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Why is Content Marketing

Critical For a Healthy Business?

Published By: Scott MacFarland | Summer 2015

Content has become noticeably more popular in recent years. You have probably seen on many of the social media channels the onslaught of articles, infographics, blogs, photos, social posts and videos all trying to communicate a message and compete for the readers’ attention. !All types of companies, big and small as well as entrepreneurs, and consultants are producing content to let their voice be known, all while trying to carve out their own slice of the market. It’s a daunting task to say the least. What’s even more challenging is the marketer’s job of trying to capture the attention of the people most important to them and measure the efficacy of their content. !

Content Did You Know?

Content marketing is a strategic

marketing approach focused on creating

and distributing valuable, relevant,

and consistent content to attract

and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to

drive profitable customer action.

“

”- Content Marketing Institute

Photo Credit: UnSplash2

Content

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Is your marketing message in front of your prospects so they can see it? !blogs, videos, social posts, presentations, live chat, eBooks, case studies, website, landing pages, emails, text messages, webex, Google hangouts, demonstrations, advertising, public relations, podcasts, slideshare, mobile coupons, mobile apps, display / retargeting, DOOH, crowdsourcing… — the list is endless!

Photo Credit: UnSplash

Content Question

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Photo Credit: UnSplash

The Content Marketing Institute’s 2015 Report shows that marketers

are creating more content this year

than last year.                             

Content Creation

- Content Marketing Institute

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69% of B2C  70% of B2B

Those of us who produce content for a living understand that our job is not just about telling a story to engage the prospective customer just to obtain eyeballs on our content. Yes, that is very important. The real factor that is rarely discussed and even more rarely executed in marketing departments is how to measure content so that ROI is determined. !When was the last time you discovered when one of your customers purchased your product or service because? They saw your social media post last Tuesday at 3:15pm? Your email last week at 8:00am? Your video on YouTube today at 6:30pm? Or your mobile ad or coupon that appeared at lunchtime? I venture to say that a high percentage of marketers do not know this answer and if they think they did, their data may not be as accurate as they think. !!

Customers Can Be TrickyTypically customers remember the last touch point they had with the company, the most

memorable one or the instance in which the company appeared over and over again

creating multiple favorable impressions over time.

Graphic: Canva | Photo Credit: HubSpot

Content Marketing Used Most Frequently

Blogging Social !Media

65% 64%

- HubSpot5

Photo Credit: HubSpot

“

”- YourBrandExposed.com

Customers are very smart, but

what they can’t do is recall 100% of

the time the absolute marketing

initiative that caused them to purchase.

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Nearly everything in a business can be described as playing an important role in content marketing. However, is it true that not everything in marketing should be measured? As a career marketer I have learned to navigate how to craft a marketing strategy and media mix that can be measured. I have also learned that not every detail that can be measured should be measured. !If you’re spending time gathering data to put into a report just so you can look good in front of executives, maybe you should be honest with yourself and report numbers and trends that actually matter. This can be difficult because the most important numbers are not easy to obtain unless you have people and technology to help gather that information over periods of time. !!!

Should Everything Be Measured?

Photo Credit: UnSplash

- Vital

21% say they are successful !at tracking ROI

of those with a !documented strategy !

say they are successful35%

“”

If you don’t measure it you can’t

improve it.

- Content Marketing Institute

B2B Marketers

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Before you begin measuring anything, you must create a plan that clearly outlines what is important, otherwise, you will end up spending time trying to measure everything, and most of it will not be as helpful to you as you would have expected. Don’t fall into this trap that I like to call “manic measurement.” It’s a major productivity killer. Here are 6 simple questions to ask your marketing team that will help them start thinking about a measurement plan. This will also help prevent manic measurement from happening. !!!!!!!

Create A Measurement Plan

!• Why do we want to measure? • How do we plan on measuring the process? • How often do we need to capture data and measure? • Once we have the data, how do we plan on using it for an immediate

plan of action as well as for long-term trending analysis? • What tools and resources are needed? • If our measurement plan is successful, what must happen? !!!

Graphic: Canva | Photo Credit: UnSplash8

Photo Credit: UnSplash

Content ROICan every marketer

measure every piece of content to establish ROI?

Companies are now spending 16% of their overall budget on marketing content

70% of content created by marketing is never used

True or False?

Answer: Page 26

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Photo Credit: UnSplash

Marketers know the value of their content extremely well. They wouldn't be producing content if they didn't see that it has value. But, can we all honestly say every piece of content we create can be tracked all the way to ROI? – I don’t think so. !However, if you have a measurement plan in place, content has a much better chance of being measured so that it will be determined if it is valuable or not. Increased value most likely leads to increased sales.

