A beginner’s guide to content marketing

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“The goal is not to be good at content. The goal is to use content to be good at business.”

Jay Baer

US marketing author

A beginner’s guide to content marketing

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Content marketing is not new The term ‘content marketing’ may be recent but the practice of content marketing has been

around a long time.

Down the centuries people have shared knowledge with others, transferred skills, warned of danger and passed along useful facts, figures and opinions. Today this intimate way of information sharing is changing, and fast.

We are all time-poor. Too many people want our attention and if we surrendered to their demands we would be simply overwhelmed.

Since 2003, social media has increasingly pushed traditional media models aside. It speeds up the direct and very personal delivery of information to each of us, and at the same time gifts us a publishing platform and a filtering system. We now have numerous options to receive and share information anytime, anywhere, any place.

Recent research shows that we now mistrust brands, business, government and other traditional sources of information. (See the 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer for Australia.) We all have the ability to speak beyond our own circle but no organisation has the right to be heard.

Traditional media is fragmenting and as it searches for new business models, its reliability as the dominant communications channel to our audiences is slipping away.

It is time for a different approach to connect with customers, citizens or clients.

Enter content marketing, an evolution of old-style marketing,

gaining traction in the US and now emerging in Australia.

Content uncovered Content is the information your audiences find useful or entertaining or both. It is not necessarily what you want to say. It is what the audience wants or needs to hear. The currency of content marketing is information that adds value to your audiences. If it fails the all-important test of adding value it just becomes part of the background noise, which surrounds us every day but never connects with our hearts or minds. You can create and share content across owned, earned and paid media. Owned media are the channels you control, such as social media accounts, websites, print materials and events. Earned media is coverage through independent online newspaper, radio and TV reporting. Paid media includes advertorials and advertising. If there is a wide choice of platforms, the range of formats is just as extensive. You can share your information through text, video, images, animation, games, audio, statistics, data, events, face to face encounters and a whole lot more.

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We've always done that Content marketing works on the principle that giving people worthwhile or entertaining information is the best way to achieve a mutually productive relationship with them. It is about conversations that are continuous, engaging and so useful that audiences recognise their value and want to be take part. But isn't content marketing what we've always done? Yes, maybe, perhaps. Most marketers understand the basic concept of content marketing. A 2013 Content Marketing Institute Survey shows 98% of Australian B2B marketers use content marketing while 89% of B2C marketers use it. They may not use the term content marketing but they do use information to build brand awareness, increase engagement and keep customer loyalty. Communicators have long practiced elements of content marketing, but until now their approach has not been systematic. The campaign approach of old-style marketing and PR has dominated. Campaigns have been researched, planned, carried out and evaluated over a specific time frame, which is stop, go, pause, stop, go, pause. Audience needs often do not influence the timing of campaigns and organisations run on their own communications timetables. Content marketing is about continuing conversations based on relationships forged by the power of valuable information. Frankly, it is messier than what we have done in the past because it is fluid, interactive, two-way and relies heavily on social media. It is far more dynamic than previous approaches.

Step by step Content marketing is an end-to-end system built on the following steps:

Understanding the big picture

Knowing your audience’s interests

Sourcing valuable information

Preparing, packaging and sharing content so it compels conversation

Measuring results and adapting where necessary

Traditional marketing and PR mostly runs

campaign by campaign. Stop, go, pause, stop, go pause.

Content marketing is about continuing conversations based on relationships forged by the power of valuable information.

Understand the big picture Before undertaking content marketing you need to have mastered the essentials. What is my brand, what does it stand for, and where is it heading?

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After this critical information is honed, come questions that will shape how you approach your audiences. What do you want your communications to achieve in terms of business and other results? When do you want to achieve results by? What is your timeframe for planning and execution? What resources can you devote? In this regard content marketing is no different from any other type of marketing or PR campaign.

