Content marketing 2015: Where Industry Minds Predict Where Content Marketing Is Going In 2015

Content Marketing Going Into 2015
Content marketing has had a huge amount of attention and coverage over the past twelve
months. The wider industry has embraced real content marketing over the last twelve
months and we have seen a number of brands shifting their focuses to target their
consumers with higher quality and relevant content.
With all this said, I wanted to ask some of the brightest minds in and around content
marketing 5 questions, the content marketers included are from very different backgrounds
and include designers, agency leaders, creative leads and freelancers offering great insights,
actionable tips and their personal predictions for 2015.
The industry leaders included are:
Chad Pollitt VP of Audience, Co-Founder @ Relevance - @ChadPollitt ............................. 2
Sean Revell - Freelance Consultant http://rvll.co.uk - @rxvxll .......................................... 4
Karen Webber - Marketing Director at Axonn Media - @webber_karen / LinkedIn ........... 6
Name: Aran Jackson - Creative Director at JBH - LinkedIn ................................................ 8
Sadie Sherran - Head of Online Marketing (today’s role but I get called plenty of things in
the office) Falkon Digital - @seobelle ........................................................................... 11
Lee Stuart, Co-founder @ Caliber - LinkedIn ................................................................ 13
Ben Harper - Co-Founder, Datify - @benharper87 ........................................................ 16
Claire Stokoe Company Secretary/Owner - of Datatrouble.com -
@killer_bunnie / LinkedIn.......................................................................................... 18
Gus Ferguson - Founder @ The Tetrad Consultancy - @TetradGus - LinkedIn ................. 21
Shelli Walsh - creativity101.com / shellshockuk.com - @shelliwalsh .............................. 25
Gary Buchan Founder & Managing Director at Render Positive - @garybuchan .............. 27

Chad Pollitt VP of Audience, Co-Founder @ Relevance - @ChadPollitt
We have seen content marketing evolve and grow up in the last two years especially over the
last twelve months, what do you think was the biggest change in 2014 and why is it
important going in 2015?
The biggest change I’ve seen is the shift from content production to content promotion.
With adoption rates for content marketing hovering around 90% for brands, marketing
content has never been more important. Look for this trend to continue in 2015 as more
brands seek to drive maximum visibility of their content.
Where or what do you think the biggest challenge will be in 2015?
Next year brands will be experimenting with many different earned and paid content
promotion channels. Discovering the right mix will be a huge challenge for brands. They’ll be
huge wins and many loses, but by the end of the year many brands that take on content
promotion initiatives should have a defined and proven promotion cadence and logistical
infrastructure. This will separate the content marketing big boys from tomorrow’s posers.
What's your biggest content marketing prediction in 2015 and why is it important?
I predict content marketing adoption rates will decline. There’s so much content being
produced by brands today it’s getting harder and harder to stand out in the crowd. Brands
without large existing audience that don’t adopt robust content promotion strategies will
achieve little to no ROI. As a result, funding will get pulled and focus on more traditional
channels will become en vogue again. Content marketing is a marathon not a sprint.
Enterprise brands are under pressure to show a return in the quarter they begin an
initiative. Without promotion that’s unlikely to happen.
There are huge debates within marketing teams and businesses around tracking success with
content marketing, what are your top five KPI’s for content based projects?
Some of my KPIs are unique since I run a publ ication that relies on sponsors. With that said
my top KPIs are as follows:
1. Number of impressions
2. Subscribers
3. Conversions
4. Traffic
5. Number of inbound links

What are your top 3 actionable tips for content marketing in 2015?
Promote, promote and promote some more. Stop thinking about content marketing.
Instead, think about marketing content. Use earned channels like influencer marketing and
media relations to get your content covered and written about on other sites. Reach out to
well-known publications in your industry and ask to write for them. Deploy native
advertising and content amplification. Break through the owned media noise and stop
relying on organic search and social to drive traffic to your owned media.

Sean Revell - Freelance Consultant http://rvll.co.uk - @rxvxll
I think the biggest change within content marketing is probably an 'acceptance' that it can
be a useful and effective way to gain visibility and gain links for your website. Personally
there is no better and more effective way to do this online. All it requires is the right idea
and execution (obviously easier said than done...) I think that the more successful 'big
content' projects we see (not the industry but per se but the people holding the purse
strings) the more it will be trusted and thus we'll see an increase in budgets/people working
within the industry.
An increase in content production and competition from more websites than ever brings a
'why should I read this' mentality from a user. You have to be able to gain attention and
once they arrive be able to keep them interested for long enough that they do what you
want them to do. We all like to think that our ideas are unique, remarkable and sticky but
what is stopping the reader from closing the page and visiting Buzzfeed? Gaining and
keeping readers attention will be the biggest challenge in 2015.
A real increase in 'show me, don't tell me' content pieces being used to win new business. As
in agencies are finally creating interesting pieces to show what they can do without a client
being involved. This is something I was talking about a couple of years ago and it looks like
people are eventually getting around to it. Why is it important? I suppose it shows that an
agency can do what they say they can, adds a layer of trust and shows skill. If you want to be
trusted nowadays you have to be able to show people why you're good not just tell them.
This will vary from client to client, obviously some are less concerned with the SEO benefits
and so links are seen as less important. Or perhaps the brand is looking for visibility/traffic
but isn't worried about gaining sign ups yet. However these would be the 5 that I'd be
reviewing (in no particular order).

