The document discusses the science of content marketing and how to transition to a performance era. It outlines NewsCred's methodology, which includes having a documented content strategy tied to business goals, optimizing traffic and engagement, tracking micro-conversions, and using technology to measure how content drives monetization and ROI. The key is producing meaningful content that solves problems while also being able to measure the impact of content on business outcomes.

1. The Science of Content Marketing
Shafqat Islam
Co-Founder & CEO, NewsCred
@shafqatislam
@shafqatislam • #CMWorld

2. As content marketers, we used to
think of ourselves as publishers.
We’re not. The end goal is
business action, not eyeballs.

3. PAGEVIEWS

4. ENGAGEMENT
PAGEVIEWS

5. ENGAGEMENT
PAGEVIEWS
PERFORMANCE

6. The goal isn’t to be good at
content.
The goal is to be good at
business using content.

7. 1
Grow
Marketing
Influenced
Revenue

8. Drive
Operational
Efficiency
2

9. Increase
Brand
Equity
3

10. But performance often came
at a cost

11. People don’t like it

12. Time is a
scarce
commodity

13. 13
Ad blocking is now on
615 million devices
Jan 2010 Jan 2011 Jan 2012 Jan 2013 Jan 2014 Jan 2015 Jan 2016 Jan 2017
21M
30M 39M
54M
121M
181M
216M
236M
145M
275M
380M
DESKTOP BROWSERS
MOBILE BROWSERS
Apr 2009 - Dec 2016 • PageFair, “2017 Adblock report” - 2017

14. People are ignoring your ads.
And it’s even scarier if you
consider millennials on mobile.

15. 67%
of millennials
have an
adblocker
Anatomy Media, “Millenials at the Gate” – 2016

16. Loyalty is
dead

17. 58%
of shoppers
enrolled in loyalty
programs don’t
use the program
at all
McKinsey & Co., “The new battleground for marketing-led growth” – 2017

18. of buyers will
shop around at
every purchase
87%
McKinsey & Co., “The new battleground for marketing-led growth” – 2017

19. Waste Not
Want Not

20. 100
54
35
9
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Impressions Viewable
Impressions
Viewed
Impressions
Impressions
viewed for >1s
%ofImpressions
%
%
%
%
Lumen, 2017
91% of total ad spend is
viewed for less than a second

21. As a result…

22. in digital ad spend
will be wasted in
2017
$38B
IAB/PWC Internet Ad Revenue Report, FY 2016
US Ad Spending: The eMarketer Forecast for 2017

23. But the fatal flaw is not in
performance

24. Exceptional storytelling
performs better.

25. People don’t buy what you
do. They buy why you do it.

26. If you’re not creating
MEANINGFUL CONTENT
that drives business results…

27. … you’re just contributing to the
NOISE

28. The Science of
Content Marketing

29. 29
Content
Marketing
Maturity
PUBLISHING CONTENT
TO PRIMARY CHANNEL
MEASURING ENGAGEMENT AND
OPTIMIZING
DRIVING TO MICRO-CONVERSIONS
CONNECTING ACTIONS
WITH ROI OF CONTENT MARKETING
OPTIMIZING TRAFFIC, SUBSCRIBERS,
AND DISTRIBUTION FOR INCREASED ROI
DOCUMENTED CONTENT
MARKETING STRATEGY
DISTRIBUTING CONTENT
ACROSS CHANNELS
REPLICATE PROCESSES ON A GLOBAL AND
CROSS-REGIONAL SCALE

30. 30
The Content
Marketing
Maturity Index
• 40-question assessment of performance
era content marketing overall readiness
• Evaluates: strategy; traffic; engagement;
actions; monetization
• Leading indicator of future content
marketing performance
• Baseline to measure future improvement
and demonstrate growth
• Identifies specific areas of strength and
weakness

31. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Emerging Established Mature Expert
Some industries are ahead of others
CMMI Results: Industry Benchmarks

32. 32
A Repeatable
Methodology with
Predictable Results

33. 33
ENGAGEMENT
Measuring and
optimizing for
highest-quality traffic
STRATEGY
Documented content
marketing strategy
TRAFFIC
Attracting more of the
right traffic
ACTION
Driving the desired
behaviors
MONETIZATION
Correlating against
real business
outcomes
The NewsCred Methodology

