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Content Marketing Basics – Know Your Audience
Simone Schuurer
Content Marketing & Social Media Manager
Bing Ads Product Marketing
Microsoft
Agenda
I. Content
II. Audience segmentation
III. Content planning
IV. Create and connect
V. Recap – things to do today
VI. Questions?
Content
How the need for content has changed
Valuable, relevant and consistent content
How the need for content has changed
Marketers used to create content when there was an internal need to and they had fewer ways to share that message with that audience. So far so easy to manage.
Today that model is almost unrecognisable not in the least because of the rise of social, local and mobile technologies (SoLoMo) Social media doesn’t ‘do’ one-way conversations. Customers talk to brands and organisations just as publically as marketers used to talk to their audiences.
This almost naturally changes the nature of how brands and organisations communicate with their audiences – they are always ‘on’ as customers don’t only talk to you when you have a new ‘5-door-le-car’ to sell.
There is an almost constant need for content which has some clear benefits: it helps drive traffic to their website, helps with their SEO rankings and helps nurture existing relations to mention a few.
This need also poses a challenge – how to create constant content for this audience that is engaging?
Valuable, relevant and consistent content
From the Content Marketing Institute:
A key part of content marketing is creating and distributing valuable relevant content to acquire a clearly defined audience. To know if your content is relevant you need to know who your audience is or who your audiences are – and what they need.
Before you start looking at different types of content and formats it is important to know whom you are writing for.
Audience segmentation
Defining your audiences
Classic ways to define audiences
Example: Bing Ads geographical targeting
Example: Bing Ads behavioural targeting
Example of Bing Ads vertical (+geo) targeting
Example: Engaging woodland owners – audience segmentation
Surveys
Example: Bing Ads survey questions
Creating personas
Defining your audiences
Classic ways to define audiences
• Nations, regions, cities
even postcode areas. At
Bing Ads we have different
language blogs that carry
market and audience
relevant information.
Geographic
• Age, gender, the amount
of income, the ethnicity or
religion of the market and
the family life cycle.
Demographic
• Knowledge of, attitude
towards, usage rate or
response to a product
Behavioural
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_segmentation
• Activities, interests, and
opinions of customers. It
considers how people
spend their leisure and
which external influences
they are most responsive
to and influenced by.
Lifestyle
• Benefits sought by the
consumer or according to
perceived benefits which a
product/service may
provide.
Benefits
Classic ways to define audiences
• In the widest sense of
the word – think also of
on what devices people
consume information,
how they access
content.
Media
consumption
• Some companies look
at things like spend,
savings (banks) or what
sort of things someone
buys to target with
relevant content.
Customer
profile
• It can make sense to
approach your
audience by vertical
(insights, offers etc.)
By vertical
Example of geographical targeting
Examples of behavioural targeting
Examples of vertical (+ geo) targeting
Surveys
Bing Ads example
Who follows us
on social
media? How often
do people
visit our
blog?
Which % of
visitors is a
customer?
Do they use
the
competitor
too?
Which %
of visitors
shares
content?
What country
do visitors
come from?
Who are our
social
influencers?
Which % of
visitors works
for or owns a
small business?
Which % of
visitors works for
an agency or
large business?
Creating personas
Personas* are fictional representations of people that represent different segments of your audience. Part based on facts such as their demographic characteristics and part based on an educated speculation on their histories, motivations and concerns.
You don’t need personas to create targeted content for segments of your audience but it can help to continue to put yourself in their shoes and it can help to stay on course if there are multiple people or teams creating content.
If you don’t have the resources to do an in-depth segmentation as shown before personas can also be a ‘light’ way of segmenting your audience following roughly a similar logic:
Creating personas
Start looking at the most common buyers / engagers for your most common products /services and give each a detailed description including job title, role, demographic information etc.
IncomeWhere do
they live?
Family set
up
Where do
they
work?
Hobbies?
How do
they
prefer to
shop / do
business?
Creating personas
Based on the criteria that make sense for your organisation you can then outline:
• What problems they are trying to resolve?
