Editor’s note: You may have missed this article when CMI published itlast year. We’re sharing it now because promotion of your content – and practical steps to do so – are always needed.
Marketers often pour their efforts, resources, and budgets into developing an e-book only to move on once the landing page is live. Your e-book could be the next game-changing, Content Marketing Award-winning, produce-into-a-major-motion-picture piece, but without promotion, nobody will click, download, read, or even see it.
Promoting an e-book goes beyond creating a landing page, tweeting a link, and emailing it to your customers. Those are the staple moves, much like serving turkey and dressing at Thanksgiving dinner.
Promoting an e-book goes beyond a landing page, a tweeted link, & a customer email, says @amandalnelson. Click To Tweet
Great e-book promotion touches all phases of the sales funnel and requires involvement from multiple teams within your organization. A collaborative, planned approach to e-book promotion not only generates leads, but it also catches the eyes of your best prospects.
Your top-of-funnel efforts likely cast a wide net. You know some information about this audience so you can target accurately, but you don’t know them as well as you know your best customer. Therefore, this is the place to slice and dice your promotion the most. People digest content in different ways. The more you chop it up and share it, the more e-book buzz you’ll create.
Try these tactics, making sure that the e-book always is the call to action:
Turn each chapter into a blog post on your corporate blog.
Record someone from your team reading the e-book and launch it as an audio book.
Run a webinar with the author, featured thought leaders, or brands.
Create an infographic with the e-book’s tips, tricks, or quotes.
Tweet with quotes, stats, or tips from the e-book.
If you generate a thought leadership, top-of-funnel e-book, you might think your promotion efforts stop at the top of the funnel. That is not the case. Other departments and audiences can benefit from your e-book, which will ultimately lead to revenue for your organization, which should be an end goal for you, too.
The middle of the funnel is where you get existing prospects to raise their hand and move closer to the sale. This is probably the toughest part of a marketer’s job. If you have great content and a strong reach, it’s not hard to get net new leads into your database. A simple download is all you need to get the process started. However, to get those leads to commit to a demo or free trial takes more work. Your e-book can help.
Your e-book can get leads to commit to a demo or free trial, says @amandalnelson. Click To Tweet
Consider these middle-of-funnel ideas:
Work the e-book into your nurture program(s) or drip campaigns.
Share on your organization’s forums or community site.
Create a content pack for existing prospects, including a case study, e-book, one-sheet, etc.
The bottom of the funnel is where sales takes the lead. Imagine the funnel as a road, and you’re driving down it. As a marketer, you’re in the driver’s seat for the top and middle of the funnel. You control the content, the message, the promotional approach, etc. When you reach the bottom of the funnel, the salesperson takes the wheel. The salesperson is in charge of closing that deal. However, you don’t hop out of the car, you get in the back seat. You can still help, and that e-book is your admission ticket. Here are some ideas to support bottom-of-funnel promotion:
Attach the e-book to first-call presentation decks.
Use it to develop email or phone scripts and templates for existing prospect outreach.
Print it and give it to salespeople as takeaways or leave-behinds for meetings.
Don’t get overwhelmed – think of this post as a tapas menu, where you can pick and choose the tactics that work for you. As you promote your e-book, you’ll quickly learn what works (and what doesn’t work). From there, you can hone in and focus on the successful tactics. Soon, you’ll have a well-oiled machine for not only creating great e-books, but also for getting them out there for the world to see and devour.
Think of your e-book promotion options like a tapas menu. Pick what tactics work for you, says @amandalnelson. Click To Tweet
We’re following Amanda’s advice. Check out a wealth of content marketing resources in the Content Marketing Institute e-book library, from The Essentials of a Documented Content Marketing Strategy to Digital Governance: A Primer for Content Marketers.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
Editor’s note: This back-by-popular demand post has been updated because promotion of your content — and practical steps to do so – are always needed.
Customer satisfaction not only drives revenue, it’s also the source of testimonials and case studies – the cornerstones of most marketers’ conversion strategies.
Positive words from your customers build trust and motivate other customers. In fact, most B2B marketers consider customer testimonials (89 percent) and case studies (88 percent) as the most effective content marketing tactics, according to a Salesforce post mentioning B2B content marketing trends.
But getting your loyal customers to participate in a case study is easier said than done. It’s often the hardest part of executing a case study. It’s no small thing for your best customers to take time out of their busy schedule to talk about how your product or service has helped them. Add in the concerns about sharing proprietary information, regulatory hurdles, company policies, and lengthy review cycles and creating a case study is a challenge.
Getting customers to agree to participate is often the hardest part of a #casestudy, says @SashaLaferte. Click To Tweet
Follow these tactics to help persuade your customers and get them excited about participating in your marketing case study.
Many companies have formal rules for providing testimonials, which can extend the process if you want to have them participate in a case study. Your customer may have to consult with a legal department and/or senior management just to get approval to proceed.
That is why the first tactic to grow your case study pipeline is creating a formal process.
The first tactic to grow your #casestudy pipeline is creating a formal process, says @SashaLaferte. Click To Tweet
Meet with your customer success, sales, and marketing teams to explain why case studies are necessary to the success of your marketing strategy – and ultimately, sales. Use these compelling marketing case study stats from Boast to beef up your pitch.
Next, create a formal document that outlines how to submit marketing case study opportunities. Detail how frequently sales or customer success reps will submit names, and the time commitment involved after a customer agrees to participate.
