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THE 3 PILLARS OF

CONTENT MARKETING

Adrienne Burns & Benjamin Manning

Internet World 2014

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We believe it should be

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S I M PLE to harness the power of content marketing

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and we enable organisations to

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E N G A G E their audiences through quality content

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State of the industry

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• Search engines have got smarter, boosted by algorithm

changes like Panda, Penguin & Hummingbird

• Web users are smarter and use more specific search queries.

They’re better at filtering out results that aren’t useful to them

• Smartphones and tablets have resulted in higher accessibility

for smarter searchers who want better content, quickly

• Social media is a more powerful ranking factor than ever

before, and billions of pieces of content are shared monthly

across various platforms

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Image credit:http://www.brainlesstales.com/images/2011/Feb/whats-wrong.jpg

So what’s the issue?

If content marketing

really is the best and

most profitable way to

market your brand, why

isn’t everybody building

their marketing

campaigns around this

technique?

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Content Marketing Industry

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£4 billion – worth of the UK content marketing

industry source: Content Marketing Association, 2014

31% - total of B2B budgets currently spent on

content marketing source: Content Marketing Institute, Dec 2013

56% – marketers planning to increase their spend on

content marketing in 2014 source: Content Marketing Institute, Dec 2013

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HOWEVER....

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52% - proportion of marketers saying their

content marketing is less than effective

£2.1 billion – cost of ineffective content

marketing

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Creating quality content: effective, but difficult

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This might have something to do with it...

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Playing on Google’s Turf: Panda

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•Released February 2011, Panda lowered the rank of low-quality, thin websites

and reward higher-quality sites in SERPs – affecting 12% of search results

•News-based and social networking sites went up; ad-heavy sites went down

•This reportedly changed the rankings of 12% of all search results

•Monthly updates for 2 years, but in March 2013 Google said the updates would

be integrated into the algorithm and become less noticeable

•Panda 4.0 came in May 21st 2014 and targeted

top-ranking sites with thin or low-quality content.

Sites such as PRWeb.com and PRNewswire.com

were noticeably hit.

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Playing on Google’s Turf: Panda

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Question: What does this mean when news-based sites were

highly ranked in the first update and now are being punished with

Panda 4.0?

Answer: Google wants to show high-quality,

relevant and original content to answer its

searchers’ queries, not just topical

content or press releases.

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Playing on Google’s Turf: Penguin

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• Announced: April 24th 2012

• Aimed to decrease the ranking positions of sites that violate Google’s

Webmasters guidelines by using black-hat SEO techniques, in particularly by

manipulating the number of external links that point to a page on a website – i.e.

dodgy link building

• This affected about 3.1% of English search queries

• The last update to be announced, Penguin 5

(or Penguin 2.1) and has noticeably affected

around 1% of English search queries

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Playing on Google’s Turf: Hummingbird

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• Announced Sept 26th 2013 after running for a month

• Affecting 90% of global searches

• With conversational search becoming the norm, Hummingbird helps to understand

the intent and meaning behind the terms used in the search query

• Hummingbird helps Google answer long-tail search queries even if the page is not

well-optimised for them.

• This means potentially better visibility for these types

of search queries from sites that had not targeted

that keyword approach.

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Image credits: http://www.hmtweb.com/images/cloaked-panda-drop.jpg http://www.ecommercefuel.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Penguin-Hit.jpg

Has this happened to you?

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So Why Is Content Marketing So Important?

Because the buyers say so!

People are willing to pay up to 10% MORE

for products and services from brands

whose content they engage with.

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The three pillars of content marketing

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“You either have to be the first,

best, or different”

– Loretta Lynn

Strategy

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Strategy – know your in-house capabilities

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A lot of the knowledge, experience or expertise needed for

content creation comes from within your business. This will

help form the skeleton of your strategy.

Search results need to be

relevant, unique, informative

and above all answer what it is

that we were looking for.

A lot of companies have

in-house knowledge which will

answer searchers’ questions,

provided it’s structured in the

right way.

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For example

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You don’t want to search for “the best places to eat in San

Sebastian” and find an article about San Sebastian in which

the author discusses at a top level how great the food and

culture is without providing an answer to your initial query.

What you want is a guide to the top restaurants, perhaps with

links to those places and suggestions of what to eat, pair this

with a user review and perhaps a link to a second article

about how to get the most out of a mini-break there.

This will not only satisfy the searcher’s initial query, but will

hopefully keep them on your site longer and see you as an

authority on the subject matter.

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Strategy - timeline your goals

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Know where you’re starting from: analyse competitors, conduct a site audit,

find out how search engines currently see you.

Understand your audience and how

they behave online. How do you want

them to interact with your site?

Now you can begin.

