Search Engines have become a trusted news source. Increasingly, CMOs are turning to earned media to drive their message and increase revenue. According to a recent study, B2B and B2C marketers agree that pull marketing methods such as social engagement and analyst evaluations are more effective than push marketing methods such as native advertising.
Learn how organizations can make sure their content is seen and acted upon.
6. 2 of top 3 most-used sources of
TRUSTED news and information are
peer-influenced media
Source: 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer
Communicators Are Facing a Rapidly
Changing Media Landscape
14. BUYERS WHO SAY THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
PLAYS A CRITICAL ROLE IN THEIR BUYING
DECISION:
• 2010 – 23%
• 2011 – 45%
• 2012 – 88%
• 2014 – NEARLY 100%
44% OF COMPANIES HAVE A
DOCUMENTED CONTENT
STRATEGY.
39% OF MARKETING, ADVERTISING
& COMMUNICATIONS BUDGETS
ARE NOW DEDICATED TO CONTENT
MARKETING TO PRODUCE
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP AND
DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT
Source: Sodexho
Source: Content Marketing Institute 2014 B2B Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends in North
America
Source: http://thecontentcouncil.org/news/nearly-44-billion-new-survey-shows-rise-content-marketing-budget
16. Source: Cracking The Content Code by BrightEdge – August 2014
Source of Traffic to B2B & B2C Websites
17. Posting Content to Owned Media
Reaches Your Current Audience
YOUR
WEBSITE
&SOCIAL
MEDIA
PRESENCE
Distribution & Syndication
Increases Awareness, Engagement
Content
18.
19.
20.
21. YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS
TO GET YOUR
CUSTOMERS
ATTENTION
26. Which is Better?
Panel at TechMarketing 360 Conference To Decide
Is Content Marketing Worth the Spend?
Oracle Executives to Encourage Marketers to Think Like
Publishers
Is Content Marketing Worth 30% of the Budget?
TechMarketing360 Promises to Put Content Marketing
under the Microscope
27. Throughout the Release
Dump the jargon
Use bullets
Keep it brief, 600-800 words max
Quotes sound natural
• Several quotes, have a quotes section
Call to action
• After 1st or 2nd graph
Limit hyperlinks to 2-3, per Google
• Keep it relevant
• Go deep
33. Multimedia Leaves a Lasting Impression
of what they
SEE & DO
80%of what they READ
30%
Source: Lester, P. M. (2006). Syntactic Theory of Visual Communication.
Eastern State Penitentiary
World’s first penitentiary
Haunted
Al Capone
4.5 stars
City Pass
This is even true on the B2B side.
International – in own language, in own domain
51% of traffic to websites is driven by organic search.
In 2013, more than 1300 editorial positions were eliminated.
Recently, USA Today chopped 40% of its staff
Journalists are expected to do more with less. USA Today – only 30% content in print. Rest is mobile and online.
Tell HuffPo
Tell AP business desk story
We have now moved from a world where you could use one channel to reach most of the population to a world in which we have to use multiple channels to reach that one targeted consumer with our message, story, or to get them involved in a conversation.
Trust is now based on two key factors – intimacy and expertise
We are seeing that our audiences no longer do just one thing. Today, audiences are adopting technology in the workplace and the living room. No longer do we just watch TV. Today we have multiple devices converging at one and changing how we consume content. This is in turns requires marketers & publishers to adapt to where, when and how the consumer is alerted to, views, and engages with content.
Do you only want to be talking to the audiences you already know?
Owned media includes: website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube channels
1 in 4 Internet users currently use ad blockers.
That will grow to 1 in 3 next year.
In fact, 90.5% of ad blocking users will block ads on desktops and laptops, while just 29.7% will do so on smartphones. -
While most blockers are used on desktops and laptops, mobile ad blocking is continuing to grow, increasing by 62.3% this year.
Jargon: Right off the bat, we can tell they are going to have problems with jargon. These are very tech-heavy releases with a lot of industry terms that may not help them in search. If they are ok with just appealing to their niche industry audience, this is fine. However, if they are looking to reach a wider audience, which should be the goal, we’d recommend using common search terms/keywords that aren’t going to risk turning readers away. This applies to media as well. Simple is best. If you write as they would write, they are more likely to cover you.
Length: Also, these releases are very long, with large blocks of text that have nothing to break them up. We recommend keeping releases between 600-800 words; both of these releases are around 1,000 words. There are also quite a few quotes, also very long, that can probably edited down. We want short, interesting quotes that aren’t going to lose readers’ interest and don’t read like “canned” quotes (See blog post on this). Breaking up the text with bullets or bold section headers could also help readers scan the content quickly. Tech reporters especially like sectioned out news. The good part is we see this in these releases, but they also could break it down more for easy reading.
Links: The good thing is most of the links in the release go to deeper (non-homepage) links, which is always recommended. They are more meaningful in the eyes of readers and therefore Google. However, we recommend no more than 1-3 links throughout the release, keeping the homepage to the boilerplate if possible. The fewer links in the text, the more likely they are to be clicked on. We’d recommend they only keep links that are specific to the topic of the release, and keep these links high up in the text. If more links are really relevant to the copy, that’s great, just be sure to avoid duplicates. Save homepages for the boilerplate – media and consumers typically search for company homepages rather than click on them in the text. Otherwise, they usually know to go to the boilerplate for the info.
Call to Action: Including a call to action below the 1st paragraph could be a good way to increase engagement and give readers more information on the new products. They already have sentences like “For more information about Silicon Labs’ Thread software stack, hardware platforms and development tools, visit www.silabs.com/thread” in the text, but these are buried very, very far down in the release. Moving these to the beginning of the release would be a really beneficial change.