Know your audience Discover what your audience wants or values. This need is no different from traditional PR and marketing - at least in theory. However, in practice how often have we focused on what we want to say not what they want to hear? What problems does your audience want to solve? What issues interest them? What information do they need, do they understand? How do they want to engage with you or your issue? Answering these questions and then sharing the solutions will lead to useful communications not communications that interrupt. Content marketing dictates that you test your assumptions about what audiences need. Never be afraid to sit down with them and ask what do you need from us? How can we be more useful? Seek out this information by:

Formal and traditional market research and customer surveys

Asking frontline staff about concerns people raise

Analysing issues raised with the CEO, Minister or complaints department

Searching online for terms associated with your organisation or issue

Listening to the chatter on social media

Keeping watch on your website’s analytics

Source content Map out the content you can provide to your audience’s needs. US author Jay Baer proposes Youtility as the new requirement for information. Youtility is information so helpful that people would be willing to pay for it, which Baer claims will set you apart in today’s competitive landscape. After 22 years of PR experience, I recognise that finding information for the right audience at the right time is rarely straightforward or easy. Someone in your organisation will have it but who are they? And if they have it, how is it arranged and presented? Is it in accessible language and is it supported by aids to our understanding? Or more importantly are there barriers to sharing material and if so how do we overcome them? Often we find answers buried deep within our organisation where we least expect them. Therefore, an early content marketing task is surfacing valuable material much like a detective sleuths a case. This morphs into a constant need to refresh material so the audience sees it as relevant and timely.

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Sometimes your organisation simply does not have the information audiences want. Today this is no excuse for not providing it, given our access to so much online search power. If you don’t have it, find it and then curate and package it into audience-friendly formats. Curating was once the exclusive province of librarians, scholars and scientists. Now search engines can locate and refresh information at lightning speed. You can arrange information from others alongside your own manually, or use free tools like paper.li, Flipboard and Spunge to effortlessly collate, review and share it.

Storytelling Content marketing moves us beyond simple declarations of features and benefits of a product or service. It shifts the marketing mindset from hyping to helping. One way it does this is through storytelling. Stories are the language of the human camp. They are how we learned about the world when we were children. Content marketing demands we tell the stories of our organisations, what they do and why they are worth listening to.

Effective storytelling is

like cement binding us to our audiences just as storytelling in the past bound us to traditions,

cultures and communities. The strongest story you can ever offer is from someone your organisation has helped to achieve a better result in their lives. This can come from clients, customers or loyal fans. These testimonials are like mini-history lessons weaving together struggles, action and outcomes achieved, into persuasive personal stories. The next most powerful stories are about your own people helping others by sharing their knowledge and experience or through their actions. Or it could be a backing from independent figures or an organisation, that tells others about the value your organisation offers. Unfortunately the least effective story is the one most commonly used. It involves a declaration from a Minister, CEO or other hierarchical figure about the virtues of their company or agency. Although we may turn to authority in a time of crisis, they lack the closeness, empathy and credibility to connect an organisation to an audience in more routine circumstances. The 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer for Australia shows public trust is significantly higher for people other than the boss. Independent academics, technical experts and regular employees rate higher than those in the C suite. Their trust ratings are somewhere near the bottom of the barometer.

Present content

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Presenting your content is an important step that involves arranging information into formats your audience is likely use. Do my audiences like long or short text? Is my information best shown in infographics, charts, spreadsheets or tables? Would video and imagery work well for my how to instructions? And how you express that content is critical. Large organisations need rules about who can say what, when and how. If you speak in a qualified, corporate voice you either end up talking to yourself or to those remarkably similar to you. In both cases you have probably missed the mark – and by a wide margin.

Content marketing is about communicating with personality so people just get it, respond and engage with your information.

It sounds simple but it requires the right tone,

skill, balance and lots of practice to achieve that outcome.

Content through pictures A standout feature of content marketing is the far-reaching use of images. This is because there is so much information available and we are all so busy. We are instinctively drawn to imagery to quickly process information and shortcut our understanding of issues. A recent Hubspot article highlighted why imagery is important in communications.

90% of information sent to the brain is visual.

The brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text.

40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text.

Infographics add an average of 12% more traffic to online efforts.

Viewers spend 100% more time on webpages with videos.

Viewers are 85% more likely to buy after watching a product video.