1. Conversions/sign ups - Has the project provoked conversions? If so how many? How
does this compare to the pre project goal?
2. Traffic to page/site - How many people have visited the site? What have they done
once arrived? How does this compare to the pre project goal?
3. Number of links pointing to content piece/site - How many new links are pointing to
the site? How many via outreach? How many are natural? How does this compare to
the pre project goal?
4. Social shares, where has it been shared? By who? How does this compare to the pre
project goal?
5. Is the person who paid for it happy? A slightly simple KPI perhaps but potentially the
most important one. Is the customer happy with the project and it's end result? Did it
hit their goals? Would they do something similar again? Most importantly what have
we learned?
1. Develop your contacts/build relationships - Whether you need writers, designers,
website owners etc. Developing contacts makes the creativity, execution and
outreach of your projects just that little bit easier and who doesn't want that?
2. Continue to research/tweak your process - How can you come up with more
effective ideas? How can you check to see whether one idea is more likely to work
than another? What is fashionable content wise at the moment? Always be thinking
about how you can improve your process in terms of quality and speed.
3. Don't be afraid to stand out - This will obviously depend on who you're working with
but I find that the projects that are most open and/or don't allow fear to get in the
way are the ones that are the most successful. This is in terms of content idea,
execution and outreach, sometimes you can get an amazing link purely by just having
the gall to ask...

Karen Webber - Marketing Director at Axonn Media - @webber_karen / LinkedIn
In 2014 the focus has definitely shifted to a more structured approach to content marketing.
We've gone from "WRITE ALL THE THINGS!" to marketers actually thinking about who they
are trying to engage with content and to what end. That said, research we've just released
with the Content Marketing Institute shows fewer marketers are writing down their content
marketing strategies, and this is problematic for a number of reasons. While you need to be
able to adapt your plans quickly as a content marketer, it's crucial to have clear objectives as
part of an overall strategy. This will be critical to success going into 2015.
There's more money than ever being put into content marketing, and lots of things to spend
it on (in-house people, external experts, design, marketing technology, outreach tools, etc.).
In 2015, the challenge for marketers will be how to effectively allocate their budgets so they
get the best bang for their buck and have the best chance of achieving their objectives.
What's your biggest content marketing prediction in 2015 and why is it important?The
proliferation of marketing technologies has to reach a tipping point somewhere - there are
so many options, but what marketers really want isn't more choice, it's knowing that one (or
a few) tools can do everything they need to do. So I predict marketing technology will
become smarter and more integrated to make content marketing simpler for marketers.
It really depends on the project. This past year I've run campaigns/projects with different
end goals e.g. growing our email subscribers, increasing traffic or improving the quality of
inbound leads, and obviously they've all had different KPIs.
Looking at content marketing as a whole though, i.e. away from specific projects, the most
important KPIs of this function in an organisation has to be about the extent to which it has
contributed to the overall marketing objectives. This is likely to be measured in the number
of sales-ready leads delivered or improvement in brand awareness, measured as a mix of
factors like media mentions, backlinks etc.

1. Build a culture of content. This is where everyone in your organisation understands
why content marketing is important and what they can do to contribute to achieve
the desired outcomes. (I'll be honest, this is very hard to do and will take a long time
to achieve fully, but in a year's time you'll be glad you started this work today.) For
this to work, you need to write down your strategy and communicate it clearly to
others. This is crucial in order to get buy-in from around your organisation as well as
to report properly and secure budget. Make sure you report back to everyone
involved on performance and revise your strategy on a regular basis.
2. Embrace marketing technology to make your life easier
3. Get visual.

