DMI 2 - Content Marketing (MM)

Articles

LinkedIn, FB. Text, image, video. Engage w/ comments. Proof content.

Buzzsumo (competitor analysis)

Many SM. News/topics/themes that interest your audience.

Value of content marketing

(initial investment) - brand awareness (proposition), brand conviction (credibility & authority), conversions & advocacy

Stages of the buyer's journey / aligning content to the buying cycle

- Awareness - Visuals = general proposition in the market. Offer USPs (you vs competitors) - Interest - ^ attention span = longer content (blog, videos, podcast, ebook, infographics). Exciting. - Consideration - incentivize trials (give a taste), community management, social engagement. Testimonials. - Conversion - retarget = lead nurturing + value → sale/feedback - Retention - SM & customer service. Retarget. User generated content. reviews/discounts/rewards.

Content marketing Goals

- Awareness - visibility (time & audience( - Engagement - positive vs negative. Drive traffic → conversion - Affinity - positive vs negative. Go to the portal to see if (offensive) content has been blocked/hidden by the audience Affinity can allow you to determine whether an engagement that's been given on your content has been largely grouped as positive or negative. - Conversion - track sales & performance w/ URL endings - Advocacy - user-generated content, reviews/WOM, loyalty rewards

Social Listening benefits

- Identify opportunities - platform usage. Conversations. Refocus content. - Spot potential risks - identify issues/threats - Understand brand position - FB brand pages are better than personal profiles for customer engagement

Content audit steps

- KPI & objectives review - assess & measure KPIs monthly/quarterly - Benchmarks - annual goals - Website performance & UX - across platforms, assess referrals, website analytics, conversions/ sales - Language/tone evolvement - success vs failures of usage - Social listening - factor in anything new

Which details should be included in your monthly marketing report?

- Key metrics - audience, reach, engagement & conversions - Most successful content - determined by KPIs - Least successful content - trim fat / eliminate - Learnings - any growth? Are trends worth highlighting? Aligning business activities: adapt & support goals?

Using Research

- Keyword establishment - how a website is found. Language of the search for competitors. GA & AdWords Planner. - Search trends - Google. Identify peaks & troughs over the year (key interests, months, days). - Audience insights - reach out & survey your audience. Inbound customer service channels.

Developing Buyer Personas

- Objectives - why would they consider you? Needs? - Locations - Language, timezone, cultural significance - Job details - earning power, authority, personality, family - Devices - connection, 4G, LTE, size, data - Purchase behaviours - path to purchase: research, opinions of friends, v decision-making process - Interests - access them w/ sport, music, TV/films. Access them emotionally = credible/accessible. Do research on your audience.

Purpose of creating Buyer Personas

- Targeting - focused, relevant, valuable, avoid wasted efforts - Format - how content is consumed? Used most consumed/widely accepted formats & platforms - Discovery - leverage customer behaviours. Create content where your audience is already active

Content Topics

- Using research - conduct the following before creating your content topics - Generate content topics - activities (social listening, community engagement) & tools (StumbleUpon, Pinterest, RSS feeds) - Case Study: Bodyform - tongue & cheek video = brand personality

Content Management Systems considerations

Dynamism - edit, access, integrated Cost - rolling/recurring costs. Resource planning, good value investments. Intuition - easy. Edit in real-time. Simple.

3 ways to use influencer marketing

Media channel - influencer. Give them a brief. Deliver certain pieces of content that fit brief. Co-creation - work w/ people on a similar playing field. Fit for both audiences delivers an on-brand message. Content amplification - pay influencers to promote

Why users share content

Paid for ads. ^ trust

What to look for in competitor analysis of content marketing?

Topics, language, platforms, feedback (from the audience), content formats, SEO ranking, voice, positioning, channels & campaigns. Be unique.

Content curation considerations

Trusted - proper attribution links, give credit, trustworthy content, ask for permission Cost - fee. Be aware of limitations before you engage.

