by Fronetics | Sep 15, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy, Talent
Content marketing is significantly more effective when a designated leader is driving your strategy.
Who is leading your content marketing strategy? If you don’t have an immediate answer, your content marketing program probably will not be as effective as it could be.
Research shows that companies who designate someone to drive the execution of their content marketing strategy have greater success than those that do not. So your strategy should account for leadership, specifically naming a person or position that will be in charge of implementation, problem-solving, and measuring results.
Who could take on this role for your business? Here are a few ideas.
An executive
Curata reports that, by 2017, 51% of companies will have an executive in their organization who is directly responsible for an overall content marketing strategy. That’s how important it is to have someone leading your strategy: More than half of organizations will create or designate positions like chief content officer, VP of content, or director of content. If your company is large enough to support this human resource, you’ll likely reap great benefit from your content marketing efforts.
A marketing director
Is there a senior person on your marketing team with experience using content as a marketing tool? Having a marketing director lead your content strategy is a great option for companies who can afford to delegate some of that person’s responsibilities elsewhere to make room for this work. Marketing directors are generally organized and capable of leading a diverse team, and they are used to reporting on KPIs as they relate to marketing efforts.
Whoever produces most of your content
Many smaller or mid-sized companies don’t have large marketing teams, and instead rely on several people to take on content-production responsibilities in addition to their everyday tasks. These are the people who will be most familiar with your company’s content and strategy, and how they align with your business goals. Do any of these people have leadership abilities or experience running a cross-functional team? It could be worth outsourcing some content writing or production in order to allow that person to drive your content marketing strategy.
An advisory firm
Sometimes you don’t have the internal resources or expertise to execute your business’ content marketing on your own. Hiring a firm or professional to create and/or execute your strategy can take enormous pressure off of your employees. They are left to do their jobs, while an experienced team shoulders the burden of planning, producing, and reporting on the progress of your content marketing program. Such a partnership can be very beneficial to companies of all shapes and sizes.
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by Fronetics | Sep 13, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing
Considering outsourcing some or all of your content marketing? Check out these statistics.
Companies turn to content marketing to build brand awareness, generate leads, and drive sales. But the constant creation and distribution of original content can drain an organization’s resources. That’s why many choose to outsource all or some of their content marketing efforts to content partners or marketing firms.
If your business is exploring outsourcing as an option, here are some statistics that you might find interesting.
13 stats about outsourcing content marketing
51% of B2B marketers list lack of time/bandwidth to create content as one of their top content marketing challenges, and 50% list producing enough content variety/volume as well. (LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community)
30% of B2B marketers say an external agency/consultant is one of the top resources for content creation for their organizations. (LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community)
The two most outsourced content marketing activities:
- Writing (44%)
- Design (41%)
(LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community)
Marketers are outsourcing 18% of their content, with the remaining content being created in-house, curated or syndicated. (Curata)
Only 25% of marketers don’t outsource any content creation. (LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community)
About two-thirds of marketers outsource less than one-third of their content creation. (LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community)
Business bloggers outsource 14% of their blog posts. The best practitioners outsource 24%. (Curata)
What are the most effective resources for video marketing content creation?
- Combination of outsourced and in-house resources (70%)
- Outsource to a specialist (22%)
- In-house resources only (8%)
(Ascend2 2015 Study)
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by Fronetics | Sep 6, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
Your customers use vendor content in their purchasing decisions, and you need a strategy to reach them — or your competitors will.
Content marketing can be a game-changer, in terms of new business and sales revenue, for organizations of all sizes and industries and levels of marketing savvy. But you can’t just set up a blog and a few social media accounts and expect sales numbers to start shooting through the roof.
The truth is, your potential customers consider vendor content in the purchasing process. If you don’t have a data-driven content marketing strategy to attract their business, you’ll lose them to your competitors.
Sometimes, the numbers say it best. Here are 12 content marketing strategy statistics that underscore the importance of developing a clear content marketing strategy to advance your business goals.
12 content marketing strategy statistics
Your customers want content.
95% of B2B buyers are willing to consider vendor-related content as trustworthy. (DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
47% of B2B buyers consume 3-5 pieces of content prior to engaging with a salesperson. (DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
51% of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make B2B purchasing decisions than they did a year ago. (DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
Type of content buyers have used in the past 12 months to make B2B purchasing decisions:
- White Papers (82%)
- Webinars (78%)
- Case studies (73%)
- eBooks (67%)
- Blog posts (66%)
- Infographics (66%)
- Third-party/Analyst reports (62%)
- Video/Motion graphics (47%)
- Interactive presentations (36%)
(DemandGen Report – 2016 Content Preferences Survey)
It’s important to clearly define your strategy and goals.