Name: Aran Jackson - Creative Director at JBH - LinkedIn
Creating content for link building was a huge part of content marketing in 2014 and will
continue into 2015. Companies created a piece of content that aligned with their brand and
the audience’s interests and pitched the piece to a journalist of a big website publication. If
the journalist thought it was decent content they would then place the content on their own
site with a link back to the author’s site (This is why SEO companies are now creating
content for their clients). Moving into 2015 it’s really important not to forget that creating
content for this purpose must have relevance to your company otherwise Google will
discount the value of the link, or worse, potentially penalise you for it in a future update.
For most brands there will be a few key challenges.
The first will be to produce enough compelling content or finding resourceful ways to
maximize the use of each piece of content created. For example, if you’re writing an eBook,
use that content to create an infographic, slideshare and blog post too.
The second challenge will be finding more budget for content marketing. Some brands will
automatically see their marketing budget rise enabling them to allocate more budget to
content in 2015. While others may need to take money from their advertising or PPC
budget, so more money will be allocated to content marketing as a result.
Thirdly - ROI. Not only are marketers having to fight for content marketing budgets, they
also have to prove value and often return on investment. This is where having a
documented content strategy is key. If you know what your content objectives are and can
allocate budget accordingly, it is much easier to set KPI’s and measure your effectiveness for
content ROI.
What's your biggest content marketing prediction in 2015 and why is it important?Most
humans are inherently lazy when they’re being entertained - video is the easiest of all
content to consume, I don’t have to click play, hell I only need to scroll past it for it to start.
Video will continue to become the primary medium for content and will permeate into other
sectors where video wasn’t as strong before. The stats that support video as part of a
content marketing strategy are startling and now with apps like Vine, video is much more
accessible by companies as an affordable content format than it has ever been before.

There are huge debates within marketing teams and businesses around tracking success
with content marketing, what are your top five KPI’s for content based projects?
It’s hard to give 5 specific KPI’s as every project is different. So here's 5 strategic tips to help
you plan, track and measure your content marketing activity:
1. Know what you want to achieve. What are your key objectives and how can
content help you achieve them?
2. Calculate how much you can afford to spend on this objective and the proportion
ear-marked for a piece or series of content and the promotion and distribution of
that content.
3. Set key performance indicators for your content. Decide what will success look
like at each milestone?
4. Find the best ways to track content performance. You may use a sophisticated
inbound marketing platform that can help you track click-throughs, downloads
and sign-ups for lead generation and sales etc. but if not, Google Analytics
enables brands to track the performance of content quite easi ly measuring traffic,
referrals, time-on-page and conversions. It also has an application
called experiments so you can test different content variations on your website.
5. Calculate value and ROI. If your objective is sales then there’s a simple calculation
you can use:
(Revenue generated - Cost of Content Marketing) / Cost of Content Marketing = ROI.
1 =100%. 2 = 200% 3 = 300% etc.
You can also use this method for lead generation and compare content ROI to other
methods you’ve used in the past. There’s an article in The Guardian that goes into detail
about how to calculate the ROI of content marketing, which also offers examples on
measuring other non-sales objectives too.
1: Be real, be relevant
This follows on from the 'Lifestyle' trend of 2014 that had brands using real -life
imagery/footage to paint a more relevant image that the customer could engage with. In
2015, be real and be relevant. Create brand affinity by finding common interests that you
and your audience share and use that knowledge to create interesting and relevant content.

2: Get creative
Creating a lot of content can get expensive, especially if you are outsourcing it all. So
empower your internal team with apps/tools that enable them to be creative. For example,
we have a client that supplies candidates for jobs and they used Polyvore (a fashion app) to
create a selection of moodboards These displayed various outfits that candidates could
wear to make a great impression at their interviews. A perfect content fit! The cost was
minimal but the quality of content was superb. So open up your Vines, Polyvore’s and
SnapChats and get creative!
3: Think mobile 1st
Don’t forget to think mobile first. We see brands create superb content all the time but
often it’s not optimized for mobile devices and the user experience is heavily compromised.
It’s a shame because it’s such a waste of great content. Thi s needs to be considered at the
start of the planning process, so content, imagery, width and navigation are all optimised to
work on mobile devices.

Sadie Sherran - Head of Online Marketing (today’s role but I get called plenty of things in
the office) Falkon Digital - @seobelle
For years people have been preaching that content is King and good content wins overall but
in the past 2 years this has actually become more accurate as there is more onus on earned
traffic, earned links, building brands and retaining customers. Content isn’t just making sure
you are writing enough to be picked up in search, and stuffing a few keywords in it needs to
be memorable and creative. It doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated it could be a
simple idea.
Instead of buying links more brands and businesses needed to start producing linkable
content, thinking about their demographic and giving them what they want and/or need.
With the expansion of ways to get traffic to your site through various social platforms the
big G is just another element and brands can win fans and brand ambassadors through great
content. This doesn’t eliminate the need for search but is a great opportunity for marketing
departments and companies.
Explaining ROI and helping clients understand the benefits of content marketing from all
angles (PR, SEO, Social, brand awareness, sales).
Assumptions are out of the window, creativity, psychology and analysis will become more
important, the old school ways of marketing, informing the masses, manipulating people
into buying using emotions rather than giving the hard sell will be more successful. That
being said it isn’t as bad as it sounds, by understanding your target market - the mum who
needs nappies, how she feels when she’s buying, how much she has to spend, where she
spends her time online and offline, and other things she thinks and cares about - this insight
helps brands create a good product, and marketers get in front of users with a piece of
creative content that will make them a fan, be remembered and smile. We are going to see
more creative content strategies with one concept modified for cross platform performance
tied together with one message or hashtag. Video and interactivity will continue to grow and
more money will be invested in content as a standalone service rather than an extension of
SEO or PR.

