This whitepaper outlines a 3-step process for creating a winning content strategy: 1) Optimisation - optimizing content for search engines and sharing across multiple platforms from a central social newsroom. 2) Amplification - expanding audience reach by promoting content on large publisher sites. 3) Analysis - using metrics to measure campaign performance and identify high-engagement content to improve future strategies. Case studies demonstrate how companies increased traffic, engagement, and leads using this approach.

1. Cision Whitepaper
A winning content strategy in 3 easy steps
So you’ve written an excellent blog complete with credible facts, eye-catching imagery and
informative graphs. You’ve hit the publish button and shared the content on relevant social
media sites. Now what? In an ideal world, the communication is a raging success – reaching
all the right people at all the right times and converting those clicks to hard cash. But in the
digital world, having compelling editorial and marketing presence on a website and social
media sites is simply not enough. Nearly 99% of online content, no matter how brilliantly
constructed remains anonymous to the world, unless it is made smart.
What is smart content?
In the same way that smartphones, smart TVs and
smart cities etc. have earned the title, content that
uses technology to optimise output and efficiency
is considered smart. In the words of Francois Nel,
director of journalism leaders’ programme at Central
Lancashire University: ‘I see “smart content” as social,
measurable and audience-focused, rewarding for all
involved and timely.’
For content to be ‘rewarding for all involved’ it has
to reach the target audience, generate leads and
translate to sales.
This whitepaper aims to inform you of the steps
to engineer content using the right tools to help
reach your target audience, while acquiring new
customers and building brand engagement.
3 easy steps: Optimisation,
Amplification, Analysis
Let’s start over: You’ve written an excellent blog
complete with credible facts, eye-catching imagery
and informative graphs. Now what?
releases, blog posts, videos or whitepapers. Search
engine optimised with myriad social sharing options
on every page, users will only have to hit ‘publish’
once for content to be seen, searched for and shared
by the target customer.
Case in Point
Corel Corporation, a world leader in the
development of graphics and multimedia
software has found Cision’s social newsroom
provides the company with ‘a professional
and modern looking hub to host content for
journalists, bloggers, customers and partners.’
Daniel Donovan, European PR manager, Corel
said: ‘PR has evolved beyond media relations
so allowing interaction and dialogue with all
our stakeholders is extremely important to
us. The plug-ins to Cision’s social newsroom,
being able to embed our Twitter feed, hosting
shareable images and videos in the media
bank and drawing-out key quotes are all
excellent features.’
1. Optimisation:
Beyond creating and curating this content, you need
to be ready to optimise it on the web. Your content
needs to be easy for consumers and search engines
to understand – and find. SEO helps search engine
algorithms figure out why your content is relevant
to your audience.
Cision’s social newsroom allows you to publish all
your branded content in one place whether it’s press
www.cision.com 0800 358 3110
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2. Cision Whitepaper
2. Amplification
What is amplification? It is
what you do once you’ve
created, curated and
optimised your content
and you’re ready to share
it. Many of you are already
organically sharing your
content and engaging
with your audience on
your social channels. But
the scope here is limited
to your social media
network of followers and
friends – never increasing
or decreasing by a comparative amount. Investing
in a content marketing strategy and outsourcing
amplification will allow your content to include
the mainstream press to your media mix, a critical
component to expand and escalate the audience
base.
For example, through Cision’s content marketing
suite, customers can amplify their posts on premium
news sites like The Telegraph, The Guardian and
Daily Mail. Links to our client’s amplified content
appear as recommendations on the web’s largest
content publisher’s sites based on an algorithm that
predicts and surfaces the content viewers are the
most interested in reading and watching.
Case in Point
Jay Baer, digital marketing strategist and
founder of Convince & Convert, a marketing
services firm, described the results from
Cision’s amplification tool as ‘staggering and
immediate.’ He said: ‘Once the RSS feed was
uploaded to Cision, I started seeing clicks
immediately. During this 16-day test period,
Convince & Convert received 74,954 visits
overall. The amplification program generated
8,373 of those visits (11.1%). That is traffic that
I definitely would not have otherwise garnered.’
3. Analysis
indicators are best for your brand and tie in with
your business objectives.
Customers of Cision’s content marketing suite are
given metrics that tell them how people accessed
their content, how many impressions and clickthroughs the content received on the publisher
network, and which content is driving the highest
user engagement through social sharing.
Case in Point
In August, St Mary’s University College in
Twickenham, London entered clearing for
the first time in several years and wanted to
communicate tips and pointers to students
who were yet to secure a place at university.
They used this opportunity to try the content
marketing platform and analyse the difference
in response generated. A week after the
content went live, Cision sent St Mary’s a
detailed analytics report that incorporated
all the statistics needed to understand how
its content strategy performed, including
numbers on visits and pageviews, referrals,
downloads, impressions, clicks and shares.
Cross-checked against the University College’s
own performance results, Marina Boor, senior
PR and marketing officer at the College
said she was, ‘massively impressed.’ The
verdict: ‘90% of the clicks received on the
clearing post were from Cision– it works!’ she
exclaimed.
So there you have it, a winning content marketing
strategy in three simple steps. The benefits of
adopting this strategy is not limited to immediate
gains; it can fit well with your longer term business
objectives, requiring fewer resources while
maintaining fast turnaround times.
To find out how Cision can make it work for you,
visit: www.cision.com/uk/products-and-services/
content-marketing/ to request a short demo, or
call us on 0800 358 3110.
Measuring the results of your content marketing
campaign is a critical step because it allows you to
assess the outcome while also providing indicators
and metrics to improve future campaigns. It also
enables you to decide which key performance
www.cision.com 0800 358 3110
16-22 Baltic St West, London, EC1Y 0UL
Copyright © Cision, Inc. All Rights Reserved.