A MÉLANGE OF CONTENT MARKETING

ADVICE12 tips, three success stories, and a host of strategies to guide your content marketing planning.

Sponsored by:

Page 3: Buffalo Bills Win Fan Engagement

Page 5: Connect With Your Audience Through Content Marketing

Page 6: Century 21 Makes BFFs Through Competitive Content

Page 8: Exploring the 4 C’s of Content Marketing

Page 9: Don’t Bore Your Customers With Content

Page 12: 3 Content Marketing Do’s and Don’ts

Page 13: Five Ws (and an H) for Content Marketing Success

Page 15: PetRelocation Uses Content Marketing to Drive Sales

Page 16: Content That Fits Your Marketing Strategy to a Tea [Infographic]

Page 17: Thoughts From the Twitterverse

All the channels and data in the world can’t save marketing with bland con-tent—especially not in a world where consumer attention is so hard to culti-vate. Many marketers realize this, and are taking pains to deliver outstand-ing content that supports and enhances their marketing across channels. We highlight a few of those brands in this eBook, as well as offer insight into the four C’s of content marketing, content marketing do’s and don’ts, and how to keep your content from boring customers. -Perry Simpson

Buffalo Bills Huddle Mobile and Content Together to Win Fan EngagementThe football team launches a content-filled tablet app to bring the game-day experience to fans outside of Ralph Wilson Stadium. By Elyse Dupré

Marketing is a lot like football: Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose. But when marketers focus on engaging their customers and creating win-ning experiences, that’s when they clinch a vic-tory: customer loyalty. NFL team the Buffalo Bills experienced this firsthand when it launched a con-tent-focused tablet app to engage fans outside of Ralph Wilson Stadium and connect them to the game-day experience.

KICKING OFFAlthough the Bills are based in New York, the football team has fans all over the world. And, of course, not every diehard can attend every game. Even season ticket holders miss about half of the season due to away games. So, the Bills wanted to find a way to give fans watching at home a way to connect to the game-day experience and be knowledgeable about all of the activities happen-ing on and off the field—kind of like a game-day program, notes Aaron La Porta, graphic designer and developer for the Buffalo Bills.

“If you’re not at a game, how can you follow along?” he says. “What’s a way for you to connect with the team? How can you feel like you’re expe-riencing it? Maybe not at the same level of being there, but maybe something that bridges that gap a little more.”

To help tackle this problem, the team launched the Buffalo Bills Touch app at the beginning of its 2013 season.

CREATING A SEAMLESS PLAYThe Buffalo Bills Touch app is designed specifical-ly for tablets. Using Adobe’s creative tool InDesign and the content-based app builder Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (DPS), the Bills create a weekly folio, or issue, called the “Fan Playbook,” which contains a range of engaging and interactive con-tent. For instance, a folio may contain video trail-ers aimed at firing up fans for the upcoming game, game-day photo galleries, Web overlay content and live Twitter feeds, and soundboards where fans can listen to legendary play calls and the Bills fight song.

Some content is even updated throughout the game. For instance, if fans visit the app before kickoff, they may see images of the Bills players warming up on the field; however, if they check back after the second quarter, they may find pho-tos of a big play.

“We throw the term second screen around quite a bit, and I think that it’s becoming more import-ant, especially in the sports entertainment field,” La Porta says. “To be in the game [and] to be able to have that kind of content for fans to digest while they’re watching the game is huge.”

BUILDING MOMENTUMTo get people to download each week’s folio, which are published on Adobe DPS servers every Thurs-day during the season, the Bills rely on its website, email blasts, social media, and text notifications for iOS users. And these channels have helped the team score some winning results. In fact, when comparing the Bills’ 2013 and 2014 seasons, the number of app downloads has more than doubled, La Porta says.

Despite this success, the Bills continue to face a few challenges. One is staffing. La Porta says

that he’s one of two people working on the Touch app, which can put a strain on trying to produce engaging content within a limited amount of time. There are also obstacles that are out of La Porta’s control. Consider team performance, for instance. If the Bills lose two games in a row, he says, there is a drop in interest and people won’t download the folio until right before the next one. But if the Bills come off of a big win, the number of downloads on Thursday increases, he says.

However, the team has secured some wins in terms of insight. And most of these insights are driven by consumer feedback. For instance, when the Bills first launched the app in 2013 it was only available to iOS users. Shortly after the app’s debut, the Bills began to receive comments from consumers via iTunes and the team’s cus-tomer touchpoints asking for Android and Win-dows versions.

“The Internet has a way and the fans have a way of telling us very directly what they want and what they need from the team—aside from what’s going on on the field,” La Porta says. “When we published the app in iOS only, I would say that ev-ery third response or feedback that we got was, ‘When is Android coming?’” So, in 2014 the Bills branched out to both the Android and Windows markets, which was important—La Porta notes—given that Windows Surface is an official sponsor

of the NFL. And, Android and Windows users have now surpassed iOS fans.