Content has always been important but now brands and marketers are recognising its value
more. Great content is not limiting you can win fans, get sales, get links and get noticed.
 Reach - Measure unique visitors, social shares and links
 Engage – measure time on site, comments
 Convert – Measure email sign ups, social follows, sales and enquiries
 Adapt – identify what worked and what didn’t, analyse designs, tone of voice and
adapt
 Cost – how much did it cost and how much did it make in terms of enquiries, direct
sales, what a fan is worth to the brand
Think outside the ‘search’ box - forget about keyword density and Google trends give your
audience what they will like not necessarily what they will search for
Analyse everything, not just to show ROI but to improve upon things and make the content
convert not just get shared
Keep it simple stupid – don’t get bogged down by the data and being clever, you don’t
always need a huge budget or production sometimes a clever drawing or phrase will do if
you overcomplicate things you’ll lose the message.

Lee Stuart, Co-founder @ Caliber - LinkedIn
Content marketing has matured significantly in the last 12 months, as an industry we are
slowing down just a little, concentrating more on using data to inform our strategies, asking
more questions of the audience, being more scientific with our craft.
It’s also been a year of increased budgets and awareness of content marketing at the c-level,
which in turn, has meant more focus on the attribution of its value in the path to conversion.
I think it’s vitally important that this remains in focus going in to 2015 as we are at the edge
of new wave of technology advancement; this will mean more opportunities for both
quantitative and qualitative research in content development.
Further advances in technology will come at a price; this will mean more devices, in turn
more data points and further complexity, so business wi ll need to invest more heavily in
content measurement in terms of both software and people, in order to stay in the game.
As the world and its dog is now producing content we have reached a point of sensory
overload, its getting difficult to wade through the stream and select what content is relevant
to us personally, this will be a significant challenge for content creators.
Additionally, consumers will demand more from brands, the standard of their content will
begin to define them; audiences will become more intelligent and informed, less likely to be
enticed by engagement stunts and will focus more on what content (and therefore brands)
mean to them personally.
I think we will see a new range of personalized content experiences; these new forms will
ride along in the ‘slipstream’ created by the wave of adoption of wearable and embeddable
technology.

These new devices offer a range of new and exciting feedback opportunities to businesses so
its seems likely that hungry development teams will be eager to cash in on any obvious
benefits.
I think its important now that we get used to asking difficult questions and building our
content based on measurement and feedback. Lets get ready to move from content
‘designed with customers in mind’ to content ‘designed by the customer’ which is coming
very soon.
I think it’s a little more complex than that; I like to work downwards in a funnel starting with
soft KPI’s moving to more robust measurement at the bottom. This way you can evaluate
each stage effectively, each stage consists of both simple and hybrid metrics, which need to
adapted to suit your industry and goals.
1. Measure the number (or percentage of your target audience) that interacted with
your content.
2. Size of the potential audience reached
3. Unique visits from that audience
4. Measure how they interacted in terms of engagement and sharing.
5. Time on page vs. reading time
6. How many comments, likes and shares – relative to the audience
7. Measure what kind of positive signals that engagement generated for your overall
marketing strategy
8. Links and brand mentions with a digital legacy
9. Impact on brand sentiment
10. Measure the impact on conversion goals – again soft and hard here.
11. Increase in primary conversions and or % increase in rate
12. Increase in other conversions – new sign ups etc.
13. Measure the impact on revenue from these conversions
14. Attribute the value of content
15. Assisting value of content

1. Get used to designing ways to garner the views and opinions of your potential
audience on both customer and influencer terms. Set up (and spend money on)
surveys, forms and questionaries’ get new data points. This way when technology
advances and content becomes more personalized, you will already have this built
into your strategy.
2. Emphasize the importance of universal analytics and a content attribution process
with your business; it’s going to be absolutely vital to understand where all your
efforts sit within your customer lifecycle and how you should direct future efforts.
Without this you could be left behind in the maelstrom.
3. Place a special focus on the distribution of your content in the planning stage,
understand what steps are required to maximize the reach and resonance of your
content efforts, make a commitment to influencer identification and nurturing the
build this into the development process – this insight combined with paid
amplification opportunities – will be key to cut through in crowded space.

