“SEO” may be the most ubiquitous marketing word out there—an OG term that sits alongside “engagement” and “cross-channel” in the pantheon of lexicon that’ll never die. But even though everyone from junior marketing coordinators to seasoned CMOs will give lip service to it, a great SEO strategy is hard to find.

Which brings us to CarMax. The nation’s largest retailer of used cars has also become one of the world’s most popular content destinations for car shoppers—thanks in large part to its unique combo of SEO dominance and editorial excellence.

Recently, CarMax let us take a look under the hood of a content program that’s driven over $56M in content value over the past year, and come to rank for 1.5 million keywords worldwide.

Hero, Hub, Help

One of the most impressive things about CarMax’s sophisticated content program is that it didn’t really exist until 2016.

According to Malissa Mackenzie, director of creative services at CarMax, the turning point was gaining support from the company’s senior leadership. After the team ran a small experiment with a few pieces of content, they were able to make a data-driven case for how content could drive valuable search traffic while also helping consumers make smarter decisions. Immediately, the leadership team bought in.

Malissa MacKenzie, director of creative services at CarMax

“Even at the senior executive level, you have those different perspectives coming in, listening to each other, and agreeing on this is a place that’s worthy to invest,” Mackenzie explained.

It also helps that a heavy investment in content just makes sense for CarMax. Car shopping is a high-consideration purchase, so people do a lot of research online. Since CarMax isn’t biased towards any one manufacturer or model, the content team can take an unbiased, editorial approach that puts the customer first.

The content team can take an unbiased, editorial approach that puts the customer first.

They’ve scaled the maturity of their program in record time by adopting the “Hero, Hub, Help” framework, which was developed for YouTube in 2015.

“Hero” content consists of bigger, flashier pieces that draw your audience in and build your brand. (To use the most dramatic example, think of Red Bull dropping Felix Baumgartner from space.)

“Hub” content includes content series that get people to return to your site. (Think Moz’s “White Board Friday” series.)

“Help” content answers key questions your audience is asking—and as you’ll see, it’s where CarMax has shined brightest.

Helping shoppers

In such a competitive automotive content landscape, figuring out what content to create and what questions to answer are key.

CarMax tackled these challenges by working collaboratively across teams. “Our strategy incorporates inputs from SEO strategists, content strategy analysts, as well as creative and UX,” Mackenzie said. “We have this culture of continuous improvement. We recognize there’s a lot of companies that publish automotive and car shopping content, so we want to make sure we’re developing content that’s unique.”

At the heart of that strategy is CarMax’s comprehensive rankings—like The Best Affordable Sports Cars of 2021 or 7 Best Off-Road Vehicles—and trend stories, like this examination of how classic cars are making a comeback. These guides help buyers during the research process, bring them to CarMax’s site, and keep the brand top-of-mind when someone is ready to make a purchase.

The team takes an art-and-science approach to bring that content to life. “It’s a collaboration between passionate editors and passionate SEO strategists,” Mackenzie said. SEO insights help CarMax figure out what models and categories to zero in on, then editors figure out the unique approach the company can take.

But CarMax doesn’t stop there. They also layer in customer research, product development insights, and qualitative feedback from its associates on the ground. That results in a lot of different content that CarMax needs to create to meet the needs of its audience, which is where Contently’s content marketing platform and award-winning network of freelance writers come in.

“Our partnership with Contently has been a huge benefit to us because we couldn’t do the volume that we’re doing without them.”

“Our partnership with Contently has been a huge benefit to us because we couldn’t do the volume that we’re doing without them,” Mackenzie said. “We pull in CarMax data to make sure that our Contently writers can incorporate a CarMax perspective into those topics specifically.”

That data-driven approach comes to life in pieces like the 4WD/AWD Index, which uses CarMax data to look at where four-wheel drive and all-wheel drive vehicles are most popular in the country, creating a piece of visually engaging storytelling that can be repurposed across channels.

“Contently’s been an amazing partner, and I was really impressed early on by the ability to have a Contently editor who has automotive experience,” Mackenzie said.

Contently writers and editors join CarMax’s weekly standup, which has allowed for incredible collaboration. “It almost feels like they are a part of our in-house team.”

It’s working. Millions of people read CarMax’s content each month—with 75 percent of its traffic coming from search. And that traffic is worth over $56 million, according to Contently’s Content Value Tracker, which measures how much a competitor would have to pay to replicate a brand’s organic traffic through Google search ads.

Embracing video for Hero and Hub content

In early 2020, CarMax partnered with Edmunds, a car review and shopping site, to up their video content, and later acquired the company in 2021. The acquisition strengthened the partnership they already had on dynamic video content.

Video has helped CarMax extend its search dominance to YouTube, the second-largest search engine on earth. The well-edited, informative, and entertaining clips are hosted by Edmunds editors. Just check out this review of the Dodge Challenger vs. Dodge Charger, which has earned 1,200 likes and over 268,000 views on YouTube.

“CarMax brings data on what we know about sales shoppers, and then Edmunds brings the vehicle expertise that they have with a whole team of car experts,” Mackenzie said.

These videos are TV-quality productions that keep car junkies hooked. Ultimately, it’s all about finding ways to both serve CarMax’s audience and bolster the business case for its content program.

“We hope that we can add value and inspire readers to choose CarMax as the place they want to complete their shopping process, ” Mackenzie said. “But we’re very happy if we know that we’ve added value to the research that they’re doing.”

And that dedication to their audience is CarMax’s guiding light.

“It’s our responsibility to always advocate that the intention of creating content is to help the customer,” Mackenzie said. “That’s the highest business goal we have.”

The post How CarMax Drove $56 Million in Content Value Through the Art & Science of SEO appeared first on Contently.

It was hard to know what to do in those early days. Even harder to know what to say, which is why so many “Our brand is here for you in these unprecedented times” emails flooded our inboxes.

