scaling quality v1.3
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SCALING QUALITY V1.3 HOW TO MAKE REMARKABLE CONTENT AT SCALE FOR MARKETING SUCCESS
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MICHAEL KING
DOWNLOAD: HTTP://BIT.LY/SCALING-QUALITY13 @IPULLRANK
MICHAEL KING
SO EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT CONTENT…
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…AND EXPECTS THIS…
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Eloqua released a recent study comparing Content Marketing and Paid Search showing the CPL for Content Marketing is substantially lower
than Paid Search over time.
…AND THIS…
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…BUT GETS A LOT OF THIS…
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…AND THIS…
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Most content is not made with a given audience in mind and it falls flat because no one cares. This is where Content Marketing often fails.
BECAUSE YOUR CONTENT LOOKS LIKE THIS!
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SERIOUSLY, WTF USA TODAY?!
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THERE’S NO EXCUSE FOR BAD CONTENT IN 2014
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There are far too many cost-effective resources out there to settle for bad content. There are too many out of work art school kids and
journalists looking to create high quality content across various networks for brands to rely on poor quality stuff.
THERE’S MORE DATA THAN EVER…
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…on how users think and what they are interested in. Why are we still making so much stuff that no one cares about?
A BIG REASON MARKETERS FAIL IS…
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…they don’t know the difference between Content Marketing and Content Strategy. Most of the content that marketers are creating is done with
no strategy in mind and it falls flat because it doesn’t include enough forethought and planning.
CONTENT STRATEGY “A shared set of goals, guiding principles, and
success metrics that guides the creation,
delivery, and governance of content across an
organization.”
CONTENT MARKETING “Multichannel custom publishing.”
CONTENT STRATEGY IS THE ANSWER!
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Content Strategy is understanding the who, what, when, why and how of content. It’s building systems, processes, and workflows for content
creating, maintenance and promotion. Following this process we will build content with an inherent audience, workflow and governance.
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DIVERSIFY CONTENT TYPES
PRESS
BLOGS VIDEO
UGC
COMICS
PRODUCTS
PHYSICAL SPACE
ADS
PHOTOS
INFOGRAPHICS
SERVICES
EVENTS
UI ELEMENTS
PDFS TOOLS
APIS
ANIMATIONS
COMMENTS
DATA
PLATFORMS
PRINT MATERIAL SLIDE DECKS
PLUGINS
TWEETS
FOCUS ON THE ROI
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See my Mozcon 2012 Deck for a detailed presentation of how to build a business case for content mapping it to ROI through available search
volume and CTR: http://www.slideshare.net/ipullrank/getting-buyin-for-content-marketing-mozcon-remix
MAP CONTENT TO THE USER JOURNEY & KPIS
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The main objective is to show business value, not just like and share counts. We tie our KPIs to and our content the proper phase of the
consumer decision journey to show fulfill their needs and drive business objectives.
CONTENT PLANNING
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TOOLS FOR QUALITY CONTENT STRATEGY
MURAL.LY
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Leverage Mural.ly for planning content across your team - http://www.mural.ly I also love it for Affinity Diagramming when building personas.
STORYBOARD THAT
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Build out story boards for Creative people to follow when creating your content - http://www.storyboardthat.com
BALSAMIQ
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Build WYSIWYG wireframes to communicate your ideas visually - http://www.balsamiq.com
GLIFFY
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Gliffy also great for wireframes as well as process documentation for outlining content governance and workflow. http://www.gliffy.com
TRELLO
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Trello is a free project management software that is perfect for content planning and execution http://www.trello.com It also allows you to build a
content calendar view.
GREAT CONTENT HAS GREAT STRUCTURE
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Use images, bullets, formatting to capture the attention of more people. Define this structure in your styleguide http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-
super-easy-seo-copywriting-tips-for-link-building
FINDING GOOD IDEAS
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WAYS TO FIND THINGS PEOPLE CARE ABOUT
BUILD PERSONAS
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Layering data from Nielsen and Experian in context with Social PPC inventories to allows marketers to build audience and buyer personas at
scale and leverage them as a lens to develop content people want.