Content Calendars elements

ad copy, creative (graphics), theme (who, purpose, pain points), date/time, platform (clarity on marketing mix)

Influencer marketing

audience fatigued w/ traditional advertising (ad blockers / distrust)

Content Management Systems benefits

automation, enhanced, cross-publishing, creating content w/in web-based application. Percolate, Expression Engine, WordPress

Content calendar considerations

business priorities, sponsorship/marketing activities, in-store promotions, time of year

Content scheduling limits

cannot disable inappropriate content in cases of tragedy/issue of publishing content, limited. API updates, the content may not end up being published.

Webinars

connect to your audience (relationship). Use visual aids. Q&A / Discussion. Follow-up email.

3rd parties

content curation, guest blogging, keywords/hashtags. Outside of owned media.

Assessing content performance

content recall, click to point of sale, overlaying commercial results w/ recent content activities

Calculating ROI

content(how long did it take you to create the content, what did you invest in this content piece?), performance, long-tail benefits (lead generation/lead nurturing)

Content Management Systems

create, edit & manage content. Cross publish (on platforms) = cut down on resources. Socialize content = engagement

Content types and tools segmentation

dark posting (dark out the content for the audience you don't want to target). Target audience by time (avoid wastage). FB & IG

Infographics

data → visual story. 8-12 datasets. Footnote references. Canva/Piktochart

Assessing content utility

downloads, saves, feedback, plays, clicks, views

Matching your platform to your audience

efficient strategy = v (less) wastage. Solve a problem → platform ecosystem → proposition & format (right content for the platform). Does the content work together? LKD(LinkedIn) & SC(Snapchat) have niche audiences.

Content Marketing Strategy

evolving process, content, goals, formats

Content Marketing benefits

grow, recruit, ^ SEO, generate leads, enhance affinity Grow: You can grow your audience. Looking outwards to the general public, or, indeed, yourspecific target audience, and being able to grow a community around what it is that you'retrying to sell. Recruit: You can recruit brand advocates. Content marketing can help you get a sense ofinfluence or credibility about what it is that you're looking to do in the wider market andrecruit people to believe in what you are trying to achieve. Increase: There is an opportunity with content marketing to increase what we call SEO,which is your search engine optimizing. This is essentially where you appear in the searchresults for Google or for Bing. Content marketing allows you to increase your position insearch engines. Generate: This involves lead generation. So this is about assessing potential leads that youcan convert into sales for your business and new clients that you may want to get on board. Enhance: This involves enhancing the understanding of your business, enhancing what yourproposition is in the market, and enhancing your affinity with potential customers.

Content promotion methods

influencer marketing, guest blogging, tagging, affiliate marketing, media partnerships

Cost implications (of content marketing)

invest content creation, ownership, license, credit, external support, consultants

Industry influencers

leverage them to amplify content. Social listening. BuzzSumo. Earned = transparency.

Social Listening Tools

limited access/insights based on social network discretion - Talkwalker - FB, TW, LinkedIn, IG - Social Mention - strength, sentiment, passion & reach keywords, #s and sites - Hootsuite - keywords/phrases/conversations of your/competitor's brand is used = alert Any time a competitor is mentioned, you can set up an alert as well.

Benefits of curated content

looks v promotional, ^ likability, ^ goodwill, added insights, know what consumers are engaging with.

Evergreen content

main content, ^ ROI, focus on needs, ^ lifespan, ^ traffic, not promotional content (tutorials, FAQs, case studies) Evergreen content is content that can be used at various stages of the buyer's journey. The main part of your content marketing mix should be evergreen content. Evergreen content: - Is relevant and valuable for a prolonged period of time - Can drive more traffic and generate more leads over its lifespan - Can be repurposed into different formats, maximizing creation time By leveraging evergreen content, you can make your content creation process more efficient and yield a greater ROI.

Content Calendars

map out SM content. Determine copy, creative, platform, targeting, dates/times & seeding (where the content will be published).

Content types and tools best practices

useful for audience, fit for platform, measurable/trackable, consistent, algin w/ goals

Online community

user-generated content/testimonials. Collaborating. ^ resonance.

