CHAPTER 5
Roadmap to Success: Content Marketing Strategy
A house is only as stable as its foundation, and so far we’ve covered several foundational concepts for an effective content marketing strategy, from understanding where search engine optimization, social media, and content intersect to essential research and customer-persona development. Translating these key pieces of the puzzle will help you take one of the most important steps in the journey to an optimized content marketing strategy.
In this chapter we will cover both the independent roles of search optimization, social media, and content marketing and a framework for integrating an approach that can improve overall online marketing effectiveness.
From my long-time experience working in sales, SEO, and web development, I’ve encountered a wide variety of business marketing problems and observed some common threads. In this chapter I will discuss common issues faced by content marketers and how a more holistic approach to integrated search, social media, and content marketing can result in improved marketing performance, more sales, and better customer experiences.
INHERITING AN ONLINE MARKETING MESS
When Don Glass assumed his new role as director of marketing at a five-year-old software company, he inherited the marketing legacy of his predecessor. This included siloed marketing and advertising tactics, an out-of-date website, long-expired SEO efforts, a token social media presence, and heavy pay-per-click (PPC) advertising expenses. Efforts were almost exclusively focused on customer acquisition and very little ongoing communication with customers outside of solving customer service issues. There was even less outside communication with industry thought leaders or the media.
For this software company, leads were primarily sourced from word of mouth, online advertising, and trade shows, but quality and quantity were on a steady decline as competition increased and more companies in the space became involved with awareness and branding efforts through social networking, content marketing, and industry media coverage.
With minimal resources, Don Glass was tasked with (1) developing an online marketing strategy that would lift marketplace awareness of his software company as the most relevant in the category and (2) increasing the quantity and quality of leads while reducing online advertising costs.
Sound familiar? Maybe your situation isn’t so bad. Or maybe it’s worse.
One of the first steps Don Glass had to take was to gain a clear understanding of overall business objectives in terms of position in the marketplace, revenue growth, customer relationships, and future expansion or changes within the product mix. As we discussed in the previous chapter, identifying overall business goals helps you understand what impact marketing can have across the organization. There’s an obvious connection between marketing, leads, and sales for revenue growth. But there’s also a potential impact that marketing can have on other business objectives, such as building thought leadership and media attention, attracting talent, and fostering better relationships with customers for retention and referral goals.
Don’s challenge was a formidable one, but by approaching it holistically and from a customer perspective, we’ll see how the intersection of content, search, and social will prove a significant way to attract customers, engage them, and inspire them to buy as well as to share. Let’s start to unravel the solution for Don and maybe your own by better understanding the role of content marketing.
WHY YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS A CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
Not only is every brand a potential publisher, but so are consumers. The ability for anyone to create and share online has resulted in a growing wave of content. According to comScore, Google.com handles more than 11 billion searches each month.1 YouTube serves up 3 billion videos each day.2 Facebook now has more than 800 million active users.3 Twitter is publishing more than 200 million tweets per day.4 LinkedIn has more than 100 million users, FourSquare grew 3,400 percent in 2010, and Pinterest has reached more than 11 million unique monthly visitors.5, 6, 7 Consumers are active participants in the content creation and consumption universe. Brands that watch from the sidelines with a wait-and-see approach may find themselves joining in with too little, too late in a never-ending game of catch-up.
The variety of options for customer marketing and engagement, ranging from social media to SEO to e-mail marketing to online advertising, can be overwhelming. As a result, some of the most common online marketing questions I hear from client-side marketers revolve around, “How do we decide which online marketing tactics are best?”
Answering that question starts with a clear understanding of goals, customers, and a flexible online marketing strategy that assembles the right mix of tactics and measurement practices. Most companies are looking to acquire more customers and to retain those they have, but the question is, “How do we acquire and engage customers more efficiently and effectively?”
