ACT Perfecting PitchesMichael King

Director of Inbound MarketingiAcquire

www.iacquire.com

@ipullrank

….CONTENT MARKETING IS A GREAT IDEA…

….BUT IT’S NOT AS EASY ASWE MAKE IT SOUND

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….

TOO MANY STAKEHOLDERS NEED CONVINCING

….

THEY MIGHT NOT UNDERSTAND THE ROI

How is your so-called “content”

gonna make us money?

….

THEY MIGHT THINK IT’S TOO MUCH WORK

….

YOUR TEAM OR CLIENTS MAY DRIVE YOU TO DRINK

…OR SMOKE

…AND YOU MIGHT FALL FLAT ON YOUR FACE

How can I get them to buy this content marketing

stuff?

SO WHAT’S A CONTENT MARKETER TO DO?

YOU NEED A COMPELLINGDATA-DRIVENPITCH

SELL YOUR VISION…

….

YOU MAY NOT HAVE THE ATUHORITY

BUT ALWAYS BE READY TO

DO THIS …

….

YOU MAY NOT HAVE THE ATUHORITY

…CONTENT IS THE GLUE OF INBOUND MARKETINGYOU MUST TAKE A STAND

ACTONERESEARCH

Doing research that sticks

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CONTENT MARKETING PROCESS

This closely mirrors the “New SEO Process” http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-new-seo-process-quit-being-kanye

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Opportunity Discovery is the process of understanding the client’s space in context of the business goals to tailor the content strategy directly to what they need to accomplish.

OPPORTUNITY DISCOVERY

LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

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BUSINESS GOALS ARE PARAMOUNT

Understanding and integration of the business

objectives throughout the entire process is incredibly

important to obtaining buy-in and measuring success.

If you’re not speaking in terms of conversion, you will

not be speaking much longer.

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MARKET RESEARCH

Every content creator and SEO should have at least a working knowledge of the space, the company and the audience. At iAcquire we’ve invested heavily in the market research capability and we create client one sheets and influencer

reports with objectives, personas, customer insights, market insights, hot topics, key influencers and resources

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Develop four hypothetical representations of people that exist within the online conversation as related to business goals, give them stories and attributes to which content will be created. The key is to keep it as relevant and actionable

to the content you will be creating as possible

PERSONAS

PERSONA C PERSONA BPERSONA A PERSONA D

DEMOGRAPHICS

LIFESTYLES

USER STORY

USER NEEDS

DEMOGRAPHICS

LIFESTYLES

USER STORY

USER NEEDS

DEMOGRAPHICS

LIFESTYLES

USER STORY

USER NEEDS

DEMOGRAPHICS

LIFESTYLES

USER STORY

USER NEEDS

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I outlined a process in my “Understanding Your Audience Using Social Media” Mozinar about how to use Keyword Research, Social Media and Discussion Search to develop ad hoc personas.

http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/understanding-your-audience-using-social-media

QUASI-AD HOC PERSONAS

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THE PROBLEM WITH AD HOC PERSONAS

While this approach can be very effective

stakeholders may potentially challenge it because

it’s not empirical. However neither is the old

method of handing out post-its to stakeholders

BUT ALWAYS BE READY TO

DO THIS …

“A major virtue of personas is the establishment of empathy and understanding the individual who uses the product” -Donald A. Norman, Nielsen Norman

Group

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At iAcquire we have a data-driven approach starting from Nielsen’s PRIZM segments, layering data from Experian Simmons and finally using Social Inventories from Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and DoubleClick to develop empirical

and social media-relevant personas.

iACQUIRE’S DATA DRIVEN PERSONAS

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INTRODUCING NIELSEN PRIZM

Download this PDF: http://ocair.org/files/KnowledgeBase/HowTo/PRIZM_Code.pdf

Nielsen’s PRIZM segments all of the US into 66 predetermined

types or “codes”

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INSTANT PERSONAS FOR LOCAL SEARCH USING PRIZM

Understand Your Local Audience Now: http://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=20

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EXPERIAN SIMMONS

Simmons Mosaic Types: http://www.tetrad.com/pub/documents/agsmosaiclist.pdf

AIO CLUSTERS

MOSAIC TYPE BY URL

MOSAIC TYPE BY ONLINE ACTIVITY

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GOOGLE CONSUMER SURVEYS

Get very targeted Consumer Data: http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/home

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GOOGLE CONSUMER SURVEYS STEP BY STEP

Example from Matt Cutts: https://plus.google.com/109412257237874861202/posts/WDzRVDqbevn

SPECIFYAUDIENCE

WRITE QUESTIONS

GET DATA

DEFINE THE SURVEY TYPE

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COMPARE PERSONAS IN SEARCH WITH YAHOO CLUES

DO YOUR PERSONAS

ALIGN WITH DATA IN YAHOO

CLUES?

Leverage Yahoo’s Keyword Demographics: http://clues.yahoo.com

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HERE’S A PERSONA WORKSHEET

Download the Persona Worksheet: http://www.iacquire.com/resources/worksheets/iAcquire-Persona-Worksheet.xlsx

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When planning out a content marketing campaign use the consumer decision journey to determine what need state your

content will specifically speak to.

