Content Marketing

The last PBL addresses the concept of content marketing. The group agreed to research the following learning objectives:

Source: fracklemedia.com

• Different types of content
• How to stand out with relevant content? (Brand and product related)
• How to engage the customer in the content creation process to increase customer involvement?

 
1. Different types of content 

First of all I would like to present a definition of content marketing: Content marketing's purpose is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating relevant and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behaviour. It is an ongoing process that is best integrated in your overall marketing strategy and it focuses on owning media, not renting it. (Content Marketing Institute in Hillary 2015, 28)

The graphic compares content marketing to traditional publicity. Content marketing gives valuable information, thereby creating customer's loyalty to the brand. It can create reciprocity among clients who ultimately buy out of gratitude. Companies should create viral content that links to the website and through the use of various multimedia formats, a different public can be attracted. Forms of valuable content are blogs, pod casts, downloadable guides and infographics.

 

Cuong 2014

 

Source: i-scoop 2015

The infographic by i-scoop (2015) describes the different content marketing formats and connected consumer thoughts in the different stages of the sales funnel. 
In stage 1 of the buying cycle, videos, infographics and games create an awareness of the need. Guides, social media, white papers and how-to-instructions lead to a consideration research in stage 2.Demos and webinars as content marketing formats result in the analysis and comparison stage of the consumer. The initial purchase can be ascribed to case studies, reviews and forum discussions. Consumer loyalty is reached by the use of emails, blogs and social media.  

Deshpande (2015) has created a huge graphic comprising all the tools that can be used to generate a content marketing strategy. There are tools to source the contents, to produce and compose, to organise content marketing and to distribute the campaigns via different channels and also to measure and analyse the marketing campaign.

Different authors distinguish between long form and short form content (e.g. Dittert 2015):

• Long form content: Long-form content is described as content that is typically 2,000 words in length or thereabouts and makes for a compelling, insightful read. Examples of long-form content include whitepapers, e-books, guides, resources, videos, and webinars. There are a number of reasons to use long form content. First and foremost, omnipotent search engine Google will rank a long form piece of content over a short form one. In-depth blog posts, informative white papers, educational webinars, and similar types of content are the perfect platform to demonstrate expertise on a specific topic and/or industry. Additionally, your company’s long-form content provides valuable information to a highly-invested audience that wants to learn more about your area of expertise.
• Short form content: Blog posts under 1,000 words, social media content, infographics, and articles are perfect examples of short form content. Online users have a tendency to scan through content, rather than reading every last word. Using concise verbiage, a brand can convey a strong message to their audience quickly and effectively. Also, short form content is more mobile-friendly than its long form counterpart, allowing it to reach more people.

 Sources: 

• Cuong 2014. The principles of content marketing. URL: http://itsonlinemarketing.com/principles-content-marketing/ Accessed: 20.11.2015.
• Deshpande 2015. Content Marketing Tools: The Ultimate List. URL: http://www.curata.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Tools-Update-v1.png Accessed: 20.11.2015. 
• Dittert 2015.Long Form vs Short Form Content: Which to Use When & Why. https://www.v9seo.com/blog/2015/08/18/long-form-vs-short-form-content-which-to-use-when-why/ Accessed: 20.11.2015.
• Hillary 2015.Customer Engagement Officer (CEO): Content Marketing and the Realities of Executive Blogging. Carnaby Books. Sao Paolo. 
• i-scoop 2015. Content marketing strategy: content formats in the changing buyer journey. URL: http://www.i-scoop.eu/content-marketing/defining-content-marketing-strategy/content-marketing-strategy-content-formats-changing-buyer-journey/ Accessed: 20.11.2015.

 2. How to stand out with relevant content? 

Again, I would like to start with a quote that defines the essentials of content marketing: Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing (compare also the infographic traditional publicity vs content marketing). Instead of pitching your product or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. The essence of this content marketing strategy is that we, as businesses, delivery consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty. (Hill 2015, 29)

According to Catherine Toole (2015), content that is too product- or brand-focused does not travel well digitally, whereas content that stands on its own merits as entertainment, storytelling, education will be shared and passed along. 
Furthermore, she also name 5 principles of marketable content:

• Searchable: Search engines reward sites that deliver regularly refreshed content of a high editorial quality. Whether it’s for education or entertainment, your content needs to deliver both quality and impact. 
• Shareable: As well as the benefits of gaining peer approval for your content, the social shares it attracts will also boost its search rankings.
• Supportive: You can project yourself as an authoritative brand that’s generous with its expertise by anticipating users’ questions and telling them things they didn’t know. But first, you have to make sure you understand your users’ information needs.
• Specialist: Your content must come from within your information niche – the intersection between your domain expertise and your users’ content needs and interests. 
• Sustainable: You need a publishing process in place that allows you to generate ideas, populate an editorial calendar, and create relevant, effective content on a sustainable basis.