The Bills can also gain insight via customer sur-veys that it includes in each folio. In one instance, this direct feedback revealed that video is a pre-ferred form of content for fans.

Finally, analytics shed light on where the Bills can improve. Consider the following: After using the analytics tool within Adobe DPS, the team’s marketers learned that Sunday morning was the most popular time to download the weekly folios, even though the Bills push them out on Thursdays.

GEARING UP FOR NEXT SEASONAlthough the Bills aren’t currently playing, La Por-ta acknowledges that the team doesn’t really have an offseason. In fact, he already has aspirations for this upcoming football season. For one, he’d like to attach more sponsors to different content sections to offset costs.

And, like a true athlete, La Porta knows that he can always up his game.

“Based on the passion, the fans, how the team is doing, I can always make the app better, more streamlined,” he says. “I can always try something new and approach a hurdle within the development in a different way. It really helps me become more versatile and open-minded in terms of finding solu-tions that work from this medium.”

Connect With Your Audience Through Content MarketingDell’s managing editor, Stephanie Losee, explains how to build audience trust with content. By Natasha D. Smith

For marketers today, a solid content strategy is mandatory. Content that reverberates among con-sumers and across channels can no doubt bolster a company’s image, introduce the brand to poten-tial shoppers, and hopefully establish an emotional and psychological connection between the brand and its customers.

“What is more direct than publishing?” asked Stephanie Losee, managing editor at Dell, which shares content with readers through Tech Page One, the company’s community content hub. During the 2015 Marketing&Tech Innovation Sum-mit in New York, Losee said content is the key to unlock more meaningful relationships with con-sumers, “Produce content with your customers in mind. Then you can have a fuller conversation. You can go deeper.”

She said that too often marketers focus on com-pany goals and not customer wants as they craft content strategies. “We have to consider what cus-tomers are looking for versus what you want to tell them,” Losee explained. “Look at what [consumers] are searching for. Then, as a brand publisher, com-mission that information. Then readers will share your answers.”

Indeed, consumers do want to hear from their

favorite brands, Losee said: they want behind-the-scenes looks, new ideas, and sophisticated insights from industry leaders. And she said that content marketers at Dell recognize that demand for com-pany insight and are meeting it with unique, edify-ing content.

“Whatever content you create will find its way to sophisticated audiences,” Losee continued. “Re-spect the customer’s needs, even if it’s content that you might not have expected the audience to want.” She cites Dell as an example of listening to readers and providing long-form, niche content that focuses on tech and innovation and is more so-phisticated than the most kitschy blog posts: “You can even combine the story strategies; publish a shorter blog post that links to something more ro-bust, like a whitepaper or a study.”

Losee does warn, however, that content market-ing doesn’t mean free marketing. “It’s not realistic to have all owned and earned content,” she said. Losee insists that content marketers need to cre-ate media that they’re willing to share through their own platforms and promote on external platforms. In other words, content marketers need to devise a paid search strategy for their content. “We have the capability to publish content. But we then need to amplify it with paid media. It’s an extremely suc-cessful tactic,” Losee said.

Content marketing, Losee insists, does not only help brands connect with customers, but enables internal departments to communicate with each other. “Use content to break down silos,” she said. “[As the managing editor at Dell] I was actually hired to stitch together the different teams.” She said her role pushed her to work across different departments, ranging from those who might fi-nance the projects to teammates who would pro-vide the technology and designs. “We went on the hunt across different departments just to find the answers [for our content marketing strategy].”

In her final words, Losee said that brands should lead their marketing efforts with editorial content. “Brand storytelling helps customers understand more and know more,” she says. “It’s a great way to earn your audience’s trust.”

Century 21 Makes BFFs Through Competitive ContentThe real estate company’s director of social media gives examples of how marketers can produce content that captures consumers’ attention in their brand’s social streams. By Elyse Dupré

If there’s one thing every brand wants, it’s a BFF—a Business Friend Forever. And while forming this re-lationship isn’t easy, Century 21 has managed to es-tablish a rapport with consumers through “Internet competitive content.”

According to Matt Gentile, director of social me-dia for Century 21 and creator of its BFF term, Inter-net competitive content is any form of content that captures consumers’ attention for the two to three seconds that the brand has them in their social feeds. Visual content such as memes, infographics, and videos do particularly well, he adds, and helps produce a consistent “digital drum beat” that gets people to return to the brand’s properties.

Century 21 uses this content to capture new customers via social media and then drives them deeper into the funnel by producing other engag-ing content that keeps them coming back for more, he explains. Once Century 21 establishes a relation-ship, it tries to market to consumers based on a

more database-focused structure, such as through email newsletters or targeted campaigns, he adds.

And it looks like the brand has seen its share of successes, as a result. According to Gentile, the real estate company generated more than two billion impressions last year through PR and social cam-paigns, as well as more than two million leads that are attributable to its affiliate programs.

And although Century 21 may be a leader in the space, Gentile acknowledges that there’s still much to learn.