34. The NewsCred Methodology
34
STRATEGY
• Are there measurable
business goals tied to
content?
• Do you have executives
directly accountable for
content marketing?
• Is there a website available
for posting content?
• Do you have a content
marketing team?
TRAFFIC
• How much traffic are you
currently getting on your
website?
• What are the most valuable
sources of traffic?
• Do you promote content
across channels?
• Do you retarget your
audience?
ENGAGEMENT
• Do you write for specific
target audiences?
• Do you track engagement
metrics with an analytics
platform?
• Do you regularly audit your
content?
• Do you optimize content
formats for audiences and
channels?
• Do you know what
conversions are leading
indicators of ROI?
• Can you track and measure
why conversions happen?
• If so, are you using that
information to make even
better content in the future?
ACTION
• Do you know which metrics
result in business outcomes?
• Are all appropriate teams
aligned around these
metrics?
• How do you show success to
your organization?
• Does this data help to
forecast what your growth
targets should be?
MONETIZATION

35. STRATEGY
TRAFFIC
ENGAGEMENT
ACTION MONETIZATION
16
15
13
9
7
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
CMMI Results: Component Benchmarks
Content Marketers Are Not Ready for the Performance Era

36. How NewsCred Implements
The Science of
Content Marketing

37. The NewsCred Methodology – Strategy
37
STRATEGY TRAFFIC ENGAGEMENT ACTION MONETIZATION
• Are there measurable
business goals tied to
content?
• Do you have executives
directly accountable for
content marketing?
• Is there a website available
for posting content?
• Do you have a content
marketing team?

38. Key elements of a successful content strategy:
What are your marketing objectives?
What research do you have about the content your customers want?
Does your content meet their needs?
What internal and external resources are required to run content
marketing? What process will produce the most effective results?
What conversations do you want to own? How can we curate incredible
content that drives towards your business goals?
How can we connect our content with the right audience at the right time?
How can we use performance data to optimize?
DEFINE
INSIGHT
PLAN
CURATE
DISTRIBUTE
MEASURE +
OPTIMIZE
ACTION ITEM:
Always continue to
test & learn!

39. KPIs Used by NewsCred
Newsletter Sign-Ups
New Member Sign-Ups
TCU Sign-Ups
Returning Visitors
MQLs Generated
Meetings Held
New Pipeline Created
Revenue InfluencedReturning Traffic Sources
Articles Viewed
Time on Site
Engagement RateSite Traffic
Top Performing Sources
Top Performing Content
Organic/SEO
TRAFFIC ENGAGEMENT ACTION MONETIZATION

40. NewsCred’s Measurement Framework
New Visitors to Insights Content from All Channels:
Goal is to move this channel to subscribe or sign-up to Insights directly
Newsletter Subscriber + Upsell Opportunity:
Receives newsletter as normal, but also gets entered into stream to upsell to Insights
Scorable Lead:
Contains enough data to be scored by Everstring
MQL:
Scored by Everstring as A-rated lead
Opportunities:
Revenue-connected to content
2%
8%
33%
15%
PAGEVIEWS
SUBSCRIPTION
S
LEADS
MQLS
OPPS

41. Technologies for Connecting Content to Revenue
SUBSCRIPTIONS
PAGEVIEWS
LEADS
MQLs
OPPS

42. 42
STRATEGY TRAFFIC ENGAGEMENT ACTION MONETIZATION
• How much traffic are you
currently getting on your
website?
• What are the most valuable
sources of traffic?
• Do you promote content
across channels?
• Do you retarget your
audience?
The NewsCred Methodology – Traffic

43. SEO is a big part of our strategy for Traffic
Sources: Forrester Research, Search Engine Journal, GFK Market Report
of online experiences
begin with a
search engine
85%75%93%
of search engine users
never click past the
first page
of users ignore paid ads
and focus on organic
search results

44. We create and distribute content that aims to:
• Align to consumer intent
• Solve problems or answer questions our
readers are asking
• Develop the right balance of quality and
volume of visitors
We identify topics and themes that drive traffic

45. To provide our readers with value at every interaction, we create content
that is in-depth, long-form, data- and research-driven, and tactical
Brand spotlights Actionable stories Trend pieces Thought leadership Industry News

46. Using licensed content, we’ve established a publishing
cadence that allows us to publish quality content every
weekday.
Each week we publish:
● 2 original stories
● 1 industry roundup
● 2 licensed stories
But only if the stories meet
our editorial standards.