Pulizzi (2013) describes six principles of epic content marketing:

• Epic content fills a need: The content should address some unfulfilled/unmet need or answer a question the customers have. In some cases it may fulfil an emotional need (Coca Cola/RedBull as examples of storytelling effort)
• Consistent communication: In terms of quality and delivery. According to Pulizzi, epic content reliably delivers on the promises your brand makes. Whether you are asking your audience to subscribe to a monthly magazine or daily email newsletter, you must ensure that they receive what they signed up for and that it always arrives on time and as expected. This is where so many companies fall down.
• Requirement of a unique and human voice: A company should find its voice, if the company's voice is all about humour, it should be shared.
• Expressing a point of view: Companies should not be afraid to take positions and to take sides on matters in the company's field of expertise. Pulizzi names the examples of
  Chipotle’s runaway viral hit The Scarecrow, which clearly has a point of view — that locally sourced and responsibly produced food is superior to how most food is processed today. 
• Devoid of sales speak: At Content Marketing Institute, when we create a piece of content that is about us vs. an educational post, it only garners 25 percent of the average page views and social shares our content normally drives. The more you talk about yourself, the less people will share and spread your story. It’s that simple.
• It is recognised as the best: Though you might not be able to achieve this at the very beginning, the ultimate goal for your content is to be considered the best in its class. I know it may sound overly simplified, but if you expect your customers to spend time with your content, you must deliver amazing value to them, and nothing less.

Here is a link to the 32 most influential content marketing brands of 2014: 
Content Marketing 2014 One example named is Coke: You have to admire the way Coke keeps pushing for creative content, even as one of the world’s most valuable and established global brands. Their “Share A Coke” campaign was a standout campaign of 2014, and it’s still going strong this year. Coke’s digital content keeps interactive features at the forefront.

Sources:

• Pulizzi 2013. 6 principles of epic content marketing. URL http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/09/principles-epic-content-marketing/ Accessed: 20.11.2015. 
• Toole C. 2015. Brand as publishers: Inside the content marketing trend. URL: http://curve.gettyimages.com/article/brands-as-publishers-inside-the-content-marketing-trend Accessed: 20.11.2015.

 
3. How to engage the customer in the content creation process to increase customer involvement?

The ultimate goal of a content marketing campaign is to trigger peoples' actions. Patel (2015) describes 5 things that should be added to blog-posts to increase engagement. First of all he starts by a definition of content engagement, which is real people responding in measurable ways to your content. According to him, engagement starts with objectives, so companies/authors should realise their goals of content marketing which can be as follows:

• Increase leads
• Increase page views (Note: For many sites, the goal is simply to increase traffic separate from any other level of site activity.)
• Boost brand awareness
• Encourage audience interactions such as:
  • Comments
  • Social sharing
  • Quizzes and personality identifiers

So the question should be answered what you want your (e.g.) blog readers to do. Patel then describes six features of engagement and how each individually can be increased:

• Comments – People share their thoughts, ask questions, or criticise your blog post.
• Social sharing – Users share the article on their personal social networks.
• Dwell time – How long do users stay on the page? This metric available in Google Analytics tells you if people are spending time on the page.
• Reading – RavenTools says “the best way to measure reader engagement is to track user scrolling.” Tools such as Crazy Egg allow you to view scroll maps (where, how much, and how far people scrolled) and heat maps (where people click).
• Links – The quantity and velocity of inbound links tell who considers your content to be important. More links equal a higher trust, better SEO, and more readers.
• Conversions – Whatever your conversion action, it is one of the most meaningful engagement metrics. Many blogs use email sign-ups as the primary conversion action.

Finally he describes five elements that are useful in raising reader's engagement:

1. An obvious point: Article/blog should be clear about what to say. Therefore it should have an obvious point, which is recommended to be stated in the header already.
   Your opening paragraph or two should convey your basic idea. Don’t leave people wondering, “What the heck is she going to say?” Put forth your main idea, then develop it. The point should be repeated in the conclusion again.
2.  Structure: According to Patel, the structure includes both logical and visual structure.
1. Logical structure — Make it coherent.
2. Visual structure — Make it easy to read.
   
   • Headings
   • Short paragraphs (no longer than seven lines)
   • Bullet points
   • Numbered lists
3. Conclusion: How does your article end? If it concludes with a whimper, then your readers will whimper away without engaging. If it ends in confusion, then your readers feel the same. If it ends abruptly, your readers won’t know what to do next. If we follow Patel instructions, a great conclusion consists of the following elements: It is labelled as a conclusion, short, it sums up concisely and encourages action.
4. A question: If possible and suitable, articles should end with a question. It forces people to think and apply the principles that were formerly explained. Asking and answering questions is one of the most effective techniques for teaching critical thinking and building knowledge. A simple question in closing helps to produce this response.
5. A bit of controversy

Since it is always relevant to bear in mind trends and developments, the trends of content marketing for the next years are examined as well. The following infographic describes the past, present and future trends in content marketing. 

