As Content Marketing matures, the ROI question becomes a burning one. Where is the ROI in content marketing? How do you achieve it? These are the slides of the webinar we did this week - our most attended one so far - where Steve Rayson from Buzzsumo and Guillaume Decugis, our co-founder & CEO, presented their best practices and findings for content marketing ROI.

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How to generate ROI out of your
Content Marketing in 2016
#ContentROI
Live Q&A with Steve Rayson, Director of Buzzsumo
and Guillaume Decugis, CEO of Scoop.it
Wednesday, January 20th

2. 2 @gdecugis
Content
Generate
leads
Nurture
prospects
Engage
customers
Brand
awareness
Traffic and
SEO
Goals of Content Marketers
Source: Content Marketing Institute /
MarketingProfs
Content has become the fuel of marketing

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But content is a major struggle for marketers

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Google and Social Networks want you
to produce fresh quality content constantly

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But it’s hard because content
is costly and time-consuming to produce

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Content distribution is complex
Organic reach is declining as social networks want
marketers to pay for play

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Way complex

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And so is understanding what works and what doesn’t

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What is Content Marketing ROI?
ROI =
Return
Investment
$Cost of producing content
$Cost of sourcing content externally
$Time spent planning and managing a
content strategy
$Content distribution, advertising costs
$Software and tools
$Brand awareness, thought leadership
$Leads and revenue
$SEO
$Traffic
$Conversions

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Marketers need lean content strategies to achieve ROI
Low cost but no impact
Low cost / fast / high impact
Costly Flops
Costly Wins
Cost / Time
Impact

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Lean content marketing:
optimizing the content marketing lifecycle to generate ROI
Plan
Produce
DistributeAmplify
Analyze
Strategize
Best practices to:
•Align results and investments
•Amplify results
•Save costs

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Lean content marketing:
optimizing the content marketing lifecycle to generate ROI
Plan
Produce
DistributeAmplify
Analyze
Strategize

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Strategize
“Answer your prospects’ Top 30 questions”
Barry Feldmann
Founder & CEO, Feldman Creative
@feldmancreative

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As prospects move down your funnel, they have
questions.
List them.
FAQ’s
by stage
• How should I think about my
problem?
• What is XXX?
• How can I be better at XXX?
• What are best practices on
XXX?
• How do others solve my
problem?
• Are there solutions?
• How does this product solve
my problem?
• How does it compare with
alternatives?
• Has it worked for others?
TOFU
(Awareness)
MOFU
(Consideration)
BOFU
(Decision)
Define buyer personas
Listen to customers
Collect FAQ’s from
sales

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Answer them.
FAQ’s
by stage
• How should I think about my
problem?
• What is XXX?
• How can I be better at XXX?
• What are best practices on
XXX?
• How do others solve my
problem?
• Are there solutions?
• How does this product solve
my problem?
• How does it compare with
alternatives?
• Has it worked for others?
TOFU
(Awareness)
MOFU
(Consideration)
BOFU
(Decision)
Your answers =
content to
produce
• Your doctrine on this topic
• Useful
• Educational
• Unbiased, trustworthy

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All quality content should convert: plan your CTA’s.
FAQ’s
by stage
• How should I think about my
problem?
• What is XXX?
• How can I be better at XXX?
• What are best practices on
XXX?
• How do others solve my
problem?
• Are there solutions?
• How does this product solve
my problem?
• How does it compare with
alternatives?
• Has it worked for others?
TOFU
(Awareness)
MOFU
(Consideration)
BOFU
(Decision)
Your answers =
content to
produce
• Your doctrine on this topic
• Useful
• Educational
• Unbiased, trustworthy
Aligned
conversions
• Sign up to newsletter
• Download eBook
• Talk to sales

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But don’t rush top of the funnel / first time visitors!

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But don’t rush top of the funnel / first time visitors!

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Organize your content framework around these 3 pillars
Content Marketing = publish and distribute content that
converts.

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How we organize our own content hub:
Social content
•Curated content
•Scoop.it pages
Blog
•Mix of curated and created
•Wordpress
Resource center
•Evergreen content
•Top blog posts and ebooks

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Lean content marketing:
optimizing the content marketing lifecycle to generate ROI
Plan
Produce
DistributeAmplify
Analyze
Strategize
How to plan to publish
good content
consistently

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More content drives more results
Source: HubSpot blogging frequency benchmark 2015 http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blogging-frequency-benchmarks

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Quantity vs quality?
Source: Scoop.it blog

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Both!
“Some “just okay” content that is
published will crush “awesome
content” that never gets published.
“You have to produce average content
to learn how to produce great content”
Marcus Sheridan
Founder, The Sales Lion
@thesaleslion

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Don’t bet the farm on a few “epic” ebooks or white papers
Source: Content Marketing ROI: Do eBooks and White Papers Generate More Leads Than Blogs? A Data-Driven Answer
http://blog.scoop.it/2015/04/21/content-marketing-roi-do-ebooks-and-white-papers-generate-more-leads-than-blogs-a-data-driven-answer/