But in that sea of platitudes, one message stood out: a video from then-Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson getting choked up talking about how the pandemic would impact associates through no fault of their own. (Sorenson tragically lost his battle with pancreatic cancer in February, and has been replaced by new CEO Tony Capuano). The video was viewed millions of times, and it may have just been the first time a Fortune 500 CEO received so many overwhelmingly positive Twitter responses and YouTube comments.

But then Marriott had to figure out next steps. Communication about safety protocols and points flexibility was crucial, but the brand’s marketing team also knew that their audience wanted more than memos.

A pivot to “armchair travel”

For years, Marriott had been inspiring travelers through its flagship publication, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, which started by covering 3 destinations in 2014. Today, Traveler spans 87 local editions across the globe. And just because there was a pandemic didn’t mean that wanderlust suddenly disappeared. Marriott just had to approach it differently.

(Disclosure: Marriott Bonvoy Traveler has been a Contently customer since its launch in 2014.)

“We pivoted our storytelling to focus on armchair travel,” explained Robin Bennefield, Marriott International’s editorial director of Marriott creative and content marketing.

Robin Bennefield, Marriott International’s editorial director of Marriott creative and content marketing.

In 2020, the team scrapped an editorial calendar previously focused on beach vacations. Instead, with the help of its team of trusted freelance Contently writers, Marriott quickly published stories that would fuel its audience’s day dreams about travel. It showed them how to go on a virtual world tour, what trips to add to your travel vision board, and how to make their home feel like a luxury hotel.

These stories went out in Marriott Bonvoy Traveler’s April 2020 newsletter—just after the editorial team went on furlough, reaching nearly 12 million people. The newsletter averaged a healthy open rate of 15 percent. This one got a 28 percent open rate.

“The newsletter did gangbusters,” Bennefield said. “I think that was a lightbulb moment for a lot of people. They started to realize that telling these stories was more important than ever to keep people in the mindset to dream about travel.”

Local travel for a global audience

The success of that newsletter prompted Marriott to bring part of the editorial team off furlough. “People realized we need to keep these stories flowing,” Bennefield said.

Marriott Bonvoy Traveler has long had a powerful business impact across the customer journey. Traveler stories inspire people to consider new destinations. The smart design of the site makes it easy for Marriott’s audience to browse hotels and relevant activities when they’re researching a destination. After people book, the site’s stories—as well as its companion print magazine—help them make the most of their trip. Then, once the trip is over, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler sparks inspiration for the next adventure.

Despite the pandemic, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler’s role in the customer journey didn’t change. The publication just needed to focus on different topics. With the help of M Live—the jaw-dropping control room Marriott built in 2015 to track its audience’s needs—the brand realized that while people weren’t traveling far, they were interested in staycations, especially as the summer arrived and lockdown restrictions loosened across the globe.

“They were willing to explore their neighborhoods and cities again in ways that they hadn’t before,” Bennefield said.

M Live Studio

Instead of inspiring the American traveler to explore Barcelona, for instance, Marriott pivoted to help Catalans explore the gothic quarter in a way they hadn’t before, while still emphasizing safety. This is where having such a global content marketing program (Marriott Bonvoy Traveler will soon be available in 11 languages) and the ability to scale content production through Contently’s platform paid off.

“It has been hugely helpful to have Contently as a partner,” Bennefield said.

Road trip stories became a staple as well, as infection rates dropped and people felt safe traveling by car.

All along, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler’s performance climbed. Newsletter open rates remained above 20 percent—a 33 percent increase on pre-pandemic benchmarks. It generated $777,000 of search traffic value, nearly 4 million minutes of attention time, and a whopping 80 percent engagement rate, as measured by Contently Analytics.

“We rely heavily on Contently’s engagement metrics,” Bennefield said. “It’s a really strong way to measure how deeply people are staying with us and engaging with that content.”

The content is also driving a very significant amount of booking conversions—so much so that the content program pays for itself and is even “doing a little better than that,” said Bennefield happily. “That’s what everyone wants to see.”

Heading into the latter half of 2021 and 2022, Bennefield and the team are eager to continue to expand its content ambitions through a trio of engaging podcasts:

• About the Journey, which explores the inspiring stops and stories along Marriott Bonvoy Traveler’s favorite routes.
• Let’s Talk Points, a podcast for points aficionados.
• Behind The Design, which interviews top hotel designers on the latest trends and innovations.

“We really want to grow this audio form of storytelling,” said Bennefield. “We know that more and more people are consuming podcasts.”

Bennefield is also eager to return to a global lens. That means inspiring travelers to explore destinations they maybe haven’t considered before, via stories like Ghana Rising—a long-form piece of parallax storytelling that feels like it was produced by The New York Times.

“We’re excited about being at the table when we’re talking about the broader customer journey and infusing that traveler ethos into more of our experiences—to lend our expertise in the storytelling,” said Bennefield. “I’m really excited about the different formats that we’re embarking upon.”

The post “A Lightbulb Moment”: Inside the Content Program That Helped Marriott Weather the Pandemic appeared first on Contently.

Dell Perspectives launched in 2017 to showcase the company’s thought leadership and attract the attention of business leaders across the globe. Immediately, the content was a hit. The site earned a Digiday Content Marketing Award for Best B2B Branded Content Site in its first year thanks to a blend of unique research, reporting, and insights.

Heading into 2020, Dell Perspectives welcomed Christina Westbrook from the Global Client Solutions business unit as its new editor-in-chief. “I don’t think I ever wanted a job as badly as I wanted this job,” she said.

As Westbrook took over, her team wanted to maintain the publication’s strong coverage on emerging technology and the leaders behind it. But they also had a goal of appealing to a younger audience that would become the C-suite of tomorrow.

“For Gen Z and millennials, it’s not just a ‘nice to have’ to be aligned with their social impact priorities and beliefs,” Westbrook explained. “They don’t want to work for—or with—companies that they think are tone deaf or disingenuous. So Perspectives is a great platform to discuss the topics that really matter to us as a company and as human beings—like diversity, inclusion, social responsibility, and sustainability.”

