As an increasing number of brands wade into the waters of content marketing, Mike Hepburn, content marketing director at Jaywing, gives us his top ten things to consider for an effective campaign.
All of a sudden everyone is talking about content marketing. It is reported to be a £4 billion industry and growing fast. UK marketers are allocating one third of their budgets to it. So what is it exactly? The Content Marketing Association provides a good definition:
“Content marketing is the discipline of creating quality branded editorial content across all media channels and platforms to deliver engaging relationships, consumer value and measurable success for brands.”
So what’s all the fuss about? The reason everyone raves about content marketing is because it works. Recent research from Hubspot shows how companies that blog receive 55 per cent more traffic on their website and B2C companies that blog receive 88 per cent more sales leads than those that don’t. It reaches customers in a way advertising can’t because it attracts and engages audiences with interesting and entertaining content rather than disrupts them in the way adverts do.
This is why just under half of marketers say that the biggest challenge right now is to create enough engaging content.
At Jaywing, we believe content marketing campaigns need to be part of an integrated marketing strategy, serving brand, PR, search and social objectives. Advances in technology mean everyone can create their own media. Brands have already attracted their customers and will no doubt have something interesting and useful to say to that specific audience, the key is to say it in an engaging way.
Here is our quick and easy checklist to consider before embarking upon a content marketing campaign.
1. Objective
What are you trying to achieve with your content campaign and how will it benefit your organisation? What are the purposes of this content campaign? Is it about brand, media (bought/owned/earned), social, search and/or PR?
2. Audience
Who are you trying to reach? What are their frequently asked questions? What is troubling them? Where do they go right now to find out the information they need? What are they Googling?
3. Help
Once you’ve worked out your audience’s wants/needs you can shape a content plan on how you will help your audience with these needs. Can you provide the answer to their questions? How can you be an authority in this field? Do you have any data/research that you could use?
4. Pillars
How will you deliver this content? From your understanding of how your audience likes to receive information you can work out whether the content should be a report, competition, blog, a booklet, a video, an infographic, tweets, an event, etc.
5. Tactics
Think about the little improvements you can make to maximise appeal. For instance, if you have a great pillar of content, like a report, you could re-purpose it into new formats to ensure it goes to different audiences by creating blogs, webinars, videos, picture galleries, tweets, etc. There’s a multitude of other techniques, such as lists (which are very readable), using bigger pictures, and appealing headlines.
6. Conversion
How are you going to get your content to convert into further interest, enquiries, client data, sales leads and/or sales? Different types of content work for your different conversion needs. For instance, competitions mean you can capture entry data. You could tease your audience with a blog that trails a report that will answer their worries but to receive it they must fill out a form.
7. Distribution
If you have created an amazing piece of content but no one is watching/reading it, ask how come they haven’t discovered it yet? Have you pushed it out to your audience? What’s the best way to reach them? SEO, bought media, earned media, PR, email lists, partnering with media companies and industry bodies that have a channel of communication to that audience?
8. Plan
Always plan the process in advance. This requires basic project management. Who is responsible for what? When and how do you approve content? What are the timelines?
9. Test
Don’t commit to huge content projects straight away. Start small, try a few different approaches and see what works for you. It takes time to build up your confidence and the confidence of your organisation.
10. Measure
Find a way to measure success. This all depends on the purpose of the content you’ve created and what practical KPIs you can implement.
