Content Marketing MONEYBALL
Data-Backed Content Marketing Strategies for 2017 & Beyond
Larry Kim, Feb. 23, 2017
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Content Marketing in 2017
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Enormous Volume
of Content Being
Produced
99.9% of Your Content Goes Nowhere
50% OF Content Gets ZERO Social Shares<0.1% Gets +1000 Shares
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Buffer Social’s Kevan Lee:“We’ve Lost Half our Organic Social Media Traffic in the Last Year”
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Organic Social Media Reach Stinks!
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PPC Ad Costs at All Time High!
Source: Approx. 2500 WordStream Customers(Not official Google Data.)
Desktop
Tablet
Mobile
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Typical Conversion Rate from Content
Marketing < 1%
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How to make Content Marketing:• Work More
Predictably• Create More Leads &
Sales• Higher Conversion
Rates• Lower Costs
Big Changes Needed! 5-10x improvements not just 5-10%!
Unicorn Rainbow Inversion Therapy
Cures All Your Marketing Issues
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New Marketing Content
Marketing Strategy for
2017!
Spoiler Alert: It has very little to do about producing “Quality
Content”
3 Random Facts About
Larry
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Slightly Obsessed
With Unicorns
Make PPC Magical Again!
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Have a 2-year old Kid (#ppckid)
Live in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA
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WordStream’s NEW Headquarters!
2008
2017
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5-Year Compound
Annual Growth Rate 95%
Content Marketing Moneyball IRL!
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
$1,100,000$3,300,000
$6,500,000
$10,000,000
$22,800,000
$32,000,000
Hoping to Grow to $40-60 Million This
Year (Just a Guess*)
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Part 1: What is “Quality” or “Relevant” Content?
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The Content Donkey
Detector
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Content Quality Should Be Based on Data Not
Just Biased Views of Your Own Work
Need Objective Way to Discern Unicorns vs. Non-
Unicorns
Great CRO
Great Social
Great PPC
Great SEO
“Quality Content” =
Content Marketing Objectives vs. Actual Outcomes!
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Unicorns!
Optimize Content for User Engagement Metrics like Click Through Rates (CTR) & Dwell Time and You’ll Find Unicorns!
Larry’s Crazy Content Marketing Theory
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The Key To AdWords Has Always Been About User Engagement (Quality Score)
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+/- 1 Point in QS Results in +/- 9% Ad Impression Share on desktop (or +/-18% on mobile)
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CTR (Quality Score) Determines Ad Visibility in AdWords
Quality Score (Dramatically) affects your
AdWords CPC10 Discounted by 50.0%9 Discounted by 44.2%8 Discounted by 37.5%7 Discounted by 28.6%6 Discounted by 16.7%5 Google benchmark4 Increased by 25.0%3 Increased by 67.3%2 Increased by 150.0%1 Increased by 400.0%
You Save
You Pay
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Quality Score for Gmail Ads (CPC vs. Open Rate)
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Quality Score on Google Display Ads (CPC vs. CTR)
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Facebook & Twitter Ads: Higher Engagement Rate = (Much) Lower Cost Per Engagement
Engagement RateCost per engagement
$.005
$.02
$.03
$.08
68%
7%
21%
37%
$3.00
1%
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Do Engagement Rates Like CTR & Dwell Time Rate Impact Rankings?
What About Organic Search?
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Signs Point to YES: Engagement Rates Matter for Organic Search
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User Query Entered
ML Algo Makes a Guess and Re-Writes The Query into Something it Recognizes (Query
Interpretation)
Did The Result
Satisfy The User?
Great. Next Time I See Queries Like This, I’ll Put This Page at the Top.
Larry’s Greatly Simplified Machine Learning Diagram*
YES
NO
*Note: Not Official Google Diagram.
Rats. Next Time I See a Query Like This, I’ll Try Some
Other Page
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What’s A Good Click Through Rate for Organic Search? (Spoiler Alert:
It’s in Flux)O
rgan
ic S
earc
h Cl
ick
Thro
ugh
Rate
High CTR Listings Floating To Top Positions
Low CTR Listings Sinking To Bottom of Page
Organic Search Position
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+/- 3% Increase inPost Engagement+/- 1 Spot in Organic Position
CTR-Based Organic Ranking Rewards?
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Dwell Time Becoming an Increasingly Important
SEO Ranking Factor
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A year ago: Time on Page Didn’t
Appear to Matter
Much for SEO
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Today: Low Time on
Page Donkey
Content is Nearly
Extinct!
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What About the
Facebook Newsfeed
Algo?
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User Browses Feed
Newsfeed algorithm displays something it thinks might be interesting to the user.
Did User Engage
With Content?
Great. Next Time I See Updates Like This, I’ll
show it on this users newsfeed and for others like him/her.
Larry’s Greatly Simplified Facebook Newsfeed Algo*
YES
NO
*Note: Not Official Facebook Diagram.
Rats. Next Time I’ll try different
status update for this person and
won’t bother showing it to people like
him/her.
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The Same Stuff That Does Great in Search Tends To Also Do Great on Social Media
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Are They Related to Engagement Rates?
What About Conversion Rates?
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Higher CTRs = Higher Conversion Rates
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Picnic Pants*(inspired by Wil Reynolds!) Drones
Vs.CT
R
• Picnic Pants
Drones •
Conversion Rate
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These Unicorns All Have High Engagement in
Common!
