Seven years ago, Kathleen Matthews, Marriott’s EVP of communications, walked into Bill Marriott’s office with an idea. After 25 years as a reporter and news anchor for an ABC News affiliate in Washington, DC, she knows the power of a good story — especially when it comes from a compelling character. So naturally, she wanted Marriott to have a blog and she wanted Bill Marriott to write it.
The blog was a huge success, and today you wouldn’t mistake Marriott for a media company that manages towering resorts and offers rooms to rent.
Anecdotes – narrated from the beginning of the Content Marketing Playbook series ours – is how Contently co-founder Shane Snow and I recently greeted guests at Google’s Campus London when we gathered for a “Content Salon” about building a publisher at the core of your organization your marketing.
The second in a series of planned Content Salons, has an ambitious theme: everything you need to know to get started with content marketing. It’s a broad topic, probably too much information for any given night, but we wanted to start from scratch and provide an overview of the process, addressing five key areas. Since only a small fraction of our global audience has a chance to achieve that, we wanted to share our experience points as well as SlideShare of our presentation below:
Table of Contents
1. Consensus Building
Most marketers can’t walk into the CEO’s office and come up with the idea of building a small media company within a large corporation. Instead, content marketers are faced with the task of persistently championing content marketing over time. But it’s more than just pointing out statistics to anyone who will listen. An important part of content marketing evangelism is creating a strategic roadmap that will ensure success from the get-go.
For a detailed game plan on how to do that, Please visit here .
2. Define your story
Learn how to build a content strategy that works by defining your audience, identifying gaps in the sources that have reached your audience, and leveraging the special sauce that only your organization can bring. What subject area are you an expert on, and how can you tell stories on that topic better than anyone else? Instruction book this strong will help you build your content strategy and roadmap.
3. HR and debut
Once you have a content strategy in place, there are five key steps to get started:
- Create a brand voice and content marketing mission statement to guide your efforts.
- Define your story types and requirements so you know what to create.
- Build an editorial calendar to hold yourself accountable for a consistent publishing schedule.
- Staff your content team so you can start creating content.
- Create an approval process so you can act like a real newsroom.
This is easier said than done, so check out the step-by-step instructions ours for more.
4. Engage and Build an Audience
You’ve created a lot of great content, but there’s no guarantee that people will actually see it. The hard part — getting people to read and keep reading, your content — is just getting started.
We recommend focusing on four key tactics that you can read more about back here :
- Email newsletter
- Organic social media
- Distributing Paid Content
- SEO
5) Measurement and optimization: Model C → E → O
To run a successful content marketing campaign, you need to translate the numbers into action. Your activity needs to be an efficient cycle of creating content, engaging your audience, and optimizing the iterative process.
That’s where measurement comes in. You need to consistently test both audience metrics to quantify true audience engagement and business metrics that align with key company goals. Only then can you find a strategic way to improve every aspect of your content marketing program.
This is not an easy process, but you can learn all about it here . And for a visual aid — as well as a chance to test my amazing presentation-building skills — check out SlideShare below.
