You might just be happy making a video.  Whoo-hoo, look at us, we made a video!  But there’s a video for every part of the funnel according to Jonathan English at Skeleton.  At the top, do brand films that convey your values or mission.  Do educational or How-To videos ‘cause people love to learn stuff.  Do videos that tweak emotions cause that’s the kind people will remember.  For middle of the funnel, put videos in emails to nurture leads.  Do product or service videos so people can “try it on.”  Do case study or testimonial videos to show how others were helped.  Do About Us videos cause people like to deal with people they like.  At the bottom of funnel you can do FAQ videos to solve lingering doubts, instructional videos to show them you’re there to help, and if you can, personalized videos, which have been shown to raise conversion rates about 1.7x.

 

I guess the only reason to invent a new kind of content is so that that kind of content can quickly be used to make ads.  And that’s what’s happening with virtual reality.  Facebook has executed the first VR video ads for the likes of Samsung, Nescafe, Corona, and others.  The Albany Daily Star, where you really should get all your technology news, reports they show up as sponsored posts and are made with the tool Facebook rolled out that lets brands put 360-degree clips on their pages.  Ritz Crackers puts you inside a holiday party, and AT&T puts you in a race car.  Facebook’s also got VR masters like Chris Milk and Aaron Koblin of Vrse giving us production advice on a how-to microsite, and they’re working with 360 camera makers to put “publish to Facebook” buttons on their gear.

 

As a champion of putting out entertaining and informative content, you know that’s a nice part of attracting new prospects but a really big part of keeping existing customers connected to the brand.  So don’t let anyone tell you the customer retention benefits you’re bringing aren’t worth their weight in gold.  Savino Longo writes it’s 7x more expensive to get a new customer than keep one.  Why?  Because trust must come before purchase, and existing customers already trust you.  And they didn’t get their trust overnight, winning it was expensive so you’ve made an investment in that customer.  If your Cost To Acquire a Customer is higher than the lifetime value of your customer, you’re dead meat on toast.  A study by Earl Sasser of the Harvard Business School shows existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more compared to new customers.  And they talk about you and help you recruit those new customers.

 

Is the world even ready for all the content marketing that’s coming?  No mistake it is coming.  Streetwise Studio’s Kyle Gibson points out 2% more B2B marketers will use it this year than last, and it should be a $300B industry by 2019.  So here are the problems that creates.  “Content Shock” or higher volume of content you have to compete against.  Rising ad volume on ad networks like Facebook Ads, which has to happen or cost-per-reach will keep soaring.  And I say “keep soaring” because Nanigans says the average CPM for Facebook Ads went up 142% in a year.  If content sucks, ad blocking will continue being an issue, that’s another problem.  But check this out, one of the biggest problems is there’s not enough of you.  There’s a content marketing talent shortage.  I’m talking about people who know and are experienced in what they’re doing, not people who just want to be in content marketing.  A CMI study shows 32% of marketers have trouble finding trained content marketing pros.

 

Let’s dive into the wonderful world of metrics.  Don’t go away cause we’ve all heard that we have to prove the ROI of content marketing.  So Erik J Martin does a great job on eContent’s site of getting us thinking about which metrics can actually do that.  Site traffic, click-throughs, downloads, all that’s great but is it possible to track what happens after content is consumed, all the way to a purchase?  Daniel Burstein of MarketingSherpa spells out the root problem.  “Content marketing is a mix of branding and direct-response, with a little word-of-mouth thrown in.  Most customers take complex, multichannel journeys to purchase, and it’s difficult to get a complete picture of steps that happen before the one that leads to final purchase.”  Amen my brother.  So we’ve got to get the tools and platforms that show us how many leads were collected, did it bullseye the target segment, did it score awesome in search, did it convert, what’s your share of voice, and did it contribute to pipeline?

 

That’s right, Erik did such a good job with his article it warrants a second Content Marketing Quickie story with actual, real life tips for getting to content that has a visible ROI.  Daniel Orseno of PartyCheap.com says work with sales and agree on what’s worth tracking that will help them.  Jodie Shaw, CMO for The Alternative Board says do downloadable content for email addresses because that speaks to lead capture.  Do focus groups says Company Cue’s Paul Parreira, and find out exactly what content makes them engage.  Customize and personalize and get rid of content that’s disposable and quickly forgotten.  And Mike Porter of Print/Mail Consultants says not all content can be tied to revenue so just accept it.  He says, “If I learn no one’s listening to my podcast, I’ll know to change the content, promote it differently, or abandon the channel.  There’d be no way for me to assign a revenue value to the podcast.”  See?  I’m capable of reporting bad things about podcasts.

 

Ever do one of those Where’s Waldo books?  Well that sumbitch is a piece of cake to find compared to finding every time somebody posts a picture of your brand on social or online.  You want to stay on top of that, right?  Of course you do because as Justin Lafferty writes, the people posting those are influencers…good and bad.  A little image recognition could help.  Peppercomm CEO Ed Moed says with 1.8B images shared daily on social, they can use image recognition to see if sponsorships and events are working, see if logos are being misused, and they can tell if a brand is being mocked…usually not a good sign.  Todd Grossman of Talkwalker says up to 80% of posts feature brands in images but not text, so they’re hidden when it’s probably a conversation you should join.

 

Way too many things to learn about dynamic content from the “Following the Trends – Is Your Content Ready” survey from Data Conversion Laboratory and the Center for Information Development Management.  There are two company holiday parties you want to go to.  eContent reports 45% expect to move more content to dynamic publishing, up from 33% last year.  And when that happens, it bring base HTML publishing down.  58% of content developers don’t publish to the cloud.  And while most customers are searching for learning videos and mobile content, 63% of survey responders said searchable content remains a problem for them.  The number of pros who say their content is ready to support business requirements in the next couple of years is actually going down.  And not everyone feels user generated content is the end all be all, 58% say their customers can’t contribute.

 

What’s the best way to tap into human emotions?  With algorithms and automated machines of course!  Persado uses equations and natural language processing and machine learning to grind out content they hope converts.  Somebody believes they’ve got the magic formula.  They just scored a $30M Series C round their CEO says will be used to improve channel offerings and expand sales headcount.  Persado says they can generate just the right words and images for display ads, social, email, landing pages, and texts to get people to react, at scale, in real time.  A/B testing is fine, but what if both A and B suck?  Persado wants to get rid of that bad vs. terrible dilemma.  Stewart Rogers writes they’ve gathered up data from over 40B impressions and got a 49.5% average uplift in conversions and a 68.4% improvement in CTRs.

 

I think it was Michael Jackson who first said, “Heal the world, make it a better place.”  So I’m happy to report Facebook is doing that by helping sight challenged people get more out of the photos on Facebook.  Jordan Novet writes about their new feature called automatic alternative text.  Screen readers that describe what’s on the screen can now get summaries of what’s in Facebook photos.  Don’t expect lengthy descriptions, Facebook’s Artificial Intelligence thingies will probably just say “outdoor, tree, sky.”  That’s better than the robot voice just saying “photo.”  Facebook’s Matt King says, “We’re making it possible for people to feel totally included in the social interaction and be able to feel part of it without having to feel awkward.”  Well, unless the screen reader says “Dad.  Shirtless.  Bathroom mirror.”

 

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