Showcasing your experts to drive brand value and generate leads. In other words, boost brand awareness, brand authority, and learn about the importants of expert content marketing.

1. THE CASE FOR EXPERT CONTENT
IN YOUR MARKETING & PR PROGRAM

2. Organizations need to go beyond the senior leadership
team and tap into their “invisible experts” – to create
engaging content and provide conversational “onramps” that drive new revenues and brand value.
Your experts matter more than ever. Why?
The marketing landscape is rapidly
changing: We are witnessing a profound
shift in how prospects are buying
products and services. Traditional
product-oriented marketing approaches
aren’t working anymore.
Invisible experts cost organizations:
Organizations need a home for expert
content that creates a better first
impression beyond the “About Us” page
and corporate blog. Too many
employees have content strewn across an
array of social, professional and richmedia sites. It’s not easily discoverable in
one online area where search engines,
reporters, conference organizers and
business prospects can find it.
Brands are the new publishers:
Organizations from Fortune 500
corporations to industry associations are
investing in content marketing like never
before. A recent survey by the CMO
Council reported 68% of CMO’s are
increasing their budgets for content
marketing in 2013. These programs help
create customer engagement and
differentiate a brand at the earliest phases
of the sales cycle.
Leading organizations are quickly
moving to solve this problem by
creating expert content programs
through online “expert centers” or
speakers bureaus: Progressive
organizations are investing in new ways to
personify and amplify their content across
all forms of media by more effectively
utilizing their top experts. The result is a
higher degree of market visibility, better
first impressions and more efficient
customer engagement that drives brand
value and new revenues.
Perspectives, not products, sell:
To increase their industry authority and
market profile, organizations are sharing
their perspectives on a range of issues
that provide a more strategic worldview of
how their products and services relate to
solving customer problems. These
thought leadership strategies have
become table stakes for any organization.
"While marketing with original content drives more action, most companies only
focus on creating blogs, videos, and whitepapers. Showcasing your experts
generates additional interest from buyers in what you do and helps grow revenue."
David Meerman Scott
Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of
“The New Rules of Marketing and PR”
-1-

3. While content marketing is now vital to success;
expert-related content builds a stronger first
impression and engages prospects at the critical,
early stages of the sales process.
Now we’re all in the publishing business
As a means of generating more
awareness and engagement with
customers and sales prospects, most
organizations are attuned to the potential
value of online and social media for their
marketing programs. Over 90% of
business-to-business marketers use some
form of content marketing (Source:
Content Marketing Institute).
makes buyers more intelligent and
informed. Research shows that 80% of
business decision makers prefer to
receive company information in a series of
articles versus an advertisement (Source:
Roper Center for Public Opinion
Research.) When organizations deliver
regular, consistent and valuable
information to sales prospects, customers
and the broader community, they are
ultimately rewarded with increased
business and loyalty.
Looking at the bigger picture, what’s
really transforming rapidly is the way
customers are interacting online and how
they search for information through the
buying process. Customers are becoming
increasingly desensitized to the more
traditional “push” advertising approaches.
Content marketing is being used by some
of the greatest marketing organizations in
the world including IBM, the Brookings
Institution, Constant Contact, Procter &
Gamble, Cisco Systems, McKinsey, John
Deere and Kelly Services. It also works for
small businesses. Thought leaders and
marketing experts from around the world
have concluded that content marketing
isn’t just the future, it’s the present.
An exciting approach to engaging
prospects and customers, content
marketing is a technique focused on
creating and distributing relevant and
valuable content. It’s the art of
communicating with customers and
prospects without direct selling. It is noninterruption marketing. Instead of pitching
products or services, content marketers
focus on delivering information that
Simply stated, the best brands aren’t just
buying media, they are becoming media.
They have become publishers.
-2-

4. Tapping into your expert resources provides more
opportunities to create meaningful conversations
in the market and puts less pressure on the senior
team to carry the thought leadership agenda.
So how do you stand out as a
thought leader amidst a sea of content?
Here’s the quick answer: tap into your
invisible experts across the organization.
It’s well known among PR professionals
that “executive visibility programs,” or
“thought leadership programs,” have the
potential to generate some of the highest
returns within the marketing budget. These
programs create a platform for key
executives to share the company vision by
speaking to the media and on the podium
at industry conferences. Thought
leadership, at the core, is about helping
executives tell a more strategic and
engaging story; a unique, informed
worldview on how their industry is
changing and what the implications are for
customers. These are the conversations
that today’s customers need before they
get more “transactional” with the brand.
To the degree that these programs can
connect the senior executive to the market
at a more human level, and create
personality for the brand, they drive even
more value.
With the arrival of social media and richmedia platforms (such as YouTube and
Slideshare™), and the rapid growth of
professional networking platforms such as
LinkedIn (with over 200 million members),
the rate in which experts across
organizations are publishing content to
their personal accounts is simply
astounding. As David Meerman Scott, a
-3-
leading marketing expert and bestselling
author of the “New Rules of Marketing &
PR” says, “you are what you publish.”
Publishing quality content that shares
relevant, engaging insights is the best way
to promote oneself.
Invisible experts are costing organizations
major opportunities for increased brand
visibility, customer engagement and
revenues. By not featuring subject matter
experts more prominently on the website,
organizations are missing a number of
opportunities. First, they aren’t
personalizing the online presence in a way
that creates more engagement with
customers. It’s often been said that,
“people don’t buy from organizations—
they buy from people.” The same can be
said for media—they actively seek more
human and personal angles for the stories
they write. Second, by not having more
experts sharing unique perspectives on the
website, an organization loses the
opportunity to generate more relevant
content across more topics. It’s a simple
rule of economics.
With these principles in mind, leading
brands are now stepping up their expert
content programs to create new online
resources that celebrate this layer of
talent.