One of the first steps was increasing the diversity of voices on the site. “Diverse content requires diverse writers,” Westbrook said. “We didn’t want to be a technology publication publishing a wide range of articles written entirely by contributors of a singular experience. In 2020—in an industry as diverse and innovative as tech—that was unacceptable to us. We worked with Contently to recruit a team of global writers of all races, ages, gender identities, and sexual orientations. These folks help us tell stories and tell them right.”

The creative additions proved to be crucial when COVID hit last March, and Dell Perspectives needed to shift its content strategy to address the new challenges it was facing.

Recovering Together

In response to the pandemic, Westbrook and her team developed the Recovering Together Series in April 2020. During a time that was full of non-stop depressing news, Dell Technologies wanted to stand out with stories about incredible innovations that were helping the world fight back.

“We just threw out one giant pitch request on the Contently platform and said: ‘Bring us your stories about how technology is helping us address all these cracks in the system,'” Westbrook said.

The series spanned everything from this fascinating story about a Dell Technologies employee making face shields at home to this fantastic feature on how a new wave of telehealth access was helping address the needs of the LGBTQ community.

“The telehealth story is one of my favorites,” Westbrook said. “It’s not because it was the highest performing, but it was the first one where we really leaned into something we’d never done before. It was article about cutting-edge innovations in queer health written by a queer-identified author.”

The end result was a 23-story series that reached over 24,000 readers and generated over 40,000 minute of attention time—as measured by Contently’s Analytics—all without any paid promotion.

Celebrating diverse innovators in tech

The next big series for Dell Perspectives came in February of 2021, when it launched a Black History Month campaign, which celebrated black leaders and innovators who paved the way for us all.

Ideas for the visually engaging series came from Dell Perspectives’ diverse roster of writers. The stories attracted readers by highlighting incredibly important figures in the history of tech, examining where we’re falling short today, and reporting on initiatives, like the Code Crew in Tennessee, that are building a better tomorrow.

“Dell Technologies believes in the power of diversity and considers it one of our huge strengths,” Westbrook said. “Diversity and inclusion are not just the right things to do, they drive better ideas, better decisions, and even a better bottom line.”

The series was also a hit. Stories saw 34 percent higher attention time on average than other Perspectives stories, an 11 percent higher finish rate, and 1,686 percent more readers.

Following Black History Month came Dell Perspective’s Rebel Women Series in March to celebrate Women’s History Month. The name for the campaign was inspired by the Rebel Girls YA series, and profiled five incredible women in STEM—all of whom are distinguished engineers at Dell Technologies—sharing the path they took to build storied careers.

Dell Technologies’ staff of Contently writers interviewed the engineers, and the journalistic approach unearthed incredibly moving stories.

“All the pieces were about women and written by women. People loved it internally, and it got great results,” Westbrook said. “One woman said her father cried when he read it.”

People loved it externally too. The series generated an astounding 73 percent average finish rate, 50 percent more attention time, a 71 percent higher engagement rate, and 494 percent more readers.

The response led to an important realization: This type of content shouldn’t just be limited to a specific month.

“I have a steering committee meeting every Tuesday and we asked ourselves, ‘Why are we only doing this for women’s history month?'” Westbrook said. “The number of women in STEM is low. We’re trying to encourage women to pursue careers in STEM. So these women’s stories are both interesting and relevant.”

One thing Westbrook appreciates is the way Contently has helped Dell Perspectives take their storytelling ambitions to new heights. “I appreciated the excellent editing and the thoughtful writer sourcing. I don’t have to worry about whether the writers or the graphic designer are up to par,” she said. “They’ll point out things that I don’t notice, and that’s where the partnership is really valuable.”

This month, Dell Perspectives is continuing that ambition with a Pride Series. Stories covers everything from how to be a more meaningful ally at your tech job to a feature story on LGBTQ community groups trying to ease the digital divide for seniors, at-risk youth, and homeless people within the queer community.

“As we enter the second half of 2021 and into 2022, we want to continue to ensure that our Black or queer or women writers, for example, aren’t only given stories that speak to their personal life experiences,” Westbrook added. “Yes, we want them to be the ones to tell those stories on Perspectives, but we also want them to feel encouraged and empowered to write the tech story that has nothing to do with belonging to a marginalized community—the ones that straight, cis, white men have had the privilege of telling from the get-go. That is the future of Perspectives. That is where we are moving toward.”

These efforts are paying off. Dell Perspectives has become beloved internally as the audience grew 200 percent over the past year, reaching hundreds of thousands of readers.

“What excites me is that there’s a lot of confidence internally in what we can do with Perspectives,” Westbrook said. “And there are a lot of people interested in leveraging what we’ve done and scaling it across our entire organization.”

As that happens, there’s no limit to the kind of high-impact, human stories that Dell Perspectives can tell.

The post How Dell Perspectives Grew Its Audience 200% Through Bold Social Impact Storytelling appeared first on Contently.

When you first land on Means and Matters, it doesn’t seem like a publication run by a bank. There’s longform reporting on the dramatic rise of food insecurity in America. A guide to C02 told by cats, cars, and kegs. A story titled “Lisa Simpson Was the OG Greta Thunberg.”

Yet, Means and Matters—a new website filled with “Stories of Money and Sustainability”—is run by Bank of the West, a subsidiary of BNP Paribas. But this isn’t another example of a financial services company co-opting a good cause to sell you things. Means and Matters just won two Webby Awards for a very good reason: because the incredible content on the site is backed up by the values and actions of Bank of the West.

Bank of the West is one of the most environmentally friendly banks on earth. The company doesn’t finance arctic drilling, coal-fired power plants, big tobacco, fracking, shale, or tar sands mining, among a long list of other environmental policies. It’s the only major U.S. bank to partner with 1% for the Planet, Protect Our Winters, and The Conservation Alliance. And over the next five years, it’s investing $1 billion to finance green technology.

In a world where roughly 90 percent of the money you put into your bank account is reinvested, that’s all really important.

Edelman 2020 Trust Barometer

And in a world where environmental impact is one of the most important brand attributes to consumers, it’s become a huge competitive differentiator for Bank of the West.

