Connecting the Content Marketing Dots…Content, Channels and Culture with Laurie Paleczny

Laurie Paleczny, President, Dash Digital Group
November 18, 2014
CONTENT, CHANNELS
AND CULTURE
Connecting the Content Marketing Dots…

The challenge
•  Content marketing is forcing marketing
professionals to rethink how they engage
audiences
•  Hundreds of digital channels offer potential
•  How do you decide?
•  How do you measure what works and what
doesn’t?
© Dash Digital Group Inc. 2014

It’s all about you
What is right for your
•  Business
•  Customer
•  Resources

Source: The Guardian

The Content Marathon
•  It’s not a race
•  It’s not a campaign
•  Content marketing is a practice

Run, Laurie, Run!
Let the parallels begin…
Running is a journey, full of lessons and insights

What does it take to win?
•  Goals
•  Focus
•  Tenacity
•  Thrill of accomplishment
•  Willingness to learn (and share)

DECIDING TO RUN
The First Step

Now it’s all about me J
•  First half marathon at 47
•  friend put me up to it
•  Once committed, I took ownership

DEFINE YOUR GOAL(S)
Step Two

What does success look like?
•  Content marketing can have many purposes
that benefit your company — what is most
important?
•  Drive sales
•  Generate leads
•  Foster loyalty
•  Support customers (displace calls)
•  Brand affinity / awareness
•  Reduce costs

Start with smaller goals
•  Confirm progress: weekly, monthly, quarterly,
annually
•  Put meaningful metrics in place — know that
you can measure progress and understand
•  Build on success

ESTABLISH MEANINGFUL
METRICS
Step Three

Meaningful metrics
•  Don’t take on someone else’s goal
•  What really matters?

Measurement Framework
Purpose
Drive specific insights about the quality and
performance of content, amplification, and
conversions

Goal
Create comprehensive framework that marketers
can use to benchmark and test new tactics (content,
amplification and conversions)

Build effective reports for key stakeholders:
1.  Executives
2.  Managers
3.  Blog owners / authors

Sample Framework
Content Activity
Ampliﬁcation
Performance
Ampliﬁcation
Activity
Engagement/
Conversions
Content
Performance

Right tools that work together
•  The wrong tools will only distract
•  Understand your capability and limitations
•  Still have to put in the training, the hard work to
make content successful -- crafting good stories,
producing quality ideas and creative

CHOOSE YOUR RUNNING
PARTNER(S)
The Fifth Step

Partner
•  Work with experts who understand your goals
and will run alongside to help you achieve them
•  Partners can introduce you to new
•  Tools
•  Approaches
•  Processes
•  Partners

Know which channels matter
•  Where is your target audience?
•  How does engagement differ from channel to
channel?
•  Which online venues perform?
•  Know how to tailor content and engagement
strategies for each

Example – ﬁnancial services
•  Researched how personal finance topics were
discussed in various channels
•  Industry marketed in Twitter and Facebook
•  Consumers read blogs and posted in anonymous
forums
•  Cultural norms were different in each channel

Research volume of content

The culture of the race
Different races have different cultural norms; they
may not be a good fit for you, or to run them, you
may need to embrace a different culture

Know the channel culture
•  Learn
•  what values and attitudes exist online about your
brand/industry
•  the political, cultural or sociological reference
points
•  Understand the cultural nuances of audiences in
order to more effectively influence or inform
their behavior

Who is my target client?

Content Journey - healthcare
Awareness
Program Info
Partner
Information
About
Benefits
The Team
Interest
Information
White papers
Tools/Lists
Contests
Portfolio/Case
Studies
Intent
Testimonials
Studies
Awards/
Certifications
Memberships
Partners/
Endorsements
Action
Find a
provider
Request Info
Share/Follow
Click/Call
Submit form

Enterprise example – phase 1
•  Global B2B software company
•  Goal: Lower support costs and drive interest in new products
•  Approach: Build IT practitioner community for product
support, sharing and collaboration
•  Action: Selected Lithium as its platform for forums and blogs
•  Initial launch was a success, but then stagnated — weren’t
ready to run the long marathon
•  Community needed content
Learn through practice runs - assess what works and what
doesn’t.

Enterprise example– phase 2
•  Product blog teams to create practitioner-focused content
•  Useful, step-by-step, including code samples
•  Empathetic to changing job demands
•  Best practices for images, headlines, build blogger profile
•  Created front-page to community
•  Better UX / navigation
•  Surface evergreen content - How-to articles, videos
•  Drive conversion to lead gen (webinars, white papers) and
featured software downloads (“conversion”)
•  ROI conversation
•  Newsletter - sign-up campaign
Awareness Interest Intent Action

Editorial Calendar

PLAN TIME TO RECOVER
Step Eight

Evaluate Performance
•  Marathons take their toll
•  Take time to recover and think about what
worked, what didn’t
•  Engage stakeholders and partners
You should have some failures
Learn to success

Measurement
•  Have defined goals
•  Have a defined set of tools
•  Understand gaps
•  Structured taxonomy is essential
•  SqueezeCMM
•  measure the constellation of social clicks,
content consumption and CTA conversions

Content chain results
Free Software
Registration Page
240
46
58
55
364
9 88
23
8
1
9
267
Guide to
Analytics
901
63

Content chain results
Free Software
Registration Page
240
46
58
55
364
9 88
65
143
1
9
Guide to
Analytics
901
267
63
11
3

Laurie Paleczny
laurie@dashdigitalgroup.com

Connecting the Content Marketing Dots…Content, Channels and Culture with Laurie Paleczny

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