According to an infographic by Marketo, content marketing is a growing force because it develops trust and minimizes risk, drives traffic and captures leads, and nurtures those leads. 

The biggest problem for content marketers is figuring out how to produce engaging content, followed by trying to produce enough content. Over the next year, 51 percent of B2B marketers will increase their budgets for content marketing, and currently, an average of 26 percent of all budgets are devoted to content marketing.

Frank Reed of Marketing Pilgrim points to Econsultancy and Responsys marketing data that finds that in terms of digital marketing spending, content marketing is leading the way. Seventy one percent of marketers plan to increase digital marketing budgets in 2013, and the highest ranked priority is content marketing, followed by search engine optimization and email marketing.

The Inbound Writer found that 61 percent “of consumers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content” and claim they will be more likely to buy from such a company. One of the top three reasons that people follow brands on social media is for interesting content, and “social media sites and blogs reach 8 out of 10 of all U.S. Internet users and account for 23% of all time spent online.”

Content marketing is cheaper than outbound marketing, which includes advertising. The average cost of lead generation through inbound marketing is $143, which is about half of the average for outbound marketing.

Image courtesy of John Kasawa/shutterstock

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

When done wrong, controversial content can wreak havoc on a brand’s reputation – so it’s important to tread carefully. Just ask the folks at Belvedere.

“Anger and anxiety … make people share, but marketers are often afraid to use those emotions for fear it will drive people away,”says Jonah Berger, award-winning professor of marketing at Wharton University, and author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On, coming out in March. “When used correctly, they can be a big asset.”

If you’re going to rile up your audience, you better have a good reason.

Here are five things to remember when producing controversial content:

Focus on Shareability

Yes, it’s crucial that your prime target audience connects with your message — but it’s even more important to think ahead. Is your content something your audience would want to share within their network?

“Controversy makes things interesting to talk about, but it also creates discomfort,” Berger says. ”So if something’s too controversial, people may shy away from sharing it with acquaintances or people they don’t know as well for fear of making them uncomfortable.”

Sharing is becoming yet another way for people to define themselves— an “about me” in link form—and users get selective about what they share. It’s why you block Aunt Viv from viewing that video from Virgin’s Naughty Campaign you posted on your friend’s wall, and it’s why posts about the impolite subjects usually get the most attention. Just make sure you’re not polarizing too many people for publicity’s sake.

Make the Title Stand Out

Beyond SEO, it’s important for your title to make a huge impact.

“Titles are vital for grabbing attention,” Berger says. “People can’t share something they don’t at least pay attention to. Particularly given all the content out there now, the right title helps cut through all the clutter.”

For instance, ”Top 10 Reasons Your Presentations Sucks,” a wildly popular blog post from CBS’s Money Watch blog, could have been a benign, ”10 Ways to Improve Your Presentations.” Could it have received the same attention? Unlikely.

Be Subtle & Give Solutions

“I think you can lead with questions or sympathetic statements that might lead a person to think about something that they fear, or a problem that they have, but it’s best followed up with a solution to that problem that will turn that emotion around,” says Zach Heller, director of marketing at Distance Education Company.

Don’t underestimate the power of suggestion, and make sure if you throw your audience into dark waters, you offer them an oar (with your brand written all over it).

Don’t Bully

The key to getting attention without being offensive? Know how far is too far.

“An example I can think of is the beauty or cosmetics industry which might aim to create a feeling of low self-esteem in consumers that might be solved by their products,” Heller said.

Crest pullled this off in its recent 3D Whitestrips holiday commercial by mixing warm-and-fuzzy nostalgia with enough insecurity to make any coffee drinker squirm.

“The goal should not be to make the consumer feel badly about themselves, but should show them how good they might feel after purchasing your product,” he said. “It should only go so far as to create the need that your product fills, and no further.”

In other words, please don’t resort to second-grade playground tactics.

If You Don’t Have Anything Nice To Say … Say It Anyway

Whatever kind of content you’re creating, both Heller and Berger agree: disgust, anger, and fear are often more successful than playing it safe with boring material.

“Even negative emotion will get people sharing more than no emotion,” Berger said.

“I think that invoking emotion in advertising is better — positive or negative — than invoking no emotion at all,” Heller agreed. ”Many of the most powerful, popular, profitable companies in the world have this in common — their consumers have an emotional tie to their brand.”

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

The content produced on behalf of a company must be seen as a product, not as something used to grab the fleeting attention of today’s consumer and forgotten tomorrow.

At first glance, a company’s content strategy should replicate that of a news publication – but what happens when news outlets need to start thinking like businesses?

Newspaper giant Washington Post has fallen into a decline because, as Peter Preston of The Observer, suggests, it has chosen to offer its content for free as opposed to The New York Times, which has a paywall for readers.

