This document provides tips and strategies for developing an effective content marketing pitch to gain buy-in. It discusses researching opportunities, personas, keywords, and competitors' content. Measurement planning and tying content to business goals and the customer journey are emphasized. The document also addresses potential pitfalls in pitches and how to overcome them, such as not including all stakeholders or relying too heavily on data. An example pitch to the Moz team is presented to demonstrate the concepts.

1. GETTING
BUY-IN
FOR CONTENT
MARKETING
A MozCon Remix by @iPullRank

2. ….

3. ….

4. ….
@ipullrank

5. ….
How is your socalled “content”
gonna make us
money?

6. ….

7. ….
YOUR TEAM OR CLIENTS
MAY DRIVE YOU TO DRINK

8. …AND YOU MIGHT FALL
FLAT ON YOUR FACE

9. How can I get
them to buy this
content
marketing stuff?

10. YOU NEED A
COMPELLING
DATA-DRIVEN
PITCH

11. SELL YOUR VISION…

12. ….
BUT ALWAYS
BE READY TO
DO THIS …

13. ….
…CONTENT IS THE GLUE
TO EFFECTIVE MARKETING
YOU MUST TAKE A STAND

14. ACTONE
RESEARCH
Doing research that sticks

15. CONTENT MARKETING PROCESS
@ipullrank
This closely mirrors the “New SEO Process” http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-new-seo-process-quit-being-kanye

16. OPPORTUNITY DISCOVERY
LAND OF OPPORTUNITY
Opportunity Discovery is the process of understanding the client’s space in context of the business goals to tailor the content strategy
directly to what they need to accomplish.
@ipullrank

17. BUSINESS GOALS ARE PARAMOUNT
Understanding and integration of the business
objectives throughout the entire process is incredibly
important to obtaining buy-in and measuring success.
If you’re not speaking in terms of conversion, you will
not be speaking much longer.
@ipullrank

18. MARKET RESEARCH
Every content creator and SEO should have at least a working knowledge of the space, the company and the audience. At iAcquire
we’ve invested heavily in the market research capability and we create client one sheets and influencer reports with objectives, personas,
customer insights, market insights, hot topics, key influencers and resources
@ipullrank

19. PERSONAS
PERSONA A
PERSONA B
PERSONA C
PERSONA D
DEMOGRAPHICS
DEMOGRAPHICS
DEMOGRAPHICS
DEMOGRAPHICS
LIFESTYLES
LIFESTYLES
LIFESTYLES
LIFESTYLES
USER STORY
USER STORY
USER STORY
USER STORY
USER NEEDS
USER NEEDS
USER NEEDS
USER NEEDS
Develop four hypothetical representations of people that exist within the online conversation as related to business goals, give them
stories and attributes to which content will be created. The key is to keep it as relevant and actionable to the content you will be creating
as possible
@ipullrank

20. QUASI-AD HOC PERSONAS
I outlined a process in my “Understanding Your Audience Using Social Media” Mozinar about how to use Keyword Research, Social
Media and Discussion Search to develop ad hoc personas. http://www.seomoz.org/webinars/understanding-your-audience-using-socialmedia
@ipullrank

21. THE PROBLEM WITH AD HOC PERSONAS
While this approach can be very effective
stakeholders may potentially challenge it because
it’s not empirical. However neither is the old
method of handing out post-its to stakeholders
@ipullrank

22. “A major virtue of personas is the
establishment of empathy and
BUT ALWAYS
understanding the individual who uses
BE READY TO
the product”
-Donald A. Norman, Nielsen Norman Group
DO THIS …

23. DATA DRIVEN PERSONAS
At iAcquire we have a data-driven approach starting from Nielsen’s PRIZM segments, layering data from Experian Simmons and finally
using Social Inventories from Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and DoubleClick to develop empirical and social media-relevant personas.
@ipullrank

24. INTRODUCING NIELSEN PRIZM
Nielsen’s PRIZM
segments all of the
US into 66
predetermined
types or “codes”
Download this PDF: http://ocair.org/files/KnowledgeBase/HowTo/PRIZM_Code.pdf
@ipullrank

25. EXPERIAN SIMMONS
AIO CLUSTERS
MOSAIC TYPE
BY URL
MOSAIC TYPE BY
ONLINE
ACTIVITY
Simmons Mosaic Types: http://www.tetrad.com/pub/documents/agsmosaiclist.pdf
@ipullrank

