ROI WTF? Content Marketing Today, in Ten Truths

transcript

Sara Lingafelter @saralingafelter | @portent slingafelter@portent.com

ROI WTF? Content Marketing Today

In Ten Truths

http://portent.co/ROIWTF

(Yes, use .co, not .com)

Tweet this presentation: #ROIWTF

First things FIRST

Who AM I? Why am I HERE?

Because I’m endemic…

… and I really, really love what I do …

"Sara is kind of like our social media therapist." -‐ A former client

… and where I get to do it, surrounded by other like-minded web dorks…

…harboring a not-so-secret love for data and analytics.

And this is what we do.

BUT WHY THIS SEMINAR? WHY ARE YOU HERE?

Before we talk about ROI, Let’s warm up with

everybody’s favorite…

Pop Quiz: Choose the best answer:

Content Marketing is all about _______________.

a.  Near-term revenue;

b.   Keyword stuffing;

c.  Cat memes;

d.  The customer.

Building a relationship with your customer.

Content marketing is about

h8p://bit.ly/15w5IvY

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1.  Scaled to suit your business;

2.  Developed and targeted at activating key customer segments;

3.  Tracked and refined over time.

Content marketing can be:

Which part of the purchasing decision does content marketing affect?

Pop Quiz:

1.  Problem / Need Recognition / Idea

2.  Information Search 3.  Evaluation of Alternatives 4.  Purchase 5.  Post-purchase Behavior

It’s not impossible to demonstrate ROI for social & content.

It’s just not necessarily easy.

ROI: actual return calculated after the campaign.

Break-even or CBA: does it appear this campaign will break even or make a profit? Do the potential benefits outweigh the costs?

Should we try it?

As a housekeeping matter…

BRING ON THE METRICS!

GETTING WARMER… BUT REFERRAL TRAFFIC AND CONVERSIONS ARE STILL ONLY PART OF THE PICTURE.

THE METRICS THAT MATTER ARE THE ONES THAT DRIVE YOUR BROADER BUSINESS GOALS.

Terrible

Scale of Value as a Metric

Followers / Likes Impressions Reach Clicks Bounce Rate Abandonment Rate Conversation Rate (or is that Conversion Rate?) Economic Value Lifetime Value

Based on a recap slide from Avinash Kaushik at Mozcon 2013

So let’s take a closer look at lifetime value…

Meet Jane. •  Jane just heard about this new

thing called a Fitbit from a co-‐worker.

•  “Track my steps all day, and help me lose weight? I’m SOLD.”

See Jane Google.

See Jane Fitbit •  $91.77 later, Jane’s Fitbit is

clipped to her waistbelt logging her steps.

•  Six weeks later: •  She’s bought the

accompanying scale ($126 at her local Target store, found through Fitbit’s Store Locator)

•  She’s signed up for Fitbit’s $49/year premium service and

•  She’s lost five pounds.

See Jane Talk to Her Friends

•  Jane shares her progress via Facebook and Twi8er;

•  Her review on Amazon is most helpful;

•  She’s happy to answer quesdons when people ask her about what that thing is clipped to her belt.

See Jane’s Friends buy Fitbits.

•  Let’s say, only five friends buy a Fitbit One, and three buy a Fitbit Scale.

•  Now what’s Jane worth?

See Jane’s Value.

(or do you?)

•  Jane’s purchase of the premium service may be all Fitbit knows about Jane.

•  Is Jane a $49 a year customer, or is Jane a $1,076 customer so far this quarter?

See Jane’s Value.

(or do you?)

•  And now, say you’re not Fitbit. •  What does Jane’s affinity for

Fitbit tell you about her potendal interest in YOUR brand?

And, if Jane does introduce herself

Create a Facebook Custom Audience and add Jane to it, to find more people like Jane. Facebook’s Lookalike Audience tools are gehng solid reviews from early users.

What if Fitbit actually encouraged Jane’s ambassadorship?

