10 Tactics to Turn Your Content Marketing Up to Eleven
At LinkedIn, our members seek out content and insights that can help them be great at what they currently do.
This quest for quality well-optimized content opens up new opportunities for content marketers and publishers.
By creating and publishing remarkable content in the form that educates, informs, inspires and entertains, marketers can begin to build relationships with prospects early on in the buying cycle. This fundamental shift is changing the mantra from “Always be Closing” to “Always be Helping.”
But creating remarkable content is only half the story. Your content needs to be optimized, promoted effectively and mapped to your buyer’s journey in order to achieve results. In this webinar you will learn:
How to Optimize Your Content for Conversion
How to Create Relevant Content that Connects with Your Audience
Why Inbound Alone is Not Enough
How to Repurpose the Content You Already Have
And much more!
This is an exclusive conversation with Jason Miller, the Senior Content Marketing Manager at LinkedIn, who will share 10 content marketing tactics that are essential to a world class content strategy.
LinkedIn Webinar - "10 Tactics to Turn Your Content Marketing Up to Eleven" with Jason Miller
1. Thank you for joining today’s streamed event of
10 Tactics to Turn Your Content
Marketing Up to 11
We will be starting momentarily.
Tweet your questions to : #LinkedInContent
8. Speak to the dog, in the language
of the dog, about what’s in the
heart of the dog.
– Roy Williams
9.
10. “Everything I do, I do it for you”
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10
11. 75% of their customers complete a purchase without ever
talking to a real person.
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11
12. “Closer to the Heart”
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12
13. Ann Handley’s formula:
Useful x Enjoyable x Inspired =
Innovative Content
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14. Multiplication signs are
key.
(Thank you, Doug
Kessler.)
Useful x Enjoyable x Inspired =
Innovative Content
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15. “Born to be Wild”
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15
16. Inbound + Outbound = Awesomeness
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27. The Blogging Food Groups Categories
Blogging Food Groups
Categories of Content
Content Specifics
Raisin Bran content: The basic,
everyday content that you can dish out
quickly
How-to posts (e.g. SU videos)
Sharing Influencer/ third-party posts
Useful, relevant topics for marketers
Repurposing of old content
Spinach content: The stuff that’s good
for you, even if it’s difficult to chew
Thought leadership pieces
Guest Topics/ Blog Posts
Case Studies
Roasts: The valuable, time-consuming
projects that leave your guests begging
for more
Strategic research and analysis
LI MKTG Trends POVs
Big Rock content
Chocolate cake content: Everyone
wants a second piece of this sweet treat
Light-hearted, easily-digestible content
Cultural content (e.g. Day in the Life)
Amusing videos, graphics, stories
Tabasco* content: Sometimes you just
need a little fire on the tongue
Bold statements with strong POV
Thought leadership pieces
Calculated and strategic
Tweet your questions to : #LinkedInContent
40. What is LinkedIn doing to advance relevance?
Highlight types
of content
Quantify
content influence
Provide
recommendations
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40
41. How can I Measure Success?
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41
42. How do you know if your content strategy is working?
Increased
referral traffic
Social
Engagement
Higher
quality leads
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42
44. Please take a few minutes to fill out our survey.
We’ll be sending everyone a link to a recording of
today’s webinar within 24 hours.
Visit us at marketing.linkedin.com
Tweet your questions to : #LinkedInContent
Editor's Notes
“Sell Something and You Make a Customer Today. Help Someone and You Create a Customer for Life” – Jay BaerChange the mantra of “Always be Closing” to “Always be Helping” and in order to be helpful marketers need remarkable contentMarketers need to make this change due to the shift in how professionals engage with each other, brands and services.Buyers are now in control. They’re tired of being sold to. By helpingyou are better able to build a relationship with them. All other things being equal, people are more likely to buy from a company with whom they have a relationship. Building a relationshiprequires you to create remarkable content that people love. Mediocre content won’t get the job done. Remarkable content is content that inform, educate and inspireJay Baer Quotes – Jay will be keynoting the day before and recently published his new book Youtility which is all about this mentality:“The Difference Betweent Helping and Selling is Just 2 Letters” – Jay Baer“Sell Something and You Make a Customer Today. Help Someone and You Create a Customer for Life” – Jay Baer
Having great content isn’t enough – Marketers also need to understand context.On LinkedIn, the context is professional and aspirationalMarketers who match their remarkable content messaging to the aspirational mindset on professional networks will deepen relationships and have a much larger impact on their target audience.If you’re genuinely helping customers be more productive and successful, they will line up to consume your content again and again, and you will in turn build relationshipsand ultimately earn their trust and consideration
Buyer behavior has shifted dramatically since the onset of the social eraBuyers are in control; they’re highly skeptical and fed up with companies talking about themselves. Buyers are 60% of the way thru their purchase process before they initiate contact with companiesBut buyers want and need information relevant to their important business and personal decisionsSo you need to help them, not sell to them. This will help you build relationships early and stay top of mind.
