Content marketing for Tech Companies
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Content marketing is an umbrella term to all marketing formats that involve the creation and sharing of content in order to engage current and potential consumer bases. In today’s world of SEO, content is the king and content is anything that is public and shareable. This includes blogs, whitepapers and articles, videos and podcasts, webpage content, press releases, presentations and more. A strong content marketing campaign is important for every business and website, regardless of industry. Producing great content is not only useful for SEO, but also helps with brand building and is the substance of any social media marketing campaign. Many companies struggle with content creation. Have you found your content marketing has been put on hold because of one of these reasons? • You don’t know what to write about. • You don’t know how to leverage your content online. • Your staff doesn’t have time to spare for content creation. • You’re not comfortable with writing ability. Marketers may use content marketing as a means of achieving a variety of business goals. Content marketing is the underlying philosophy driving techniques such as custom media, custom publishing, database marketing, brand marketing, branded entertainment and branded content.
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Content marketing for Tech Companies
- 1. Content as a Marketing Tool for Tech Companies Speaker: Chad Leedy, Product Marketing, ANX © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 2. Media Is No Longer A Passive Experience! 78% marketers invest in content marketing for brand awareness 69% use it for customer retention and loyalty 63% are certain it gets them more leads 1 out of 3 buyers trust marketing messages 65% of online revenue is generated from Websites in the top three positions 93% of global consumers use search engines to find Websites Lack of available content online costs tech companies 50% prospects!! Source: MarketingProfs research report 2011; Edelman Digital; Forrester; IDG © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved Communication
- 3. Your Prospects Are Hungry For Information 83% people online watch videos 78%read blogs 57%use social networks 48%listen to podcasts Average videos uploaded on You Tube = 100,000 + per day Average videos viewed on You Tube = 2 billion per day Average daily blogs posted on WordPress = 350,000 Total number of Tweets on Twitter per day = 50 million + Average monthly video uploads on Facebook = 20 million Pieces of content shared per user on Facebook = 70 per month Source: Universal McCann report 2008, 2011 © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 4. Touchpoints in the Buying Cycle Refer Return © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 5. What is Content Marketing? C REATE O PTIMIZE N ETWORK T RACK E NGAGE N URTURE T EST © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 6. Touchpoints in the Buying Cycle Refer Return © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 7. Technology Marketing – How is it Different Marketing has to be frequent Messaging has to be compelling Remember: tech buyers do their own extensive research Address specific problems, offer solutions Demonstrate expertise Building trust is essential Prove credibility, establish thought leadership Use a multi-channel strategy for more credibility Analyst reports & other 3rd party endorsements are critical for building trust Advertising, hard-selling almost never works © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 8. © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 9. Integrated Content Marketing © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 10. © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 11. © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 12. © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 13. ANX’ Content Marketing Strategy Create relevant content…and lots of it Convert offline content to digital content Engage an expert to market that content Gather and nurture all leads Continue to repurpose existing content Need to add metrics such as web page views increase, leads generated, number of downloads/registrations etc. Track and analyze results - web page views - qualified leads generated - number of downloads/registrations Adjust strategy when necessary © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 14. The Goal of Content? Customer Retention Lead Generation Thought Leadership Lower Customer Service Costs Open New Markets Inspire Former Decision Makers Content to Pay for Itself CEO Wants It …Solve World Hunger! © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 15. The Goal of Content? Customer Retention Lead Generation Thought Leadership Lower Customer Service Costs Open New Markets Prioritize Inspire Former Decision Makers and Content to Pay for Itself CEO Wants It Choose …Solve World Hunger! © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 16. Tech Marketer’s Checklist Identify Goals Build buyer personas Map content strategy to the buying cycle Develop content & assets Develop channels of distribution Editorial plan Repurpose content Operationalize SEO Develop off-site content Socialize Promote Measure & refine © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 17. © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 18. Get in Touch Forefront of Innovation visit: www.regalix.com Digital Marketing Services Technology Enabled Services If you have any questions about this webinar please Regalix Labs feel free to get in touch with the speaker Priscilla Selwine, pselwine@regalix-inc.com Multi-disciplinary Leadership Team & Strong Advisory Board, 175+ Team For a free evaluation of your website / ecommerce portal, please get in touch with Ritu Josan, Fortune 500 and Venture Backed Customers (B2B and rjosan@regalix-inc.com B2C) Global Operations: HQ in Silicon Valley, 4 Offices Industry Recognition © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved 18
Editor's Notes
- Here’s the typical purchase cycle when a B2B customer is looking for a product or a service A content marketer has the opportunity to engage the prospect from the awareness or the research stage, and guide the prospect till the purchase stage and beyond using various means Remember always that as a marketer you first market to a person, an individual and then to an organization. You market to a need, or a set of needs. Smart and effective content marketing does not limit itself to one particular stage in the buying cycle, and does not stop at pushing out information when the vendor wants to. It engages the customer at each stage and helps channel the buying decision. for a technology company this is important with the high costs involved in a single purchase, a plethora of vendors to choose from, and numerous product features and service models to describe.
- Have you ever picked up a company’s brochure or flyer? Watched an infomercial or a shopping channel on television? Leafed through a company newsletter? All these are a few,but by no means an exhaustive list, of the ways companies use content to market their products and services to customers and to prospective buyers. Content marketing is nothing new. Companies having been creating and distributing content for many years, both to attract new business and to retain existing customers. However, here’s the point of differentiation from more traditional forms of marketing and advertising: Using content to sell isn’t selling, or sales-ey. It isn’t advertising. It isn’t push marketing, in which messages are sprayed out at groups of consumers. Rather, it’s a pull strategy, where you attract customers. It’s being there when consumers need you and seek you out with relevant, helpful, compelling, and sometimes entertaining information. Technology companies need to be far more interactive while marketing their content, and use emerging new platforms and channels. Traditional approaches include custom publishing supplements and advertorials in newspapers and magazines. Online in the B2B sector, for example, white papers have been successfully used for lead generation for more than a decade. Marketers today have more options than ever before. With the ascent of social networks and mobile devices, brands can bypass newspapers, magazines, and TV to connect directly with customers and prospects on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and other networks. What’s more, brands can elect to continue working with “traditional” media companies to tap their audiences online and other venues. Media organizations have responded, too, by acquiring or building out their content marketing teams.So who is a publisher today? Who is a marketer? Content marketing marries publishing/TV/radio/events – and marketing – to build audiences, deliver relevant and educational “content” and information such as a white paper, webcast, video, or article, potentially turning fans, followers, readers, and viewers, into customers.
- Let’s relook at our buying cycle now and this time let’s see what type of content piece and aid a prospect’s decision In order to meet the needs of our buyers, we need to map our content to their buying stage or sales funnel.In the awareness stage we need to help our customers understand and name their problem.In the consideration stage we need to help them understand that there are solutions to their problem and subtly let them know that our company can help.In the evaluation stage we need to help them compare us to the competition. This will make it easier to win more business. Really.Visible pricing and a clear comparison of features is cited most often as the biggest B2B content gaps.In the purchase phase, it is all about selling points and trust: customer references, case studies and other proof points, special promotions, security and support details will all help the customer realize that they can trust you with their hard-earned cash to solve their problem
- Here’s a deeper and more segmented view into your content strategy and how you can best map all your content pieces with a prospect’s stage.The column on the left shows the prospect’s objectives See how each content piece plays a useful role in a purchase decision. As a tech marketer you need to be able to provide ready information. Encourage the prospect to ask questions, engage them in a conversation and offer a solution to their problem first, and sell later.Industry specific pieces of content distributed with keyword rich links to your website Keyword anchor text links on relevant pages for SEO and search engines Finding industry relevant blogs where you can write a guest post is a great way to engage with your audience and build a brand and thought leadership Once you have customer email addresses – email marketing, newsletters, regular news and updates, promotional offers etc can be a great way to build a relationship and generate additional sales Optimized press releases distributed via online channels have great potential to increase your online visibility, including linking back to your website Engaging with your audience on social media platforms can improve engagement and build loyal customers. Appearing in popular and well-respected industry forums, websites, etc helps improve sales completed offline Regularly updating blogs or posting articles on relevant forums/newsletters/sites builds your brand as an expert, helps attract long tail search terms and increase web traffic Finding and curating content from relevant, high quality websites, and syndicating your own content increases quality web traffic and is also good for SEO Brand exposure and backlinks can be built by developing different types of useful, engaging and relevant content and sharing online
- So this is what your content marketing ecosystem should look like. Look at how many channels you have to reach out and talk to your prospects and existing customers. What’s also changed now is that content marketing is a two-way process (as shown by the red arrows). So in all that noise…..because believe me, everyone is doing the same……..how do you stand out so that customers notice you? Here’s what we recommend:#1 – Act Strategically. - Don’t produce content for content’s sake. You can add a strategic framework to your content marketing efforts by doing three things. First, at the onset define your business objectives in measurable terms. This can be anything from a certain number of sales leads, a specific Cost Per Lead or even measurable level of brand awareness. Next, build an ideal customer profile (if you don’t have one already) and detail the buyer’s decision making process. Third and finally, develop an editorial calendar that maps your content to your goals and customers’ decision making process.#2 – Be Unique – Easier said than done, of course. Your content should project a unique point of view and tonality. It should feel like your brand. You also need to inform, educate and/or entertain your audience with every piece. Companies like Accenture are amazing that this. Given the competition simply pushing out quality content isn’t enough. You need to differentiate your content in terms of voice and usefulness. Great content, like most things worth doing, is hard work. That doesn’t mean that you can’t create good content in-house, but if you don’t feel like you have the skill set there’s nothing wrong in talking to outside consultancies, agencies or freelancers, who can also help you market that content.#3 – Embrace SEO & Social Media - Making your content easily discoverable and sharable online will vastly increase the likelihood that the content piece will achieve your business objectives. Specifically, make sure that any content you post to your website is optimized for search engines. In general terms, this means organizing the content on the webpage in such a way that it is easy for search engines to index while maintaining a high level of human readability. With that said, SEO is a deep topic and if you have an internal or external resource to help you optimize your content you’ll get much better results.Furthermore, your content should always strive to be social media friendly. Meaning, does the resource page have easy social share links and include information so compelling that people will want send it to friends? And don’t forget to make it easy for readers to share via email as well. #4 – Leverage Less Competitive Formats – Be innovative & creative. Just about everyone these days can or has written a blog post, but not nearly as many have created videos, presentations, mobile apps or podcasts. However these, and other formats, are quite popular and are an opportunity for you to connect with your target audience in a different and unique way. Furthermore, you can repurpose content from one format to another in order to get more mileage out of it. Have a series of blog posts on a particular topic? Turn it into an eBook. Technology customers love ebooks and how-to guides. #5 – Give away content for free – Build a pool of technology thought leaders and subject matter experts and set up channels for them to share free advice. These could be webinars, videos, demos, articles, meet-the-expert sessions etc. If you put on a creative hat the opportunities are really endless – and you’ll get much more mileage out of your content marketing efforts because of it.
- Here are some examples of websites, landing pages, newsletters etc that I like
- ANX’ content marketing strategy began by understanding customer needs. Here are some things that worked for us:Focus On The Customer – The marketing team made it a practice to speak to customers as often as possible. Great content meets customer needs. When content aligns to customer needs using the customer’s own words, magic happens!Creating An Editorial Calendar – Our calendar worked like a guiding light for us. What made it successful was that all teams were aligned around a content editorial calendar and delivery process, and we had buy in from all stakeholders such as sales, support, partners, and the web team.Defined the Process and Delivery – After creating good, usable content, the marketing team went that next step to make the content easy to find and access. A clear roadmap was establish to maintain a clearly defined delivery process so the expected content is available when and where it’s needed.Centralizing Content - Content “tagging” and a company-wide “information architecture” are extremely important to enable content to find its way into the hands of customers and sales teams. This has made it easier for the marketing team to define, govern and implement content campaigns.Feedback and Results – We went beyond measuring success basis deliverables and quantity such as number of pieces of content developed. We understand that 80% of content that does actually get used, doesn’t produce results. And so we worked hard at finding out what worked and why and then build that into the next round of content iterations.
- Develop & optimize content for buyer personasCreate an editorial planDevelop channels of distribution as a practiceRepurpose content across channelsMeasure both web & social media analyticsHere are some tips for improving your content marketing:Use keyword research to guide your content creationEngage with your market and listen to their questionsDon’t solve problems you’ve never hadMake sure all your content links back to your main siteMake sure you have landing pages on your site that match the offer in your contentTest different offer and calls to actionUse good titles to get attention