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guys hands on crystal ball looking for content marketing future

Every year, Semrush releases their state of content marketing report. After downloading a copy (you should too!), I am happy to report that the state of content marketing is strong.

One proof point: 69% of content marketers plan to increase their marketing budgets for content this year. The report provides a snapshot of the top content marketing trends and tips on how to build a successful content strategy. I was honored to include one of the key trends we’re seeing in content marketing. And look forward to sharing that with you below.

But first, some highlights:

  • 66% of companies that succeed in content marketing document their content marketing strategy
  • 55% of companies that succeeded in content marketing are achieving growth by publishing more
  • 38% of businesses struggle with finding content resources and 48% outsource content marketing
  • 76% say the recession isn’t having much impact on their content marketing efforts

According to the report, the solution to an effective content marketing program lies in the following:

  • Researching your audience (according to 47% of respondents)
  • Focusing on SEO (46% of respondents), and
  • Creating more consistent content (45% of respondents) based on an annual content marketing strategy.
  • Updating or refreshing old content (42%). This is one of our favorite tactics too!

My Content Marketing Trend

I have always believed that content marketing should deliver measurable outcomes. That starts with traffic and search visibility / rankings. In fact, we use the Semrush Visibility Tracker to show results for all our clients.

Here’s a few examples:

Healthcare Technology Company

Marketing Technology Company

We help to deliver these results for new clients through an annual content plan and weekly blog articles.

We are also bug fans of updating old content. Here’s an example of one of our oldest clients and the results they see from a combination of new and updated weekly content:

This works because we look for pages that previously ranked or have declining search traffic. And we give them a little content refresh, updated publish date, and a little social boost.

And this is how we’ve grown from nothing to getting nearly 1 million page views a month and ranking for nearly 100,000 keywords:

We mix in fresh and refreshed content in our weekly content publication schedule. We publish 2 original, keyword-focused articles every week, followed by 2 refreshed articles from our library of over 1,500 published articles.

But in the end, we have to show content marketing ROI in the form of leads, pipeline and booked revenue. Our case studies are filled with success stories that include 7x ROI ($700k in revenue on $100k budget). double and triple the leads. 60% higher close rates on inbound leads from blog content.

My 2023 Content Marketing Prediction

With Semrush’s permission, here is my 2023 content marketing trend prediction.

2023 will be a year of getting back to the basics of content marketing. Paid ads and social media account for less than 10% of B2B website traffic, leads, or sales. The number is less than 20% even for e-commerce.
What is the largest and most effective source of marketing ROI for brands in every industry ranging from technology to manufacturing, from non-profits to pharma? Organic search and referral traffic generated by content marketing!
In times of economic uncertainty, brands are going to cut ineffective ad spend, stop tinkering with TikToks and focus on being smarter with their marketing budgets. The basics of content marketing such as SEO-driven planning, creative storytelling, consistency above all, and ROI measurement will become hot topics once again. We’ll align with sales (on the B2B side) and with brand (in B2C) to determine what outcomes they need most. And then we’ll map a content marketing strategy to business ROI.

To read this and more from Semrush State of Content Marketing Report, click here.

This trend is backed up by the report’s Number 1 goal for content marketing: get more traffic (46% of respondents).

Content Marketing Trends for 2023

Every year, I wrote about 10-12 content marketing trends every business should be following. The 3 main ones I want to highlight:

1. The Resurgence of Content Marketing

In the past, new company startup founders and B2B SaaS marketers would first consider buying social media ads in order to grow their business. “We need to be on Tiktok,” they would think. Or, “we need to hire a social media intern.” And sometimes they would ask “what is content marketing?”

Now, we are seeing them return to the value of content marketing after learning that no one buys much of anything from social media. In fact, Google themselves told us that content marketing is the best way to rank for buyer search terms. Further, industry research confirms that spending on content marketing is projected to grow by double digits in 2022.

2. AI-Generated Content

While we believe that there are plenty of efficient ways to automate content marketing, the promise of AI-generated content remains far off. We do tap into some AI-driven content marketing strategies and AI-driven content promotion for clients. But in the future, we do believe AI will begin to force us to reconsider what we create and why.

We have tested a few AI-generated content services and have been disappointed in their ability to create quality blog content or long form articles that is anything close to the level of quality required for ranking in search or meeting audience expectations. In short, do not take the short cut of using AI to create content. But certainly use it as a tool to inform your strategy.

For now, we will have to face what I call “The Paradox of AI:” The more the robots tell us what to do, the more we will need real people (employees and customers) to create and share that content. Which leads us to my final big 3 prediction for content marketing this year.

3. Employee Activation

With the need for more human, authentic and thought leadership content, brands will continue turning to executives, employees, experts, and customers to create more and more content that helps buyers.

I get by with a little help from my friends. So feel free to check out one of my top posts from a few years back on content marketing predictions from 20 experts in the industry where you’ll hear about:

  • content marketing technology scaling
  • video marketing trends
  • podcasting is the next big thing
  • backlash, resistance to content marketing
  • acceptance of content marketing
  • how content marketing scales
  • moving from content to experiences
  • content marketing aligning better with sales
  • cross-enterprise content marketing coordination
  • brand storytelling
  • amplification and content distribution
  • personalization
  • buyer alignment and customer journeys
  • content merging with media and data
  • content working better than ads

These content marketing predictions are few years old but I think it’s very interesting to see how the predictions have held up (or not) over the last few years.

Are you interested in engaging and converting new customers for your business using the most important digital marketing trend: consistent and quality content?  Check out our weekly blog content service. Get started today and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

The post My Prediction for Content Marketing in 2023 appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

people looking at word content on a white board

49% of marketers don’t know for sure whether their content is making money for them. John Wanamaker said that about advertising. Over 100 years ago.

You shouldn’t have to deal with this dilemma with a measurable digital channel. Especially since content is a vital business asset in today’s “phygital” (physical + digital) marketing mix.

Measuring the ROI of content marketing is definitely possible, if not simple.

While there’s no doubt that content is a crucial cog in your company’s success, it’s no mean task to keep putting out content that keeps you on top of Google’s search results, brings in new audiences, and subtly encourages them to buy from you.

Thankfully, content marketing agencies exist for just that purpose. Delivering performance-based marketing that makes CEOs happy.

Study after study finds that companies would do better to outsource their content marketing – and so, we’ve put together a list of some of the best content marketing agencies out there (along with their strengths and weaknesses) so that you can find the one that helps YOUR business grow.

But first, let’s take a step back: Do you need content marketing so badly?

Why Do You Need Content Marketing?

Content marketing works for:

  •   building trust
  •   generating leads
  •   cultivating customer loyalty

Back in the day, direct response marketing was the realm of newspapers and radio ads. You could even slap up a big billboard to grab the eyeballs of long traffic lines – and they all worked!

But now, in the digital age, those physical lines of text and boxes and images and sound bites have been swapped for the lightning-fast flashes of digitized traffic – on computer screens, mobile phones, town squares and moving trains.

Content marketing not only helps you rise above this noise but also thrive in it. It also helps marketers to measure the success of their marketing efforts. So, no more excuses about data, or systems, or creative “big ideas.”

How?

There are fundamentally two different strategies for marketing your business. Two different kinds of “traffic” that it drives to your site: organic and paid.

Search traffic – or traffic from SEO – is the big daddy of organic traffic. In fact, it is the best reason to do content marketing. Here are 3 reasons why:

  1. Organic search is the biggest source of website traffic. It brings more than half of all traffic to any average site on the internet. In fact, this blog gets a million visitors a year and a full 75% of it comes from organic search!
  2. When people visit your site through search, they come of their own accord – you didn’t force, beg or convince them to check out your products or services. You matched their intent. You piqued their interest. You satisfied their curiosity. Guess what sells more?
  3. Visibility in search builds your brand. Since people are searching for anything and everything related to your business, you have the opportunity to introduce your brand to them early on in their journey and handhold them through your funnel with content.

The other option is paid traffic – that’s advertising on Google, Facebook and other platforms to bring in customers who are actively looking for your products and services.

The problem here? “Actively looking.” That’s less than a tenth of all clicks in Google’s search results. (And that’s still much more compared to other paid platforms on the web.)

It’s all good when you have the budget and your ROI exceeds your ad spend (if yours does, please share?!), but as soon as you stop throwing money at Google ads, the traffic, well, stops.

With organic content marketing, YOU control the messaging, its format, length and delivery. With pay-per-click advertising, it’s an undifferentiated slugfest. No wonder organic content marketing brings in 7x the leads as its paid counterpart.

So, how do you zero in on the content agency that pulls you out of the murky depths of Google search results into the light of fresh, page-one air? Who can you rely on to boost your content marketing strategy?

The Top Content Marketing Agencies in 2023

We scoured the web to find the best online and verified sources of this top 10 list. These are in essence our competitors, but we wanted to help our audience understand who earned the right to be mentioned as a top content marketing agency, but also the differences of each.

“Why would we create this list,” you may be thinking? Because we want to rank for this search term “Top content marketing agency” of course (see above “the best reason to do content marketing.”)

And we’re not afraid to mention our competitors. We are THAT confident in what we do. But also because there are some real differences between us. So please check them out and let us know what you think?

#1: Marketing Insider Group

At Marketing Insider group, we do not see ourselves as a content agency. Agencies do stuff for money.

We are a content marketing agency that focuses on delivering results for our clients. We do stuff to drive our client’s growth.

That’s why we don’t do one-off content projects. We don’t run campaigns. We don’t recommend investing in expensive infographics or videos (we can source some great ones for you though). We don’t recommend paid link building or paid advertising campaigns.

We only sell annual content plans delivering twice weekly content, planned from customer-based SEO research, driven by creative editorial topics, sourced through curious writers, and a dedicated client service team that helps you see the results each month.

We also practice what we preach so you can see how this works. Last year, Marketing Insider Group saw more than a million visitors. For the third year in a row. Despite the pandemic. We also tripled our client base! All from leads that came inbound and organically to us from our website.

So this isn’t to toot our own horn. (Although, that’s what content marketing agencies are supposed to do.)

It’s because we believe that we provide the most value, at the best costs for our clients. We rank at the top for super competitive keywords like marketing trends, what is content marketing, and what is thought leadership. Our main goal is to provide a simple service that focuses on results.

Our year-over-year client average ROI is 138%.

And we deliver Semrush tracking reports each month to show you that our content is driving rankings and traffic!

That is backed by a proven and guaranteed content creation and marketing service that works closely with your brand, to ensure that all of the stellar content that’s penned by our expert writers is tailored to your brand and voice.

Our first 2 articles are free and we offer unlimited revisions! We do this confidently because we want to get to a goal of having 100% publish-ready content within the first few weeks of working with us. This saves you time and money and shows the pride and importance we place on providing content that is authentic to YOUR brand.

Did some of the other high-ceiling costs of the other agencies turn you away? At MIG, there are tiered payment options, ideal for startups through larger enterprises.

And with that wide range of offerings, MIG has built up a mighty list of clients that reflects the quality of their content-creation service.

And we go one level deeper: Our clients win awards for content marketing. The Content Marketing Institute can’t stop gushing over them.

We also offer content promotion services that provide 80% lower cost and 90% higher click through rates than industry averages. This provides guaranteed traffic while we’re building your SEO. Oh, and we can re-target these visitors with lead gen offers as well. So we don’t do Facebook or Instagram ads and don’t even ask us about Snapchat or TikTok ads. We focus on measurable content marketing.

What makes Marketing Insider Group different? We deliver simple and focused content plans that work to deliver traffic and leads. We help you measure our results. And we can promote your best content to drive new audiences at the most efficient rates in the industry. But don’t just take our word for it:

The top ranking website G2 has listed us as a top 10 marketing agency (we’re #3 as of Feb, 2023) despite our being the smallest agency in the group by far.

This is based on honest customer reviews. So we must be doing something right?

G2 Top content marketing agencies

#2: Codeless

Billed as putting out hundreds of long-form content each month, they provide a solution for companies looking to score in the realm of SEO by dishing out relevant and high-quality blog posts.

This is reflected in their partnership with Monday.com. Just how much content did Codeless pump out for them?

How do 750 articles in 9 months sound? That’s a remarkable amount of content that certainly looks mighty good for google’s algorithm!

Through their partnership with Codeless, Monday.com achieved this:

  • 385 top-3 new ranking positions
  • 825 first page rankings

Their content creation process is detailed and thorough, as it should be with any reputable content marketing company.

They handle not only the content strategy and production but also go a step further and manage the distribution. And this is where their secret weapon comes into play.

You see, they have a sister company called uSERP, which is billed as a full-service PR, SEO, and link-building agency. And their sister company isn’t without its own merits, being used by the infamous likes of Hubspot, and Cisco.

Just by providing value to your audience, through the sheer amount of content, you would think that would be enough to entice you to partner with them.

If you wish to take your conversion rates to the next level, then Codeless offers one last treat:

Customer Success Videos.

This uses the show don’t tell model, and increases the chances of conversion and onboarding, whether that be through emails, in-app, or webinars.

What makes them different? Codeless focuses on large companies with large content budgets. The link building and video service are nice additions.

#3: Influence&CO.

The team at Influence&CO. has witnessed a massive surge in growth. What does that mean for you?

Well, if it means that they are #3 on this list, then they are surely cooking up some magic in their content marketing strategies.

Their secret?

They center their experience around gifting their clients with the ultimate air of authority in their space: getting their content in major publications. Forget about building links in meager sites and publications. No, with Influence&CO, you can extend the reach of your brand, building it out into a high-ranking authority in your space.

It’s much more valuable to build links that have value, than to flood cookie-cutter links that do nothing for your business.

Who are their clients? Well, it’s aiming to give The Content Bureau a run for its money. Influence&Co has dealt with the likes of:

  • Microsoft
  • Dell
  • American Airlines
  • AIG

Not too shabby of a list, is it?

So, if you’re looking to build out your authority, and drive meaningful traffic, then jump on board the Influence&CO bandwagon.

Their client journey is extremely detailed and works closely with your business so that the goals of the campaign are intricately defined. This collaborative process is a strong point of Incluence&Co, creating a strong partnership that gives your company a strong sense of security.

But there are still two more entries on this list, and we’ve seen some heavy hitters, from the narrative-focused nature of Column Five to the strong authority gifted by Influence&CO.

What makes them different? Focusing on content distribution and syndication for PR-based programs.

#4: Content Bureau

Looking for that comprehensive coverage for your new content marketing strategy? Then the marketing experts at the Content Bureau are a fantastic option for you — something their impressive list of clients can attest to.

Their 20-year history backs up their promise to deliver high-value copy that is SEO optimized and built to bring in results.

Who are their clients?

  • American Express
  • Paypal
  • Sony
  • Yahoo
  • Adobe Systems
  • Apple

You might’ve heard of some of them. And it creates an air of quality that makes them a perfect fit for your new content plan.

What kind of services do they offer? Well, they offer some of the typical services that you expect to see, especially from entries this high up on the list, such as email marketing and web content. But they pull out the stops in other areas, such as:

  • PDF: Articles, brochures, case studies, ebooks, infographics, etc.
  • Presentation Marketing: Demos/videos, powerpoints, script, speeches, webinars.