Source: Business2community 2015

Sources:

• Business2community 2015. Do you need a rainbow in content marketing? http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/do-you-need-a-rainbow-in-content-marketing-01268749 Accessed: 20.11.2015. 
• Patel 2015. 5 Engagement-Driven Elements You Should Add to Every Blog Post. URL: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/03/engagement-elements-blog/ Accessed: 20.11.2015.

 

Creative idea and messages

Source: thinkneuro.de

This week's trigger was about creative idea and messages. Great brands appeal to all five senses and to the emotions of customers. It can be very important to incorporate different senses into branding techniques.
The group decided to research on the following learning objectives:

• How do people use their five senses to receive advertising messages?
• How to develop a creative message according to the senses?

1. LO How do people use their five senses to receive advertising messages?


The following table provides and overview of the importance of the five senses in different industries. What is interesting to realize is that the fast moving consumer goods and also the services industries appeal to all senses. The other industries also focus on most of the senses except for the taste. Visual elements are the most important, followed by feel and hear.

Source: http://www.markenlexikon.com/texte/transfer_kilian_multisensuales-marketing_4_2010.pdf

Source: http://www.markenlexikon.com/texte/transfer_kilian_multisensuales-marketing_4_2010.pdf

The previous table also decodes the meaning of the value power in the different senses:

• See: Dark colors, distanced imagery, solid forms (e.g. Limousine)
• Hear: Loud, precise rhythms, penetrating (march, lion, fanfare)
• Feel: Plain, cold, hard, heavy, leathery
• Smell: Heavy (e.g. incense)
• Taste: bitter,spicy (whiskey, nutmeg)

Case Study BMW:
Companies should not underestimate the power of the composition of different senses. The German car manufacturer BMW claims "Freude am Fahren" in their slogan, meaning that people should enjoy their ride with the BMW. Pleasure of driving is the core element of their brand. However, the old BMW audio logo, called Ambossschlag (anvil hit) that was only introduced in the last 10 years was associated with coldness, technic, power, precision and not with pleasure and joy. Pleasure and joy would sound more warm, major (Dur) and legato, wheareas the old audio-logo of the anvil was linked with coldness and staccato. The following graphic is an acoustical decoding of the pleasure/joy associations (dark grey) and the actual sound of BMW (light grey).

Source: http://www.markenlexikon.com/texte/transfer_kilian_multisensuales-marketing_4_2010.pdf

The following paragraph is taken from an article by Fatima D. Lora (2012) which was published on retailtouchpoins.com.

Understanding Why We Purchase

In a recent sensory study conducted during a Coca-Cola television commercial, scientists noticed when the sensory part of the brain lit up. This reaction indicated consumers’ involvement with the commercial and initial product craving. 
 
Lindstrom noted three powerful senses revealed by the study:

• Sound + Visions = Activates The Reward Senders In Our Brain
• If sound (“eat 29% more”) is slower than heartbeat rate, and the music is played slowly, the more time and money spent at the location.
• Sound + Vision = Attention + Memory
• Activating previous memories in consumers’ minds creates a comfortable feeling that causes consumers to spend more.
• Sound + Visions = Emotional Engagement = ConsumerPreference
• Retailers create consumer preference based on sound.

In an experiment at a wine store with two types of wine, French and German, the retailer used corresponding French and German music to boost the sales of each wine. When the retailer played French music, there was a 77% increase in French wine purchases. By switching to German music, the retailer indicated a 69% sales increase in German wine purchases.
Eighty-three percent of all communications only appeals to one sense, leaving the remaining four available, reported Lindstrom. “Retailers who appeal to three of consumers’ senses double their marketing efforts.”
Regardless of gender, most consumers (80% of men and 90% of women) have a “Proustian experience,” said Lindstrom, which takes them back in time based on the smell of a brand. He refers to Marcel Proust, an early 20^th century novelist who immortalized the relationship between sensory stimulation and recollections of past experiences. Today, some of the most powerful brands in the world are working on nostalgia marketing.


Here are some trends in sensory branding: 

• Senses will play an important role in branding strategies; 
• Storytelling will become more prominent 
• Retailers will understand how to create non-conscious clues 
• Retailers will need to use sensory to understand how consumers influence each other
• and more retailers will focus on becoming more authentic and honest

 2. LO How to develop a creative message according to the senses?

First of all I would like to dicuss some theories about creativity in contemporary branding. Creativity in advertising is regarded as important due to the assumption that creativity is an effective way of getting attendance to an ad. Health et al. (in Fill 2013, 743) believe that creativity in advertising involves various elements, including characters (expressing mild emotion such as love, irritation, excitement, boredom), situations (considered poignant, humorous etc), visuals (elegant, attractive, beautifully shot footage) and ultimately the background music (pleasant, uplifiting or evocative). 