Ask sales reps to submit names of possible #casestudy subjects, advises @SashaLaferte. Click To Tweet
Create a case study request email template for your internal teams to use to make requests of your customers. Consider modifying one or more of these case study request templates.
Take your solution to the next level and offer team members incentives for recruiting customers to participate in case studies. This can be effective particularly if you’re struggling to get case studies due to a lack of suggestions or cooperation from other teams within your company.
The drawback to this method is that it’s a bandage approach. Incentivizing employees with money could fix your problem in the short term, but it might be costly in the long run. It also could encourage subpar submissions. Thus, create a short-term incentive plan and communicate your long-term approach to all in your organization. Use the short-term time to get the support of the relevant department heads to motivate their teams to suggest happy – and willing – customers.
Provide value to the customers doing the case studies (and explain it to them)
Case studies are often innately valuable for a customer too. Explain how your customers will benefit from participating. Tell how you’ll link to their website, describe their positive results on social media, and give them publicity through email. For video-based case studies, offer them use of the B roll in their own promotional materials. It’s a win-win.
Explain the value of a #casestudy for your participating customer, says @SashaLaferte. Click To Tweet
Find alternatives if customer policies restrict or forbid case studies
Company policies that restrict or forbid some customers from participating in case studies are a big roadblock. Sometimes you can get customers who have restrictive policies to agree to a case study that doesn’t identify the company by name. While this isn’t nearly as impactful as having a brand name, it can show potential customers how your product works for similar companies. And you still get the benefit of a positive testimonial.
If you have the time, another option is to do a group case study that compiles reviews from several customers. Interview a large sample of your customers and create a case study based on the average results seen by your customers. This makes the information anonymous and provides statistics around your customers’ opinions to use in other marketing materials.
If you’re still not having any luck, try a different approach and start small. Build that case-study relationship over time. First, ask for a one-sentence quote or permission to put the company’s logo on your site as a customer.
Case studies provide proof of concept to potential buyers and drive your audience further down the funnel. They also serve as a powerful sales-enablement tool. But to create a case study, you must have a customer willing to share their experience with your product or service. Creating a plan to secure that permission – and enlisting your internal teams to help – is essential for short- and long-term case-study success.
With so many tactics available, content marketers can feel overwhelmed. If you read one industry blog a day (or a week), make it CMI’s newsletter – the expert insight on tips, trends, and more can help narrow your options and make the ones you pick more successful.Subscribetoday.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
Editor’s note: We appreciate Curata’s support of Content Marketing Institute as a paid benefactor. This article was reviewed and edited independently to ensure that it adheres to the same editorial guidelines as all non-sponsored blog posts.
This week, Robert ponders the nature of risk. In the news, we discuss Apple’s new browser settings that have the advertising associations crying wolf. Google kills its “first click free” setting for all pay walls, and Rolling Stone gets put up for sale. Our rants and raves include the fall of bundled television and the Ohio Lottery; then we close the show with an example of the week from Fearless Girl.
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Show details
(00:01): An advertising blast from the past: “Risk: Win the game and you win the world.”
(00:13):Robert muses on this week’s theme: What’s the real risk involved?
(04:24): Welcome to Episode 201: Recorded live on September 18, 2017 (Running time: 1:07:19)
(07:34): Killing Marketing – On Tuesday, September 19, we launched our latest book, Killing Marketing, and you can join in the fun. Submit a photo on Twitter that features hashtag #KillingMarketing for a chance to win a free autographed copy.
(10:13): Special offer for Content Marketing World video on demand – You may have missed the show, but don’t miss out on all the insights. Videos of 100+ sessions from Content Marketing World 2017 will be available for a limited time through our video on demand portal. Register for access and use the coupon code CMIFRIENDS100 to save $100.
(11:17): Your guide to producing better work together– We’ve found that creative content production at most organizations falls into five core steps: strategic planning, tactical planning, creation, deployment, and assessment. Where are your teams getting stuck? Download the Creative Workflow Workbook to find out.
The quick hits – Notable news and trends
(12:21): Ad trade groups protest Apple’s Browser data use limits. (Source: The Wall Street Journal)
(18:30): Google relaxes its policy on subscription sites to appease publishers. (Source: The Wall Street Journal)
(25:05): Rolling Stone looking to sell out. (Source: The New York Times)
(37:21): Ev Williams outlines Medium’s “Spotify-ish” future. (Source: NeimanLab)
Rants and raves
(45:46): Robert’s ranty/rave No. 1: Robert came across some breaking news that he considers to be required reading. According to Marketing Charts, the broadband market has just surpassed the pay-TV market in subscriber numbers for the first time. As Robert sees it, we’ve just reached a watershed moment for addressable audiences.
(48:57): Robert’s ranty/rave No. 2: This week, Procter & Gamble’s Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard took the stage to, once again, issue a wake-up call to the digital marketing industry. While, on the surface, his outlook seemed a bit more hopeful this time around, Robert takes issue with how Pritchard’s message has been interpreted and encourages marketers to read between the lines. (Source: Marketing Week)
(53:10): Joe’s rant-and-rave: If you live in northeast Ohio, you’ve surely seen the billboards for InspiredOH, touting the inspiring story of Francisco Lindor, star shortshop for the Cleveland Indians. The campaign led me to a website for the Ohio Lottery, which asks people to share their inspiring stories for a chance to win a T-shirt and other prizes. While I love the overall message of positivity that the initiative was aiming to spread, I’m not sure I understand the overall vision or purpose behind this campaign.
