Brand Content Studios » Content Marketing

How to Find Topics That Resonate With Your Audience

Mike Stiles — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 21:10:13 +0000

Stiles Says: If you often find yourself not knowing what to write about, you likely aren’t a genuine member of the community you’re writing for.

The Bullets:

According to the Content Marketing Institute, B2B peers overall cite producing enough content as their biggest challenge.
Turn to your customer service and sales teams. Have them jot down top questions they get.
Check out what the competition is saying. Which posts do best?
Do a little keyword research. Check the Google Keyword Research Tool to see if there are variations you’ve missed.
Pretend you know nothing about your industry. What kind of info would you be looking for?

Read the full deal by @NickStamoulis right here.
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Why Most Branded Content is Just Awful

Mike Stiles — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 20:59:25 +0000

Stiles Says: Yay Joe for being bluntly honest! I would add brand content sucks because they’ve failed to hire entertainers and journalists to execute it.

9 in 10 organizations produce content.
Most is flat out awful.
Only 1 in 3 marketers themselves think the content they develop is effective.
No Strategy – there should be one based on objectives, the info needs of the audience, and an idea of how you’re going to measure it.
No Focus – quit trying to boil the ocean. Create many small, targeted content strategies.
No Accountability – you need someone accountable for the brand story.

Get the full deal from @JoePulizzi right here on LinkedIn
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Content Marketing Myths

Mike Stiles — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 19:08:20 +0000

Stiles Says: Content should be part of a multi-pronged lead-gen strategy, not held solely accountable for conversion.

The Bullets:

Long-form works, but people do scan before reading a full page.
Content marketing focused on frequency is the equivalent of email SPAM.
If you have a site heavy on how-to videos, engagement may be more important than pageviews.
There’s written, visual, video, audio…don’t box yourself in to just a blog.
The best hitters in baseball don’t park the ball in the outfield seats every time they swing.
Conversion is a process, not an event.

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Lead generation top goal for B2B content marketing

Mike Stiles — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 21:45:52 +0000

Stiles Says: Marketers aren’t gonna do content for the art or goodwill. They want leads and sales from it. Which will always lean their “content” more toward ads.

The Bullets:

71% of B2B tech marketers say lead gen is the most common content marketing goal. Thought leadership, marketing education and customer acquisition were also cited.
Customer testimonials and case studies are considered the most effective content marketing.
24.5% don’t outsource any of their content marketing.
The top metrics used to measure success are Web traffic and views & downloads.
Marketing automation is used by 37% to generate leads and by 36% to nurture leads.
39% said they don’t use marketing automation at all.

Read the full deal at B2B Online