CONTENT MARKETING BY CAITLIN YORK & STEPHEN FIEDLER

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Distributing Content: The Sharing Economy Once you know your audiences’ preferences, find ways to reach them on social media, through 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 distribution lists with “opt ins”

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

GET READY FOR #MSW14!

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

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

7 Content Marketing Best Practices 1.Know your audience – learn their interests, preferences cater content to them. 2.Find timely, relevant and unique subject matter 3.Create/repurpose content – fit to audience 4.Share and disseminate online – target audience 5.Engage and discuss with evangelists - create mini-marketers that rep your product/brand. 6.Repurpose/reformat content – expand your audience reach, cast a wider net 7.Retention– Follow up campaigns/re-engage and keep discussion going with new content.