A different kind of financial services content

When Leslie Nuccio arrived as SVP of earned media at Bank of the West in 2018, she took note of the company’s content. “It was a very bank-y blog,” she explained. “It wasn’t differentiated. There was more to us than that.”

Nuccio and her team saw an opportunity to showcase what drew her away from the tech world to Bank of the West: the company’s commitment to sustainability and doing good in the world.

“We really are the only leading bank in the country that has these policies,” she said. “We don’t have to always be talking about banking and bank accounts. The intersection of money and sustainability is a really interesting place to explore.”

On occasion, there will be a mention of their 1% for the Planet account, or an embed of the fantastic video below, which quizzes consumers on what they think banks do with their money. But right now, the focus is to build awareness and relationships.

There was also a chance to explore other meaningful topics important to the company. Bank of the West’s CEO, Nandita Bakshi, is a woman of color and an Indian immigrant, which is wildly uncommon for CEOs in the finserv industry. (Just 3 percent of bank CEOs globally are women; women of color CEOs are so rare there’s not even a stat available.) That highlighted an opportunity to focus on how women and minorities access capital, and how the denial of access to capital is one of the most potent ways that women and minorities are oppressed.

“We really are the only leading bank in the country that has these policies,” Nuccio said. “We don’t have to always be talking about banking and bank accounts. The intersection of money and sustainability is a really interesting place to explore.”

That desire to tell a wide array of powerful stories is also what led Bank of the West to partner with Contently, which provides the technology to manage, measure, and optimize their content program, as well as the freelance talent to tell a wide array of engaging stories.

That’s allowed Bank of the West to tell both original reported longform stories, like this feature on the sustainable soul of hip-hop, and interactive stories, like this illustrated tribute to women in the pandemic.

The sleek, modern design of Means & Matters was also completed through Contently’s platform and freelance network in 2020, leading to the publication’s launch in September. While the publication is still young, the results are promising so far, and its two Webby Award wins are well deserved.

Driving results that matter

Means & Matters isn’t just about building an audience. It ladders up to higher business objectives: Inspiring conscious consumers to think about where they put their money, and why using Bank of the West would help align their finances with their values.

That requires building relationships with people who wouldn’t otherwise find themselves on Bank of the West’s website. The average reader spends 2 minutes and 30 seconds engaging with stories on Means & Matters, as measured by Contently’s Performance Analytics, which only counts active engagement. That’s 54 percent higher than the finance industry average across Contently’s Analytics.

Means & Matters is also earning loyalty. Thirty percent of its audience consists of returning visitors, even though the publication has only been around for six months. And thanks to a distribution strategy that spans paid, social, owned, and earned, their audience is growing.

“If somebody is taking the time to read your entire article, they’re probably way more likely to remember your brand than they are if they just clicked on an ad four times,” Nuccio said.

The average reader spends 2 minutes and 30 seconds engaging with stories on Means & Matters, as measured by Contently’s Performance Analytics, which only counts active engagement. That’s 54 percent higher than the finance industry average.

The other place Means & Matters is making an impact is sales enablement. For instance, Bank of the West has a large agriculture customer base. Stories like this magazine-quality exploration of food insecurity in America, which highlights BIPOC-owned businesses making a difference, gives advisors a great piece of content to share with customers. And it also allows Bank of the West to give the businesses they support some much-needed free press.

But while this content is helping sales, Nuccio and her team are deliberately avoiding the hard sell in their content.

“This needs to be of use to the end consumer,” Nuccio said. “It’s not about us.”

The post How Bank of the West Is Rewriting the Finserv Content Playbook With Sustainability Storytelling appeared first on Contently.

When Marriott partnered with Contently, the brand had their sights set on cracking the code of content marketing ROI. “When marketers say they can’t quantify ROI, it drives me crazy,” said Marc Graser, Marriott’s senior director of creative and content marketing.

To start, Marriott Traveler anchored its 30 brands with a single strategy. Their team of seven full-time employees had a centralized place to communicate, track progress, approve work, and most importantly, analyze each project’s reach.

“We can track how every article performs,” Graser said. “We know how many hotel rooms are visited from posts, how many room nights were booked, and how much money was generated as a result. We also know how much money is generated from our email newsletters from hotel bookings, and we know the demographics of who is looking at all of our content at all times. Everything should be trackable.”

With a firm foundation in place, Marriott is ready to focus on more multimedia content in the future. The plan is to incorporate more ambitious initiatives like influencer marketing, streaming video, and podcasts.

“Contently helped streamline the process onto one platform,” Graser said. “We could submit and accept pitches for stories, find talented writers to hire, and manage the editing and overall production process in a more efficient manner. Once Marriott Traveler took off, we started enlisting other brands within the Marriott portfolio to also use Contently as a way to further streamline the editorial process.”

Check out the infographic below to learn more about how Contently helped Marriott develop its content strategy and boost its revenue.

The post Infographic: Marriott’s Content Center of Excellence appeared first on Contently.

Paul sounds like a pretty cool guy, only he isn’t real. Paul and Sarah are two fictional personas brightpeak financial has created in order to understand different segments of its target audience—married Christians between the ages of 20 and 45 who are preparing for major milestones in life.

brightpeak is a not-for-profit financial organization that takes “a refreshingly holistic approach to personal finances,” according to its website. It’s upfront about being faith-based, baking Christianity into its mission statement: “We’re helping Christians look at money in a whole new light.”

“We’re definitely marketing to Christians,” Ashley Haugen, content strategist and editor for brightpeak, explained. “But we are careful to do it delicately so that we’re not alienating people who are non-Christian. We believe in financial strength and literacy for all, regardless of faith.”

Content for a niche audience

A look at brightpeak’s content strategy reveals that while faith is an important part of the brand, it does not overpower its millennial appeal. On Instagram, for instance, Bible passages are sprinkled among inspirational quotes, food pictures, and financial tips.

For brightpeak, faith is one of many elements that influence the decision-making process. Other factors like occupation, family goals, and financial literacy all shape purchasing decisions, which is why they are crucial parts of the brand’s audience segmentation strategy. The better brightpeak can define its personas, the easier it will be to target people who fit those personalities.