26. OUTSIDE THE US USE COMSCORE
Check it Out: http://www.comscore.com/Products/Audience_Analytics
@ipullrank

27. GOOGLE HAS “AFFINITY SEGMENTS”
BUILT IN
PERSONAS
DATA IN
GOOGLE
ANALYTICS
CREATE
CUSTOM
SEGMENTS
Google Affinity Segments: http://www.google.com/think/products/affinity-segments.html
@ipullrank

28. GOOGLE CONSUMER SURVEYS
Get very targeted Consumer Data: http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/home
@ipullrank

29. GOOGLE CONSUMER SURVEYS STEP BY STEP
DEFINE THE
SURVEY TYPE
WRITE
QUESTIONS
SPECIFY
AUDIENCE
GET DATA
Guides to Writing Surveys: http://help.surveymonkey.com/categories/creating-designing-surveys/designtutorials-troubleshooting/create-design-tutorials
@ipullrank

30. HERE’S A PERSONA WORKSHEET
Download the Persona Worksheet: http://www.iacquire.com/resources/worksheets/iAcquire-Persona-Worksheet.xlsx
@ipullrank

31. SHORTCUT VERSION OF ALL THIS
Pull 10,000 of your Twitter followers from SimplyMeasured and create a WordCloud of their profiles to quickly
understand what topics the audience is interested in: http://www.simplymeasured.com http://www.tagcrowd.com
@ipullrank

32. REAL-TIME KEYWORD RESEARCH ON TWITTER
Use Bottlenose: http://www.bottlenose.com
@ipullrank

33. CONSUMER DECISION JOURNEY
When planning out a content marketing campaign use the consumer decision journey to determine what need state your
content will specifically speak to.
@ipullrank

34. MAPPING KEYWORD RESEARCH
[flowers]
[when do roses bloom]
[what flowers for a first date]
[buying chrysanthemums]
[flower a month club]
As usual finding the right keywords is important. Mapping them to content, need states and KPIs is paramount to proving
the success of a campaign
@ipullrank

35. PERFORM PERSONA-BASED KEYWORD RESEARCH
Read the Post: http://ipullrank.com/the-persona-driven-keyword-research-process/
@ipullrank

36. TYING CONTENT MARKETING TO THE FUNNEL
Map the content type directly to the customer decision journey to determine where in the funnel that this content
will reach the user
@ipullrank

37. MEASUREMENT PLANNING
You will need determine realistic and specific KPIs with regard to where the content is in the funnel and develop reporting
that speaks to directly to that value.
@ipullrank

38. BUT WHAT ARE OUR
COMPETITORS DOING?
….

39. FACEBOOK RECOMMENDATIONS PLUGIN DEMO
EXTEND THE BOX
TO 1000 PIXELS TO
VIEW 20 PIECES
OF POPULAR
CONTENT
Get a snapshot of a site’s popular content:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/recommendations/
@ipullrank

40. SOCIAL CRAWLYTICS
SOCIAL
CRAWLYTICS
GIVES AWESOME
GRAPHS OF
SHARES BY
NETWORK
Use Social Crawlytics to find out what the best performing content for competitors
http://www.socialcrawlytics.com
@ipullrank

41. SOCIAL CRAWLYTICS GIVES SHARE COUNTS BY URL
@ipullrank

42. ADD ALL OF THIS TO YOUR QUANTITATIVE CONTENT AUDIT
The Content Audit is a great way to understand what is performing already so you can make the case
to make more of it. Pull in Traffic, Social Shares, Time On Site and Conversions.
@ipullrank

43. DON’T GO SHOWING ALL
THAT DATA JUST YET!

44. ACT TWO
GETTING BUY-IN
Build a list of people that want the
content

45. WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
The big idea should thematically govern the content strategy and keep content from being an “isolated incident” by tying everything to an
initiative that fits into the overarching marketing mix and gives creative life
@ipullrank

46. THE 7 STORY ARCHETYPES
Content Marketing is about turning the brand into a storyteller. Tap into the Jungian story archetypes and align them with the
business to build an effective story. More on story archetypes: http://socialmediatoday.com/tommyismyname/383348/7story-archetypes-and-how-they-can-dramatically-improve-your-marketing
@ipullrank

47. THE CLIENT-STRATEGIST-AUDIENCE FEEDBACK LOOP
Content is not a one-way street, but a cyclical process between the client’s goals, the strategist’s ideas and the influencer’s needs. Take
your content to the audience before you ever write a word or place a pixel and get their feedback and buy-in.
@ipullrank

48. CALL YOUR SHOT
Using the following tactics find a group of people that will commit to engaging with this content and use that as evidence that the content
will appeal to the brand’s audience and drive KPIs
@ipullrank

