In Part 1 of this webinar series on “Strategies for Successful Content Marketing” IMI’s Co-founder and CMO Brent Gleeson will do an overview of what content marketing is all about, why it is an important tool for brands and marketers in this ever changing digital landscape, and the statistics that support it. Panelists will include IMI’s VP of SEO and world renowned SEO expert, Benj Arriola, and IMI’s Social Media Director Carrie Peterson.
Strategies for Successful Content Marketing (part 1)
1. Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
November 6, 2013
Presenter: Brent Gleeson, Co-Founder & CMO
Panelists: Benj Arriola, VP of SEO
Carrie Peterson, Director of Social Media
3. About IMI
• Full scale digital agency
• 7 years track record
• 70 People Onsite
• Offices in San Diego, Vegas, NYC
• 2012 & 2013 Inc. 500
• Award winning agency
• Data-driven & ROI Focused
• All team members Google Analytics certified
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
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brent@internetmarketinginc.com
4. Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
About Content Marketing
Content Types & Examples
Vehicles for Distribution
The Process
Panel Discussion
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
@iMarketingInc
#ChatIMI
brent@internetmarketinginc.com
5. All About Content Marketing – Our Definition
What is Content Marketing?
“Consistently creating valuable and
relevant branded content for a specific
audience that keeps them engaged
through all stages of the buying cycle
in order to build trust, foster deeper
relationships, and generate more
leads.”
- IMI
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
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6. All About Content Marketing – Buying Cycle
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
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7. All About Content Marketing
90% of consumers find custom
content useful and 78% believe that
organizations providing custom
content are interested in building
good relationships with them.
(TMG Custom Media)
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
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brent@internetmarketinginc.com
8. All About Content Marketing
Blogs give websites 434% more
indexed pages and 97% more
indexed links.
Content+
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
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brent@internetmarketinginc.com
9. All About Content Marketing
Because 61% of consumers say they
feel better about a company that
delivers custom content, they are
also more likely to buy from that
company.
(Custom Content Council)
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
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brent@internetmarketinginc.com
10. So What Kind of Content are We Talking About?
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
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brent@internetmarketinginc.com
11. So What Kind of Content are We Talking About?
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
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brent@internetmarketinginc.com
12. So What Kind of Content are We Talking About?
THE
RESULTS
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
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brent@internetmarketinginc.com
14. The Content Marketing Process
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
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brent@internetmarketinginc.com
15. Panel Discussion
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@Carriesavvy
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
@iMarketingInc
#ChatIMI
@BenjArriola
brent@internetmarketinginc.com
16. About Our eBook
A quick look inside…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Content Marketing Defined
Trends, Facts, & Stats
Content as a Business Practice
Execution
Measurement
Lead Nurturing
2014 Outlook
Download NOW:
http://www.internetmarketinginc.com/lp/guide-results-driven-marketing/
Strategies for Successful
Content Marketing (Part 1)
@iMarketingInc
#ChatIMI
brent@internetmarketinginc.com
Opening RemarksHello everyone and thank you so much for attending the first of IMI’s new monthly webinar series. Welcome to “Strategies for Successful Content Marketing (Part 1).” My name is Brent Gleeson and I am the Co-founder and CMO here at Internet Marketing Inc. Today’s webinar will be 30 minutes in length with about 20 minutes of presentation and panel discussion time and 10 minutes for open questions from the audience. Please feel free to submit questions using the chat box on your webinar tool bar, or via Twitter using our handle @iMarketingInc and hashtag #ChatIMI both of which will be on the footer of every slide. Following this webinar the recorded version will be available on our blog. We will also be sending you a link to download our new eBook titled “The Ultimate Guide to Results Driven Content Marketing.” So be looking for that email after this presentation.And with that, we will dive in…
First I wanted to tell you a bit about your presenters today. Again, my name is Brent Gleeson and I am Co-founder and CMO here at IMI. I manage all aspects of IMI’s branding and marketing initiatives and thought leadership strategies. I have 9 years of digital marketing experince. My business partner and our CEO, Brandon Fishman, and I have started other successful online marketing focused businesses in our career. I have an undergraduate degree in finance from Southern Methodist University and a graduate degree from University of San Diego. I contribute regularly to Forbes, Inc, and Entrepreneur. Prior to my time as a digital marketer I spent five years as a Navy SEAL on ST5 with combat tours in Iraq and Africa.We also have two of IMI’s highly acclaimed award-winning thought leaders joining us today as our expert panelists, Benj Arriola and Carrie Peterson. Benj’s intro: BenjArriola is the SEO Vice Preseident at Internet Marketing Inc. (IMI) and has 15 years experience in SEO and web design and development. Benj has worked with companies all sizes from different countries including enterprise level SEO campaigns. His firm belief in thorough testing of SEO concepts in actual practice has helped him win several SEO competitions and even winning a brand new car in the 2007 SEO World Championship. Benj has spoken on SEO and other related digital marketing topics at PubCon, SMX, OMS SEMCon, MORCon in the US and other countries. Benj a former Chemist took his BS and MS in chemistry from De La Salle University in Manila and his MBA with emphasis in Information Systems from the University of Redlands, California.Carrie’s intro: Carrie Peterson is the IMI Social Media Director, where she works with the team to cultivate social media strategies and events for our clients. She comes from the brand side, where she gained numerous years of experience in the social and digital space, working with top sports leagues such as Major League Baseball, the NBA, NHL and NFL as well as large luxurious resorts in the hospitality space before joining IMI. Carrie is a regular contributor on Ragan.com, Forbes and The Agency Post, and has spoken at various industry events, promoting the power of social media and content marketing.