This can further build and enhance your killer marketing strategy, allowing you to diversify your content to extraordinary heights, boosting the reach of your materials.

What makes them different? A content agency that focuses on tactical content needs.

#5: Fractl

Fractl brings the goods when it comes to reputation. They have dabbled with some of the largest brands, and they aren’t scared of flouting that fact, with their clients ranging from Fortune 500 behemoths, all the way to small startups.

So, no matter where your business falls in the spectrum, Fractl can partner with you to enhance your marketing strategy.

They pride themselves on one thing: a content-first philosophy. And their creative content is backed by a rich research background, with their marketing research having been published in pretty important circles:

  • Harvard Business Review
  • TIME
  • AdWeek
  • Fast Company, Inc.
  • entrepreneur
  • Forbes
  • The Next Web
  • And more where that came from

That should get you immensely excited because research is such a valuable aspect of content creation. It will give your brand an authentic voice, and you can rest assured that your content will be sincere and trustworthy!

In the 9 years that they have been in business, they have ratcheted up an impressive kill count:

1,500+ campaigns.

The company prides itself on innovation, and not just sticking to tried and true formulas, injecting a fresh flavor into your content that allows you to stand head and shoulders above your competitors.

They offer four-pillar services: Organic Growth Strategy, Content Development, Digital PR, and SEO.

What makes them different? I may be allergic to the term campaign, but Fractl embraces it. They are more of a full-service content agency who can execute on those campaigns well.

#6: Content Allies

Podcasts are on the rise.

And if you want to capitalize on the trend, then this next entry is just the option for you. The other entries on this list are content marketing generalists, who can tackle a wide range of content forms.

But now, more than ever, people are turning to podcasts as that bridge between written forms and video.

At Content Allies, you have the perfect agency to partner with to bring your podcast game up to snuff, so that you can diversify your marketing strategy, giving you a leg up on your competitors.

And what’s more amazing than creating awesome content? The ability to repurpose it! The magic with podcasts is that they can easily be spun into a written blog or a youtube video.

That value that they provide their clients has landed them exposure on a host of reputable news agencies:

  • Forbes
  • Aol
  • Disrupt
  • CMS Wire
  • Founder CEO
  • Among others

They have built a happy host of customers, and the high-value kind too so that you can feel comfortable with who you are partnering with. Their clients have ranged from Siemens Energy to the likes of Facebook (you’ve heard of them, right?).

Their website even has a nifty little feature that allows you to calculate your average ROI on podcasting.

What makes them different? They focus on podcasts. 

#7: Column Five

Many of the entries on this list talk about content marketing as if it’s some formula. And that’s true, to an extent. Yes, content marketing is driven by human psychology, and copywriting plays on that psychology by following a very specific order of things that trigger people’s impulses (usually, buying impulses).

But while formulas are what should structure content, the delivery is what will set your content apart. Column Five is unique in that it focuses heavily on narrative, and incorporates that storytelling in your content.

“Story is at the core of all human communication,” reads the website.

How will it do this for your business?

  1. Crafting Marketing Personas
  2. Create a storytelling architecture
  3. Pen the story
  4. Incorporate your values
  5. Experiment with different formats to tell the story
  6. Settle on the format
  7. Use design to get the story across.

Looking for a company that is a little more laser-focused on its service offerings? Well, Column Five is built on four pillar services:

Brand Strategy

Before you craft anything, you need to know what message your brand is putting forth: what is the “heart” beating behind your brand. By identifying your “brand heart”, column Five makes it all the easier to connect with your audience.

Content Strategy

If you are looking to get your content off the planning phase, then Column Five’s content strategy service brings a comprehensive roadmap to life, allowing your business a colorful way forward that is clear and concise.

Content Creation

This is where you take that brilliant roadmap and set out on the journey. Along the way, Column Five dishes out a whole gauntlet, running the gamut from the social media content, all the way to detailed and research-intensive white papers.

Distribution Strategy

With your content, all planned out, the final phase and pushing it out to your customers, and skyrocketing the exposure.

Column Five does this with efficient PPC campaigns that are expertly monitored and tracked.

So start that campfire, and begin to start bringing your company’s “story” to life in the eyes of your audience.

What makes them different? Column Five can help develop a brand narrative from the brand out. From the personas you are targeting, to the messages you want to convey, and all the assets required to fulfill that mission.

#8: Single Grain

Single Grain dishes out a fantastic content marketing service for companies whose software solves the needs of large businesses around the world.

Their list of clients is just as immersive as the value offered by their service, such as:

  • Amazon
  • Inuit
  • TurboTax
  • Salesforce

Single Grain has brought together an expert team, that are social media mavens and wizards in SEO marketing. They have experience in both B2B and B2C, providing exposure on all available social media channels, from Linkedin to Tiktok. This gives your marketing strategy access to a broad audience.

What makes them different from Marketing Insider Group? Single Grain offers Facebook ads and PPC advertising services in addition to content services.

#9: Brafton

“Science”. You don’t hear that word in Marketing circles often.

Whereas some content marketing agencies look to provide a hip and personal brand message, Brafton, from its formal logo to its website messaging, aims to give the impression that these are content marketing scientists, who approach content marketing as a “scientific process”.

They boast an impressive list of clients, including AIG. Their list of services is also top-notch, far exceeding the offering from Eucalyptus., with everything from SEO marketing — inbound and outbound — email marketing, and content marketing strategies, just to name a few.

But maybe you want to keep ahead of the oncoming video trend that is washing over the marketing landscape? Then Brafton employs a professional video team that looks to revolutionize your video content so that you can dominate the feeds on Youtube or Instagram.

What makes them different from Marketing Insider Group? With locations from Australia and Europe to the United States, this is a company that provides lots of types of content to brands with a global reach, they have an impressive reputation as a pure content agency serving all your content needs.

#10: Eucalypt

This small, independent company is based out of Jacksonville, Florida. And although small, they have an impressive track record. So, if you are a small startup, they claim to be the best agency for you.

Does your company dabble in a specialized niche, such as tech, life sciences, finance, engineering, or other complex disciplines?

Then Eucalypt’s talented team of veteran writers and editors are cut out to deliver quality content for your content marketing strategy. But they also have a team of graphic designers, so that you can build out a diversified strategy that provides stellar value to your audience.

Services

How exactly can Eucalypt provide value for your brand? With these key services.

Strategic Marketing Consulting and Audits

Are your results in the search engines leaving more to be desired? Then you can boost your foundation with this in-depth audit offered by Eucalypt, which evaluates a host of factors behind your strategy:

  • Messages
  • Tone of Voice
  • SEO research
  • Competitor Research
  • Marketing Resources and Budget Planning
  • etc.

Results-Oriented Content Marketing Retainers

This entails a comprehensive marketing strategy for your business, where the team at Eucalyptus fleshes out a strategic plan, and executes it, allowing you to shift your attention to the more pressing matter in your business.

All of this is offered on a flat, monthly retainer rate, which starts at $3,500/month.

A La Carte Content Creation and Execution

Need an injection of life into your copywriting efforts? Then Eucalpyt’s experienced team of graphic designers and writers can craft SEO-optimized content, from long-form blog content to email marketing campaigns, perfect for you to start fleshing out your websites, blogs, and social media platforms, allowing you to stay ahead of the content game.

What makes them different? Eucalypt is a great option for those in niches that are a little more on the complex side, allowing you to maximize your profits, while working with a small team that provides a personal touch. 

Enlist a Top Content Marketing Agency Today

Content marketing is a better bet than any paid or more traditional marketing methods. If you’re looking for a content marketing agency to help you achieve better marketing ROI, I hope this list will help.

Whether you pick us or one of these great agencies, you should have a good sense for the type of questions to ask and services to consider.

And if you’re looking for 100 great content ideas, 2 quality articles per week, a monthly tracking report to prove it all works, then contact us today!

The post Top Content Marketing Agencies 2023 appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

Sad face hand drawn on an image template saying the cost of bad content

Every company is marketing with content, but not every company is doing content marketing. The difference between the 2 is often just straight up bad content. And there’s a lot of it. But what is the cost of all this bad content?

According to eConsultancy, bad content costs B2B companies $50 billion. And that’s just B2B companies. Consumer brands make up about 40% of the economy so add them into the mix and we’re looking at a $90 Billion problem. That’s a lot of Benjamins.

In this post, we’ll dive a little deeper into the cost of bad content, cover the reasons why so much bad content exists, and how we can create content that actually reaches, engages and converts new customers to our business.

Quick Takeaways:

  • Bad content costs companies billions of dollars every year
  • Good content is credible, valuable and formatted for an engaged experience
  • Bad content erodes your credibility and pipeline by creating barriers to trust and engagement
  • Creating a customer-focused content strategy provides the alignment required for more, higher-quality content and better ROI

What is Good Content?

High quality content accomplishes the goal of answering a customer question with authority and credibility. For example, I’ve written more than 1,000 articles here on this blog. And while quantity certainly doesn’t mean that what I write is any good, practice does help.

Good content not only serves customers, it serves the business as well. Quality content marketing reaches, engages and converts new customers based on trust built through a quality content marketing strategy.

We define quality content marketing as:

  1. Customer-focused
  2. Consistent
  3. Comprehensive
  4. Cost-effective

Here are some additional components of good content before we dive into the bad.

Good Content Is Credible

When I trained hundreds of writers at SAP to publish on our blog, I told every one of them that the first thing they ever write may not be very good, but the hundredth will be awesome. Some of the things I trained them on was to build credibility over time by being a curious student of their topic, sharing what they learned, and what they thought about what they learned on their topic of interest.

Good Content Shows Interest or Passion

One of my favorite content marketing quotes is from Mark Twain who said “write about what you know.” Ok so maybe good content doesn’t need to come from a deep-seeded passion for your topic. I struggled to have passion for Cloud Computing. But I found a way to make it interesting.

Good content should convey a natural curiosity to answer the question and requires at least some level of interest on the writer’s part.

Good Content Delivers On Search Intent

There’s been a lot of talk lately about writing for humans vs writing for people. And while we use SEO to research topics, we write for people to answer their search intent. So we imagine we’re standing with someone in real life, and when that person asks a question, we try and make sure our content answers that question as well as possible.

I don’t believe even the best AI can do that yet!

Good Content Is Only As Long As It Needs To Be

We get a lot of questions about content length and quality.

How long should a blog post be? Only as long as it needs to be to answer the question!

Our research concluded that under 1,000 words and Google is less likely to show your answer. Longer content is more likely to rank but when time and budget is limited, it makes the most sense to publish more often than to publish longer content.

Good Content Is Formatted For Viewer Engagement

Do you like to read 12 sentence paragraphs where the sentences are 3 lines long, written like a PhD student? Probably not. We use a checklist to write what we think is a perfect blog post format to try and use white space as much as possible. To use summary points in headlines, bullets and short sentences.

Some other format considerations:

  • 3-5 key takeaways
  • Visuals that add to the content
  • Videos
  • Links to internal and external sources
  • Active vs passive voice

We use the following checklist for every single piece of content we deliver for our clients. Feel free to download for your own use or send me a quick message and I’ll send you a google sheet you can use.

Bad content checklist

What is Bad Content?

Most content stinks because it focuses on promoting your business or your point of view. There’s a name for people that make everything all about themselves. (Message me if you don’t know it!)

Want to see some bad content:

Bad content is overly promotional, self-serving, poorly-written, duplicative, un-original, or hard to read.

And yet the majority of people rate their own content as better than average. This is called illusory superiority, a form of cognitive bias that makes most of us think we are better than average when that is mathematically impossible.

SEMRush content marketing research
Source: Feldman Creative

I have said that the biggest mistake most content marketing makes is trying to sell in your content marketing. But actually, the biggest mistake is creating something that never gets used at all.

What is The Cost of Bad Content?

According to Forrester, 60-70% of content goes completely unused!

That’s the worst kind of content because it never even gets the chance to be judged as bad. You would be better off throwing your budget in the trash and going out to lunch for the whole day every day. OK, so take your marketing or communications budget, multiply by 60%, and that is the cost of bad content.

I’m totally serious. When I was at SAP, I asked our marketing team to show me how many demand generation campaigns delivered at least 1 lead. The answer: 44%. That’s right nearly 60% of our demand generation campaign budget was for campaigns that didn’t produce a single lead. How does that happen? (Answer below).

The success I achieved there was not because I was above-average in any way. I just suggested we stop doing the stuff that produced no value. And start doing the stuff that helped our customers and drove ROI. 7x ROI was the result. The average marketing campaign at SAP at the time delivered negative ROI. (I’m excluding events. SAP events were awesome ROI generators – at least at the time.)

So if 60% of the content we create never gets used, and nearly 60% of lead gen programs don’t produce a single lead, the just use my simple math above to calculate the cost of bad content.

And if you think you are better than average (haha – see what I did there), you’re not! I’ve done this analysis at about a dozen companies and guess what the answer was to the question: how much content did we produce that created any value at all? The answer was an average of 40%. 60% produced zero value of any kind.

More than half of what you do is likely wasted, bad content!

Why Do We Create Bad Content That Never Gets Used?

I believe the main problem stems from the common marketing mistake of focusing on activities instead of results (my blood is starting to boil).

We create stuff because someone told us to. And that stuff is overly promotional and self-serving because that is the natural instinct of most people.

Behind every piece of bad content is an executive who asked for it!

We need to resist our natural instinct to promote our business and just try and answer a customer’s honest question.

How To Create Less Bad Content

Here are some additional tips to making sure you create more, good content. That is, tips to create a higher quantity of quality content. See? This isn’t even an easy thing to say, let alone an easy thing to do!

  1. Train your team on what content marketing really is.
  2. Document your content marketing strategy to gain alignment around the objectives and support from senior executives.
  3. Emulate some of the best examples of quality content marketing from companies like Nutanix, Televerde, DivvyHQ and more.
  4. Consider mapping content to the buyer journey based on keyword / search signals.
  5. Invite your readers to engage more deeply through subscriptions and offers and turn your blog into a lead generation machine.
  6. Measure your content all the way to revenue.
  7. Spell stuff real good, make all the good words, and take the time it takes to write a quality piece of content.

Busting Some Myths

Finally, a couple of myths I have heard so many times I want to puke: content needs to be original and it needs to present a unique point of view. I call BS on these points because:

  • A. There are no completely new thoughts. Not really. We’re all just synthesizing the data around us and some of us are more skilled than others at presenting our thoughts about this data in creative and effective ways.
  • B. No one cares about your unique point of view. Answering a customer question only requires you to uniquely care about your customers. Not about yourself.

Besides, even considering whether your thought is unique or new is selfish by nature. Consider instead whether your content is helping someone!

Someone I respect more than just about anyone once said:

Be careful of clever people, saying clever things, in clever ways.

~ My Dad

Just answer the question your customers ask in a consistent and helpful way, and you will reach and engage your audience.

Start Creating More, Good Content

Check out our SEO Blog Writing Services or schedule a free consultation today to learn more.

The post The Cost of Bad Content Marketing appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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MIG shares how B2B marketers can get more leads from content in 2023

You already know that B2B marketer content marketing provides an endless amount of benefits. But you also know that it takes knowledge and dedication to gain content-generated leads and keep up with a consistent strategy.