49. USE TOPSY TO FIND INTERESTED PARTIES
Use Topsy to find people who shared competitor content: http://www.topsy.com
@ipullrank

50. USE QUORA TO FIND TOPICS + INTERESTED PARTIES
Use Quora to find content ideas to repurpose with a built in audience: http://www.quora.com
@ipullrank

51. FOLLOWERWONK, ABOUT.ME, ZERP.LY, FINDPEOPLEONPLUS
Use the features of your personas (instead of just target keywords) to find people using:
http://www.followerwonk.com , http://about.me, http://zerply.com and http://findpeopleonplus.com
@ipullrank

52. SHARE RATE & SCRAPE RATE
Determine how far your content will go for a given author by computing the scrape rate and share rate. http://ipullrank.com/scrape-rateand-shareability-rate/ (original Scrape Rate concept by @pointblankseo)
@ipullrank

53. HERE’S AN AUDIENCE WORKSHEET
JUST A LITTLE
SOMETHING TO
HELP YOU KEEP
TRACK OF ALL OF
THOSE PEOPLE
Download the Audience Worksheet: http://www.iacquire.com/resources/worksheets/iAcquire-Audience-Worksheet.xlsx
@ipullrank

54. CONTENT AS A MAXIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT
Pitch content that supports multiple KPIs and need states within the customer journey as well as keeps
the barrier to entry high for the competitors.
@ipullrank

55. YOU ARE NOW READY
FOR THE PITCH

56. ACT THREE
PUT IT ALL TOGETHER
5 tips for highly-effective, actionable
and data-driven content marketing
pitches

57. THE FOCUS IS THE STORY
Tell a compelling story and answer a key issue using your data as a to drive it home
@ipullrank

58. TIE EVERYTHING DIRECTLY TO ROI
Everything you suggest should be directly explained in context of the ROI
@ipullrank

59. TAILOR IT DIRECTLY TO THE STAKEHOLDERS
Everything you show should address the concerns of the stakeholders; anticipate their questions
@ipullrank

60. IT BETTER BE BEAUTIFUL
Invest the time to make your pitch look beautiful and professional
@ipullrank

61. SPEAK THEIR LANGUAGE
Speak in terms the stakeholders understand for example “share of voice” rather than number of rankings
@ipullrank

62. ACT FOUR
VALIDATE
Validate what you’ve done through
measurement

63. WTF IS SHARE OF VOICE?
Share of Voice (SoV) is a traditional advertising term defined as the percentage of possible positions in a channel occupied. As it pertains
to the SEO it is the percentage available search volume captured. Use it when explaining the opportunity to non-SEOs.
@ipullrank

64. KEYWORD-LEVEL DEMOGRAPHICS
To date this is the most powerful thing I’ve contributed to the SEO community. Use it!
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/keyword-level-demographics
@ipullrank

65. KEYWORD-LEVEL DEMOGRAPHICS BEST PRACTICES
Incentivize the Opt-In
(Communities or Coupons)
Use the appID Cross Property
Just track the persona
Cookie and Remarket
I have a half-finished Wordpress plugin. If you’d find that useful tweet at me and let me know.
@ipullrank

66. MAP SITE PROFILES TO CONVERSIONS
Does your site require some sort of profile? Tie the fields of that profile to measurement. See my post
on how to segment and measure users: http://moz.com/blog/what-i-learned-from-scraping-seomozs-active-user-base
@ipullrank

67. USERREPORT.COM
Survey your users for free and get their demographic data into GA: http://www.userreports.com
@ipullrank

68. ACT FIVE
OVERCOMING FAILURE
Content pitches that failed and how to
overcome them

69. FAIL #1: WEAK PRESENTATION
A marketer presents the creation of infographics via email and phone, but doesn’t succeed and ultimately the client sees them as
“complicated” or “expensive” measures.
@ipullrank

70. RESOLUTION #1: PRESENT A DECK IN-PERSON
Your presentation should not be an email or a phone call, it should be an in-person presentation with all the stakeholders.
@ipullrank

71. FAIL #2: LEAVING OUT KEY STAKEHOLDERS
A marketer sells in an idea neglecting to invite key stakeholders only to have that content strategy fall apart once the miss stakeholders
review it.
@ipullrank

72. RESOLUTION #2: INVITE THEM ALL
Get all of the key stakeholders on board so you don’t have to repeat steps or risk the engagement falling apart after you believe
you’re good to go.
@ipullrank

73. FAIL #3: NOT SHOWING THE VALUE
A marketer explains the content strategy using the wrong KPIs and the stakeholders respond that content is “nice to have” not as
beneficial as “bombarding people with 100k email communications.”
@ipullrank

