Content Marketing: The Next Big Thing

Apparently this is the year of “Content”. Conferences, articles, books, white papers, entire special editions of trade rags… all about the vital role of CONTENT in the online space. And more than a few of the items read as though they were explaining the dark side of the moon. My personal favorites are the ones that start with explaining what “content” is… now, there’s some remedial content.

I’ve been working to develop sites and eCRM programs that broadly meet the needs of desired participants since 2001. Looking back on many of these efforts, it’s true that there has been a real issue with providing information that users were seeking on sites, or interested in reading in email campaigns. Target users consistently request and value in-depth information about products and services, yet marketers struggle to develop content beyond three paragraph descriptions filled with positioning statements.

How did we get to this strange place?

You’d think that the opportunity to provide strong introductory copy, good differentiating information, and increasingly detailed product facts would be just a standard practice. That’s far from the truth. Early on in the online space there was a strong desire to replicate traditional advertising and sales models in a digital manner. Consumer sites pretty rapidly formed as either “brand experiences” or eCommerce, while B2B sites were little more than well organized brochures.

Over the years I’ve had to be an evangelist for content on quite a few occasions. And true to form, evangelists can end up being martyrs, too…

In late 2005 our agency got one of the largest consumer battery brands as a client. I was assigned to lead a discovery project that would drive a full site redesign. I immediately reviewed the site analytics and fielded an online survey to discover that people actually came to the site to learn about the product – especially more specialty products like hearing aid batteries and the like. Sadly, the site was almost entirely geared at the iconic nature of their brand advertising. And the marketers couldn’t part with their advertising-centric low-interest site.

Not long after that I worked on the largest athletic drink brand. I was excited when they decided to move all of their sweepstakes registrations online as they would be gathering over a million brand loyalists emails a year! Imagine my shock when I met with the CMO to discuss the amazing CRM opportunity that this afforded… to be told that really, they didn’t have any desire to engage in an ongoing dialog with consumers because she believed they didn’t really have enough content or desire to create more.

B2B marketers haven’t been much better. Another of my clients was a large B2B eCommerce player who wanted to be seen as providing business solutions, not just product from a catalog. They were also ceasing production on an established print magazine they had done for a number of years. So it seemed like a perfect opportunity to create an eZine that would focus on the needs of their core customers and also position some of their products. The development was incredibly difficult as their site didn’t really allow for content modules and we had to go with a microsite. They had tremendous traffic and interest, yet there was a concern that it didn’t tie directly enough to commerce. Okay, okay, at least they did build and maintain the content.

Why the sudden interest then?

Four factors seem to have come together to finally push content development to the forefront:

• Proven demand – as marketers become aware of specifically how their site is being used from site analytics, they’ve come to realize that information about products / services is nearly always the top area of focus, yet rarely very engaging


• Email marketing – the desire to link email campaigns in to a broader conversation has always required content, but has not often been a fully realized opportunity


• Search engine optimization – a major spark, SEO experts have consistently lobbied for more and deeper content to improve keyword rankings


• Social marketing – ongoing interaction and dialog has both created much better understanding of customer interests, as well as heightened the need for content

Although some of these drivers are as old as the Internet, it’s the recent push to social marketing that seems to have really created the storm of interest.

My next few blogs will expand on a process to identify and develop high impact content. Watch for them!

Completed your 2010 Website Benchmark yet?

Happy New Year!

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. 2010 ended with a BIG project helping a major small business software company rethink their online strategy.

One aspect of the discovery phase was to review their site metrics to better understand current site usage patterns. This wasn’t a months-long project so I asked to see their current quarterly or annual benchmark reports only to discover that they don’t do standard reporting of traffic, engagement patterns, content viewed, etc.

I thought that this just was the exception that proved ‘everyone does benchmark reporting’ until I had a couple of beers with an old friend who’s run digital agencies and now works for a very large digital media company. When I mentioned that I did ‘annual benchmark studies’ for a variety of clients, he was interested in what I considered standard.

So… here we go!

Why complete an annual web metrics benchmark study?

If you’ve just been told to do one, or your organization does one by rote, feel free to skip ahead. If you’re wanting or needing some great reasons to complete an annual benchmark study, read on.

From my experience, benchmark studies are completed to:

• Monitor site successes with an eye toward improving various metrics
• Identify aspects of the site that could be improved, and prioritize those improvements
• Determine how information and functionality on the site is used, and the affects of usage

What does an annual web metrics benchmark study include?