Collaborative platforms

users feel included. Real-time feedback. Reddit, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Mix, Digg, Forums, Tagging, Linking

Content curation

utilize 3rd party content. w/ additional insight/context reflect brand & establish yourself as source of knowledge

Content creation

varying formats = ^ interest. Solve content needs. Build trust, relevance & credibility Content creation is the process of creating varying formats that help interest your audience, help get them excited, and help solve a potential content need for them to help build you up in terms of trust, relevance, and credibility in the space. When creating content, there's a number of key stakeholders you have to have in mind.

Content types and tools formats

visual, text, audio & reviews. Responsive to multiple platforms. white-papers infographics ebooks blogs interactive content video articles templates and checklist webinars podcasts

The value of competitor monitoring

what is making your audience interact w/ your competitors? - Spot content gaps - serve needs competitor is not fulfilling - Identify innovations - inspirations, identify, conversations, sponsorship (maybe they have a sponsorship of a live event) - Define content (yours and the competitor) - rational & reasoning behind their content efforts. Measure impact - Avoid content clashes - be aware of their style/influence & be different. Undercut rivals

Content Promotions

wider audience than owned immediate channels is the strategic method by which you get your content out to a much wider audience, other than your owned immediate channels.

Steps to creating a brand story

1. Define personality & stay true to your brand 2. Identify what audience emotional response to 3. Map story to customer persona = resonates 4. Match business objectives

6 phases of content marketing strategy

1. Research - audience location & formats. Audience listening, audits, segmentation & platform research 2. Plan - KPIs = needs/ pain points. Resources, channels, education 3. Create & curate 4. Publish - platform selection, content promotion & content outreach 5. Measure - social listening, monthly content reports & content audits 6. Strategize - implement insight & analytics results

Owned channels

100% autonomous control. Shape content & message. Display Ad: v reach, too product focused. SM, blog, website.

Content types and tools segmentation benefits

100% relevant to the target audience. Allows tweaks (language, copy, imagery)

Earned and paid space

3rd party social channels. Leverage existing/ engaged audience/ network of the channel.

Video

50% of video is viewed on mobile. HQ. 20-30s attention span. Topical stories. YT = 3-5min. Optimize per platform.

Interactive content

500% ^ engagement than static. FB Canvas. Polls, full screen, video, click through

Community management

After publication. Manage issues before they become a bigger problem. What are the benefits? - Gain valuable insight/feedback - SM. Digital/content marketing. Customer feedback → reward. - Turn customers into loyal fans - interact. Hero-ing user content. Thanking them. - Drive repeat sales - ^ credibility & trust - Network - like-minded businesses, individuals & affiliates

Types of curated content

Aggregation - bring together relevant content Distillation - overall noise. Simplify it by calling out the commonality, key points Elevation - hypothesis/idea/theory based on content threads Mashups - merge different points into something that's brand new. Joined dots & POV. Chronology - storyline/timeline/evolution

Content Marketing Goals

Awareness - reach, impressions, frequency. Generate sales. Frequency. Consideration - clicks, engagements & sentiment. Nurture lead down sales funnel. Sales - abandon baskets & conversion. The content driving people towards checkout. Loyalty - repeat purchase. Brand advocates. Community growth. ^ positive sentiments/reviews.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a powerful tool that allows you to bring your potential customers along the journey of what it is that you do and hopefully, convert them. We assign different content formats, types, and styles along every stage of the purchase consideration funnel to help you achieve the best return on investment for your content marketing efforts. We also need to look at the benefits of content marketing. formats, types, styles → consideration funnel → ROI

Curation vs creation

Curation - efficient. Seek community input/insights. Limited ownership. - v (little) resource investment. Commentary. Creation - research/thought leadership. 100% ownership/original. ^ (more) resource investment. Credibility.