THIS IS WHERE GOOGLE IS HEADED
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In a recent video Google revealed how they are able to model people based on their vast datasets. They are using big data to build a database
of affinities that advertisers can leverage for more effective advertising. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1kRd571bz0
AFFINITY SEGMENTS
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Google has leveraged that data to segment every user across the Google ecosystem into a variety of groups called Affinity Segments. Even
right now advertisers can use this data for targeting. You can have ask your Adwords rep to get the detailed user stories that you see above.
YOU CAN TRACK AFFINITY SEGMENTS IN GA
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Most importantly you can get the affinity segments and demographic data right in Google Analytics. This data yields very powerful insights in
context of the other dimensions and metrics that GA provides.
FREE MOSAIC INTERACTIVE GUIDES
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While Experian Simmons is quite an expensive tool that is out of reach for many there are free Mosaic Interactive Guides for the US, Germany,
Australia, France, Brazil, Scotland, and Spain. I’ll get you started with the US guide http://guides.business-
strategies.co.uk/mosaicusa2011/html/visualisation.htm
1. STATE YOUR GOAL
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One of Moz's key business goals is to increase the number of SMBs that signup for free services that become monthly subscribers. Therefore
the goal of this persona exercise will be to discover a key segment of Moz's audience that is very likely to share and link to content, but hasn't
purchased a Moz Analytics pro membership yet
2. USE DEMOGRAPHICS TO FRAME
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Identifying the demographics allows to figure out where does the persona fall. Based on this data it’s equally valid to have a segment that is 25-
34 and female desktop user as it is to have one that 55-64 and male mobile user. The percentages give the likelihood that that person is part of
your audience.
3. COLLECT USER NEEDS
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I’ve used a combination of Moz’s Q&A, Twitter’s advanced search and data that I scraped from Moz’s user profiles to uncover user needs. I’ve
done it this way because these data sources are available for this site. Another site would require other methods.
4. OBSERVE PSYCHOGRAPHICS
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Facebook Graph Search, Twtrland, and Twitter Advanced Search all allow me to look precisely at the people that are interested in Moz based
and review their demographics to then examine their psychographics based on the other features of your profile.
5. BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
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This research process yielded a persona that called Mozzy Smurf that is always on the run trying to live the 4-Hour week lifestyle. He’s an avid
traveler, lover of Moz’s content, but he expects more out of the product. Mozzy Smurf would become a subscriber if their were different pricing
options, an iPhone app, multi-seat accounts and more premium content.
WHAT IS A USER JOURNEY?
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The user journey is the path the user must take to fulfill a given need or meet a given goal (which can be a collection of needs). An example
could be the steps a user takes to go on a trip somewhere as seen above. It can be as broad (AIDA, CEBEA) or as a granular as you’d like it to
be. All that matters is that each steps is actionable and you can map it to content.
IDENTIFYING CONTENT GAPS WITH CONTENT AUDITS
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User
desires
travel, but
doesn’t
quite know
where to
go.
User is
looking to
book a
complete
itinerary
User is
planning
out
everything
they need
to do for
the trip.
User is
traveling
from their
home to
their
custom
itinerary
trip.
User has
arrived at
the
destination.
User is
enjoying
their trip.
User is
heading
home.
User has
had an
issue
during their
trip.
User
wants to
share
their trip
with
friends
and
family.
EXPLORE BOOK PREPARE TRAVEL ARRIVE STAY DEPART PROBLEM REPORT
How do I find a
place to go?
How do I find
all the features
of the trip I
want and book
it?
What do I
need to get
ready for this
trip?
How to do I
get to the
airport? What
if my flight is
canceled?
What do I do
once I land?
How to find the
things in my
itinerary?
How do I get
back to the
airport? Can I
take this stuff
home?
How do I get
help when I’m
on a trip?
Where’s the
best place to
share my
experience
online?
