Six steps to developing a winning content marketing strategy and jump-starting your overall marketing plans. Presentation given at the 2013 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (#WPC13) in Houston, Texas by Christian Buckley (@buckleyplanet), evangelist for Axceler (www.axceler.com).

1. Developing a Content
Marketing Strategy
for Your Business
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference
July 2013 – Houston, Texas
Social 101 Sessions
Christian Buckley
Director, Product Evangelism
(@buckleyplanet)

2. • Buying ad space in magazines is out.
Paying for banner ads on leading
websites, or even paid search
results, are showing decreasing
returns.
• Email marketing suffers from "trust
issues" with end users. Whether its
due to consumer fatigue (we've worn
people down), or audience maturity
(they've gotten smarter), traditional
marketing just doesn't work the way
it used to.
• Which is not to say that there is not
value in these old marketing
methods -- just that you need to
reset your expectations about what
you can achieve, and develop some
new strategies to generate leads and
build trust with your prospective
customers.

3. • Content marketing has replaced traditional marketing.
Companies with blogs generate 67% more leads per month
on average than non-blogging firms. (Social Media B2B)
• What is content marketing, exactly? Providing relevant,
timely, and authentic content to consumers, allowing you
to build trust and spread good will. Traditional marketing
provides limited results, but content marketing can be
your key to establishing yourself or your company as “the”
subject matter experts in your space, and help you to get
your key messaging out to your target customers. In fact,
61% of consumer say they feel better about a company that
provides custom content, and are more likely to buy from
that company (Custom Content Council).

4. • Just to be clear, creating marketing copy is not the same as
developing authentic, valued content. In the former, you're
writing text to fit your marketing message. In the latter,
you're developing content with the goal of helping your
prospective customers -- without strong (read: obvious)
marketing messaging.
• It has more to do with providing education, and
demonstrating your knowledge and expertise. As your
reputation (and social influence) grows, you can then
leverage your leadership position to open doors, engage with
the community, and talk about your products and services.
• It's definitely a long-game strategy.

5. • The community needs to
hear your unique perspective,
learn from your successes
(and failures), and understand
your industry best practices.
Sure, creating content can be
a fabulous way to build up your
personal brand and build out
your portfolio, but it also adds
to the digital library of your
company, and helps others to
leverage what you've learned.

6. 1. Identify your core messaging.
This may be easier for some organizations than others, but
every organization has at least started this process. We all
have products or services which we sell, each with a core
message or theme or story. Your core messaging is not the
name of a product, or a description of a service -- its more
of a narrative, a story of what it is that you do. It is the
problem space you are trying to solve, and the why, what,
and how of your solutions.

7. 2. Identify your target customer personas.
Every company has a target customer or customer. Give
them names. Define their job titles, their unique problem
statement, and understand why this ideal customer is in
need of your solution. If you understand who you are
trying to sell to, you'll have a better idea of the types of
content this person needs to
1) understand the problem space (or to help them
recognize that there is even a problem),
2) understand what is needed to solve the problem, and
3) understand how your company can solve the
problem.

8. 3. Outline each and every message you
would like to convey to each persona.
This can be a difficult step, but once you get the ball rolling, it'll get easier. Start
by compiling a list of every possible topic you would like your customer to
understand: key product use cases, the visible gaps in the out-of-the-box
platform, industry best practices. As you think about the products and services
you believe this person needs, get granular about how you would define this
need, and your solution. If you are a SharePoint ISV delivering analytics tools,
you might include topics like:
• Building no-code dashboards in SharePoint
• Out-of-the-box SharePoint reporting options
• Best practices for automating reporting
• Leading 3rd party analytics solutions for SharePoint
• Real-world examples of building KPIs into SharePoint reporting
• Changes in OOTB analytics from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013
As you begin to outline the topics that will become the base of your content
strategy, continue to break them down into simple topics. Your goal should not
be long, complex white papers, but short, insightful blog posts and feature
articles. Look to your initial posts for feedback from customers and partners,
and use that data to further expand your list. And its also important to watch for
trends within your industry -- and from your competitors -- and identify the
keywords and themes that seem to be resonating with customers, adding them
into your own content strategy.

9. 4. Refine your outline, and start to
organize by distribution method.
Not surprisingly, the refining of your outline is an ongoing effort. Almost daily I
am fine tuning my own strategy, watching how customers respond to content
I've published, and watching industry news for new products and services that
need to become part of my own story. As you begin fleshing out your topics, the
next step is to organize them by distribution method. Which topics are
appropriate for your company blog, or which ones should be polished and
submitted to industry journals?
My best practice is to keep things organized in One Note by publishing source,
shuffling each article idea under the tab which I think best matches the tone of
the story, allowing me to flag new content ideas up front, and tailor each post for
the audience of that site or magazine. For example, I might write a strongly-
opinionated post about social collaboration that is appropriate for my company
blog, but write a similar, expanded article for CMSWire that includes a more
neutral standpoint and other industry perspectives. I might then create a much
more personal view, sharing specific stories from a recent event and a
conversation with a business partner, on my personal blog.
Three posts on a similar topic for three different sources, but all demonstrating
my thought leadership on the topic.

10. 5. Incorporate corporate, SME,
and personal voices.
I believe it is important to vary your voice in your content
marketing strategy. Sometimes your content should be more
formal, coming from a "corporate" perspective. This might be
content that talks about a specific position, or that mentions your
products and services -- albeit in as neutral fashion as possible.
The tone tends to be factual and straight-forward. But I'm also a
big believer in injecting your own personality into your writing,
personalizing your stories with actual interactions and humor to
let your readers know that you are a real person, and not just a
marketing content machine.
Most of your content, however, should utilize your 'subject matter
expert' or SME voice, focusing on education and a more granular
view of your topic. People want perspectives and opinion, and
they want personality, but most of all they want to know that you
have mastery of your subject.

11. 6. Keep it topical.
Part of my daily routine is to read through the latest industry
journals and scan various online news sources for anything
relevant to my content marketing strategy, and to quickly
amend my day's plans to include whatever story is going to
interest my readers. It's a bit like being a journalist, I suppose:
you want to both educate and entertain.
The more you can keep your topics relevant to the news of the
day, the better you will position yourself and your content in
the eyes of your prospective customers.

12. • At the end of the day, the best way to guarantee
marketing success is to provide the best
products and services, and then be open and
honest with the community and prospective
customers about what you can and cannot do
for them.
• My advice: be authentic in your marketing and
in your content. Share what you know -- but
don't be afraid to use your content development
as an opportunity to learn more yourself,
exploring new topics and strengthening your
own understanding of your subject matter.
• Prospective customers (and you better believe
your competition) can see right through
inauthenticity. Ultimately, content marketing is
not about the quick win (although that will
occasionally happen) but about the long-game,
so be consistent and focus on providing value.

13. Christian Buckley
cbuck@axceler.com
@buckleyplanet
www.Axceler.com
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