the essential guide to visual content marketing
TRANSCRIPT
Three takeaways for today
1. Have a strategy for your marketing and creative teams working together.
2. Think about people and process before tools and technology.
3. Measure the value of your visual content across the content lifecycle.
VISUAL CONTENT TRENDS
Top visual content types
video clips for social
interactive infographics
minigraphics
ebooks
interactive white papers
data visualizations
graphical data
quizzes and visual puzzles
screenshots
tutorials
Q&A visuals
memes
comics
quote cards
360 images
animated gifs
cinemagraphs
short form stories
feature films
video series
CAN’T: LACK:
FIND
SHARE
ACCESS
STRUCTURE
VISIBILITY
CONNECTIVITY
MEASUREMENT
UNDERSTANDING
?
BIG CONTENT PROBLEMS
Big content problems
MAKING ASSETS REAL
Enterprises have visual assets all over the organization. They are hard to find, challenging to access, and impossible to share. The time has come when enterprises need to treat visual assets like, well, assets.” – JOE PULIZZI, FOUNDER, CONTENT MARKETING INSTITUTE
“
MAKING ASSETS REAL
Re-purposeable TrackableReusable
What makes visual content digital assets?
Adaptable
DAM IS MISSION CRITICAL
It’s as simple as this: The successful content marketing approach of the future will depend heavily on a true enterprise competency to understand, develop, and execute smart digital asset management.”– ROBERT ROSE, CHIEF STRATEGY ADVISOR, CMI
“
DAM AND CONTENT STRATEGY
Today’s most successful organizations have mastered the ability to link their digital asset management systems with their public-facing content marketing strategy.
CONTENT STRATEGY
Five major components content marketing strategy
Optimize
Plan
Strategize
ExecuteEvaluate
PLAN WITH PURPOSE
Getting started with your content plan starts with knowing your content niche and opportunity.
PLANNING TIPS
Key factors to planning your content strategy
1. Start with “why.” What business goals are you trying to achieve?
2. Focus on people and process before technology decisions.
3. Think beyond your team. Leverage influencers or customers.
PLANNING TIPS
How DAM can help
● Make content strategy, brand
guidelines, and a content calendar
accessible from your DAM dashboard.
● Track ideas, requests, creative briefs,
and project timelines alongside your
DAM and work management tools.
● Start with Insights to bring your
planning and strategy full circle.
What to include in your content marketing strategy
STRATEGIZE
● Business goals
● Content marketing goals
● Content tilt — areas of expertise
and market ownership
● Direction on tone and voice
● Recommendations for visuals
● Thought leadership goals and/or
industry positioning goals
● Content audit and metrics
● Content calendar
CONTENT AUDIT FRAMEWORK
Uncover
● Inventory – What do you have?
● Location – Where are assets located?
● Access – Who has access? Who should?
See embedded asset referrer URLs to see where content is published.
CONTENT AUDIT FRAMEWORK
Evaluate consistency and messaging with collection search results.
Evaluate
● Branding — Are you consistent?
● Messaging — Do you speak the language of your personas?
● Stage — Where does each piece fall in the customer lifecycle?
CONTENT AUDIT FRAMEWORK
Use Quick Insights to gauge content performance at the asset level.
Improve
● Gaps — At each stage? Need to fill?
● Metrics — How often are your content assets viewed and shared?
● Results — What actions have come as a result?
Uncover Evaluate Improve
What do you have?By asset type
By category
By specific field
Who has access? Who should?Match roles to asset groups
Where is content extended / integrated?Top referrer URLs?
Any integrations in place?
Is this the central source? Where else?
What is needed?By asset group
By category
By collection
By metadata field
What’s the breakdown by lifecycle phase?UnreleasedReleasedExpiredArchived
Are the most current versions in circulation?How many assets have versions?
What are the most popular assets? (Sort by engagement score)
What needs improvement?(Sort by engagement score)
What is most downloaded?
What embedded assets have the most views?
How are your assets being used?Are intended use values current?
How do you assess the total value?Users / logins (total, % change)
Storage asset count (total, % change)
What do regional Insights tell you?
What do search Insights tell you?
Use this framework to conduct a content audit for all assets by specific asset groups, teams, or projects under your administration.
CONTENT AUDIT WORKSHEET
STRATEGY TIPS
How DAM can help
● Embrace persona and
customer stages as metadata
fields for your finalized
content assets.
● Include intended or “permitted
uses” as metadata. Track it!
CONTENT STRATEGY STEPS: EXECUTE
Step 3: Define the “when, where, and how”
Create a “where” list of distribution channels.
BUILD YOUR CONTENT CALENDAR
1. Develop overall guidelines with anchor dates, key milestones, and industry themes.
2. Create an inventory of who is creating what types of content for which channels.
Practical tips to build your content calendar
3. Build a content calendar — monthly/quarterly/annually — with editorial assignments.
4. Inventory current content and perform a gap assessment.
EXECUTION TIPS
How DAM can help
● Create collections for key themes and events on your content calendar.
● Use portals to distribute assets to different teams of people responsible for different distribution assignments.
● Set up intended use tracking mechanisms for content deliverables.
● Leverage structured data (categories, collections, metadata, governance controls) for inventories and gap assessments.
CONTENT STRATEGY STEPS: EVALUATE
● Monthly unique visitors
● Click-thrus
● Social shares and following
● Engagement
● Content views
Common metrics include:
● Name acquisition
● Conversion rates
● Days to close
● Contract size
● Customer lifetime value
EVALUATION TIPS
How DAM can help
● Tie content analytics to other
business analytics.
● Integrate content marketing and
business intelligence (BI) tools.
● Track DAM metrics for usage,
repurposing, and engagement.
● Leverage Insights analytics to
understand top content.
CONTENT STRATEGY STEPS: OPTIMIZE
Step 5:Optimizing your content marketing strategy
Maximize your best-performing content!
HOW TO SOLVE BIG CONTENT PROBLEMS
● Enable collaboration among teams and partners
● Create a central repository of finished content and source files
● Make it easier to reuse and upcycle across all audiences
● Offer appropriate access to existing inventories
Drivers for content solutions● Allow for ongoing updates and
refresh cycles● Establish status tracking and
version control● Get an overall view of content at
all stages● Evaluate performance at a content
asset level
AVOID COMMON PITFALLS
● Don’t change processes too much, too soon
● Avoid complexity; embrace simplicity
● Answer the WIIFM question – What’s in it for me?
● Don’t require an army of admins
● Don’t expect everyone to be experts with tools
● Buyers are not always users
Common pitfalls to avoid with content technology
Talk with [email protected]
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Talk with [email protected]://b2bmarketingacademy.com
Twitter: @PegMiller