SEO Unicorn
Paid/Organic Social
UnicornCRO
UnicornPPC
Unicorn
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PPC, SEO & Social Media Employ
ML-Enabled Algos that Reward High Engagement Content
with Greater Visibility.
Engagement Rates =‘On-Base Percentage’ of
Content Marketing!
Part 2: What’s a Good Engagement Rate?
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High Engagement Unicorns
Low Engagemen
t Donkeys
What’s the Difference?(Hint: It’s Relative)
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Post Engagement Rates for 129 Facebook Status Updates for a
Random Customer
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Unicorn Social Updates are +10x
More Engaging Than Donkey
Posts
Unicorns (top 10%) have 6x Higher CTR than Donkeys (Bottom 10%)
Unicorns
Donkeys
CTR vs. Average Position in Organic Search
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A Small Number of
Stories (10%)
Generate Most of the
Traffic (+60%)
Typical Blog Traffic Distribution
The Top 10% of Offers Convert +5x Better Than Donkeys
Search Conversion Rate Distribution
Median: 2.35%
Top 25%: 5.31% and Above
Top 10%: 11.45% and Above
SHAR
E O
F AL
L AC
COU
NTS
SEARCH CONVERSION RATE. (WordStream Customer Data – Not Official Google Data)
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Unicorn Content Power Law: Most of the Value Comes from a Fraction of the Content
(duh)
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The Future of Content
Marketing is Increasingly
Winner-Take-All. Time to Adjust
Content Strategy!
Traffic to the Top 10 Posts of the Month at Inc Magazine
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High Engagement = Your Top ~3% Content!
They do WAY better in SEO, PPC, Social Media, and CRO than ever before!
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Part 3: Unicorn Content Creation
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Make More Unicorns, Duh!
I’ve Written My
Share of These
Dumb Viral Article
How-To’s…
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They Focus on Content Attributes
Rather Than
Outcomes
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They Make Arguments in Favor of
Content Quality
over Quantity or Long Form vs.
Short Form
Content Quality vs. Quality Debate
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It’s a False Choice: You NEED the QUANTITY to
*FIND* the QUALITY
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Larry’s Content
Marketing Truth Bomb:
Unicorn Creation is More of a Numbers
Game Than Most Content
Marketers Want to Admit.
WordStream Blog Article Performance for Stories
Published in 2016
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I Worked Hard on All My Content Last Year
But I Only Found 5 Unicorns Last Year.
The Rest Were Donkeys!
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Larry’s Theory:
Success is More About Extracting Maximum Leverage From The
Unicorns You Have
Larry’s Content Marketing Strategy: The Content Pyramid
Scheme1. Produce and
Audition Lots of Content
2. Measure Engagement Rates
3. Kill the Donkeys4. Find The Unicorns
and Sound the Unicorn Alert!
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4. The Unicorn
Alert
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Content Treadmill
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Create Unicorn Babies
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Unicorn Baby Generates Nearly 100k Views
Boost Your Unicorns
With Social Media Ads
& PPC Advertisin
g
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Facebook Ads: High Relevance Score = Low Cost Per Click
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Unicorn Infographicification™
& Videoification™
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Webinars & Conference
Presentations
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WordStream Webinar Performance in 2016
Average Donkey: 674Average Unicorn: 3323
5 Webinars Generated 71% of the Registrations
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Evergreen Unicorns
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A Million Views for $1000 Content Creation Effort ($0.001
CPM)
5
4
3
Content Marketing Moneyball: Data Driven Content Strategy
Optimize for EngagementML- Systems Reward High Engagement w/ Great Visibility.
Audition Lots of Content IdeasQuantity matters. Improves chances of unicorn detection.
Find the UnicornsIdentify content with unusually high engagement rates
START/GO(Donkey
Land)
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2
1
Kill Your Donkeys.Milk Your Unicorns.
Donkey Elimination
Stop Wasting time pushing donkeys. Let
them die.Unicorn AlertGet off Content Treadmill. Go nuts with your best unicorns across all channels.
END/REPEAT (Unicorn Land)
– OR is it??
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What Does it All Mean?
Content Marketing
?
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How Content Marketing REALLY Works
STEP 1: Demand Creation: Create & Promote Inspirational / Memorable Content about Your Brand to your Target Market
STEP 2: Bias Formation: People See Your Content, But Don’t Necessarily Take Action Right Away.
STEP 3: Harvest Demand: Later when the Need Arises, People either:
Do a Branded Search for Your
Stuff
Do Un-Branded Search but Biased Towards
Clicking & Buying From You.
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Comparing New vs. Repeat Visitors
How Does Brand Affinity Impact Content Marketing
Success?
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Brand Affinity DRAMATICALLY Impacts CTR (+2-3x!)
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Brand Affinity DRAMATICALLY Impacts CONVERSION RATES (+2-
3x!)
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Returning Visitors: 127% Higher Conversion Rate, 218% Higher Time on
Site
Virtuous Cycle of Unicorn Land
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1. Unicorn Alert Yields Better Engagement2. Better Engagement Yields Better Unicorn Alerts!
THANK YOU Will
Critchlow & Searchlove
Friends!#searchlove @larrykim