This Old Marketing example of the week
(59:05): Fearless Girl: If you happen to be in New York, Robert encourages you to check out a remarkable work of art, located directly across from Wall Street’s iconic Charging Bull statue. Not only is Fearless Girl a lovely sculpture, it’s generated some interesting business benefits. As this AdWeek article explains, the statue of a young girl standing defiantly in front of the bull statue first appeared under cover of night, on the eve of International Women’s Day. Later, it was discovered that it was part of a marketing effort for State Street Global Advisors (executed by their creative agency, McCann New York), to promote its SHE Fund – which only invests in companies where women hold top leadership positions. The statue immediately became a viral sensation, and in a matter of weeks amassed more than 4.5 billion Twitter impressions and 215,000 Instagram posts. Though it was initially slated to be a temporary exhibit, more than 40,000 people signed a petition to demand it remain in place through 2018. Made on a shoestring budget, the effort reportedly generated $7.4 million in free marketing for the company across TV, social, and radio. More importantly, by starting a conversation on a gender-balanced workforce, Fearless Girl serves as a shining This Old Marketing example of a no-bull way to create a market while building an audience to support it.
How much do they really limit your reach?
Though worldwide internet access is increasing, it may not be as effective in connecting the world as we might think. English, as by far the most common lingua franca, or “bridge language”, is one of only 10 languages that the World Bank estimates comprise about eighty percent of all online content, English making up nearly two-thirds of that. So, is English-only content enough for the reach you’re looking for?
How many people actually understand English?
At an estimate, 21% of the worldwide population, both online and offline, understand English, this equates to about 26% of the online population – although half of all online content is in English. Basically, if you’re content is exclusively English, 76 percent of your potential reach is, ultimately, beyond your reach due to a language barrier.
The Aim of Your Content
Whether or not you should expand your language base is relative to the aim of your online content. If you run a local business, and your target market is primarily English speaking, it may not be worth the time and effort to translate your website. However, if you run an online company that sells overseas, a large proportion of your target market may not speak English. In this case, considering a translate option for your site may expand your market and increase international sales.
How do I translate my content?
Many web browsers, like Google Chrome, have a translate function built into the browser; however, these translators tend to translate word for word, which can be quite inaccurate as the grammar and syntax of different languages can be significantly different.
If you want your content to be accessible to a specific target market or people group, or just more widely accessible, it may be worth your while to hire someone to translate pages or articles for you – even if you only translate into one or two of the world’s most popular languages. There are web based companies that offer translation services as well as freelance translators
Cost of translating a web page
Most translation services will charge anything from 10 cents to 30 cents per word, depending on the complexity of the language. Others have hourly rates or charge per page or per website. As a general rule, freelance translators will be cheaper, though the translation quality may not always be as good.
What if I can’t get my content translated?
If you find translating content is too much hassle, or not worth the overhead, it’s not always necessary. If much of your prospective market has some English as a second language, make your writing fairly simple – just to get your point across. An alternative is to customize pages so that pages accessed from primarily non-English speaking countries will display more or less the same content, but with more basic language.
Essentially, do some research to see if translating your site, or some of the content, is worth it. If so, it’s a great opportunity to extend your reach in the online world.
You finally get the C-suite on board with implementing a content marketing program. Not just starting a blog or Twitter account, but developing a strategy and using a real plan – one that understands your audience, how to meet their needs, and where to find them.
Fast forward … You started. You sweated. You launched. Your audience took notice and took action. Your strategy is working (for the moment) and your client/boss is happy. But before you put on your party hat, beware the trouble that may lie ahead.
A lot. When a fledgling strategy nobody initially cared about suddenly brings eyeballs and customers to your company, internal dynamics can change. There may be heightened interest in content marketing, a desire to expand the approach to other areas of the organization, or even impatience to see wins stack up faster.
When a #contentmarketing strategy brings customers to your company, internal dynamics can change. @KLundT3 Click To Tweet
My agency sees these “hijackings” crop up in two big ways. First, when you prove internally that content marketing works, others inside the organization may view the approach as the cure to what ails them – and want to piggyback on what you’re doing. While it’s a good sign when others want to join you, it’s often done without thinking through an integrated strategy and process. Just as common, marketers are over-eager to prove content marketing is working, and so content teams use data recklessly – bending it and stretching it to suit their needs rather than making it serve the greater good of improving the content and strategy.
Let’s walk through each example and show you how to avoid (or rectify) the problems.
When your content marketing strategy gains traction, other members of your organization are going to take notice and want to be a part of it; however, when they come from other divisions, they often arrive with their own agendas, protocols, and even allegiances. It’s natural they care more about their own initiatives than yours, but competing priorities can lead to the creation of silos that are at odds with one another. And that’s when the trouble starts.
The trouble starts when your #contentmarketing strategy gains traction & other members want in. @KLundT3 Click To Tweet
What are the symptoms of tacked-on content efforts? Frustration and bottlenecks to be sure, but even worse, a carelessly hitched-up program can undermine your hard-earned success. I’ve seen cases in which a strong and effective content marketing strategy is deemed unsuccessful because an add-on division’s programs sank the entire effort.
Think of your content marketing program as if you are running the kitchen at McDonald’s. In its early years, McDonald’s figured out how to scale its growth and serve everyone quickly, efficiently, and (arguably) deliciously. No hamburger-craving patron was left waiting longer than a couple of minutes. Using an assembly-line model born out of best practices in manufacturing at the time, the placement of every stove, fridge, and fryer was thought through. Each step in the kitchen was carefully choreographed, shaving seconds or minutes from each customer’s order time.
So too with content marketing: A well-defined strategy and content marketing plan offer clear goals and instructions to execute. When somebody in your organization is excited by what you are doing with content marketing – and asks to join you in some way – they are like the proverbial extra (and unwelcome) cook in the kitchen. Each time you add a component or program to your mix, it’s critical to make it a cohesive part of your existing operation and strategy so that the whole functions effectively.
First, take a step back and remember that a content marketing strategy typically doesn’t belong to one person or one division. Nor is it a static document. Embrace the positive attention your strategy is attracting and look for ways to align your work with others who want to participate, and provide guidance to the new group graciously.
Align your #contentmarketing work w/ others who want to participate and provide guidance, says @KLundT3. Click To Tweet
Have an onboarding process to educate new faces and teams on everything from the high-level strategy of the initiative to editorial requirements, including tone of voice. This can be a regular training session (keep it short – under an hour) each time a new contributing group wants to plug into your strategy.
Workshop
If you discover through open conversation and transparency that your content marketing strategy needs to shift, that’s OK. Strategies are supposed to evolve – and it’s important to advocate for change if change is required.
Though you may be amenable to change, don’t let “change” be synonymous with “doormat.” Be sure those around you arrive at a consensus on the strategy with you. Also, enforce a “commander’s intent” on how things will get done. When a content marketing strategy is clearly understood and agreed on by all, everyone is accountable for knowing what to do and how to do it. This should reduce the risk of silos going rogue and undermining the strategy.
When a #contentmarketing strategy is understood & agreed upon, everyone is accountable, says @KLundT3. Click To Tweet
As you meet and brainstorm with all the stakeholders involved, determine whether you will: (1) stick to the old strategy and train new stakeholders, (2) tweak it and get everyone on the same page, or (3) overhaul major components of the strategy and retrain everyone on the new strategy. This might be as far-reaching as redesigning the content marketing strategy to account for new audiences or as modest as revising the editorial strategy to include new digital channels.
Whichever option you choose, it’s critical to leave your ego at the door. Make the determination and discuss how best to move forward as a united front.
Data in service of the wrong master
Data is the lifeblood of a successful, long-term content marketing strategy. But there’s a right way to collect data, and there’s a wrong way. And since your young initiative needs all the help it can get, it’s worth being vigilant in this area – as it may be tempting to use data to defend at all costs, rather than improve your efforts.
To understand the role data plays, it’s important to look at the strategy collaboratively and holistically instead of one piece at a time by one person or one team in the organization. I can’t give you the single best way to analyze the data (there’s no such thing), but be wary of these bad practices.
Don’t look at data one content piece at a time. Look at content data holistically, advises @KLundT3. Click To Tweet
Prodding the data.
When data is used to validate an opinion, it’s anti-collaborative and can lead to biased decision-making. How to spot the problem? The data comes from only one source and is likely being measured by one person. It’s measured without proper context, and/or it’s prone to errors or omissions. Each of these should raise suspicion that the person doing the analyzing is working in his or her own self interests.
Data without context.
Carpenters live by the rule, “measure twice, cut once.” This is true of content marketing strategy as well. Many companies measure once and cut without regard. No pause. The thinking is, “the data says X, so we need to do Y.” The problem is that hidden variables may be driving the results. Without collaborative interpretation of the data – such as allowing other members of the team, including yourself or your subject-matter experts – to challenge the insights, false assumptions are often made.
Premature data.
Too often marketers make assumptions before the strategy can take hold and have an impact – which leads to poor decision-making. The pressure on marketers is huge to show results, but try to set realistic expectations among stakeholders about how long it will take to see content marketing bear fruit. In most cases data can be reasonably analyzed in six to 12 months, depending on the strategy and content channel. Before that time has elapsed, use your data-analysis skills to make tweaks or identify early trouble spots.
Marketers make assumptions before the strategy can take hold, which leads to poor decision-making. @KLundT3 Click To Tweet
If you have 100,000 people visiting your blog, but three of them complain the font size of the type is too small, your font size is probably fine. You will never please everyone. (And when you increase your font size, someone else will complain it’s too big.) Making changes based on small subsets of inconclusive data can lead you astray quickly and distract you from your true priorities.
Fully understanding what’s being measured requires multiple data sets, collaboration, and the ability to challenge assumptions. That way the data properly reflects what is truly going on so the correct assumptions are validated and you can take appropriate action.
Lose the battle and win the war
As you may have guessed, there’s no magic bullet to prevent your content marketing strategy from being hijacked. Ensure that in the early months you maintain transparency and open lines of communications with everyone who plays a role in the execution of the strategy; you’ll build consensus and form allies. And take time to understand the goals of the organization without your own agenda getting in the way. It’s when everyone feels heard and egos are left at the door that you’ll be in a better position to lead a productive discussion about where you would like to take the strategy next.
A version of this article originally appeared in the August issue of Chief Content Officer. Sign upto receive your free subscription to our bimonthly, print magazine.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
Think of a piece of content your team published recently. On a scale of 0 to 100, how would you rate it? And how would your rating help your company?
Stumped? Consider the method that Jared Whitehead devised for scoring content performance.
Jared works as an analyst in the marketing operations group at Red Hat. After 10 years of growth and acquisitions, the B2B technology company found itself in “constant chaos” with its approach to content.
Leigh Blaylock, who manages Red Hat’s global content strategy group and worked with Jared, notes the company “had so many acquisitions, so many products, so many marketing teams” that no one knew what content was meaningful and what content to say no to.
