This document discusses effective content marketing strategies and provides recommendations. It begins by highlighting the benefits of content marketing over other digital marketing channels like paid ads and SEO. It then recommends capturing leads through content like ebooks on landing pages. The document also stresses the importance of promoting and distributing content on blogs, social media, and other channels. It provides ideas for the types of content that should be created at different customer journey stages. Finally, it compares options for investing in content marketing versus other alternatives like hiring additional salespeople.

1. Effective Content
Marketing
Driving leads & sales using an integrated
approach to content marketing
Created by Phil Robinson
Founder & CEO, ClickThrough
Website: www.clickthrough-marketing.com
Telephone: 0800 088 7486

2. A Digital Agency Focused On Conversion
Contents

3. What best describes
your company’s budget
plans for the following
digital marketing
channels or disciplines in
2014?
74% of Marketers To Increase Budgets on Content Marketing
Source: Econsultancy Survey of 2000+ digital professionals

4. Pros & Cons
• AdWords & Display Ads: benefit stops when paused.
• SEO: dependent on Google, changing goal posts.
• Social & PR: can be hit and miss, benefit stops when
campaigns stop.
• Content Marketing: creation of content assets can
provide a longer term benefit & return on investment.

5. What is Content Marketing?
“A marketing technique of creating and
distributing valuable, relevant and consistent
content to attract and acquire a clearly defined
audience – with the objective of driving profitable
customer action.”
A study by Kapost and Eloqua in the US found that over a
24 month period, content marketing was more than three
times more effective than paid search.

6. Quick Survey
How many of you run a regular content marketing schedule?
e.g. Ebooks, blog posts, social seeding, email newsletters etc.

7. “We’ve created a video, it worked okay but
was expensive…”
“We produced a white paper but didn’t really
distribute it….”
“…. designed an infographic, put I think it was
pointless in hindsight.”
“We’re doing a blog already, not sure how
well its working….”
“…. currently trying to do some posting on
LinkedIn …”
Most Companies Are Dabbling
The common problem is that
this is a one-off & done in
isolation of each other

8. 1. Why focus on content marketing?
2. How do you capture more leads?
3. What content should we create?
4. How do you promote & distribute the content?
5. What investment is required?
How To Do Content Marketing Effectively

9. Reasons To Focus On
Content Marketing
Top reasons and a business case

10. • They often use content to
increase their knowledge of a
subject.
• Users are looking for content
that helps them to make an
informed purchasing decision.
• They use it to measure the
credentials of a brand and
validate their purchasing
decision.
People Avoid Ads, But Actively Seek Content

11. • A Paid Search campaign can
do well but the benefit stops
when paused.
• Content marketing is the
opposite.
• Great online content has a
shelf life & gives a longer
term return.
Content Marketing Doesn’t Go Stale

12. Source: http://www.seomoz.org/google-algorithm-change
• Google is constantly penalising & dropping sites with poor content & spam
Google Is Fighting Poor Content & Spam

13. You Already Know …..

14. • Creates an emotional
affinity before you have
met.
• 60% of the sales process
is complete before you
meet.
• Conversion rate from lead
to sale can increase
significantly.
Great Content Starts Building The Relationship

15. Improves Your Lead to Sale Conversion Rate
Stage
Monthly
Quantity
Funnel
%
Visitors 3,000 100%
Leads (Suspects) 40 1.3%
Prospects (Qualifed) 16 0.5%
Sales 4 0.1%
Marketing Funnel & Stats
Stage
Monthly
Quantity
Funnel
%
Visitors 4,500 100%
Leads (Suspects) 100 2.2%
Prospects (Qualifed) 24 0.5%
Sales 10 0.2%
Marketing Funnel & Stats
Increase visitors
Increase Visitor Conversion Rate
Increase Lead to Sale Conversion
Before After

16. Improves Your Lead to Sale Conversion Rate
Source: Hubspot & Massachusetts Institute of Technology

17. Attract & Acquire
What mechanism do you use to capture more leads?

18. “On average only 2% of
visitors to your website
are ready to do business.”
Source: Hubspot
The Marketing Problem

19. Turning Passing Visitors Into Customers
How do we capture, nurture
& convert the other 98% ?

20. Option: Create an Ebook & High Converting Landing Page

21. Capturing Details Of Existing Side Wide Traffic
Call to action
Ticks say “yes”
Remind them
To call
Call to
action
2ndry Nav
Ebook
We are real
Well written
Keyword rich

