Altimeter Group's Rebecca Lieb just released a new report, titled, “Content: The New Marketing Equation.” Lieb interviewed 50+ marketers, primarily on the brand and agency side, such as Ford, IBM, Edelman Digital and JWT. We received a preview copy, which was fun to read not only because Lieb knows her stuff, but also because it validated so many of the things we've done at Buddy Media to improve our products, and our own content marketing strategy.
Like any good research report, Lieb includes a nifty evaluation chart, "Altimeter’s Content Marketing Maturity Model," to help organizations define progress and identify goals on the path toward content marketing maturity. The five steps are:
1. Stand- The organization may have created a few social media accounts or a blog, but is infrequently utilizing them. Activity is not viewed as important and marketing relies mostly on “push” communications such as e-mail marketing.
2. Stretch- The organization realizes the value of content marketing and begins to build a strategy. The organization develops and understands that content requires an investment of resources, and an executive sponsor is ready to lead the program.
3. Walk- Content creation and production gain a solid strategic foundation, and content begins to be distributed across a variety of channels. Processes are formalized and content is audited and assessed.
4. Jog- This is the goal for most organizations seriously committed to content marketing. The strategy is clear and communicated throughout the company, and the focus shifts toward expanding the team and its ability to create engaging content.
5. Run- The most aspirational phase of the model, this phase includes a successful, real-time integration of content marketing and curation with all aspects of branding. The organization is actually able to monetize the content that is either branded or related to the brand.
Lieb includes a number of benchmarks for the various stages of content marketing maturity, as partially seen in the chart below:
Some of the key takeaways include:
- Devoting an executive or management personnel to the task of content marketing is crucial. This is something we also noticed in a study we conducted with the global consulting firm Booz and Co., in which a third of companies surveyed said they had a senior executive responsible for social media. However, this number rose to 41% among those that considered themselves "best in class" or "strong."
- Connecting metrics to meaningful business objectives and calculating ROI separates the various stages of content marketing. Defining objectives and using the correct tools allow content marketers to track any number of actions that result from content sharing -- not just purchases, but any action is critical. This is one of the reasons Buddy Media acquired social commerce leader Spinback in May 2011 and integrated the technology into our product suite as ConversionBuddy. There is massive opportunity for brands to do more here and be smarter with truly actionable data.
-Becoming platform agnostic is the mark of a mature content marketing organization. At this stage, the focus is not as much on the channel where the content is being published, but on experiences that can live on their own. By creating content that can live anywhere, the focus can be on engaging people and encouraging sharing. While many social marketing software products focus on either just the social networks themselves, or making websites social, Buddy Media customers are able to do both in one suite. Not only does Buddy Media fully support all of the major social networks - Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn - we also are the first to launch an "open web" product ReachBuddy, which enables organizations to launch engaging, professional content anywhere, such as websites, Tumblr, WordPress sites, etc.
We like this chart from the conclusion of Lieb's report, that shows which content channels are important now, and which will be more or less important in the future. Online video, social media and mobile and location-based marketing all scored high, while traditional advertising received poor scores for current effectiveness and expectations for the future.
Want to learn how Buddy Media can improve your content marketing initiatives? Click here to register for a demo of the Buddy Media Social Marketing Suite.