Content ROIIn marketing, content

may be important, however, increased

revenues and profitability are the goals.

Think about how your content plays

a role in these.

If your website’s ranking matters to you whatsoever,

content marketing puts you in a

position of SEO power in 2015.

“”- SocialMediaToday

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Repurpose Content Who Do You Trust?

Company advertising is trusted

! !

of the time

Don’t just create content once and use it once. That’s bad business. Make sure you create it once and post, tweet, produce and blog about it several times to get maximum value and return on content investment.

Company experts

are trusted ! !

of the time

47% 66%

- Forbes

11Photo Credit: UnSplash

!!

Tip: Create your marketing content internally and deploy it in as many places as possible. Create it once, use it 10 times!

!!!

Photo Credit: UnSplash

Real World Example: Marketers cringe when the CEO strolls in the office and asks the question, “Do you know what your ROI is on the content your team is producing?” You better have a well thought-out answer for this or else your job may be on the line. !On page 13 are many ways for your marketing team to create heightened content awareness all from repurposing your content. When you try this, you will soon see that open rates, views, clicks, form submissions, inquiries and overall brand lift occurs. Make sure you know these numbers and review them frequently. Then, when the CEO walks in your office, your answer won’t be a fluffy, creative response that sounds like you really have no idea what you’re talking about. !!

Do you know what your ROI is on the content your marketing team is producing?

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Photo Credit: scoop.it

If you are unsure of ways to repurpose your content, take a look at how scoop.it does it. This graphic gives some ideas of how to take your existing content and use it in other ways. This also can prove that your cost to produce content is lower than just producing it once and distributing it once. !

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Photo Credit: YourBrandExposed

Research shows that lists with 10 items had 4 times as many social shares than the second most popular list that had even more items on it. The goal here is to generate more eyeballs and shares so that your content is seen and more customer touchpoints are created. !Tip: For instance, If you know your blog took 1 hour to write, and is also getting 1,000 views per month and then shared 4 times beyond that, you can then provide a metric that determines the cost of producing that content along with the number of people that saw it. This can become a great data point that suggests your content marketing is more cost effective than even paid media.

Lists with 10 items on average received the most social shares (on average 10,621 social shares)

Lists with 10 items also have as many social shares on average than the 2nd most popular list: 23

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- iblogzone

Social Sharing

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x

!

Infographics are shared 2x more than presentations, and 3x more than

documents on other social networks, such as LinkedIn,Twitter and Facebook.  

 

“”

Photo Credit: YourBrandExposed

 – Slideshare

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Photo Credit: YourBrandExposed

!

Posts with visuals receive more page visits and engagement

than those without.  – WishPond

94% more

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Photo Credit: UnSplash

As you know, content comes in many forms. Therefore, you must pay close attention to how you produce your content and deliver it to your customers.

Content Tips

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Get a jump start with these amazing 8 tips!

Photo Credit: UnSplash

Long Form Content If you’ve been told like I have to write content articles and blogs in 1,000 words or less, you better think again. Longer articles that are 3,000-10,000 words in length get shared approximately twice as much as articles that are 0-1,000 words. Wow, I guess size does really matter!

- Content Marketing Institute

Content Tips

01

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Photo Credit: UnSplash

Some Days Are Better Than Others Facebook: Engagement peaks on Thursday and FridayTwitter: B2C Engagement is highest on Wednesdays & weekendsLinkedIn: Best days to post are Tuesday, Wednesday, ThursdayPinterest: Best day to Pin - SaturdayGoogle+: Weekdays are bestInstagram: Mondays have slight edge over the other days!!!!

- QuickSprout

Content Tips

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Photo Credit: UnSplash

Resources Every marketer needs resources. Here are a few of my favorite tools to use when creating content. Watch out, once you start using them, you may never stop.

Content Tips

HubSpot Topic Generator http://www.hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator Hemingway App http://www.hemingwayapp.com Headline Analyzer http://www.aminstitute.com/headline/ Canva (Design) https://www.canva.com UnSplash (Photos) https://unsplash.com Piktochart (Infographics) https://magic.piktochart.com Trello (Organization) https://trello.com

- YourBrandExposed20

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Content Tips

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04Infographics These have become very popular now because people like to view and scan photos and imagery more than read long streams of text. Infographics are shared more often than any other piece of content, even more than photos and videos. Use them to tell a complex story that has lots of data. It will help to simplify the process and get your point across faster. !Tip: People’s brains process imagery 60,000 times faster than text.!

Photo Credit: UnSplash

- HubSpot

Photo Credit: UnSplash

Images Facebook, posts with images receive more than twice as many shares than posts without images. The same is true with Twitter. !Tip: Take photos with your smartphone to help tell the story, or you can use apps like Canva to help spruce-up your articles. If you knew that your next post was going to double in shares because it had a nice image, would you use it? Of course you would.