Consumers are not interested in interruption marketing. They want to be educated and entertained, and they increasingly expect value of some kind from brands before ever getting into a purchase situation. Both B2B and B2C customers expect to find answers as well as the products and services they’re looking for via search engines. They also expect to interact socially with what they find on search engines. In fact, Google is making social connections possible without ever leaving the search results page by allowing logged-in Google users to add authors of content to their Google+ circles. (See Figure 5.1.)
FIGURE 5.1 Author Avatars and Instant Add to Circles on Google
Consumers expect content from brands. They also expect ease of discovery as well as the ability to interact with and socially share content with others who have similar interests. These aren’t “nice to haves” anymore—they’re expected.
Most corporate marketing is structured to create content around products and services versus a publisher approach that emphasizes audience interests. As a result, the idea of implementing a content marketing program can seem foreign. However, the abundance of publishing tools and platforms now makes it possible for companies to create content and media that rivals some news organizations. A few great examples of highly influential and robust content marketing initiatives created by brands include OPEN Forum by American Express, Tablespoon.com by General Mills, and the Radian6 series of e-books, videos, blogs, and white papers.
Content fuels customer engagement at all stages of the customer life cycle, from the top of the funnel to advocacy. Content can educate prospects about your products and services, and it can also help educate about the buying process and how to get the most out of the purchase. Content can continue to reinforce the brand and customer relationship and inspire renewals, upgrades, and referrals.
The challenge is for companies to rethink their content marketing strategy and incorporate social media and SEO in order to fulfill customer expectations for ease of discovery, consumption, and sharing. On top of that, content must educate and make it easy to follow a logical conclusion to buy. The companies that do those things best will win it for themselves and for their customers.
A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO CONTENT MARKETING
Understanding relationships between disparate channels can be new territory for many marketers. My favorite food metaphor for the relationship between search, social, and content is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with SEO as the peanut butter, social media as the jelly, and content as the bread that holds it all together. Content is the reason search engines exist, and although it’s a simple concept, keep in mind that the primary value provided by search engines is to connect people with answers, and this fact shouldn’t be lost in the sea of tactics, tricks, and pontification that goes on in the digital marketing world.
An optimized content marketing strategy is a plan for delivering thoughtful content with certain audiences and outcomes in mind. In the context of a company working to achieve its goals by being useful to its customers, community, and constituents, content isn’t just king, it’s the kingdom.
In the past, many companies have viewed content as a one-time effort for use with a company website, and they have often viewed content as too difficult to commit to when it came to blogging, articles, or media creation. However, that view has changed. According to a 2012 report, Content Marketing Institute found that 9 out of 10 organizations market with content, and 60 percent of respondents to the survey reported an intention to increase spending on content marketing within the next 12 months.
Six Steps for a Better Content Marketing Strategy
1. Objectives. Identify your overall business goals for content marketing, including end goals such as an increase in leads and sales, media coverage or recruiting to key performance indicators (KPIs) such as increased search traffic, and social engagement. We discussed this in detail throughout Chapter 4, and the importance of identifying goals transcends any particular marketing channel, as you will see in the rest of the book.
2. Audience. Research customer segments and develop profiles that represent consistent characteristics, such as pain points, motivators to purchase, and social engagement. To find out how personas fit within an “optimize and socialize” content marketing strategy, be sure to read Chapter 6.
3. Content plan. An understanding of customer needs and business goals can be translated into a specific content plan that identifies relevant content mix, topics, and desired outcomes as they apply across the customer buying cycle. Chapter 8 gets into the nitty-gritty of how to develop a content plan.
4. Promotion. In concert with content planning, creation, and optimization is the planned promotion of content to end users as well as to influencers for further sharing that will expose brand messages to new and relevant audiences. One of the fringe benefits of promoting useful content are links, and we discuss specific tactics for promotion in Chapter 12.
5. Engagement. Growing social networks and community through listening, participation, and content sharing provides insight for future content, enables advocacy, and reinforces sharing behaviors. How do you grow your network and increase engagement? Look for details in Chapter 11.