Ben Harper - Co-Founder, Datify - @benharper87
For me, the biggest change in 2014 was the quality of content needed for a successful
campaign. Unlike in earlier years, not just any piece of content will do digitally - only the best
pieces make it. That's why it's more important than ever to understand your target audience
(in terms of users, influencers, and journalists) to ensure that the content you invest in
creating is going to have the best chance of success.
In 2015, the biggest challenge that we're foreseeing is the sheer volume of content being
produced, and ensuring that our client's campaigns cut through the noise. There's an awful
lot of businesses out there who are still just catching on about creating content - but
naturally the more content that is produced, the harder it is for the best pieces to rise to the
top.
What's your biggest content marketing prediction in 2015 and why is it important?My
biggest prediction for 2015 is that businesses will become a lot more data led. Rather than
going just off their instinct or creativity, companies of all sizes will start to use the wealth of
data that is available to start to laser target their content efforts - to reduce risk and
optimise campaigns for success.
The top 5 KPI's we use to measure a content based project are:
1. Conversions
2. Positive interactions
3. Visibility/reach
4. Content placements
5. Traffic

1. Understand your audience: even if you just use free audience insight tools like
Facebook Audience Insights, it's crucial to understand your audience so that you can
target your content creation efforts
2. Get creative with distribution: if you've got a piece of content to share, you need to
go beyond just asking bloggers and journalists to get involved. Get your PR hat on,
and think how to make that buzz around your content.
3. Guarantee reach: use Facebook & Twitter advertising, as well as the likes of Outbrain
to guarantee reach from your content pieces. You can control the audience that your
content will show to, and achieve a level of reach usually reserved for just the biggest
pieces of content.

Claire Stokoe Company Secretary/Owner - of Datatrouble.com -
@killer_bunnie / LinkedIn
I feel that the global growth in mCommerce has been a huge shift in online content and
promotion, with many websites either not prepared or simply unaware of the needs of
mobile consumers. Many sites are still not responsive or even have a mobile presence and
this is a hugely important opportunity for content marketers. This is still going to continue to
surge forward into 2015. Global mCommerce and content that meets this demand is going
to be huge over the coming years and could open up paths to global consumers to any SME
online.
I think outreach and placement of content is only going to get harder in 2015. This is due to
bad communication from agencies, most companies who hire an SEO agency are still
expecting large quantities of links which simply aren't deliverable anymore. The era of
churned out garbage is either over or will be coming to a very sticky end and unfortunately a
lot of this garbage is now labelled as content marketing. I have seen Infographics go from
something mildly irritating a few years ago to something akin to evil spam and this is all due
to them replacing guest posts and being churned out like machine made rubbish. This has
impacted on outreach because bloggers know there is a window of opportunity and raise
their prices and journalists are sick of being spammed with ill -conceived content marketing
ideas so shut the doors on pitches.
I think sites not being mobile ready for their customers will start to cause a huge problem in
2015 and I can see this bringing Google penalties to even those sites that try and follow all
the rules.
I have a few;
Storytelling will become Story-engagement with content becoming more about inviting the
reader in to take part and developing the content to respond to their choices, they choose
the path they take because it is about them and not the brand. Interactive content is still
very much in it's infancy but will become more and more prominent in coming years.

I think creative writers will become more and more important within Content Marketing and
SEO teams, these will be passionate experts and already have journalist and blogger
connections from a previous employment, that might already be working for Huffington Post
or Gizmodo as freelancers. I also think Content Marketing teams will be looking to hire
dedicated HTML 5 coders to help them with responsive content and designers to work on
Content pieces, and making content that inspires consumers and informs them to make the
best choices.
I think Vine stars will become more and more prominent in the promotion of Content and
also the training of Vine interns in companies that can gain followers that will make traction
for promotion and buy in.
Data and analysis will need to become part of the life blood of any Content Marketing dept,
creators need to start caring about what they create and focusing on issues that people care
about or should care about. Data should be treated more respectfully so that is shows a little
more truth and less b******. Data should be used to inspire and open peoples eyes, not
stifle imagination.
 There are huge debates within marketing teams and businesses around tracking
success with content marketing, what are your top five KPI’s for content based
projects?
Sales - Is your content marketing impacting sales directly? Are you dropping cookies adding
voucher codes or other incentives to track this?
Links still play a big part and getting great links from the Telegraph or blogs with a dedicated
following are growing more important
Traffic and Time On Site is an important KPI as we need customers to spend time on the
clients website after all we want this marketing to help clients sell more stuff.. right? You
need to track where they go next, see where they drop off, what could you have added that
would have kept them reading OR buying?
Social Shares - a lot of people discount these, but when potentially 70,000 eye balls have
viewed your content in 3 hours.. you need to take notice

Device usage - Is the content being accessed from various devices and if so which one?
should you be making sure if works on other devices and or tailoring content to those users?
When developing a piece of Content like an interactive parallax timeline for example, create
a smaller image that picks out some of the main dates and points that can be used as a
promotional tool as many Journalists and bloggers cannot host such a large piece of content
(even very large infographics). This could be broken into 3 or 4 sections and slotted into an
article for ease, a link at the footer when then take you to the main content.
Use all the raw data that you find and have this written up as a blog post or page on the site,
this can then be used as a reference that is linked back to from an interactive piece or
infographic and is then far more natural. This not only helps with outreach and gives more
back to the reader but also means that all the time researching is not wasted as everything is
used and the link back to the page is a natural and helpful one.
Do not be afraid to pick up the phone and talk to a journalist about a content idea, of course
make sure the topic is something they normally write about. FYI don't pitch a fashion idea to
a sports journalist. You could sign up to a Journalist Request service, this is a great way of
getting to know various Journalists and helping them out whilst at the same time promoting
the clients you work.