“The media environment pre-Facebook [versus] what we have as media environment today is com-parable to what we knew about the solar system pre-Hubble Telescope compared to what we know about the universe today,” he says. “People contin-ue to expand [their media knowledge] as rapidly as our knowledge of the universe is expanding.”

To help all marketers better their understanding of how to get the most from Internet competitive

content, Gentile shared how Century 21 leverages it, during the ClickZ Live New York digital market-ing conference. Here are a few examples:

STAY RELEVANTOne way Century 21 draws eyeballs is by pro-ducing content that aligns with pop culture and news events.

For example, the real estate company’s market-ers knew that there would be a lot of online conver-sations about the series finale of Breaking Bad. So, to get in on the action, Century 21 created a listing for the fictional home of the TV drama’s main char-acter Walter White. The company posted the list-ing on Craigslist and included a description of the house’s features that hinted at the show’s plot line. It even created a voicemail for people who called the fictional realtor. The brand then shared the list-ing with key social followers. The listing got picked up by the media and shared on social—generating more than 80 million impressions within 48 hours of the show’s finale.

“Sometimes if you want to be successful you have to break bad,” Gentile said.

Likewise, when Twitter announced its IPO, Cen-tury 21 created a video suggesting that the social network with the little blue bird upgrade to a bigger birdhouse. The company also created a hashtag for the video: #HomeTweetHome.

CREATE MINI AD CAMPAIGNSEven if marketers produce a successful piece of content like Century 21’s Breaking Bad listing, they don’t have the luxury to sit back and watch the numbers go up. Instead, they have to move

on to the next campaign, Gentile explains. One way the brand is able to maintain a content flow is through miniseries.

Take Century 21’s Gingerbread House Listing. The real estate company’s marketers produced a series of videos in 2013 starring fictional agent Ginger B. Redd who showed clients a series of gingerbread houses for the holidays. In addition to producing several videos, the brand created a blog post about the initiative and even created a Facebook page for their sweet agent. All of the videos also linked to the brand’s website and social channels.

“You’re not just developing social creative to fill the channel,” Gentile says. “You’re now devel-oping mini ad campaigns that create a lot of buzz in the industry.”

BE BOLDAs with any form of marketing, it’s important for brands to take risks and think differently. Cen-tury 21 certainly went beyond the norm with its psychedelic #Tryptophan Slow Jam. The video, which debuted in November 2013, garnered more than 105,000 views on the brand’s official You-Tube channel.

Gentile says that executives are generally more likely to be open about doing something “aggres-sive” or “different” in the digital space, versus tradi-tional media, for two reasons: If it flops, it may only reach a targeted audience, compared to a mass one. Also, marketers have the ability to change dig-ital content or just take it down altogether.

So as Gentile puts it, “Don’t be afraid to propose ideas that may seem out of the box for whatever company or brand you’re working for.”

Century 21 created a listing for the fictional home of Breaking Bad’s main character, Walter White.

Exploring the 4 C’s of Content MarketingThere are dozens of factors that can determine the effectiveness of content marketing. Here are four strategy must-haves. By Perry Simpson

As consumer influence over digital media contin-ues to rise, so too does the value of an effective content marketing strategy, for both B2B and B2C marketers. “[Consumers are] in the driver’s seat more today than they were yesterday, and they will be more in control tomorrow than today,” says Joe Matthews, CEO and cofounder of social marketing platform Tagkast.

Content marketing is one of the most apt forms of marketing for marketers hoping to reach today’s empowered consumer. However, there are certain practices in contemporary content marketing that, if emulated by unwary marketers, could dilute its effec-tiveness; chiefly, the confusion of content with promotion.

“Marketers should stop pushing promotional company information and calling it content mar-keting. The goal of content marketing is to educate and inform,” says Kristi Ross, co-CEO at investment platform Dough Inc, formerly known as Tastytrade Dough. “With each piece of content, think about the end customer—they are smart and informed, and should be treated that way. Consumers have limited time to read or watch content, so all of our content must be high-quality and informative.”

Ross points to a lack of testing as another is-sue that ails today’s content marketing landscape. “Marketers should stop developing content without testing messages with their audience first. With lim-ited budgets, marketers and business leaders can’t afford to develop a costly content campaign—only to find it doesn’t work,” Ross says.

Of course, there are several positive aspects of today’s content marketing—aspects that validate content marketing as an effective strategy and, if mastered, will elevate content marketing to the top of marketers’ priorities in the future. Here, Tagkast’s Matthews outlines the four C’s of content marketing.

CULTURETone is the foundation upon which successful con-tent marketing rests. “You should always continue to look for unique settings and ways to create con-tent that audiences will find valuable,” Matthews explains. “My personal favorite method is harness-ing consumer-generated content from live events and experiences.”

CAMPAIGN“Creating content just to have it isn’t nearly as ben-eficial as creating content to support an overall campaign or message,” Matthews says. “You should be able to trace every video clip, infographic, pho-to, or tweet back to a larger idea. This will allow for efficient use of resources and result in consistent and clear messaging.”

