Content marketing; now what? – Raconteur

In the past few years content marketing has evolved from a buzzword to a respected ROI driver. We are creating more content than ever before with marketers constantly thinking up the next story. But now that we’ve got to this stage, how can we take our content initiatives to the next level? What strategies do you need to have in place, how can we leverage existing content and what type of content should we be making now?

Raconteur addressed these questions this week by bringing together 60 senior B2B content marketers at The Club at The Ivy for our invite-only custom publishing event. The aim of the evening was to share insights about emerging trends, how to make your content stand out among the noise and also to prepare for what’s around the corner. To lead the discussions we heard from our three speakers; Sarah Donnelly, Global Marketing Leader from Arcardis, Jason Miller, Global Content Marketing Leader from LinkedIn and Simon Baker, Head of Branded Content at ITN Productions.

Thinking and planning for the long-term whilst developing a culture of content internally is key to success according to Sarah Donnelly, Global Marketing Leader from Arcardis. She emphasised that content marketing is “a journey” and that rather than dabbling here and there with the odd tactic, your strategy “needs to be long-term and it needs to be made a priority”.

You may not have a newsroom or a huge budget but think about what you have at your disposal and who else in the company can help

She explained how to manage the internal sell and encourage teams to contribute to your organisation’s wealth of content to benefit this long-term goal. “Identify the quick wins” says Sarah, “you may not have a newsroom or a huge budget but think about what you have at your disposal and who else in the company can help”.

Clarity around roles and responsibilities among internal teams needs to be created to ensure early engagement and alignment with the content project. Start with senior leadership and show them how it relates to the business strategy, brand strategy and how content marketing can achieve growth if taken seriously.

Sarah Donnelly tells us how to create a culture of content


Sarah Donnelly tells us how to create a culture of content

Sarah’s key message was “keep banging the drum”. Continue to drill home the importance of content marketing and make an effort to demonstrate to senior leadership how it relates to the business strategy.

On the topic of banging drums, our next speaker, Jason Miller Global Content Marketing Leader from LinkedIn used the medium of rock music to explain how to achieve “face-melting content marketing ROI”.

Jason demonstrated how powerful it is to extract the very most out of your content. To do this, you need to identify your content “rocks”, the big assets which can then be broken down, chopped up, re-spun and sent out again as new digestible pieces. These he called the “turkey slices”. From larger pieces of content (rocks) you can produce smaller assets (turkey slices) like infographics, blogs and webinars. This will allow you to own the conversation online and make your content go much further.

Repurpose, repurpose, then repurpose some more

But what is “face-melting ROI?” According to Jason this is the ultimate Jimmy Hendrix guitar-crescendo effect that repurposing your content can have on your campaign. It is the practice of making your content go further, not just posting something once and then forgetting about it. The trick is, in Jason’s words, to “repurpose, repurpose, then repurpose some more”.

Jason achieved his own face-melter when he repurposed his content rock into enough turkey slices to achieve 18,000% ROI from just one asset. An incredible result and one we would all certainly like to achieve as content marketers in the future.

Jason Miller says high ROI from content comes from repurposing your assets


Jason Miller says high ROI from content comes from repurposing your assets

So what’s next for the type of content we share and what formats should we be investing in? The answer to that question came from our third and final speaker, Simon Baker, Head of Branded Content at ITN Productions.

The storytelling power of video has long been established as a means to change perception, behaviour and attitudes. Simon told us that “75% of senior executives watch business-related video on websites” proving that video is informing and adding value to audiences in the B2B space. This figure alone speaks volumes about the power of video as a content asset and one that marketers should be investing in.

Be on topic, be on brand, be on time. Always plan to react, do your research and plan your content around it

Whilst video is an effective format, the type of content you make is affected by what stage of the buying cycle your audience is on says Simon. For example, moving away from talking about products and instead addressing problems faced by audiences can demonstrate your expertise to the customer in the early stages. It’s then effective to serve different content during the research, purchasing and post-purchase evaluation phases, constantly adding value and being relevant.

Simon’s overall advice when it comes to B2B video content marketing echoed the style of the newsrooms he works with at ITN Productions. He tells us to “be on topic, be on brand, be on time. Always plan to react, do your research and plan your content around it”. Timing and topicality is essential to a campaign and topicality is about being on time.

'Be on topic, be on brand, be on time says Simon Baker


‘Be on topic, be on brand, be on time” says Simon Baker

Some incredibly strong and helpful insights from these leading B2B content marketers who all gave poignant answers to the original question “content marketing, now what?” Underpinning all of their insights was a common theme of being passionate about what they do and passionate about the content they make.

The event also fell on the eve of the launch of issue six of Raconteur’s quarterly magazine, a global review of current affairs and one of our prize content ‘rocks’ which we are also incredibly passionate about and which you can read online here.

For more information on Raconteur’s Custom Publishing work, click here.

Freddie Ossberg, CEO Founder, Raconteur Media

Follow Raconteur Media on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@raconteur

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