22. • Consider eye tracking studies & F-shape when developing
landing pages for digital campaigns.
Eye Tracking Studies

23. Distribute & Promote
How & Where Should We Promote The Content?

24. Regular Blogging Is Essential
 Regular blogging written with SEO, keywords & your buyer interests in-mind.

25. Integrate Blog Feed With Social Platforms
& 100’s of other
social sites
• 700m active users.
• Avg. user creates 90 pieces
of content each month.
• Avg. user connected to 80
pages, groups and events.
• 106m registered users.
• 300,000 people sign up to
Twitter every day.
• 600m search queries on
Twitter.com per day.
• More than 80m members.
• Linkedin has members in
over 200 countries.
• Executives from all Fortune
500 companies on Linkedin.
• Your RSS Feed can be
syndicated across the web.
• This provides extra reach on
the social networks that
matter in your industry.
Creation of RSS feeds & connection with social platforms to
increase visibility of your content in your social platforms.

26. Test Promoting Ebook in Paid Ads & Paid Social
 Send traffic directly into your lead generation landing page.
Targeted Linked In Ads Targeted Display &
Remarketing Ads
Google AdWords Text Ads

27. Engage & Reach Out to PR, Influencers & Bloggers
 Engage with your outreach list using phone calls, emails and
contact via Linked In and targeted social seeding.

28. Upload Content To Relevant Distribution Services
• There are several excellent
distribution platforms available
for different types of content.
• Video: 20+ video networks
such as YouTube and Vimeo.
• PowerPoint: sites such as
SlideShare and AuthorStream.
• PDF & Ebooks: lots of PDF &
ebook distribution services.

29. Remarketing To Your Growing Email List
• You’ve now got blog posts & content that you can send to
your growing email list.

30. Impact Timeframe: Traffic
Source: Hubspot & Massachusetts Institute of Technology

31. Impact Timeframe: Leads
Source: Hubspot & Massachusetts Institute of Technology

32. Creating Content
What Content Should We Create?

33. Answering Your Customers Questions
• Your potential customers
have questions about your
company, your products, your
services, your competitors.
• Creating and distributing
content that clearly answers
these questions will grow
sales & encourage loyalty.

34. Answering Your Customers Questions & Concerns
• Being asked the same
question.
• We’ve just produced a
guide in response.
“I’m not sure about which ecommerce
platform to use for our web build …”

35. What are the key questions your potential customers have?
Quick Survey

36. Planning A Content Strategy: Ideas Matrix
A useful matrix for
developing content ideas
based on different goals
such as to inspire, entertain,
educate or convince.

37. Discovery Phase: Buyer Persona Analysis
 Content strategy starts with defining your key personas.
Buyer Persona Analysis (B2C & B2B)
General Overview Persona 1 Persona 2 Persona 3
Name of Buyer Persona
Description of Persona
Priority & Importance Scale (1 - 3)
Personal Information (B2C only)
Age
Gender
Location
Income
Marital Status
Occupation or Job Title
Education
Hobbies
Favorite TV Shows
Personality
Behaviours, Feelings & Goals (B2B & B2C)
What are their main goals?
What are their main challenges & point points?
What are their fears?
What are their key drivers & interests in buying decisions?
What features/benefits of your offering is of most interest?
Professional Interests (B2B & B2C)
What education & content resources are of most interest?
What qualifications are they likely to have?
What Linked In Groups or Organisations are they likely to be part of?
What online and offline media sources are they most likely to read?

38. Discovery Phase: Competitor Matrix Analysis
 Assessing competitors will help identify themes for content
that can be used to differentiate your business.
Competitor Analysis & Comparison Matrix
Competitor 1 Competitor 2 Competitor 3 Competitor 4 Competitor 5
Company Name
Website URL
Type of Competitor (major, minor, indirect)
Sales Turnover
No. of Employees
What is the competitors key USP's?
What are they doing well? What do you admire?
How does their price compare?
How does their product range compare?
How does their marketing compare?
Place (geographical presence)
Other key comparisons

39. Discovery Phase: Environment & Market Audit
 Assess market factors to identify themes & key issues for content.
Environment Audit
Social Factors (e.g. demographics, population growth, age,
lifestyles, cultural values, skills)
Legal Factors (e.g. laws, health & safety, employment law, store
opening hours)
Economical Factors (e.g. Income levels, employment levels,
inflation rates, ecomonic growth)
Political Factors (e.g. government actions, tax levels, policies)
Technological Factors (e.g. internet usage, IT, apps, home
shopping)
Environmental (e.g. affect of your business on environment,
green credentials)

40. Discovery Phase: Keyword Analysis & Planning
• Use Google Keyword
Tool to find what
content your prospects
are looking for.
• Give them what they
are looking for.
• Show them why they
should talk to you.