6. Measurement. Are our content marketing efforts helping customers? Are those interactions leading to intended behaviors such as inquiries, sharing, and sales? How are our broader business goals aided through content marketing efforts? What are the KPIs telling us about individual and collective tactics? Capture insight and refine future content marketing efforts accordingly. You get answers to these questions and more in Chapter 13.
Armed with good reasons for using a content marketing strategy and a framework for building an effective one, we can move on to the role of SEO in attracting prospects and buyers to our content through relevant visibility on search engines.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION STRATEGY
If Google were dating the SEO community, the Facebook status would read: “It’s complicated.” Both Google and Bing have made substantial efforts to create resources for the webmaster community, starting with Vanessa Fox and Google Webmaster Tools. Bing has its own version of webmaster resources that helps website owners gain insight into how each search engines interact with websites so problems can be identified and the process of getting a website crawled and indexed is as efficient as possible. These tools from search engines for website owners provide a valuable feedback mechanism that they can use to advance performance in hopes of better visibility for customers that are looking.
The complication comes into play with the rapid rate of change and decisions like Google’s choice to encrypt keyword-referring data from search traffic that comes from users logged into Google. The impact of this approach on ensuring privacy for users has been estimated to be in the single digits to low double digits of all organic search traffic. Without knowing which keywords drive traffic to their web pages, webmasters are at a disadvantage about how to optimize those pages for better user experience and marketing performance, let alone search visibility. Search engines like Google and Bing are continuously testing and making improvements and rolling out new features on their search engines. In 2010 alone, Google ran more than 6,000 experiments.
An effective SEO strategy should involve several different audits as well as ongoing work to implement best practices, refine results, and take advantage of trending opportunities. I liken content marketing without significant keyword and optimization consideration to “hiding” your content. Search represents a substantial opportunity for prospects, customers, potential employees, and the media to discover your content. Why not make it easier and more effective for an audience that is actively looking to find your brand’s information online?
Traditionally, SEO has worked independently of other marketing tactics, but that’s not the world we live in today. Instead of bringing SEO expertise in after content has been created, keyword research should be initiated at the time of creating the content plan. Customer segmentation and persona data can contribute significantly to how effective content optimization aligns with customer needs. Understanding what customers care about relevant to your product and services mix can elevate the relevance of the searcher user experience, thus resulting in more click-throughs, time on site, and sales.
A baseline understanding of a company’s current search performance compared to overall revenue goals will help identify projections for what SEO can contribute to a content marketing strategy. The particulars involve knowledge about the competitive marketplace, customer needs, and resources the company has available related to content, networking, analytics, and ongoing promotions.
HOW SEO CAN WORK WITH CONTENT STRATEGY
Organizations can advance their reach and engagement goals through content marketing, and it’s the content strategist’s role to audit, develop strategy, plan, create, and maintain that content. Ahava Leibtag provided a practical approach to creating content with purpose in her post, “Creating Valuable Content,” on the Content Marketing Institute site, which outlines how content should be findable, readable, understandable, actionable, and shareable.
SEO and content strategy intersect in more ways than optimizing web pages with keywords. Answering the question, “How does SEO and content strategy interact?” starts with understanding customer segments, behaviors, and preferences for information discovery, consumption, and sharing. Knowing what customers care about and how those concerns and interests manifest as search keywords and social topics folds very well into the keyword research practiced by professional SEOs.
Keyword glossaries and editorial plans aid in planning relevant content that is inherently optimized for customers and target audiences. Specific keyword optimization is appropriate as well, but the end content product becomes much easier to find, consume, and share if there’s empathy with customer needs translated into topics and keywords from the start. I’m a fan of optimizing for customers before search engines, but you can certainly do both.
An editorial plan outlines content types, topics, and the keywords they’re optimized for. It indicates where and whether the content will be republished and repurposed. The plan also shares which channels of distribution will be used to promote the content and share it via the social web. Search engine optimization also applies to social media content that emphasizes popular and relevant social topics versus search keywords.
