accolades to an influencer?
Without any motivation factors, you won’t be able to gain any content.
Big picture? – How does this fit in with my other marketing efforts? Remember that no marketing program
should work in a void. Make the theme of the program mesh with the rest of your marketing plan.
Should I do this? – Is there any reason not to run the campaign? Is there a national tragedy occurring at the
same time I am vying for audience attention? Have I had any bad press recently that I don’t want to emphasize?
If the answer to any of these is yes, then it’s not a good time to start a customer-centric campaign.
Am I covered legally? – Have I consulted with a lawyer? Have I written out any rules for my contest?
Have I ensured that content can be used as I want it to be used and published in whatever medium I want?
Make sure you are covered before you begin.
Once you’ve answered these questions, you are ready to jump into the customer-centric content marketing game.
1. User Generated Content Marketing Campaigns
User-generated content marketing campaigns have gained popularity over the years. With the growth of social
media, businesses have closer access to their customers and better channels to tap into their customers’
enthusiasm. Therefore, it has become easier to run successful contests and programs to capture the user point
of view.
For example, taking a cue from customers who have been doodling designs on their reusable white cups for years,
Starbucks ran a White Cup Contest. The contest encouraged customers in the U.S. and Canada to decorate a
Starbucks cup with customized art, take a photo of it, and submit the design through social media using the
hashtag #WhiteCupContest. The prize itself was fairly small – twenty-five reusable cups with the winning design
featured on the cup and a $300 Starbucks gift card – but the winner’s positive publicity would be undeniable.
With nearly 4,000 lovingly designed entries received in a three-week period, the contest was a success.
Customers showed their adoration for the company via a public forum (social media) and the media ate it up.
Moreover, Starbucks showed how much it appreciates customers and values their feedback. It was a win on all sides.
Yet not all campaigns need to involve a prize or discount. For instance, the #ShareACoke hashtag started in 2011
and it’s still going strong. By going to the Shareacoke.com website, you can design your own personalize Coke
container. Then you can take a picture of yourself with your awesome can or bottle and post it to the Shareacoke
gallery, as well as on your social media channels.
There’s no prize other than the possibility of your pictures being featured online and on Coca-Cola billboards
across the country – and having other fans appreciate your humor and appreciation for a container of Coke.
Yet with the launch of this popular campaign, Coke was able to boost its sales in the U.S. by more than 2%.
Coke brings customers into its “creativity” process, customers get to show how clever they are, and finding the
right phrase on a can or bottle can even induce customers to purchase the product. Not a bad set of results.
Here are a few things to think about if you decide your business could benefit from a user-generated content
campaign:
- Be authentic or you will come out looking bad.
- Decide who will be monitoring the contest. Who is watching and responding to your hashtag? Who is keeping
customers updated about the latest and greatest entries?
Make sure your audience understands your rules and/or guidelines – and run them by your legal team.
Don’t get yourself in trouble!
2. Online reviews
Online reviews are a great way to get your users involved in the content marketing process. After all, 84% of
customers either completely or somewhat trust recommendations from family and friends about products.
Wondering whether or not your customers will share their positive opinions? Research has shown that on social
media, 58% of customers share positive experiences they’ve had with a business, as well as ask family and friends
for advice..
Where you want to request your customers to write reviews depends on where you’re selling your products and/or
services, who you partner with, what kind of products/services you sell, and more. For example, here are some
places you might target for reviews:
There are a number of different ways to encourage customers to provide online reviews. For instance, after a
customer has used your product for a bit, you could send out a Net Promoter Score (NPS)survey. If the customer
filling out the NPS questionnaire gives you a high score, you could then ask if that person would be willing to
review you on the site of your choice.
If your sales people have close connections with customers, you can also run an internal campaign to encourage
your team to request customer reviews from their accounts. Hold a contest where the salesperson with the most
reviews can win a prize. The prize doesn’t have to be huge – just enough to show appreciation for the winner.
The only thing you absolutely need keep in mind is that must avoid fake reviews at all costs. It’s illegal and it will
always come back to bite you in the end.
3. Curated customer-centric content
The idea behind curated customer-centric content is to ask your customers or prospects a question or two and
see how they answer. Then take the best of those answers, edit them, and make them into a piece – or several
pieces – of content.
For instance, OneReach recently polled 63 customer support industry influencers, asking them a single question:
What is the #1 way for any company to improve their customer service? The company then compiled those
answers into a fantastic customer service ebook. That book is behind a form and used to collect leads. However,
they also created a summary blog post with a shareable infographic on the subject and advertised it via social
media channels.
Even beyond that, the influencers highlighted in the piece publicized it through their own channels. For instance,
I was one of the influencers quoted in the piece, so I allowed OneReach to post a guest piece with an
accompanying infographic on my company (Glance Network) blog. The blog post is linked back to the original
piece on the OneReach site and has been publicized through the Glance social channels – and my own social
media accounts. Way to amplify the OneReach voice!
Here are some tips on how to make your curated customer-centric content efforts effective:
Ask an easy question or set of questions – You are depending on people to give you an answer out of their own goodwill. Make the process as straightforward as possible.
message on Twitter (particularly useful now that you can write messages that are longer than 140 characters).
Lay it out – Be sure to brand your content with appropriate colors and your logo. Also, make it graphically
interesting by turning the information you gained into an infographic or highlighting particularly interesting responses.
Use keywords – Remember, you can make the most interesting content but if no one finds it, it was hardly worth the effort.
Socialize it – Advertise it on your social channels.
Ask your contributors to socialize it – Let your customers and influencers go wild. Provide them with blog posts on the subject,
offer them neat graphics, give them a shout out that they can repost. Make it as easy as possible for them to publicize your piece.
Repurpose the content – Pull out your infographic and tease readers with the highlights. Make graphically interesting slides that
you can post on SlideShare as a group or singularly on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
You can even turn the slides into a short video and post it on YouTube.
Bonus customer content pointers
All of these ideas are great ways to get your audience involved in your content marketing efforts.
However, there are a few additional rules you have to follow in order to make the process work.
Promote – You will have to do some work to get your audience involved and to publicize your program via social
media. This isn’t a “set it and forget it” process. You must continue to promote your program before and during
the process to keep the momentum going. Reply to every entry to show you appreciate your audience’s
participation. And after you have the final result, you invite your audience to share the outcome.
Respect – Treat your customers and influencers with respect. Make the collection and sharing process as
easy as possible for them and praise their efforts. No one is required to participate in your program.
The fact that they are doing so is something you should thank them for.
Optimize – Be sure you are optimizing your content. Use hashtags and keywords to capture the audience you
are targeting. I can’t say it enough – if no one can find your content, what’s the point in creating it?
Source: http://maximizesocialbusiness.com/include-customers-content-marketing-22242/
3.3 Case studies about user generated content campaigns
Here you can find the best user generated content campaigns of 2014.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/user-generated-content-campaigns-10-great-examples-from-jack-oldham
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maandag 23 november 2015
Content marketing
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