Gus Ferguson - Founder @ The Tetrad Consultancy - @TetradGus - LinkedIn
Short question; huge answer! For me there are four main areas where content marketing
has evolved over the past 12 months:
1. No one is calling content marketing a fad anymore - When the first few agencies, such
as Quad Digital and Blueglass in the UK, started calling their service Content
Marketing, there were a huge number of naysayers making accusations that content
marketing was just a rebranding of SEO link building... and that it was a fad that
wouldn't last. How wrong they were! The trouble was that there was no agreed
definition for the term, and a lot of confusion as to what content marketing actually
entailed. In 2014 people started understanding content marketing and I'd say we're
all coming to a consensus. I define it as creating communications campaigns that
achieve results across SEO, social media and PR metrics through providing
experiences that add value to the consumer, which I think is along the lines of how
most marketers see it now.
The mainstream understanding came from the indisputable successes of brands like
Hubspot and Copyblogger who whilst giving tips on how to do content marketing properly,
also exemplified smashing it in terms of the results they got from using it as their main
marketing strategy!
The SEO industry noticed this first in the SERPs (and realised that there's a much less
stressful way to market long-term brands in organic search than buying links) and there was
a shift with larger players like SEOMoz, and agencies like SEOGadget renaming in order to
lose the SEO element. As smart marketers realised that to get organic traffic from Google,
they had to expand their activities into social, design, branding and PR, SEO suddenly
became a confining description of the results they were achieving for their customers and
clients.
Progressive PR and social media professionals have also found content marketing strategy
much easier to digest and implement than esoteric technical SEO had been previously. They
realised that, as storytellers, they held some highly valuable cards to offer clients in terms of
achieving organic traffic. Content marketing has gone from being perceived as a marketing

gimmick, to describing more than just a strategy - it's a customer-centric marketing
philosophy that transcends silos, channels and even the on and offline divide.
The fact that content marketing is now mainstream means that in 2015 the conversation
moves on from what content marketing is, to how we can do it better, and then better
again. I can't wait to see the awesome integrated campaigns that will come from lots of
smart people creating together.
2. The growing realisation that content is not king. In early 2014, there were a few
industry voices prophesying that content marketing would eat itself and that the
internet would crash under 'the content avalanche'. This was driven by the outdated
'content is king' misconception, which placed the emphasis on quantity of content,
rather than quality. Everyone was pumping out as much as possible - infographics,
videos, blog posts, social media campaigns were flying right, left and centre!
The elephant in the marketing room was that, for most people, content marketing did not
appear to work.
When meeting with potential client brands, I had the same conversation over and over again
- they'd spent a fortune with one agency or another getting content created, posting it on
their owned media platforms and... nothing. No traffic. No links. No ROI. The campaigns
they'd been running were all, without exception, missing a single vital ingredient - a reason
for the reader to be interested! Basically, the customer experience was poor.
In 2015, we'll see 'experience as king' become more fully understood by the mainstream,
and I've the (probably unlikely) hope that no marketing content will be created before a
marketing team asks the question - does this really provide a valuable experience to my
audience?
3. 'Fat-free' mobile content - I know; 'mobile' is the go to answer for any question asked
of a marketer's since 2006 it seems... But in terms of content marketing, I think it's
highly relevant at this point. 4G became mainstream in 2014, my phone is now faster
than most of the wifi I can access publicly! It was a hell of a long time coming but the
mobile revolution finally happened, everything is now responsive (I wish!) and we're
well and truly in a mobile-first world... but still, in my opinion, most content is created
for the non-mobile web.

Mobile-first content needs to concentrate value.
Mark Twain famously apologised “I am sorry this is so long. I didn’t have time to make it
shorter.” and this is totally relevant to content marke ting today. Long form is important and
has it's place, even on mobile, but for the majority of copy, videos, images, etc the mobile
user won't accept Twain's apology. They'll just ignore undistilled content.
It's comes down to the simple fact that it's not as comfortable to consume content on a
mobile device as it is on a larger screen, and this further reduces a user's tolerance for a
poor experience.
Another relevant quote comes from Jefferson who said that "the most valuable of all talents
is that of never using two words when one will do." This should be a content marketers
mantra in 2015. Content needs to be fat-free... , and this doesn't just apply to words. Copy
needs to be concise, videos hard hitting, images straight to the point and everything aligned
with a purpose - a story of genuine interest to the target audience. In 2015 I think we'll see a
huge stylistic evolution across all formats. Dave Trott's one line paragraph format is a great
example of fat-free content, where every word is obviously a considered choice, and is
perfectly suited to mobile consumption.
I think the challenge for most brands when it comes to content marketing is for clients that
still use archaic budget systems that look at marketing results in terms of silos. In reality
there is no separation between results in social media marketing and PR for example, they
are all inter-related. Thinking they're not leads to situations where within the same business
you have internal teams fighting against each other for budget which is a real results killer.
This is hugely difficult to change however, but from helping various brands deal with this
issue I think we're getting to the stage where C-level see the value (and opportunity cost)
and are ready to invest in change.
My biggest prediction is more an effect of content marketing and revolves around
companies shifting to subscription-based sales models. In 2015 there will be a seismic shift
as more and more C-level decision makers realise that content marketing requires
integrating teams to deliver awesome customer experiences and achieve optimum results.