74. RESOLUTION #3: BETTER MEASUREMENT PLANNING
Build your measurement around the business objectives and things that actually show the positive affects of revenue.
@ipullrank

75. FAIL #4: RELYING ON TOO MUCH DATA
A marketer relies heavily on data to make her case and lambasts the regarded accomplishments
of the key stakeholders.
@ipullrank

76. RESOLUTION #4: LET THE STORY DO THE WORK
Don’t use numbers as a weapon to insult your stakeholders, tell a compelling story using the data as an aside that drive
the points of ineffectiveness.
@ipullrank

77. ACT SIX
THE PITCH
A pitch to the Moz team
I’ve got an idea for you

78. THE USER’S DILEMMA
There is an underserved user out there – the procrastinator. Some key moz’s solutions expect that users have
the time to plan ahead, but inbound marketers need data now!
@ipullrank

79. THE PROCRASTINATOR’S RESOLUTION
In the absence of certain real-time solutions from Moz the procrastinator turn to other sources.
@ipullrank

80. MOZ’S AUDIENCE IS FULL OF PROCRASTINATORS
@ipullrank

81. RAND SAID IT HIMSELF
@ipullrank

82. MOZ’S PROBLEM
MozScape API
Domain Authority
Page Authority
Keyword Difficulty
Open Apps
Trust Flow
Citation Flow
Search Flow
Majestic is rapidly chipping away at Moz’s advantages and solving the procrastinator’s dilemma. Their Search
Flow tool allows users to see a keyword difficulty score for 150 keywords at once.
@ipullrank

83. MOZ’S KEYWORD DIFFICULTY
Moz has the opportunity to continue to lead the pack by improving the keyword difficulty tool.
@ipullrank

84. THE PEOPLE WANT A KEYWORD DIFFICULTY API
The people have wanted a keyword difficulty API for years, but I understand that scraping Google on-demand at
that scale is completely unreasonable.
@ipullrank

85. MOZ KNOWS IT’S AWESOME
The secret is that it’s underrated because you can only do 5 keywords at a time!
@ipullrank

86. USERS EXPECT MORE OF MOZ NOW
With the new funding, users expect Moz to be able to work magic.
@ipullrank

87. ADD KEYWORD DIFFICULTY TO THE MOZBAR
Add batch keyword difficulty to the Mozbar so that any Google scraping is done on the client side.
@ipullrank

88. MEASUREMENT PLAN
USER CHURN
ACCOUNT
UPGRADES
MOZBOARD
DOWNLOADS
LINKS
SOCIAL SHARES
Make it PRO only feature and measure the effect it has on user churn, account upgrades, mozbar
downloads and links and social shares of the Mozbar download page in context of the user profile
@ipullrank

89. RECAP
TOLD A STORY
OF OVERCOMING
THE MONSTER
IDENTIFIED
THE NEED
You see what I did there?
APPEALED TO
COMPETITIVE
SPIRIT
TIED TO
REVENUE
@ipullrank

90. ACT SEVEN
MORE TOOLS
Here are some more tools that I use
for Content Strategy and Content
Marketing

91. SCREAMING FROG + SEO TOOLS FOR EXCEL
For Quantitative Content Auditing I use Screaming Frog (http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/) and
SEOTools for Excel (http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/) to crawl the site and then pull Social Shares
and analytics numbers.
@ipullrank

92. YUTONGO
Crowdsource your ideas with Yutongo: http://www.yutongo.com
@ipullrank

93. MURAL.LY
Plan content visually with your team to easily translate into pitch decks: http://www.mural.ly
@ipullrank

94. BALSAMIQ
Build WYSIWYG wireframes for you stakeholders to see what you’re saying: http://www.balsamiq.com
@ipullrank

95. STORYBOARD THAT
Build out compelling storyboards for stakeholders to follow along your ideas visually:
http://www.storyboardthat.com
@ipullrank

96. TRELLO
Build Sharable and Assignable Content Calendars with Trello: http://www.trello.com
@ipullrank

97. MORE DATA SOURCES
GOOGLE PUBLIC
Incentivize the Opt-In
DATA
(Communities or Coupons)
DATAHUB
Use the appID Cross Property
MARKETING
CHARTS
Just track the persona
GOOGLE
CONSUMER
BAROMETER
Cookie and Remarket
I have a half-finished Wordpress plugin. If you’d find that useful tweet at me and let me know.
@ipullrank

98. ACT SEVEN
THANK YOU / Q&A
Michael King
Independent Consultant & Trainer
@iPullRank