Content Marketing

1. Content Marketing By Caitlin York & Stephen Fiedler

2. What is Content Marketing? • Content Marketing is any marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of content in order to acquire and engage customers with the objective of driving profitable customer action. • With traditional marketing, marketers go to their audience (interruption) presenting deals, offers or sales. • With content marketing, you make your audience come to you, by providing content they find entertaining, interesting, engaging and unique. This is called permission marketing.

3. Why Should I Use Content Marketing? • It’s cheap and easy to make: • As a publisher, we have unlimited access to hundreds of thousands of books, journals, figures and Elsevier content. • It is hugely persuasive: • 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles, not ads. • Endears audience to your product/brand: • 70% say CM makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company *cough, cough Amazon* • It supports their decision to purchase: • 60% say that company content helps them make better product decisions.

4. Leveraging CM: Know Your Audience • With traditional marketing, marketers go to their audience (interruption) presenting deals, offers or sales. • With content marketing, you make your audience come to you, by providing content they find entertaining, interesting, engaging and unique. • Know your audience! Learn their: • Online habits • Demographics • Interests • Keywords • Find and target key influencers

5. Connecting with Your Audience: Brand Evangelists • There are billions of potential advertisers out there - they’re called your audience. • Good audience members who like you products become “brand evangelists” – they are the ones that surf the web, read your content and share it with their friends and online communities. • While generating a sale is great, the goal of content marketing is to BUILD YOUR AUDIENCE and CREATE BRAND EVANGELISTS. • Simply put, they’ll do all the heavy lifting, so long as you make it worth their while.

6. Making Good Content: Creating and Repurposing • Good content is in the eye of the beholder so: • Know your audience • Know what’s popular/trending • Be original! • The same content can be repurposed and reused for difference audiences, different campaigns and different products. • Repurposed content can take the form of: • Blog posts/online articles • Whitepapers • Infographics • Memes • Videos, photos and other media

7. Distributing Content: The Sharing Economy • Once you know your audiences’ preferences, find ways to reach them on social media, through email and online. • They are the ones that will talk about, tweet, share, like and mention your product to their friends • Use keywords, hashtags and content that is searchable in Google on Facebook and Twitter. • Create Pages, Handles or other online community spaces where you can funnel your content to the right people (not Grumpy Cat). • Create email distribution lists with “opt ins”

8. What Does CM Look Like to Science and Technology Books? • Elsevier Content: • Book Content – eBook/print, images, figures and tables. • Articles – SciTech Connect, Elsevier Connect. • Landing pages – Elsevier eStore • Media – photos, videos and podcasts. • Press Releases/Reviews – Elsevier.com • Freemium/Free content – Sample chapters, PDFs, Presentations, eBooklets • Non-Elsevier Content: • Author blogs and websites • Author videos, photos, media • Book reviews, “top 10” reading lists • Q&A forums (IamA – Reddit) and Interviews • Presentations/Slide shows • Conference talks/Event keynotes • Content Curation – add to discussion

9. Get Ready for #MSW14!

10. DIY Content Marketing – Brainstorm and Breakouts • 45 minutes for breakout session • Develop CM strategy that aligns with: • Business goals • Deep Verticals • Product/channel content • Define: • Audience(s) • Business objective(s) • Content/Products used (sources) • Strategy • Tactics used • Measurement/metrics • Workflow • Points of contact • Feasibility/time frame • Next Steps • Group 1: • Cindy, Louise, Nancy, Cory, Heather • Group 2: • Ofelia, Nick, Becky, Aizan, Maria, Amy • Group 3: • Stu, Caitlin B., Nat, Rebecca, Michelle, Andrew • Group 4: • Neil, Carol, Ben, Rachelle, Mike

11. Cheat Sheet: Content Resources • Content Sources: • SciTech Connect Author Blog– www.scitechconnect.elsevier.com • Elsevier Connect (reviews/publicity) - http://www.elsevier.com/connect • Elsevier eStore (book covers, previews, related content) – store.elsevier.com • Book Content (images, quotes, figures, sample chapters) – Book Finder • Social media content - http://www.elsevier.com/about/social-media • Photos, videos and presentations – ex. Youtube search “reference modules” • Offsite/author content – Google/keyword search

12. 7 Content Marketing Best Practices Know your audience – learn their interests, preferences cater content to them. Find timely, relevant and unique subject matter Create/repurpose content – fit to audience Share and disseminate online – target audience Engage and discuss with evangelists - create mini-marketers that rep your product/brand. Repurpose/reformat content – expand your audience reach, cast a wider net Retention– Follow up campaigns/re-engage and keep discussion going with new content.