• What do they need most?
• What are they information are they searching (in what stage)
Analysing the path that a customer takes to become a potential customer is a way to also think of the challenges he or she may encounter.
Content Planning
Mapping content (need) for your audiences
Content planning
Personalization advice from the experts
Example: Woodland owners segmented messaging
Example: RHS segmented content creation
Example: Audience (message) segmentation Scottish Widows
Mapping content (need) for your audiences
Identify
Personas,
concerns,
drivers, role
etc.
Questions,
what do the
personas ask
at steps in
their
engagement
process?
Answers
Answer the
questions
your
personas ask
Audit
Audit content
to determine
what’s useful
and what’s
not. Be
critical.
Map
Map content
available to
the questions
that the
content can
answer.
Identify
Holes. Ask:
where are we
missing
content?
Create
Content to fill
the holes
Content planning
Personalization advice from the experts
1. Monitor what content is popular
2. Balance your targeting – relevant is good, creepily targeted is not. Make sure you offer a mix of the following at least:
I. Information on how to use your product or service
II. Answer questions
III. Product information
IV. Insights (industry insights, styling insights, background information)
V. Content written by customers, reviews, blog posts, case studies etc.
3. Take it step by step – Start with ‘basic’ segmentation: by discipline, vertical or geography and if that works for you add things such as behavioural targeting.
4. Curate more than create – It’s not always necessary to keep creating endless content: you can also look at what good content you already have and curate in for example emails or tweets specific content to specific audiences.
5. Understand your audience – It’s critical to know whom you are communicating with and what the audience needs.
Example: engaging woodland owners – audience segmentation
RHS – Audience segmentation / content targeting
Audience (message) segmentation Scottish Widows
Create and connect
How to reach your audience?
If you create new content it’s best to think about how you best reach your audiences with that message and via which channel.
From a social media point of view different networks have different strengths and deliver the best results if content is created with those strengths in mind.
For example:
Facebook: Visual: Shareable and likeable relevant pictures and infographics etc.
Twitter: In the moment” and optimized for short form text. Conversational blog; facts, numbers, tips, advice. Give back.
LinkedIn: Highly professional. Bespoke content for example access to experts, ability to network, share professional knowledge, ask questions. Don’t forget LinkedIn Showcase page and Slideshare.
YouTube: Demonstrate! Ideal for personal delivery of a message , to show of products, how to videos etc.
Instagram / Pinterest etc.: Highly visual, lifestyle, association.
Blogs: Sharing of news with some detail, announcements that need some depth.
Where are your audiences?
Creating the right content for the right channels
Creating the right content for the right channels
Creating the right content for the right channels
Paid targeting to reach audiences
Channel Target Objectives
Facebook Geographical location
(country, city, zip code),
industry, job title, language
or if they have a small
business page on Facebook
Page post engagement,
clicks to website, website
conversions, event
responses, offer claims
Twitter Geographical location,
interests, gender, device,
similarity to other users,
keywords in tweets, device
Get tweets in front of the
right audience, in the right
context, promotion of
events, deals, services. To
reach existing as well as
potential followers.
LinkedIn Geographical location, job
title, industry, language
Raise awareness, shape
perception, drive quality
leads, connect with the
world’s professionals.
Start doing today
Start doing today
1. Start thinking in a fresh way about who your audiences are.
2. Put yourself in their shoes.
3. Map out what they need, when and why.
What content do you have to address these needs
What content do you need to create?
4. Wonder what are your objectives are– where do they meet needs – how can you bring messages across?
5. Before you create content – spare a thought of where your audiences are most likely to engage.
Think of whether there is a way to create the needed content specifically for the channels that is most likely to engage your audience.
6. Remember it’s the end of the world as you know it – the best channels vary everywhere in the world.
7. Consider some paid promotions as the targeting options are great and organically content only reaches so far.
8. Keep testing if your segmentation and content provided works.
Questions?
Ask me anything… now, or later.
Simone Schuurer -@SimoneSchuurer