Tweetdeck (competitor analysis)

Free TW competitor analysis (content, interaction & engagement, keywords, traffic, reach, activity, top contributors, impressions)

Content types and tools considerations

Functionality (suit/fulfill needs), ease of use (training), resource (dedicate a team member), frequency of use (paid resource)

Content scheduling tools

Hootsuite (for starters, scheduling & social listening), sprout social (analyze SM), Buffer (add articles, photos & video to post throughout the day), Percolate (task delegation, content creation, scheduling)

Brand personality

How to speak to customers, tone of voice, imagery & style

3 main reasons that we see consumers share content.

Incentives - raffles/ competition. Not too often as it appears hollow & doesn't reflect true engagement Fame - social currency. Brand heroes access content first. Utility - tips / be helpful to other people

Aligning Goals

It's really important to make sure that your content marketing goals are aligned to your overall business goals, and are really focused on all of the individual business touchpoints that your consumer may have at a particular moment in time. This will ultimately drive your commercial messages, and avoid any confusion regarding your proposition within the market. - Consistency - assets, guidelines, looks, language, interactions - Timing - support your other campaigns going on at the time (interlink) - Input - integrated approach w/ wider business/team input - Website - link all SM. Align SEO goals w/ KPIs. ^ UX & SEO ranking

Groove HQ grew their blog by

No ad $, just story = credibility/passion, service offering. influencers/affiliates = ^ proposition. Plagiarized content topics (asked questions & answers to their audience), personalized approach, innovative.

Distribution channels (for content seeding)

Owned channels Collaborative platforms Earned and paid space

Content curation tools

RSS Feeds - Feedly (assemble relevant content in 1 place. Google alerts), Feedspot & Bloglovin'. Email Alert Tools - track against keywords, phrases & publications. Social listening. Talkwalker. Social Listening Tools - Talkwalker looks at over 187 different languages.

Key metrics to consider

Reach - seen impressions. Native platforms, statistics Engagement - context of sentiment. Vary by the platform. Emojis. Likes, retweets, shares = engagements. Sentiments - positive/negative reactions by the audience. Optimize content to change. Clicks and conversions - retargeted. Tracking codes to correctly attribute clicks to the content. Analytics - bounce, right audience visiting, ROI, retention, what links drive the most clicks/sales

What story do you want to tell?

Shattering the norms not conforming to what the industry expects Functional - educational story of why you're selling. Service offering & products Emotional - resonates w/ people. Humour, passion points, interest sets, exciting, relevant, relatable Essential - CTA where you're located, price points, availability, distribution

Whitepapers

Thought leadership & credibility. Pain-point solutions. Strong CTAs. Backlinks. Add HQ visuals. InDesign/Canva.

Podcasts

Spotify/SoundCloud, etc. Affluent & educated audience. Thought leadership/conversation. HQ audio. Repurpose content.

Brand storytelling

Value - content to tell the narrative of the business. Convince & Convert. Kenco(coffee) - charity/ give to the community DKNY - conflict management to change narrative

Content types and tools advantages

^ brand awareness. Thought leader. ^ credibility. Consumer advocacy.

Challenges of content seeding

^ reach = ^ wastage (target specifically), transparency of paid promotion, v quality content, ROI (create focus groups to test brand recall), budget & resources, ^ collaboration of different company departments

Content seeding

mapping & optimizing content across entire web/platforms. Backlinks. A good content strategy will involve content creation at its heart. What you do with that content, and getting it to your intended audience, is what we'll look at in content seeding. Content seeding is a strategic approach to mapping out your content across the entire web. Content can be split across online platforms, your website, and your social media channels. Optimizing your content per platform is a key consideration so that you avoid overlap as much as possible. More often than not we'll look at how content is placed on these places with a link back to the original content source. There is some overlap here with content promotion; however, seeding is the approach for the initial publishing, with promotion coming in afterwards.

Ebooks

more interactive than whitepapers. How to. Easy distribution w/ 3rd parties. InDesign/Canva. Engaging graphics. Pain-point solutions. Strong CTAs. Backlinks. Add HQ visuals.

Content scheduling

native scheduling (FB Scheduling tool (has backdating), TW Media Studio, WordPress post scheduling), 3rd party applications to cross-publish on your behalf (Hootsuite, Buffer, Percolate).

