B L O G G I N G F O R R O I : C U LT I VAT E Y O U R B R A N D A N D G R O W Y O U R R E A C H

S U Z A N N E B A R A N W I T I 2 0 1 4 @ B A R A N E S S 7 5

W H AT Y O U ’ L L L E A R N

• Why content is at the forefront of digital strategy

• How to evangelize the importance of content marketing for your brand, product, service or sector

• Tips and tricks of the trade

• Tactics and strategy

• Measuring ROI

W H O A M I ?

16 year veteran of content creation, Content Strategy and Content Marketing career includes: Scottrade, AT&T, Yahoo, DIRECTV, Toyota, Intel, Sony, MGM Grand, Cisco, others

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• Led a stable of bloggers at Yahoo, AT&T, Celebuzz, California Psychics (CP: 400K in weekly new referrals from 25K - inside one year)

• Department Lead – co-creation of content strategy services at Rosetta, Brighter Collective, and Saatchi & Saatchi, SapientNitro

• Guest speaker / panelist and educator - Digital Growth Summit, frequently quoted in publications: Amex Open, Hubspot, AdKnowledge, Content Matters Podcast & others.

W H Y B L O G ?

• Teach, learn, lead and connect

• Solve your audience’s problems

• Connect through compelling stories

• Build human interest and trust

W H Y P E O P L E & C O M PA N I E S Q U I T B L O G G I N G

• Blogging results take time and patience

• Content costs $$

• Uncertainty about business + user goals

• Hard to measure: predicting a return and obtaining leads is challenging

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is I don’t know which half.”

- John Wanamaker

B U I L D I N G A C A S E : C O N T E N T M A R K E T I N G B Y T H E N U M B E R S

• 68% of CMOs are shifting from traditional marketing to content marketing (Custom Content Council)

• 9 out of 10 companies market with content (Hubspot)

• Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads (Kapost)

• Website conversion rate is nearly 6x higher for content marketing adopters than non-adopters (Kapost)

• 82% of marketers who blog see positive ROI for their inbound marketing (Hubspot)

B L O G G I N G A N D C O N T E N T M A R K E T I N G

• Creating branded content

• Distributing content via social a

• Moving beyond readers to advocates

B L O G G I N G B Y T H E N U M B E R S

• 37% of marketers say blogs are the most valuable type of content marketing. (CMI)

• Brands that create 15 blog posts per month average 1,200 new leads per month. (Hubspot)

• B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who do not blog. (Hubspot)

• Blogs give websites 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links. (Inboundwriter.com)

• Blog posts incorporating video attract 3 times as many inbound links as blog posts without video. (Moz)

G E T T I N G S TA R T E D : K N O W Y O U R G O A L S

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• Produce actionable content

• Recruit industry-leading contributors

• Drive conversions

KEY AREAS AND EXAMPLES:

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B U I L D C O N N E C T I O N S : AT & T ’ S S T O R Y

Business TypeB2B advertising solutions

Target AudienceSMBs, Local and National Markets

GoalsEducation & participation Deliver content via multiple channels Consistent messaging across all platforms

B U I L D C O N N E C T I O N S : AT & T ’ S S T O R Y

1. Many products and services

2. 12 verticals

3. Diverse target customers

4. Old school sales

5. Fragmented and limited content

6. No consolidated strategy

7. YP and AT&T brand identity crisis

A T & T ’ S S T O R Y

1. Unite customer needs

2.  Specify topics & types

3.  Alleviate pain points

4.  Define outcome

• C O N N E C T E D V O I C E , T O N E & S T Y L E • O P T I M I Z I N G C O N T E N T, R E D E S I G N I N G L A N D I N G PA G E S • H I R I N G S M E W R I T E R S

AT & T ’ S S T O R Y: S O L U T I O N S

TA K E A W AY S : T H E C O N V E R S I O N F U N N E LB U I L D C O N N E C T I O N S

• Understand user psychology • Build relationships • Sell through storytelling

C A L I F O R N I A P S Y C H I C S ’ S T O R YR E C R U I T A N A U D I E N C E

B U S I N E S S T Y P E TA R G E T A U D I E N C E !G O A L S : !1. New Customer Acquisition Referrals Customer Retention