Now what I want to know is:

1.  The next time Jane visits Fitbit.com (with social login enabled), Fitbit can prompt her to complete her account (if she hasn’t already);

2.  Track clicks in social shares to determine users who meet a threshold for influential activity;

3.  Email invitation to a special members-only community for extra support;

4.  Interview super-Janes for blog posts, to help personalize the brand;

5.  Reward Jane with gifts from affinity brands to surprise and delight her…

I COULD DO THIS ALL DAY!

So, what’s Jane’s value NOW?

•  Create segments around customer demography and behavior

•  Understand your customer types and likely social behavior and value beyond the inidal sale.

Think bigger about social and content ROI.

Besides… Isn’t estimating SOMETHING better than what you’re doing right now?

A recap…

Individual Tracking: Jane

•  Loyalty rewards •  Surprise and delight •  Actual customer reladonship-‐building

•  At the influencer level, they’ll rise up: it won’t take tracking.

Customer Segments: Like Jane

•  Lifedme Value •  Content Planning & Targedng

•  Adverdsing Targedng

•  Portent measured results across 100 client accounts and found that social media investment broke even or lost money in the near term 85% of the time.

•  Eighty. Five. Percent.

What about near-term ROI?

QUICK! FIRE THE INTERN!

NOT SO FAST.

Not so fast.

Over 30 days, social is the third most influenOal correlaOng factor when you define conversions broadly.

But wait, the fun’s not over yet! there are even more hard to quantify

returns to consider!

1.  Customer Service Value 2.  Brand Awareness 3.  Customer Retention 4.  New Customer Acquisition

Now, with even more mathiness!

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WOW! That’s almost as mathy as my mass media ROI!

So where are we now? 1.  Social and content benefits extend

beyond last click conversion.

2.  There is value to your brand of fostering and encouraging conversation, even if it’s hard to measure.

3.  If it’s too hard to measure, at least model and estimate in a way that makes sense for your organization.

Because, let’s be honest. When, over time, customer retention, loyalty, and customer lifetime value goes up, who’s complaining?

TEN KEY TRUTHS Content Marketing Today

#1 You’re either a publisher, or

you’re awesome. (or both)

Who has the highest referral traffic from social sources?

Outdoor Research is crushing it.

Social signals correlate to search performance

#2 It all starts with Google.

#3 The customer is in the

driver’s seat.

Yes, I already said that. It’s important enough to be

repeated.

#4 Get used to the search earth

moving under your feet.

A tip: this isn’t a blog post title.

Straight from the Google’s mouth

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#5 You’re wasting time asking what the “next Facebook” is.

The Conversation Prism 2008

What matters: Who and where is your customer?

Early adoption isn’t strictly required in

social: it’s okay to be a fast follower.

#6 Get comfortable with

transparency.

Transparency means saying I’m sorry when and how you should.

This is not an apology.

Transparency means saying I’m sorry when and how you should.

This is an apology.

Transparency means saying I’m sorry so well, the response is positive.

Transparency means operating on the customer’s schedule

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Transparency means sharing your corporate values.

#7 People’s names are the new

black.

Which link would YOU click? Implement Google Authorship ASAP.

#8 It’s still about who your

friends are.

You need inbound links (and social mentions) from real friends, not link spam.

You need inbound links from real friends, not link spam.

This link is worth its weight in gold.

#9 If you build it, they won’t

necessarily come.

This makes me sad.

This makes me happy.

#10 Get familiar with your

audience’s random affinities (or at least start thinking

about affinities).

Random affinities

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That’s all ten truths! WHEW!

But wait…

SO TRUE IT HURTS I’ve got a Spinal Tap fact:

#11 You’re the roadblock to

determining the ROI of your content and social programs.*

* but you don’t have to be. So get on that.

THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING

LET THE content awesome COMMENCE!

#ROIWTF

Me: @saralingafelter @portent an Internet Marketing Company http://portent.co/ROIWTF #ROIWTF

ROI WTF? Content Marketing Today, in Ten Truths

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