The evolution of analytics will drive this as hard data supports content marketing as being
the most effective way to attract and engage profitable audiences and drive advocacy.
This will lead to more businesses doing content marketing well, and building ongoing
relationships with their audiences. They'll find that via the continuous relationship they have
with their customers they have many more opportunities to maximise revenue per customer
through cross selling and upselling their products... and ancillary services. The first sale per
customer will lose it's importance and it will be the 10th, 20th... 100th sale that will become
the target. As these businesses realise that this ongoing relationship is a much stronger tie
to a brand than simply selling better or cheaper products it will change the focus to creating
recurring revenue streams and subscription-based models. A current example of this is P&Gs
recent move to start selling razor blades for their Gillette range at a discount in return for an
ongoing monthly commitment on the part of the consumer. Gillette now has an engaged
audience to whom they can market all their complementary products to every time they
deliver blades. It's a huge shift in sales thinking that's going to revolutionise how we buy.
At a strategic level: Reach, opted-in audience growth, the ongoing subjective engagement
metrics for that audience, contract value and recurring revenue.
At a tactical level: Views, shares, 3rd party natural coverage, comments and list growth
Use strategies such as serialisation of content and repeatable themes to minimise the time
taken on ideation
Focus on the overall experience that you are creating for your audience
Don't forget to sell. I had an agency pitch me a tactic that they called 'irrelevant content'
which was basically content that had nothing to do with the brand or products of the client I
was working on. This is ridiculous... the goal is to provide valuable experiences which
support the idea that your audience should buy your product or service.

Shelli Walsh - creativity101.com / shellshockuk.com - @shelliwalsh
Content marketing has existed for a long time. A few early examples being: the Michelin
Guides in 1900, Jell-O recipe books in 1904 and the John Deere customer magazine launched
in 1895. All the 'classic' marketing tactics that have been employed offline for decades are
begin to translate online and considered 'new'. So, I find it difficult to consider that content
marketing has evolved and matured over the last few years online.
The biggest change I have seen in the industry over the last twelve months is that online
marketers are now having to turn to the classic marketing skills to evolve with the changing
emphasis on 'brands' now that SEO is no longer reliant on 10 blue links.
I expect 2015 will see more cross channel marketing.
Online marketers will all turn to developing a brand, telling a story and customer
engagement (the classic way of marketing). I expect online 'branding' will be the new
buzzword.
Budgets. To develop a brand and to facilitate all the channels that need attention within an
online strategy is becoming much of an investment. Therefore, even more divide of large
brands with big budgets and small independents. Much like the high street, big brands will
begin to dominate and the polarisation of big brand and niche independent will widen with
anything in between falling away, unless it can prove real value.
Creativity will be the second challenge. With limitation of any kind creativity can flourish to
overcome the restrictions but you have to have serious talent to make this happen. The real
challenge will be finding the talented ideas people. They will (and are) in short supply in this
industry.

More cross channel campaigns (online/offline). In competitive niches online information and
content is becoming (has become) saturated; therefore, there is a need to evolve how the
information is presented and promoted.
content marketing, what are your top five KPI’s for content based p rojects?
However you dress it up or granulate - KPIs for content all fall into the following categories:
 Links - quality of link, not volume - links that pass authority or referral traffic.
 Traffic - and most importantly traffic relevancy
 Social shares - brand mentions and awareness
 Action (conversion) - this differs for projects and could be a purchase, a download or
an email capture
 Sales/profits - ultimately why do brands spend money on marketing and content
marketing? There is only one reason: to increase bottom line profits. Although
content marketing is about brand awareness and customer retention it still all comes
down to profit in the end.
Series of small 'agile' ideas - classic marketing rules state that advertising budgets are best
spent on small ads run consistently rather than a one off double page spread.
Look offline for inspiration. Get cultural - go to galleries, museums even junk shops and read
books. Feed your mind quality ingredients so that you can be an ideas machine.
Talk to your prospect and find out what keeps them awake at night. Answer that question
and offer them solutions with your content.