Buyer Personas

needs, behaviours, thoughts, feelings, resonate content w/ them, aka typical customers

Topical content

news/trends, time-sensitive, v lifespan, ^ backlinks, relevant fit is newsworthy, time-sensitive content that is linked to a topic and is best suited to a particular moment in time. It can be effective in driving backlinks based on its relevance. It's important to note that as this content is tied to a moment in time, it has a shorter lifespan of relevancy.

Key stakeholders of content creation

online community industry influencers 3rd parties - So what content is being created outside of your own content marketing efforts but are still relevant to your business or your industry? This content can be used in what we call content curation to effectively drive your credibility and your thought leadership, once there is context, insight, and opinion added to it from your perspective.

Content personalization

personalized to customers. Differentiate content at different stages of the purchase funnel. Be hyper-relevant (right user, right time). VidYard CS. H&M CS (Auto-generated suggestions list)

Creating a content calendar

plan (not too far ahead), create (topics, title, content, target, keyword, CTA), populate details, edit (align w/ KPIs)

Content Calendars benefits

plan, enough time, highlight key dates, keep on track, focused & organized marketing.

Importance of brand personality

point of difference, a unique vantage point in the market, resonating brand story

Content calendar stakeholders

prevent issues, PR, legal, insurance/financial, investors, clients, designers

Content seeding benefits

reach wider audience, leverage 3rd parties = ^ relevancy, ^ traffic & SEO ranking, build credibility, generate leads & conversions, improve brand mentions & SEO

Types of effective content

relevant, personalized, educational, solve problems, CTA, demonstrate Relevant - In order to be truly effective, your content needs to be relevant. If you can't see why a customerwould engage with this piece of content, or how it helps drive your business agenda, then it may notbe worth creating it. Personalized - It's important to create content that is personalized; content that speaks to your audience at thatmoment and time, that is relevant to their personal outlook on life, or addresses their pain points.Creating content that serves a personal purpose will have a huge impact on creating a bond andbuilding trust with your intended customers. Educational - The content needs to be educational. This may be for the wider mix of education around the verticalof the business in which you operate. It may also be education about your specific business at itscore, in terms of the services that you offer, who your personnel are, what experiences you have withother previous clients or customers, and so on. Addresses needs and interests - It's also important to create content that addresses the buyer's needs or interests. It should berelevant to the cultural context of your audiences, and you should be looking to see what problemsyour content can help solve for your particular audience. Includes explicit CTAs - It's really important that effective quality content has a call to action. Your customers or your potentialaudiences need to know what you want them to do as a result of seeing your content. Giving peoplea clear call-to-action allows them to understand what it is that you're actually selling and brings themon a journey through the conversion funnel. Demostrares a solution - Finally, your content must demonstrate that your business is the solution, and that you have a USP.

Content repurposing

reusing content in various different formats Benefits - efficient, ^ consistency, ^ lifespan of content, reach new audiences, ^ SEO Methods - blog post, infographics, motion infographics, podcast, whitepaper

Content audit (of your own)

review timeline of content performance, set rolling (changing) objectives, improves optimize, implement key learnings (assess & adapt)

Monthly content reports

sharing early detections of success/failure w/ business stakeholders

Content types and tools limitations

silent autoplay (include subtitles), accessibility (can you include ALT tags?), vertical compliance, excessive data usage, crisis situations.

Templates & checklist

solve pain-points. Save, print, share options. Contain branding of the business that supplied you.

Seeding curated content

summary blog posts, email newsletters & notifications, social posts

Content personalization benefits

targeted & relevant, high conversion rate, ^ brans affinity, ^ efficiency → give content a personal touch: leverage customer data, target your messaging, measure & analyze

Blogs

text & imagery. ^ SEO ranking. 8-10 per month. CTAs. Case studies. Evergreen content.

Content scheduling benefits

time-efficient, cross-posting

What are the two types of content groups?

topical evergreen

Social Listening

tracking what people say about you & online conversation & channels & platforms = insight on target audience = business proposition = personalized engagement