If you’re in brightpeak’s target audience, chances are you relate to Paul or know someone who does:

He follows Deschutes Brewery on Instagram. He also follows Humans of NY on Instagram because the channel shows ‘real’ pictures of people. Every so often, Paul gets to thinking about faith and spirituality while listening to a beerpastor.com podcast and crafting a rich, dark stout.

Clearly defined personas help the company’s marketing leadership identify financial patterns and match them with brightpeak products. How does this process work? The same research that shows Paul enjoys a milky stout also suggests he avoids risk when dealing with money.

“Each of our personas have different concerns and approaches when it comes to different financial topics,” Haugen said. “So we take a product line like emergency savings and try to figure out, from [one] perspective, what are the types of questions they’re asking? What are the emotions they feel? How does their background impact their savings habits? How are they communicating with their spouse? From there, we do a lot of social media listening.”

One thing Haugen likes to do is visit Pinterest and type in keywords like “emergency savings” to see what pins would appeal to different personas. After examining which pins get the most engagement, she uses that as a starting point for a piece of content or campaign. The result could be a guide like “How (and How Much) to Save in Your Emergency Fund,” geared toward the fiscally responsible Paul.

While the members of brightpeak’s marketing team have become pros at social listening, their ideation process is far more sophisticated than just skimming Pinterest. Their strategy involves mapping audience personas to different stages of the marketing funnel, creating a path for how content works together to drive each audience segment to a particular product page.

For example, a top-funnel post on “What is Disability Insurance?” is meant to lead Paul to a separate story on “The Difference Between Short and Long-Term Disability Insurance,” which eventually draws him to the disability insurance product page.

In the Contently platform, brightpeak’s content plan focuses on three pillars: saving for emergencies, getting insurance, and planning for milestones. Once the team creates and distributes content, Haugen takes a deep dive into Contently’s Story Analytics to assess performance. Haugen can filter stories by persona (like “Paul”) and see the top posts for that audience segment for whatever date range she selects. This not only gives her a better understanding of which topics perform well by persona, but also helps her redefine the attributes of that segment. (If cost-savings content in Paul’s segment has low engagement, maybe saving isn’t as big of a priority as brightpeak once suspected.)

Average engagement and finish rates, in turn, have helped Haugen optimize content on a per-story basis. Upon digging into engagement analytics, Haugen realized that when infographics were placed at the beginning of the post, engagement time was low. As soon as she moved the infographic to the bottom, guiding readers with introduction text, engagement time and finish rate increased.

With an organized approach to content development and reporting, the marketing team has been able to spend more time refining its SEO strategy to ensure content reaches the intended audience. brightpeak’s latest objective has been to optimize stories with specific keywords like “life insurance basics” or “student loan debt” to draw attention to primary themes and products.

“One of the challenges is just how long it takes for SEO to really show any gains,” Haugen explained. “But after a few months, we’re showing that our work in pairing keyword strategy with high-quality content is paying off.”

From basement beer to ROI

In the last three months, brightpeak has seen organic search traffic to its blog jump by 77 percent, referral traffic increase by 70 percent, and direct traffic surge by 97 percent.

In addition to the documented content strategy, Haugen attributes the success of her segmentation to the talented freelance contributors who have helped her scale. “Contently has really increased our capacity and speed to get articles out there,” she said. “That’s part of the reason that we see an increase in traffic because we’re able to consistently get out more content that’s high quality.”

“We listen … That’s how we finesse our personas. That’s how we help people. That’s how we impact business.”

Part of this efficiency comes down to logistics. After partnering with Contently, Haugen no longer needed to process payment for each individual story. Her team was free to focus on optimizing their strategy and perfecting the editorial calendar. Once the operation was running smoothly, Haugen was even able to use Contently’s industry benchmark data to show that brightpeak’s content was outperforming competitors’ stories.

“Average attention time per person shows that we’re twenty-three percent higher compared to other publications in the Contently network,” Haugen said. “That helps us build that argument to invest in more content.”

As brightpeak moves forward, Haugen will continue to incorporate analytics into her strategy and reporting, garnering a deeper understanding of each audience segment’s needs. “As we put more targeted content out there, we learn about what works and what doesn’t,” she said.

She’s found, for instance, that marketing disability insurance to Kim’s persona, who is an expectant mother, is not the best product fit. Educating Paul on disability insurance on the other hand, has made a lot more sense because he relies on his paycheck to feel secure.

The financial organization plans to get more granular with distribution, detecting where each persona consumes different stories. Part of this strategy will be to work more closely with sales and data teams, tracking content performance against key life stages, and seeing who actually buys brightpeak products. (Is it really Paul? Or is it Paul’s parents?)

At the same time, Haugen and her brightpeak team will remain committed to getting to know the people who shape these personas. “We listen,” she said. “That’s how we finesse our personas. That’s how we help people. That’s how we impact business.”

The post Contently Case Story: How brightpeak financial Used Audience Segmentation to Increase Traffic 97 Percent appeared first on Contently.

Starting a marketing summit at 8 a.m. is ambitious. But xAd, an ad-tech firm based out of New York, didn’t have to worry.

At eight on the dot, the lobby of Skylight Modern, a venue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, was already full of guests. It was a big day for the employees of xAd who were looking to connect with current and prospective clients over the company’s location intelligence technology. The packed summit, called “On Location,” took place on September 22. It was the company’s first conference and included new product demos as well as a number of ad-tech panels. The goal was to entertain and inform an exclusive group of data-collection experts in tech, retail, fashion, and advertising.

After breakfast, guests were directed downstairs to a larger, darker space with hundreds of cushioned chairs. Plastered across the walls were inspirational quotes from tech giants like Carly Fiorina (“The goal is to turn data into information and information into insight”) and Alan Kay (“The best way to predict the future is to invent it”).

