How to Plan and Build a

Successful Content
Marketing Strategy
Michael Brenner
NewsCred – Head of Strategy
@BrennerMichael

#thinkcontent
Agenda
•  The key factors for content marketing success

•  The core components of a content marketing strategy

•  How to utilize content across the buyer journey

•  How to work with NewsCred to document your strategy

and achieve success

#thinkcontent
 Content Marketing Building a Successful
Success Content Strategy

Working with NewsCred:

Utilizing Content Across Crafting a Successful
the Buyer Journey
Content Strategy
 Every single day…

4.75 billion piece of content are shared

There’s been a fundamental 1.8 billion photos are uploaded and shared

shift in the way we create,

consume, and share content.
500 million tweets are posted

700 million snapchats are sent

#thinkcontent
 “
Marketing used to be about making a
myth and telling it. Now it’s about
telling a truth and sharing it.

”
- MARC MATHIEU -
Unilever

5
#thinkcontent
I have no patience for useless
things. 6
 “
The buyer journey is nothing more
than a series of questions that must
be answered.

”
- IDC -

7
#thinkcontent
Online Communities
Search Engines
eBooks
Email Newsletters
Editorial Articles
White Papers
Podcasts
Case Studies
Online Videos
Webcasts
Virtual Trade Shows
Product Literature
Trial Software
Online Vendor Demos

Awareness Consideration Preference

Align IT with
business Explore Determine
objectives technology solution
Begin options strategy Assess ROI
decision Identify
Make
process business
Establish
decision
problem
requirements/
build RFP Research Build
products/ short
vendors list
Research
solutions
Content Marketing Defined
“Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing
relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and
understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”
-Content Marketing Institute

•  Not Advertising or PR

•  It is Customer, Not brand-focused

•  Seeks to answer customer questions across the buyer journey

•  Owned media

#thinkcontent
Behind every tweet, share,
and purchase is a person,
like you and me.

#thinkcontent
Put Your Customers’ Needs First.
Make them the hero.

Brand Content What

Purpose Marketing Customers
Want

Our Natural Instinct Charity

#thinkcontent
 “
We need to stop interrupting what
people are interested in and be what
people are interested in.

”
- CRAIG DAVIS -

#thinkcontent
Unique Point of View Trap
Too easy to become consumed
with your story, not your customers.

#thinkcontent
Six key factors to content marketing success:
1  Document content strategy

2  Have someone in charge of content

3  Consistently publish quality content

4  Map content to buyer journey

5  Balance Paid, Owned, Earned Media

6  Track Content Marketing ROI

#thinkcontent
 Content Marketing Building a Successful
Success Content Strategy

Working with NewsCred:

Utilizing Content Across Crafting a Successful
the Buyer Journey
Content Strategy
What is a Content Strategy?
•  Delivering content your audience wants

•  Managing content as an asset (with an ROI)

•  Thinking and acting like a publisher

#thinkcontent
Why is it important to have a documented
content strategy?
3 Steps to Building a Content Strategy

1 Why?
What’s the Business Case?

2 How?
Team, actions, and budgets needed.

3 What?
Show results tied to your business objectives.

#thinkcontent
Content Marketing Roadmap
•  Budget
•  Destination
•  Frequency
•  Amplification / Optimization
•  Collaboration (Who does what)

Customer KPIs /
Discovery Destination Team Topic Models Optimization
Journey Reporting

•  Business Case •  Branding/Design •  Who does what? •  Structure •  Content by Stage •  Define report •  Content
•  Current State •  Platform •  Agency •  Topics •  Conversions •  Who / when? •  Platform
•  Budget •  Firm Integration •  NewsCred •  Types •  Subscriptions •  Distribution
•  Distribution

#thinkcontent
Content marketing mission statement
Become a destination for [target audience]
interested in [topics]. To help them
[customer value].

This will help us [content marketing goals]

•  Earn your audience’s attention vs. just
buying it
•  Reach, engage and convert NEW buyers

AmEx Open Forum Example: Help Small

Businesses Do More Business. To become
the largest source of inbound leads.

#thinkcontent
Commit To Measuring Your Results
Awareness / Reputation:
Classic Brand / PR objectives. SOV, SOC, and press mentions. With Whom? On What Topic?
Measured by?

Reach:
Who is the target Audience? What are their online interests? How can we measure?