As the paywall model is adopted by other online newspapers, the question of “content piracy” will become more prominent: if a site doesn’t offer content for free, will audiences go somewhere else? On a given day, the New York Times gets picked up by countless blogs, so a reader can still digest the Times’ content without having to pay for it.

Even The Huffington Post, the crusader for democratized journalism and content, found a way to offer long-form features in exchange for revenue with their new digital magazine Huffington.

As more newspapers, such as most recently New Orleans’ The Times-Picayune and Alabama’s Birmingham News, are cutting staff and reducing distribution, they are becoming more aware that they need to focus on their “digital product,” according to Steven Newhouse, chairman of Advance.net.

Content marketers can find the most success by thinking of content as product: how to mass produce, keep up the quality, and above else, find the funds to make it.

Image courtesy of John Kasawa/shutterstock

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Content creation may seem like a daunting task, and the first step can be the most difficult. When creating content for the first time, think of content that is most universally appealing.

Scott Aughtmon of Content Marketing Institute created a list of 21 types of content audiences love to consume.

These types of content have emotional and intrinsic appeal versus functional and informative. While most businesses are hoping to share information that shows they are thought leaders, care must be taken to make sure that content appeals to audiences emotionally.

“This is the kind of content we must create if our goal is to influence, inspire, and move to action the unique group of people we have chosen to reach,” Aughtmon says.

This type of content that appeals emotionally is the kind we “never get tired of, always have time for, don’t forget, and want to share with others.”

He advises marketers to print out this list and put it somewhere that it can be viewed regularly to help develop the kind of content that is irresistible.

From now on, when beginning to create a new piece of content, the following two questions must be asked:

1. Does the content I am writing meet this criteria?
2. What can I do to make the content I’m creating fall under this category?

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

The only problem is this distinction doesn’t work, says Facebook’s Content Strategist Tiffani Jones Brown.

“You cannot make a division about the interface. The idea that only some content needs a system is wrong. It all fits within a design system,” said Brown.

There is a strong connection between content and design, says Andy Chung, a designer at Facebook. When he worked at Mozilla, one of their content interface strategies was to focus on reducing complex issues into simple statements.

Content strategy is about design; the two are interrelated, says ex-Boeing content developer Keith Robertson. (At Boeing, Robertson sometimes had to choose words based on pixel size.)

“Content strategy is process driven. There is workflow and audits. You need to ask ‘Who is the audience?’ and ‘What problems are you trying to solve?’,” says Robertson.

One good strategy is taking out half the content, Robertson continues. But content strategy also looks at the context to simplify it.

“If you have to do content on your own, make sure every word serves a purpose. This takes time to understand. But one exercise makes sure each content piece is very tight: See how they fit together,” explains Robertson.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Rdoke

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

A content library is a guide to example posts and key resources for anyone producing on-site content. Such a guide keeps writers and editors on the same page.

Social Media Explorer posed this idea in their latest post, Getting The Most Out Of Great Content In Social Media, and we were intrigued. “Equipping team members with pre-made or pre-approved content is one major way to help make social activity more fluid and amplification of messages more common,” they argue.

Since we deal with a growing group of writers, we do our best to keep a timely and detailed style guide. But a content library like a more interactive, resource filled approach that might be worth working on.

Then again, a lot of our actual blog posts usually delve into answers to our own real-life questions – so maybe keeping this information internal is a waste.Do you have any methods for keeping your digital team up on useful content to?

Image courtesy of House Beautiful

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Just two years later, the eyewear company has built a larger-than-life brand and amassed a sizeable following, selling trendy glasses for just $95 each and matching every purchase by donating a pair of glasses to someone in need.

Social Media Manager Jen Rubio says that social media, word of mouth and the company’s content strategy have enabled the company to grow quickly while also building relationships with its customers.

“Content strategy is one of two core things that my team focuses on,” she says. “The other is interaction — customer experience, proactive outreach, influencer relationships. Our content and editorial strategy are the driving force behind all of our editorial, events, campaigns, and exploration of new platforms.”

We recently caught up with Rubio to pick her brain on content. Editor’s Note: Impressed? Nominate Warby Parker For A Contently Award!

Contently: What kind of content does Warby Parker produce on the web?

Warby Parker: We have showrooms inside boutiques across the country, but we’re primarily e-commerce and all of our products are sold directly to customers on our website. On the social front, we’re very active on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram and are working on expanding our YouTube presence. We post photos, videos, news, links, etc.There’s always a ton going on at Warby Parker, which means there’s a lot to share. I always cover our events on social media, whether we are taking over the New York Public Library for a guerilla presentation during Fashion Week, transforming a massive SoHo garage space into a holiday store made up of yurts, riding custom bikes outfitted with our sunwear around Miami for Art Basel, or launching a showroom with Ashton Kutcher in LA. (That’s just from the past few months!)