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Strategy – being realistic

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Image credit: http://funtolike.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/funny-dwight-schrute-quote.jpg

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Technology - mobile & tablets

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source: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com

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Technology - mobile & tablet growth

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source:

BI Intelligence

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“The mobile phone is a bit like

God – it’s omnipresent”

– Joanna Picq, Jampp

Technology - mobile & tablet growth

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Technology - mobile & tablet growth

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32% of organic traffic through Google

so far this year has come from a

mobile or tablet device. source: Marketingcharts.com, 2014

And this proportion will only go up. The question isn’t whether

this will happen, but rather will you take advantage?

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Technology – mobile use

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Image credit: http://cdn.blackenterprise.com/wp-content/blogs.dir

Different industries will vary – for example: Office stationery

will more than likely see more engagement through a desktop

as it is typically looked at during office hours. However, in

Recruitment many people

engage with companies during

their commute, rather than at

work where this will be

frowned upon.

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Technology - mobile & tablet growth

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Technology – mindset of mobile vs tablet users

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Mobile users want swift access to relevant content, and minimal

distractions. They tend to be more engaged – they are more likely to get

their attention as they are using their devices during their commute and

they’re on their own.

Online shoppers still prefer larger devices for ease of use and security.

So consider the customer journey/buying cycle: even if you can’t convert

someone to purchase on their mobile, you could engage them enough to

take action once they get back to a desktop.

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Technology – mobile sites vs. apps

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Technology – time spent on devices

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Technology – Apps vs Devices

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More than 60% of 86% total app usage time

spent on gaming, social networks and social

messaging.

You need to take the time to work out what

your audience prefers for engagement and

where you will make the most impact.

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Technology - clear conversion path

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Track the conversion cycle and make sure it’s properly optimised

•Are you asking for too much information?

•Do you have too many fields?

•Have you tested it yourself/got others to test it? On multiple devices?

•What are your drop out rates?

If you don’t measure, you can’t

improve.

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Example: clear conversion path for B2C

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• Clear user journey throughout the payment process which reassures

the user that they are near the end of the purchasing process

• They make it easy – no need to sign up and register if you don't want

to but they make it easy to do so even after you login as a guest

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Technology – calls to action

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Calls to action do not just mean big

buttons saying buy now or call us.

Content itself can act

as a call to action.

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Technology – Small businesses failing to benefit from calls to action

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• 96% don’t feature any industry how-to guide or white papers on

their home pages.

• 70% don’t reference any notable calls to action on their home

pages (other than a phone number and a “contact us” option in the

navigation).

• 82% don’t reference their social media profiles (text or images).

• 70% of websites with a phone number don’t display it in a

prominent place.

• 38% of websites with an email address bury it on the home page

(often in the footer).

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Technology – Calls to action (3 steps)

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Step 1: Use specific language and keywords

Actionable language is the most important part of writing your call-to-action copy. State

specifically the number of pages in an ebook or the length of a webinar.

Step 2: Design contrasting buttons and shallow navigation

Call to action buttons and banners should stand out through contrasting colours; however you

can also use brand-appropriate colours or recognisable icons.

Step 3: Prioritise calls to action

Your highest priority call to action should be paired with the content most relevant to where

your prospect is in the sales process, e.g. Someone reading an introductory blog post is

probably unfamiliar with your brand and not quite ready to buy. The call to action should point

them towards more advanced content rather than the contact facility.

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Blogging market share

Wordpress – 71%

Blogger – 21%

Tumblr – 6%

Technology: Choosing the right Content Management System

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As a CMS

Wordpress – 60%

Joomla – 17%

Drupal – 7%

You need to figure out

what you want from a

CMS to fulfil your

site’s needs and the

needs of your team.

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Content Creation - context

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Image credit: http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk

If you attempt to connect with your audience in the wrong context, it doesn't matter

how good or bad your content is, it won’t be read, shared or discussed.

Don’t waste your time simply publishing

content on popular platforms for the sake of it.

Take the time to research and understand your

audience, in order to place the right content in the

right place at the right time. You’ll need to understand

the customer journey and what point they are at in

the sales cycle in order to have the most impact.

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Content Creation – stages in customer journey

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Content Creation – aligning with buyer personas

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Persona research can be as simple or complex as you like, but it has to be done if

you want to speak directly with your target audience.

Start by listing the user’s:

• potential questions

• information needs or level of awareness/expertise in the

subject matter

• potential problems (not limited to the use of product

or service)

• potential paths/tasks (the customer journey)

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Content Creation – know what to outsource

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Content Creation – know what to outsource

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Using a third-party company effectively can mean that you have a further

extension to your marketing arm allowing you to produce more of a variety of

content.

With outsourcing to the right team you can expand your site’s content portfolio

from company-based blogs to research, data-led whitepapers, interview-led

case studies, videos, infographics and more.

This content will have more of an impact than standard blog content if

presented to the right audience in the right point of their interest cycle.

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Free help!

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Free download on buyer persona development:

http://go.axonn.co.uk/buyerpersonaworkbook