5. Going beyond the blog: how leading
organizations feature their experts
Everybody calls it something different.
They are often referred to as a “speakers
bureau” or “expert resource center.”
Others integrate them into their media
room on their website. Whatever you call
it, you need an online area that provides a
focal point for expertise – a system for
more efficient communications with
media, event organizers and business
prospects.
An online expert center
features content that is
more about perspectives
and issues than it is about
products. It focuses
specifically on an
organization’s experts
and thought leaders who
have a wider worldview of
how the organization fits
into longer-term
solutions.
Expert talent is
everywhere in
organizations - from the
executive team to board
and committee members
and to employees at all
levels of the organization.
Going beyond the usual
chronology of credentials
often found in About Us
sections of the website,
or personal LinkedIn
pages, an expert center
provides a framework for
content marketing.
It helps an organization strategically focus
its communications related to topics and
issues that match its talent. As a resource
for perspectives, an online expert center
should feature an organization’s thought
leaders and select content (slides, videos,
books, whitepapers) that they have
published. Here are some organizations
that have developed an online presence
for their experts:
Consulting
Monitor Group
Communications
IABC
-4-
Non Profit
Brookings Institution.
Publishing
Harper Collins

6. -5-

7. A well-developed site featuring experts cuts
through the typical content clutter many websites
have built up. It humanizes an organization and
helps to build trust with an audience of reporters,
event organizers and business prospects.
Where’s the payoff in promoting
your experts?
Organizations are now waking up to the opportunities created by positioning their in-house
experts across the organization as go-to resources. As thought leadership becomes more
important for brands, tapping into these additional resources will become commonplace—
much like the trends we saw that progressed from the world of personal blogging to more
formalized corporate blogging programs. Properly executed, expert visibility programs can
drive some quick wins that impact revenues. Here are some of the benefits that expert
programs are delivering for organizations of all sizes:
Greater Brand Value
An online expert program shows you are
open for business. It shows a clear
commitment to thought leadership and
helps establish you as an authority by
connecting your experts to the issues you
care about as an organization.
looking for engaging speakers and expert
sources.
More Profitable Sales Conversations
Leading organizations insert their experts
into their sales process in a variety of
ways, from speaking at conferences to
engaging in client meetings. Experts help
educate and guide prospects to make
better decisions. They elevate the
conversation to a more strategic level and
help organizations command a premium
price in the market.
Increased Market Awareness
Well-developed expert content
substantially boosts visibility in search
engines and generates leads for speaking
engagements with conferences and
media. It can also provide an excellent
source of valuable peer-to-peer referrals.
Faster Response Times
With an expert content program,
marketing and communications
departments and outside PR agencies
can centrally manage and control profiles
on behalf of busy executives and ensure
consistency. It allows experts and their
administrative staff to respond more
efficiently and much faster to timesensitive requests from event organizers
and members of the media.
Better First Impressions
Expert content helps organizations deliver
a better first impression when it features
searchable assets indexed by issues and
topics complete with rich-media videos
and publications. Properly executed, an
online expert site goes beyond a mere
listing of credentials. It delivers an
intuitive, more efficient experience that
impresses business prospects, reporters
and conference organizers who are
-6-

8. Strengthen Organizational Culture
The program also helps drive awareness
of the company's mission and helps build
a culture of thought leadership. This also
pays off in helping establish better
conversations with potential recruits and
attracting key talent.
Measurable Return on Investment
Having an expert content program allows
an organization to understand what topics
and which experts are working best to
generate new connections with media,
events and business prospects. It helps
identify what conversations are leading to
new business.
The bottom line
While the landscape of marketing software tools and tactics is evolving at a fast rate, many
of them require substantial investments of time, people and money. It’s therefore important
that organizations focus strategically on programs that yield real value—both short and
long-term—while respecting the limits of staff resources and capital budgets. Organizing
experts is a low cost, high impact way to make an organization’s thought leadership
marketing program more successful. As we enter this new age of content marketing, it’s not
just great products that will define the new market leaders; it’s the power of their
perspectives and their people.
About ExpertFile™
ExpertFile is the world's first expert
marketing platform built for organizations.
Our publishing, search optimization (SEO),
lead generation and analytics features,
coupled with our unique online marketplace,
helps experts connect to business
prospects, media and conferences. Our
clients include market leaders such as
Cleveland Clinic, Constant Contact,
Blackberry, Lillibridge Healthcare, Canadian
Corporate Counsel Association, Canadian
Public Relations Society and Dentons Law.
www.expertfile.com
-7-