Engagement:
Drive deeper relationship with the brand. Measured by time spent, bounce rate, social shares

Convert:
Subscribers, Leads, Sales

#thinkcontent
Define Content Marketing Roles and Functions

Content Community Analytics Designer Curation Contributors SEO / Paid

Marketer / Manager Defines best/ worst Brings content to life Fines and re- Any content creator- Specialist
Editor Distributes content performers, through the user purposes the best blogger, Manages the paid
across social experience and rich photographer, distribution of
Strategizes, writes, conversion content from your
channels, engages visuals. designer — who content online.
and oversees optimization and business and from
online communities, contributes to your
content projects to
measurement around the web. project.
ensure brand and contributes to
content projects. communications.
consistency and
alignment with
business
objectives.

#thinkcontent
Define The Business Case, Workflows,
Gain Organizational Buy-in
•  Make sure all stakeholders understand your mission statement and business goals
•  Determine who needs to sign off on content
•  Set approval processes for publishing and sharing content in order to cut down on
back-and-forth
•  Leverage technology to automate that entire process is a great way to get ahead
Consider Your Destination and Branding

#thinkcontent
 Content Marketing Building a Successful
Success Content Strategy

Working with NewsCred:

Utilizing Content Across Crafting a Successful
the Buyer Journey
Content Strategy
Conduct A Content Audit
A Content Audit will help you:
•  Give you a true sense of scale
•  Identify gaps
•  Seize opportunities for content repurposing
•  Determine performance issues
•  Evaluate content quality
•  Improve your information architecture
Look at Content by Buyer Stage
Early-Stage Content

6%

Late-Stage 66% 28% Middle-Stage

Content Content

Early Stage
Middle Stage
Late Stage

#thinkcontent
Where in the journey do we want to connect?

Online Influences Discover Consider Decide

•  Reviews Why buy? Why buy now? Why buy from you?
•  Comments •  Educate •  What •  Trust
•  Blogs •  Search •  When •  Capability
•  Forums •  Who •  Capacity

#thinkcontent
Defining Topics

What are we going to talk about?

•  [Sample at left – SAP “The Customer
Edge” blog keyword analysis]

#thinkcontent
Content across the buyer journey

Top of the Funnel

Awareness Quality, licensed content around broader, shareable topics that drives visibility
and engagement

Middle of the Funnel

Evaluation A combination of licensed and custom content that’s not only useful and timely,
but also hits on niche topics specific to your offering and solutions. Potentially gated.

Bottom of the Funnel

Purchase Custom content promoting your products and services: case studies, product
offers, customized demos, etc.

Customer Stage
Retain Consistent cadence of TOFU/MOFU content as well as personalized
recommendations, service options, case studies, etc.

#thinkcontent
Show me the money!
Utilize The Right Mix of Content

Custom Content
Share on-brand stories and recipes which are created
specifically for your brand.

Licensed Content
Boost credibility, publishing cadence, and direct traffic
with a high-volume of fully-licensed, compliant content.

Social Content
Leverage snackable content through UGC that
engages your target audience.

#thinkcontent
 Distributing your content
“Even great content needs a push!”

Average Hollywood movie splits 40-50%

production with 50-60% distribution

3 #thinkcontent
Maximizing the Reach of Your Content
We believe in a “converged media” approach utilizing paid, owned, and earned media
to deliver content the audience wants and maximizing the reach of that content.

Paid Social Influencer/

movable media Quickly grow your
audience & jumpstart
engagement
Maximize organic buzz, Earned Paid
social engagement,
and PR Converged

Native Ads (Nativo)

Organic Traffic & SEO Paid Content Distribution
Owned (Outbrain, Sharethrough)

Leverage your owned

content and channels

#thinkcontent
Distribution Recommendations
•  Make sure your social accounts demonstrate interaction
•  4-1-1 Rule: 4 of your posts, 1 influencer post, 1 publisher post
•  Follow and mention influencers, publishers in each topic
•  Help your authors build social presence
•  Test paid distribution with LinkedIn and Outbrain
•  Measure engaged visitors from paid vs. organic visitors
•  Based on time on site or pages per visit

Client Influencer Publisher

#thinkcontent
Blog Benchmarks

Bounce Rate Pages Per Visit Time Spent Uniques Per

85% 1.3 Average On Site Month
46 Seconds 346,400

#thinkcontent
Define Key Measures and Targets

#thinkcontent
Organic and Social: Up and To The Right
35,000
Traffic from Organic, Social & Referrals
30,000

25,000

20,000
Unique Visitors

15,000

10,000

5,000

#thinkcontent
 Content Marketing Building a Successful
Success Content Strategy

Working with NewsCred:

Utilizing Content Across Crafting a Successful
the Buyer Journey
Content Strategy
No matter where you are in your journey,
NewsCred can help.

