How brands and content marketers can build an audience on YouTube

According to Campaign magazine, brands still account for fewer than 100 of the 5000 top-ranking channels on YouTube.

In the video below – produced by Campaignlive.co.uk – Charlotte Morton, head of creative agency partnerships at Google, explains how brands and agencies can build an audience on YouTube.

She suggests a three-step approach which she calls “The 3Cs”:

–  Campaigning (advertising on YouTube)

–  Channelling (building a brand’s own presence on YouTube)

–  Collaboration (partnering with leading YouTube stars to reach new audiences).

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

Businesses with a content marketing strategy see a measurable impact, new study finds

by Brian Oliver

More than 90% of organisations that implement a content marketing strategy see a significant business impact through increased web traffic and sales leads. That’s according to a new report by integrated communications agency Waggener Edstrom Worldwide.

The study, Content Marketing: Puncturing the Hype and Getting Practical, examined the perceptions of content marketing and the potential impact it can have on a company’s growth.

The report’s key findings include:

• The majority (85%) of communication professionals currently using a content marketing strategy do so to promote awareness of their brand, closely followed by increasing engagement with customers (79%) and generating sales leads (77%).

• 70% of marketers understand that content marketing helps drive sales leads more effectively, but 18% still have no plans to implement a strategy and over one third (38%) still question whether it can deliver measurable return on investment.

• A lack of staff resources was identified as the number one challenge in implementing an effective content marketing strategy (63%), closely followed by lack of budget (48%) and lack of content creation expertise (41%).

• 79% believe a strong content marketing strategy will help them use social media more effectively, followed by video and animation (70%) and news articles (62%).

The report also reveals that businesses are setting metrics to track success and prove the value of good content. Over three quarters (83%) measure the effectiveness of content through web traffic, while 67% measure through media coverage and just over half (56%) through click analysis.

Chris Talago, executive vice president and general manager EMEA at Waggener Edstrom, believes content marketing enables organisations to engage with audiences and prove their worth as a trusted source of information.

“It has had a transformative effect on the way brands reach and retain their customers,” says Talago. “But with so many voices, getting to grips with content marketing best practice is not easy.”

He adds: “Our research suggests that businesses are starting to understand the potential ROI content marketing can generate, but before this impact is fully realised, factors including budget and staffing need to be addressed.”

Ricardo Adame, corporate vice president of global communications at AVG Technologies, says measurement has always been key to demonstrating the success of his company’s marketing programmes. However, he believes content marketing provides an opportunity to be even more accurate.

“By defining our metrics carefully and building in additional measures to provide context,” says Adame, “a detailed picture is created that enables us to measure the ROI after a campaign has completed and adjust our approach during its lifespan to achieve maximum impact.”

The Content Marketing: Puncturing the Hype and Getting Practical report is based on a survey of more than 160 marketing and communication professionals with decision-making responsibilities across the UK, France, Germany and South Africa. The full results can be found at: www.waggeneredstrom.com.

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About the author: 

Brian Oliver is a business journalist and the MD and founder of UK strategic communications consultancy Focus Marketing Communications.

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

Seven myths of email marketing exposed as false

by Brian Oliver

How many times have you been told that the words used in your email’s subject line can doom it to the spam folder? Or that the best time to send emails is at a particular hour on a particular day? Or that you should only target the most engaged subscribers?

After conducting a careful analysis of a huge amount of email performance data, Alchemy Worx – a specialist email marketing agency based in London and Atlanta, GA – claims that seven of the most common myths about email marketing are in fact false.

Alchemy Worx’s research has highlighted an urgent need for marketers to re-think much of the commonly cited wisdom about email marketing. The exposed myths include:

• Consumers are drowning in emails from trusted brands.

Fact:  Sixty percent of consumers receive fewer than six brand emails per day.

• Consumers like to click the spam button.

Fact:  Less than one subscriber per 2,000 will mark an email as spam.

• If brands send more emails, consumers simply ignore more.

Fact:  If you send four emails in a month instead of one, the number of consumers who will open at least one email doubles.

• The subject line can send the email to the spam folder.

Fact:  Keywords have little to no effect on whether an email ends up in the spam folder.

Alchemy Worx‘s infographic below unveils the truth behind email marketing today.

 

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About the author: 

Brian Oliver is a business journalist and the MD and founder of UK strategic communications consultancy Focus Marketing Communications.

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

The History of #Hashtags

Only six years ago, a hashtag was regarded as a simple symbol most commonly used in front of a number. Today, hashtags have become one of the most valuable content marketing tools. They now even appear in many leading brands’ TV commercials.

And it doesn’t stop there. Hashtags have become an integral part of people’s everyday lives – from a teenager’s Instagram photo to a marketing director’s tweets.

