Increase your leads and sales with the right content marketing strategy

Transcription

1 Increase your leads and sales with the right content marketing strategy

2 #LexisContentMarketing Join in the discussion

3 LexisClick s vision The digital marketing experts for ambitious SMEs on their journey to becoming market leaders

4 Introduction to LexisClick We help our clients marketing succeed through the power of online technologies and communities through services including: Easy to find A pleasure to use SEO Services Online Advertising Marketing Services Social Media Marketing Web Design Marketing Services To make them... A growing business needs to be... Regularly recommended The first to return to

5 Introduction to your presenter Lead Digital Marketing Consultant at LexisClick, 2007 present. Started working in online marketing, designing and building websites in 1997 when he designed and built British Steel s first website from the delights of Scunthorpe. Followed by 10 years working in London in digital marketing across a variety of industry sectors both within business and as a consultant with 6 years spent at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) as a digital marketing consultant. Stephen Bavister Managing Director LexisClick

6 Today s objective & agenda To help you understand the importance of content marketing and how to maximise ROI for your activity Part Worksheet Break Part Worksheet 2 Join in the discussion #LexisContentMarketing Q&A Networking & Finish

7 Part one: The foundations of your content marketing strategy

8 What is content marketing? Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience with the objective of driving profitable customer action. CONTENT IS KING

9 The ultimate example of content marketing Red Bull is a publishing empire... that also happens to sell a beverage. With a printed lifestyle magazine, regular social media activity, a TV App and so much more, it focuses its content around 3 key areas: 1. Extreme Sports targets sports people focus on the energy drink 2. Formula 1 targets drivers and mass audience focus on keeping awake while driving 3. Extreme Endeavours targets people pushing themselves to achieve more focus on red bull giving you wings

10 Why is content marketing important? SEO Google s latest algorithm update (Hummingbird) rewards sites producing relevant and remarkable content that receives high levels of engagement Brand Awareness great content is shared, if your name is attached you re increasing brand awareness Social Media you need great content to share on social media Win early it is still relatively early days, competition will increase, this is an opportunity to get ahead of the curve

11 Why is it important? In 2014, 58% of businesses plan to increase their content marketing budget. 55% of businesses that blog regularly receive 55% more web traffic than those that don t. More-Website-Visitors.aspx

12 Will it work for you? Red Bull a fairly un-appetising, highly caffeinated drink. Is your product / service really more difficult than this? Create a strategy content marketing takes time and effort so it is important that you get it right Think creatively if you find blogging and social media difficult, could webinars, ebooks and podcasts work for you? Find your angle if you can t, you can get some help with it Build an obvious trail back to your business and what you are selling Keep it balanced consistent and regular, don t panic, as pushing out the wrong content for your audience risks alienating them

13 Where does it fit in with your marketing strategy? Content marketing needs to be planned as part of your overall marketing strategy 56% of companies throw effort into content marketing without a full plan in place.

14 How can it be used Lead generation generate leads and contacts for follow-up by sales and marketing teams Nurturing and closing sales help your sales team close sales more quickly Brand awareness marketing generate awareness and interest in your products PR build and repair public opinion about your brand and products Customer support help customers get the most from your products Referrals and community develop friends and fans who interact with your brand socially Thought leadership develop respect and trust with your audience

15 Knowing your audience Who are your ideal customers? What are your customers biggest interests and challenges? What are their needs in regards to your products and services? How do your customers prefer to be reached? Via social media? Via blog posts? Via ? How do your customers research and buy?

16 Build your buyer persona, user journeys and buying cycle The first step: develop your Buyer Personas, these are fictional representations of your ideal customers, and tell a story The user journey to finding you Are your customers active on social networks? Are your customers newsletter subscribers? What kind of information do your customers prefer worksheets, educational features, videos?

17 Conducting a content audit Identify opportunities, find gaps and improve your content 1. Collect all the content you ve created in the past year everything from blog posts, to e-books, to webinars 2. Create a spreadsheet list all of your content items by their title and create separate columns for type of content, date created, topic covered, buyer persona and leads 3. Run a similar process for other content marketers in your sector choose one or more companies undertaking content marketing well in your sector 4. Review The finished spreadsheet will highlight whether there are certain areas you can improve on and which topics you are covering too frequently, or infrequently and where the opportunities are in your market Draw up a list of goals for the year ahead based on your audit

18 Mapping content to your buying cycle A typical buying cycle is made up of 4 different stages: 1. Awareness social media marketing, blogging and SEO 2. Research industry reports, statistics, e-books, webinars, downloadable resources 3. Comparison case studies, testimonials, portfolio 4. Purchase marketing, encouraging advocacy and referrals

19 Creating your editorial calendar Use a spreadsheet or Google Calendar (with reminders) Plan ahead quarterly or six months is ideal How frequently should you publish? to reach your goals and create a following Plan your calls to action have you used a variety of call to actions? Map to the buying cycle make sure all steps are covered Schedule seasonal dates Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Pancake Day, Valentine s Day, Mother s Day etc... could you join in with the marketing hype around these dates? Plan annual and best of features these are easy to pull together but very effective. Round-ups of your most popular blog posts throughout the year could be used to create a best-of e-book Be flexible! if there are some holes in the calendar, that s ok you ll need some space for jumping on hot topics and #trending news

20 Real-time marketing Make the most of current events to stay ahead of the curve. Big brands are doing it so why can t you Use hashtags, lists etc get in front of readymade audiences (using social media hashtags) and increase sales and brand awareness. Remember it doesn t have to be directly relevant if you can find an angle to piggyback

21 Worksheet 1

22 Worksheet 1 Name: Company: How are you doing? I strongly disagree I strongly agree The business has a content marketing strategy in place. 2. I have mapped out the user journey to the business website. 3. The business has an active blog and social media presence. 4. As well as blogging and social media, I have considered other forms of content marketing, including e-books, webinars, videos, podcasts etc. 5. All published content is engaging and valued by a wide range of users. 6. A content marketing strategy is firmly integrated within the business overall marketing strategy. 7. I have researched my customer base and created Buyer Personas. 8. The business regularly conducts content audits to examine progress and success. 9. The business has an editorial calendar in place with mapped out content ideas. 10. The business is quick to jump on #trending events on social media and join in with conversations.