CURATION“Our brains naturally organize incoming informa-tion into categories and groups. Gathering and bucketing content based on themes will help you strategize for successful distribution and ensures the right audience segments receive the right piec-es content,” Matthews explains.

CIRCULATIONNo matter how relevant, engaging, or otherwise great the piece of content, what ultimately mat-ters is that the content is seen. “Understand your unique content ecosystem and differentiate what should be posted on your owned platforms, what deserves native placement, and what brand loyal-ists, social influencers, and consumers are likely to share themselves,” Matthews says. “Don’t forget to consider timing. Think about what pieces would benefit from real-time sharing and how you can best facilitate that.”

Don’t Bore Your Customers With ContentWhether your product is sexy or practical, your content can be engaging and profitable. Here’s how. By Jason Compton

Content marketing’s virtues read very much like a golden child’s report card:

√+ Helpful

√+ Engaging

√+ Doesn’t interrupt, but is always there when you need it

√+ Makes others want to learn more

It’s not just marketers who believe in it. Content is such a winning strategy because what customers prize most is to be engaged and informed. “In our direct marketing work we always test offers with consumers, and the offer to provide more information always beats out other offers, including monetary offers,” says Don-na Tuths, global lead, digital content at Accenture In-teractive. “You don’t have to offer a coupon, a check, or a free toothbrush to get people to opt in to a program.”

Content tells a story that a brand and its custom-ers can share—and you don’t need to sell fancy cars or fabulous destinations to make a splash. Intriguing content can create perceived value for even the most commoditized or mundane products and services.

Consider the problem faced by Vintage, a division of PR Newswire that provides corporate compliance services to publicly traded companies. The division’s director of marketing, Bradley H. Smith, readily ad-mits that one vendor is very much like another in this

space, because the result—compliance with securi-ties regulators—is an all-or-nothing affair. “It’s not like typical public relations where there are always new strategies and entities. The compliance customer is not excited,” Smith says. “There’s never anything new.”

Yet Smith is also a believer in the power of con-tent marketing to make his brand stand out from the crowd. A prolific industry blogger, most of his posts are straightforward updates about US Securities and Exchange Commission activity, but others are de-signed to provoke and intrigue the audience. Posts such as “XBRL Tagging Advice From an Alpaca?” (XBRL is a standard for formatting financial data) and “Pump-and-Dump and Revenge Porn: Twin Trolls of Different Mothers” do not follow the dry, generic tem-plate of the compliance world. “I use content market-ing to differentiate us and show that we can be better, different, and more human,” he says.

The second provocative headline was a deliberate piece of clickbait—something Smith says isn’t a bad thing, so long as the message still feels genuine to the reader. Pump-and-dump schemes are anathema to in-vestor relations and compliance professionals, so con-necting them with something wretched struck a solid note for the readership. “I’m an insider in the industry,” he says, “so I know how to use the right clickbait.”

GET SERIOUSContent doesn’t need to be sexed up or sensation-

alized to be effective. PotashCorp worked with gyro Chicago to create a content hub that would prop up sales. That hub is eKonomics, a polished, professional portal that offers tools and research supporting the consistent application of potassium-based fertilizer by farmers. It’s not a topic with obvious buzz appeal, to say the least. But by delivering high-quality articles with professional visuals, the supplier has attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Still concerned your brand doesn’t have enough to say about a workaday product or service? Step back and think about a different type of relationship-build-ing. Singles commonly illustrate online dating profiles with images of action, adventure, and intrigue, from nights out in exotic locales to skydiving. This gives viewers the reassurance that a prospective match is more than just their home and their work, and pro-vides rich fodder for conversation.

So, if your firm doesn’t do anything worth bragging about in a blog post, brochure, or Vine, the solution is simple: Go out and change that. DX Agency worked with a hearing aid supplier to move beyond the typical mes-sages from physicians and au-diologists by steering the brand into work with a cancer charity unrelated to hearing loss. This provided a natural opportunity to talk about participation in local events and to help spread cancer survivor stories. “That content helped show the brand in a different light and facilitat-ed the message they wanted to send of being a caring com-pany,” says Michael Dub, DX Agency partner.

TAKE A FRESH PERSPECTIVEWhat if your business is already fascinating, but your content just doesn’t click? Sometimes you need the right collaborators to put the right spin on a brand. That’s what New York On Air discovered when it revi-talized its struggling aerial photography service. What had been a helicopter service for fine art photographers and was just barely scraping by financially has become a social media darling. The key was the introduction of the “Instaflight,” in which a widely followed Instagram contributor is taken aloft and given free rein to aim, fo-cus, and shoot. “We brought a level of healthy irrever-ence to the aerial photo world,” says Vin Farrell, NY On Air board member. “When you have people who are not trained aerial photographers shooting the city, you get a different eye, and you reach a new generation.”

