Improve your ROI with Content Marketing

Digital Marketing is constantly evolving and organizations must be on top of new and emerging trends. Keeping up in an industry that is always changing can be difficult, especially when traditional marketing approaches can be seen as a constant unchanging variable.

In my role as a marketer at Fanshawe Pioneer Village I am always looking at ways to improve our marketing efforts and make the most of our modest budget. Digital Marketing has become an important medium for creating an online brand experience. One of the most effective digital marketing strategies that we have implemented in the last year is Content Marketing and that is why today’s topic is going to be all about Content Marketing!

Content Marketing focuses on matching information or entertainment to customers needs (Stokes, 2008). Content Marketing is all about creating engaging content to attract audiences and ultimately sales. Traditionally, marketers see themselves as advertisers and their job is to get people to buy their product. With Content Marketing marketers must act more like publishers with the intention to attracting, acquiring and engaging audiences (Stokes 2008). The Content Marketing Institute describes Content Marketing as;

“a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action”  (Content Marketing Institute, 2013).

Before you begin drafting a marketing plan with a focus on Content Marketing you must ask yourself who you’re trying to reach, how is your content structured, who creates your content and how is it being constructed. Content should be created with a specific outcome in mind. Content Marketing is all about communicating with customers without selling them anything, it’s all about delivering information that educates buyers and as a result you will gain their business. Good Content Marketing is about getting a person to stop and read what you have to say and convince them you’re worth investing in.

Content should never be created for its own sake; it should support your organizations marketing or business goals (Content Marketing Institute, 2014). Content Marketing can help you raise your brands awareness, build your followers, convert your audience into paying customers and retain existing customers.

It can be very overwhelming trying something new. Content Marketing needs marketers to be committed and consistent. Marketers need to figure out how much time they’re willing to put into Content Marketing. They must ask themselves who is creating the content, how often they will be publishing new content, and what their time frame for delivery is. It’s best to avoid content formats that require a lot of consistency if you cannot commit. Starting off small is always best. Take a look at the diagram below, sometimes its better to start small and build your way up.

(Content Marketing Institute, 2014)

After you have decided what channels you’re going to use you have to decide the types of topics you’ll be sharing with your audience. The topics you choose to talk about should help you achieve your goals. It took a lot of testing different topics and formats until I found out what works best for my organization. It took about a year to really narrow down the best topics, content and information in order for me to really capitalize on Content Marketing.

It can be overwhelming trying something new but here are some ideas on how you can integrate Content Marketing into your organizations marketing plan and the outcomes you can expect:

·      We receive so many emails in a day, and how many of those emails actually get read before hitting delete? By creating relevant, interesting and high quality content people will stop and read what you have to say. (Stokes, 2008)

·      If you’re sharing content on Social Media keep it relevant and valuable. Creating high quality posts will result in more sharing and interaction from consumers.

·      Content Marketing can strongly influence SEO. Search engines will favor your website because your content is valuable.

·      Video Marketing is another great way to implement Content Marketing. Video Marketing allows you to create dynamic and shareable videos tailored to your audience interests. (Stokes, 2008)

Once you have created and implemented your Content Marketing strategy, you need to measure your success. It’s important to measure your efforts. You should focus on analyzing four major components: content message, content format, distribution channel, and promotional efforts. Drew Hendricks explains that by understanding how you’re performing in each of these areas, you’ll be able to better allocate your budget and retarget your efforts for maximum return (Forbes,2015).

By putting the effort into Content Marketing organizations will see huge returns, if you don’t believe me check out Kapost’s statistics on the value of Content Marketing.

What makes Content Marketing a great tool is it’s ability to be scaled according to your organizations needs and budget. In my role as a marketer I have always focused more on acting as an advertiser but in the last two years we have shifted towards Content Marketing. The transition has been very positive and our effort in creating engaging content has paid off greatly. We have started attracting new visitors, broadened our audiences and our followers are much more engaged.

- Marianne

Social Media 101: Museum Edition

Social Media is all about collaborating, sharing, and providing information while engaging with online communities (Stokes, 2008). The fifth edition of eMarketing, the Essential Guide to Marketing in the Digital World explains that Social Media is behind the explosion of content on the Internet since just about anyone with an internet connection to create and share content easily (Stokes, 2008).

Social Media is about using the tools/applications that the internet has provided us to connect and build relationships with others (Stokes, 2008). Museums are always in pursuit of better engagement. Social Media is just one of the ways we try to communicate with online communities as it allows for open dialogue between content creators, content consumers and content sharers.

You can connect with Fanshawe Pioneer Village on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube or through our Virtual Village. Like other Social Networks, these channels of communication have given us the opportunity to create dialogue and discussions with different communities. Many museums are taking Social Media more seriously, embracing the many benefits and using it as a tool for engaging with others. Check out how these Art Galleries and Museums are using Social Media to their benefit. One thing I learned from the article is that even a social media team of one (like me) can make a positive impact. It’s all about using social media to build relationships, start conversations and tell the story of your collection.

Here are five tips from me on what you can do to master you own organizations Social Media even with limited resources, staff and budgets!

1.    Subscribe to blogs and free webinars. They’re informative, inspiring and really helpful. Geoff Evans founder of Social Media Coach has an excellent blog that shares tips and tricks for doing good Social Media. He also occasionally offers free webinars. They’re informative and relevant and take also place in real time so you to ask an expert specific questions.