47. The customer journey is more complicated than ever. There are countless
touchpoints, on and offline, where users can interact with brands.

48. For our content to be effective, we must meet our
audience where they are.
SEO

49. All of our
distribution
channels lead
back to
NewsCred’s
Insights

50. STRATEGY
50
TRAFFIC ENGAGEMENT ACTION MONETIZATION
• Do you write for specific
target audiences?
• Do you track engagement
metrics with an analytics
platform?
• Do you regularly audit your
content?
• Do you optimize content
formats for audiences and
channels?
The NewsCred Methodology – Engagement

51. To ensure that we are
developing engaging
content, we use a
scorecard that’s integrated
into our CMS
We fill it out for each piece of
content we publish – and if
something doesn’t meet those
standards, we don’t publish it!

52. We track engagement metrics through a
content-centric lens
To better understand the
real time readers are
spending on our site we
track:
• Scroll depth
• Mouse movements
An engaged user is defined
as spending
> 0:30 seconds.

53. We optimize content with the highest
engagement to maximize quality traffic

54. • Do you know what
conversions are leading
indicators of ROI?
• Can you track and measure
why conversions happen?
• If so, are you using that
information to make even
better content in the future?
54
TRAFFIC ENGAGEMENT ACTION MONETIZATIONSTRATEGY
The NewsCred Methodology – Action

55. Critical to understanding content performance is defining
and tracking the conversions that lead to a desired outcome
Tracking the impact of content on these
micro conversions helps to:
• Tie content marketing to business results
• Identify which content drives actions that
lead to results
• Inform future content decisions
Common micro conversions include:
• Newsletter subscriptions
• Cart checkouts
• High-value content downloads
• Customer log ins/sign-ups
• Social actions
• Poll or survey completions
• eCommerce and pricing page visits
• Contact us form fills

56. We wait until
readers are
highly engaged
to capture info

57. A 50% page
scroll triggers a
pop-up
lightbox

58. The lightbox outperforms all other CTAs by 10x
70%
of all
subscriptions

59. NewsCred sends out 4 newsletters per week, which feature no promotional messages, except for
footer links to high-value content. This creates return visits and generates trust for upsell.
Converting Customers via Email

60. Email Newsletter Performance
Conversion Rate
3x
Visitors from the newsletter convert into
high-value goals for NewsCred at 3x the
average site conversion rate.

61. We signpost at
every user
journey point

62. We signpost to direct users to more content.

63. Then optimize for high value micro-conversions along the way
For NewsCred these
leading indicators of ROI
include:
• Blog subscribe
• Newsletter signup
• Insights account creation
• Insight login
• Contact us button click

64. We make an effort to create pillar content, then scale and
distribute it across our ecosystem
Blog post Social media posts Email newsletter
WebinarVideo
Gated content
collection

65. Journey leads to high-value gated content

66. • Do you know which metrics
result in business outcomes?
• Are all appropriate teams
aligned around these
metrics?
• How do you show success to
your organization?
• Does this data help to
forecast what your growth
targets should be?
66
TRAFFIC ENGAGEMENT ACTION MONETIZATIONSTRATEGY
The NewsCred Methodology – Monetization

67. Lead Source is Assigned Based on the High-Value Content Upsell
- Example case - subscriber
became a lead from the
Webinar
- Marketo trigger assigns lead
source based on this high-value
action and syncs with SFDC
- Any further deal attribution will
refer back to this lead source to
tie the deal back to Content
Marketing

68. As deals close, integration with Marketo provides ROI
tracking of the overall program back from SFDC

69. The content journey for every reader and deal

70. Results attributed to each piece of content

71. Key Takeaways
STRATEGY
Tie your content marketing to a measurable business goal and deploy systems to
ensure successful execution and performance tracking
TRAFFIC
Start with quality content that boosts organic traffic and ensure you are distributing
across channels
ENGAGEMENT
Develop content standards and ensure you are tracking content-specific
engagement accurately
ACTION
Map the key conversions along your customer’s journey and track how content
influences actions to optimize content for enhanced results
Align your tech stack and acquisition teams (Demand Gen, CRM, etc.) to track the
ROI of your content marketing
MONETIZATION

72. What makes the content
marketing performance era
different?

73. We can have both
EXCEPTIONAL CONTENT
and the ability to
MEASURE IT

74. But ultimately you are the
revolutionaries that will make
marketing great