Last year, Jared, Leigh, and their colleagues set out to get Red Hat’s content under control. They wanted to figure out what content they had, what they wanted to keep, what was and wasn’t performing, and what “performing” even meant.
Here’s how they did it:
Built a content-scoring team
Standardized content types
Audited the content
Developed a content-scoring method
Created a proof of concept
And here’s what they continue to do:
Find enthusiasts to promote their scoring method
Evolve the content-scoring method
Audit the content regularly
Red Hat’s new content-scoring method is proving its business value by giving content teams a consistent way to assess the performance of individual pieces of content so everybody knows what content to say no – or yes – to.
Content scoring gives teams a consistent way to assess #content performance, says @marciarjohnston. Click To Tweet
Jared describes two schools of thought on how to build a content scorecard:
A content group develops a scoring method that others follow.
A cross-departmental group develops a scoring method that works for all.
Either approach can work. Choose what makes sense for the people and content in your situation. Either way, pick people to contribute to the performance scoring methodology who have the big picture of the content and have a sense of the systems used for creating, tagging, distributing, and managing that content.
Pick people to create performance scores who have the big picture of the content or people. @jaredwhitehead Click To Tweet
For Red Hat, this meant Jared involved the marketing content team, which has the big picture of the company’s marketing assets and content systems from brand, to product marketing, to corporate marketing. Team members could say, “This is our CMS, this is our taxonomy. This is how we would get to the content to analyze it. These are the tools available to us. This is how we might use them to get what we’re looking for.”
When you have people who understand the content to score and the systems supporting that content, you have a better sense of the other skills needed on the team. For certain things, you may want to hire help; for other things, employees may be natural choices.
Red Hat hired a librarian, Anna McHugh, to join the team. Jared and Leigh refer to her as the project’s rock star. “She sees all the marketing assets,” says Leigh. “She knows what’s available, and she does a tremendous job of analyzing those assets.”
Jared adds, “I could write a novel about Anna’s role. She has become a curator in addition to a librarian. And an analyst. She does ALL the things.”
The Red Hat team started the initiative in 2012 by standardizing its content types – white papers, data sheets, infographics, etc. – across the marketing organization. It wanted all business units to have a common understanding of each type of content the company produces.
To accomplish this foundational governance work, Red Hat invited a representative from each marketing team to participate on a core team that developed standards for the types of content they worked on.
If you approach content scoring as a cross-functional team, as Red Hat did, you need to standardize content types across departments. If, on the other hand, you’re a single content group developing a scoring method, you don’t need to gather representatives from the other groups but you still need to standardize the content types in your group.
If you approach #content scoring as a cross-functional team, standardize content types. @marciarjohnston Click To Tweet
3. Audit your content
Next, the Red Hat team cleaned its house with a content audit. Its resource library – external-facing content repository on redhat.com – had grown to more than 1,700 assets. Leigh, Jared, and Anna didn’t know which ones were outdated or irrelevant, but they knew they had a lot of cleaning to do. “It was like having a space full of dust,” Leigh says, “causing visitors to get a sinus infection and leave, never wanting to return.”
They had to figure out a way to identify – and get approval to remove – the dusty content assets owned by multiple groups who invested time and money in those assets. They found 419 content assets more than 18 months old, listed those assets on a shared sheet, identified owners, and asked them to decide which assets needed to remain available.
Since the team couldn’t expect content owners to go through all those assets at once, they did a rolling audit over several months, looking at 25 assets per week. Each week, they sent an email to the content owners of each piece, giving them one week to justify any piece to keep in the resource library. Leigh explains:
We didn’t want a simple keep-it-in-there or no. We wanted to understand why they wanted to leave it in there. Was it being used in a nurture campaign or promotion? If so, we could sometimes suggest an alternative.
Eventually, by weeding out the ROT (redundant, outdated, trivial content), they reduced the 1,700-plus assets to 1,200.
4. Develop a content-scoring method
After cleaning up shop, the Red Hat team turned its attention to analyzing the remaining 1,200 content assets. Jared created a content-scoring method to apply across all content types and content groups.
Since all marketing groups used the same web analytics platform, Jared used that tool to learn what was important to them. His findings showed these important metrics by content type:
Blogs – time on a page or percentage of page scrolled
Videos – times people press play or percentage of the video viewed
PDFs – number of downloads
In other words, depending on the group or the content type, people had various ways of determining, “We’re winning. We’re doing our job.” It was up to Jared to devise a universal way of scoring content performance. He needed to get everyone speaking the same language.
That lingua franca of numbers had to work for people who love the geeky aspects of analytics as well as for those who prefer plain English: Did this content work or not? Did it do what we wanted it to do?
Jared devised a scoring method that gives each content asset an overall score between 0 and 100. This number is derived from four subscores – Volume, Complete, Trajectory, and Recency – each of which is a number between 0 and 100. The overall score includes a weighting factor, which accounts for the relative importance of each subscore for a given asset.
The Volume subscore is a relative measure of traffic. “This number is relative to all other collateral within our resource library. It’s not specific to a particular content type,” Jared says.
The Volume subscore speaks to awareness. It’s a ranking. It shows how many people have seen a given asset compared to the views of other assets on the site.
Example: If a Red Hat web page, which contains a downloadable white paper, receives more traffic than 60% of the other Red Hat web pages with downloadable assets, that web page gets a Volume subscore of 60 out of 100.
