Now. The Best Time for Content Marketing? OVERVIEW

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1 The Best Time for Content Marketing? Now By: Betsy Emery Martin Digital Chairman, The CHR Group David Navarro Digital Experience, The CHR Group OVERVIEW The new breed of customer lives within a fragmented digital world, experiencing content on the go and on multiple devices. The challenge for any brand, large or small, is to attract and engage relevant audiences to build measureable return. In this new era of the connected consumer, optimizing digital operations to achieve the highest value is critical for the growth of all channels, including physical (brick and mortar, catalog, call center) and digital (web, mobile, social) customer experiences. With ad-blocking on the rise, marketers and brands are facing the newest challenge in the increasingly complex ecosystem of digital marketing. Content marketing presents both solid historical performance and a unique opportunity for meaningful engagement in today s customer decision journey. In our review of over 50 clients engaged in content strategies over the last 17 years, content marketing delivered 6 times greater ROI over paid media and resulted in a 29% increase in brand favorability. This guide to content marketing presents an overview of the key strategies and tactics for leveraging content to build your brand, increase conversions, and achieve measureable return All Rights Reserved.

2 Leverage Content to Shorten the Customer Journey The Connected Customer wants to engage with your products and services whenever, wherever, and however they want and expects the experience to be tailored to their needs. The mantra of the connected consumer is Know Me and Show Me. Business objectives depend on customers accomplishing goals; like finding products and making purchases. A well-crafted digital strategy extends the experience of products and services as well as the journey to discovering, purchasing, sharing, and building loyalty. This creates a competitive advantage by offering uniquely relevant experiences that shorten the distance between need and satisfaction. Companies who win in today s marketplace are those who understand the power of crafting the customer journey. Strategies aimed at marketing to or even engaging with customers in the multi-device, multi-stage customer journey fail to attain the ultimate value of actively optimizing the journey itself. Successful content marketing shifts from Brand Stories to People Stories, leveraging data insights to build rich profiles, engage customers across channels, and deliver superior value by anticipating customer needs. As a result, content marketing plays a key role in crafting a decision journey, helping the customer through stages of awareness, engagement, consideration, conversion, loyalty, and advocacy. A key value of content marketing is the ability to accelerate the customer journey, reducing the number of stages in the buying cycle as well as the time within each stage. Advertising Push Marketing to Content Marketing Pull Attracting and Engaging Advertiser controlled timeframe Consumer controlled timeframe Focus on Quantity Focus on Quality Reach: Only 54% reaches the right audience Provides sales focused information Reach: Attracts customers where they naturally exist with content they seek Provides useful content Focuses on overt promotional messages and calls to action Ad Blocking: Filters out undesired, intrusive content making ad reach more challenging Primarily one-way communication from brand to consumer Lives for a limited time based on media purchase Connects with emotional and intellectual needs of the buyer with storytelling and narratives Ad Blocking: Content remains unaffected which means more attention to the desired content Includes one-way and two-way connections between consumer and brand Lives for an extended timeframe Challenges include: Delivery of ad to the right audience, competing for attention, ongoing media fees, audience quality and fraud detection. Challenges include: Creation of fresh and engaging content, writing for specific needs of each audience segment and stage of buying cycle, ensuring distribution to correct destination, organization of content to promote community, sharing, SEO, and ongoing optimization. 2