- Content Marketing Institute

Content Tips

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05

Photo Credit: HubSpot

Quizzes The average quiz gets shared 1,900 times. Whoa, that’s a lot higher than an infographic or long form article. Take time to think about what quiz questions you want to ask your audience and get it out to the constituents that mean the most to your business. You will be surprised at how much it will be shared far beyond your followers. !Tip: Quizzes are also great ways to conduct market research.!!

- BuzzSumo

Content Tips

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Photo Credit: UnSplash

Mobile Video We all know that mobile video is on the rise. However, I do not think anyone would accurately estimate that 92% of mobile video viewers share videos with others. If you haven’t thought about this yet, maybe it’s time to start thinking about how to integrate mobile video into your digital content strategy.!!! - Adeliestudios

Content Tips

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Photo Credit: HubSpot

Brand Affinity, Equity and Loyalty Marketers, if your content is being shared, discussed, liked, favorited and even commented on, you are building brand affinity and also establishing brand equity and loyalty.!Tip: Monitor what customers are saying on social since that’s the best place to capture the immediate pulse of your customers and how they feel about your content. Also, think about directing those customers into the sales funnel so that you can begin to capture data and convert.!!!

Content Tips

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Photo Credit: UnSplash

We all pretty much know that content is king and it always has been. But, can the King deliver the goods when it comes to revenue? That’s a really good question that not every marketer can answer. !Let’s get back to the scenario of when the CEO walks in your office and asks, “Can you tell me what the ROI is of your content?”  Your answer should be, “I am so glad you asked”— then you can dive into how much more visibility and vital exposure your content received because of how you learned to repurpose, measure and establish content ROI.

Content is King and it can lead to increased revenue

if you plan your content marketing strategy carefully

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“”- YourBrandExposed.com

Photo Credit: UnSplash

About the Author:

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Scott MacFarland has 28 years of content, marketing and digital expertise while working in broadcast television, agencies, digital production, corporate and start-ups. His marketing work has been seen and experienced by customers around the globe. Scott has also been recognized and awarded for his work with hundreds of domestic and international brands in multiple industries. !Scott is an accomplished consultant, strategist, blogger, speaker, publisher and thought leader on the topics of digital, social media, business and content marketing. He is currently published on the Huffington Post, LinkedIn, Pulse, Slideshare, Onboardonline and YourBrandExposed.com. ! Scott MacFarland Chief Evangelist | Digital Marketing Strategist YourBrandExposed.com

SourcesPage 2 - Content Marketing Institute http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/ !Page 4- Content Marketing Institute http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/ !Page 5 - Canva HubSpot: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/visual-content-marketing-strategy !Page 6 - http://www.yourbrandexposed.com !Page 7 - If you cant measure, you can’t prove https://vtldesign.com/inbound-marketing/16-marketing-kpis-to-measure/ !http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2015_B2B_Research.pdf !Page 9 - True or False? Both answers are True http://www.docurated.com/all-things-productivity/marketing-performance-measurements !!Page 11 - Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/sujanpatel/2015/02/18/9-actionable-content-marketing-tips-from-top-industry-experts/2/ !Page 13 - http://leancontent.scoop.it !!!!

!Page 14 - http://www.iblogzone.com/2015/05/how-to-create-traffic-driving-blog-posts-5-hacks.html !http://blog.wishpond.com/post/70300587846/10-reasons-visual-content-

will-dominate-2014 !Page 15 - https://blog.slideshare.net/2013/09/11/infographics-are-more-viral/ !Page 16 -http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/

2014/10/2015_B2C_Research.pdf!Page 17 -    http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/

2014/10/2015_B2C_Research.pdf!Page 18 - blog.slideshare.net/2013/09/11/infographics-are-more-viral/ !Page 21 - http://www.quicksprout.com/2015/01/02/what-are-the-best-times-to-

post-on-social-media/ !Page 22 - 60,000 times fasterhttp://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33423/19-Reasons-You-

Should-Include-Visual-Content-in-Your-Marketing-Data.aspx !Page 23 - Quizzeshttp://buzzsumo.com/blog/quizzes-content-marketings-secret-weapon/ !Page 24 - mobile videoshttp://www.adeliestudios.com/top-15-video-marketing-statistics-2015/ !

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Why is Content Marketing

Critical For a Healthy Business?

Published By: Scott MacFarland | Summer 2015

Special thanks to UnSplash.com for their

awesome photos!

Find Scott On: Huffington Post

LinkedIn Twitter

@scmacfarland

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