Complete
The Complete subscore is the percentage of visitors who download an asset.
Example: If 40 of 90 visitors download the white paper on a given page, that’s a 44% download rate. That page’s Complete subscore is 44 out of 100.
Trajectory
The Trajectory subscore reflects a trend.
Example: In month one, a web page has 900 visitors. Month two, 600 visitors. Month three, 300 visitors. Traffic to that page is declining. At Red Hat, that negative slope equates to a Trajectory subscore of 0.
If visits had increased over those three months, the Trajectory subscore would reflect a positive slope. The higher the slope, the higher the Trajectory subscore.
For example, an asset had 10 visits in week one, 20 in week two, and 30 in week three. The slope (rise over run) of this asset would be 30 divided by three, which equals 10. Here’s how that calculation breaks down:
rise of 30 (10 in week one + increase of 10 in week two + increase of 10 in week three)
over (divided by)
run of three (number of weeks)
Determine the Trajectory scale according to what you hope to glean from the analysis and what is most useful to your organization, Jared says. Each company defines a strong slope differently. For example, if you consider a slope of 10, as shown above, to be strong – interpreting that this asset gets an average 10 additional visitors per week – you might give it 100 points on your Trajectory scale. You can determine your slope point scale arbitrarily (any slope greater than X gets Y points) or you can assess the average slope of all assets and base your scale on that distribution.
The Red Hat team understands that an outlier can affect slope. It could have zero views one month, zero views the second month, and then two views in the third (the outlier). Trajectory is going up. While that’s a positive sign, it doesn’t necessarily indicate steady traffic. Outliers are accounted for in the Recency subscore, which indicates whether traffic was maintained and steady during your analysis window.
Recency
The Recency subscore recognizes assets that maintain their value. Red Hat sets a monthly benchmark goal for each asset. The asset accumulates points based on the number of times it meets the benchmark:
40 points if met in the most recent month
30 points if met previous month
20 points if met two months prior
10 points if met three months prior
Example: Red Hat sets a benchmark of 50 downloads for an asset and evaluates the metrics on July 1. The asset’s Recency points break down like this:
0 points for June (downloaded 31 times)
0 points for May (downloaded 49 times)
20 points for April (downloaded 51 times)
10 points for March (downloaded 60 times)
The asset’s Recency subscore in July would be 30 points (0 + 0 + 20 + 10) out of the 100 points.
As noted under Trajectory, a Recency score accounts for outliers. A positive Trajectory (numbers climbing every month) could pair with a low Recency subscore if the first two months had notably low numbers (less traffic or fewer downloads). The Recency subscore, Jared says, “provides the gut-check of Trajectory in telling us whether that slope is a fluke due to extremely volatile traffic, or whether that slope is backed by strong, steady traffic.”
Another example would be an asset getting high-volume traffic in months one, three, and four, but little traffic in month two. That asset’s slope still could be positive in the overall calculation, in which case you would never know that the traffic dipped in month two without digging deeper. The Recency score indicates a month of low traffic. “If that was of interest,” Jared says, “we would know to look into that asset immediately.”
Weighting
For each content asset, the four subscores rank differently in importance and are weighted accordingly. In other words, the weighting of subscores is unique to each content asset to emphasize what the team values most about that asset. Each subscore is assigned a weight percentage, enabling the standardized overall scores to take priority variations into account. Because of this weighting, one asset’s overall score can be more usefully compared to another’s.
How does weighting work? Say that for a given piece of content Red Hat doesn’t care about traffic (Volume subscore). It wants visitors who arrive at a downloadable asset to say, “Hey, I want to know about that topic. I’m going to download this.” In that case, the Complete subscore matters more than the other subscores. Red Hat weights the Complete subscore higher than the other three, something like this:
Alternatively, in the case of an awareness piece of content, Red Hat might care about how many people got to the asset (Volume) and might not care about Recency. The weighting percentages for that asset might look like this:
Overall score
To calculate an asset’s overall score, Red Hat multiplies each subscore by its weighting percentage. In this example, the overall score for the content asset is 45:
The overall score is neither good nor bad. It takes on meaning only when compared to the overall scores of the rest of the content – which is why the score was normalized using weighting percentages. The overall score enables the team to compare various types of content and metrics that would otherwise be difficult to compare.
There’s no absolute scale to indicate what to make of an overall score of 45. If the rest of the content assets average 32, a 45 is fantastic. It means that this piece is doing well. If the content assets average 60, though, an overall score of 45 prompts the team to investigate why this piece of content is not performing as well as its peers.
Leigh says that this scoring method does a lot more than answer the question, “Did it perform well?” The teams can look at the subscores and say, “OK, this piece is getting great Volume numbers, but the Complete numbers are terrible. Are our advertising efforts in the campaign centered on this hitting the right people and getting a ton of traffic, and none of them want this? Is my landing page not effective? What’s going on here?”
A thoughtful scoring method can do a lot more than answer, “Did it perform well?”, says @leighblaylock. Click To Tweet
Pitfalls
Like all scoring methods, this one has pitfalls. For one thing, a low score doesn’t necessarily mean that a piece of content is not working. Scoring is relative. People need training in interpreting the overall scores. Jared gives this example: “When you see a score of 0 to 100, you think of 90 and up is an A, 80 to 90 is a B, 75 is a C. Ours is not a letter-grade method.”
Another pitfall Jared witnessed is that people look only at the score. “The number is not a hard and fast rule. It’s not meant to serve as the only data point for deciding what content to retire. Scores are not a chopping block.”