That’s why our experts are shedding light how you can master B2B marketer content marketing. With these essential tips on how to optimize your content to generate more leads, you can also increase traffic, brand awareness, sales revenue and more.

Quick Takeaways

  • 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to gain new leads and spread the word about their business. 
  • 30% of marketers reported that content has the highest ROI of any marketing channel
  • Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and creates 3x more leads
  • 80% of consumers are more likely to buy with a company that offers a personalized experience

Any B2B marketer can implement a content marketing strategy that sets their business up for success, and it’s simple when you optimize your content.

What Is B2B Content Marketing?

B2B content marketing is defined as creating and delivering high quality content tailored for a specific target audience to increase brand awareness, traffic, and sales.

In fact, 91% of B2B marketers use this strategy to effectively gain new leads, probably because content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and creates 3x more prospects.

statistics show that 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing

Image Source: Demand Metric

Most B2B companies attract, engage and convert audience members using content such as:

  • Blog posts
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Newsletters
  • Infographics

To create effective content, you must first understand the buyer’s journey, motivations and decision-making process. Using each form of content to address each element will help you drive revenue and generate more leads.

Why Is B2B Marketer Content Marketing Important?

Recent research conducted by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) showed that most B2B marketers use content marketing to increase brand awareness, educate their audience and build credibility.

chart shows that most B2B marketers use content marketing to increase brand awareness, educate their audience and build credibility

Image Source: Content Marketing Institute

But those aren’t the only benefits of using B2B marketer content marketing. Doing so also:

  • Generates leads
  • Nurtures your audience
  • Establishes loyalty
  • Drives attendance to events
  • Increases revenue
  • Builds your email list

Clearly, content marketing has a great ROI for B2B companies. In fact, 30% of marketers reported that content has the highest ROI of any marketing channel. That’s because when you consistently publish content tailored to your audience, readers view you as a leader in their space.

How To Generate Leads With B2B Marketer Content Marketing

The right strategy makes your audience more likely to engage with your business and invites an endless amount of benefits. Here’s how you can generate more leads with B2B marketer content marketing.

1. Understand Your Audience

Remember, the first step to creating effective content is understanding the buyer’s journey, motivations and decision-making process. That’s because understanding the fundamentals of your audience’s needs determine the quality and relevance of your content.

By talking to customers, asking them questions, researching online, and observing our competition, you can gain a lot of insight on the questions and concerns of your readers. The more you learn about your audience, the more effective your content will be in generating new leads.

2. Promote Your Content Consistently

Promoting your content consistently is just as important as creating it. To learn more about the power of consistent content, enjoy the short video below.

Video Source: Adam Erhart

Blogging or posting videos on a regular basis allows prospects to enjoy and share your content. This heightens the chances of new customers finding value in your offerings and ultimately making a purchase with your business.

A great way to ensure you post content consistently is to create a calendar dedicated to sharing content. Not only can you target and monitor your content, but you’ll also be able to better engage your audience and create valuable backlinks.

3. Consider The Right Channels

Sharing content on the right channels can make or break your success. A content marketing strategy that utilizes the same platforms as a business’s audience will increase the likelihood of gaining more visibility and new leads.

For example, if your readers spend most of their time on LinkedIn, that’s where your content should be posted on a consistent basis. Remember, understanding your audience and their habits is the first step in driving lead generation.

4. Use Data to Back Your Content

Using reliable data to make a point is a great way to gain your audience’s trust. Trust is key to gaining customer loyalty, and establishing trust starts with ensuring accuracy in your shared content.

Back your content with credible facts and data, and work with industry leaders to share their established respect and authority within your content. The combination of trending topics and credible statistics will do wonders for the success of your content.

5. Optimize For Conversion

Leads just represent potential until they actually make a purchase. Turn potential into revenue by optimizing your content for conversion. To do so, focus on strategically placing CTAs throughout your blog content.

example of MIG’s strategically placed CTA

Position CTAs in blog sidebars or at the end of an article. This guarantees that people genuinely interested in your content will understand how they can keep learning about your products and services. By including a clearly defined next step for readers, you invite them to keep engaging with your business.

6. Personalize Your Content

Personalization will enhance the effectiveness of any content marketing strategy. In fact, 80% of consumers are more likely to buy with a company that offers a personalized experience. That’s because it makes customers feel unique and compels them to take action towards making a purchase.

By simply using a reader’s first name in an email, you can easily create a personalized experience for your audience members, not only making them feel special but also more likely to convert.

7. Prioritize Visual Appeal

Although copywriting is a major key to valuable content, you can’t overlook the power of visual appeal. Imagery is proven to boost the impact of your content because it gives readers a break from lengthy text. Enhance your content and keep readers on your page longer by including:

  • Educational videos
  • Infographics
  • Gifs
  • Illustrated summaries

Doing so will keep your audience interested and engaged, making it more likely that they’ll find your value in your content and invest in your products or services.

Grow Your Business With Content Marketing Today

Master B2B marketer content marketing and enjoy your business’s enhanced user experience, increased site traffic and improved engagement. Don’t have the time to invest in marketing content yourself?

Start generating more leads today by posting content consistently with the help of Marketing Insider Group. Perfect your B2B marketing content marketing by checking out our weekly blog content service today, or schedule a free consultation now!

The post How B2B Marketers Can Get More Leads from Content in 2023 appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

man lifting weights to show boosting web traffic

Ask any marketer what they want for their website and they’ll likely tell you more traffic and more leads. Because you need more traffic in order to gain leads, we’re going to focus here on how you can use content marketing to boost your web traffic.

I know what you’re thinking: “everyone is creating more content. How do I compete? How do you actually grow your web traffic in this competitive world?

There are lots of strategies out there for bringing in visitors, including completely content marketing growth hacks we swear by. We suggest you test out as many of them as possible. Some strategies and channels work better than others depending on audience, brand niche, area of expertise, or competition in your space. It’s up to you to know your brand and what aligns best with your content strategy.

We’ve grown our own web traffic from nothing to more than 1 million visitors per year:

And we’ve done it without spending on paid traffic or full-time social media staff.

So here, I’m gonna share with you some of the ways we use to boost our traffic, as well as every single client website. These are proven strategies to increase web traffic. Let’s take a look!

21 Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic

Research Topics for Blog Articles

We use topic modeling to understand what keywords our audience is using and what topics are related to the topics we care most about. This forces us to think about our audience first. We then create a content calendar filled with a whole year’s worth of content ideas.

The trick here is to make sure you don’t think too much about whether the topic fits your product profile. If it’s important to your buyer, it’s a great way to boost traffic from people that are interested in the same things your buyers are.

Publish what they want so you can introduce them to your brand. Topic modeling allows you to identify buyer interest areas that your natural desire to want to promote your products will not allow you to conceive. Start publishing on these topics and you will attract more audience to your website.

topic modeling example

Focus on The Right Keywords for your Blog

We use a combination of high-volume, high purchase intent, long tail, and competitive gap keywords to focus our content creation activities on. When you create content that balances all stages of the buyer journey, you are more likely to capture  buyers at any stage of the buyer journey.

You are also more likely to touch more buyers within an account and with multiple “touches” during their buyer journey.

Bottom line is that the brand that serves effective content at every stage of the buyer journey will win more new buyers.

picking keywords example

Create Killer Blog Headlines

Did you know that 8 out of 10 visitors to your website read your headline only? That means only 20% of your web visitors are actually getting to the content you worked so hard to craft for them! Great headlines are the key to fighting back against this statistic.

This applies to every one of your content promotion strategies: social media ads, SEO rankings, sharing content in email newsletters — you name it. Regardless of the channel you’re using, irresistible headlines that grab attention and leave your audience wanting more are essential for getting them to read your actual content.

We use brainstorming to suggest 50-100 or more headlines to our clients and then ask the  to rank them quickly based on gut feel. We find this raises the cream of the best headlines to the top.

Publish Blog Posts 2-4 Times Per Week

In our blog frequency research, we found that 2-4 blog posts per week is the best way to increase traffic and leads.

blog post frequency chart

In fact, we have found that 2-4 times per week is the special moment where the highest rate of growth occurs. How much? If you want to boost your website traffic by 2-4x, then publish 2-3 times per week.

We also found that there is really no diminishing return. The more you publish, the more traffic and leads you will get! So if you haven’t started blogging, you really need to start today. There are about a million reasons why we think you should be publishing a blog on your website, so we’ll pick a few of the most important.

Today, 93% of online experiences start with search engines. Your blog is the main source of SEO content. Without one, you’re missing the biggest opportunity out there to increase web traffic. Your blog establishes your brand personality and expertise in your industry. It’s more affordable than any paid advertising tactic and much more effective.

Finally, your blog content is where many of your web visitors will find the most value. If you’re covering topics they care about, they’re more likely to stick around on your page. You then have opportunities to convert them to leads with tactics like lead magnets and strong CTAs.

If you aren’t creating customer-focused content (like a publisher) on your website, then we can not be friends. #SorryNotSorry

Repurpose or Update Old Blog Content

Repurposing your older blog content is one of the most efficient ways to give your website traffic a boost. Start by looking for articles that used to perform well but whose traffic has come down. Then update them with newer information, stats, add some opinions (this article was originally published in 2015!)

Look for content that used to rank but has become out of date. Look at any articles with years in them and update those as well. My team has spent the last 3 months doing this to any articles with the years 2020, 2021 and 2022 in them. We have found a 20% uplift when we update these older posts!

Bar graph showing boost in organic search traffic HubSpot received before and after updating old posts.

Nurture Your Email List

Having an email list is one of the best ways to drive return traffic to your website. This is because you’re nurturing a group of people (your subscriber list) who are already interested in your brand. With the right approach, email marketing can be one of your top sources of web traffic.

Here are some simple best practices to get started:

We recommend building your subscriber list as soon as possible. Make it easy for web visitors to subscribe to your email list with a prominent button, link, or form. Use an email marketing tool like Campaign Monitor, Mailchimp, or Constant Contact to help you track performance metrics from your email marketing efforts.

Most of all, remember that your email newsletters should aim to be mini curated versions of your content for that week or month. While promotional messages can certainly be included in your emails, they shouldn’t be the sole or primary focus. Always think about what your subscribers will find valuable (your content) vs. what they will likely dismiss as spam (solely promotional content).

Promote Your Blog Posts

Writing your blogs is only half the job. You also need to promote them to maximize potential for brand visibility and driving web traffic.

So how do you do it? Some tried and true blog promotion tactics include:

  • Sharing your posts on social media – This is an easy one. Get your blog posts on social media to give them more visibility and potential to be shared.
  • Make your content shareable – Creating shareable content is one of the most effective ways to get your blog promoted by visitors who enjoyed it.
  • Include blog posts in your email newsletter – Be sure your subscribers are seeing your best content by sharing it in emails.
  • Repurpose old content – Take your most popular blog content and repurpose it into an ebook, video, infographic or other engaging form of content.

Check out this post for 8 ways to boost website traffic with social media.

Use Social Media Re-Marketing

We know that social media is a great marketing tool for both B2C and B2B brands. But social media alone isn’t enough to boost website traffic. You need to cpombine it with the power of your article research to take your website a step further.

Start by installing a tracking pixel on your website from one of the social media platforms your audience uses most in order to set up re-marketing audiences. You can do it for both Facebook and Twitter to keep engaging with your web visitors on those platforms after they’ve left your site.

Why is this important? Here’s a startling statistic: 95% of people who visit your website will not return again. While this number can vary across brands and industries, a quick look at your new vs. returning web visitors will tell you that the majority are not returners.

Re-marketing through social media is an important way for you to continue driving interest and return web traffic that may ultimately convert into leads and sales.

Try Blog Syndication

Syndicating your posts on other sites is another great way to drive traffic to your blog or site. Search for top sites your target audience may visit frequently and reach out to the editors to see if they would be willing to feature your content.

Just be careful. Some sites will take an unrestricted license (and even sell) your content. I’ve been burned using this approach but I’ve also benefited greatly. Think carefully about the audience (and the ethics) of the site owners where you want to syndicate. For most authors, syndicating your content can provide access to a new audience and help you build authority.

Guest Contribution

Many sites today accept blog contributions, and it helps drive more traffic to your site and build your credibility as well as brand awareness. Look for sites that have strong readership or the target audience you are trying to reach.

You can also invite industry thought leaders and influencers to guest blog or interview them for blogs. The name recognition will not only increase traffic to your site but boost your credibility as well. You can even build an entire army of volunteer contributors to your own site by asking for guest contributors.

SEO Optimization

Optimizing your site for search engines is the best way to boost your organic traffic. Don’t forget that statistic — 93% of web experiences are starting with search! Be sure you’re using SEO best practices for all of your content and paying attention to Google ranking factors as they evolve over time.

Some of the most important places to focus:

  • High-value content – It’s not just about hitting keywords anymore. Google AI is smarter than that, and they’re analyzing your content to make sure it’s actually high-quality and relevant to the topic and audience.
  • Keywords – But keywords are still important. Use a tool like SEMRush to get a huge list of keywords you can cluster and organize into topics you know your audience wants.
  • Headlines – We talked about this, but it’s worth mentioning again. Without an awesome headline, you likely won’t even get noticed. Focus on writing headlines that readers can’t resist!
  • Include Visual Content – Content marketing is all about visual content these days. Including images and videos in your content makes it more engaging, increases shareability, and helps it rank higher on SERPs.
  • Pay Attention to Technical Stuff – Meta descriptions, image alt-text, tags — it all plays an important role in helping your content rank. Don’t forget the little things!

Interactive Content

We’ve all been there — we go on the internet with a specific goal in mind only to realize 10 minutes later we’re taking a quiz about what kind of cat we’d be based on our zodiac sign.

The thing is, people will take fun quizzes, surveys and the like on just about anything. It’s part of the internet experience in 2021. So why not use them to make your content more fun and interactive? To boot, interactive content can also create more value for your customer because it can help them learn something about themselves.

What we mean is that we don’t recommend you use a cat quiz (unless you’re Buzzfeed). Think instead about what you want your audience to discover as it relates to your content, and create something interactive to help them do it. So, if you’re writing an article about blogging best practices, maybe you include a quick test your readers can take to score their blog as it exists today. This helps them understand how your content is going to help them improve.

There are many types of interactive content. Here are some that perform well:

types of interactive

Image Source

Webinars/Webcasts

Share your expertise with your target audience by offering free webinars or webcasts. Find topics that your target audience is most interested in, then take the time to create an engaging and informative presentation. This is a great way to share your industry expertise and drive traffic to your website by putting a timestamp on the event (i.e. join us LIVE at X date and time).

But don’t make it boring! We all hear the word webinar and (let’s admit it) stifle a yawn. Don’t forget about your killer headline, great description, and interesting topic.

New to webinars? Check out this step by step guide.

Podcasts

If you’re not ready to do live presentations just yet, podcasting is a good way to practice your presentation skills and still share your insights with your target audience. The key to driving traffic to your site is to make sure you are consistent and are promoting your podcasts on social media. Over time your audience will grow and you’ll build a repeat audience.

Quick tip: boost your podcast audience by inviting guests who are influencers or experts in your industry or who have a large following themselves. This will help you generate interest, gain more listeners and increase web traffic.

