In-Flight Content Guide: Making the Most of Your Content Journey

Peg Miller Arnie Kuenn Jessica Best Lee Odden Deana Goldasich
Amisha Gandhi Maureen Jann Cathy McPhillips Pierre-Loïc Assayag Justin Levy
Robert Rose Anna McHughZerlina Jackson Victor Gao Chris Buehler

A MESSAGE FROM YOUR CONTENT CAPTAIN
Congratulations! You’re nearly finished with your journey, and that much closer to being ready for CMWorld 2017. Now that you’ve
overcome some turbulence by learning how to create impactful content with our In-Flight Content Guide: Creating a Memorable
Content Experience, you should be ready to land your content on-target with influencer marketing and content distribution tactics.
So is it finally time to hand the reins over to the “media peeps” and relax as you smoothly move on to your next content journey?
No way. If you lost focus during the promotion phase, your target audience might never see all your brilliant work.
According to our annual research, 89% of B2B and 84% of B2C marketers report their top paid content promotion method is
“social promotion.”
While the value of creating incredible content is self-evident, the path to understanding how to appropriately reach your audience
through paid distribution does not carry nearly enough weight in content marketing circles.
As we strive for creating new content types in this noisy time, we must likewise get hyper-targeted with our paid strategies.
Sending the wrong content to the wrong person at the wrong time will result in a lost customer for life. But getting it right in
today’s frenzied advertising-heavy world will pay dividends.
In the following pages we offer tips from top experts on how to distribute content, and work with influencers to ensure you reach
your target audience. Enjoy!
Joe Pulizzi
Founder, Content Marketing Institute & Content Marketing World

Are you ready to start –
or continue – your expedition?
Join these speakers and many more at Content Marketing World 2017 this
September. We’re ready to provide you with all you need for a successful
journey. Register for CMWorld using the code TOPRANK100 for
$100 off main event and all-access passes.
Content Marketing Institute is the leading global content marketing education and training organization, teaching enterprise brands
how to attract and retain customers through compelling, multichannel storytelling. CMI’s Content Marketing World event, the largest
content marketing-focused event, is held every September in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and the Intelligent Content Conference event is
held every spring. CMI publishes the bi-monthly magazine Chief Content Officer, and provides strategic consulting and content
marketing research for some of the best-known brands in the world. Watch this video to learn more about CMI, a UBM company. To
view all research and to subscribe to our emails, visit www.contentmarketinginstitute.com.

“Stay close to your customer and
your sales team, and you'll never
run out of great content ideas.”
- @PegMiller

STAY CLOSE & LEAD BY EXAMPLE
Stay close to your customer and your sales team, and you
will never run out of great content ideas. Lead by example
for your entire marketing team. Join sales calls and talk with
real customers. Yes, do customer research too, but make
sure you talk with real customers on an ongoing basis. If you
are short on ideas, talk with 3-5 customers. You will walk out
of those conversations invigorated, inspired, and re-focused
on the most effective content.
Remember to include customers, your customer success
team, and your sales team as part of your influencer and
distribution strategy. When you develop great content that
helps solve real customer pain points, you’ll notice your
customers, and pre- and post-sales teams, may become
your biggest, most trusted distribution channels. Why?
Because you’ve created content that helps people be better
at their jobs.
Peg Miller
Co Founder, B2B
Marketing Academy
@PegMiller
Dream Travel Destination
One of my favorite trips was
hiking to Hanakapiai Falls on
the NaPali Coast of Kauai,
Hawaii. We liked it so much we
decided to repeat the hike a few
years later with our three
children. Our 7-year-old (at the
time) hiked until her feet bled.
#parentingfail

MAKE CONTENT SCROLLABLE
Let’s start with engagement. Everyone will tell you to create
useful, informative or fun content. So, let’s assume that is a
given. But what about the look and feel of the content? We
see many organizations missing it in terms of the layout of
the content and the page it resides on. Want readers to
engage? Then start by making the content “scrollable” –
most people quickly scroll through a page to see if they want
to spend time with it. To accomplish this, we recommend
using headings and subheadings, short paragraphs, many
images, video where possible, internal links, and sections
that are bulleted or numbered.
To improve reach, my recommendation would be to set
aside a budget to amplify your content. Right now, we are
seeing the very best value on Facebook. Depending on the
content you are trying to amplify, programmatic or even
influencer marketing might be the right play. Bottom line is,
save some of your content budget to promote it via paid
channels.
Arnie Kuenn
CEO, Vertical Measures
@ArnieK
Good question. I would say right
now it is Italy. I have never been
there, but everyone who tells me
it should be our next destination.
My long-term goal is to travel as
much of the Great Loop as
possible.