A full benchmark study includes a detailed analysis of five primary aspects of the site:

• Visits . These data elements provide top line information about initial user interaction with your site, and include:

o Daily visits – to see changes through the year and identify causes for spikes and valleys

o Page views, by day – will also show trends and spikes

• Visitors. Information about visitors shows whether we have a loyal, regular audience, or if users come periodically based on their immediate needs.

o Visitors, by day – shows peaks and valleys, may differ significantly from ‘visits’ on sites where some users may come more than once a day

o Visitor loyalty – frequency distribution to show return patterns

o Geographical distribution – most interesting for international sites, but may have relevance for US sites as well

• Sources of Traffic. A key aspect of the analysis is what seems to drive users to come… are they seeking information on a search engine? Referred from other sites? Or do they know us and type in our URL or link from an email we sent?

• Site Usage. After learning about who uses the site and why they appear to be coming, it’s important to study what they do while on the site.

o Pages viewed per visit – allows you to judge whether users are engaging with site

o Time spent on site -- also shows engagement levels

o Content areas accessed – as a summary measurement, you should determine the percentage of pages viewed for your primary content areas

o Primary pages – the top 10 or 20 pages should be analyzed in some detail to understand navigation patterns, usage patterns, bounces and exits

• Goals achieved. For an ecommerce site, goals are fairly straight-forward… sales. Examining the achievement of goals across the sales funnel provides the greatest detail, as does a study of the achievement patterns across the year. Other sites should have goals identified such as leads generated, videos viewed in full, clicks to ‘contact us’, etc.

What should we do after the benchmark?

After studying the results in depth and drawing initial conclusions, more detailed analyses of various aspects will probably be needed.

Latest Developments in Online Marketing Strategy

A former colleague who's been out of the 'web game' for a number of years asked me what the latest developments have been. I took a while to compose this email to him:

I'd say the biggest ongoing change is that the concept of managing all online touch points together seems to be firmly established and generally practiced by leading companies. They don't often use that term, nor even exactly understand that they're doing it, but there is a much greater effort to engage target consumers where they are online -- social networking sites, totally planned search paths, microsites for retailer sites, etc. Some people refer to this a 'fishing where the fish are', and are much less concerned with generating traffic to their own site.

In terms of actual sites -- they've also become much more sophisticated in thinking about 'action architecture' of their sites. When users eventually come to an actual site, what is it they want to do, and what do we want them to experience / accomplish? How do we get them down some funnel, be it purchase or lead generation? Web analytics are also much more sophisticated and widely used.

Social continues to grow, and some people believe that it may essentially eclipse email over time. That said, setting a company-specific social strategy is key as there is such a tremendous difference in engagement models between B2B organizations, B2C, etc.

Search has become much more sophisticated, from terms to target, SEO tactics, copy, and finally search landing pages and paths on sites. It's really the most scientific area of all -- marketers can very clearly see why people are coming to the site and then provide information and experiences to get them hooked in.

Mobile is big and getting bigger. As contracts are rolling over a high percentage of adults are getting smart phones. Some analysts believe that in the next couple of years smart phones will be nearly a 'given' for business professionals. This is in many ways a reverse back to more simple site experiences. You just can't serve gigantic video or flash objects to mobile devices, and mobile interfaces are a challenge primarily because of the size of the screen. This necessitates even more detailed planning of exactly what needs to be offered... getting away from gigantic pages full of flash objects and 25 links...

Corporate Networking

Last night you got a LinkedIn update that your old college roommate now runs the western division of his company. One of your former coworkers is offering a really interesting seminar on eMail open rates. And that pesky recruiter FINALLY has an interesting opportunity.

You immediately think – I know way more about what's going on in the broader world than I do about my own company! What we need is a way to rapidly share news, engage team members in quicker rounds of updates, and get new thoughts disseminated.

We need LinkedIn, or Facebook, or Twitter, or... all of them.

But the public tools are, well, too public. The need for this type of interaction is apparent and more companies are expanding their existing interaction tools – eMail, Calendaring, Project Repositories – to encompass these needs.

I've just read about two tools that come at 'company social' from different vantage points.

Socialcast is basically an access-controlled version of Twitter, with many features that make it more of an enterprise tool. Brief thoughts can be shared, questions asked, and concepts bandied about. All of these are stored and categorized. Messages can also have files attached. Similar to Twitter, employees can follow groups, team mates, and other employees. Sold on an SaaS model, Socialcast is quite affordable to test and try.

Socialtext made it's name on wiki technology, but has expanded that platform to encompass most social tools such as messaging, blogs, networking and also a desktop interface. It's really broadly like a true Facebook platform for an organization. It's a much richer platform and significantly more expensive, but opens tremendous opportunities.

Check them out. Imagine the free flow of information...

Seven ways any professional can use LinkedIn

After two or three years of trying to ‘find the ROI’ and experimenting with the various social network tools, I’ve found that LinkedIn is by far the most valuable from a professional perspective. In addition to the more soft measure of personal brand building, it’s possible to gain insight on customers and prospects, job search, and source great employees and qualified vendors:

Show expertise

• After joining a group, you’ll soon see a series of questions posed to the group. Answering these questions offers an opportunity to subtly position yourself as an expert.
• Present at an industry conference or even a ‘brown bag’ at work? Post the presentation on your LinkedIn profile.
• It's also easy to link to articles through your status bar.