At year’s end 2013, before NY On Air started the In-staflights, it had about 1,000 Instagram followers. To-

day, that number is up to 340,000 and is still climbing. The core content—beautiful aerial photos of one of the world’s premiere cities—hasn’t changed. But the way that content is created and distributed has been radi-cally altered. Better still, business inquiries are up 600% and revenue is up by a factor of 10, year-over-year. “Old marketing is about showing an image and telling cus-tomers how to feel about it. We’ve let our audience help define our brand,” Farrell says. “We curate the feed, we still decide what goes on our Instagram, but now there’s a much deeper connection because it’s our audience and contributors showing how they feel about us.”

PUSH THE LIMITSContent marketing provides a safe haven to build awareness when legal or commercial considerations put conventional advertising channels off limits. Man-ufacturer Organicix walks a very delicate line with its DaVinci brand of handheld vaporizers. Such vaporizers are typically used to vaporize and inhale (in casual par-lance, “vape”) medical marijuana and recreational sub-

stances such as tobacco. In the mainstream, DaVinci is promot-ed as an aromatherapy device for vaporizing essential oils and other over-the-counter sub-stances—but the brand readily admits that this is a flimsy sto-ry. “There are a few people that do vape green tea, but they are really hard to market to,” says Shauntel Ludwig, Organicix di-rector of marketing.

The obfuscation is neces-sary because advertising to its core audience is by turns diffi-cult and illegal. Even in states where medical or recreational

marijuana is legal, federal regulations make advertis-ing paraphernalia strictly forbidden. There are fewer legal complications in advertising to tobacco users, but many publishers and digital ad networks shun tobacco-related ads of all kinds. “We want to be in-volved in the conversations about medical marijuana, but we can’t directly talk about it,” she says.

Organicix’s safe harbor is content marketing. A re-cent three-part series by Boing Boing editor Xeni Jardin chronicled her fight against cancer and the role canna-bis played in her fight and recovery. The DaVinci brand sponsors the posts but leaves the storytelling to Jardin. This keeps the brand out of trouble with regulators even as the product’s true applications are being discussed. “It’s been fruitful, but it’s not easy,” Ludwig says.

SPARK AN EVOLUTIONSoftware vendor Unify, like many of its peers, once

relied on traditional content marketing programs of whitepapers stored behind registration walls. Flag-ging enthusiasm for the old ways caused the organi-zation to rethink that approach. “The business people we talk to today are much less happy to put their de-tails on contact forms and digest reams of content,” says Mark Smith, Unify’s senior director of social me-dia. “But they are willing to engage in a variety of con-tent if it’s curated and under one banner.”

To shake up the formula, Unify published a hybrid Web- and app-readable portal, dubbed The New Way to Work. The portal’s articles are selected to prompt dis-cussion about the changing face of enterprise commu-nication and collaboration. But of the dozens of articles, only three were directly written by Unify. The rest are links to independent publications and provide context and discussion fodder for the changes in enterprise communication and collabora-tion that Unify promotes.

Unify wasn’t satisfied with a single approach to spreading the word. So, the company com-missioned a series of 40-second videos set in an office seeming-ly taken from a 1990s sitcom. The campaign, staged around the hashtag #emailfail, shows common workplace mishaps caused by poor email practices. There’s even a laugh track.

The #emailfail episodes have averaged more than 8,000 views each. In its first three weeks of publication, The New Way to Work attract-ed a similar number of visitors. “That doesn’t sound like a huge amount, but we’re getting visitors from the mover-and-shaker space, so that’s a really good result for us,” Smith says. Fifty percent of visitors to the curated portal click through for more information about Unify or its products, a strong result for the firm.

MIX IT UPSuccessful content marketers think constantly about ways to apply multiple content channels to the same mission, and to produce multiple pieces of content from a single creative effort. “Whenever you create a piece of content, you don’t want to think in terms of just one piece. You want that content to take different shapes depending on the channel, and you want to be able to slice and dice for social media,” says Anne Buehner, manager of social media for agency Red Door Interactive. Red Door worked with shoe brand ASICS America on a series of social and content mar-keting efforts for the New York City Marathon.

ASICS wanted to maximize the exposure from its 2014 race sponsorship. Red Door designed a cam-paign to boost awareness, which included several blogs, videos, and photo streams. In building an in-fographic about marathon culture, Red Door polled both ASICS Facebook followers and influential run-ners with blogs for quotes and insights to incorporate in the infographic. Quotes that didn’t make the cut were held in reserve and published in social updates to help promote the final product.

The infographic gave ASICS nearly 17,000 Web visitors and realized another 38,000 social engage-ments, through a combination of organic and paid results. More important, viewers spent nearly five minutes on pages with the infographic. Those are the customer outreach numbers that matter most to the shoe brand. “We’ve grown more toward dig-

ital and away from traditional channels, and are using these educational tools to promote the product and let people know what differentiates us from our competitors,” says Peter Malecha, digital market-ing manager at ASICS.