CONSUMER DECISION JOURNEY

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As usual finding the right keywords is important. Mapping them to content, need states and KPIs is paramount to proving

the success of a campaign

MAPPING KEYWORD RESEARCH

[flowers]

[when do roses bloom]

[what flowers for a first date]

[buying chrysanthemums]

[flower a month club]

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Map the content type directly to the customer decision journey to determine where in the funnel that this content will reach the user

TYING CONTENT MARKETING TO THE FUNNEL

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You will need determine realistic and specific KPIs with regard to where the content is in the funnel and develop reporting

that speaks to directly to that value.

MEASUREMENT PLANNING

….BUT WHAT ARE OUR

COMPETITORS DOING?

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FACEBOOK RECOMMENDATIONS PLUGIN DEMO

Get a snapshot of a site’s popular content: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/recommendations/

EXTEND THE BOX TO 1000

PIXELS TO VIEW 20 PIECES OF

POPULAR CONTENT

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SOCIAL CRAWLYTICS

Use Social Crawlytics to find out what the best performing content for competitors http://www.socialcrawlytics.com

SOCIAL CRAWLYTICS

GIVES AWESOME GRAPHS OF SHARES BY NETWORK

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SOCIAL CRAWLYTICS GIVES SHARE COUNTS BY URL

DON’T GO SHOWING ALL THAT DATA JUST YET!

ACTTWOGETTING BUY-INBuild a list of people that want the content

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The big idea should thematically govern the content strategy and keep content from being an “isolated incident” by tying everything to an initiative that fits into the overarching marketing mix and gives creative life

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?

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Content Marketing is about turning the brand into a storyteller. Tap into the Jungian story archetypes and align them with the business to build an effective story. More on story archetypes: http

://socialmediatoday.com/tommyismyname/383348/7-story-archetypes-and-how-they-can-dramatically-improve-your-marketing

THE 7 STORY ARCHETYPES

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Content is not a one-way street, but a cyclical process between the client’s goals, the strategist’s ideas and the influencer’s needs. Take your content to the audience before you ever write a word or place a pixel and get their

feedback and buy-in.

THE CLIENT-STRATEGIST-AUDIENCE FEEDBACK LOOP

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Using the following tactics find a group of people that will commit to engaging with this content and use that as evidence that the content will appeal to the brand’s audience and drive KPIs

CALL YOUR SHOT

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INTRODUCING AUTHORA

Find authors and their content by topic and social metrics: http://www.authora.org

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USING AUTHORA

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GROUPHIGH IS A SIMILAR PRODUCT

GroupHigh has a bit of a headstart on Authora, but it’s paid: http://www.grouphigh.com

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USE TOPSY TO FIND INTERESTED PARTIES

Use Topsy to find people who shared competitor content: http://www.topsy.com

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FOLLOWERWONK, ABOUT.ME, ZERP.LY, FINDPEOPLEONPLUS

Use the features of your personas (instead of just target keywords) to find people using: http://www.followerwonk.com , http://about.me, http://zerply.com and http://findpeopleonplus.com

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Determine how far your content will go for a given author by computing the scrape rate and share rate. http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rate-and-shareability-rate/ (original Scrape Rate concept by @pointblankseo)

SHARE RATE & SCRAPE RATE

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HERE’S AN AUDIENCE WORKSHEET

Download the Audience Worksheet: http://www.iacquire.com/resources/worksheets/iAcquire-Audience-Worksheet.xlsx

JUST A LITTLE SOMETHING TO HELP YOU KEEP TRACK OF ALL

OF THOSE PEOPLE

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INTRODUCING THE BROKEN LINK INDEX

Find missing resources by keyword with many links and create better versions: http://www.brokenlinkindex.com

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USING THE BROKEN LINK INDEX

Use the Broken Link Index to prove that content you are looking to create has a built-in audience that will allow you to hit your inbound link KPI.

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CONTENT AS A MAXIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT

Pitch content that supports multiple KPIs and need states within the customer journey as well as keeps the barrier to entry high for the competitors.

YOU ARE NOW READYFOR THE PITCH

ACTTHREEPUT IT ALL TOGETHER

5 tips for highly-effective, actionable and data-driven content marketing pitches

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THE FOCUS IS THE STORY

Tell a compelling story and answer a key issue using your data as a to drive it home

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TIE EVERYTHING DIRECTLY TO ROI

Everything you suggest should be directly explained in context of the ROI

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TAILOR IT DIRECTLY TO THE STAKEHOLDERS

Everything you show should address the concerns of the stakeholders; anticipate their questions

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IT BETTER BE BEAUTIFUL

Invest the time to make your pitch look beautiful and professional

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SPEAK THEIR LANGUAGE

Speak in terms the stakeholders understand for example “share of voice” rather than number of rankings

ACTFOURVALIDATEValidate what you’ve done through measurement

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Share of Voice (SoV) is a traditional advertising term defined as the percentage of possible positions in a channel occupied. As it pertains to the SEO it is the percentage available search volume captured. Use it when explaining the

opportunity to non-SEOs.