In Australia we are seeing the explosive growth of video. In the April – June 2013 edition of Professional Marketing Magazine, Matt Bruce of Nielsen Media Group Australia highlighted how Australians have taken to online video. In January 2013, 11.2 million Australians watched more than 1.8 billion hours of video. The average Australian spent nearly seven hours watching online video content revolving around entertainment, news and information. They watched on YouTube, Facebook, ABC Online, News.Com.Au and other sites. Not surprisingly, brands are looking at increasingly using video to engage with customers. What images and video content could tell the story of your organisation and why it matters?

Share content

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A major consideration in sharing your content is what communications channels your audiences use and when they use them. Your audience may want your information available through the mainstream media immediately before they make a purchase decision. Your corporate website or face-to-face meetings with staff may be how they want to build a relationship. Or social media platforms, because of their freedom to choose and immediacy, could be how they access information. A key task is to identify the best mix of tactics that match your audience’s inclinations, timetable and needs. It is unwise to restrict yourself to one channel only. Rather, you should seek to share information through as many relevant platforms as possible. The 2013 Content Marketing Institute survey shows

Australian marketers use more than 25 tactics to engage audiences.

Right now the most effective approach is

in-person events and the least effective is gaming. Not surprisingly Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are the popular social media platforms. Nothing is ever static. Audiences and organisations change. Be alert to the need to continually experiment to achieve the best possible blend of channels to talk to your audiences. Pity today’s communicators. There are so many communications options open to them, they are haunted by the thought they could always try just one more thing!

The media’s role In the past there was a firewall between the newsroom and the marketing department in most media outlets. Advertorial has always been around but often it was marginal business and lacked credibility. If you wanted significant coverage you had to earn it or pay for it. Now social media and search are serious threats to this model and this division is weakening. The media are more inclined to publish content that others produce. Newsrooms are shrinking, rising costs must be contained and advertising revenues are drying up. There is a need replace advertising revenue with some other income source. A recent For Immediate Release podcast highlighted how content from different organisations (called branded content or native advertising) is finding its way into more media spaces. The show reported an increasing mix of original reporting and sponsored content. Which is a worrying situation because consumers are unclear about what news is genuine and what is paid for. Chief Content Strategist at Edelman, Steve Rubel sees three media-centric content marketing models starting to emerge:

A paid syndication model which is similar to advertorial arrangements of the past. The difference is content supplied by others now seamlessly mixes with that of journalists.

A product placement model which is common to many TV formats.

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A co-creation model where an organisation such as a powerful brand, and the media, fund a new event, activity, online app or sponsorship for specific reporting. This is similar to big companies paying for naming rights to sporting events or settings.

Free or pay? Eventually someone in your organisation will query the wisdom of freely sharing information. They will raise the issue of protecting intellectual property and proclaim, “We should not be giving our stuff away”. They will come forward with reasons to lock your content behind a paywall, forcing people to subscribe to get access or by erecting some other barrier. You need to prepare for this eventuality and decide how you will resolve this dilemma. You can have completely open information borders or only service people willing to pay, subscribe to your newsletter or commit some other way to your organisation. Or you can make some content free then charge for additional information. The trend among experienced marketers is toward making information readily available and eliminating as many barriers as possible. Encourage as many people as possible to access, use and share your content so it achieves its maximum potential. And besides, human nature being what it is, there are some people who will get your content no matter how many walls you build around it.

Market content Content can start conversations but needs a little help to spring to life.

You need to market

your information across multiple platforms, taking care to promote useful information

first and your organisation second. This involves being part of genuine conversations, something which most organisations find hard to do. Listen to what others in your space are saying, join in only when it is apt and act like someone helping people by answering their questions, not like a salesperson or an Official communicating in beaucratese. Marketing content might involve:

Targeting online and real world key influencers to help spread the word about your information.

Contributing to other people’s blogs, events and industry forums, as well as your own.

Using social media conversations to draw people to your website, blog or video.

Proposing search terms and harsh tags so your information is easily found.

Encouraging users to create and then share their own content about your issue.

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Ever, ever encouraging and responding to feedback.