41. • Content marketing is alone in its ability to be a successful at
every phase of the customer lifecycle.
Ideas for Each Stage Of the Customer Journey

42. Ideas for Each Stage Of the Customer Journey
Customer Journey: Thoughts & Feeling Audit & Recommendations
Awareness & Attract Capture Information Comparison Phase First Stage Call The Pitch Meeting
What thoughts, feelings &
fears are typical at this stage?
What thoughts, feelings &
fears are typical at this stage?
What thoughts, feelings &
fears are typical at this stage?
What thoughts, feelings & fears
are typical at this stage?
What thoughts, feelings &
fears are typical at this stage?
"I need to find a well known
trusted agency"
"if I submit this form, am I
going to get bombarded with
emails and calls from sales
people"
"are they expensive" "Does this person know what
they are talking about"
"are they on time"
"If I don't use the right agency
my job will be at risk"
"what benefit will I get from
submitting this form"
"do they have long contract
tie-ins"
"are they saying what I want to
hear or are they challenging
me"
"what level of expertise is in
the room"
"what's in it for me to bother
looking at their website"
"are my details secure" "do they offer a wide range of
digital services"
"is this company worth meeting
with formally"
"do they understand our
business and customers"
"how are they different" "are they specialist enough in
the key areas"
"am I getting good advice or am
I being sold to"
"are they professional"
"do they have credentials" "have I learned anything from
the call"
"who have they worked for" "do I like this person"
"what case studies do they
have"
"does this person understand
me and our business"
"are they local to us or are we
going to have to travel for
face to face meetings"

43. Ideas for Each Stage Of the Customer Journey
Customer Journey: Planning A Content Strategy To Match The Customer Journey
Priority Difficulty 1) Awareness & Attract 2) Capture Information 3) Engage & Nurture 4) Consideration & Convince
1 to 3 1 to 3
What content will create first
stage awareness & traffic?
What content can you offer that
will capture prospect info?
What content will engage
and nurture prospects?
What content will convince
prospects to purchase?
FAQs
Expert Blog Posts
Indusry News Feed
Newsletters
Press Releases
Guides & Ebooks
Features Lists
Comparison Tables
Datasheets
Pricing Guides
Testimonials
Reviews & Ratings
Case Studies
Community Forum
Trend Reports & Insights

44. What Investment Is
Required?
Considering Various Investment Options & Scenarios

45. 1. Employ a new sales person
2. Employ a marketing manager
3. Employ a content marketing agency
Investment Options for Growing Sales

46. Option 1: Employ A New Sales Person
• Cost from 3k per month,
up to 7k per month.
• Reports show sales
people operate at 30%
efficiency.
• How hard is it to find
great sales people?

47. Option 2: Employ A Marketing Manager
• Cost from 2k to 4k per
month.
• What impact are they
‘really’ having on lead
generation & sales?
• He can’t do it all ….

48. Option 3: Employ An Content Agency
• From 1.5k per month up
to 5k+ per month.
• Significantly less cost than
a new sales person.
• Not a toe in the water
method that you can trial
for 1-2k budget.

49. What Does An Entry Level Content Schedule Look Like?
• 1 ebook per quarter
• 5 blog posts per month
• Social seeding
• 200 calls to influencers
and complementary
companies.
• Monthly email newsletter

50. Our “Call To Action”
• We can run a consultation & Q/A
with your internal team.
• This will assess how content
marketing can be integrated &
benefit your existing marketing &
sales.
• Assess your sales lead funnel.
• Provide Initial proposals &
timescales.
Call the digital strategy team on
0800 088 7486
Website: www.clickthrough-marketing.com
Address: Charter House, Sandford Street Lichfield, WS13 6QA

51. Thank You