Partnerships

Brand partnerships are a pretty well-known growth hacking strategy and can be an excellent way to increase web traffic and build your audience. You can start by thinking about brands in adjacent markets who, when coupled with your brand, bring added value to your customers.

Partnerships have compounding growth effects by exposing your brand to new audiences and building your brand reputation at the same time. When done well, they create a virtuous cycle of growth for your brand with both partners and customers.

Community Building

People like to weigh in and share their ideas on topics they are passionate about. To increase traffic, build community by engaging directly with your audience. You can do this in a few easy ways.

Always leave the comments open on your blog and social media posts. Respond to comments and questions quickly and thoughtfully. Encourage conversation between customers, too! On social media especially, you can ask specific questions to generate a high number of responses and create discourse around topics.

The more you engage directly with readers who are commenting on your content, the more it will happen. Don’t forget, too, that posts with lots of comments and engagements also show up more on people’s feeds. Building community gets your direct audience more engaged but it also helps generate new interest, too!

Comment on Other Brands’ Content

Contribute your insights and comments regularly on other blogs and sites that are relevant to your business. Doing so helps get your name out there, which can drive more traffic to your site in the long term. Just like with guest blogging, you want to make sure your comments are relevant and insightful to build your credibility and establish relationships with other readers.

Adding genuine thoughts and insights to the conversation on other brands’ content also increases the likelihood that they’ll do the same for you. It also creates potential opportunities for formal brand partnerships as you build relationships with other brands you respect and get value from.

Timely Content

Creating content around timely news and events shows your brand is knowledgeable and on the pulse of what’s happening in your industry. Don’t shy away from writing blog articles and social media posts about trending topics. Providing unique opinions shows your brand personality and keeps your content relevant and fresh.

Join Social Media Groups

We know that building community, commenting on other brands’ content, and seeking brand partnerships are all ways to increase web traffic. One vehicle for accomplishing these goals is through social media groups. Looking for groups relevant to your business and industry and staying active in their groups helps you make new connections and establish yourself and your brand with other industry professionals.

Facebook and LinkedIn are the primary social media platforms for group membership and activity, so look there first if you’re taking on this strategy. Once you’re there, don’t be afraid to share your content in an insightful way (steer away from straight promotion which can come off as tone-deaf and self-serving). Industry groups are mainly made up of peers looking to share insights and learn from each other, not scroll through ad content.

Mobile Optimization

Today more than half of all web traffic is generated via mobile devices, and Google’s share of search engine queries is at 96%. Google has also implemented mobile-first indexing, meaning that mobile versions of your website may be considered even more important than desktop.

mobile web traffic growth

Image Source

All of this is to say that if you want to rank higher on SERPs and increase web traffic you must optimize your website for mobile. This is slightly different from creating mobile-friendly content, which works for mobile users but is really built for desktop. Mobile-optimized content is designed with mobile users first in mind.

Experimentation

One brand’s secret sauce for success may not necessarily work for you, and for this reason you want to experiment to find out what works best for your brand! Don’t be afraid to try new strategies and put your own spin on them, too. People are drawn to brands that are authentic and unique, so copying exactly what another brand does isn’t likely to bring you success.

Taking a metrics- and data-driven approach to measuring your content’s performance is the best way to understand which tactics are working best for you. This makes it possible for you to capitalize on the strategies that are driving results and phase out those that aren’t.

Ready to increase your web traffic today?

Your content strategy can be built to continually drive web traffic and increase your marketing ROI. Marketing insider group has SEO experts and writers who can help you build the best strategy for your brand and deliver publish-ready content every single week.

Check out our Content Builder Services to learn more or schedule your free consultation today!

The post 21 Ways To Boost Your Website Traffic Right Now appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

woman screaming at her laptop wondering if content marketing vs PPc is better for ROI

There are so many directions in which you can take your marketing strategy these days, it can make you dizzy.

SEO, PPC, email, social… the list goes on! Of course, most brands will choose a combination of several of these methods.

But what if you only have a limited to spend like most startups? I’m going to show you how I know that content marketing is better than PPC at delivering ROI and why you should focus your limited budget on your content marketing strategy.

Now listen, we’re going to use data to back this up. But I also need to make one thing clear: while I truly believe most digital display / banner ad spend is a waste of money, the most effective use of your budget is through a combination of content marketing and paid outbound.

Quick Takeaways:

  • When implemented properly, content marketing offers a higher ROI than PPC in the long-term.
  • PPC marketing can burn through a lot of cash before you figure out how to achieve ROI.
  • Paid search and other types of advertising have their place but it’s essential to have a solid content marketing strategy to balance them out.

What Is PPC Marketing?

But first, let’s recap what exactly I’m talking about when I say “PPC”. PPC stands for “pay per click,” is also known as “paid search” and is technically a form of advertising. PPC ads show up on top of “organic search” results on your search engine.

When you launch a PPC marketing campaign, you’ll place ads on a search platform like Google or Bing (this is also known as paid search marketing), on a social network such as Facebook or Twitter, or on other ad platforms.

Rather than paying upfront to place your ad for a set amount of time, you’ll pay the ad platform when your ad is clicked.

In most cases, there are many more advertisers than there are ad spots. The platform decides which ads to show by using a bidding procedure. The advertiser that has bid the highest amount for a particular search query or audience will get the best ad placement. However, they’ll also pay more when someone clicks through to their site.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategy that revolves around using content (blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc.) to attract relevant visitors to your website, raise awareness of your brand, and boost sales and conversions.

Rather than being sales-focused like an ad, in most cases, this content doesn’t directly pitch your products and services. Instead, you provide useful, entertaining, or inspiring content that improves the lives of your audience in some way.

Publishing a blog is one of the most common types of content marketing and one that’s easy for anyone to start, whether they’re an individual on a shoestring budget or a large enterprise.

1. Content Marketing Is Significantly Cheaper in the Long Term

When comparing different digital marketing strategies, PPC is right up there with some of the most expensive.

PPC can get you to the top of Google if you’re willing to pay for it. But you’ll have to keep paying to stay there.

These costs can add up quickly, especially in competitive industries where keywords can go for several dollars a click.

On the other hand, content marketing needs only a modest initial investment to get you started. If you’re really running on a tight budget, you can create content yourself with the only cost being your time.

With time and effort, high-quality content can reach the top of search engine results naturally. This means you can be getting those clicks for free instead of paying for each one. And you won’t lose your rankings until someone creates better or more relevant content than you.

And the most recent indusrty research finds that content marketing gets three times the leads per dollar spent compared to paid search.

The ROI of content marketing and PPC has too many variables to suggest an “average” for each method, even on a per industry basis. But whatever industry you’re in, while PPC may seem to offer a more attractive ROI initially, content marketing almost always offers a better ROI in the long-term.

2. Content Marketing Attracts Better Quality Leads

Content marketing not only attracts more leads for your money, but it generates better quality leads too.

Lead quality is critical for optimizing ROI and increasing revenue. There’s no point in paying for leads (via any method) if they’re not converting.

One of the biggest complaints coming from sales teams is that the leads they get from marketing are low-quality ones. This situation can easily happen when sales and marketing aren’t in alignment and only care about their immediate targets. 55% of sales reps surveyed by Demand Gen said that what they want most from marketing is “better leads”.

Producing high-quality content is one of the most effective ways of attracting high-quality sales leads.

Just because you’re paying for leads, it doesn’t mean they’re great quality. A lot of the time leads from PPC are poor because they don’t know your brand or understand your product when they click your ad.

On the other hand, leads generated by content have already been introduced to your brand and educated on some level. And the longer they stick around and keep consuming your content, the better these leads become.

3. Content Marketing Generates Long-term Results

Content marketing programs must be planned on a much longer timescale than other marketing techniques (we plan for a whole year!)

While we allow for flexibility throughout the year, the trends and queries in your industry are likely not going to change that much. And your competitive gap is more likely to be closed or overtaken with a consistent approach.

Content marketing builds traffic and rankings that you own. This may happen very gradually, but once you start seeing the results you want, you’re not going to lose them overnight.

The time and money you invest in content marketing now will continue paying dividends well into the future. A single piece of content that might have cost you a couple of hundred dollars to produce could end up generating the magic of compounding results: business and leads worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for years to come.

Source: https://www.growthramp.io/articles/content-marketing-roi

PPC, on the other hand, is most definitely a short-term strategy. You’ll see the results immediately but if you want to keep having success, you’ll need to keep going.

Anyone can buy clicks, but the value drops to zero once you stop.

4. Content Marketing Is a Simple Model That’s Hard to Mess Up

There’s a real art and science to successful PPC marketing. Not only do you have to know what keywords to bid on, but you also need to bid the right amount, optimize your ads for a high click-through rate, and craft your landing pages carefully to get the results you want.

PPC can be very effective when done well, but in most cases, you’ll have to invest a significant amount of cash before you can see results. If managed properly, PPC can be a good investment but you need a decent budget to get started.

For this reason, it’s sheer madness to attempt a PPC campaign unless you know what you’re doing. If you get lucky then you might see results, but more often than not, you’ll burn through a significant amount of money and have no results to show for it.

As PPC is so complicated, with many moving pieces, most brands using PPC marketing will either employ an in-house expert or outsource to a marketing agency specializing in PPC. Of course, this adds more expense to an already pricey marketing model.

Content marketing, on the other hand, is about as simple as you can get. While there’s certainly a lot to think about when you’re putting together a content marketing campaign, you can’t really get anything “wrong”.

In the worst-case scenario, you’ll publish some content that doesn’t really do anything for you. But all you’ll have lost is the time it took you to create that content or what you paid for it (and content marketing is very affordable compared to other types of marketing, remember).

I’ve seen organizations achieve impressive success with content marketing without following any real plan or tracking results, which just goes to show how simple it is. Those who regularly publish high-quality content and consistently deliver value will be rewarded for their efforts eventually, even if they don’t get all the fine details perfect.

5. People Trust Content More Than Ads

Google is constantly changing the way in which paid ads are displayed in the search results to try and make them blend in more seamlessly with the organic results. The reason for this is that most of the time, searchers don’t want to click on ads.

Most web users these days know that companies have paid to appear in the ads at the top of the search results, whereas web pages that are listed at the top of the organic results are there because they’ve earned it with a great reputation and high-quality information.

Research by Nielsen has found that 53% of consumers don’t trust ads listed in search engine results and 52% don’t trust ads on social media.

Trust in advertising, in general, has been gradually declining in recent years, with customers preferring to do their own research and more likely to follow recommendations from their peers than brand ads.

Source: https://digitalwellbeing.org/word-of-mouth-still-most-trusted-resource-says-nielsen-implications-for-social-commerce/

Content marketing isn’t advertising. It’s a great way to build trust rather than erode it.

5. You Can’t Succeed in PPC without Also Investing in Content Marketing

So let’s say you do have the budget to inject into running a PPC campaign and you’re working with an agency that really knows what they’re doing.

You still won’t get the best results unless you also concentrate on creating really great content.

Just think about it – even if you’ve got a really well-written ad and your targeting is spot on, you still have to win over the users that click on the ad.

So that comes down to sales copy, right? Well, yes and no. It’s certainly important to have really well-crafted and optimized landing pages. But your success will be limited unless you’ve also thought about your content marketing strategy.

You might get some sales from users who’ve never heard of your company before and end up on your landing page. But you can greatly increase your chances if you’ve got a library of great content to back you up.

Great content gets shared and comes up frequently in search results. So, if you’ve been doing your job with content marketing well, there’s a good chance that the user who sees your ad and clicks through to your landing page might have seen one of your articles or videos while researching or on their social feeds. When they keep seeing great content from your brand, they’ll remember it and you’ve got a much better chance of making that sale.

While PPC might be great for attracting people to your funnel, you still have to get them through the funnel. And websites that have adopted content marketing convert at a rate that’s six times higher than those that haven’t.

PPC ads can convert well for users who are ready to buy. But for the rest? A report by Gleanster Research revealed that only 25% of your leads are ready to buy at any given time. So what do the other 75% want?

They want to find out more about your company and products or services. They maybe don’t even know yet that they have a need for your products and services. By publishing high-value informational content that addresses their challenges, you can ensure that they stick around for longer. You have a much better chance of making that sale when they’re finally ready to buy.

Ready to Start Focusing on Content Marketing?

PPC can still be an effective part of your overall marketing strategy when planned carefully. But it must be used in combination with content marketing if you want to achieve the best results.

Content marketing is a low-cost marketing technique that offers an impressive ROI if you’re willing to stick with it for the long-term.

If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content published consistently, check out our Content Builder Service. Get started today–and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

The post Content Marketing Vs. PPC: What Delivers Better ROI? appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

Search ranking chart showing effective content marketing roi

This is the longest post I’ve ever written. It lays out all the content marketing strategy steps you need to achieve success that I’ve been learning and chasing my entire professional career. Buckle up and enjoy and please let me know what I’m missing. And share it if you like it? Either way, I hope you learn something valuable from it!

Content marketing, when you peel away all the layers of techniques, trends, and possibilities, is a business opportunity. At its core, content marketing is a tool businesses can use for growth.

Content marketing is the kind of marketing that delivers ROI you can measure. And that’s important – now more than ever.

Unlike other methods of marketing, content marketing stands out because it is completely sustainable. It funds itself. And then some. It delivers revenue to the bottom line. It delivers a return on investment to the business.

This is not true for most marketing programs. But it is what marketing was always meant to be: a conversation between your company and your target audience that attracts new customers.

Effective content marketing strategy offers the benefit of exponential growth, higher brand awareness and trust, winning over prospects and convincing leads, and endearing your customers, helping to build a loyal base of brand advocates.

It also provides your company with a platform to activate employees, to publish thought leadership, and to tell more human brand stories that also attract better talent and keeps your employees motivated.

Once you get your content marketing strategy going, it’s that positive snowball effect in action. Your brand presence gets bigger and more impactful. It becomes easier to achieve your marketing goals with future content because you already have a foundation in place – a vast content library of written, visual, and experiential content, all designed to resonate with your target buyers.

This is in contrast to traditional marketing. Advertising, even with today’s sophisticated digital ads, can create overexposure. Audiences become saturated with brand promotion that offers no genuine value to the people you’re trying to build customer relationships with.

As I said a few years ago, content marketing is, “the vehicle that can deliver us from the throes of the ‘death by SPAM’ illness that still persists in many marketing organizations.”

It’s the solution to the dwindling impact of traditional marketing techniques. Take advantage of this business opportunity and you have a lot to gain.

The Business Advantage of Good Content Marketing

So, what exactly does a business have to gain from throwing their weight behind content marketing?

  • Increase in website traffic. Content marketing leaders see 8X higher year-over-year growth in unique site traffic.
  • More leads. Content marketing garners 3X as many leads as paid search for every dollar spent.
  • Thought leadership. Brands who offer relevant, useful content are viewed as thought leaders in their industry, which helps to build brand trust and authority.
  • Higher conversion rates. Organizations who use content marketing see 6X higher conversion rates.
  • Leaner budget. It cost 62% less to launch and maintain a content marketing program than any other type of campaign.
  • More attention on your brand. People use the internet to consume content.

people-read-lots-of-content

All of these advantages lead up to more sales, an increase in revenue, and more sustainable business growth. But, in order to get a competitive advantage from content marketing, you need to have a strategy. It’s not just about pouring buckets of content out, on and offline. It’s about using a holistic approach, using different content channels to support one another and maintaining a meaningful brand story throughout.