FIND WHAT’S TRENDING
The most engaging content is a response.
Think of your content, not just as what expertise you have to
say and share, but as an opportunity to deliver someone
answers. In order to respond, you have to listen first. Find
out what questions people are asking in your industry.
What's trending? Or, if you're stumped on where to start, ask
your customer service team or call center what questions
your current clients are asking most often.
Finding trends in what your current customers need can help
you answer questions that your prospective customers might
be asking, too.
Jessica Best
Director of Data-Driven
Marketing, Barkley
@bestofjess
I'd love to travel to Morocco. It's
a mix of exotic and established;
of art, shopping, history, and
landscapes. It's a vibrant and
completely different life and
experience from my everyday!

“Engage prospective customers for
their preferences and invite them to
share topical expertise.”
- @leeodden

GET CREATIVE WITH CONTENT
With consumer distrust of brand messaging and advertising
growing more than ever, brands need to get creative about
making sure content reaches, engages and inspires their
customers. Here are three ways to do that:
1. Influence content promotion with content co-creation. If you
want your content to have great distribution, then co-creation
with influencers is the solution. Credible experts that invest
time to contribute will also be inspired to promote the content
they helped make with the brand.
2. Facts tell, stories sell. In B2B, there are few more powerful
forms of content than case studies. Help buyers see
themselves in brand content through customer stories and
make it easy for customers to share those stories to build their
own credibility.
3. Make content more relevant and reachable with prospects.
Marketers are often puzzled about what topics or types of
content work best. Why not ask? Engage prospective
customers for their preferences and invite them to share
topical expertise.
Lee Odden
CEO, TopRank Marketing
@leeodden
My dream is to travel around the
world because for me, the
journey makes the destination
even more satisfying.

IMPROVE CONTENT RELEVANCE
Improving your content’s reach means improving your
relevance. This includes diligently seeking out the eyes and
ears of those who not only care about your content – but
genuinely need it. To truly reach your audience you must be
committed beyond the simple “spray and pray” posting of
content on a few boards and networks. You have to be
tenacious and downright obsessed with connecting with the
human beings behind your audience profiles and content.
(Psst…You also must convey this to your executive teams
who expect instant results.)
As for engagement – be true to what engagement really
means to your team. Step away from the shiny dashboard
and metrics and get down to brass tacks. Don’t be afraid to
get back to moving those basic needles like open rates,
phone calls and traffic to page. As marketers, we sometimes
like to over-complicate engagement discussions. Engaging
with other humans isn’t that complicated. (Ask any sales
person.) Wait. Look. I’m engaging you right now!
Deana Goldasich
CEO, Well Planned Web
@goldasich
My dream travel destination is a
mountain trail with only a single
planned to-do item: to eat my
bagged lunch. Why? My days
are so crammed with agenda
items, to-do’s, emails and a
“ticking clock” of deadlines.

WORK WITH TOP EXPERTS
Work with a community of top experts and thought leaders to
co-create content that will increase amplification and
engagement with your brand.
Think about building long-term relationships with these
experts to create programs that will grow over time. Lastly,
create memorable experiences with interactive content that
has value to your audience and a relevant call to action (i.e.,
what makes sense next?).
Amisha Gandhi
Head of Global Influencer
Marketing, SAP
@AmishaGandhi
I'd choose the Galapagos
Islands because it's almost like
visiting a different planet. The
flora and fauna that you will see
there no longer exists anywhere
else in the world.