WHEN IN DOUBT, FOCUS ON FUN AND FASTIf your content marketing strategy still seems stuck, pare down to basic principles and prioritize speed and simplicity. Rather than building complex interactive videos or long-form eBooks, try establishing a steady stream of fresh, brief

updates on your own site and your social networks with the greatest reach.

PR Newswire conducts an ongoing survey of in-vestors, asking straightforward questions about how they filter investment opportunities. The answers are published as a fortnightly infographic to Smith’s in-vestor-relations followers. “This mitigates survey fa-tigue, and ensures that we have new content every two weeks to bring visitors back,” Smith says.

Every brand can afford to experiment with new content media. The fact is, no one can reliably pre-dict exactly which content channel an audience will favor at any given time. It’s best to be diverse, and not overcommit to any single item. Even the most gravely serious brand can try to share something novel and light that tells a story, whether that’s an impromptu podcast or a simple, whimsical game. “Create things that have you laughing around the office,” says Adam Padilla, cofounder of agency BrandFire. “If you like it, chances are other people will like it too.”

Don’t Be Poochie: 3 Content Marketing Do’s and Don’tsLessons from The Simpsons’ character that will make marketers go, “Doh!” By Eric Krell

In a rush to hop on the content-marketing train, too many companies are neglecting a classic lesson: Pro-duce content that viewers actually want.

This valuable bit of guidance originally aired in the late 20th century (on Feb. 9, 1997, to be precise), back when content marketing was called “advertorials” and “thought leadership.” It was presented in Episode 167 of The Simpsons, “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show,” in which new character Poochie—a sunglass-es-wearing, surfboard-toting dog—is introduced to goose flagging ratings of “The Itchy & Scratchy Show” (the animated show-within-a-show that the Simpson children watch).

Poochie completely fails as a character and as a content strategy. But he’s a perfect example of what happens when out-of-touch executives impose their own ideal of “cool” on the creative process while ig-noring why viewers tune in to their content.

While researching an article on leading content marketing programs, I heard about Poochie proclivi-ties often enough to realize that they qualify as major pitfalls. Here are a few other content marketing do’s and don’ts to keep in mind.

1. Don’t sell: “Are you ready to produce content that doesn’t list features, sell the product or service, or overtly promote your business?” asks Mark Pinsent, social and content lead for digital marketing agency Metia. “Is your team ready to authentically invest in engaging conversations with your audience for the purpose of satisfying [customers’] personal goals?”

As Pinsent points out, those goals should relate to your brand. But cultivating those conversations with (not to) customers and prospects requires time. Just ask Xerox. “Our approach is to take the long view,” says Ken Ericson, director, global social marketing for Xerox. He says that Xerox B2B decision-makers “need

a place for advice and insight, and they don’t want to feel like they’re part of a sales pitch.” By providing a stream of quality editorial content over time, Ericson says, his company strives “to build trust and advocacy for what we do as a company.”

2. Do measure: This is sort of a no-brainer, but many companies still fail to measure their content in an effective way. Doing so requires establishing a clear link between metrics and business objectives. That’s no small feat given the current abundance of digital measures (e.g., visitors, page views, length of stay, social media shares, product/service information requests, events attended, etc.). “Measurement, by far, is the biggest challenge” in taking content marketing to the next level, asserts Dan Berthiaume, principal of CMO Communications for Adobe.

Therefore, the best content marketing programs begin by measuring everything and then wisely win-nowing down their measures to those with the most direct links to business objectives—all while consis-tently reevaluating the efficacy of each metric. Suc-cessful content marketers continually ask why they’re tracking specific metrics.

3. Don’t pitch a Poochie: Establishing clear con-tent marketing objectives (linked to business goals, of course) and continually refining how progress is measured doesn’t guarantee the elimination of shod-dy practices and ideas. Some of the best content marketing programs start with some major mistakes. The marketing chief of a leading B2B consultancy told me that his firm first created a blog site by trying to emulate those on The New York Times and Harvard Business Review. That approach quickly proved faulty because of two things: First, the company couldn’t produce nearly enough content (at least three new posts per day) to keep the site fresh; second, its readers believed that it better to be educated and in-formed on a narrower band of topics than to be pre-sented with a broader collection of subjects.

Missteps like those can impact the team, as well. Not only did the Simpsons’ introduction of Poochie turn off viewers who were repelled by senior marketers’ hack-neyed idea of “cool,” but it also sapped morale in the writers’ room. Doh! That’s an old lesson worth keeping in mind today as more marketers enlist their subject-mat-ter-expert colleagues to play content producers.