WTF IS SHARE OF VOICE?

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KEYWORD-LEVEL DEMOGRAPHICS

To date this is the most powerful thing I’ve contributed to the SEO community. Use it!http://www.seomoz.org/blog/keyword-level-demographics

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KEYWORD-LEVEL DEMOGRAPHICS BEST PRACTICES

Incentivize the Opt-In (Communities or Coupons)

Just track the persona

Use the appID Cross Property Cookie and Remarket

I have a half-finished Wordpress plugin. If you’d find that useful tweet at me and let me know.

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MAP SITE PROFILES TO CONVERSIONS

Does your site require some sort of profile? Tie the fields of that profile to measurement.

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USERREPORT.COM

Survey your users for free and get their demographic data into GA: http://www.userreports.com

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CHANGING KEYWORD DEMOGRAPHICS AS A KPI

The goal of your campaign can be to change the type of people searching for a given keyword

ACTFIVEOVERCOMING FAILURE

Content pitches that failed and how to overcome them

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A marketer presents the creation of infographics via email and phone, but doesn’t succeed and ultimately the client sees them as “complicated” or “expensive” measures.

FAIL #1: WEAK PRESENTATION

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Your presentation should not be an email or a phone call, it should be an in-person presentation with all the stakeholders.

RESOLUTION #1: PRESENT A DECK IN-PERSON

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A marketer sells in an idea neglecting to invite key stakeholders only to have that content strategy fall apart once the miss stakeholders review it.

FAIL #2: LEAVING OUT KEY STAKEHOLDERS

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Get all of the key stakeholders on board so you don’t have to repeat steps or risk the engagement falling apart after you believe

you’re good to go.

RESOLUTION #2: INVITE THEM ALL

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A marketer explains the content strategy using the wrong KPIs and the stakeholders respond that content is “nice to have” not as beneficial as “bombarding people with 100k email communications.”

FAIL #3: NOT SHOWING THE VALUE

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Build your measurement around the business objectives and things that actually show the positive affects of revenue.

RESOLUTION #3: BETTER MEASUREMENT PLANNING

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A marketer relies heavily on data to make her case and lambasts the regarded accomplishments of the key stakeholders.

FAIL #4: RELYING ON TOO MUCH DATA

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Don’t use numbers as a weapon to insult your stakeholders, tell a compelling story using the data as an aside that drive

the points of ineffectiveness.

RESOLUTION #4: LET THE STORY DO THE WORK

ACTSIXTHE PITCHJamie, Adam, Rand, I’ve got an idea for you

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There is an underserved user out there – the procrastinator. Some key moz’s solutions expect that users have the time to plan ahead, but inbound marketers need data now!

THE USER’S DILEMMA

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In the absence of certain real-time solutions from Moz the procrastinator turn to other sources.

THE PROCRASTINATOR’S RESOLUTION

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MOZ’S AUDIENCE IS FULL OF PROCRASTINATORS

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RAND, YOU SAID IT YOURSELF

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Majestic is rapidly chipping away at Moz’s advantages and solving the procrastinator’s dilemma. Their new Search Flow tool allows users to see a keyword difficulty score for 150 keywords at once.

MOZ’S PROBLEM

Open AppsTrust FlowCitation FlowSearch Flow

MozScape APIDomain AuthorityPage AuthorityKeyword Difficulty

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MOZ’S KEYWORD DIFFICULTY

Moz has the opportunity to continue to lead the pack by improving the keyword difficulty tool.

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The people have wanted a keyword difficulty API for years, but I understand that scraping Google on-demand at that scale is completely unreasonable.

THE PEOPLE WANT A KEYWORD DIFFICULTY API

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The secret is that it’s underrated because you can only do 5 keywords at a time!

YOU GUYS KNOW IT’S AWESOME

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With the new funding, users expect Moz to be able to work magic.

USERS EXPECT MORE OF MOZ NOW

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Add batch keyword difficulty to the Mozbar so that any Google scraping is done on the client side.

ADD KEYWORD DIFFICULTY TO THE MOZBAR

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MEASUREMENT PLAN

Make it PRO only feature and measure the effect it has on user churn, account upgrades, mozbar downloads and links and social shares of the Mozbar download page in context of the user profile

USER CHURNACCOUNTUPGRADES

MOZBOARDDOWNLOADS

LINKS SOCIAL SHARES

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RECAP

You see what I did there?

IDENTIFIEDTHE NEED

TIED TO REVENUE

TOLD A STORYAPPEALED TOCOMPETITIVE

SPIRIT

ACTSEVENONE MORE THING

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THANK YOU

Direct ContributorsBrittan BrightKyle BastianRobb DorrJosh GiardinoJeff NappiiAcquire

People Who Helped Me Get HereSEOmozRand FishkinDistilled Tom CritchlowJohn DohertySEER InteractiveWil ReynoldsChris LeRhea DrysdaleOutspoken MediaSMX

THE MOZ COMMUNITY

ACTMichael King

Director of Inbound Marketing

iAcquire

www.iacquire.com

@ipullrank