Content Marketing

Content Marketing of Yore: The Jell-O story

by SEO Savvy September 18th, 2014

There’s nothing like a little history lesson to give some perspective to your content marketing efforts. While many people assume that content marketing is something that came along after the development of the Internet, there’s at least one popular brand that has been using content marketing successfully for over 100 years now, and it all started with a decidedly low-tech approach.

Read on to learn three important content marketing lessons you can learn from the meteoric rise of Jell-O.

1. A product that people don’t know how to use will never succeed.

This one may sound obvious, but Jell-O had to go through two owners before this lesson started to sink in. Gelatin was first patented in the United States in 1845. Back then, even its creator, a successful inventor and businessman named Peter Cooper, didn’t see gelatin as a viable product. He eventually sold the rights, but the second owner had no more success selling gelatin than Cooper had. It wasn’t until a half-century after the product was patented in the U.S. that things began to turn around for gelatin, and this new success can all be traced back to content marketing.

The third owner, a high-school dropout named Frank Woodward, bought the rights to Jell-O for $450 in 1897, and began to promote the dessert using a variety of new and innovative techniques—things that we would recognize today as early precursors of content marketing. These new marketing techniques sought to address the main problem that was keeping people from using Jell-O: they didn’t know how to use it.

2. Content should be valuable and relevant.

Woodward’s new marketing efforts focused on offering educational content that would provide value to users, while also helping people understand how to make Jell-O a part of their everyday lives. These examples of early content marketing included things like Jell-O cookbooks featuring celebrity recipes, live Jell-O cooking demonstrations, and the distribution of promotional molds designed to make the product easier to use. As a result, consumers began to think of Jell-O as a fun and convenient part of their family’s diets, even though many of them had never heard of gelatin just a few years before.

Over the years, Jell-O went from a product that no one could seem to sell to one of the most popular prepackaged desserts in the world, and it all happened because content marketing broke down the barrier that was preventing consumers from trying the product in the first place. However, it’s important to realize that people used this content because it was valuable; If Jell-O had simply created content just for the sake of creating content, they would never have reached the level of success they did.

3. Great content can take any form.

The key lesson from the Jell-O story is clear: any product or service can benefit greatly from the proper application of content marketing, and great content marketing doesn’t always look the way you’d expect it to. People value content that is relevant to their lives, and will gladly consume content that is presented to them in the right way, no matter what form that content might take.

While the idea of a branded cookbook may seem obvious and predictable today, that wasn’t the case until Jell-O came along. There are always going to be new and innovative ideas about how you can use content to reach your customers; you just have to be the one to come up with those ideas!

The 3 Metrics That Matter for Content Marketing Success

by SEO Savvy August 21st, 2014

On July 22, SimpleReach, a startup that helps marketers and publishers measure the effectiveness of their content and ads, announced that it had raised $9 million in Series A funding to meet this demand and measure content, as reported by TechCrunch. That’s big news, since over 90% of marketers are not confident in how they’re measuring content, according to Contently. Currently, SimpleReach says that The New York Times, Forbes, The Huffington Post and The Atlantic all use their product to measure the effectiveness of their native advertising programs and that brands like Intel and Xerox use it to analyze and promote their own content marketing.

While nearly every company today has its own company blog, far fewer have a concrete distribution strategy or even a clear measurement system in place for evaluating ROI, according to Contently. In theory, that’s what SimpleReach will do, and should help you to answer the questions: What metrics should your content marketing team measure? Is content marketing effective, and if so, how can this be measured?

If you’re wondering how to measure content marketing, you’re not alone. Here’s what you need to know about the three metrics that matter most for content marketing.

#1: Engagement. 
This is all about “stickiness”, specifically how much and how often prospects return to your site and engage with your content. Keep an eye on the following metrics:

• Unique visitors
• Page views
• Average visit duration
• Return visits
• Bounce rate

#2: Amplification.
What makes content “go viral”? Take a close look at your amplification metrics, specifically the number of shares, re-tweets, likes, etc. Consumers are more likely to talk about and re-share information about products they find personally and emotionally relevant. Look for a correlation between an uptick in SEO and organic traffic and shares, tweets, etc. For example, you may notice that one blog post is re-tweeted over 1,000 times on Twitter and that there is a simultaneous bump in site traffic. That’s a clear sign your content is resonating with your target audience and being amplified appropriately.

#3: Leads. 
In the B2B world, content marketing is designed to drive leads to your sales team by building awareness, attracting interest, and cultivating relationships. In many cases, your content serves as an “entry point” for the first interaction that leads may have with your business. The metrics that matter here are cost-per-lead, cost-per-new-name, and cost-per-opportunity.

Tying revenue to content marketing can be incredibly difficult, but SimpleReach is working to make this possible. Don’t get caught up in revenue numbers alone, however. When it comes to analyzing the success of your content marketing efforts, engagement, amplification and lead metrics are just as important.

How Content Marketing Gave Red Bull Wings — and How It Can Help Your Brand Fly, Too

by Mark Hawks August 14th, 2014

With content marketing continuing to be the hottest marketing trend for 2014 – more than 70% of companies plan to increase their content marketing expenditures this year, according to Curata– is your business investing wisely? If you’re creating content designed to promote your products or services, rather than your brand’s values, then you’re missing the point. Great content marketing builds relationships with customers based on brand values. And, in many cases, there’s barely a product mention in sight.

Red Bull is an excellent content marketing case study. Upon entering US markets in 1997, “Red Bull” was little more than a carbonated energy drink that was trying to create a new segment of the beverage market. Now, thanks to brilliantly executed content marketing campaigns primarily focused on the brand’s values, Red Bull is the ultimate brand for pushing your limits and going further than you dreamed possible. Red Bull is synonymous with living an extreme lifestyle. In fact, their website boasts verticals such as Adventure, Motorsports, and even eSports, for those who prefer to do their thrill seeking in a virtual setting.