A lot of brands see social media as a one-to-many broadcasting tool, but we’ve used it for thousands of one-on-one conversations with our potential and existing customers. It enables us to become entwined in every step of the customer’s experience. As an online business, we never see the majority of our customers in person, but we’ve had more frequent and more in-depth conversations with them than one would at a brick-and-mortar store.

On Twitter and Facebook, we personally address each message we receive, which can add up to hundreds per day. You wouldn’t ignore a customer who calls or emails in, so why would you online?

Contently: I noticed that the Warby Parker’s Zagg Pepper Tumblr blog is about much more than eye wear. What’s the strategy there?

Warby Parker: Zagg Pepper is our place to post about the people, places, companies, and things that we love. I think it’s important for our blog to not be so promotional and to have a space where customers can see the things that inspire us—we work hard to give our brand a personality, and our Tumblr is one place where we can showcase that.

Contently: What types of content have been the most well-received or gotten the best results? What’s flopped? And why?

Warby Parker: Our favorite content is user-generated. We have a home try-on program — the first of its kind in the U.S. — that lets our customers try on five pairs of glasses for five days for free before purchasing. When our customers receive their frames in the mail, we encourage them to post photos on our Facebook Page, so that our community can help them pick the pair that looks best. As a result, the majority of posts on our page are user-generated, and it’s made for some great conversations (and ultimately, conversions). Through this program, we were able to develop an amazing community on Facebook and Twitter by answering the simple question, “How do I look in these glasses?” Purchasing eyewear is a social activity — most people want feedback from friends and others, and social media tools help us ensure that shopping for Warby Parker glasses is social and fun.

Posts that come across as very promotional get the least engagement. By fostering and encouraging user generated content as opposed to creating filler to drive ineffective engagement, we created true organic brand awareness that’s unrivaled by traditional advertising tactics.
Contently: How do you determine the level of success for the content that you produce?

Warby Parker: On Facebook, we look at Reach, Engagement, and Virality as measures of success for original content. The new Insights tools make it very easy to measure the performance of each piece of content we post and adjust our editorial strategy accordingly.

We measure success on Twitter more on a one-to-one basis: What is our response time? Are we getting to every single person that talks to us? Customer experience is a cornerstone for our company, so we measure success on a one-to-one basis instead of focusing on how many times our broadcasts are retweeted and how many followers we have.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Last year, a study led at Columbia showed that instead of remembering the actual information we learn online, we remember where we learned it. Because we trust that websites are more or less permanent, we often simply plan return to sites later to find facts when we need them, rather than memorizing said facts in the first place.

So how do you implement the right kind of stickiness on your own site? By quickly and clearly demonstrating to readers that your blog is more than a conversation – it’s a resource.

Image via BookWitch

Keywords help readers easily orient themselves and assert a site’s relevance. From there, they can provide clear leads for the reader to find what they are looking for.

Brainpickings Uses An Intriguing and Engaging "Explore" Guide To Give Readers A Taste For What They Might Find

Brainpickings does an excellent job at using keywords to hook and engage readers. The site, known for its quirky collection of creative intellectual pursuits, uses an “explore” sidebar to give readers a taste of its contents. This not only lets the reader know what is important, but it helps map what they may expect in the future.

Make Your Archives Accessible

By offering a clear and useful way to see old posts, a blog becomes a much deeper experience than its latest article. Therefore, a blog should make their content searchable in every way imaginable.

Bryan Boy, One Of The NowManifest Bloggers, Uses Archives To Increase His Content's Entertainment Value

NowManifest, a style blog collective that hosts bloggers like Bryan Boy and Fashion Toast, does a great job maximizing its resources this way. The site’s posts aren’t time sensitive, so opening them up means more entertainment for their readers. Intrigued wanderers suddenly have hours of images, blurbs, and inspiration to digest – at no additional pain to the content creators.

Embed Your Juiciest Stuff

Give your reader maximal opportunities to interact with your best content by putting it on your homepage – even if your main site isn’t a blog. This gives users a taste of what you are, and will be offering, in terms of content.

Open Culture's List of Essentials Gives Readers A Clear and Useful Roadmap To Their Site

A great example of this is Open Culture’s list of essentials. Their lists don’t overload readers, but excite them with a preview of their powerful insides. This way, a reader might have found the site for free online courses, but may come back for free textbooks.

Help your reader find what they need, while showing them your best stuff. Hopefully, they’ll leave with a good first impression of your site, but more importantly, a lasting memory of its contents.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

Instead of links to the week’s top news, we’ll be posting what we call Toolboxes – a handful of resources on a theme – every week. Check out our Tumblr feed for ongoing industry news curation, every day of the week.

This week, we break down one of our biggest questions – how in the world do you catch the attention of readers on the internet?