Our team of strategists can help you:

•  Document your content strategy

•  Build Business case / Define ROI
•  Content Audits
•  Buyer journeys
•  Content Mix
•  Build / Source Content Team
•  Distribution strategy
•  Provide metrics and ROI guidance

#thinkcontent
We’re helping some of the world’s
largest brands with their strategy:

#thinkcontent
Ways to work with our Strategy Team
1  Ongoing Strategy Engagements

2  One-Day Strategy Workshop

3  Multiple Strategy Sessions

4  Strategy Health check

5  Custom engagements

#thinkcontent
 Sample content strategy
exercises we’ll help you with

#thinkcontent
 Brand Map Framework

Audience
The content that you publish largely depends on your target audience – their interests, behaviors and motivations. This demographic plays a key role in your content creation and distribution process. The
publications you license content from, the topics you write about and the distribution channels that you use.

What is your target demographic? What kind of publications does your audience What social channels does your audience What events does your audience care about?
read? frequently engage on?

Brand Strategy
Understanding your brand's identity is key to understanding the type of content that your brand should source and create. Content marketing should always convey your unique brand personality
consistently, from the photos that you publish to the blog posts that you create.

What is your brand’s ambition or purpose? What is your brand voice? What are the design principles of your brand’s What owned assets (color, typeface, etc.) signal
visual identity? your brand?

Content Strategy
Our mission is to help brands simplify and scale their entire content marketing process: content planning, discovery, creation, publishing, distribution and measurement. Understanding your current process
and challenges as well as your future goals will help us shape a content marketing strategy unique to your brand, resources, internal creative/compliance processes.

Who is the organization responsible What does your current content Do you currently use a mix of content What do you like about your content What are your content pillars?
for your content strategy? workflow look like? types (original, licensed, social, etc.)? marketing strategy and what do you
want to change?

What are your SEO keyword What type of content do you want to What products or services (if any) do Are there specific geographic Which social channels would you like
priorities? What longtail keywords are feature? you want us to keep in mind? regions or cities we should keep in to prioritize? What is your ideal
you interested in? mind? content cadence?

Distribution Strategy
Distribution is just as important as the content itself. It is important to understand which channels will reach your target audience and how you should share content across each channel.

What channels do you use for organic distribution? What channels do you use for paid distribution? What demand generation programs do you use?
Persona Stage Questions/Concerns Keywords

Xyz Early Xyz Xyz

Middle Xyz Xyz

Late Xyz Xyz

Persona Stage Questions/Concerns Keywords

Xyz Early Xyz Xyz

Middle Xyz Xyz

Late Xyz Xyz

#thinkcontent
 SUCCESS METRICS

MEDIA METRICS KPIS: BUSINESS OBJECTIVES ROI: MEDIA PERFORMANCE

What do we measure? Is our content producing the desired result? How efficiently is our content and distribution working to
produce the desired result?

CONTENT PERFORMANCE
•  Impressions •  Is our content being seen? •  What is our cost/value per exposure, action or view?
•  Social shares •  Are people engaging with our brand & content?
•  Time spent •  How much time are people spending with our brand and
•  Return visits are they returning?

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
•  Subscriber / audience size
•  Share of voice
•  Audience penetration across org
•  How large is our audience? •  What is the cost/value per point of share?
•  What’s our share of voice in a market/ channel? •  What is the cost/value per active audience member?
•  Is engagement growing across the workflow chain of a
single organization?

BRAND AWARENESS
•  Brand lift •  Are we creating awareness? Is our message memorable? •  What is the cost/ value per point of lift?
•  Perception / attitudinal change •  Are we changing perceptions?

LEAD GENERATION AND SALES

•  Behavioral conversions •  Are people discovering and understanding our product & •  What is the cost per qualified lead?
•  Lead generation service offering? •  What is the multi-touch attribution cost?
•  Sales lift •  Are we driving quality leads? •  What is the cost per sale?
•  Are we driving overall sales?
How To Implement A Successful
Content Marketing Strategy
Key Takeaways:

1  Commit to publishing content that your customers actually want

2  Figure out what questions your customers ask (Google) what content
they share (Social) and what channels they use.

3  Start publishing content

4  Distribute the winners

5  Measure what works

#thinkcontent
 Thank you!
Learn more about our strategy services:
http://newscred.com/learn-professional-services

Enter our raffle for a free

Content Strategy Workshop:
http://newscred.com/content-strategy-workshop-raffle

michael.brenner@newscred.com
sales@newscred.com

#thinkcontent | @newscred