Fill (2013, 758) states that creativity has two main characteristics which are divergence and relevance. He also discusses the attention-getting strategies of forcing and subversion. Forcing strategies involve the use of surprising, irrelevant or shocking content. Subversion strategies require and ad to seduce and audience, to slip by them unnoticed.  

The following clip is about sensory branding as applied in practice (Discussion by Lindstrom and Harrop, 2010): 

Here are the key findings of the video:

• 83% of information is received visually, but what about the remaining 17%?
• it is unconscious and sets a bookmark to your brain
• With the majority (85%) of decisions taking place in the brain’s non-conscious segments and only 15% occurring in the conscious, most consumers buy irrationally
• effects of branding on digital media vs. printed paper: far more engagement on piece of paper than on visual screen, because more senses are involved with the piece of paper (not only sight, but also touch, smell and sound), meaning that you get some additional emotional attention due to more senses involved
• multiplying effect - synergies
• many companies are wondering about investing in this area of sensory branding since it requires high spends, but eventually they can increase their return on investment drastically by adding an additional sense (e.g. adding an additional sense such as sound email may increase the marketing costs by 15-20% but double the number of customer retention)
• KPI can be justified by sensory branding
• not only 2 dimensional but experienced with all senses

 The creative idea generation process:

The following slideshare http://de.slideshare.net/marketeach/creative-message-strategies provides techniques for creative messages generations starting with a creative brief. A creative brief should include the following steps/questions (according to AdCracker 2015):

1. Background/ Overview: What's the big picture? What's going on in the market? Anything happening on the client side that the creative team should know about? Any opportunities or problems in the market?This is where you introduce the project to the creative team. You'll go over this again in the briefing session, but write it down as well.
2. Objective: what is the goal of the ad or campaign? Write a concise statement of the effect the ad should have on consumers. Typically expressed as an action. And frequently focused on what the ad should make the audience think, feel, or do.
3. Target audience: who are we talking to? An audience profile is more about how real people think, feel and behave than it is about numbers and percentages. The aim here is to paint a portrait of the audience - a verbal picture that the creative team can talk to and visualize. 
4. Focus: what's the most important thing to say or show? Here you want to identify the single most persuasive statement, or compelling visual, you can present to achieve the objective. Keep it simple. Avoid generalities. 
5. Reasons why: what are the most compelling reasons to believe, to try, to buy? List the rational and emotional reasons for consumers to believe what you say, to try the product, to buy the service. Include all major copy points and visual evidence listed in order of relative importance to the consumer. 
6. Also: what else might help the creative team? Here's where you can include consumer insights, memorable quotes, a description of the brand personality, positioning tag lines, creative thought starters, terms of the direct response offer, result expectations, and mandatory elements such as the logo and website address.
7. Schedule: What do we need from the creative team, and when do we need it? Here you can provide details on media, sizes, client presentation requirements even production specs - all depending on the project.  

According to Edoardo Moruzzi's graphic, the creative process in advertising starts by the client creative brief. The expected content as well as the company's identity should be communicated. The following problem statement should be aligned with the strategy but also be creative. Ideas should be generated based on research on books, internet and people and be visualized and designed in a next step. Based on various feedback, the process should be finalized.

Source: http://www.edoardomoruzzi.com/project/the-creative-process/

I also found this infographic by brandingbygarden very helpful to understand the creative idea generation process in alignment with a company. There are 8 steps in this process, starting with the brief, followed by analysis and research, brainstroming and a strategy. These steps can be summarized under scope&learn and discover&define. Again, the creative ideas are visualized and presented twice to the customer before the final presentation and the roll out of the project.

Source: http://brandingbygarden.com/methodology/creative-process/

Of course, the creative ideas also need to be applicable to practice. The principle of building a border around an idea or story followed by a presentation of a contained and managed view of an issue is know as framing. According to Entman (as cited in Fill, 750), framing is to: select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating context, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and treatment recommendation.

Case Study:
The following video is one example of how a supermarket/retailer used sensory branding and achieved a 400% increase in sales using multisensory marketing and social influences:

Sources:

• AdCracker 2015. http://www.adcracker.com/brief/Sample_Creative_Brief.htm Accessed: 16.11.2015
• Fill C. 2013. Marketing Communications. 
• Kilian K. 2010. URL: http://www.markenlexikon.com/texte/transfer_kilian_multisensuales-marketing_4_2010.pdf  Accessed: 16.11.2015
• Lora F. 2012. URL http://www.retailtouchpoints.com/shopper-engagement/1693-how-brands-use-multi-sensory-techniques-to-pique-consumers-interest- Accessed: 16.11.2015