1. Have a documented Content Marketing Strategy
2. Describe their content marketing maturity level as: sophostocated / mature
3. Have a high level of commitment to content marketing
4. Agree that their organization is realistic about what conent marketing can achieve
5. Agree that leadership gives them ample time to produce content marketing results
6. Deliver content consistently always or frequently
Build Audiences 最重要的的目标是得到更多的观众
It is improtant. As they can be one of your organization's most valueable assets. The intent of content marketing is to offer valuable information so people want to hear from you, and then they sign up to receive your content becoming subscribed audiences.
Distinguish Leads and Subscribers 网络红人和主要观众
* A Lead: discloses information in exchange for a piece of content or sth else of value. It does not mean they want to have an onging conversation with your business. No active interest in your products or services.
* A Subscriber: signs up to receive regular communication from a compnay. becuase they believe you have sth valuable to offer them. You are able to provide this value beyong the initial engagement.
CONCLUSION: Even though leads propably are not our target customers, but when we have enough leads, they could also bring us more subscribers. We could mine leads for subscribers, as well as mine subscribers for leads.
ACTION: offer an opt-in to your newsletter on the thank-you plage of a downloaad or from within a PDF, infographic, or video.
Blend craft and process 创作精美的内容需要完善的制作过程
Effective content creation: entails getting quality projects completed efficiently.
88% of top performers vs. 74% of all respondents - value creativity and craft in content creation and production.
70% of top performers vs. 36% of all respondents - rate project management flow as very good to excellent.
CONCLUSION: Successful content marketers seem to have an edge is that they have good processes.
ACTION: Process is key to enable the team to have time to be creative. While it takes time to set up, once they are in place, the conversation changes from "who is doing this" or "what are the steps we need to take" or "oh no, wwe forgot in include someone or something". Take time to work on the art of creating exceptiona content.
Discontinue ineffective activities 一定要忍痛割舍繁琐无效的部分过程
In the research, we asked respondents if they stopped content marketing activities, would they find to be ineffective to concentrate on those that yield the best results? 64% of the top performers and 47% of all respondents though so.
ACTION: The marketing team only have so much time to work. We need to be sure we are working on the right things. Instead of only addin things to to-do lists, remove some things to make room for others. It all comes back to documented content marketing strategy!
Michael Prter (founder of the modern strategy field) says:"the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do". Once your content marketing strategy is documented, get hyper-focused and work only on things that support your strategy.
Align metrics to goals 将工作指标与最终战略目标对齐
From the part survey and experiences over years, 'brand awareness' was the top goal and 'wevsite traffic' was the top metric. Further more, the company's goals and metrics highly depend on the organization's situation. (e.g.: it content marketing maturity level, its prospects' unique buyer journey, its annual revenue goals...)
54% of the top performers and only 19% of all respondents rate their organization as 'very good' to 'excellent' at aligning metrics to their content marketing goals. It is another big disparity 差距 between the most and least effective.
ACTION: To correlate goals and metrics, first consider the 4 reasons why you may use content marketing
- Awareness: To be found by the right people
- Consideration: To build an interested and engaged audience
- Decision / Buy: To increase sales with new customers
- Loyalty: To build loyalty and increase revenue with existing customers
References:
New Research Reveals Habits of Top Content Marketers
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/09/research-habits-content-marketers/