Gary Buchan Founder & Managing Director at Render Positive - @garybuchan
We have seen content marketing evolve and grow up in the last two years, especially over
the last twelve months, what do you think was the biggest change in 2014 and why is it
First, let’s take a little step back. Content Marketing has been around for a long time. I don’t
think it’s fair to say “it’s grown up in the last few years”. Marketers have been doing it fo r
a century or more.
Certainly in the last decade digital content marketing has ramped up significantly, as you’d
expect. With so many new ways to deliver content it’s bewildering to look at what’s out
there now. Some of it is amazing. Some of it is utter crap. Probably not much different to
how it felt to be a marketer a hundred years ago, then.
Yes, online content marketing has definitely grown up a little in the last couple of years.
Clients are asking for it by name, and that says it all.
Some companies have realised that online content is more important than just doing it to be
seen to be doing it and ticking a box, or doing it for “SEO”. Smart businesses have realised it
ties into all of their marketing, and drives their social media and search presence. Big
companies understand it informs how their brand is perceived.
Advertising agencies have long had their own lingo for “our” kind of content, which we’re
just catching up to. When we interviewed ad man (and absolute genius, BTW) Rory
Sutherland, his view was to always “choose branded utility over branded entertainment” if
possible. That nuance shows they’ve explored and evaluated this stuff extensively already.
Probably the biggest change is that content now gets a seat at the strategy table alongside
search and social and PR. It’s no longer just a tactic that falls under one of the others. All of
these channels are growing closer, so this is important.
We need to tap into this. Make hay while the sun shines. There are a growing number of
companies being run by accountants because of the ongoing financial climate, which is sad.
It means that, just like the ad men, we also have to prove the value of creative.
There’s a few.

The idea that a rising tide lifts all ships is valid, but is still hard to prove - especially when you
have a mix of initiatives going on. There’s definitely a disconnect in some people’s move to
rebrand SEO as content marketing, because content is part of the brand play big clients
want, but they also want sales. Social media has never really been about sales; it’s much
higher up the funnel. Content drives social, but it can also be closer to the sharp end. Throw
in UX and CRO, which we’ve found can brilliantly inform all parts of the funnel, and you have
a whole bunch of questions. I don’t think anybody can reliably or routinely answer them
simply yet, just like nobody can answer the multiple touchpoint attribution question.
Brands are going to continue to struggle with creating content that matters, and specifically
content that isn’t just about themselves. This is particularly acute for luxury brands and large
corporations, and less so for SMEs. There will be an ongoing education process showing
content needs to be interesting, entertaining, educational, humorous, useful… and not just a
thinly veiled advert.
Probably most importantly: Impact. It doesn’t matter how great your content is if it doesn’t
get seen. I probably (hopefully) just made my life a lot harder by sharing that video. You’re
welcome ;)
Finally, there’s some great players in this space. People have been pushing the boundaries
even further this year, so now the standard is even higher.
What's your biggest content marketing prediction in 2015 and why is it important?People
think our industry is fast-paced and constantly changing. It doesn’t move that quickly, even
though we like to think it does. Sure, there might be some shiny new things we can proclaim
as the NEXT BIG THING… just as there will be a plethora of THIS THING IS DEAD blog posts or
the like. None of that stuff matters.
My prediction for next year is iterative success. I hope to see more brands dipping their toes
in the water, and more success from the ones that did it last year.
There will also probably be more Google initiatives that are lazy and lack oversi ght or
forethought.

Hopefully though, and sincerely, I’d like to see more companies disregard the backwards
legislature of their brand guidelines. Throw out the false way you’ve been taught to speak to
people by misguided PR companies for 50-odd years, and say “Yeah, let’s give this a shot.
We’re good people. We can talk to good people. It might be worthwhile and fun!”.
We split it into three broad, and sometimes overlapping, areas: brand, demand, and
conversion:
 Brand is about reach, saliency, and recall.
 Demand is rankings, traffic, spread, CTR, and share of market.
 Conversion is purchases and leads, or subscribes, follows, views.
Any campaign can be about one or more of these things. A strategy should cover them all,
but be judged from a higher view than any specific campaign.
Find the stuff that matters to the client, and measure that.
1. Pass the self test for each piece of content you plan. “Would I share this on
Facebook?” Obviously adjust to your target audience. “Would my mom share this on
Facebook?” is just as valid. If more than half of your team (or their mothers) can
answer positively, you might have something OK. But who knows, sometimes the
thing nobody reasonable would share wins. Develop your own heuristics.
2. Make it look sexy - As in, get great designers to make the user experience utterly
delightful. Not as in any random basic stereotype with lots of bare skin and suggestive
poses.
3. Keep learning. As an industry we’re notorious for assimilating huge swathes of
information on a daily basis, even on topics we don’t care about. Keep it up.
Keep educating. I still get lots of people emailing me saying “I have X budget if you can
deliver Y links per month”. And you all get the offshore SEO companies spamming you with a
variety of supremely tantalising link building offers (we send all these guys the
same response with no explanation..). This really needs to change. Please help!

--Document End--
Questions and document created by Danny Denhard – @dannydenhard

Content marketing 2015: Where Industry Minds Predict Where Content Marketing Is Going In 2015

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