Five Ws (and an H) for Content Marketing SuccessIt’s important for marketers to take time to step back and ensure that the basics are in order. Here are six foundations for content marketing. By Ginger Conlon

Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting the opening session for the current MarketingProfs University Content Marketing Crash Course. Enti-tled “Capitalizing on the Content Marketing Ob-session,” the session reviews the core elements of creating a lucrative content strategy. Here’s an ab-breviated version of the course to help ensure that your core content marketing elements are in place:

Why… are you producing this content?“Start with the end in mind” may seem obvious to say, but without specific, measurable goals you won’t be able to track whether you’ve been successful in driving desired customer behaviors. These goals may be attracting prospects, building engagement (e.g., time spent reading a piece of content), en-couraging shares, converting browsers to buyers, or retaining customers. And you may have more than one goal. Whatever the number of goals, they need to align with your overarching marketing objectives and strategy. Once you have your general content marketing objectives in place, you need to boil them down to specifics. For example, encourage X percent

of visitors to Y product pages to view instructional videos and then drive Z percent of those viewers to purchase. If you’re not achieving those goals, then optimization is in order: different placement of the video, new call-to-action, revised video, etc.

Who… do you want to reach?Think of your content planning the same way you would think of your campaign planning: like a matrix. Use specific types of content for express customer and prospect segments at certain times in their pur-chase or lifecycles (e.g., in response to specific ac-tions) via a relevant mix of channels. All of this should center around the customers and prospects you in-tend to reach with your content. For instance, you may want to use content to help convert prospects who resemble your current high-value customers. Keeping that target prospect group in mind will help you better select the types of content, channels, and timings.

What… content will you use to reach them—and your goals?Some marketers tend to default to the written

word when planning their content marketing. But video is growing in popularity, too. Road shows, trade shows, and customer conferences are also overflowing with content. And don’t count out roundtables and online communities, which are often brimming with user-generated content and can be especially powerful for en-gaging and converting. Content formats should not only match your goals, but also your cus-tomers’ preference. There’s no point in writing reams of whitepapers if the majority of your customers prefer instructional video. Adjust ac-cordingly. You’ll also want to ensure a mix of “snackable” and long-form content, whether that’s a mix of tweets, blogs, and whitepapers or a blend of video, webcasts, and live events. Determining what types of content will interest and engage your customers and prospects takes testing and learning—just like running any other type of marketing campaign.

In terms of topics, there are many idea sources, including customers and prospects themselves, salespeople and customer service reps, popular discussion groups, subject matter experts, and the like. Along with providing content that’s en-tertainment-oriented, be sure to address custom-er pain points and provide “discovery”(i.e. insight on subjects or issues that customers or prospects

may not realize are important but are or haven’t yet learned about but should).

When… in their lifecycle will you provide content?Inextricably linked from your content market-ing objectives are the timings for reaching your customers and prospects with content. If you’re aiming to move specific target segments of pros-pects through the sales funnel, you’ll likely want to present content based on specific behavior-al cues that show, for example, level of interest or extent of prior research. If you’re aiming to retain customers, you’ll likely present one type of content during onboarding and another prior to, say, a contract renewal. The goal is to avoid “random acts of content marketing” and instead be purposeful.

Where… will you reach customers and prospects?As with all other marketing campaigns, you want to be where your customers and prospects are. But you also want to present content where it makes the most sense. If you have a visual prod-uct, you may prefer Instagram over tweeting or blogging. If your customers and prospects are big Facebook users or enjoy live events, these may be the right options versus a private online community or webcasts. Similar to determining the right types of content, selecting the right channels requires a mix of feedback, observa-tion, and research: Where are your customers and prospects currently getting their content? Where are they most receptive to specific con-tent types?

How… will you support your efforts?Just because you’re writing a cool and pithy blog doesn’t mean that your customers know about it or, if they do, will make the effort to find and read it. You have to treat and market your con-tent similar to the way you treat and market your company’s products and services. Think about when you host an event: You want attendees, so you need to run a campaign to drive registrations. The same applies to other types of content. Use email or social to direct customers to content on your website, for example; support new content with online ads for a one-two punch. Getting at-tention for your content is the first step in getting customers and prospects to engage with and re-spond to it.

PetRelocation Uses Content Marketing to Drive Sales Marketers at the pet travel service are barking up the right tree with a revamped content plan. By Natasha D. Smith

Nowadays, pets are simply part of the family. So when there’s a major move or upcoming vacation, families to-day have to plan for their pets’ travels too. “Our custom-er is usually—and ultimately—a four-legged animal with an incredible journey ahead,” says Rachel Truair, chief of staff at PetRelocation, a pet moving and travel service. “And primarily, every four-legged animal has a pet parent who’s an animal lover and often in the middle of a very exciting, emotional time, such as moving for a job, for re-tirement, or perhaps going on a volunteer mission trip.”

Truair says that it’s at those emotional times that pet lovers want to plan for their animal’s comfort and for a smooth transition. But often, families simply don’t know the steps to take or the best options for their pets. “Our customers are passionate about their pets; they’re passionate about the journey they’re about to embark on. But sometimes, they’re a little overwhelmed—even, at times, fearful of this journey,” Truair says. “So that’s where we have the opportunity to kind of swoop in and teach them about what they don’t know and help an-swer their questions.”