For marketing professionals, the hashtag’s short but rich history proves its unique ability to attract attention and help build conversations around a marketing message.

In the splendid infographic below, social marketing specialist Offerpop has compiled some key moments in the history of the hashtag to show how, in under a decade, this commonplace sign has turned into a global icon.

(click on the image to enlarge)

CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

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Content marketing now accounts for 20% of UK marketing spend, says OnePoll survey

Growing importance of content marketing leads to rebranding of APA as the Content Marketing Association

 

According to new OnePoll research, content now accounts for a fifth of UK marketing spend and 73% of marketing directors expect their content budget to stay the same or increase over the next 12 months.

One in 20 of the marketers surveyed said they expect their content budgets to increase significantly in 2013.

The OnePoll research was commissioned to mark the rebranding of the UK’s Association of Publishing Agencies (APA) as the Content Marketing Association (CMA).  

The Association says the rebrand is designed to “better reflect the work of its members” and to highlight the importance of content in today’s marketing strategies.

CONTENT AS AN EFFECTIVE MARKETING TOOL

In a statement on June 13, the Association said: “The overarching aim of CMA is to promote the use of editorialised content as an effective marketing tool to client-side marketers and showcase the range of channels that can be used to editorially engage customers … from digital – such as smart phone apps, tablet-enabled microsites and branded TV – to the more traditional customer magazines.”

The CMA said it is not surprised that content marketing spend is rising. Research shows that consumers’ appetite for editorialised content is at an all time high. A recent study conducted by Dipstick found that a quarter of consumers’ total media consumption is now provided by their favourite brands.

“This rebrand marks a turning point for content marketing,” said the CMA’s COO Julia Hutchison. “Not only is it a truer reflection of the work that our members are now doing, it will also serve as a bridge across all the disciplines currently involved in creating content for brands.”

She added: “The marketing industry has changed significantly over the last 20 years… No trade association has successfully owned the content space and, as the research shows, with large proportions of budget now being spent on content marketing, brands side marketers want a dedicated resource. ” 

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The CMA has produced an excellent infographic about the UK Content Marketing Revolution:

 

 

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

72 hours of video content uploaded to YouTube every minute

When YouTube celebrated its seventh birthday on May 21, the Google-owned clip streaming service revealed that 72 hours worth of video content is now being uploaded every 60 seconds – up from 48 hours in 2011.

YouTube has also announced that subscriptions to the service have risen by 50% over the past year.

With over 800 million users watching more than three billion hours of video every month, it now boasts “tens of millions” of channels – including countless branded content channels. It is also the world’s most used mobile streaming platform.

Over the past year, YouTube has redesigned the site, and worked to expand its original programming – launching dozens of new content channels. It has also added the option of converting all short-form videos to 3D.

“We’ve come a long way in the past seven years,” YouTube posted on its blog. “What started as a handful of videos shared among friends has transformed into a global platform delivering the next generation of channels to anyone, anywhere, and on any device.”

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Watch YouTube’s 7th birthday celebration video …

 

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

Facebook study shows brand marketers the best way to engage with fans

by Brian Oliver

Internal research by Facebook has found that brand marketers stand a much better chance of engaging with the social network’s 900 million active users if they focus on posting content about generic topics related to their brand, rather than promoting a specific product or service.

The study also found that conversational ‘fun’ posts that have nothing to do with the brand are least likely to attract a response from fans.

In fact, a separate survey by global Software as a Service company ExactTarget recently revealed that chit-chat posts are one reason why people ‘unLike’ brands on Facebook.

In a bid to help content marketers gain a better insight into which posts generate the most ‘shares’, ‘Likes’ and comments, Facebook spent four weeks analysing activity on 23 brand Pages spanning six different industry sectors.

For the study, Facebook’s research team divided social content into three categories:

1. Purely promotional messages (such as the launch of a new product, a new store opening, or a special deal);

2. Messages that tie in with the brand but cover general topics about the sector in which the brand operates (such as recipe ideas from a food brand or holiday tips from a travel company);

3. Posts completely unrelated to the brand (such as chatty posts about current events that have no connection with the brand).

FACEBOOK POSTS MUST RELATE TO THE BRAND

“The topicality of page posts impacts all types of engagement,” explains Elisabeth Diana, corporate communications manager at Facebook. “But the bottom-line result is that posts related to the brand and posts related to a product or service are the ones that are significant predictors of actions.

“The third, unrelated content, is not a significantly predictive page post.”

In other words, posting content on your Facebook page that is not about your brand is the only type of post that does not correlate with engagement.

“Speaking in the voice of the brand, talking directly about your product or service, or a topic related to the brand, is the best way to engage with fans of your page,” she says.