Scores simply provide one way of estimating the performance of individual content assets. Ultimately, people must consider what’s behind the scores and decide what actions make sense.
5. Create a proof of concept for your scoring method
Content scoring isn’t a quick process, and it requires many stakeholders. How do you get people to spend the needed time on this process – to put aside other work to do it?
Jared and Leigh suggest starting with a proof of concept to show the team what type of new insights can be gained.
Content scoring isn’t a quick process & it requires many stakeholders, says @marciarjohnston. Click To Tweet
Red Hat uses this experimental period to gather feedback from those who will participate in the project. “When you call something a proof of concept, they’re more willing to give you critical, helpful feedback than to just glance over it and say, ‘No, that won’t work here,’” Leigh says.
Red Hat’s proof of concept was built as an analysis sandbox in a workbook of spreadsheets with data from an API on their web analytics platform. After the data was pulled into the workbook, Jared built functions and calculations to summarize the data into an experimental content-scoring model. He then shared this data as CSV files for others to review and comment on.
Once stakeholders approved and reviewed the content-scoring model, the content team presented the model in a roadshow manner: They gave talks to the marketing leadership team and to a few marketing teams to gather feedback and encourage adoption. From there, after more people in marketing understood the model and its potential, Red Hat colleagues began asking Jared, Leigh, and Anna for analyses.
The team designed the proof of concept around the question, “What methodology will give us what we want?” It took a lot of whiteboard sessions and a lot of math. Once they had built (theoretically) what they wanted, Jared set about building it “in a refreshable, active state, so we could test and tweak the model as others were exposed to it.”
The current iteration is not far from that proof-of-concept workbook. Red Hat is moving into a final phase that will include a dashboard utility, refreshed daily, that everyone in marketing can see.
Here’s Jared’s advice for creating a proof of concept:
Start with something. Anything. If you have an idea or a general feel for what you are trying to accomplish, build what you can with what you’ve got. Others have a much easier time understanding your process and goal if they can see and play around with a prototype.
6. Find enthusiasts to promote your scoring method
After your proof of concept and once you have a scoring method, your job has just begun. If you throw your method out there and walk away, “It will die within a month. No one will use it,” Jared says.
You have to be an evangelist. You have to believe that others in your organization could use your method right now. Be willing to walk up to people and say, ‘We’ve got something new that you’re probably not comfortable with yet; we can get you there.’
And you can’t do it alone. Find people in your organization who, when they hear about the scoring method, get excited: “I can use this. This can help me start those conversations that aren’t happening right now.”
Look for subject-matter experts who will understand your scoring method and speak enthusiastically to other content providers and owners. They will argue based on what’s working and what’s not, saying things like “I’m not saying that your white paper or video was terrible or that it was fantastic. I’m telling you what the traffic says.”
It’s hard to argue with a respected person who says, “Here’s what we should do with this content because this is how it’s performing.”
7. Keep developing your scoring method
Your scoring method needs to evolve. Look for opportunities to get new insights on how people are interacting with your content. For example, Red Hat has a lot of data on how many people download its PDFs, but the data stops there. It’s building a business case for using more HTML content, as Jared explains:
With HTML content, we can dive into the asset itself. As opposed to saying just ‘Yup, they downloaded it,’ I want to know, how much time did they spend with that asset? How far did they scroll? We want to bake that type of information into the score.
Consider what kind of insights into your audience you want, and look for ways that your scoring method might provide those insights.
Consider what kind of insights you want & look for ways that your scoring method can help. @jaredwhitehead Click To Tweet
8. Audit your content regularly
Red Hat now audits its content quarterly. “We don’t want to go through all our assets at once again,” Leigh says. Each quarter, the team identifies assets that haven’t been updated in 18 months and those performing in the bottom 20% of the overall scores.
Though content age and score alone don’t tell the team what to archive, that information identifies which assets to consider archiving. “Chances are, that content is not performing well – but maybe it is,” Leigh says. “Maybe two years ago we created an asset that was so forward-thinking that people are just starting to navigate to it and access it.” To filter out pieces like that, the team also notes the Trajectory and Recency subscores.
They then list all the candidates for archiving in a shared sheet, identify the content owners, and give those owners one month to assess which assets can be archived. “We’ve done that now for two quarters, looking at about 65 assets per quarter. I expect that number to go down,” Leigh says.
She adds, “Now 100% of our visitors find exactly what they need 100% of the time.” OK, maybe not, she admits, “but we do have a better chance of satisfying our audience.”
Conclusion
The Red Hat marketing team has been using its scoring method for a year and looks forward to doing more with it. “Lots of teams within Red Hat will benefit from knowing how content is performing,” Jared says. “This goes well beyond the content team.”
Got questions for Leigh and Jared? Got insights of your own to share? Let us know in a comment.
Here’s an excerpt from Leigh and Jared’s talk:
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
About 12 months ago, I covered some content marketing trends to watch for 2017. I recently reread that post and most of the trends are very much in play for 2018 and beyond. Most enterprises are still working through creation of a true, living content marketing strategy for their organizations. Native advertising is still the gateway drug for many content marketing programs, and mobile is, well, it continues to be the flavor of every month as consumer use grows.
But some truly interesting events have occurred over the past few months that, I believe, begin to speak to the evolution of the content marketing practice itself.