3 The Connected Customer Content marketing strategies present unparalleled opportunities to create connections that align with customer needs, creating revenue growth and cost efficiency. At the same time, planning, prioritizing, and implementing a successful content marketing program has become more challenging as the complexity of the customer journey has grown. Content creation and distribution must engage each audience with relevant content, across devices and channels, at each stage of the buying cycle. The DNA of the Connected Consumer means multi-device, multi-channel experiences within a single purchase journey. 90% of today s consumers move between devices to accomplish this goal. The average shopper makes 6.2 visits to a company s website before they buy and uses 2.6 devices within a single shopping experience. Thus, a successful content marketing program must plan for, and embrace, the increasing number of contexts for content consumption. Essential components include a well-defined strategy, understanding of each audience, publishing calendar, work-flow for content variations and destinations, as well as content governance. The success of content marketing programs rests upon several key factors: 1. Well-defined strategy: Content marketing should be tied to specific goals and key performance indicators for the overall digital roadmap (aligning the digital program with corporate performance measures). The power of content lies in original, authentic, engaging content that provides information people want to see. It must embrace emotional and intellectual drivers to provide content that informs, entertains, and produces meaningful connection. Ultimately, the goal is to provide a value so inherent that the content itself creates subscription, sharing, and brand preference - accelerating the journey from discovery to advocacy. a. Mix of Content Types and Destinations: The content marketing plan should include a mix of content types and destinations including: on-site, off-site, articles, social, blog posts, newsletters, case studies, infographics, white papers, webinars, microsites, data-driven content, polls, quizzes, photos, videos, tools, recipes, and buying guides. b. Match Stages of Decision Journey: Content types should match the stages of the customer decision journey: awareness, engagement, consideration and connection, conversion (sign-ups, purchases), loyalty, and advocacy. c. Align with Key Performance Indicators: Primary key performance indicators for content marketing include content consumption (page views, downloads), engagement (pins, likes, comments, ratings, and polls), sharing (social shares, tweets, and retweets), lead generation (tracks leads such as online form and call centers associated with content consumption), lead and conversion (attribution of sales related to content). 2. Goals for each piece of content: Key metrics for each piece of content will define its contribution to overall content marketing goals. Each piece of content should be considered in light of how it will help a customer, what need it will satisfy, and what key metric will measure its effectiveness in achieving goals outlined. Content should be written for the customer first (as opposed to overt sales messages or content primarily aimed at search engine rankings) providing an authentic value related to customer issues, pain points, and interests. 3

4 3. Clearly defined target audiences: Target audiences will match primary customer segments and customer profiles. Data from a variety of sources can be used to gain insights into customer profiles. This profile information may include demographic information (age, gender, geography, and income level), products purchased, amount of purchases, channel most frequently used, and content topics of interest). Writing content for specific audiences or personas helps to ensure relevance to specific needs. Testing can be done with sample customers from each segment to confirm content is on track and rated highly. 4. Content Governance, Workflow, and Variations: Governance is the process of ensuring that all aspects of the content marketing plan are clear and organized for execution according to defined standards. A well organized schedule and process for content production, review, publication, and measurement is critical to content marketing effectiveness. The plan should include standards for content: Style guide: look and feel Editorial guidelines: tone and voice Emotional and rational elements of customer experience Plan for consistency across channels and devices Assign roles of content creation, review, and distribution Define guidelines for content variation by audience segment, content type, and destinations Archiving standards Case Study: ConAgra Uses Targeted Content Distribution to Increase Purchase Intent Hunt s Tomatoes, one of the larger brands owned by ConAgra Foods, sought to break through the advertising barrier by reaching their target consumer through content marketing. created What s Cooking, a go-to online destination for the home cook who loves making memorable meals with natural, wholesome ingredients for her family and friends. What s Cooking included recipes and articles that not only inspired meals, but helped evoke a sense of passion and love within the home especially in the kitchen. With a distribution network implemented to place content in the places and spaces where Hunt s target consumer visits every day, Hunt s was able to see the positive effects of a strategic content marketing plan as proven by a Nielsen study. Results 40.2% brand lift in Definitely Will Purchase after being exposed to the content Content syndicated to 25 publishing partners in 3 months 42 seconds time on site compared to 27 seconds of the industry average 4

5 Increasing Relevancy, Engagement and Loyalty Quality content in its various forms is editorially-focused, always on, and detectable by search engines, maximizing the impressions and value over time. Turning readers into advocates creates competitive advantage by offering relevant content validated by the larger community. Delivering the right message at the right time creates one-to-one connection and increases content performance rates. Ongoing measurement ties the content marketing program to key metrics for sharing, lead generation, and conversion. By using integrated platforms to track the history of visitor engagement, profiles can be created and personas validated. Data insight helps optimize the program and builds the relevancy of targeted content over time. As new mobile ad-blocking trends emerge, content marketing is the single best way to ensure a message is seen. New ad-blocking technologies work to put content at the forefront, removing all the distractions for the reader. Even when ads are displayed and viewed, the click-through rates are historically low. As an effective solution to circumvent ad-blocking and increase relevance to each audience, content strategy provides an effective solution for digital marketing return on investment. Successful content marketing programs build ROI with an understanding of audience profiles, customized content, and a targeted content distribution plan. The content distribution plan will be most effective when it leverages existing networks to connect with users where they naturally consume content. Measuring the Customer Journey Effective content strategy aligns with the stages of your customer s experience Awareness Consideration Pre-conversion Conversion Satisfaction Loyalty Advocacy Create content with wide enough appeal to attract varied readers, but stay on topic. Set KPIs for impressions and visits. Review pages per visit, and bounce rates to ensure your content is engaging. Monitor your reader s time on site and click-through-rate (CTR) to gauge interest. Post-conversion content is important to build brand advocates and expand a customer base over time. Monitor top performing referral sites, social shares, and especially return visits. 5