Learn about customers and prospects

• Ask questions in your groups that will help you learn more about your customer base.
• Post a poll on your profile!

Expand your network

• Review the recommended contacts suggested by the tool, as well as regularly reviewing people who also worked at your former employer or attended your alma mater.
• Periodically review your contacts’ profiles and ask your contacts to link with their contacts.

Find vendors and contractors

• Check out who your contacts know… and especially those they endorse.

Meet contacts face-to-face

• Publish your travel plans, especially if your contacts travel too.

Find talent

• Post job openings.
• Mention openings in your updates.
• Research people you’d like to reach out to as you expand your team.

Get started on LinkedIn in one afternoon

Earlier this week one of my many unemployed friends asked me to help him get started with LinkedIn. I joined LinkedIn years ago and have gradually built out my profile, contacts, and groups over time so had to take a step back and think through where to start.

After some online research, I found that… well… there are a lot of ideas about how to get the most out of LinkedIn, and endless laundry lists of tasks that would take months to complete.

So for him and other neophytes out there, here’s Phase One:

1. Fill out your profile to explain your competence and unique skills, not as though you’re applying for a job with the FBI. If a company has changed names or been acquired, show both the name as it was when you worked there but lead with the current name. When you’re describing the roles you’ve had at various companies use descriptive terms and not necessarily titles. Focus more on what you learned and accomplished than what your specific responsibilities were.
2. Import vCards and contacts from your email app to start your base of connections. This should get you in to a reasonable number of contacts rather fast.
3. Start sifting through the hundreds of fellow alumni from your colleges and previous jobs to find friends and former coworkers. Be diligent about adding new contacts all the time… but only people you know well enough to be professionally linked.
4. Immediately add your personal LinkedIn URL to your personal business cards as well as your personal email signature.
5. Make sure to set LinkedIn to send all messages through to your standard email inbox.
6. Join industry and alumni groups. But monitor to see which are truly valuable.
7. Begin requesting recommendations from your former managers and colleagues, and start writing for them too. If you’re in a customer facing role, don’t hesitate to ask for references from former clients.
8. Update your status often to keep your network informed. Start with ‘I’ve joined LinkedIn and am becoming reacquainted with so many former colleagues.”
   

Watch for Phase 2 next week… and good luck getting started!

Online Contest Advice

This month in the "Making the Most of Digital" feature, DMNews promised that they'd tell us how to Navigate the Online Contest Trend. Trend? Sweepstakes and contests online have been around for a years. Granted, they've generally become more truly interactive with time, but 'trend' is a stretch. Okay, okay, the trade mags need to pump up the article...

The article was interesting enough, but didn't really provide much help with 'how to', so I'll provide some guidelines based on implementing six or eight over the past four years.

Things you should know:

1. Contests take much much more time and resources than you would imagine. You'll need a program manager, creative staff, site builders, legal advisors, an online 'prize' agency, and maybe a fulfillment house. Oh, and prizes too. You'll need to start 4 - 6 months before launch, and then you'll be fulfilling for months afterward.

2. You need a specialty agency because they have built fool-proof algorithms to ensure that the prizes are being awarded correctly according to the rules. And they also have researched the rules to make sure they're fully legit in all states. They'll also indemnify your organization against any issues, which your legal staff will appreciate. All of this does not come cheap.

3. Make sure to involve your counsel / legal department the very first week you begin discussing a sweepstakes or contest. There are an incredible number of legalities to these things, and this being a litigious society... well let's just say that if you don't get them in really early it could be very unpleasant.

4. Generally a 'sweepstakes' is much easier to get through legal as they're based on random luck and chance, while a 'contest' implies that you are somehow selecting the 'best' something. That selection process can be the subject of litigation.

5. When you total up all the costs and explain that to the CMO and she explains it to the CFO, you'll want to have a very firm determination of the expected return. Realistically, you can see a good number of new emails for your house file, your current customers will probably 'tell a friend', and you may be able to get more visibility for a new product or offering. (CPG manufacturers always sell more product at retail when the packaging mentions a sweepstakes. I do not know why.) That said, I've had clients spend up to $15 per new-to-file address, which seemed steep. Keep in mind that there are numerous sites online that will pass your program around and there are people who participate in endless sweepstakes, so many of your new addresses aren't all that valuable.

6. Unless there is an amazing brand linkage to complicated or expensive grand prizes, you'll probably get just as much action from free product or gift cards. And your ROI becomes much more viable.

Hope this helps. Please tell me if you have more tips, or radically disagree!