Content marketing effectiveness increases with:
- Experience (64% of experienced marketers say they are effective)
- A documented content marketing strategy (48%)
- A documented editorial mission statement (49%)
- Organizational clarity on what content marketing success looks like (55%)
- Daily or weekly content marketing meetings (41%)
(Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs)
Only 13% of those who do not document their strategy feel their content marketing is effective. (Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs)
Your strategy should clearly define your target audience and their needs.
96% of B2B buyers say content that speaks directly to their company is the single-most influential aspect of a vendor’s website. (Demand Gen 2016 B2B Buyer’s Survey Report)
What makes content most effective?
- Audience relevance (58%)
- Engaging and compelling storytelling (57%)
- Triggers a response/Action (54%)
(LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community)
Your competitors are using content to win over potential customers.
88% of B2B organizations in North America use content marketing. (Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs)
75% of marketers are increasing investment in content marketing. (Curata)
79% of logistics and supply chain companies consider content as an effective tool for their business. (Fronetics)
The marketing software market is expected to grow to more than $32.3 billion in 2018. (IDC)
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by Fronetics | Aug 29, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Manufacturing & Distribution, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain, Warehousing & Materials Handling
Fronetics designed a content marketing strategy that helped the logistics software company realize increases in new business and sales revenue.
Your company is doing pretty well. You have a nice website and a social media account or two. And you’ve experienced year-over-year growth. Why would you do anything differently?
Just ask TotalTrax, a provider of real-time vehicle, driver, and inventory tracking technologies for manufacturing and warehouse operations. Despite a decade of positive growth, the company realized there were many untapped opportunities for new business. So the TotalTrax team hired Fronetics Strategic Advisors to create and implement a new, data-driven marketing strategy that could increase web traffic, lead generation, and brand awareness.
After a comprehensive audit of TotalTrax’s digital assets, Fronetics was able to recommend a course of action and implement a multi-channel content marketing program. The program included such steps as:
- Creating a blog and posting regular targeted content
- Consistently posting on TotalTrax’s social media accounts
- Implementing paid search, email marketing, and other strategies
After just 24 months, TotalTrax realized significant gains in web traffic, lead generation and nurturing, and — most importantly — new business and sales revenue.
To learn more about how content marketing helped TotalTrax grow business, download our case study below.
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by Fronetics | Aug 18, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy
Transactional emails offer prime real estate for driving further customer engagement or action.
Your business probably invests a lot of time and effort creating marketing emails to send to your prospects and consumers. But have you thought much about the content of your confirmation and thank you emails?
New findings from IBM Marketing Cloud’s 2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study suggest you should. The survey “examines messages sent by nearly 750 companies and 3,000 brands in 2015, using a wide variety of measurements to establish benchmarks on customer engagement (via multiple open, click, and device/email client metrics) and list churn (hard bounces, unsubscribes, and complaints).”
One important finding relates to how recipients engage with transactional emails, messages confirming a purchase or an action (such as signing up for a newsletter). In almost every respect, transactional emails outperform non-transactional emails. For example:
- Transactional emails generate roughly 2x the open rates of non-transactional emails.
- Transactional emails generate roughly 3x the click-through rates of non-transactional emails.
This should not be a surprise, since these emails are based directly on a person’s purchase or action. But what many companies don’t realize is that these messages represent an opportunity to drive further customer engagement or action. Adding a prominent call to action can encourage the recipient to join your email list, make an additional purchase, or otherwise move further down the purchase path.
Instead of a simple “Thanks for your purchase!” email, put a little thought into how you might keep that person interacting with your business. Here are a few ideas:
1) Ask them to review their purchases.
Include a link to the recipient’s account or orders page. This gets them back on your website, where you can add additional calls to action, advertise related products, or encourage them to join a loyalty program.
2) Offer an incentive for future purchases.
Encourage recipients to buy again soon by providing a discount code for their next transaction. This also helps build brand loyalty by showing customers you value their business and want them to come back.
3) Request they follow you on social media.
Provide links to your various social media accounts to build additional touch points with your customers and prospects. Suggest they post photos of themselves using the products they purchased, share their purchase (or link to the newsletter sign-up, etc.) with their followers, or enter your contest or giveaway happening on these platforms.
4) Show them how to use their purchase.
Link to content that can improve their experience with the product or service they just bought. Step-by-steps guides, how-to videos, images of other buyers using the product: give them valuable support to improve their user experience and to keep them engaged with your content.
5) Display similar or related products.
What else do customers buy when they make the same purchase? Do you have other products or services that go along with it? For example, someone buying a hammer might also be interested in nails, toolboxes, or screwdrivers.
6) Ask them to join your loyalty or rewards program.
This is another way to offer incentives for future purchases and exclusive access to deals while your business gains additional information about the person.
7) Request they sign up for your newsletter, join your email list, or subscribe to your blog.
Encourage them to stay in the loop by opting into your content. You’ll stay in the sights of potential buyers that aren’t ready to make a purchase, and be on their mind when the time comes to buy.
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