Content marketing is a £4 billion industry in the UK alone, but 52% of marketers say they are not effective at content marketing. What can bring them better results? We believe in making content marketing simple through quality content strategy, technology and creation, because these are the three pillars of content marketing. In this presentation - originally delivered at Internet World as part of London Technology Week, Ben Manning and Adrienne Burns discuss how businesses can achieve content marketing success through the three pillars of content marketing.

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THE 3 PILLARS OF
CONTENT MARKETING
Adrienne Burns & Benjamin Manning
Internet World 2014

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We believe it should be
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S I M PLE
to harness the power of content marketing

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and we enable organisations to
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E N G A G E
their audiences through quality content

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State of the industry
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• Search engines have got smarter, boosted by algorithm
changes like Panda, Penguin & Hummingbird
• Web users are smarter and use more specific search queries.
They’re better at filtering out results that aren’t useful to them
• Smartphones and tablets have resulted in higher accessibility
for smarter searchers who want better content, quickly
• Social media is a more powerful ranking factor than ever
before, and billions of pieces of content are shared monthly
across various platforms

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Image credit:http://www.brainlesstales.com/images/2011/Feb/whats-wrong.jpg
So what’s the issue?
If content marketing
really is the best and
most profitable way to
market your brand, why
isn’t everybody building
their marketing
campaigns around this
technique?

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Content Marketing Industry
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£4 billion – worth of the UK content marketing
industry source: Content Marketing Association, 2014
31% - total of B2B budgets currently spent on
content marketing source: Content Marketing Institute, Dec 2013
56% – marketers planning to increase their spend on
content marketing in 2014 source: Content Marketing Institute, Dec 2013

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HOWEVER....
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52% - proportion of marketers saying their
content marketing is less than effective
£2.1 billion – cost of ineffective content
marketing

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Creating quality content: effective, but difficult

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This might have something to do with it...

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Playing on Google’s Turf: Panda
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•Released February 2011, Panda lowered the rank of low-quality, thin websites
and reward higher-quality sites in SERPs – affecting 12% of search results
•News-based and social networking sites went up; ad-heavy sites went down
•This reportedly changed the rankings of 12% of all search results
•Monthly updates for 2 years, but in March 2013 Google said the updates would
be integrated into the algorithm and become less noticeable
•Panda 4.0 came in May 21st 2014 and targeted
top-ranking sites with thin or low-quality content.
Sites such as PRWeb.com and PRNewswire.com
were noticeably hit.

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Playing on Google’s Turf: Panda
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Question: What does this mean when news-based sites were
highly ranked in the first update and now are being punished with
Panda 4.0?
Answer: Google wants to show high-quality,
relevant and original content to answer its
searchers’ queries, not just topical
content or press releases.

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Playing on Google’s Turf: Penguin
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• Announced: April 24th 2012
• Aimed to decrease the ranking positions of sites that violate Google’s
Webmasters guidelines by using black-hat SEO techniques, in particularly by
manipulating the number of external links that point to a page on a website – i.e.
dodgy link building
• This affected about 3.1% of English search queries
• The last update to be announced, Penguin 5
(or Penguin 2.1) and has noticeably affected
around 1% of English search queries

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Playing on Google’s Turf: Hummingbird
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• Announced Sept 26th 2013 after running for a month
• Affecting 90% of global searches
• With conversational search becoming the norm, Hummingbird helps to understand
the intent and meaning behind the terms used in the search query
• Hummingbird helps Google answer long-tail search queries even if the page is not
well-optimised for them.
• This means potentially better visibility for these types
of search queries from sites that had not targeted
that keyword approach.

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Image credits:
http://www.hmtweb.com/images/cloaked-panda-drop.jpg
http://www.ecommercefuel.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Penguin-Hit.jpg
Has this happened to you?

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So Why Is Content Marketing So Important?
Because the buyers say so!
People are willing to pay up to 10% MORE
for products and services from brands
whose content they engage with.

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The three pillars of content marketing
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“You either have to be the first,
best, or different”
– Loretta Lynn
Strategy
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Strategy – know your in-house capabilities
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A lot of the knowledge, experience or expertise needed for
content creation comes from within your business. This will
help form the skeleton of your strategy.
Search results need to be
relevant, unique, informative
and above all answer what it is
that we were looking for.
A lot of companies have
in-house knowledge which will
answer searchers’ questions,
provided it’s structured in the
right way.

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For example
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You don’t want to search for “the best places to eat in San
Sebastian” and find an article about San Sebastian in which
the author discusses at a top level how great the food and
culture is without providing an answer to your initial query.
What you want is a guide to the top restaurants, perhaps with
links to those places and suggestions of what to eat, pair this
with a user review and perhaps a link to a second article
about how to get the most out of a mini-break there.
This will not only satisfy the searcher’s initial query, but will
hopefully keep them on your site longer and see you as an
authority on the subject matter.

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Strategy - timeline your goals
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Know where you’re starting from: analyse competitors, conduct a site audit,
find out how search engines currently see you.
Understand your audience and how
they behave online. How do you want
them to interact with your site?
Now you can begin.