“The same message needs to be
carved and crafted to fit both the
mode of consumption and its place
in your marketing funnel.”
- @MaureenOnPoint

ENTICE YOUR USERS
The same message needs to be carved and crafted to fit
both the mode of consumption as well as its place in your
marketing funnel.
Since mobile search overtook desktop search last year, it's
clear that's not going away. Entice your users with a “micro-
yes”, a low obligation way to dive a little deeper. If they're in
the research phase of their hunt, tempt them with calls to
action in a video that brings them to a blog article. Then take
them from a blog article to a piece of content that features an
in-house expert, then take them from that expert piece to a
case study.
They’re both building confidence in your brand, and ushering
themselves through a critical path from your content to your
product or service.
Maureen Jann
Director of Marketing, Point It
@MaureenOnPoint
My dream travel place is
Thailand! First, the food, second
the fabric, and third, I’ve heard
amazing things about the
people. I’d love to dig deeper
into their culture to better
understand how kindness
manifests on the other side of
the world.

HUNKER DOWN IN ANALYTICS
Mine your data! Hunker down in Google Analytics or another
tool so you can see which content, which topics and
categories, which authors, what days of the week, etc. are
performing best. Also keep a log of which content is being
commented on and which content is being most shared on
social. (Sometimes you’ll see these are two totally separate
lists!) Use all of this determine the direction of your editorial
calendar, your social and channel plan, and your outreach.
Make it easy for your influencers, guest authors, and
crowdsourced post contributors to share your content by
giving them prewritten messaging.
Dissect all your content to be used over and over. You spent
way too much time on it to only be used once! Charts,
quotes, graphs, questions and images are all great ways to
distribute and discuss your content in new and exciting
ways.
Cathy McPhillips
VP of Marketing, Content
Marketing Institute
@cmcphillips
Eastern Europe, to trace my
maternal roots! Prague,
Hungary and Poland would be
tops on my list.

ANSWER AUDIENCE QUESTIONS
First, identify the most thought-provoking questions your
audience is asking, and cross-reference against your
organization’s expertise. Then, develop the best content you
can imagine that answers those questions and helps your
audience achieve their goals.
Second, as you will typically not have all the answers,
partnering with influential experts is crucial to creating
engaging content. Most recently we partnered with Mark
Schaefer, an influential expert for our community, on an
authoritative white paper. He very eloquently described the
value of influencer-supported content creation, “The
economic value of content marketing does not come from
content. It comes from the transmission of content.”
Third, stop thinking about reach as a numbers game and
approach it more as a selection game. How do you reach
the people you truly want to reach? This probably first
requires determining who you really care about reaching
and, going back to the first point, making sure your
connection addresses their burning needs or desires.
Pierre-Loïc Assayag
Co-Founder, Traackr
@pierreloic
Japan. It’s a part of the world
I’ve never visited. I would love
to experience a place where
tradition and modernity meet
head on, and there is no in
between.

“When utilized appropriately, paid
social can help marketers greatly
improve their reach and
engagement.”
- @justinlevy

CONSIDER PAID, TIMING & TRENDS
Utilizing paid social media - Sponsored content and Twitter
promoted tweets tends to leave a bad taste in people's
mouths because of how it is often misused. But, when
utilized appropriately, it can help marketers greatly improve
their reach and engagement with their target audiences.
Publishing content at different times - Often marketers are
looking for blog posts that tell them what is the optimal time
to publish content without actually testing what works for
their audience. Furthermore, marketers should consider
posting their content at times when their audience may be
consuming content such as later at night or early on a
weekend morning before they get their days started.
Utilize Google Trends - Google Trends will help you to
determine when the best time to publish content that on a
subject when people will be searching for it. Therefore, if
people are not searching for your topic in May but are in
September, think about what content series you can publish
in September to take advantage of that increase in search
volume.
Justin Levy
Head of Global Social Media,
Citrix
@justinlevy
I have two dream destinations -
Fiji and Nepal. Next year I'll be
sailing the Seychelles with my
family so I'd love to go to Fiji
and have a room on stilts in the
water. On the other hand, I'd
love to visit Nepal with Mt.
Everest as the backdrop.

CREATE GREAT USER EXPERIENCES
Create great content with great user experiences. With only
3 seconds to capture user attention, having content that is
engaging and a layout that optimizes the user’s experience
on your website is key.
Develop strategies to deliver content beyond your website.
Clients are looking for insights in convenient ways and
technologies like Google Quick Answers, Siri, and Alexa are
ensuring that clients receive that information without ever
visiting a brand website.
Identify measurement indicators to understand success.
What gets measured gets accomplished. Understanding
goals and measuring KPIs helps to optimize and quantify
effectiveness of your content.
Zerlina Jackson
Director of Web Experience,
H&R Block
I would love to visit Egypt and
tour the pyramids. If I could do
that with Oprah and Beyoncé
that would be even better.