Now a few quick facts about IMI. We are a leading full service data driven digital marketing agency based in San Diego with offices in Las Vegas and New York. We are one of the fastest growing agencies in the country having been on the Inc 500 list and the San Diego Business Journal’s fastest growing companies list the past two years in a row. We also made the Agency Post’s top 100 fastest growing agencies list this year as well. More about IMI?
This being a 2 part series, today we are going to focus on the following areas. First, we will take a look at what content marketing is all about. How do we define content marketing, what has it been in the past and how brand’s and marketers will approach it in the future. We discuss why it is a critical piece of an integrated digital marketing strategy, and the facts and trends supporting all of this. Next, we will cover the different types of content you can use and focus the strengths of a few key examples.Then we will look at vehicles for distributed the content you have created and cover the entire Content Marketing process.Finally we will jump into the fun part with an interactive panel discussion with Benj and Carrie.Next month, in Part 2 of this series, we will do a deep dive into the content promotion process, measurement, look at some case studies and do an overview of our 2014 predictions for content marketing.
So…What is content marketing?Consistently creating valuable and relevant branded content for a specific audience that keeps them engaged through all stages of the buying cycle in order to build trust, foster deeper relationships, and generate more leads.While content marketing isn’t necessarily something new, how brands and marketers are increasingly placing a high emphasis on this strategy is quite new. All studies and trends show that more organizations are taking a more organized, strategic, and professional approach. They are focus on content marketing as a vital business module with dedicated resources, whether those are in-house or outsourced. The effectiveness of traditional interuptive approach to advertising and marketing has declined significantly due to ad overload and the customers desire for transparency, and to build a real relationship with the brands they like. Buyers are now in control of the buying cycle – not the sellers. Brands need to focus less on purchasing media, and more on earning and owning media, and to start “thinking like a publisher” and connecting with prospects at all stages of their buying cycle:[CLICK]
During the Awareness stage you can hit them with blog posts, videos, infographics, guest posts, and social media updates When they in the Research phase you can use content like eBooks, whitepapers, webinarsWhen being Compared to other vendors – cases studies, demos, testimonialsAnd when it comes time for the customer to make a Decision, you can use detailed product/service descriptions, buyer manuals, process guidelines, etc.According to a recent Forrester survey, buyers are now finding 70% of the content they need on their own, with the rest provided by the sales and marketing teams of the brands they are researching. That means of course that your content has to be easily accessible through multiple channels.Before we dive in, I wanted to tell you a quick story. Prior to joining the wonderful would of digital marketing I spent several years as a Navy SEAL. Before 9/11 we pretty much remained behind our veils of secrecy but as the war on terror waged on, DOD demanded that we increase the size of the SEAL community. At any given time there are only a couple thousand SEAL operators in the world. We couldn’t make training easier so we had to deploy better marketing and recruiting tactics to place better potential candidates in the top of the funnel. Since then we have been using various forms of content marketing with blogs, micosites, event promotion, providing training guides and videos. The movie Act of Valor for example started as a recruiting video but was then developed into a major motion picture with actual active duty SEALs staring in it. The result has been an extreme increase in the competitiveness to get into the SEAL teams and candidates are coming in better prepared and more knowledgeable. So instead of graduating 25 students out of 250, we are graduating 35 to 40. [CLICK]Again, training hasn’t gotten any easier, if anything harder, but we are filling the top of the funnel with better more qualified leads. The same goes for our businesses. Content marketing done right will fill the top of the funnel with a higher volume of more qualified leads.