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Strategy – being realistic
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Image credit: http://funtolike.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/funny-dwight-schrute-quote.jpg

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Technology - mobile & tablets
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source: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com

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Technology - mobile & tablet growth
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source:
BI Intelligence

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“The mobile phone is a bit like
God – it’s omnipresent”
– Joanna Picq, Jampp
Technology - mobile & tablet growth
@axonnmedia

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Technology - mobile & tablet growth
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32% of organic traffic through Google
so far this year has come from a
mobile or tablet device. source: Marketingcharts.com, 2014
And this proportion will only go up. The question isn’t whether
this will happen, but rather will you take advantage?

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Technology – mobile use
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Image credit: http://cdn.blackenterprise.com/wp-content/blogs.dir
Different industries will vary – for example: Office stationery
will more than likely see more engagement through a desktop
as it is typically looked at during office hours. However, in
Recruitment many people
engage with companies during
their commute, rather than at
work where this will be
frowned upon.

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Technology - mobile & tablet growth
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Technology – mindset of mobile vs tablet users
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Mobile users want swift access to relevant content, and minimal
distractions. They tend to be more engaged – they are more likely to get
their attention as they are using their devices during their commute and
they’re on their own.
Online shoppers still prefer larger devices for ease of use and security.
So consider the customer journey/buying cycle: even if you can’t convert
someone to purchase on their mobile, you could engage them enough to
take action once they get back to a desktop.

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Technology – mobile sites vs. apps
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Technology – time spent on devices
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Technology – Apps vs Devices
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More than 60% of 86% total app usage time
spent on gaming, social networks and social
messaging.
You need to take the time to work out what
your audience prefers for engagement and
where you will make the most impact.

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Technology - clear conversion path
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Track the conversion cycle and make sure it’s properly optimised
•Are you asking for too much information?
•Do you have too many fields?
•Have you tested it yourself/got others to test it? On multiple devices?
•What are your drop out rates?
If you don’t measure, you can’t
improve.

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Example: clear conversion path for B2C
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• Clear user journey throughout the payment process which reassures
the user that they are near the end of the purchasing process
• They make it easy – no need to sign up and register if you don't want
to but they make it easy to do so even after you login as a guest

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Technology – calls to action
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Calls to action do not just mean big
buttons saying buy now or call us.
Content itself can act
as a call to action.

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Technology – Small businesses failing to benefit from calls to action
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• 96% don’t feature any industry how-to guide or white papers on
their home pages.
• 70% don’t reference any notable calls to action on their home
pages (other than a phone number and a “contact us” option in the
navigation).
• 82% don’t reference their social media profiles (text or images).
• 70% of websites with a phone number don’t display it in a
prominent place.
• 38% of websites with an email address bury it on the home page
(often in the footer).

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Technology – Calls to action (3 steps)
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Step 1: Use specific language and keywords
Actionable language is the most important part of writing your call-to-action copy. State
specifically the number of pages in an ebook or the length of a webinar.
Step 2: Design contrasting buttons and shallow navigation
Call to action buttons and banners should stand out through contrasting colours; however you
can also use brand-appropriate colours or recognisable icons.
Step 3: Prioritise calls to action
Your highest priority call to action should be paired with the content most relevant to where
your prospect is in the sales process, e.g. Someone reading an introductory blog post is
probably unfamiliar with your brand and not quite ready to buy. The call to action should point
them towards more advanced content rather than the contact facility.

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Blogging market share
Wordpress – 71%
Blogger – 21%
Tumblr – 6%
Technology: Choosing the right Content Management System
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As a CMS
Wordpress – 60%
Joomla – 17%
Drupal – 7%
You need to figure out
what you want from a
CMS to fulfil your
site’s needs and the
needs of your team.

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Content Creation - context
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Image credit: http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk
If you attempt to connect with your audience in the wrong context, it doesn't matter
how good or bad your content is, it won’t be read, shared or discussed.
Don’t waste your time simply publishing
content on popular platforms for the sake of it.
Take the time to research and understand your
audience, in order to place the right content in the
right place at the right time. You’ll need to understand
the customer journey and what point they are at in
the sales cycle in order to have the most impact.

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Content Creation – stages in customer journey
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Content Creation – aligning with buyer personas
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Persona research can be as simple or complex as you like, but it has to be done if
you want to speak directly with your target audience.
Start by listing the user’s:
• potential questions
• information needs or level of awareness/expertise in the
subject matter
• potential problems (not limited to the use of product
or service)
• potential paths/tasks (the customer journey)

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Content Creation – know what to outsource
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Content Creation – know what to outsource
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Using a third-party company effectively can mean that you have a further
extension to your marketing arm allowing you to produce more of a variety of
content.
With outsourcing to the right team you can expand your site’s content portfolio
from company-based blogs to research, data-led whitepapers, interview-led
case studies, videos, infographics and more.
This content will have more of an impact than standard blog content if
presented to the right audience in the right point of their interest cycle.

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Free help!
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More advice in our newsletter:
http://go.axonn.co.uk/newsletter
Free download on buyer persona development:
http://go.axonn.co.uk/buyerpersonaworkbook