There’s clearly an Opportunity to deliver a much better Content Experience
The Irrelevant Content Journey (The Mask)Constantly bombarded with marketing messages that hit and miss in regards to relevance. It’s a terrible experience that is only getting worse.That means creating compelling content that speaks directly to your target audience. Or, in the words of online marketing expert Bryan Eisenberg, ”speak to the dog, in the language of the dog, about what matters to the heart of the dog.” (http://www.bryaneisenberg.com/the-number-1-rule-for-content-marketing/)Insights can yield a much better experience by delivering content that understands the motivations behind one's thoughts or behavior.
Tactic 1: Customers first approach.
River Pools, for example, grew their company from almost out of business to the largest pool seller in the US in four years. They set up a blog an used it to answer the most frequently asked questions, which then became a popular e-book. Now, 75% of their customers complete a purchase without ever talking to a real person.The atomic half-life of content is much longer than that of advertising; your content pays off far after you’ve created it.
Tactic 2: Creating an emotional relationship with content. Connecting emotionally
Tactic 3: Inbound + Outbount
MarketoLowes Example
MarketoLowes Example
18K views on Slideshare alone, not counting the other places. Slideshare introduced new optimized viewing for Infographics.
Rel authorInfluencersLittle Bird
If you’re genuinely helping customers be more productive and successful, they will line up to consume your content again and again, and you will in turn build relationshipsand ultimately earn their trust and considerationKD Lang sums up all of our desires in this late 90s hit and that can play into your content strategy
Repurpose, reimagine don’t just hand it down. Pre-loved content. There’s always another audience waiting for it.
Another Big Key to Relevance is being Real Time and we have identified three types of content examples.
Another Big Key to Relevance is being Real Time and we have identified three types of content examples.
Content that’s Waiting for the MomentA content repository is a crucial part of the marketer’s playbook. This content may be evergreen, and with better targeting can be extremely relevant. Marketo, Openview Partners, and Kissmetrics all have substantial content repositoriesKeeps content organized and eliminates the problem of having content scattered across your website. Hosted, categorized, optimized, searchable, ready to be deployed at a moments notice in a variety of formats. In addition to being a publishing channel, SlideShare can also act as content library/ repository with the added benefits of being embedable, sharable, and trackable. Links to examples above: Openview Partners http://openviewpartners.com/insights-events/Marketohttp://www.marketo.com/resourcesKissmetricshttp://blog.kissmetrics.com/marketing-guides/
Content that’s In the Moment, for the MomentArriving late to the conversation means you’ve missed your opportunityDelivering content that capitalizes on buzz in real-time is tough. Here’s where social listening tools become even more valuable.When one Twitter user joked that a bit of pigeon excrement had totaled a smart car, some number crunching led to the calculation that it would actually take 4.5 million pigeon “craps” to do in the Tridion Safety Cell, which provides the main structure of the car. When an infographic with this research was tweeted, everyone from Buzzfeed to Mashable picked up the story. It even hit the top spot on Reddit twice in a 24-hour span. Almost overnight, this “Humor the Haters” social media campaign turned negative comments about the Smart USA brand into respect.Virgin Holidays launched a great piece of content marketing when gay marriage passedTide had some great In the Moment content during Shark Weekhttp://www.thealistdaily.com/news/tide-we-get-out-blood-stains-too/http://mashable.com/2012/06/21/bird-poop-smartcar/
Content that’s Anticipating the MomentPredictive analytics allows companies to make better decisions on what marketing content to run, where to run it, and who to target it to. Predictive analytics also helps suggest products customers might like, figures out what devices to optimize your campaign for, and devises the most effective calls to action for driving sales.Predictive publishing helps shape your message and allows you to angle it onto the social network pond in such a way that you will get the most skips (reposts) of your effort. What’s more, those messages will drive your target to action.Example: TrendIn – Predicting where conversations are heading within LinkedIn based on insights around the data that is being consumed.
Imagine being able to predict the next trend that matters to your customers and prospects, create content that addresses that trend, and beat your competitors to the punch. It will be like Minority Report, the movie with Tom Cruise.