Planning, creating, optimizing, promoting, and engaging with content on topics that customers and target audiences care about is where modern SEO has evolved: content marketing optimization. SEO expertise, which also includes knowledge of how search engines crawl and index websites, content management systems, and the impact of how websites are coded and organized, provides a powerful ally to content strategists when goals and objectives are in alignment.
In Chapter 3 we discussed the internal research task of a technical SEO audit. In order to maximize the impact of natural search visibility, there’s more for us to consider beyond website code and search engine bots crawling web pages. To the extent that SEO would contribute to the achievement of key marketing goals, here’s a breakdown of the five audits that will assess a baseline:
1. Keyword research. Customers often speak a different language when it comes to search, so it’s important to identify what phrases represent the mix of reasons for using Google or Bing to find solutions like those offered by your company. People search for many reasons other than to buy products and services, so keyword research can provide essential insight into the demand for topics relevant to any area of your website, from jobs to news to customer support. A keyword research audit will assess your website, competitors, consumers, web analytics, and keyword research tools to identify, organize, and manage your target search keyword phrases. Chapter 7 digs into the finer art and science of discovering which keywords will best motivate customer actions like leads and sales.
2. Content audit. Once target keyword phrases have been identified, a comparison with current website content is made to determine optimization opportunities as well as to recommend new content creation. A website must be the best resource for a topic, and content optimization takes inventory of all content and digital assets that could be a potential entry point via search and recommends SEO copywriting tactics to showcase those pages as most relevant. Chapters 9 and 10 dig deeper into the role of original content, curated content, and the specifics of on-page optimization.
3. Technical SEO audit. If search engines have difficulty finding, crawling, and indexing your content, it may put your site at a disadvantage. Search engines are far from perfect, so the more website owners and marketers can do to help the engines do their job, the more advantage you can create for desired visibility in search.
4. Link footprint. Links help search engines and customers alike find your content. Links from one page to another, or those shared on social platforms, serve as a signal that can be factored by search engines as they decide the best answers to display in the search results. A link footprint audit identifies the quantity and quality of links from web and social sources pointing to your content. A comparison with top-performing websites in your industry and keyword category can reveal numerous opportunities. We explore those tactics in Chapter 12.
5. Social SEO audit. The influence of social media on search engine visibility has increased substantially in recent years. Assessing a brand’s social presence, engagement, and distribution through social channels is as much an audit with SEO implications as it is for social media marketing. Understanding a brand’s social authority and content distribution can lead to a much improved approach, with benefits to customers as well as to the business.
We dig into several of these SEO audits more specifically in the implementation phase. If there’s a market demand through search for solutions offered by a company, then SEO is essential for maximizing that opportunity. For companies that expect to gain new business, protect their online reputation, grow social networks, attract new employees, and provide a great user experience with online customer support, then SEO is imperative.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY
Most practitioners in the social media space talk about developing a strategy specifically for social media. They describe the importance of social media listening with a monitoring tool, setting up a presence on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and having a company blog. There’s another school of thought that says social media strategy isn’t what companies need, but rather a marketing strategy that factors in social media where it matters.
This may seem like a matter of semantics, but it makes a big difference organizationally, logistically, and especially with implementation and measurement. Social media marketing is new to many companies, and therefore they often place it in the realm of public relations or marketing. The reality is that social media participation runs across an entire organization.
Should a company have a point of view toward the organization’s approach to social media participation? Of course. Most social media policies provide guidelines for employees as well as the company’s vision for where social participation, media creation, sharing, and engagement fit within the overall business strategy. As companies mature their social media marketing efforts, they may find social participation and collaboration benefits that compel investments beyond social media marketing into social business.
While some marketing thought leaders like Guy Kawasaki have suggested that you don’t need a social media strategy, others like Chris Brogan say you do. Whether you approach your brand’s social web participation purely as a reaction and adaptation based on how social channels interact with your social content or you’re able to consider specific audiences and tactics with a plan to achieve certain goals, there’s no mistaking that consumers expect brand involvement on the social web. The challenge is deciding which approach will work best for your company.