High ceilings accommodated ten-foot industrial lighting trusses. And toward the back of the room was the “Location Lab,” where people could play with the company’s mapping software, called Blueprints, on desktop computers.

xAd hoped the summit would be one to remember, which is why its marketing team enlisted freelancers to cover the event for the company’s website. Jessica Meyers, marketing manager for xAd, handpicked writers with ad-tech and data-collection expertise from the Contently freelancer network to report on the panels and overall experience. In addition to covering panel topics, the event was an opportunity for the writers to learn more about xAd and where the company is headed in the future.

“Our summit gave us a great opportunity to nurture specific Contently writers and educate them on our company as well as industry-specific topics,” Meyers said. “Our team was confident that our longform content was in good hands so we could focus our efforts on making sure the event came together.” 

The reporters were assigned to cover specific event tracks: the general session, a data panel, and a lifestyle presentation.

“We invited clients from our agency, programmatic, channel, and brand direct divisions,” said Kimberly Konstant, VP of brand and buzz at xAd. “We trusted that our partnership with Contently would yield great content about the event with a quick turnaround.”

Tessa Wegert, a veteran Contently freelancer, covered the first two morning sessions on “Turning Data Into Action” and “The Future of Location.” Almost as soon as the panels commenced, she began conceptualizing the stories.

“My goal is to find a balance between reporting on the event and covering the key points for the people who weren’t able to make it,” Wegert said. “Because there were new product announcements, I’ll also include a few of the themes that are important to xAd.”

A few weeks after the event, xAd published Wegert’s article on the company blog. (The articles are positioned from the xAd team, so they do not reveal Wegert’s byline.) In “‘Big Data Is Not a Strategy’: 5 Tips for Making Location Intelligence Work for Your Brand,” Wegert breaks down how to translate the concept of big data into a strategy with specific action items—a valuable subject for xAd’s target audience.

A few weeks later, xAd published Wegert’s second piece, “How to Gain Consumer Context by Using Location Intelligence in 2017,” followed by a story on augmented reality by Haniya Rae, another Contently freelancer who covered the event.

The goal of the coverage was to fuel conversations about location-based advertising and communicate its importance for brands. It appears the strategy is working.

Two hundred marketers attended the summit, but the results of the conference extended well beyond the attendee list. From September to October alone, xAd event coverage played a role in boosting blog traffic up to 4x and increasing social media engagement by 36 percent. Part of this success can be attributed to Wegert’s location intelligence article, which was the most-viewed story in October.

For the xAd marketing team, stories about the conference served not only as a tool to spark social engagement, but also as a source of evergreen content. “Contently writers helped us extend the life and messaging of the event with focused blog posts that can be shared months after,” Konstant said. “The outcome of this partnership is that we have content that long outlives any single-day initiative.”

The post Contently Case Story: How Event Coverage Helped xAd Boost Site Engagement appeared first on Contently.

Innovations like this are commonplace at Cornell Tech, the graduate school that formed in 2011 when Cornell University partnered with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The school is part of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s initiative to transform the city’s economy through applied sciences education. The graduate programs—which include MBA and computer science degrees—focus on education for digital pioneers, fusing technology with business and creative thinking.

As an organization, Cornell Tech is rethinking graduate tech education with programs that reflect the flexibility, technical depth, and cross-fertilization of ideas that the digital age demands. Over the course of the program, students work alongside industry partners and postdoc researchers to build startups and new products.

While students and faculty are busy tackling important societal problems, Cornell Tech’s marketing team faces its own challenge: how to translate these developments into stories that drive applications and position the campus as a leader in innovation.

Strategy makes a difference

To bolster its storytelling capabilities and scale its publishing efforts, Cornell Tech partnered with Contently to access content strategists, a network of creative professionals, and technology.

Creativity is at the heart of Cornell Tech’s educational goals, which is why its editorial calendar focuses on tech innovation. Cornell Tech has documented, among other successes, student working to make digital characters leap off the book page, and new research on how to detect emotions in digital content.

“We look at content creation through a journalistic and content marketing lens,” said Michele Hoos, assistant director of marketing and communications at Cornell Tech. “We want to unearth the story and package it into something that will be both entertaining and informative for our audiences.”

To start this process, Hoos conducted a content assessment with Contently, which analyzed audience profiles, valuable SEO keywords, traffic, and referral sources to build an audience persona. From there, the marketing team identified brand pillars that would guide the editorial calendar.

With a strategy in place, the content team looked to its students for inspiration. For example, this story about Uru, a startup that uses a computer-vision algorithm to assess where brands can place native ads, chronicles the launch of a company founded on campus.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/163895262

Through a series of ongoing focus groups about student life, research, and university initiatives, Hoos and her team have unearthed a wealth of stories. Recently, Cornell Tech has also explored the idea of deputizing one of its Contently contributors as a “beat reporter” for Roosevelt Island, who would delve into local stories in advance of the opening of the school’s new campus.

Scaling production

Cornell Tech mines Contently’s talent network to source writers with a range of experience on core topics like science, healthcare, and technology. Hoos and her team use Contently’s platform to plan, create, edit, approve, and publish stories. Additionally, a managing editor edits articles and works with the team to provide strategic recommendations, communicate with writers, and make sure everyone stays on schedule. The new workflow has lead to an uptick in output and quality.

“With a managing editor and the Contently platform, we are able to create and publish content we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise,” Hoos said. “Our volume of content has increased significantly thanks to the Contently platform.”

However, even with great stories and supportive technology, Cornell Tech still faces a crucial marketing dilemma: It needs to reach the right people. To increase clicks and engagement, Cornell Tech turned to Contently for its distribution services.

With the help of a distribution specialist, the school drove over 24,000 people to its optimized articles in just four months. And those who came tended to stick around. For every dollar spent on distribution, readers engaged with the articles for an average of nearly two and half minutes.

Governed by precision and innovation, Cornell Tech is, unsurprisingly, as methodical about content production as it is scientific experimentation. The outcome? A publishing program that is equal parts strategic and creative—ready to use research and insight to share its stories with the world.

The post Contently Case Story: How Cornell Tech Reveals Its Incredible Experiments to the World appeared first on Contently.

While the story sounds like a captivating Oprah episode, it is, in fact, an anecdote from an article on Lifetime Daily, an online publication geared toward empowering and informing adults over 55.