Content marketing never ends – just like real life conversations. Traditional PR and marketing campaigns are carefully planned and take place over a certain time. Many do not easily change once they start. On the other hand, content marketing is just as carefully planned but then changes as interaction develops. Your conversation is like a flowing river. Someone expresses interest, you respond with related information, your prospect engages again and it goes until a trusted relationship builds. Unlike traditional marketing where the conversation often begins near the end of the customer’s buying cycle, content marketing starts even before the customer has identified a need. And even after your conversations result in a purchase, subscription or some other participation, you need to stay in the communications space ready to answer questions and be there in the future.

Process Content marketing involves as much organisation, dedication and clarity as traditional marketing and PR. A good place to start your content marketing journey is to create an editorial calendar. This is a simple document setting out the type of content to be produced, who will produce it, when it is to be done, the approvals needed and which platforms you will share it on. The Hubspot blog has a good free beginner’s tool that can add consistency to your efforts. Who does the work depends on the size of your organisation. In smaller companies one person is often responsible for everything. In larger organisations responsibilities are often split between different staff and management levels. Typically creating and sharing content involves people such as:

Content creators - These are often frontline or other staff empowered to pass along client issues, helpful information

and good stories. Once they are know what to look for, people get enthusiastic about this role especially when

their commitment to the company or cause is strong. Content producers - They can be communications professionals such as designers, copywriters, video and audio producers and those who manage media relations. They transform the raw information they receive from others into compelling content. They can also be responsible for sharing the content. Your organisation can create and package visual and other content or outsource it to a growing number of domestic content marketing providers. Larger Australian companies tend to outsource content creation while smaller ones produce it in-house. Listening teams - Organisations also need some type of listening team, one or more people who monitor and respond to social media and online conversations. Because digital dialogue is so fast, they need well thought through corporate guidelines that let them act fast.

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The strategist - The communications boss is the overall content manager. She oversees the strategic and day-to-day storytelling of the organisation and ensures the marketing effort contributes to the where the organisation is heading.

Measure Measurement can challenge even the most experienced marketer it should not be left to the end. It needs to be factored in at every stage of the content marketing journey. Therefore, develop KPIs specific to your organisation that tell you if you are reaching the right people, how they engage with our content and if your content marketing is achieving the business results your organisation wants.

Content marketing metrics can be:

Reach How many unique visitors view your content online in a given period? How many visits to your website are from search engines? How many people come across your content in traditional media? How many people attend an event or have a face-to-face encounter? What is the geographical spread of people engaging with you? How are people accessing information through tablets, smart phones, laptops or desktops?

Engagement How much time does your audience spend with your content measured by bounce rates, page views and click throughs? What is the quality and quantity of commentary on blogs and websites? What is the number of retweets, likes and shares on social media? How many emails are opened? Forwarded? How many downloads of white papers, document, forms, information kits or other material? How many video views and podcast downloads? Are people creating and sharing their own content around your issue? How many key influencers are interacting with you and how? How many questions are being answered online or over the counter? Do your conversations lead to more requests for more information?

Outcomes How many discounts or coupons are redeemed? Do surveys show changes in attitude or buying preferences? Are inquiries, leads and conversion rates rising? Is there an increase in online and off-line sales? Are more people subscribing to e-newsletters and blogs? Are more people taking advantage of our programs? Are existing customers coming back or increasing the size of their orders?

Challenges The content marketing journey can be scary at the beginning. But you are not alone. The Content Marketing Institute reports the major challenges Australian marketers face, are:

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Producing engaging content

Producing enough content

Lack of resources to produce content

Producing the variety of content different people value

Measuring effectiveness

Lack of integration across communications staff

Management or senior communicators just don’t get it

Finding skilled staff that understand and can make content marketing work

These are legitimate concerns but not that different from other forms of communications. They need addressing as an organisation commits to a content model of marketing.

The best way is to start small with an achievable project, measure the impact, learn from the experience

and stretch and grow from there.

The future The term content marketing may be new but it is an evolutionary shift from traditional marketing. Marketers are in transition, and change brings uncertainty, new challenges and more questions than answers. The first step can be nerve-wracking and starting can take courage and commitment. Fortunately the fundamental underpinnings of content marketing are not that difficult to grasp. It is about sharing useful information with people with whom we want a relationship. Most of us would see that as common sense. The real challenge is identifying, producing and sharing valuable information across multiple platforms and doing that consistently.

Good luck and may your content shine through