Trip.Me had no content for any of these phases
in the user journey
FOLLOWERWONK
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Use the word clouds from your followers or a competitor’s to develop co-relevant content ideas. Beware of the small sample size.
http://www.followerwonk.com
SIMPLYMEASURED + TAG CROWD
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Using SimplyMeasured’s free follower report with tag crowd gets you insights from a sample size of 10k. http://www.simplymeasured.com +
http://www.tagcrowd.com
BOTTLENOSE
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Bottlenose’s Sonar feature allows you to identify what terms are showing up in social media which allows you to create co-relevant content with
built-in audience. http://www.bottlenose.com
QUORA
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Pose and/or identify questions using Question & Answer forum Quora to determine how popular an idea will before putting the effort into
creating something. http://www.quora.com
KEYWORD RESEARCH
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Use keyword research tools to vet content ideas, they are a direct look into the psyche of the population. http://ubersuggest.org/
http://www.google.com/trends https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home
YUTONGO
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Can’t come up with an idea? Use Yutongo to crowdsource it http://ideation.yutongo.com/
SEE MY PERSONAS DECK
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Stop writing with your eyes closed like this guy. Check out my presentation on personas or read the 12,500 word Moz post:
http://moz.com/blog/personas-understanding-the-person-behind-the-visit
DOWNLOAD: HTTP://BIT.LY/PERSONAS-2014
DATA COLLECTION SOURCES
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THERE’S WAY TOO MUCH DATA OUT THERE TO BE DOING AWFUL CONTENT
SURVEYMONKEY AUDIENCE
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Get custom data right from your audience with SurveyMonkey Audience http://www.surveymonkey.com/audience
GOOGLE CONSUMER SURVEYS
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Do the same with Google Consumer Surveys: http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/
GOOGLE PUBLIC DATA
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http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory
MARKETING CHARTS
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Marketing Charts is an interesting site with hundreds of random data points about random things related to marketing
http://www.marketingcharts.com/
GOOGLE CONSUMER BAROMETER
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Consumer Barometer is a microsite by Google that features data on consume buying behaviors http://www.consumerbarometer.com/
ZANRAN
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ZanRan is a search engine for data & stats http://www.zanran.com/
DATAMARKET
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Data source aggregator http://www.datamarket.com
GET THE DATA
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Question based Data Search Engine http://getthedata.org/
DATA360
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News-driven data http://www.data360.org
QUALITY OUTSOURCING
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GREAT RESOURCES TO GET YOUR CONTENT MADE FOR YOU
99DESIGNS
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Get creatives to compete for your business http://www.99designs.com
DRIBBBLE
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Identify Creatives in your area to hire based on the pre-existing work. http://www.dribbble.com
CONTENTLY
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Organize high quality writers into a content calendar, manage their pitches and their submissions with workflow management tools
http://www.contently.com
SKYWORD
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Organize high quality writers into a content calendar, manage content with this content network and workflow management tools.
http://www.skyword.com
NEWSCRED
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Great custom content created or license content from other sources with http://www.newscred.com
COPYPRESS
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The best mid-level, low commitment content creation solution is CopyPress. The quality of the content is high and they are also coming out
with workflow management tools soon it seems. http://www.copypress.com
PLAG TRACKER
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Check if the article submissions are original or not http://www.plagtracker.com
GRAMMARLY
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Check the grammar of article submissions at scale http://www.grammar.ly
EXAMPLE OUTSOURCE WORKFLOW
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TOOLS FOR QUALITY CONTENT
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YOU CAN DO IT ALL BY YOURSELF
IF YOU CAN WRITE…
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How you can you create effective content without first gaining a deep understanding of that audience? You might as well be writing with your
eyes closed like this guy.
…MAKE A SPREADSHEET…
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How you can you create effective content without first gaining a deep understanding of that audience? You might as well be writing with your
eyes closed like this guy.
…AND UPLOAD PICTURES…
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How you can you create effective content without first gaining a deep understanding of that audience? You might as well be writing with your
eyes closed like this guy.
THEN YOU CAN MAKE GREAT CONTENT!