1. Find Early Birds

Early adopters stay on top of new trends. Getting your brand on their minds through content can be incredibly valuable. Though some brands, like Hearst, keep their content limited, others let it fly free – in hopes of attracting more random, unprecedented viewers.

Here’s how to catch the eye of those early adopters – and drive them back to your content.

2. Attract Them

A great blog communicates on all levels – including visually – to attract and retain an audience. Even if design is not your forte, you can still have an attractive site – just make sure to make it easy.

Here are five low commitment, easy-to-comprehend steps to amping your blog’s design.

3. Talk To Them

An authentic voice is critical; it can make or break your blog’s success.

It’s all about the tone, and speaking straight to your audience rather than up or down to them.

Check out the three major factors that should help you determine what voice is right for your blog.

4. Be Honest

If you want to get real readership, you need reader trust. That means not being afraid to expose yourself a bit.

This will make your content that much more unique and relevant to your brand. Then you will be able keep your loyal users, and bring in new ones in measurably demonstrated ways.

Here are some examples of brands who used a transparent strategy with great success.

5. Convert Them

Increasing traffic to your blog isn’t the “cure all” some people make it out to be. Without a solid strategy, you might attract users – but not be able to keep them coming back.

But as long as you’re clear-eyed about what traffic-building efforts can and cannot accomplish, there is a lot gained by getting exposed to new (and different) people. You truly can never know when one of those new visitors might play a very important role in your online “ecosystem.”

Here are a ten tactics to help you attract and convert without fail.

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently

image via sportspagereplay.com

But as long as you’re clear-eyed about what traffic-building efforts can and cannot accomplish, there is a lot gained by getting exposed to new (and different) people. You truly can never know when one of those new visitors might play a very important role in your online “ecosystem.”

With that thought in mind, here are a few tactics  to help you attract and convert new visitors:

Improving Your Search Engine Optimization

It goes without saying that any successful blog needs to produce “remarkable content.” But until that content gets found no one can “remark” about it. So why not write SEO-friendly copy that allows a wider audience to find and appreciate you’ve written?

• With CopyBlogger’s Scribe plugin (for WordPress), you can easily learn to produce content that is optimized for your keywords.
• Another useful SEO tool is InboundWriter, which helps you optimize content by discovering the keywords your prospects are using when sharing social content or searching the web. (Note: In addition to its web-based service, the company recently announced a plugin, InboundWriter for WordPress.)

Widening Your Distribution

Once your copy has been written and optimized, put on your marketing hat.

• Sign up for Ping.fm — and also take advantage of Pingoat or Pingomatic to automatically distribute your post across a wide variety of relevant outlets.
• Next, increase exposure for the post by featuring it in multiple status updates on your social profiles.  Guy Kawasaki has remarked that he sends each of his tweets four times during a 32-hour period. Try this – change the wording, and vary the time-of-day when each is distributed. Free services such as Timely and Buffer are helpful in distributing this “portfolio” of updates according to your followers’ prime times for social media participation.

Making Your Users Comfortable

When all that social media marketing attracts visitors to your blog, address them in the language of the social platform where they found your link.

• The WP Greet Box plugin (for WordPress) allows you to easily provide a customized greeting page that adapts its message according to the referring URL. Build rapport and make it easy for new visitors to connect with your other social profiles — right from the start.
• If you’ve installed WordPress Related Posts or the YARPP plugin, your blog will display similar content links and attractive thumbnail images that can hardly be missed.  Remember: If a visitor is interested enough to read one of your posts in its entirety, s/he is a prime target for many more.

Tools For Retention

With “findable” content that’s widely promoted, you’re likely to be attracting relevant visitors and making a positive first impression. But your real interest is in repeat traffic: relationships, not one-night stands. Help those relationships grow, by immediately giving visitors something valuable and then capturing their contact information via well-designed landing pages. Two landing page tools worth considering:

• Copyblogger’s “Premise” plugin — a set of templates for custom integration with existing WordPress themes.
•  Unbounce – a cloud-based subscription that works with any blogging platform.

Both products provide educational materials that help newbies learn best practices in copywriting, design and split-testing.

Just Put More Into It.

More thought. More content. More interaction. And more of the tactics described above. With an infrastructure in place to create and market optimized content,  you can turn your attention to guest posting, e-zine articles and other link-building tactics – confident that the traffic you generate just might stick around for a long time.

Related articles

• Should Your Blog Sound Professional or Personal? (contently.com)
• The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Creating Awesome Landing Pages (hubspot.com)
• How Modesty On The Internet Can Actually Build Your Following (contently.com)
• 15 Must-Have Tools For Better Blogging (contently.com)

The Content Strategist is a daily magazine for forward-thinking publishers and content marketers, sponsored and created by Contently