2.    Take advantage of the free resources available to you on the Internet. Last year I attended Southwest Ontario Tourism Corporation (SWOTC) annual Tourism Conference. The conference hosted some great speakers and workshops. Some of the topics included ways Ontario attractions can incorporate social media to their own benefit. SWOTC also has a helpful marketing resources page that provides a free Social Media Cheat Sheet, Geoff Evan’s past Social Media presentations, and other relevant and helpful information.

3.    Implement a Social Media Policy. A Social Media Policy enables your employees to participate online in a respectful and appropriate way. It also helps protect your reputation and is a binding document on how your organization and employees should engage in Social Media online. Your employees are your experts; it makes sense to collaborate and use everyone’s expertise to the fullest! A Social Media Policy helps to regulate what’s being posted. Check out these examples of social media guidelines via HireRabbit.

4.    Take advantage of the expertise around you! I am not a curator, archivist, historian or preservationist. I am a marketer! There is content I am interested in sharing with online communities but my knowledge is sometimes limited. Lucky for me I have a team of experts who can help me. Embrace the knowledge around you, and reach out to your experts and collaborate together. Our Facebook Page shows an increase in public interest, engagement and conversations since we all started collaborating to create content.

5.    Don’t bite off more than you can chew. There are many social media networks out there but that doesn’t mean you should undertake them all. Find what works for your business or organization and master it! Remember that quality outweighs quantity. Multiple social media channels may seem good in theory but they can be very difficult to manage in practice.

To end, here’s a video on the 2015 Social Media Revolution and some stats surrounding everyone’s favourite past time. Disclaimer: it was created back in January so it is probably already irrelevant!

- Marianne

Sources: 

R. Stokes (eMarketing: The Essentials Guides to Marketing In A Digital World, 2008)

All Aboard the Digital Marketing Train

Marketing in its most basic form is the creation and satisfaction of demand for your product or service (Stokes, 2008).  The end game of any marketing strategy is to see an increase in sales.  If marketing creates demand then digital marketing drives the creation of demand with tools like the Internet (Stokes, 2008).  A business on the Internet can gain value in the form of time, attention and consumer support and in return the consumer gains value in the form of entertainment, information and usefulness from a business (Stokes, 2008). Check out Smart Insights infographic on the importance of digital marketing to businesses today.

So, why do Digital Marketing? The simplest answer is because 40 percent or 3 billion of the world’s population use the Internet. For a business to succeed in today’s world it is important to have a strong digital footprint. Today’s blog is going to focus on the basic elements of a successful Digital Marketing Strategy.

By incorporating the following five elements you have the beginning of a great Digital Marketing Strategy:

 Context: A good Digital Marketing strategy starts by examining the context of the organization. Ask yourself: Who are you? What makes your brand useful? Who are your customers and what needs do they have? Who are your competitors? Tip: To determine the context in which your business is operating on construct a PESTLE analysis.

Value Exchange: Examine what value your organization can add to the market. Tip: Try incorporating Content Marketing into your strategy. Content marketing is the process of conceptualizing and creating content that you want to share with stakeholders. An example of this could be using infographics to show your value to a target audience. (Stokes, 2008)  

Objectives: When you’re setting your objectives there are four key aspects to consider: objectives, tactics, key performance indicators and targets.

1. Objectives – Ask yourself: Why are you doing this? What goal, purpose or outcome are you looking for? Your objectives need to be SMART.
2. Tactics – Tactics are tools or approaches you will use to meet your objectives. An example of a tactic could be implementing a Facebook page for your business. As your strategy develops you may need to include multiple tactics.
3. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – Specific metrics you will look at to determine whether you are performing well and meeting your objectives. If a tactic was to implement a Facebook page your KPI could be to look at user engagement.
4. Targets – Targets are specific values that are set for your KPIs to reach within a specific time period (Stokes, 2008).  Going back to the Facebook page example, your target could be 50 comments and 10 shares on a campaign specific post per week.

Tactics and Evaluation: Not all tactics are made equal. You will need to look at a variety of different tactics (SEO, Search Advertising, Social Media, Email Marketing, etc.) and decide how they will help you meet your objectives. Strategize carefully, and don’t bite off more than you can chew! Once your objectives and tactics are set you should evaluate them to see if they meet the needs of your organization.

Ongoing Optimization: There will always be new tactics and platforms that emerge. Digital marketing needs to be innovative and open to change. You must be open to trying new things in order to stay relevant. A successful strategy should always be analyzing data in order for a business to remain flexible with consumer behaviour (Stokes, 2008).

Old marketing tactics just aren’t enough anymore. In order for businesses to stay relevant they need to adopt Digital Marketing techniques. Benefits to digital marketing include affordability, measurability and access to target audiences from almost anywhere in the world.

With that, I’m going to leave you with a four-minute introduction to BBC’s Virtual Revolution, a documentary about how the Virtual World is taking our world by storm. A link to the full documentary is below. As the video highlights, a majority of your customers are actively using the Internet and other digital channels on a daily basis. The potential to reach new consumers is endless through effective digital marketing!

- Marianne

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPD4Ep_J81k&list=PL84AD44DF0973D098

Sources: 

http://www.smartinsights.com/managing-digital-marketing/marketing-innovation/state-of-digital-marketing/

http://kapost.com/history-of-digital-marketing-technology/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEST_analysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteriaw