You've heard of content - sometimes referred to as inbound - marketing. You're intrigued by what it could potentially do for your company. How does it work though? Click through our slideshare to see.

1. Content Marketing
The Big 8 Elements of
Content Marketing
presented by

2. You’ve heard of content—sometimes referred to as inbound—marketing.
You’re intrigued by what it could potentially do for your company.
How does it work though?
What do all of the buzzwords
marketers oftentimes throw around actually mean?

3. When we are talking to both new and existing
clients, we oftentimes find ourselves
clarifying the jargon
we are using. We also, even as people in the industry,
have to ask questions sometimes of our other colleagues.

4. The marketing vocabulary is ever-changing.
That’s why we created this slideshare to go through
The Big 8 Elements of Content Marketing
we think are currently the most important to understand.

5. 1Automation
‣ Marketing automation refers to software platforms and technologies
designed for marketing departments and organizations to more
effectively market on multiple channels online. With the growth of
the digital platform in general, it can be incredibly time consuming
to effectively manage your company’s online activities.

6. 1Automation
‣ Automation allows for marketing professionals to handle everything
in one place and, oftentimes, gather much more in-depth reporting
than if they were to piecemeal their efforts together on their own.
These systems are not free but neither is your time. We have found
with our clients that when we do the math, it is always more cost
efficient to invest in an automation software than it is to pay
someone the hours it would take to effectively execute marketing
campaigns without automation.

7. 1Automation
‣ Plus, automation tools bring valuable reporting to the table on
what’s working, what’s not, and how much money you’re
actually making on your efforts. The value of this can’t be
understated, especially once you get into the room with your
boss and make your case on getting more marketing budget for
next year or validating the worth of your team’s efforts!

8. 2Context
‣ While serving up relevant and compelling content is important, it is
equally or, possibly, more important to ensure you are customizing
your content to meet the right audience. In today’s world (AKA the
world of the internet) consumers are much more in control of the
content they consume than marketers are. It is important then, for
us, to deliver content that is contextually relevant.

9. 2Context
‣ For example, you might hear someone say, “this email would have
better conversion rates if we added more context based on what
we know about the recipient.”

10. 3Format
‣ The amount of content formats that currently exist are, arguably,
endless. Think of all the ways in which you digest content on a day-
to-day basis… I’d bet you can’t actually count them all. There is
email, social media, blogs, traditional media such as radio and TV,
video, etc. etc. etc. When we’re talking about format in content
marketing, we are typically referring to the format of the premium
content offers, just like the one you’re clicking through now.

11. 3Format
‣ Ebooks
‣ Webinars
‣ Tutorials
‣ Videos
‣ Infographics
‣ Case Studies
‣ Podcasts
‣ Checklists
These include, but are certainly not limited to…

12. 4Newsjacking
‣ Newsjacking is the art of using news events or stories for
marketing and advertising purposes. Basically, marketers will
jump on the back of popular news stories in the hopes of gaining
visibility, media coverage, or other benefits such as backlinks,
video views, etc.

13. 4Newsjacking
‣ Newsjacking began as a PR tactic but the continuous evolution
of digital media has brought up new forms of newsjacking. When
it comes to content marketing, newsjacking can be a very
effective way of inserting your brand or company into relevant
conversations. For a guide on how to effectively newsjack,
CHECK OUT THIS HubSpot blog post.

14. 5Promotion
‣ You spend a great deal of time creating compelling content and
plugging in appropriate context. Now what? It is time to promote.
This can be done in the form of social media, email, blog posts,
paid search advertisements, and public relations. Promoting is key
to reaching new audience members and turning them into leads.

15. 5Promotion
Promotion can be one of four types. We think of this as PESO.
See below for avenues these types of promotion come from.
‣ Paid: advertising, banners ads, and Google Adwords
‣ Earned: media relations, blogger relations, and influencer relations
‣ Shared: social media, word of mouth, and referrals
‣ Owned: website, blog, content

16. 6Quality & Quantity
‣ Both quality and quantity are important when it comes to content
marketing. If you were to search “email marketing” you’ll be
served more than 380 million results in approximately .3 seconds.
That is a lot! How many of these will you actually click on, much
less download and read? Quality of content is vital. There is no
point spending hours of time creating an ebook that nobody will
click on and consume.

17. 6Quality & Quantity
‣ Quantity is more about consistency than anything else. Spend some
time figuring out the constant quantity that will work for your
company. This means looking at how much you need to be providing
your audience and how much you can reasonably produce in a set
amount of time. Stay consistent with this schedule so your
consumers know what to expect.

18. 7Workflow
‣ A workflow is the thing that takes your campaign and automation to
an entirely new level. Workflows are series of automated actions that
you can trigger to occur based on a person’s behaviors or contact
information. Workflows take your marketing beyond automation.
With workflows, you can send emails, update contact information,
add or remove contacts from lists, and trigger email notifications.

19. 8Permission-Based Marketing
‣ Permission-based marketing is quite possibly what primarily sets
content marketing apart from traditional, outbound marketing.
Seth Godin defines permission-based marketing as, “the privilege
(not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant
messages to people who actually want to get them. It recognizes
the new power of the best consumers to ignore marketing. It
realizes that treating people with respect is the best way to earn
their attention.”

20. 8Permission-Based Marketing
‣ When we explain content marketing to our clients, we like to refer to
traditional marketing as “marketing with a sledgehammer”. It is all
about interrupting and shouting at people in hopes of getting their
attention. Content marketing, we say, is “marketing with a magnet”.
We are putting valuable information in front of relevant people when
it makes sense for them to consume it. This pulls them in and they
then grant us permission to continue talking to them. The process is
oftentimes slower, but the ROI is always much greater.

21. Hopefully you're now a bit more familiar with what goes into
successful content marketing and how it all comes together! Want
more? Check out our case study to take a deeper look into how a
SaaS company we worked with embarked on this methodology.
Spoiler alert: they saw a 95% increase in leads! SEE HOW.