2. Increase Newsletter Open rates and CTR

3. Increase Exposure

R E C R U I T A N A U D I E N C E

• Growth began at 6 month mark

• Quadrupled blog traffic from 80K PVs / month to 500K PVs

• Increased newsletter open and click through rates to highest since company inception in 1995:

• From 5%-8% of 3.5 mil subscribers, CTR: from 55% to 74-95%

Newsletter  &  Blog  now  drive  75%  of  company’s  overall  traffic

C A L I F O R N I A P S Y C H I C ’ S S U C C E S SR E C R U I T A N A U D I E N C E

A.  Programmed 150 pieces of content every 30 days, posts with timely spin; spearheaded social programs

B. Redesigned newsletter process, moved blogging platform, migrated content, created content themes, developed strategy with product team for redesigning interior pages

C. Chose core keywords for blog and newsletter categories, identified secondary keywords

D. Turned rookies (psychics, print columnists) into writers

R E C R U I T A N A U D I E N C E : C O R E S T R AT E G I E S

C O N T E N T M A R K E T I N G T R E N D : B R A N D N E W S R O O M S

Define the brand story and content narrative

C O N T E N T C H A N N E L S

• PAID

• OWNED

• EARNED

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CONVERGENCE MEDIA

C O N T E N T M A R K E T I N G T R E N D : B R A N D N E W S R O O M S

• Define platformstrategy: when to post your posts

• frequency, messaging, reviews polls, surveys, comments; curation

L E V E R A G E A ‘ S O C I A L B U S I N E S S ’

Listen to your audiencecommentsgoogle analytics WordPress analytics social listening (sprout social radian6)

B L O G G I N G : T O O L S A N D T I P S

T O O L S & T I P S

U N D E R S TA N D I N G C O N T E N T M A R K E T I N G C O S T S

Type of content Cost to produce Time to produce blog post 2-4 hours 1-3 daysInfographic $2,000-$10,000 3-8 weeksVideo $5,000-$150,000 4-12 weeksWhite paper 5-20 person days 3-8 weeksEbooks 10-45 person days 10-12 weeksSlideshare 1-10 person days 2-5 weeks

H O W T O R E A L LY M E A S U R E R O I

• Understand what you’re measuring (conversions)

• Metrics like “brand awareness” are ambiguous

• Use proxies

• FB likes, retweets, LinkedIn shares, Reblogs, Links back, Time Spent on Page, Sessions, Average PVs per visitors, followers, mentions

• Measure primary and secondary conversion indicators

• Quality of leads, retention, lifetime value per lead, length of sales cycle, # of new customers referred by lead

C R E AT E A B E N C H M A R K : G O O G L E A D W O R D S

Media you don’t have to buy = content marketing

• How much would you have to spend to generate 1,000 clicks?

• Run a $10/day budget for 2 weeks to know what keywords to bid for your business

• For $150, you’ll have an answer: say you received 300 visits and 15 leads from that campaign:

• your cost of 1,000 clicks is $500 (1,000 / 300 x $150)

• your CPC is $.50 ($150 / 300)

• your CPL is $150 / 15 = $10

K E Y TA K E A W AY S

• Find an affiliate product that matches the topic of your post and add a pitch at end of the post. If your post is still getting a lot of traffic, then it is considered a good source of information. Help people discover more information related to that topic that they can purchase through your affiliate link.

• End the post with a strong call to action for your own products or services if relevant.

• At the very least, make sure the post drives people to sign up for your mailing list. Consider having subscribers go to a special mailing list that is set up for an autoresponder series that leads them to purchasing an affiliate product or a product of your own.

• Have an older technical post that is still receiving a lot of traffic? Turn it into a whitepaper or report and offer it as a lead magnet of your mailing list.

• Notice a series of older posts that are thematically linked and still receive traffic? Turn those posts into an e-book that you either offer as a lead magnet for your mailing list or for sale on the Amazon Kindle Store.