Take Demandbase for example. They managed $1 million in new business, not from tons and tons of content, but from a logical content bundle that included a white paper, infographic, webinar, live presentation and Slideshare. The bottom line is that most people think marketing is just about doing stuff (ads, campaigns, social shares, content.) But content marketing delivers business results. Here some more visual proof:

content marketing strategy roi

What Content Marketing Isn’t

It’s important when using content marketing to understand what content marketing is, versus what it isn’t.

What it is.

It’s an opportunity for growth through offering quality content that offers value to target buyers. It requires a clearly defined audience and an ongoing analysis of how effective content is at reaching this audience.

It isn’t is more ‘stuff.’

Where a lot of brands go wrong with content is they fail to get the strategy part, unleashing content campaigns without the direction of where it should take the business to and an understanding for who the content is for.

Without strategy, you may end up with a promotional video, for example, that looks a lot more like a promo ad for your business than content. A promo video, as high-quality as the video production may be, isn’t a piece of useful video content designed to resonate with a target group at a specific stage of the buyer’s journey, and that is connected to the other content within your strategy.

Content marketing isn’t just a business blog.

Content goes far beyond blog posts. It also goes far beyond the digital world. Content is information, but it can be delivered through myriad channels (video, graphics, live events, apps, social media posts, emails). What differentiates this information as content is that it is designed for a specific audience, for a specific purpose.

It’s not meaningless.

Think about it. What problem does your Facebook ad solve? How has your company’s last AdWords campaign made a positive difference for your customers? Content is supposed to solve a problem. It’s this genuine intent to help your customers that offers the authenticity that consumers are so attracted to. Take this one step further, from providing value to your buyer to providing value to society, and you’ve landed on the future of content marketing – purpose driven brands.

It’s not rented space.

Where content stands out is that a brand owns the distribution channels – the website, the in-person events, the social media profiles, the eBook series. Advertising, on the other hand, is rented space – you have to constantly purchase a media channel in order to market.

How the Experts Define Content Marketing

Joe Pulizzi’s Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as:

“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Neil Patel takes this definition a little deeper:

“[It’s] a long-term strategy that focuses on building a strong relationship with your target audience by giving them high-quality content that is very relevant to them on a consistent basis.”

Here is Rebecca Lieb:

“It isn’t advertising. It isn’t push marketing, in which messages are sprayed out at groups of consumers. Rather, it’s a pull strategy – it’s the marketing of attraction. It’s being there when consumers need you and seek you out with relevant, educational, helpful, compelling, engaging, and sometimes entertaining information.”

I define content marketing this way:

“Customer-focused content, consistently delivered, on a platform you own, in order to reach, engage and gain new customers.”

So, if you can weave together the endless list of possible content choices and channels, with the strategy that speaks to your audience in the voice of your brand, you know exactly what content marketing is and how to make it grow your business. 

In short, content marketing is what we do when we can only do one thing:

1. Why Content Marketing Is Important

Content marketing is important, not just because it works for building trust, generating leads, and cultivating customer loyalty, but because it has become the new normal from the consumer side. It is, in itself, helping to evolve what customers expect from the brands they interact with.

Neglecting it is way more risky than investing in it.

What travel, food, or fashion brand can exist today without a vibrant Instagram page, videos, and a few influencer campaigns? Software companies have become tech teachers with how-to videos and eBooks. Even the financial industry has come up with apps, online knowledge centers, and other tools to help both individuals and business customers better meet their financial goals and to do it with a level of transparency and convenience that was unheard of 15 years ago.

Great content, especially the dynamic, well thought out strategies, are showing consumers they deserve more.

Content Marketing Is Too Valuable for Both Consumers and Brands to Ever Go Away

The number one reason that content marketing is important is that your customers appreciate it. Content marketing generates 3 times as many leads as outbound marketing, drives six times higher conversion rates, and has the potential for a 7.8-fold boost in web traffic.

The reality is, content marketing has fostered the customer-centric reality we’re now operating in. From well-researched white papers to podcast series listeners can’t live without, content is changing the relationship between the brand and consumer.

Take, for example, Cisco’s content hub, The Network. It has everything anyone interested in or who works in the tech industry could be interested in:

  • A monthly online magazine, FOCUS
  • Live@Cisco Facebook videos
  • Blog posts on tech news
  • Biographies of Cisco’s leadership team

They even have an innovative portal for marketing the company’s best asset, its employees. Meet Our Millennials serves the triple purpose of empowering employees, attracting new talent, and humanizing the brand for consumers.

meet millennials content marketing example
Source: https://newsroom.cisco.com/meet-the-millennials

Cisco has been pushing content for years. Under the leadership of CMO Karen Walker, Cisco brought on 200 content marketers back in 2015 and they haven’t looked back.

In the B2C sector, content marketing is just as important. Look at brands like Nike, which has become way more than a company. Nike has become a way of life that has inspired generations.

Or Sephora, who have mastered brand community with their content, inviting their audience into an engaging, educational, empowering environment.

sephora content marketing example

Through offering value and meaning, and through giving people an entire ecosystem to tap into for information, guidance, and human connection, content marketing has formed a bridge that consumers want to walk across in order to connect with the brands they like.

There’s no going back.

Content marketing started as the alternative to the ad age. Something of a much-needed respite from the over saturation of magazine ads, promo posters, television commercials, and digital advertising – by 2014, the average person saw 5,000 ads in one day!

But today, almost all marketers use content marketing – 91 percent of B2B marketers and 86 percent of B2C.

And (no surprises here), consumers like it.

Brands who neglect the importance of content marketing today will have to play catch up tomorrow. On the other hand, those who have a content marketing strategy in place are already on the next level – honing their content with better customer data, better technology, and a better developed network, either in-house or outsourced, of content producers.

Content Marketing Teaches Us Lessons On Who We Are Marketing To

Another reason content marketing is so important is, it is the secret to understanding our customers. The data we’re seeing as people move along the customer journey – engagement rates on social media posts, which videos people watch, which eBooks people download, the blog posts they read all the way through and then share with their networks – this is incredibly powerful information for marketers.

By tracking which content is the most successful, we’re learning more about our consumers. This gives brands who are heavily invested in content marketing – and who are adept at making sense out of their marketing automation tools and CRM – a huge advantage. With the insights gained, it’s possible to:

  • Create better buyer personas
  • Develop more accurate buyer segments
  • Improve personalization – which I truly believe is the foundation of a better customer experience

Hawkeye, a platform that focuses on analyzing content data, calls it content intelligence.

content marketing lifecycle
Source: https://www.hawkeye.ai/what-is-content-intelligence/

It’s taking all the data you get from your content analysis to make a better strategy, and then rinse, cycle, and repeat so you are always improving what you offer, and boosting the impact of your content marketing.

Without the constant influx of data that is specifically related to your brand and your buyers (because it comes from your content marketing strategy), you’re missing the philosopher’s stone of modern marketing – the knowledge of what resonates with your buyers, right now – the how, who, why, where, and when.

Your Competitors Are Already Using It

And the final reason content marketing is ridiculously important for marketers today – chances are, your competitors are already using it.

If your target audience is already enjoying personalized email messaging and already know they can go to your competitor’s site to look up the information they need when they have a question – you’re in trouble.

Here’s the thing. One of the reasons content marketing is so powerful is that it can be used to establish your brand as a trusted authority in your industry. Which means, it takes time to get your content marketing strategy to make an impact because it takes time to establish a trusted presence.

If your competitors are already sitting on huge online blog libraries, vibrant social media profiles, and are known for their knockout video tutorials and annual marketing events, you’ve got some catching up to do.

Content marketing is essential to everyone from global organizations with dozens (or hundreds) of content marketers, producers, and analysts on their team, to small companies focusing on their local business. It’s not just important. It’s critical.

Where should you start?

Here’s a look at the types of content experienced marketers focus on:

content-marketing-types
Source: https://databox.com/top-content-marketing-strategy-2018

Start with the resources you have. Create a strategy and commit to a high level of quality and a focused brand message. And then, keep growing your content strategy as you learn more about your customers, engage with them, and build the bridge between your brand and the people your business exists for. 

2. How to Gain Buy-In for Content Marketing

You know how powerful content marketing is for brand awareness, lead nurturing, and building lasting relationships with your customers. So do the 91% of B2B marketers who are using content marketing today.

But, chances are, your organization’s executive team isn’t as excited about your content marketing efforts as you are. While content marketing budgets have been blossoming in recent years – the industry reached $300 billion in 2019 – in-house marketing professionals still struggle to get the support they need.

content-marketing-300-billion-dollars

It’s not just about securing the budget and resources you need. Just as important are factors like:

  • Internal cooperation across departments
  • Room to experiment and make mistakes without fear of your content marketing budget getting slashed
  • The engagement of the company’s internal experts – bringing employees into your content marketing strategy is a rising trend in content you don’t want to get left behind on

So, how do we gain the buy-in for content marketing that we need with all of our internal stakeholders?

Start with a Strategy

To convince your customers they will benefit from your product or service, what’s always your first step?

You have to educate your buyers about the value of what you are selling with a smart content strategy. Take this same approach when selling content marketing to your organization’s decision and budget makers.

Educate them on the importance of content marketing – with content.

So, get in the shoes of your audience just like you would when you create your buyer personas.

  • What are the pain points, hesitations, and goals of your organization’s executive team?
  • What information – relevant statistics, industry examples, in-house content analytics – do they need to see to understand the value of your content marketing?
  • What channels will resonate the most, for example, what presentation format will work? How can you quickly update upper management on the worth of your content with ROI analytics on an ongoing basis to keep them motivated?
  • When are they going to be the most open to paying attention?

The secret to gaining buy-in for content marketing is to demonstrate its worth with a solid strategy rather than a pile of stats and examples that aren’t really connected. Think through how all the information you present builds your case and works together to make your point.

Here’s what you may want to include in your strategy.

Show the Potential of Content Marketing with Examples

Don’t expect every member of your organization’s leadership team to fully understand just how intense and dynamic content marketing can be, or even how it works.

There are still people who assume content marketing starts and ends with blog articles and social media, which makes it difficult to be inspired by your content marketing efforts or to be motivated enough to up your budget or encourage employee engagement company-wide.

So, take them on the content journey:

Demonstrate the different types of content.

When C-suite sees the full range, from thought-provoking blog posts that establish your brand as an industry thought leader to experiential campaigns that can change the perception of the brand in the minds’ of consumers, they’re more likely to be interested in offering support.

You can use industry examples of some of the best interactive videos, brand communities, user-generated social media campaigns, white papers, live events, and other types of content you already use or plan on using. To be more illustrative, have plans ready to show what you already do with various types of content as well.

Put it all together.

The best content marketing threads together all the moving parts with cohesive messaging, consistency, and a holistic strategy. Each piece builds up, supports, or furthers the rest, creating in sum, a content marketing machine.

When convincing C-suite, explain how all your content works together as part of an overall strategy. Give them an example of a brilliant strategy in your industry. Also, map out the one you have ready so they walk away with a clear idea of how sophisticated and effective your content marketing can be.

Then, Give Them the Data to Back-up Your Examples

When you are vying for at least 40 percent of the overall marketing budget – which the Content Marketing Institute’s research reveals is the baseline for successful B2B marketing – you’ll need to offer some solid numbers to verify all the potential you just demonstrated.

content-marketing-budgets

This means sharing key industry statistics to show how effective content marketing is at achieving marketing goals at each stage of the buyer’s journey:

Increasing website traffic and generating leads – companies that blog at least 15 times per month get 5 times more website traffic than companies that don’t. Companies with an active blog generate 97% more leads on their site than businesses who don’t have a blog.

Boosting conversions and sales – Conversion rates are 105 percent higher for consumers who interact with ratings and product reviews. Leads who receive email marketing messages spend 83 percent more when making purchases.

Building customer relationships – 70 percent of consumers prefer getting to know a company with articles instead of ads. 78 percent of consumers believe brands with custom content are interested in building relationships with them.

You also want to clearly demonstrate the historical ROI of your own content marketing. What are your organization’s marketing priorities this year? Focus on these goals when using your metrics to show how effective your content marketing has been.

Make Technology a Part of the Conversation

Tools that make once budget-prohibitive tasks like video production and personalization possible have really evolved the scope of what content marketers can do today. It’s definitely worth including the power of technology in the content you present to upper management.

Marketing automation. Interactive user interfaces. Cost-effective tools to help with content creation, from high-quality live video streaming to eBook creation and infographics. Defining a martech stack that works for your company can make things much more efficient.

What content marketing tools are you using now? How have they allowed you to reduce costs and do way, way more? How can investing in new technology empower your content marketing strategy even more?

Blow Them Away

Let’s be honest. Content marketing is pretty magnificent. When you look at how much this field of marketing has evolved and how much it has changed relationships between brands and buyers, and now, between employee, company, and customers with the thrust towards employee activation, the argument for content marketing goes much deeper than how effective it is, or how much it’s worth to a company.

It’s the way your brand comes alive to customers. Your organization’s content marketing strategy defines your brand to your audience.

So, to get C-suite to support your strategy and goals, make sure they know that by supporting content marketing, they’re deciding the role your brand plays in the future of your niche. Hero, teacher, helper, guide – or generic business. It’s content that makes the difference. 

3. How to Create an Effective Content Marketing Strategy

Build a plan. Create your content. Publish, measure, refine, repeat.

Seems straightforward enough. But this is the bare bones of content marketing. It’s creating a plan, not a strategy and it’s missing out on the impact potential of a goal-focused, personalized, purposeful approach to your brand’s content.

It’s one thing to have an appealing, educational lineup of blog posts, video content, infographics, white papers, and social media content. It’s a whole other science to make all these pieces come together and take on a life of their own, manifesting a walking, breathing force that is able to impact your marketing goals and drive business growth in the long term.

Once you get going with content marketing and finding your stride, you’ll want to up the sophistication level of your strategy to get more of an impact. Use these principles, the 3 P’s of effective content marketing, to evolve your strategy from ‘well, it exists but why haven’t we boosted our revenue yet?’ to ‘wow, what’s next?’

Priorities

In order to reach the right target at the right time with the right content, you need to identify what’s driving your content marketing strategy by identifying the why behind your strategy.

Define your strategy’s driving force, focusing on one or two priorities. Sure, every business wants their content marketing to increase website traffic, generate quality leads, boost brand awareness, improve customer loyalty, and every other marketing goal in the book. The inevitable mindset with this ‘all of the above’ approach is to create great content and then achieve a little bit of everything as a result. You may get some of your KPIs to hit their targets, but the real and sustainable impact isn’t there.

With effective content marketing, it’s the priority goals that drive the strategy. The “plan first, results later” approach gets turned inside out. You need the desired results – the most important why or why’s of your content marketing strategy – for fuel, inspiration, and direction. They drive the strategy.

This is how you get that magnificent self-perpetuating achievement you see with brands like Dropbox, Blue Apron, and Zendesk.

So, what should you focus on?

Don’t look for the priorities that will yield the most impressive content marketing ROI numbers, but rather the ones that are aligned with business goals. Of course, all points along the buyer’s journey matter all the time, but you need to hone in on which one is the most critical right now based on business needs. Where is your organization struggling? For example:

  • New service or other change you want customers to know about? Generate web traffic and fire up your social media platforms.
  • A growth plateau? Then focus on getting better quality leads.
  • Limited market reach? Then look to brand awareness and thought leadership.
  • Plagued by low engagement numbers? How is your content working to improve the customer experience?
  • Not getting repeat business or is your brand advocacy limited to an army of one? Your strategy should focus on customer loyalty and retention.

Here’s the thing. When you laser focus on one part of the buyer’s journey, you aren’t neglecting the rest. What you’re doing is laying the groundwork for the other priorities.

content-marketing-attracts-customers

Then, when you come around to the beginning of the funnel again or when you tailor your strategy to focus on one stage to the next, you’re already set up to create an even more effective strategy because your organization has more content marketing experience and (hopefully) resources.

  • Better quality content production
  • More sophisticated use of technology
  • Better informed metrics

And, more confidence – and organizational support – to push boundaries and be a content marketing innovator in your industry

Personalization

In 2015, Gartner predicted that companies heavily invested in personalization would outsell their competitors who lack personalization by 20 percent. Today’s content marketers need to be thinking personalization when developing their strategy. Personalized email offers, content sequencing, product suggestions, landing pages, and other types of personalized content are what customers expect today.

With the help of the right marketing automation platforms, marketers are using machine learning and predictive analytics to tailor content for both individuals and buyer segments, which creates a better experience.

Let’s face it, customers are more likely to walk away and write your brand off in their minds if they are exposed to one or two pieces of content that aren’t relevant to them. With so much content out there today, only what really matters to them will get any attention. In one Marketing Insider Group and OneSpot survey, 45 percent of consumers said they won’t spend time with a brand that’s not relevant to their interests. 42 percent are less interested in a brand’s products or services if the brand’s content isn’t personally relevant.

Write personalization into your content marketing strategy. This means looking at your marketing technology to make sure you are capable of offering better personalized content. It also means getting personal and taking the time to understand customer needs through both customer data and old school feedback.

My friend Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at Marketing Profs shares a great example of a small business that’s mastered content simply by asking their customers questions and creating content specifically for his audience.

She says, “Yale Appliance redeployed almost all of its marketing budget away from advertising. His [Steve Sheinkopf] content strategy has been extremely effective, and he’s done it by simply answering his audience’s questions … The reason why he’s killing it is he looks at his data, he figures out what his audience needs, and he creates content that meets his audience’s needs.”

Purpose

And the final P for effective content marketing – purpose. Why does your brand exist?

I talked about this concept years ago, sharing Simon Sinek’s amazing Ted Talk on how important the purpose is of your business to your customers, something a lot of brands overlook.

You need to get this higher purpose across in your content.

  • What purpose does your business have – how is it impacting society?
  • What are the values of your brand?
  • How can your products and services make your customers’ lives better?
  • How does your vision differentiate your business from your competitors?
  • And – where is it headed? What role will your business play in the future of society?

Here’s an excellent video of Steve Jobs talking about brand purpose for Apple.

He says, “But even a great brand needs investments in caring if it’s going to retain its relevance and vitality.” He goes on to explain how the way to do that isn’t to tell people your mission statement or your brand vision, but rather to evoke awareness of who you are through your content. Like Nike, “They honor great athletes and they honor great athletics. That’s who they are.”

What is the core, the archetypical belief that drives your brand? It’s there if you don’t know it already. You may have to dig deep for it, do a little organizational soul-searching. But, that’s what your customers will not just be motivated to connect with, but will desire to be a part of. And that’s really effective content marketing.

4. How to Build a Killer Content Marketing Team

Those spellbinding content marketing strategies – the ones that have catapulted startups into industry dominance and made decades-old brands more relevant than ever – they are not the product of a single creative genius.

Nope. It’s not a brilliant content creator or a flash of wisdom few of us can ever hope to attain.

It’s a hard-working, experienced content marketing team. A group of experts, each who excel in their area of content marketing and, at the same time, who understand how the whole puzzle comes together.

That’s how you get what Jolie Miller, content strategy and acquisitions leader at LinkedIn, calls great content. The stuff that “has the power to change people’s lives for a second or for days or forever.”

So, who should be in the starting lineup for your killer content marketing team? Here’s what you should look for when putting together your brand’s dream team and some content marketing job descriptions.

The Content Marketing Editor (Storyteller + Strategist)

When it comes to pulling off a revenue-boosting content marketing strategy, you’ll need an editor with experience and acumen in both refining content and in content creation. They have to be better at content creation than your copywriters, illustrators, and video producers in order to know how to improve what your creators are making.

Ideally, they’ll have copywriting experience and will have at least worked with other types of professional content creators. This will have helped them develop an eye and understanding for what premium content entails.

A content editor is also tasked with making sure content is high-quality and strategic. So, they’ll need to balance an eye for detail and an ability to see the overall picture, ensuring each piece of content is playing its part correctly within the whole.

Think of your content editor as a conductor in an orchestra. You may have a stage filled with skilled musicians. But the conductor is the one who brings out the magic in each of them. Good editors know how to do this with all of your content, ensuring each piece fits within the orchestra with the right tone of voice and staying true to the brand story. While also conveying the right message.

With a strong content marketing editor, your organization’s content will be:

  • Consistent – in style and tone
  • Top quality – this includes in the eyes of customers and search engines
  • Strategic – your editor will work with the rest of your content marketing team to make sure each piece supports and is supported by the rest to create a seamless experience for customers

Content Marketing Manager (Business Strategist + Visionary)

Your content marketing manager is the one who brings your content strategy down to earth, from brilliant creation to relevant, effective revenue driver. They know how to translate content into growth.

This is the person who’s in charge of aligning the strategy with business goals and keeping everyone on task with reaching your designated key performance indicators. And, they know how to do it within a budget.

Here’s the thing. There are as many content opportunities as there are stars in the sky. Influencer campaigns on LinkedIn or Instagram. Live events that invite customers into your brand’s community. Customer profile videos. Educational blog series.

content-marketing-job-description
Source: https://venngage.com/blog/influencers-picks-5-content-marketing-infographic-designs/

Deciding which content is the most appropriate for the brand, based on business objectives and budget, falls on the shoulders of the content marketing manager. They can look ahead and see how plugging all the different types of content, style choices, campaigns, and other factors into the equation will yield a solid ROI.

This individual knows the strengths and weaknesses of each channel and works closely with your content analytics head to ensure your strategy is pulling its weight and is knocking your content marketing goals out of the park.

Use this detailed look at the job description and job requirements for your content marketing manager hire to help you find someone with the right background.

Content Distribution Manager (Channel Master + Workflow Organizer)

Today, the way to effectively resonate with your target buyers is to get the right content to the right target, through the right channel, at the right time. Which is a nice way of saying a lot of thought, research, data, and calculation goes into every single distribution maneuver.

Easier said than done.

Don’t panic. This is your content distribution manager’s bread and butter. They are the ones who will:

  • Manage the content calendar
  • Have the content ideas set up or create them themselves
  • Ensure the content creators are getting everything done on schedule

Your distribution manager will also be manning the controls – your marketing automation software, content management software, and any internal workflow tools your organization uses.

Content Analytics and Optimization (Data Scientist and SEO Wizard)

Here’s your content marketing team’s data guru. The greater the background they have in data science, not just SEO, the better.

Your analytics expert will keep track of what content is performing well and what’s falling short. This is the individual that makes sure all the other people in your team aren’t working in the dark because they have accurate, in-depth data analysis to offer-up those must-have ROI and content performance insights.

Ideally, they’ll also be able to help your team get more out of your marketing software. Your brand will benefit from someone who knows how to use AI to get your team to the level where you are using predictive and prescriptive analytics to inform your marketing decisions.

They’ll also be in charge of staying up-to-date with SEO trends and making sure your content is as search-engine friendly as possible. Technical SEO is still the backbone of your content marketing – unless you don’t want anyone to see it.

Tap into an Endless Sea of Content Contributors

And, the final essential for your content marketing team – your brand advocate army. Your target buyers are some of your most powerful content creators. As are your own internal experts. These people have their own social media networks. But, more importantly, they aren’t your brand.

Only about 22% of brands are trusted by consumers. But 83% of consumers trust their peers over a brand’s messaging.

Your customers and your engaged employees offer something your branded content can’t ever pull-off, no matter how well-intentioned. Authenticity.

You can bring on the most experienced and skilled team of content managers, editors, analysts, SEO experts, and creators. But your content marketing strategy won’t have much mojo if you don’t have a plan for motivating and inviting your brand advocates to be a part of your team as well.

Pull all these elements together – your internal content marketing management team, content creators, and brand advocates – and your organization is on its way to the type of content marketing that has made this industry the $300 billion dollar industry that it is today.

5. How to Define and Measure the ROI of Content Marketing?

There are two huge pitfalls when it comes to establishing how your organization will define and measure the ROI of your content marketing.

  • One, getting lost in the numbers, focusing on too many key performance indicators and making it hard to get a clear picture of the impact your content is making.
  • Or, two, focusing on the wrong indicators to measure ROI for your business.

A lot of marketers struggle with ROI tracking. According to a B2B Content Marketing Report published by the Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn, 38 percent of marketers cite measuring content effectiveness as one of their greatest challenges. Only 8 percent consider themselves very or extremely successful at tracking ROI.

content-marketing-roi-define-measure

However, being in that 8 percent offers a powerful advantage. When you can successfully define and measure content marketing ROI you are armed with the information you need to keep improving your content marketing strategy so it’s always working.

Here’s the tricky part – there are a lot of moving pieces involved in a great strategy. A lot of these factors change over time, putting your content marketing in a constant state of evolution. Customer preferences. SEO best practice. New technology. Video trends.

In order to optimize your content marketing strategy and maintain enviable performance levels, you’ll need continual feedback and analysis of your content. But more than that, you’ll need clarity from your numbers.

Define the Purpose of Your ROI

Before identifying your top priorities and defining your metrics, you need to look at the purpose behind the work.

Why are you measuring content marketing ROI?

The answer to this question is often the root of a misguided tracking strategy. If you are defining your ROI metrics solely to demonstrate results and to justify your organization’s content marketing budget, you may get a confusing picture when you try to look at your analysis to determine what’s working, what’s not, and how you can make your content marketing strategy better.

When there is a lot of pressure on content marketing managers to demonstrate value, there’s the risk of honing in on vanity metrics. Take web traffic as an example. In the same survey mentioned earlier, of 600 B2B respondents, 63 percent measure web traffic to gauge content marketing success. Only 26% look at subscriber growth and 21 percent look at revenue. Web traffic is a useful number to look at if you are trying to build your audience. It can also be an impressive figure to show off to budget decision makers.

But if you aren’t looking at how many of those website visitors are converting into leads or customers, your web traffic numbers create a very blurry picture. You know people are visiting but you don’t know if your content is compelling enough to motivate action so you don’t know if or how it needs to change.

Yes, there’s pressure on content marketers to prove the resources invested in case studies, videos, blog posts, infographics, social posts and other pieces of your content puzzle are well spent. But you don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to uncover those hidden gems that will paint a crystal clear picture of what your content marketing is doing.

When you are using your metrics to inform your strategy more than your budget, you’re going to get the insights you need to keep making it better.

Simplify the Value of Content Marketing for ‘Outsiders’

Instead of measuring content just to justify it, you can use cost tracking to make the value of your content marketing black and white to C-suite with one simple analysis. Then, you can spend more of your ROI bandwidth on metrics that matter.

Keep track of how much each piece of content you product costs. If you’re outsourcing, you may have straightforward expenses for some of your content. Don’t forget to also include the time spent by your team editing, managing, and promoting the content.

If you don’t have the resources for this type of heavy cost analysis, you can audit some of your content. For example, what are your total content costs in a month or what’s the average for three months? Then, you can look at your costs and revenue to determine your content marketing ROI.

Once you have this baseline, compare it to your organization’s marketing ROI for targeted advertising. This can be a helpful comparison to gain support from executive management so you can go back and focus on measuring content performance.

Be Strategic About Defining Your Metrics

There are dozens of performance indicators you can look at to track your content ROI.

Content-marketing-kpis-by-goal

Performance metrics will reveal what you need to know, as long as you tie them to your business goals. Which means you aren’t going to focus on the same metrics all the time. As your business goals and, therefore, your content marketing priorities change, so will the numbers you use to gauge performance. The trick is to make sure your defined content metrics are always telling your brand’s story.

  • For example, if you are trying to build your audience, sure, look at web traffic. You also want to know your brand’s share of the conversation and social media sharing, bounce rate and time on site. This will give you a better idea of engagement and how much your content is king in your industry.
  • If your business needs better-qualified leads and conversions, your content strategy will probably focus on creating case studies, white papers, eBooks, and other content that motivates people to subscribe to your newsletter. This is where you’ll look at both your conversion numbers for your content as well as customer retention numbers. How long are the leads you work so hard to nurture with your content staying as customers?
  • For customer loyalty, the focus will be on retention as well as monitoring customer feedback. How much of a response are you getting and what is the qualitative response to your content? What percentage of people respond favorably to your social posts, blog posts, white papers, videos, events or other types of content?

Set Your Benchmarks

Once you have your current priorities set and you know what metric data to focus on, you can create your performance benchmarks. What does content marketing success look like for your organization? Being able to measure against your benchmarks makes it easier to see if your content is helping to reach goals or if it needs work.

Then, when you calculate the ROI of your content by looking at your costs vs. revenue (or a given value for an action if you can’t tie a metric directly to revenue), you can see where things are working and where you need to make changes to either the content or a part of your strategy.

This is why tracking your ROI with the intent of informing your content is so important. When you can see where one content channel is experiencing higher than normal conversion numbers, where another seems to lead to an apparent dead end landing page, what types of your content are making up the bulk of your industry presence, and every other pearl of wisdom you dictate your data to tell you – you have a wealth of information to constantly refine your strategy.

And, never-ending refinement is what brilliant, business-boosting content strategies are made from.

6. Where to Build Your Content Hub

One way to make your content marketing more effective and to make your best content more accessible is to build a content hub. Your hub acts as your content’s online repository. It’s a sort of branded resource center or command central for your thought leadership.

With a hub, not only can your audience delve deeper into your online content library because your top blogs, videos, case studies and more are clearly organized on one page or microsite, but you also have more control over how you want to guide your brand’s voice in the industry conversation.

For example, you can create a broader context for each piece of content, which gives all your content more meaning. That thought-provoking blog post on the latest industry research offers a whole other level of value when placed next to a how-to video that shows your customers how to apply these new research insights.

It’s the central location where your whole content marketing strategy comes together in one neat, attractive, thoughtfully put together place, which exists….well that’s the challenge. The where of your content hub is a big deal.

Should it be part of your website? Or should it be a standalone entity?

Getting the ‘where’ part right will dictate how easily your audience can find your content hub. It also dictates the impression your hub makes.

The Pros of Building Your Content On Your Website

There are major advantages to creating a content hub on your website. It’s like doing a home extension project versus building a separate ADU on your property. It’s easier, more streamlined and it’s connected to your products or services.