TRADE QUANTITY FOR QUALITY
The first - which may be obvious - is to focus less on quantity
and actually reduce what it is they are producing in order to
produce higher quality work. Better work inherently drives
deeper engagement. For better reach, there are two
suggestions. The first is to pay. There are increasingly
interesting opportunities to promote content through social,
mobile and other more traditional advertising networks that
can help promote content.
Now, this suggestion assumes we’ve focused on the first
suggestion, and that the content is worth actually spending
money to promote.
The last is to (as a friend of mine used to say) “use your
juice”. To whatever extent you have managed to create
relationships with influencer companies, individuals or other
content brands - leveraging those networks to share your
content is key to achieving better reach.
Robert Rose
Founder, The Content
Advisory
@Robert_Rose
I have two on my bucket list.
The first is I want to do an
adventure type of expedition to
Antarctica. It’s such an alien
part of our world - and I’d really
love to see the “frozen desert”.
The second is I’d like to spend a
good amount of time in New
Zealand.

MAKE YOUR IDEAS GO EVERYWHERE
Be passionate about the content you're creating. There is no
substitute for truly believing in the value of the things you
create.
Collaborate with other teams. Organizational blindness is the
enemy of reach and engagement. Most of the time, the
content that goes unused at my company is good - it’s just
that teams who could use it aren’t aware that it exists. Build
relationships where reciprocity around sharing and
promoting content is an everyday practice.
Don’t create pieces, create pillars. Make your ideas go
everywhere. If you’re writing a whitepaper, ask your bloggers
to cover it like it’s a news event. Share key insights on social
media. Bust out the data visualizations. Take a stab and
promoting that content on relevant pages of your website.
Reach out to your supporters, both within your company and
out, and ask them to share it with their own unique spin tied
onto it.
Anna McHugh
Marketing Content Curator &
Librarian, Red Hat
@amchughredhat
Alba, Italy. I am passionate
about hunting for wild gourmet
mushrooms, and some of the
finest white truffles in the world
come from the Alba area. Truffle
picking is serious business -
they grow underground - and so
my passion for it is like my
passion for content curation.

BE GREAT AT CONTENT
Without doubt be good at distribution, but be GREAT at
content. If your core message is weak, no distribution
strategy can save it.
Design and foster network effect in your content marketing
strategy. What your audience says to one another will
define your brand more than what you say to them.
Travel…to China. Even if your company doesn’t do
business there, the tech infrastructure and marketing
ecosystem in China are so orthogonal to the West and the
sheer scale of the Chinese market so unfathomable to the
typical Western mind that you are bound to walk away with
inspiration.
Victor Gao
Vice President & Managing
Director, Arrow SAAS &
Media Group
@wvictorgao
My former life as journalist
allowed me to see much of the
world. Lately I’ve been intrigued
by the moon base jointly planned
by the European and Chinese
space agencies that apparently
will go online in the 2020’s, and
the private sector initiatives in the
US to get to Mars.

USE SPONSORED CONTENT AS FUEL
As an agency that works closely with the marketing teams at
LinkedIn and Microsoft, we have found that campaigns
fueled by Sponsored Content and Direct Sponsored Content
media spends see a much higher return than just organic
efforts.
With Sponsored Content, you can amplify your company
post to be seen by more of your followers and people
outside your network. With Direct Sponsored Content you
can build mini campaigns with a variety of headlines and
creative and see what performs best with your target
audience. From there, you can activate more ad spend
based on which campaign variation is performing.
I think three things Content Marketers can do to improve
reach and engagement of their content is to leverage
LinkedIn Direct Sponsored Content and Sponsored Content
combined with leveraging the best performing combination
of message and visual to achieve higher return on their
content with data backed targeted ad spend.
Chris Buehler
CEO & Co-Founder,
SCORCH
@chrisbuehler
Saint Tropez, France
I was there for Summer
Vacation when I was 18 and
saw the yachts on the
Mediterranean for the first time.
I kept a promise to myself that
I'd be there when I was 40 and
decided to achieve that goal.

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In-Flight Content Guide: Making the Most of Your Content Journey

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