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GOOGLE FUSION TABLES
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http://www.google.com/drive/apps.html#fusiontables
ICHARTS
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Make charts and infographcis from google docs http://www.icharts.com
STORYBIRD
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Create interactive books with http://www.storybird.com
KULER
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Having trouble color coordinating? Kuler can help. http://kuler.adobe.com
ADOBE EDGEFONTS
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Google Font API and Adobe Typekit had a baby. http://edgewebfonts.adobe.com
EXAMPLE DIY WORKFLOW
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COMMUNICATING WITH CREATIVES
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HOW TO GET WHAT YOU EXPECTED OUT OF ART SCHOOL KIDS
THIS IS YOU STARTING A CONTENT PROJECT
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YAY! WE’RE MAKING
CONTENT!
THIS IS YOU WHEN YOU GET IT BACK FROM CREATIVE
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YOUR COMMUNICATION LEAVES CREATIVES…
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I WROTE A LONG POST ABOUT THIS
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I reached out to some SEOs involved in remarkable content projects and asked them about their processes and such. I also talked to our
Creative Director about how to better communicate creative ideas. http://bit.ly/1s2skQk
THE DATA VIZ BRIEF FIXES THIS
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Audience
Wireframe
Data Look & Feel
Copy Story / Background
Target Audience
Men and women ages 21+ who are interested in topics in the marketing industry & may be marketing professionals themselves
The entertainment & movie studio industry community
Those who are engaged within the SEO and social media space Story
There is one industry that starts back at square one when it comes to marketing a new product: the movie industry. Movie studios attempt to build
new communities for every individual film in order to have engaged audiences yet abandon these social properties once the film is released. Would a
studio’s time and money be better spent continuing to engage audiences? Center social audience focus on the studio itself rather than an individual
film? This infographic examines how and what drives moviegoers to spread the word about films and gives studios a better idea of where there
focus should be when promoting a new release. Conclusion
When choosing or recommending a movie, people don’t care about the studios that make these movies – especially not those in the younger age
range. Young people are more likely to recommend a movie through social media, however, and those who are heavy social users are more likely to
follow a studio on a social network than an individual film. Younger people get more movie information from social network and TV commercials while
older people get more information from TV commercials and print.
Methodology Conduct a survey to find out the social behavior of moviegoers as well as how & where they talk about films.
Examine different social profiles for individual films as well as movie studios to find trends that are reflected in this data.
Utilize existing data to further inform survey and panel data.
AUDIENCE, STORY, VISUAL DESCRIPTION
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Frame the data viz completely with the target audience, the story and oftentimes the methodology and conclusion from whatever data collection
exercise we did to give them complete context.
DATA
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Provide raw data as well as curated data points to give the designer as much latitude as a possible to tell a visual story
How Moviegoers Hear About Movies
For most people, movie trailers are still the “first
look” they are intended to be.
bar graph
49% Movie trailers
44% TV commercials
35% Recommendations from friends
How Moviegoers Choose What to See
People select movies based on the emotions they
want to experience – causing genre to be the top
motivating factor.
pie chart
40% Genre
38% Recommendations/reviews
0.2% Studio
WIREFRAME WITH COPY
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We’ll also hand the copy off in the deck, but here it is laid out on the wireframe. The images on the right are the end result of the entire process.
CONTENT PROMOTION
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BECAUSE JUST BECAUSE YOU BUILT IT DOESN’T MEAN THEY WILL COME
BUZZSTREAM’S CONTENT PROMOTION E-BOOK
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The folks at Buzzstream wrote the book on content promotion. I don’t have time to speak about it today, but check this out for a complete cross-
channel action plan http://resources.buzzstream.com/advanced-guide-to-content-promotion/ However I will briefly highlight some equations for
calculating what is required for content promotion.
GOAL DETERMINATION
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Use this equation to calculate the number of downloads and visitors a given piece of content should generate.
SPEND PER CHANNEL REQUIREMENT
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Use this formula to calculate the number of conversions you can expect per dollar spent.
OUTREACH GOAL REQUIREMENT
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Use these equations to calculate the amount of prospects and the amount of outreach required to build links to your content.
WRAPPING UP
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I’M OUT!
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How you can you create effective content without first gaining a deep understanding of that audience? You might as well be writing with your
eyes closed like this guy.
THANK YOU / Q&A
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Michael King Executive Director of Owned Media [email protected] @iPullRank
DOWNLOAD: HTTP://BIT.LY/SCALING-QUALITY13