As with our strategies for content marketing and search engine optimization, an effective approach to social media marketing follows a similar path:
- Objectives. Social media is more than marketing, so consider not only the ability to create more brand awareness, thought leadership, and influence on sales, but also the role of social media tools for any kind of external communications.
- Listening. Establishing a social media monitoring effort is essential for data capture that will reveal where conversations are happening about topics relevant to customers and your business goals. Listening is as important as web analytics for ongoing involvement in social channels.
- Audience. Are your customers active on the social web, and where? What do they do? What do they talk about? Who are the influencers for topics of relevance to your business? What has your customer research revealed in terms of social participation, behaviors for content discovery, consumption, and sharing for target audiences? The process of understanding what customers want in exchange for their attention is ongoing.
- Participation and content. As you come to understand where your target audience of buyers and influencers spend their time, you’ll also see where to establish a presence, share useful content, and engage the community. It’s tempting to focus on Facebook, Google+, blogging, and Twitter, but make an effort to grow beyond the popular social crowd into niche areas that have less noise and more influence according to your understanding of customers. Allocate some time to experimental channels, as well, to show your willingness to be innovative and to plant seeds in growing communities.
- Measurement. From key performance indicators such as fans, friends, and comments to business outcomes like network growth, engagement, and sales, measurement is essential for effective brand social media participation. Ongoing listening using social media monitoring tools ranging from Trackur to Radian6 will be important to measure the impact on conversations of your social content. Social media marketing management tools like Awareness, Vitrue, and Hootsuite will help manage and measure social content promotion. Web analytics tools like Google Analytics will provide insight into the social media–sourced traffic and engagement that occurs on your website.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER: AN OPTIMIZED AND SOCIALIZED CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
The marketing mess that Don Glass inherited (described at the beginning of this chapter) was ripe for an “optimize and socialize” approach. A content marketing strategy that considers audience, competitive landscape, and business goals, along with a supporting mix of search and social media tactics, is an instrumental approach for increasing awareness, boosting sales, and inspiring more customer engagement and sharing.
Think about your business goals in the context of a holistic content marketing approach. What would be the impact on your business of improved content discovery, consumption, and sharing among a community of customers and industry influencers? What do you know about your customers that can translate into search keywords and social topic insight? How do content, distribution channels, search visibility, and social engagement factor into your overall approach to attract, engage, and inspire customers to buy?
1. What are the most important online marketing objectives for your business?
2. Besides marketing, where in your organization’s content creation efforts could you apply an “optimize and socialize” approach?
3. Identify the listening, research, and analytics tools you’ll use to benchmark your search and social media program performance.
4. Develop an integrated content, SEO, and social media strategy that employs the goal-setting, competitive, and customer research ideas outlined in Chapters 2 to 4.
Notes
1. “comScore Releases November 2011 U.S. Search Engine Rankings,” comScore, December 16, 2011, http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/12/comScore_Releases_November_2011_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings.
2. YouTube, accessed December 2011, http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics.
3. Facebook, accessed December 2011, https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?_statistics.
4. “200 million Tweets per day,” Twitter, June 30, 2011, http://blog.twitter.com/2011/06/200-million-tweets-per-day.html.
5. Jeff Weiner, “100 million members and counting . . .” LinkedIn (blog), March 22, 2011, http://blog.linkedin.com/2011/03/22/linkedin-100-million/.
6. “So we grew 3400% last year . . .” Foursquare (blog), January 24, 2011, http://blog.foursquare.com/2011/01/24/2010infographic/.
7. Josh Constine, “Pinterest Hits 10 Million U.S. Monthly Uniques Faster Than Any Standalone Site Ever -comScore,” TechCrunch, February 7, 2012, http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/pinterest-monthly-uniques/.