Published August 21, 2014

Content Marketing on a Budget–SSN August Meeting

By David Lindahl

Presentation by Uri Bar-Joseph

Seattle Search Network August Meeting Notes

“Content is King” – as Search Marketers, we’ve heard this ad nauseam in recent years, but what does it really look like and how can small businesses leverage content marketing the right way to achieve the best ROI?

At our August monthly meeting, Seattle Search Network was lucky to have Uri Bar-Joseph, the Director of Marketing at Simply Measured give us a very detailed overview of what content marketing is and why every business should consider doing it. Unlike other content marketing presentations I’ve seen, his went past the vague clichés that we’ve all gotten sick of hearing and instead dove right in to actionable things businesses of any size can do to improve their traffic, brand awareness, and their overall internet presence using content marketing as a real strategy.

I found myself feverishly taking down notes and I’ve combined them below with some screenshots from his deck in to this blog post to help pass on this knowledge. For no nonsense advice on content marketing make sure to also check out Uri’s blog and follow him on twitter.

Why Content Marketing?

http://www.eloqua.com/content/dam/eloqua/Downloads/ebook/Kapost-Eloqua_ebook_Content_Marketing.pdf

According to an Eloqua study, after around 20 months, if you continue on with content marketing, the ROI is very significant –> 3 times that of Paid Search in many cases.
Own vs. Rent your traffic.
- Once you’ve built your audience, your ROI goes up since you no longer have to pay “rent” the traffic and if you do paid advertising too, you get more and cheaper paid clicks.
93% of research starts with content and SEO
42% of consumers look for blogs before they buy.
57% of consumers say blogs had more of an impact than other media when making their purchasing decision.

What’s Challenging about content marketing for Companies?

Whether B2B or B2C, most companies cite the same hurdles for implementing effective content marketing:

Lack of time (according to Uri –> not an excuse – symptom of bad priorities.)
Producing enough content
Producing the kind of content that engages
Producing a variety of content
Lack of budget
Inability to measure effectiveness

How you need to think about content marketing

It’s not just about the message, you must also think about how you format that content so you can effectively leverage each channel from promotion of the content.

Start with your buyers:

Who are they? –> demographic, firmographic
Where are they? –> location, online, networks, subscriptions
What are they interested in? –> topics hobbies, activities
What is their pain? –functional, financial, emotional
How can you help them? –>one product

Decide on ONE product

Why do they buy?
Why would they buy from you?
If they bought from you would they be happy?

Define your buyer’s journey

Every stage requires different content.
awareness, interest, consideration, decision/purchase
Awareness – Educate on problem
Interest – Learn about possible solutions
Consideration – Narrow solutions to a short list of alternatives
Decision/purchase – compare shortlist and come to solution
Your goals need to align with buyer’s goals at each stage.

Understand better what your buyers are most interested in by writing down and answering every possible question a buyer may have and the corresponding answer. Think of it almost like creating an FAQ. Use Ubersuggest to uncover questions you may not have considered.

Write down all the questions your buyers have at each stage

List as many questions as you can for each stage and then answer each of those.

How to do it on a budget?

Do it yourself
Do it in-house
Freelance or an agency
Crowdsource – Do your research. What do you need?
- Brafton
- Writers Access – http://writeraccess.com
- Newscred
- Scripted
- TextBroker
- Zerys
- Curata
- Etc…

Plan one Canonical Piece of content

Goal is to get it shared and noticed. Content is not gated
- Then create a peripheral content that supports and points to it:

Optimize the page for appropriate type of conversion based on stage the buyer is in.

Add CTA, forms, big buttons, pop ups.
Try different things and test to achieve max conversions.

Diversify formats

Slideshare
Video
Pdf
Podcast
Blog article
White paper
Infographic

How do you do this on a budget?

Do it yourself:
1. Word
2. Powerpoint
3. Adobe
4. Iphone, Camtasia
5. Recording tools
Do it in house:
1. Designer
2. Writer / copy editor
3. Videographer
4. Uncover talent within workforce.
Freelance or an agency
Crowdsource

Channel & Distribution

How to do it on a budget:

Manage all your subscriptions in one place
Assign owners to each channel/medium
Have a content distribution checklist

Format determines the medium

Make sure you can push out content and that you have budget to do it right or you’re not getting

Tips:

Plan your promotions campaigns in advance
Set goals, budgets, action items.
Track and measure
Establish baseline and then optimize
Play around with it.

How to Get this Done

Even with great guidance from a Marketing Professional like Uri Bar-Joseph, content marketing doesn’t work unless you get busy and do the work.

As Uri mentioned at the beginning of his presentation, why pay for expensive PPC to rent your position and your relationship with certain terms when you can have people look for you directly?

Step 1: Make content marketing a priority.

Decide that it’s important for your business
Commit to it regardless of what you come up against.
Don’t do it half assed
Assign real resources to it
Schedule time
- Block time out. Turn off distractions.
Lead by example – upper management and key people should be involved in this.

Step 2: Plan It

Pick one topic to start with
Brainstorm
Prioritize
Find the experts –> extract knowledge from the right people.
Create an editorial calendar based on what you come up with.

Step 3: Build a Process

Brainstorm
- Finalize a topic
- Outline all formats
Outline the message (creative brief)
Copy and wireframe
- Helps communicate your process to more people
- Powerpoint is good tool for wireframing
Review
Final Draft
Copy editor
Production
Review
Polish
Final Review
Promo asset production
Publish

Step 4: Assign Resources

Internal? Outsource?

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/10/2014-b2b-content-marketing-research/

Agency? Freelance?

Step 5: Manage Process

Google Docs
Trello
Excel
Smartsheet
Kapost

Step 6: Execute

Start Producing
Think about distribution
Have a Project Manager

Step 7: Measure

More Tips

Define activity goals for the first 3-6 months
Measure early indicator
Start to measure real results only after 3 months of solid activity.
Books – Taking online content and branding as a book builds legitimacy of brand and authority for the author.
Capture target market as early as possible so you can influence them the whole way down the buyer’s journey.

Questions from the Group
Zach – How do you stay motivated if you’re not getting traffic or shares, etc?

Keep going regardless for first 6 months.
If you had solid activity and not seeing results, analyze why. Test, look at format, messge, promotion. Channels
Why isn’t it working?? – Dig deep.

Brian – How do you do market research when you don’t have the money to do it?

Start with a clear definition of who your buyer is.
Validate through data. Use technology

Alex – What’s an average budget for content marketing?

Small business – $11,000 per month
Larger business – $18 – $30,000

John – What tools do you use to uncover your audience?

Social Media – Listening tools, simple searches on Twitter, Autosuggest.
Survey Monkey – Will go out and find target market and ask them your specific questions.
Start with owners of business
Think about format for your audience – mobile is huge in 3rd world and it’s very important to optimize for it.

Zach – Used interviews and dictation software to generate software, what else is there?

Really likes using this type of strategy
Shadowing key people and then interviewing about your experience.

Take content, edit, and then produce.

Alex – How do you convince a client to try content marketing when it is slow to get ramped up?

Set expectations
Generate content specific for leads a couple times. Top 10 lists, highly search topics, etc.
Takes time to build authority. Not as many shortcuts now. Need to educate business owners and need to garner their trust.

Did you come to the event? What did you think? Leave your comments and additional contributions on this topic below.