Red Bull isn’t shy about throwing their resources into their marketing; they’ve got a team of reportedly 135 people, even have their own record label, Red Bull Records. While your business may not have access to these resources, Red Bull can still teach you a few lessons in how to improve content marketing to support your brand’s value. From popular social sharing sites where users engage with Red Bull’s brand message and lifestyle on their own accord to the beautifully crafted company slogan “We give wings to people and ideas”.

Here’s how content marketing gave Red Bull wings – and how these content marketing best practices can do the same for your business:

Lesson #1: Lifestyle first, product second. Red Bull’s content never pushes the company’s product. Sales-y content turns customers off, and can create a feeling of distrust that authentic stories rarely do. That’s why Red Bull focused instead on creating aspirational lifestyle content. Most of us will never re-create Felix Baumgartner’s death-defying world record free-fall from the edge of space – nor do we actually want to do so. However, we do want to be associated with the brand that helps us do more than we ever thought possible.

Take the time to figure out what your brand stands for, and what you value. Are you a health food company? Then chances are that you care about a fit body and mind all around. Discuss other aspects of health that go along with eating healthy, including exercise and sleep. You may find many opportunities to expand your reach without pushing customers by determining relevant markets, and appealing to that clientele.

Lesson #2: Presentation matters. Red Bull’s content marketing is built around the curation of gorgeous, stunning visual imagery. A quick look at Red Bull’s Twitter feed reveals lots of beautiful photos and videos of extreme activities. People love visuals; they boost brand interactivity, and bring folks back for longer form content, which deepens brand engagement. And Red Bull is not ignoring traditional publishing platforms either; their magazine reaches 5 million people.

The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” holds true here – especially on Twitter, where there are minimal characters to work with. And studies show that our brains are wired to process images faster than we do text. Going back to the health food company example, images of active people and brightly colored produce are great for supporting your message.

And don’t forget about colors: Marketing psychology tells us that green is associated with health, so be sure to utilize is often. Red Bull using red (urgency and body stimulation) and blue (curbs appetite, trustworthy) definitely supports the psychology of colors.

Lesson #3: Partner with the right people. No brand is an island, and Red Bull has wisely chosen partnerships that build upon the brand’s extreme values. Their logo was all over 2011’s big budget film the “Art of Flight.” From action sports sponsorships and events to the aforementioned Felix Baumgartner’s free fall from the edge of space. These partnerships all underscore Red Bull’s fundamental brand values: risk-taking, courage, and boldness.

Smart partnerships should do the same for your business. After figuring out other values that align with your brands message, look into other organizations and campaigns that you can work with for a mutually beneficial partnership. The health food company might want to look into sponsoring a free workout class at a local gym in their community or a broad national campaign similar to Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move!  Cross-promotional efforts and sponsorship opportunities are a great way to show what your brand is about, and help your content marketing take flight.

Why You Need a Content Marketing Team

by SEO Savvy August 7th, 2014

Content marketing continues to rise in popularity and inbound marketing brings in 54% more new leads than traditional marketing methods, according to WebDAM.

You may not know where to even begin in the process of building a better flow of content marketing for your business this year. If you need to strengthen your strategy or build a brand new one, then you should take seriously a content marketing team who can lighten the load and fully commit to the important marketing process.

Giving Your Brand a Voice

A team dedicated to strategy and production will be able to focus solely on what your brand needs and how it can best reach the target audience. Your team will want to focus on setting goals for what your brand wants to accomplish, such as:

• Growing your customer base
• Building a stronger expert reputation in the community
• Strengthening relationships with other influencers in the industry
• Engaging the customer
• Attracting new leads
• Reducing the bounce rate for your site

As you work towards any of these goals, your brand voice will need to be consistent and cohesive throughout your marketing strategies. If your approach to creating content is haphazard, then your brand will appear disorganized, without direction and unprofessional to your customers. Filtering all of your content through a single voice will help to establish the credibility of your content, and subsequently, your brand as a whole.

The Time Commitment

Content marketing takes a huge amount of work and dedication to be truly successful. You will want to have a group in charge of identifying industry trends, keyword research, creating solid ideas, great writing, query responses, design and measuring success.

If a single person in your company who has numerous other tasks and no identifiable skills in this area takes on the task of writing blog posts or managing social media, they’re likely to become overwhelmed by this expansive role, which can hurt your company’s reputation. Instead, you will want a designated team with assigned roles who can post on a regular schedule, keep all platforms updated and create quality content that draws in strong new leads.

Professional Content Creation

Hubspot recently wrote about the various ways in which you can structure your content marketing team, based on the size of your business and how you function. Your team may have ten members or it may just have two, but having employees who are trained and hired for this sole purpose is important for the success of your content marketing and visual brand presence. Some of the various roles that can be assigned are:

Content Analyst or Managing Editor – Someone to oversee the production process and help measure the success rates. This person helps come up with content marketing strategies and discovers which elements will serve your company best.

Content Creators, Designers and Producers – These people are good at coming up with ideas for content, writing the content and then making the content beautiful and engaging when it is published to the platform. They must also be familiar with the different social media platforms and know how to navigate them easily.

Listening Officer or Virtual PR Manager – In a larger company, you will want to have someone who solely considers how your audience perceives your company. This person monitors all virtual outlets for your company, is in charge of responding to customer concerns and complaints in a timely manner and helps direct customers to the appropriate resources.

Depending on your resources, it may be difficult to have multiple people performing the same job, or any person with only one job title. You may find that people work best when their designated tasks overlap with those of another role, or this may prove difficult to manage. Regardless, having an established hierarchy helps to eliminate confusion and create better content that meets your criteria.