The Facebook study also found that photos and videos are best for generating ‘Shares’, while ‘Likes’ are driven by posts that prompt users to ‘Like’ something, and posts that pose questions are most likely to foster comments.

“You can maximize your success on Facebook by optimising your Page posting strategy for the type of engagement you are trying to drive,” adds Diana.

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About the author:

Brian Oliver is a business journalist and the MD and founder of UK strategic communications consultancy Focus Marketing Communications.

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

Two-thirds of UK mobile content marketing recipients act immediately, study shows

by Brian Oliver

The growing importance of tailoring content to the fast-expanding mobile market has been underlined by new data from digital agency Steel London.

A study conducted by Steel shows that 36% of UK consumers now read content marketing emails – such as eNewsletters – on their mobile phones (55% in the case of 18-34 year-olds) … and 69% of them act immediately.

Of these, 42% click through to the website and 30% subsequently make a purchase. The figures are even higher for 18-34 year olds: 52% of them click through and 35% end up buying something.
 
At the same time, the study shows that about one-third of recipients choose to screen mobile content marketing messages and read them later on a PC or a laptop.

INTEGRATE MOBILE INTO CONTENT STRATEGIES

The findings show it is now essential for consumer brands and B2B organisations to develop a better understanding of the mobile market and integrate mobile into their content-led marketing strategies.

Andy Hinder, Steel’s CEO, said: “Consumers are increasingly using their mobile as their preferred media and communication device. Because of this, the mobile has become the gatekeeper for further action and engagement with emails.

“With better targeted marketing emails, and the growth in mobile commerce, it is essential for brands to look at how they further adapt their email marketing strategies for mobile.”

He added: “Marketers must also bear in mind when and where the consumer is receiving their communication. This has massive implications for how they create the right messages for a highly personal device, and how they want consumers to react to, and interact with those messages.”

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About the author:

Brian Oliver is a business journalist and the MD and founder of UK strategic communications consultancy Focus Marketing Communications.

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

 

B2B marketing should focus more on building relationships through trustworthy content and less on sales messaging

B2B organisations should focus more on the value of their offering and less on product specifications when they run content marketing campaigns. That’s according to a new Content Preferences Survey conducted by DemandGen, an e-media publication which specialises in B2B sales strategies and solutions.

As Contented Marketer recently reported, more than 90% of B2B purchase decisions are now triggered by exposure to some form of content marketing. DemandGen’s latest study set out to examine the shifting content preferences of B2B buyers.

The survey found that 75% of respondents wanted B2B solution providers to “curb the sales messaging” in their content.

Other key findings included:

MESSAGING: 55% of respondents said providers should focus less on product details and more on making sure sales prospects understand the value of the product to their businesses, rather than resorting to “obtrusive, ineffective sales speak”.

SHARING: While email is the primary sharing mechanism, the survey found that more than half (53%) of the executives surveyed now share content using LinkedIn.

FORMATS: 88% of respondents pointed to white papers as their top form of content for researching a business topic or solution. Visual formats – such as webinars (72%), videos (44%), and infographics (38%) – were also cited as emerging formats for research.

TECHNOLOGY: Nearly half of the respondents (40%) said they now access content via their mobile phone more often than they used to, while 23% now use a tablet device for research.

“This survey illuminated interesting trends in the world of content marketing,” said Amanda Batista, author of the Content Preferences Survey and managing editor of DemandGen Report. “Solution providers, now more than ever, need to demonstrate a clear understanding of their prospects’ challenges, market trends and objectives.

“They also need to cultivate a greater role in content sharing by providing trustworthy content that establishes relationships with prospects.”

She added: “Research shows that nine in ten buyers now connect with a solution provider via some form of content, regardless of company size or industry, and navigating this trend is an evolving process.” 

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing

Using content marketing to target today’s ‘connected’ teenagers

Having grown up during the golden age of digital technology, today’s teenagers are the first generation to have no recollection of a world without mobile phones, laptops, MP3 players and the internet.

These so-called ‘digital natives’ are the best-connected group of consumers ever – and their content consumption habits are hugely different from older age groups.

Some 94% of teenagers now possess a mobile phone; 70% have a laptop; and 23% own a tablet. Communicating through technology and social media is part of their DNA, and they are used to obtaining and sharing information online. Only 19% of them speak to each other on landlines!
 
Young consumers are a key target for content marketers who want to promote products such as toys, games, music, fashion labels, and high-tech goods. But a successful content marketing strategy requires a good knowledge and understanding of this audience in order to engage fully with them.

Here’s a new infographic which sets out to offer a detailed look at the tech-savvy world of the ‘Millennial Teenager’…

Courtesy of: Online Schools

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CONTENTED MARKETER Magazine is brought to you by content marketing specialist Focus Content Marketing

Visit our website at: Focus Content Marketing