Launched in July 2016, Lifetime Daily’s goal is to provide older adults with credible information on medical, fitness, nutrition, financial, and lifestyle topics.

“People don’t just want to live longer—they want to have lives that are active and fulfilling,” said Victoria Bushnell, Lifetime Daily’s managing editor. “There’s a huge demographic shifting into this state of mind.”

To distinguish itself and address the needs of its target audience, Lifetime Daily focused on building a specialized team of writers. It tapped Contently’s talent network to source the majority of that team, using Contently’s technology platform to scale content production.

A pool of expertise on demand

Rather than hiring “any old blogger,” Bushnell organized the publication around a team of experts with experience in health and wellness for people over 55. By accessing the Contently talent pool, Bushnell was able to efficiently find the expertise required for the publication.

“For us, it’s about having expert writers—journalists and professionals who are renowned in their fields,” Bushnell said. “They also need to understand the mindset and behaviors of our audience.”

“These writers are top-notch professionals who know what they’re doing, are responsive, and come up with ideas that have a unique angle because of their experience”

In addition to Dr. Gunn, who has extensive experience counseling Baby Boomers and is the author of “The Psychological Benefits of Endurance Training,” Bushnell found writers like Monica Reinagel, a licensed nutritionist, and Jeanne Faulkner, a registered nurse, in the freelancer network.

“These writers are top-notch professionals who know what they’re doing, are responsive, and come up with ideas that have a unique angle because of their experience,” Bushnell said.

As it turns out, they’re also social media influencers, which came as a surprise to Bushnell: “When Monica Reinagel started pushing out her pieces, she’d send me messages saying, ‘Four hundred people just visited this piece I wrote because I posted it on Facebook!'”

Content technology

While talent was important for Lifetime Daily, it also needed a technology solution to manage its content operation.

“From a tech perspective, it’s not just about finding the right caliber of writers, it’s actually as or more important that we have a system for organizing and processing articles,” Bushnell explained.

The Contently platform allowed Bushnell to manage writer pitches, assign stories, follow story progress, and oversee the entirety of Lifetime Daily’s editorial production in one place.

“Editing is a time-consuming endeavor, and this simplifies the process,” Bushnell said. “The fact that I can assign a piece, give it a workflow, give it due dates, send them out the door, and be notified when a story comes in to edit—there’s just no way we could do that efficiently if we didn’t have a comprehensive editorial process with an assigned workflow.”

This combination of specialized talent and comprehensive technology has helped Lifetime Daily grow to meet the needs of a trillion-dollar senior market and compete with the industry’s biggest players.

“In today’s market, quality is key,” Bushnell added. “We need to efficiently create articles that are that are credible, intelligent, and informative, but do it in a cost-effective manner.”

The post Contently Case Story: How Lifetime Daily Used Tech to Scale Its Content appeared first on Contently.

One might not think the National Association of Realtors would be on the cutting edge of the content marketing revolution. Yet the 106-year-old trade association was among the first to adopt a direct-to-consumer content strategy when it launched HouseLogic, a digital content hub, five years ago.

By the summer of 2015, HouseLogic had over 1.5 million monthly unique visitors, but the trade association wanted to tap digital writers and content strategists to increase reader engagement.

“We were amassing an audience, but we really wanted to deepen engagement with that audience,” said Anne Feder, managing director for HouseLogic. “To do that, we needed to adopt a new methodology and the right tools to measure the performance of our content.”

To drive more meaningful engagement, HouseLogic invested in a robust content strategy, partnering with Contently to access its editorial services, engagement analytics, and a network of 60,000 freelancers. From September 1, 2015 to February 1, 2016, HouseLogic developed and tested a heavily data-driven strategy within the framework of Contently’s content methodology.

“Contently seemed like the best solution for making content more contemporary and deepening engagement,” Feder said. “We needed tools that we could learn to adopt to create permanent change.”

Contently connected the brand with content strategist Jessica Adamiak, who developed a custom strategy for HouseLogic, leveraging Contently Analytics to measure progress towards the company’s content goals. “Contently seemed like the best solution for making content more contemporary and deepening engagement,” Feder said. “We needed tools that we could learn to adopt to create permanent change.”

Conducting a content audit

The first step in developing a content plan was to assess what content NAR already had at its disposal, so Adamiak performed a content audit of HouseLogic’s archive.

“A disturbing number of companies publish new stories without bothering to analyze their old content for valuable clues about what their existing audience wants,” Adamiak said. With the content audit, HouseLogic was able to clearly identify the story types that had performed well in the past and assess where it outperformed competitors. In addition to helping them understand what to publish in the future, the brand audit guided HouseLogic on what not to publish—which can be just as valuable when trying to maximize content ROI.

To obtain these results, Adamiak reviewed HouseLogic’s 100 best-performing stories from July 2014 to July 2015. The 100 stories were chosen based on unique views, shares, comments, and “prints” (yes, the actual printing of material, which is popular among HouseLogic’s homeowner audience).

The stories were then organized by content type, topic, and preferred audience. From there, Adamiak deduced the most popular article themes. At the top were stories about affordable DIY projects, guides for remodeling and home management, and tips for avoiding common homeowner mistakes.

Adamiak also conducted a gap analysis to see which topics were trending among 21 competitors and which topics were up for the taking. The analysis revealed there was an opportunity for HouseLogic to own specific buying and selling topics.

Developing a content plan

Armed with the content audit, HouseLogic developed a custom editorial program designed to fit the interests of a new target segment of HouseLogic’s audience: the growing number of millennials buying their first home. The company worked with managing editor Natalie Burg and a team of freelancers from Contently’s network to cover home-improvement topics with relevant expertise.

“Our goal was to tap a network of new writers and content creators fluent in the digital sphere, who could complement and partner with our team of homeownership experts,” Christina Hoffmann, HouseLogic’s content manager, said.

In addition to focusing on themes not yet owned by competitors, the content plan specified which story formats would be most intriguing for millennials. Alongside web-sourced and reported articles, HouseLogic invested in multimedia content, like video and infographics.