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Use a content calendar to drive consistency
Define publishing goals (eg: X posts/week) by channel
Share with content team / contributors
Set reminders and drive consistency
Scoop.it Content Director’s smart calendar: http://business.scoop.it/

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Lean content marketing:
optimizing the content marketing lifecycle to generate ROI
Plan
Produce
DistributeAmplify
Analyze
Strategize
How to produce good
content at scale

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Do some research to create content that resonates
with your target audience
Research successful content
Find out what works / what doesn’t
Fill in the gaps: be the best answer for your target
audience

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Leverage content curation to create content faster and
supplement your own original content
Share curated
content
Publish curated
posts
Send curated
email newsletters
What Social posts linking to 3rd-party
blogs / content
Blog posts that quote 3rd-
party content and add context
through original commentary
Weekly or monthly roundup
of top content on a topic
How •Use curation tools to save time
sourcing content
•Share it with your own insight
and/or visuals
•Pick top curated content
•Add 150-200 words to
elaborate: context, opinion,
data…
•Publish as new blog post
with link back to source
•Pick 3 to 10 relevant stories
•Add commentary / context
•Format and send as an
email newsletter
Why •Build relationship with influencers
•Add credibility
•Save time over blog post
creation by 4-8x
•Retain comparable SEO
impact as original content
•Generate conversion by
adding your own CTAs
•Add third-party validation
•Send more emails to your
list without spamming
•Nurture prospects into
qualified leads
•Generate conversion by
adding your own CTAs

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Content curation to publish credible content at scale
“Content curation not only alleviates
the pressure of having to devote
valuable time to creating original
content, but it also adds credibility and
third party validations to your efforts.”
Jason Miller
Senior Content Marketing, LinkedIn
@jasonmillerca

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Leverage integrated curation tools
Automate content discovery and save time
Streamline the publishing process to social media
Integrate with your blog/website CMS
Scoop.it Content Director’s content sourcing and curation tools: http://business.scoop.it/

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Repurpose existing content under new formats

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Focus on a few formats

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Save time and reach comparable performance

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Lean content marketing:
optimizing the content marketing lifecycle to generate ROI
Plan
Produce
DistributeAmplify
Analyze
Strategize
How to maximize the
reach of your content

36. 36 @gdecugis
Do some research to create content that resonates
with your target audience
Research successful content
Find out what works / what doesn’t
Fill in the gaps: be the best answer for your target
audience

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Do some research to identify influencers
who share similar content
Identify most influential sharers and back linkers
Build relationship with them: start by curating and
sharing their content (“give before you get”)

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Build outreach lists and engage with your influencers
Have conversions with them

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Encourage influencer participation
“Co-creating useful content with your
community incentives participation,
engagement and promotion.
Influencers get exposure and you’ll
get relevant content they’re inspired to
share.”
Lee Odden
CEO, TopRank Online Marketing
@leeodden

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Leverage automation to create publishing workflows
Share new posts
multiple times
Re-share
evergreen content
Leverage your
team social reach
What Program new content as radio
DJ’s with new music tracks
Got a hit?
Play it again, Sam!
Get your team to share your
content to their own channels
How •Use scheduling tools to program
new content to be shared multiple
times automatically…
•… and that keep track of your
timeline so you don’t over-share
•Repeat for over 4-6 weeks from
publication date across all
channels
•Test different messages to find
out what works best
•Rank content and posts by
lead generation and
conversation rate metrics
•Tag most successful,
evergreen content
•Rotate it on an ongoing
basis in your social calendar
•Make it easy for them to
share your content
•Or even post on their behalf
through social collaboration
tools
Why •Only a fraction of your social
audience is connected when you
hit publish
•To test various message before
retaining the best one
•Reach your new followers
•10% engagement rate is
awesome; yet it means 90%
didn’t see it
•To overcome organic reach
decline for brand pages
•To add a human touch
•To build your team’s thought
leadership

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Share multiple times
“At my agency, we’ve set up multiple
shares on all of our content for a long
time now, and we almost always find
that we get much more lifetime traffic
for the content.”
Mark Traphagen
Sr Director of Online Marketing, Stone Temple
@marktraphagen
Source: http://marketingland.com/tweet-repeat-power-sharing-sharing-83050

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Lean content marketing:
optimizing the content marketing lifecycle to generate ROI
Plan
Produce
DistributeAmplify
Analyze
Strategize
How to prove and
improve content
marketing ROI

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Content Marketing KPI’s: the VATL model
Publish good content consistently:
• Be consistent: track your content volume
• Promote to generate amplification – also an early indicator of quality
Generate results:
• Measure content contribution to website traffic
• Drive conversions and measure lead and conversion rates
Volume Amplification Traffic Leads

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Content volume: fix lack of consistency

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Track performance on a post by post basis:
views (traffic), shares (amplification) and attributed leads
Scoop.it Content Director’s analytics: http://business.scoop.it/

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Are you on track for content marketing ROI?
Take the 5’ test
http://business.scoop.it/content-marketing-grader-for-roi/