content marketing | Internet Marketing Blog

Content marketing strategy: an A-Z guide to success

Content marketing is currently battling ‘big data’ and ‘responsive design’ for the hottest digital marketing phrase of the year. Yet the truth is that while the label has grown in popularity, the notion that content marketing is new is something of a curve ball.

Many brands have been producing regular content for many years, and already appreciate the value of blogs, surveys, whitepapers and videos. They understand the power of content and understand how it can attract the right kind of attention.

But what is new is that content marketing roles are being created, and teams are being restructured. Content is becoming more tactical as a result.

I see content marketing is a kind of umbrella term for five disciplines: editorial, marketing, PR, SEO and social. It is the glue that bonds these things together, and a predefined content marketing strategy can help these teams to focus on long-term goals.

In this article I’m aiming to outline the various factors behind a successful content marketing strategy, partly for our own benefit (we hired our first content marketer last summer), and partly as a thinking out loud exercise so that you can tell me what I’ve missed. Please leave any pointers and ideas in the comments section below.

by Chris Lake 30 January 2013 12:48pm 15 comments

The four Ps of content marketing

Content marketing is everywhere. As people are increasingly using online conversations as their digital identity, the best strategy for consumer brands to engage with their audiences with is to create content they can use as their own social currency.

Effectively, content marketing is no longer just relevant to B2B brands or consumer brands where there is a need for factual information and reviews.

Nowadays, every brand can benefit from content marketing – be it blog posts, Facebook apps, microsites or Pinterest boards.

by Xavier Izaguirre 28 January 2013 10:33am 4 comments

The year of content discovery?

You won’t have to travel far in this or any 2013 trend prediction piece to find that some of the most insightful thought leaders are proclaiming “content is King” when it comes to driving success in a digital world. I’m not buying that.

I don’t think content is King. I actually believe that we will in a digital world where convenience is King and content, is, in fact King Kong. And the link between the two is a powerful tool called Discovery.

by Jeanniey Mullen 24 January 2013 17:32pm 1 comment

Three reasons why Twitter's Vine is the future of content marketing

Yesterday Twitter's CEO Dick Costolo tweeted a six second video clip of himself making steak to his 1M+ followers.

This is a big deal to many because it was using the tech behind Vine, a video sharing startup acquired by Twitter.

It should be a big deal to content marketers everywhere because it's a glimpse into the future.

by Ryan Sommer 24 January 2013 14:54pm 12 comments

Developing a multilingual content marketing strategy

For digital marketers, content marketing is top of the priority list for 2013. And as more of the world gets online, the global audience for content is growing fast.

According to the UN Broadband Commission, a third of the world population already has internet access, and this is set to rise to 40%, or 3bn, by 2016.

by Christian Arno 23 January 2013 12:30pm 4 comments

Social media in 2013: the year we finally go “beyond the like”

Social media is not the new kid on the block anymore but it's still a growing channel and 2013 will see a number of changes - or so our industry experts think. Brands are starting to realise the importance of this channel and are looking for real numbers to back up the claims of agencies and social media experts.

The continued growth of content will affect how people use and interact with social media and the beands using it. And now that we can collect more specific and individual data through social media, this content will become even more effective.

by Heather Taylor 21 January 2013 16:45pm 2 comments

Content marketing and SEO: how will they evolve in the future?

Google's continuing moves to penalise marketers ‘chasing the algorithm’, and to reward those who produce useful and valuable content, is one of the principal reasons why content marketing has emerged as a hot topic over the past 18 months.

The majority of marketers surveyed in our Content Marketing Survey Report (produced in associated with Outbrain) agreed with the statement that “Content marketing is becoming its own discipline, like SEO or email marketing”.

The question remains to be seen as to how content marketing and SEO will change, integrate and evolve over time, with some predicting the demise of SEO and others insisting that it will remain as its own discipline.

To find out more, and following last week's post on the expert view on content marketing, we asked a selection of marketers how they "see the relationship between content marketing and SEO evolving over the next few months?” Their answers, some of which do conflict, are below…

by Andrew Warren-Payne 21 January 2013 10:42am 16 comments

The million-dollar content marketing question

No product was ever more content marketed than content marketing itself. And it worked. Marketers are diving in.

But the ideas that spawned the discipline that created the movement also generated a pile-up of content marketing suppliers, and it’s still growing like topsy.

With supply evolving so rapidly, how are marketers to choose a content marketing partner?

That’s the million-dollar content marketing question.

by Ryan Skinner 18 January 2013 09:31am 5 comments

13 content marketing tips from the experts: how to write a great blog

There are many content marketing tools that B2B marketers can use. The most popular is the blog. In Rebecca Lieb’s book, Content Marketing, she says: “No topic or industry is too arcane for a blog”.

She cites a US-engineering company, Indium, that has no less than 73 different blogs…on soldiering materials. Having that many blogs increased the firm's inbound leads by 600%.

But creating original content and finding time to do it is a business' biggest challenge she says. This is also something that I hear frequently too. But as a recent Hubspot report showed that blogging is something businesses cannot afford to avoid.

by Juliet Stott 17 January 2013 11:43am 11 comments

Content marketing in 2013: what the experts think

Since the launch of our Content Marketing Survey Report, produced in association with Outbrain, the topic has continued to fuel discussion throughout the industry, as brands struggle for the attention of consumers and marketers find it ever more difficult to reach the top of the search engines.

As 2013 begins, we asked a series of marketers for their thoughts on where content marketing is going and what brands and publishers have been doing particularly well.

Their insights are below, along with some video shot by Outbrain at the launch of the Content Marketing Survey Report late last year.

by Andrew Warren-Payne 14 January 2013 11:28am 11 comments