It’s an opportunity, she says, not just to help families and their pets during major transition but to capitalize on a marketing opportunity for PetRelocation. Truair says through content marketing, she and her team have a chance to share their knowledge about pet travel—and as a result build trust with potential and current customers, establish PetRelocation as an authority, and perhaps most important, boost organic search and conversions. “Back in 2006, there was no authority in pet relocation. Not ev-ery company had a blog back then,” Truair explains. “So I saw that a blog could really work for us, even then.”

She says, however, that marketers at PetRelocation spent a lot of time answering questions from consum-ers through email—and many were the same questions asked several times over by different customers. On top

of that, Truair says the company’s keyword and pay-per-click campaigns were generic—and expensive.

So with tools from Oracle Marketing Cloud, market-ers at PetRelocation set up a content forum where pet lovers can submit questions into a queue and get an-swers directly from the marketing team. Some questions included queries like, “What’s the best airline for my bull-dog?” or “What are the vaccination rules in the United Kingdom?” Marketers now cull and answer those ques-tions directly on PetRelcoation.com, where anyone can see them and find them through search engines. That means better support for pet owners—and it translates into more leads for PetRelocation. In fact, Truair says that content marketing is now PetRelocation’s primary mar-keting strategy.

“Anyone can move their pets on their own,” she ex-plains. “But through content marketing, we could either help them do it on their own or explain the benefits of letting us help them. It’s really the opportunity to show the value of our service.”

“Initially the goal was just to drive more traffic to our website,” Truair continues. “But quickly we started to drive that traffic, and as our traffic started to go up we started to get more and more leads from our website. We realized that we could dial back our pay-per-click spend. So, actually, we no longer spend any money on pay-per-click advertising.”

PetRelocation also uses the forum to collect testimo-nials from satisfied clients. Truair says these success sto-ries have become some of the company’s most valuable pieces of their marketing plan. In fact, the company says that it’s seen a 150% increase in lead-to-customer con-version rates with these personal stories.

“Forty-seven percent of our leads now come from organic search traffic,” she explains. Truair says that PetRelocation is now engaging potential and existing customers in conversation that’s generated by them and, as a result, is simply more meaningful.

“It’s no coincidence that 70 percent of our annual revenue is directly tied to our online marketing efforts,” she says. “Content marketing really allows you to get beneath that marketing iceberg—beyond those general, top-of-iceberg questions. Ninety percent of the iceberg is actually underneath the surface. I really think content marketing is a great way to get to those beneath-the-sur-face types of needs.”

Content That Fits Your Marketing Strategy to a TeaMarketers are heating up engagement by steeping customers in an abundance of valuable content.

Professionals who say their content marketing budgets are:

48% Increasing 8% Decreasing44% Staying the same

Respondents who consider the following the most effective

resources for creating content:

75% Combination of outsourced and in-house resources15% In-house resources only10% Outsourced resources only

Professionals who consider increasing or improving the

following as their most important content marketing

strategy objectives:52% Customer engagement52% Lead generation44% Brand awareness38% Sales revenue32% Lead nurturing28% Website traffic26% Customer retention19% Search engine rankings

Professionals who say that the following types of content

are the most effective:54% Articles/case studies46% Videos43% Infographics36% Research/whitepapers30% Webinars/online events28% e-newsletters24% Photos/illustrations10% News releases

When it comes to achieving objectives,

professionals rate the success of their content

marketing as:Somewhat successful

63% 26% 9% 2%

verysuccessful

Somewhatunsuccessful

veryunsuccessful

Respondents who consider the following the most useful metrics for measuring content marketing performance:

50%: Conversion rate45%: Quality of leads42%: Website traffic37%: Number of leads

Respondents who consider the following the most challenging ob-

stacles to content marketing success:

53% Lack of content creation resources42% Lack of effective strategy40% Budget constraints33% Inability to measure effectiveness27% Lack of cross-channel integration25% Lack of employee skills24% Lack of variety of content types15% Lack of management support

59% Videos50% Webinars/online events 50% Research/whitepapers 34% Infographics 31% Articles/case studies 13% e-newsletters 8% Photos/illustrations 6% News releases

Respondents who consider the following the most difficult

types of content to create:

30%: Sales revenue27%: Subscriber list growth27%: Social media sharing17%: Search engine rankings

Robert Gibb@gibbiv

Content marketing: Turn-ing your biz into a classroom, teaching relevant material, teaching it well enough to get ‘students’ to come back.

Stephan Foster Jr@stephanfosterjr

Make things, break things, change things. Stop worrying and produce things. #social-wisdom #contentmarketing #HumpDay #hustle #workhard

Ned James@NedFL

If you want conversions via your content , including a call to action in your headline is usually most recommended. #contentmarketing

stacy baca@inkwellness

Love the differentiation between “audience” and “community.” Audience is people who follow you, but community engages! #contentmarketing

Lindsey Sanford@LindseySanford

Who says official strategy process documents have to be dry and wit-less? #contentmarketing #culture #strategy

DeeDee Andrews@DeeDeeAndrews

I hate paginated blogs. I’m going to start bouncing away from these pages faster than a bouncy-ball coated in flubber. #contentmarketing