6 Growing Your Efficiencies and ROI As your content library and customer database grows, so should your plan to scale the infrastructure. Managing strategy and content in the omnichannel digital era means centralized processes and systems to support more personalized logic and delivery. Digital platforms and agile processes accelerate growth and efficiency for your company and simultaneously enhance the quality of the reader s experience. As the content marketing solution at CHR Digital, has embraced process optimization from the start, making content creation and distribution fast and flexible for clients. We are the only digital content marketing company that can create, distribute, and manage brand-aligned content in all formats, at scale. s infrastructure uses audience profiles and channel data to create purpose-built, full format, interactive content programs. The result is an increase to online traffic for publishers, significant boosts to brand retention, and the targeted delivery of information visitors seek for brands. 6

7 creates custom portfolios of websites and digital destinations, leveraged to distribute content among topof-market publishers and targeted niche markets. With a growing network of nearly 3,000 partners, relevant content can be delivered to engaged audiences where they already reside online, maximizing reach and impact. 3 Tips to Boost Your Content s Appeal is also proud to have developed the first Content Asset Management Platform (CAMP) that enables all of the branded and unbranded content owned and created for your brand to be optimized and reapplied to owned, earned, and paid assets. This system manages across 18 languages in 6 different formats across 3,000 partners. Centralizing our systems allows us to capture the relevant information to build an ecosystem of optimization. Consolidated data and content systems allow for agile improvements to content marketing plans, to remove inefficiencies, and to target segments with accuracy. A granular set of key metrics and exclusive access to real-time market data allows to track the progress of campaigns, delivering better content and measuring its success. Scalable Content Network Business Objective 1 Reach your audience on an intrinsic, relatable level. The first step to content marketing is to thoroughly understand your audience. Research the driving forces behind their actions. Spend time with them online. If you are listening to what they are saying on social media and other venues, you can tailor content to their interests. The time you take understanding your customer personas will help create more relevant, engaging, and valuable content that they consume, share, and act upon. Digital Landscape Audience Profile Desired UX Customized Content 2 3 Deliver value. This can take many forms: Giving your audience information they can put to use in their everyday lives, delivering new information that they find interesting, or simply entertaining. Mind your P s and Q s literally. Website Network The quality of your writing, your tone, and your style all play an important part in creating popular and shareable content. Over time, build up a library and style guide so that your brand is consistent and new content is easier to create. 4X ROI 7

8 Conclusion As paid media effectiveness decreases and digital platforms rapidly evolve, it is important for brands to create and distribute relevant content at the right time. To capture your audience, it must contribute to and not distract from the conversation. Strategically adding content to your digital presence, which is both targeted and share-worthy, builds credibility and value. It is vital that content is placed in the spaces your audience is already looking and that your marketing dollars are not being wasted on messaging that is never even seen. Now is a perfect time to invest your energy and budget into a comprehensive content marketing strategy. Evaluate that strategy, measure its progress, and adjust to your audience to amplify your brand and maximize the ROI. Marketing Interest Over Time Source: May 2015, Research and data provided by Fractal and Moz. About is passionate about content marketing and delivering high-quality, interactive content. From news stories and apps to video and social engagement, we are continuously inspired to find better ways of reaching targeted audiences wherever they are, whenever they want it. Our programs are sponsored by corporate brands and offered at no cost to our publishing partners. Rather than being fed advertisements, viewers engage with content that meets their interests and needs. We are pioneers in the discipline of online content syndication and excited to bring our expertise to help target and engage your audience. Learn More Contact us to understand how we can help reach and engage your audience with content. (212) info@studioone.com 333 Seventh Avenue, 6th Floor New York, NY