Big bets on original content
Reports surfaced recently that Apple, the most valuable company in the world based on stock market capitalization, is planning to invest over $1 billion on original content. (Robert and I discussed this at length in the This Old Marketing podcast Episode 197.) Although there is talk about this move positioning Apple to take on Netflix, we believe this move is more significant than Apple just getting into the television show or streaming video business. Apple needs to stay relevant and consistent, valuable programming can grow its audiences and keep their attention (just like for any other company).
We also know that Google is purchasing original content from both brands and media companies (we’ve learned this firsthand), specifically to fill content gaps found through their search algorithms. And, not to be outdone, Facebook is spending significant dollars on original video directly out of the marketing budget. And don’t leave out perhaps the biggest buyer of original content, Amazon.
What all this means we don’t know yet, but one thing is sure: Consistent, original, and addictive content is all the rage. In some ways, we are seeing the golden age of a new television … it just happens on any and every device imaginable.
Consistent, original, & addictive #content is all the rage, says @JoePulizzi. Click To Tweet
How does this affect you? First, if your main competitor isn’t betting big on original content, it will be soon. The window for building a trusted and loyal audience is happening right now. Second, those who build new and trusted content brands will have multiple options to monetize that content, either directly from customers or prospects or secondarily from syndication through the Apples and Googles of the world.
Build trusted content brands & gain multiple options to monetize that content, predicts @JoePulizzi. Click To Tweet
Some will create, while others will buy. After we have brought this to your attention for years, the acquisition of content brands is now a major trend.
The acquisition of #content brands is now a major trend, says @JoePulizzi. Click To Tweet
Arrow Electronics, the Amazon of electronics components, purchased 51 (yes, that’s right) media properties from UBM and Hearst, and has created the largest media company in the B2B electronics industry. It now reaches 76% of electronic engineers and has a separate division running the for-profit unit.
In early August, Netflix made its first major media acquisition, buying comic book publisher Millarworld. This is yet another signal that Netflix is moving away from licensing other people’s content to create its own intellectual property.
The build-it or buy-it question is still in play, and from the current flow of money, it looks like both avenues are strong and growing in the content creation and distribution space.
Marketing as a profit center
Late last year, both Mondelez and Pepsi announced significant investments in the launch of internal content studios. Judging from the comments from the marketing leadership at both companies, a portion of these marketing arms will generate revenue and includes the possibility of for-profit ventures.
CMI believes that is the next iteration of content marketing – building multiple audience groups within the enterprise and monetizing those groups in dozens of ways. Eventually, some innovative companies, like Arrow and Johnson & Johnson (with its babycenter.com), will generate enough revenue to outpace expenses. The marketing department will become a self-sustaining entity.
Innovative companies will generate enough revenue from content to outpace expenses, predicts @JoePulizzi. Click To Tweet
As Robert Rose and I discuss in our new book, Killing Marketing, even if the marketing profit center isn’t possible in your organization, the process of wrapping your arms around the costs and benefits of content creation is critical. All senior marketing executives are curious about the creation and flow of content, especially since nearly every company is creating more content this year than last.
A recent study found that getting proficient at content marketing is the No. 1 goal for marketers in Asia Pacific. In addition, our own research found that most U.S. marketers are increasing their content marketing budgets similarly to those around the world. (Here’s an interesting study from the Nordics.)
Getting proficient at #contentmarketing is the #1 goal for marketers in Asia Pacific via @thenewbase study. Click To Tweet
This is both good and bad. I’ve been in this industry for almost 20 years, and it’s amazing to see marketing departments committed to the practice of content marketing with real marketing dollars.
That said, I’m also concerned by the campaign nature of these budgets.
Recently, I met with a group of senior marketers at a large consumer-technology company. They doubled their content creation and promotion budget from 2015 to 2017 (which is great), but most of the investment was in projects (which is not great). These projects were three- to six-month video series or time-based native advertising programs.
Sound familiar? It should. Most brands still treat their content marketing like advertising. For content marketing to truly work, it must be differentiated and consistently produced over a long time (like media companies do). I’m afraid that most of these content marketing investments will go without bearing any fruit … and that’s why we still have a long way to go in our content marketing journey.
Successful #contentmarketing must be differentiated & consistently produced over a long time. @JoePulizzi Click To Tweet
Over the summer, we began working with a large health-care company. Its content marketing results have been outstanding as it’s grown a number of content brands and audiences while slowly pulling away from traditional advertising. It’s been so successful that it caught the attention of the CMO and the entire marketing organization has content fever.
The unexpected consequence is a turf war and a disjointed strategy. PR and communications have hired their own content team members separate from the company’s official content studio. Social media roles overlap, and everyone and no one is in charge of the content marketing strategy.
We’ve seen this happen (it’s one of the reasons why we wrote Killing Marketing). Marketing leaders need to step up and give ownership to someone to lead the content strategy, which ultimately must be a mandate coming from the chief marketing officer (or higher). Practitioners, in turn, need to get together with other department leaders as quickly as possible and make sure everyone is on the same page. This is a difficult challenge, as some marketing leaders may think a content land grab is necessary (so they can save their jobs).
Marketing leaders need to step up & give ownership to someone to lead the #content strategy. @JoePulizzi Click To Tweet
Overall, I see this as the most exciting time in marketing, where we can build audiences directly and make a major impact in the overall business model for the organization. That said, this move will come with pain points and challenges as we see the deconstruction and rebuild of the marketing department as we know it.
Want some advice on how to handle the roller coaster that is content marketing?Subscribeto the daily email (or weekly digest) from Content Marketing Institute. (Even better news? It’s a free ride.)
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