SEO

This advantage works both ways. The dynamic appeal of your hub’s media mix will boost your website’s SEO. At the same time, you won’t have to start from the ground up to generate traffic and optimize a separate site for your content hub because your website’s users can stay on your site to explore the hub.

Lower resource commitment

With limited resources, it’s a lot easier to build upon the website you already have than to create a standalone hub, promote it, optimize it, and make it into its own worthwhile online hot spot for your audience. This makes building onsite appealing to smaller businesses who don’t have the resources to create and cultivate a separate online entity.

Streamlined analytics

Your content hub will give you a lot of analytics as it tracks the way users interact with your hub’s content. When it’s an extension of your corporate website, this data can be streamlined with your other website data, giving you a clearer picture of your audience instead of having to differentiate between the two different sources of content data – and possibly, different buyer segments (unless that’s exactly what you are going for).

On-site hubs elevate the overall website, making it a greater source of value for your buyers and a more attractive destination. With smaller companies or if your hub is clearly aligned with the ideas, value propositions, and has the same SEO and target market you’re appealing to (and learning about through analytics), building your hub as just one more destination on your website makes a lot of sense.

REI’s content hub is an excellent example of a successful onsite hub.

When visitors click on the tab for REI’s CO-OP Journal, they stumble into a sea of well-organized content. The hub is user-friendly as it’s divided into multiple topics and subtopics – activities, gear, how-to’s, and local content. REI clearly positions themselves with their hub as an ultimate source of outdoor enthusiasts and adventurers. But it also uses the space to connect visitors with branded content that really drives home the REI story, which they may not have originally sought out, like their content surrounding sustainability and social responsibility and REI’s unique series – Take It From Me and Wild Ideas Worth Living.

REI’s content hub has enough complexity to deserve a microsite. But why take your audience to a different site when your products are a click away from inspiring content?

The Pros of Building a Standalone Content Hub

As practical as building your content hub on your site is, there are situations where it makes more sense to create a standalone content hub.

When your big company is also slow to adapt

Depending on your organizational structure, keeping your hub separate may be a smarter strategy. For example, in larger companies where there is a lot of red tape to make anything happen to the website, it may be wiser to let the content marketing team work at its pace to build an unfettered content hub.

When your hub itself is too big

One of the reasons to build a hub for your content in the first place is it improve the customer experience. Hub visitors can quickly access the information they want and can see, at a glance, related content they may be interested in. If your hub is loaded with different types of content, combined with different landing pages to pick up subscribers, event registrants, webinar sign-ups, podcast followers, and more, then your hub may need a home of its own. This allows you to create a better user experience and to better control the way visitors interact with your content.

To differentiate sales and content

When your content hub is all about establishing industry authority, it can be smart to make a standalone hub. This allows you to keep the sales pitch a mile away from the thought leadership articles, content created by your employees, curated content, and other content that is focused more on the message than the actual company.

To reach a new or specific audience

A separate microsite gives your content marketing the ability to take off in a new and exciting direction because it’s somewhat removed from the brand’s online corporate base. This also makes it a smart move if you want your hub to cater to a specific buyer segment.

The Hartford Financial Services has a dedicated content hub for targeting small business owners. SmallBiz is packed with helpful articles on topics small business owners and entrepreneurs would be interested in, as well as a SmallBiz podcast.

This how having a separate content resource center makes more sense. It appeals directly to a certain segment, creating a better experience for these viewers. This also makes it easier to generate leads as the entire hub directs viewers to one primary action – to sign up as a subscriber.

The Content Hub Location Checklist

When deciding where to build your content hub, you can use this checklist summarizing TriComB2B’s Chris Eifert’s advice to help narrow down what online space makes more sense for your brand and your content marketing strategy.

If your goal is…

  • SEO, then using your corporate website is better
  • Objectivity and authenticity, then a stand-alone hub is better
  • To quickly create a site and you don’t have time for website bureaucracy, go for standalone
  • The best user experience, then standalone is usually better, although a great user experience can work on the corporate website
  • Lead generation, then standalone is usually more effective

Add to this list, these factors:

  • Limited resources or small market presence, business website wins
  • Planning on creating one or more hubs for different segments, opt for standalone.

Make Your Content Hub Strategic

When you have a solid content marketing strategy, your content hub is what can bring it all together for your audience. It also creates a central platform for sharing the strategy – inviting hub visitors to more than a blog post or a video but the whole pie, all in one, convenient location. It gives you more space to get your brand story clearly across than a single piece of content, and more opportunity to show your buyers just how useful your content – and by extension, your brand – can be in their lives.

8. How Much Budget Do You Need for Content Marketing?

You know your content marketing strategy will positively impact your marketing goals and business bottom line. But, how much budget do you need to make sure your content marketing is effective enough?

There are two perspectives when it comes to the content marketing budget:

  • Invest more and gain more – The more layered, the better supported by technology, and the more skill you have going into your content creation, the greater potential impact.
  • Content marketing can be extremely cost-effective so harness that advantage – Part of the power of content marketing is its ability to deliver cost-effective results. Remember, content marketing costs 62% less than outbound (as per the CMI) yet generates three times as many leads. It also drives conversion rates that are six times higher than other marketing methods.

Both of these budget perspectives are true. With a large budget, you can invest in better technology to make your strategy more effective. You can keep up with (and reap the rewards of) the big-hitting content marketing tactics like influencer marketing and experiential marketing. But, there’s also a lot you can do with a small budget, even as a tiny startup.

When you have the budget to move beyond blogs, social media and explainer videos, you can start moving into creating a multi-dimensional brand ‘world’ that your audience can not just buy from, but also become a part of. This is where you’ll find not just your traffic and lead generation numbers rising but also your loyalty metrics.

Here’s the thing. If you start with a large budget but haven’t yet mastered the efficient use of your content marketing dollars, you could be losing a chunk of your budget. For B2B marketers, on average, 70 percent of content created never gets used. That’s mind blowing!

content unused
Source: https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/blog/best-practices–content-marketing/2016/introducing-the-sophisticated-marketers-guide-to-content-marketi

So, to figure out how much is enough, look at the content marketing budget as an evolving number. Even if you end up with a small budget this year, that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to increase it by 10 percent, 20 percent, or more in the following year. This gives you the flexibility to have what you need but also to avoid wasting your budget simply because your organization doesn’t yet have enough experience with content marketing, what it can do, and what channels and tactics make the most sense for your brand.

How Much Does Content Marketing Cost?

More companies are using content marketing (86% of B2C organizations and 91% of B2B marketers). And, most of those who are using it are increasing their budgets each year.

What’s the average spend on content marketing? Overall, 26% of the total marketing budget is dedicated to content marketing for the B2B sector. For B2C, it’s 22 percent.

But, here’s where it gets interesting. The most successful organizations spend closer to 40%of their total marketing budget on content strategy. Those with a relatively mature hold on content marketing spend about one-third of their budget on content.


Setting your content marketing budget has a lot more to do with how much your organization has already done with content marketing rather than just throwing a quarter or a third of the budget towards content. A lot of this comes down to the nature of a good strategy – you have to get to know what works for your brand and what resonates well with your buyer segments to create a more sophisticated strategy.

You also need to understand the cost of content marketing and create a strategy that delivers more high quality content, while posting as often as possible

The only way to learn this is to start using content marketing, tracking the ROI of your content, and analyzing what works and what doesn’t. Then, you can go back and improve upon your strategy even further, ideally boosting web traffic, lead generation, and revenue growth, and being worthy of a bigger chunk of the marketing budget.

Who’s Increasing Their Content Marketing Budget?

Just under half of B2B marketers plan on using the same budget from 2018 to 2019. About 38% plan on increasing what they spend, with only three percent expecting to use a smaller budget in the future. This is a trend that has been going on for years, with 2015 being the sixth consecutive year for double-digit growth of the content marketing industry.

Part of this is driven by the ROI – organizations experience a greater return as their strategy gets more effective. So, they invest more. It’s also driven by competition. With only a small fraction of companies not using content marketing, how can you expect to keep up with advertising and other outbound methods? Customers’ expectations for high-quality, relevant content are increasing, which means the more developed your strategy is and your use of technology, the easier it will be to ensure your content becomes the cream of the crop, rising to the top of search engines, social feeds, and email inboxes.

How to Build a Content Budget that Makes Sense

What do you need to factor into your content budget?

Who’s on your content team?

If you don’t already have a content marketing manager, you may want to put this position on your list of budget priorities. 43 percent of organizations have a dedicated manager. You also want to look at what content creators and analysts you’ll need and which ones will be outsourced. Strategists, social media managers, copywriters, content editors, video production. The list can get pretty long.

What content marketing tools do you need?

What tools does your organization already have, need to upgrade, or need to start using? From your automation software to content management, collaborative platforms and SEO tools, most content marketing teams use an array of tools. A lot of your technology is priced based on a monthly subscription or user-based fee. Your technology expense will make up a lot of your fixed costs.

What content is in your strategy?

Being able to create a workable budget is one of the reasons for having a solid content marketing strategy is so important. Only when you have a detailed strategy, including what content is going to be published and where, how it’s going to be promoted, and your timeline for how your content strategy will unfold over the next three months, six months, and current year, will you have any idea of how much it is going to cost.

You can estimate the cost of each piece of content, looking at either your outsourcing fees or the cost per hour of your content creators. Detailing the costs of each piece of content, as well as different components (How much does your blog cost a month? Infographics, videos, event marketing?), won’t just make budgeting easier. Calculating your ROI will be a lot easier too.

There’s No Such Thing as a Static Budget

Even with a detailed analysis of your expected costs and factoring in what percentage of your marketing budget make sense based on your organization’s level of content marketing sophistication, you shouldn’t expect to stick to your budget. Here’s why. To really be successful at content marketing, you have to keep refining your strategy. As you gather more customer data and feedback and identify what resonates, you can continually improve upon what you have – which means there will be changes.

To make room for your content strategy to evolve, plan for some flexibility in your budget. This way you’ll have enough in your budget for brilliance.

Conclusion to The Ultimate Guide To Content Marketing Strategy ROI

I realize the title of this post is a bold claim. I’ve poured at least 40 hours into it so I hope the time was worth it for you. But if you are still wondering how to get ROI from your Content Marketing, just click on the contact link up above. I promise to get back to you within a day!

The post The Ultimate Guide to a Content Marketing Strategy That Delivers ROI appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

B2B marketing trends continue to rapidly evolve as content marketing becomes more important than ever. Marketers have shifted their focus from sales to digital content marketing strategies and search engine optimization tactics to attract new customers to their business.

Keeping your business ahead of the marketing curve calls for an understanding of what’s coming next. Here’s our expert opinion on which B2B marketing trends your company should explore in 2023.

Key Takeaways

  • The number of businesses adopting artificial intelligence has grown by 270% in four years
  • According to Harvard Business Review, a 5% increase in customer retention can deliver up to 95% increase in profits
  • 67% of consumers reported using a chatbox support system in the past year and expect 24/7 customer service
  • Spending $4,000 – $8,000 per month on content marketing will earn your business a predictable Marketing ROI

Make the most of your marketing efforts and positively impact the growth of your business by focusing on the most important B2B marketing trends in 2023.

7 B2B Marketing Trends

Core content marketing principles of the past still apply – sharing high-quality content is always key to boosting your credibility and revenue.

Although, every new year brings new ways to accomplish your marketing goals. Here’s 7 B2B marketing trends we’re expecting to see in 2023.

1. AI on the Rise

We don’t expect to see AI’s popularity slowing down anytime soon. In fact, the number of businesses adopting artificial intelligence has grown by 270% in four years.

image shows statistic of 270% growth in businesses using artificial intellige

Image Source: Oberlo

In 2022, there has been an increasing amount of tools available to provide some form of artificial intelligence to B2Bs. Automating, curating, personalizing and optimizing your strategy is effortless with the help of AI.

In 2023, every business can benefit from artificial intelligence to streamline its efforts towards growth. Even digitizing data and automating email sequences can be done with the help of machine learning to avoid potential manual mistakes.

Not only will artificial intelligence give marketers helpful insight, but it will also boost their business’s performance. While AI can’t replace your human employees, it can help enhance the efficiency of your content marketing strategy.

2. Retention Marketing

A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush, right? Well, what’s it worth to then keep that bird happy and healthy for a long time? That’s retention marketing.

Retention marketing has been around since the time the first person sold something to someone else. Why? Because the seller eventually realized that it’s easier and more efficient to sell to existing customers than it is to find new customers.

In short, retention marketing is the set of activities that seek to maintain customer relationships resulting in higher marketing ROI through continued sales at a lower cost per sale.

Retention marketing can increase both the amount of time a customer continues buying from you, as well as how much they buy. We often call this cross-sell and upsell. We want to sell more products and services to existing customers and also at higher prices and profit.

How much profit? According to Harvard Business Review, a 5% increase in customer retention can deliver up to 95% increase in profits.

B2B Marketers love to talk about acquiring new customers. But the bottom line is that Retention Marketing might be a better place to start in 2021. Especially if budgets are limited.

What are some of the best ways to retain customers?

  1. Onboarding & Education
  2. Customer Training
  3. Constant Communication
  4. Ongoing customer support
  5. Surveys & testimonials
  6. Customer appreciation

illustration depicts components important to customer retention

Image Source: Rise Strategic

3. Content Marketing

Go big or go home! In 2021, only committed brands are going to win in content marketing. I hear it all the time from brand marketers who aren’t committed to content marketing. “There’s so much noise out there! How can I break through?”

Based on that argument you have 3 choices. 1) Give up and just let your marketing people start cold calling (trust me, I’ve literally been asked to do this!) 2) Advertise your way to growth. 3) Or commit to the long-term strategic ROI of content marketing.

And there are amazing examples of brands who have grown massive audiences from scratch in just the last 18 months.

What did they do differently? They published consistently based on keyword research. They mixed in long form and short form content. They profiled customers, executives, and partners. They focused on building subscribers. They put paid promotion on their top performing content.

How much do they spend? $4,000 – $8,000 per month is all the marketing budget you need for a predictable Marketing ROI. Less than the cost of a Director of Marketing salary!

4. Interactive Content

In order to increase consumer interactions and engagements, businesses need to make their content more interactive. Your business can do this by encouraging followers to share your posts on social media, creating interesting quizzes, filming videos, and implementing infographics.

Honda released an interactive short-story video, in which viewers had the opportunity to control the main character’s reality. According to Honda’s data, visitors spent an average of 3 minutes engaging with the video, far above their standard page interactions. Honda’s site visits doubled the start of their campaign.

Video Source: Honda

Interactive content can help increase customers’ attention spans by encouraging them subtly to engage more with your content and marketing material. As consumers’ habits and tastes move closer towards interactive content, storytelling becomes an essential feature for business success.

5. Chatbots

Chatbots are an essential part of web design and will continue to act as an important business feature in 2021. Globally, 67% of consumers reported using a chatbox support system in the past year. Many clients are beginning to expect quick replies to questions and 24/7 customer service representatives on call. This can be a hard task to manage without the help of chatbots which will be programmed to match human behavior and offer similar services.