23 Part two: Tips for creating and promoting great content

24 Follow industry news Use RSS feeds and readers stay clued up on what s going on in your industry by subscribing to RSS feeds, bloggers and social media accounts that cover your industry Keep tabs on your competitors to see how your content marketing is shaping up See who your customers are following and what they are talking about on social media to gauge what they are interested in Sign up to newsletters and read industry press make sure you re signed up to newsletters and printed magazines that cover your industry Set up alerts think about setting up Google Alerts for keywords related to your key topics Alerts

25 Monitor social conversations Social media monitoring is a key task for all organisations, big or small Measure the buzz around your brand and keep tabs on what your competitors are saying Analyse trends and gain insights into what your customers want Evaluate reaction to your social campaigns and understand what content is connecting with people

26 Build a team of content creators Marketing department a successful content marketing strategy requires the careful co-ordination of a dedicated team, which could include Managing Director, Marketing Director, Designer, Content Marketing Creators and Social Media Assistants Identify employees and contributors it s best to have a variety of people with different skills and knowledge to contribute content ideas Start with occasional posts encourage shy co-workers to contribute or if they don t like writing, you could interview them and post short videos that demonstrate their expertise

27 Repurpose and re-use content Reinvent your own content to keep it from going stale you could repurpose your blog posts as a free e-book download or turn your blogging into a webinar Remember that every customer is different some are visual, some are readers, some like skimmable content, some like detailed features Get mileage out of everything you create could you use your infographics to publish short and interesting tweets? Use variety ensure you are varying the type, length and format of your content to keep it interesting Share presentations in multiple formats post the slides on SlideShare, upload a video of the presentation on YouTube and publish a series of blog posts that target specific points within the presentation Set yourself targets for example to create one infographic per week and one downloadable resource per month, etc

28 What does it mean to repurpose content? Webinar Video Press Release e ebook Blog Posts Slide Deck Webinar Cheat Sheets Infographic Blog Posts Press Release White Paper Case Studies Podcast Custom Images

29 Create images and graphics 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text Visual content is more likely to be shared photos infographics videos (don t forget apps like Vine) memes comics

30 Take your video camera everywhere Get started and build from there creating video content doesn t always have to be an enormous and pricey production process. Any smartphone equipped with a video camera is an instant content marketing tool 75% of users visit the marketer s website after viewing a video Get creative with apps Vine was one of the most popular apps of 2013, creating short 6 second, looping videos. Customers are bombarded with so much information 24/7 that Vine is great for today s customers with notoriously short attention spans Get specialist help Employ a company to help you create video based content

31 Conduct original research Original data is more likely to be shared customers and the press will value your website more if you can provide them with new data It is probably easier to obtain than you may think sites like SurveyMonkey facilitate online surveys and can provide unique feedback It needs to be reliable and transparent well-cited data online is paramount there is so much information available out there, so to be able to provide solid and concrete data will set you apart

32 Get topical Topical content provides good variety and is a great way to piggyback current events and interests Topical content generally has a short shelf life Look beyond your industry niche and see the world as a fuel for marketing content. Could you piggyback on big annual events like Wimbledon, Formula 1 and Tour de France? It is a good opportunity to get shared content like this is more likely to get noticed in an audience actively discussing and sharing features on a particular topic

33 Develop evergreen content Evergreen content has a long shelf life compared to topical content and can continue to drive content to your site for months after it has been published What does evergreen mean? the digital marketing buzzword of 2014, evergreen relates to content that covers topics that are always relevant to your audience regardless of major news stories or trending topics Make sure it is well branded as it is likely to be out there for a long time, make sure you get the most out of it

34 How can LexisClick help you?

35 How can LexisClick help you? We can help you identify the right topics and subjects to cover We can create your editorial calendar so that you can plan ahead and earn extra media wherever possible We can develop your Buyer Personas, identify the user journey and conduct regular content audits We can help monitor and improve your social media activity We can create a range of content for your marketing material

36 Worksheet 2

37 Worksheet 2 Name: Company: How are you doing? 1. The business content creators are subscribed to RSS feeds and newsletters that cover our industry. I strongly disagree I strongly agree The business keeps a keen eye on competitors social media activity. 3. We have set up Google Alerts for keywords related to our most important topics. 4. As a company, we frequently join in with #trending news and events on social networks. 5. The business content marketing is spread across the team, not just reliant on an individual. 6. A content style guide is in place and adhered to by all content creators. 7. Video marketing plays an important part in the business content marketing strategy. 8. Each piece of published content has a motive and incorporates a call to action. 9. I have set targets in place to help me achieve my content marketing goals. 10. The company s marketing mix has a good balance between topical and evergreen content.

38 Action plan Name: Date: Company: Total Score: Action Priority By When Assigned To

39 Thank You For Attending See you at the next seminar on Social Media on 21st May

40 Easy to find A pleasure to work with The first to return to Regularly recommended marketing@lexisclick.com