Of course approaching content marketing the right way takes total buy-in from the top down, significant resources, and a commitment to consistency and measuring its success. So let’s look at some of the reasons content marketing has become so important…Content marketing builds trust. [CLICK] When executed properly, content marketing shows your current and potential customers that you care about educating and even entertaining them, and that you are a thought leader in your space. Effective content marketing takes rhythm and consistency, and usually, a customer will have consumed and shared multiple pieces of content before purchasing from you. A study from TMG Custom media showed that…
As most of us attending this webinar probably know, content marketing is the new SEO. Some of the best SEO strategies are when the focus isn’t on SEO, at least not in the traditional sense of how we used to think about it. As Google continually updates its algorithms, brands and marketers have to continually adopt new strategies to stay relevant in Google’s eyes….and that is where content marketing comes into play. Real companies doing real things and generating real, and compelling, content.[CLICK]A study by Content+ shows that…But blogging alone only fulfills some of your on-page SEO strategies. What about generating quality traffic and inbound links through infographics, video, guest posting, blogger outreach, podcasts, etc?
But, just like any other marketing strategy, you ultimately have to tie it back to a desired ROI metric. Similar to SEO, content marketing in its early stages MIGHT generate a lower ROI and have a higher cost per acquisition, but many studies are proving that over time, it has a higher ROI and a much lower CPA than paid search, display, and other forms of digital marketing. [CLICK]A study by the Custom Content Council shows that….61% of consumers are more likely to buy from a company delivering custom content.
Now let’s take a look at the types of content we are talking about. Content marketing can incorporate blogs, guest posts, articles, eBooks, whitepapers, webinars, video, images, infographics, sales collateral, buyers guides, and more. You can even leverage live events and presentations by taking video for your YouTube channel and blog, or using slideshare to post a presentation you may have done at a conference or event.You’ll notice on this graph [CLICK] that there is a direct correlation between content that takes more time and investment to create and the effectiveness of that content, which is why 62% of companies outsource their content marketing efforts.In a 2013 report by eMarketer[CLICK] it shows which types of content generated the best ROI for the brands and marketers polled.
Let’s look at an example of someinfographics we have done for our own marketing purposes, and the analytics showing the results.This is a piece we did on a rather hot topic very closely related to content marketing: Google Author Rank and Authorship. You can check it out later on our blog to learn more about the topic. But what I want to focus on are the results from the one single piece of content.
Let’s look at an example of aninfographic created for our own content marketing purposes, and the analytics showing the results.[CLICK]This is a piece we did on a rather hot topic very closely related to content marketing: Google Author Rank and Authorship. You can check it out later on our blog to learn more about the topic. But what I want to focus on are the results from the one single piece of content.When looking at the Site Content report in Google Analytics, you can see that after just a month of posting this infographic to our blog an promoting through social channels, it is now the second most visited page on our entire website behind the home page with an average time on page of over 5 minutes which is 200% over the average.To take it a bit deeper, when looking at behavior flow, you can see that after landing on this page, the visitors then move on to many other important pages of our website. From our home page to Team page…to the most important page…Contact Us [CLICK]Youwill also notice that visitors coming in via this landing page are going to multiple pages on the site which contributes to why time on site is so high.
So what are the key vehicles for distribution. We will dive deep into content promotion in Part 2 next month, but I wanted to quickly highlight the top channels that brands and marketers use. You can see here in this graph created by Outbrain that the top channels are social, paid media, SEO, and Email marketing.
Like I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, the trends we are seeing show that companies doing it right are focusing on content marketing as a vital business practice and putting more time, investment, and resources into…as well as approaching using a very strategic process which starts with research and planning. Then, like any good sales practice, you want to identify your various audiences and create personas so you can better identify what types of content will resonate, and what channels they will most likely see it on.You also need to keep your SEO keyword strategy in mind when developing content.Also, an editorial calendar is critical in order to stay on track, plan ahead, and better align your content marketing efforts with your sales and business development strategies.Then comes creation and promotion, and measurement. These are the stages of the process that we will address in detail in Part 2 next month.
Now comes the fun part. I will be moderating our panel discussion and presenting some questions that have come in during our webinar presentation. We will then open up the floor for addition questions from the audience.Carrie and Benj – are you ready? Ok great, let’s begin!The first questions I have is…OK, next question…Great…thank you Benj and Carrie. Great feedback and insight!Now I’d like to open it up to questions from the audience.
As promised, all of you in attendance receive exclusive access to our new eBook titled “The Ultimate Guide to Results Driven Content Marketing”. In this eBook we will take a closer look at many of the topics covered today and topics we will be covering in Part 2 next month:You can download the eBook using the URL shown on this slide. We will also be sending you an email that will include this link as well as the recorded version of the presentation we just did, which will be posted on our blog later today.
And with that, I want to sincerely thank everyone that attended. We hope you enjoyed this webinar presentation. Feel free to reach out to me, Benj or Carrie if you have more questions. You can also check out our blog for all kinds of great digital marketing content.Thanks everyone.