This tool is used by many industries to answer clients’ questions and help them navigate through a company’s website. Chatbots can help your business provide faster, improved online experiences.  As a result of this digital feature, businesses will see an increase in consumer engagements, business connections and overall client satisfaction.

6. Nostalgia Marketing

Nostalgia marketing can help B2B marketers relate their products and services to the world. Your company can start to participate in nostalgic marketing strategies by being authentic, capitalizing on cultural trends and reintroducing a product or service that was discontinued.

image of nostalgic TV set

As the world navigates these unprecedented times, nostalgia marketing has become an even more valuable tool. Nostalgia is familiar, safe and comforting, which is exactly what our world needs now and in the future of 2021.

7. Voice Marketing

Voice search and digital assistant utilization will only increase with every passing day. When voice devices were originally created, they were used for grocery store lists and notes. However, consumers are now using voice searches to play favorite songs, ask questions, get directions, turn up the temperature, and whatnot.

Marketers see great opportunities in this tool as it gives us more information about our consumers and their needs. Alexa and Google Home have created a huge increase in the usage of voice search. It is extremely important to make sure your company is ready and has the tools needed to successfully compete with other businesses using this advanced technology tool.

Start Marketing Your Content Today

Understanding B2B marketing trends will help you focus your marketing strategy towards driving traffic, reaching your audience and maximizing revenue.

The most effective content marketing strategies prioritize consistently publishing high-quality content. Grow your business today with Marketing Insider Group’s team of experts and deliver optimized, ready-to-publish content every week.

Check out our SEO Blog Writing Service today or schedule a quick consultation now to learn more!

The post B2B Marketing Trends That Will Grow Your Business in 2023 appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

Where to Find Data for Your Storytelling Content

Would you like to take your content marketing to the next level?

Using data in your content marketing is what will help.

As the name suggests, data-driven storytelling is creating stories based on data.

Why Use Data for Storytelling?

There are two heavily interconnected reasons here:

  • Data makes stories more trustworthy
  • Storytelling makes data easier to understand and relate to.

In short, that’s the perfect match right there: Data helps influence how people perceive a topic. Stories are how we help numbers make sense.

A story helps marketers communicate complex ideas and accelerate the decision-making process for decision makers.

Data makes stories share-worthy and link-worthy.

With all of that in mind, data-driven storytelling can help boost the performance of many of your current marketing tactics:

  • Link building (just about any form of data is known to attract links, especially if it’s packages as a story)
  • Viral marketing (data told as a story drives people to uncover theories and concepts they’ve never thought of previously, so they are likely to share it around)
  • Sales (thanks to its ability to simplify and hence accelerate the decision making process)

How to Create a Good Data-Driven Story

There are three key factors that make a good story:

  • It needs to be relevant
  • It needs to use good visuals
  • It needs to be clear and relatable

Now, add data to that equation. 

As it sounds pretty vague, let’s look at one perfect example of all of that done absolutely ingeniously. Meet the “Examining Inequality” report from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The report examines how people are actually born unequal, visualizing how for someone born in a poor country getting to a healthy, quality life requires overcoming “hurdle after hurdle after hurdle.”

Examining Inequality

The report uses publicly available data to tell a story of a girl born in the Sahel, one of the poorest regions in the world, and how it takes it longer for her to achieve what people in the United States may take for granted.

The trick is, we all knew that already but the way this story is built makes it eye-opening. By the time we are done reading and looking at the visuals, we are saying to ourselves, “This shouldn’t be like this!”

The report closes with another convincing part: How the foundation is making a difference (and how you can help as well).

drive action with data

This is another set of data that makes a perfect conclusion and drives action.

That’s exactly the goal of data-driven storytelling: Data brings up points to base your story on, and then data provides solutions to drive action from the readers. This particular story accomplishes everything, from driving conversions (donations) to attracting links and shares.

Data-driven stories can be text-based and visual (or both as the above example). They can be based on public and private data (or both as, again, the above example).

Let’s see if we can learn create stories using data:

Use Public Data to Tell Stories

There is a ton of data available publicly. Some tools are free, some of them are paid, but there’s a variety. Let’s look at the three main tools:

Google

Google provides a huge amount of data you can use to re-package into beautiful stories. Here are a few ideas for you to get started:

  • Here are a few great ideas on using Google Trends for writers: Some very actionable tips you can implement while reading.
  • Here’s another example of using Google Trends to tell a story of a brand during global lockdowns.
  • Here’s my own guide on using Google’s Autocomplete as the data source.

There are multiple platforms that use Google to collect even more data. SE Ranking offers an advanced keyword suggestion tool that reports on ranking fluctuations, traffic costs and related trends. It is a great source of data (albeit not free).

SE Ranking suggestion tool

Zoho Surveys

While the above tools are free, Zoho offers a paid tool allowing anyone to collect data by surveying people.

Zoho Market Research Surveys offers a few targeting options allowing you to collect responses based on an industry, age, gender, location and more. 1000 responses cost about $2000.

Zoho Market Research Surveys target audience

It is not cheap, so you need to have a clear idea of the kind of a story you are shaping here before investing. There are many more market research tools you can use to create stories that fit your niche and product.

GOV Resources

Government provides an abundance of freely accessible data for you to repackage into convincing stories. You can find lots of that data using Google and site:GOV filter to force Google to only search official government sources:

Google GOV filter

You can also filter results by publication date to see more recent data:

gov filter publication dates

Wikipedia is another great source of both data and inspiration. So I would highly recommend monitoring the most important Wikipedia pages in your category. Visualping can help you do that easily, so you never miss the most recent updates or data added to anyWikipedia page (or pages).

Visualping wiki

Use Your Customers’ Data to Tell Stories

This is the data you own (provided your customers have granted you their permission to use that data). It includes:

  • Your web analytics information (including eye- and clicking software like heatmaps)
  • Your customer survey data. You can use free Google Forms to collect answers from your customers or audience.

This sort of data can make perfect social proof, especially case studies illustrating your customers’ success stories with your products.

Nextiva is a great example of promoting its contact center solutions by using its customers’ stories.

Nextiva customer stories

Apart from publicly available social proof, private data-driven stories make perfect material for sales materials that your team can utilize to close sales. Visual case studies make great Tumblr content, Instagram posts and even Pinterest boards.

Conclusion

In short, data-driven storytelling is more than using data to create nice visuals. It is about making data explain real life.

Data can make any story more convincing and shareable, if you use it well. The stories are there not to beautify your data, but to make it more relatable and easier to understand. It may take quite a lot of time brainstorming and researching before you come up with the right data and the right story (as well as the right package). Good luck!

The post Where to Find Data for Your Storytelling Content appeared first on Convince & Convert.

marketing insider group shares how to build the perfect content marketing funnel

Your content marketing strategy isn’t going to reach new heights without a carefully curated content marketing funnel. A well-crafted content marketing funnel helps drive traffic, generate leads and secure conversions. All you need is an effective plan and high-quality content.

Luckily, we’ve outlined everything you need to know to understand the content marketing funnel. In this post, you’ll learn how you can create your content plan, maximize each stage of the buyers’ journey, and share content that encourages conversions.

Quick Takeaways

  • Content marketing funnels allow you to align your content with each stage of the buyer’s journey, maximizing their experience and encouraging conversion 
  • 80% of bloggers report successful results when posting blog content consistently 
  • The key to a successful content marketing funnel is understanding your target audience and catering your content to their needs
  • 72% of consumers only engage with personalized marketing messages 

Well-crafted content marketing funnels serve as a reliable means of increasing brand awareness, educating readers and generating conversions.

What Is A Content Marketing Funnel?

The content marketing funnel is an essential part of every marketing strategy. It aligns your content delivery with the needs of customers throughout their journey, ensuring an engaging experience for both you and your audience.

Using a content marketing funnel will allow you to strategically publish your content and maximize its effectiveness according to each stage of the buyer’s journey:

  1. Top of the Funnel (TOFU): Awareness
  2. Middle of the Funnel (MOFU): Evaluation
  3. Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU): Decision
  4. Retention

infographic explains the 4 stages of the B2B marketing funnel

Image Source: Adrienne Smith

Each stage of the buyer’s journey serves as an opportunity to share specific content that encourages conversion.

The Key To Success

The key to creating a successful content marketing funnel is understanding your buyer’s journey and tailoring your funnel to their needs. To learn more about the importance of understanding the buyer’s journey, enjoy the short video below.

Video Source: Frank Kern

If you can answer potential customers’ questions with high quality content, you’ll make them feel understood and supported, ultimately driving them towards conversion.

A successful content marketing funnel will:

  • Increase customer value
  • Improve customer relationships
  • Fill content gaps
  • Encourage conversions
  • Enhance retention

The next step to building the perfect content marketing funnel is understanding the stages of the buyers’ journey and types of content that enhance their experience.

Stage 1: Awareness

Every buyers’ journey starts at the Top of the Funnel (TOFU) with brand awareness. At this stage of the funnel, your audience is looking for information to help solve a problem, execute a task or learn something new.

It’s your job to meet their needs. During this phase, your goal is to:

  • Spark interest
  • Demonstrate expertise
  • Build authority

Doing so will attract them to your business and gently encourage them to keep engaging with your brand.

Content Types

In the past year, 86% of marketers have used content marketing to raise brand awareness, making it one of the most popular ways to effectively spread knowledge about your business.

image shows statistic that states 86% of B2B marketers have used content marketing to raise brand awareness

Image Source: 1827 Marketing

TOFU content should generate traffic, social media engagement, mentions by influencers and media, and newsletter subscriptions. Some of the most popular and effective types of TOFU content include:

  • Blog Posts
  • Landing Pages
  • Infographics
  • Ebooks
  • How-to videos
  • Cold emails

Focus content on educating readers and demonstrating value to your audience. Each form of content above should share useful information and establish credibility with potential customers.

TOFU Tips

Since readers are just getting to know your brand, there’s a few things you should know to maximize the effectiveness of your content marketing funnel.

  • Prioritize SEO. SEO is one of the best ways to reach new audiences. Carefully completing keyword research and adhering to SEO guidelines will help maximize your brand’s visibility and increase your chances of gaining new leads.
  • Minimize Self-Promotion. During this stage, your goal is to educate customers and build trust. CTAs and offering use of free tools are always encouraged, but pushing your products and services can cause prospects to lose trust.
  • Blog, Blog, Blog. Consistently sharing blog posts is one of the most effective ways to share information and gain visibility. In fact, 80% of bloggers report successful results when posting content consistently.

circle graph shows that 80% of bloggers report that blogging drives results

Image Source: Orbit Media

Check out Marketing Insider Group’s guide to creating the perfect blog post to get started today.

Stage 2: Evaluation

In Stage 2, customers want to learn more about the solution you offer so they can accurately evaluate whether or not it will solve their problem.

Now that you’ve reached the Middle of the Funnel, or MOFU, your goal is to:

  • Educate buyers on your solution
  • Stand out from the competition
  • Continue to demonstrate expertise

Since you’ve already established brand awareness and the ability to solve customer problems, you’ve built enough trust to start suggesting minor commitments with your content.

Content Types

Remember, customers aren’t yet convinced to convert. Demonstrating your expertise is the best way to build trust with your audience and encourage them to make a purchase. Therefore, MOFU content should include:

  • Case studies
  • Comprehensive guides
  • Explainer videos
  • Webinars
  • Testimonials & reviews

These types of content are more product-oriented and help prospects understand the benefits of purchasing your marketing offering. Featuring testimonials on your website can be one of the best indications that you’re prepared to satisfy customer needs.

screenshot example of testimonials page for B2B marketers

Image Source: Appsumo

MOFU content also provides an opportunity to further engage with your audience and expand their knowledge of your business.

MOFU Tips

Here’s how to succeed as your potential customers evaluate the ability of your business:

  • Repurpose Your Content. Combining your TOFU content, like blog posts and infographics, into a more saturated offering can help make your MOFU more targeted.
  • It’s Safe To Self-Promote. Now that your audience has made the conscious decision to keep interacting with your brand, it’s safe to tastefully plug your products or services.
  • Don’t Give Up On Your Blog. Just because blogs serve as TOFU content, doesn’t mean you can’t use them to target mid-funnel prospects too. Sharing long-form posts, such as “What To Look For In A Copywriting Service”, can be one of the most effective ways to educate your audience about your products or services.

Stage 3: Decision

Congratulations! Your prospect has decided to convert. But, your work is far from done. In this stage, prospects are convinced that your solution is the best, but still need a bit more guidance and education.

At the Bottom of the Funnel, or BOFU, your content needs to:

  • Address any hesitations
  • Answer any final questions
  • Make buyers feel confident to convert

This stage of the content marketing funnel calls for creative ways to seal the deal. Luckily, there’s several types of content to publish that can help you do just that.

Content Types

Hands-on experience and customer reviews are some of the most effective ways to demonstrate success. Types of content that prove you’re the best option include:

  • Case studies
  • Comparison tools
  • Product pages and overviews
  • Success stories
  • Pitch Decks
  • Demos
  • Consultations

Since case studies are customer-generated, they offer a convincing form of content that proves your ability to potential buyers. After all, 93% of buyers make decisions based on customer reviews.

BOFU Tips

Here’s what you need to know for BOFU content:

  • Copywriting is Key. Your potential buyer is on high-alert for any reason why they shouldn’t trust your business. This means that every detail counts. Learn how to perfect your copywriting to avoid turning off prospects with poor grammar and lengthy-text.
  • Hone In On Your Target. Content shared at this stage is especially important. 72% of consumers reported that they only engage with personalized content. Sharing personalized content catered to specific buyer personas makes your prospect feel seen.

screenshot example of testimonials page for B2B marketers

Image Source: 1827 Marketing

Stage 4: Retention

Just because you’ve made a profit doesn’t mean you can pull the plug on catering to customer needs. Establish brand loyalty during The Retention Stage by continuing to provide value and engage your audience.

Now that you’ve reached The Retention Stage, it’s time to focus your attention on:

  • Providing support
  • Sharing helpful tips
  • Guiding customers to maximize their investment

Continuing to share valuable insights and resources will keep your customers content and coming back for more.

Content Types

The best types of content for keeping your audience engaged throughout the customer lifecycle include:

  • Announcements
  • Help articles
  • Personalized emails
  • Surveys/polls
  • Blogs, guides & webinars for continued education

These types of content keep paying customers updated, while reminding them to engage with your business and expand their knowledge of your brand.

Retention Tips

Use your content marketing funnel to retain your paying customers and:

  • Keep Sharing Helpful Information. Your TOFU content is still useful, even though readers have already converted. Paying customers are still interested in learning about other topics related to your business.
  • Cater to Your Audience. Segmenting your audience helps you further serve each buyer persona. Whether you’re sharing a blog post or sending an email, segmenting your audience will help you cater to their specific needs.

Start Funneling Success Today

Building the perfect content marketing funnel is simple when you understand your audience and cater to their needs. Although, consistently sharing high-quality content presents its own set of challenges.

Marketing Insider Group specializes in creating helpful content that generates growth for businesses. Master your content marketing funnel by checking out Marketing Insider Group’s expert SEO Blog Writing Service today, or schedule a quick consultation now to learn more!

The post How to Build the Perfect Content Marketing Funnel appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.