“Contently provided us with the rationale for multimedia content that justified its increased financial and resource cost,” Feder said. “It gave us a way to test and evaluate its value versus our goals.”

Defining metrics

According to Adamiak, engagement is one of those terms that means both everything and nothing. “In order to truly assess the value of engagement,” Adamiak said, “brands must identify metrics that are meaningful to their overall goals.”

“Contently’s analytics suite is built for content marketers to be able to assess engagement metrics in a way that makes sense.”

Since HouseLogic’s chief goal was to deepen engagement, it used the following four metrics to assess what degree readers were interacting with the site’s content:

1. Social actions: shares, comments, and likes
2. Story volume: unique visitors to a story
3. Attention time: how much time people spent actively reading a story
4. Average finish: how much of the story the average person read

“Having these metrics was a huge win for us from a content production standpoint,” Jessica Graeser, marketing manager for HouseLogic, explained.

“Contently’s analytics suite is built for content marketers to be able to assess engagement metrics in a way that makes sense,” Graeser continued. “It not only helps us compare the before and after, but also helps us decide which new content is resonating and how to optimize it.”

The experiment

During the first six months of the partnership, HouseLogic created a plan to test the performance of the new content program. The HouseLogic team distributed 76 stories and conducted an A/B split test. The performance of 38 older articles (Group A) was compared to that of 38 newer articles written by Contently freelancers and developed under the new content plan (Group B). The articles were shared on the same channels—Facebook and email—after the headlines were optimized through Outbrain.

In addition to the A/B test, Adamiak and the HouseLogic team looked at how the 38 newer new articles compared to the 937 existing stories on HouseLogic’s platform with at least 500 unique views. In both the A/B test and general assessment of old versus new content, Adamiak measured the content’s success based on the four key engagement metrics mentioned above.

Result 1: New Contently content vs. old HouseLogic content

So how did the performance of the 38 older HouseLogic stories (Group A) compare with the new Contently stories (Group B)?

Quite favorably, as it turns out. After six months of testing, Adamiak analyzed how each group of content performed based on HouseLogic’s four predetermined engagement metrics. Here’s what they found.

1. Contently content was shared 66 percent more than old content.

2. Contently content generated 14 percent more readers.

3. Contently content captured 6 percent more attention time.

4. The finish rate for newer articles increased by 10 percentage points (71 percent vs. 61 percent).

While all of these metrics were encouraging to HouseLogic, the uptick in finish rate excited the HouseLogic team the most.

“The finish rate tells us a lot about what kind of stories HouseLogic’s readers can’t stop reading after they click,” Adamiak said. “This info is ultimately more important for future content than total unique views or even shares.”

Though finish rates can be artificially inflated by publishing shorter stories, that wasn’t the case for HouseLogic.

“We have noticed stories over 1,000 words have better finish rates on average than the shorter stories, which is interesting,” Adamiak said. “We don’t have enough data to determine if that’s a definitive trend, but it’s something that we’re watching closely.”

The articles “Meet the Humble Shoe Organizer, Clutter’s Kryptonite” and “8 Ways to Use Old Stuff to Create Smart Storage,” for example, had finish rates above 80 percent—despite both being longer than 1,000 words.

“Before this [strategy], we were able to generate a significant amount of clicks with a good headline,” Graeser said. “But now, we know that the actual content itself is engaging, and we have the tools to measure it.”

Result 2: New Contently content vs. all past HouseLogic content

As we noted above, HouseLogic’s next experiment was to examine how the 38 new Contently articles compared to the 937 existing stories on HouseLogic’s platform with at least 500 unique views. Here’s what HouseLogic found:

1. When expanding the sample pool, 30 percent of the new stories landed in the top 10 percent of all HouseLogic stories across all four metrics.

2. HouseLogic grew its target audience of 25- to 34-year-old millennials by 10 percent.

“The new content really speaks to the millennial audience more than some of our older content,” Hoffmann said. “It’s written to appeal to a younger tone of voice and a different approach to the topics.”

Where to go from here

HouseLogic continues to optimize its strategy by maintaining a running spreadsheet to chart the topics that are consistently driving engagement—and those that should be scaled back.

Committed to producing high-quality content, HouseLogic will remain steadfast in deepening relationships with its readers and using data to understand how those readers engage with its stories.

“Sure, thousands or even millions of people may click on a clever headline, but if no one’s bothering to read the actual story, you’ve got a problem,” Adamiak said. “This is why it’s so important to define and track engagement metrics.”

The post Contently Case Story: These 4 Engagement Metrics Proved HouseLogic’s Content ROI appeared first on Contently.

When President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on March 23, 2010, it became a turning point in American health care. The federal statute established a shared responsibility between the government, employers, and individuals to ensure that Americans would have access to affordable and high-quality health insurance.

Yet for the most part, the health care system in the U.S. is still broken. In 2013, doctors warned there was a lack of transparency and too many dollars were wasted on poor treatment. A year later, the Commonwealth Fund reported that American health care was among the most expensive and worst-performing in the world. Today, patients are still frustrated with wait times and access, and medical professionals struggle to keep pace with digital advancements.

In the face of these systemic obstacles athenahealth is more committed than ever to its ambitious goal: “make health care work as it should.” The fast-growing, publicly traded company provides electronic health records and other cloud-based services to medical groups so that care is better connected and doctors are able to focus more on their patients. Over a period of nearly two decades, they’ve built a vast information network serving 80,000 providers nationwide—all connected via a single platform.

Despite its success, a major challenge for athenahealth was to establish the network as a leader in health care and as a valuable source for health information—not just a piece of software. Because athena manages financial and clinical transactions for tens of thousands of providers, the company sits on a wealth of health-related data. With 90 million patient records, athenahealth is the largest single network of clinical health information in the country.

That’s where content came into play.

“We are always trying to explain the network,” said John Fox, executive director of content. “What better way to explain athenahealth than to make the power of the network visible—to manifest stories through data and what we spring from it?”

On June 1, Fox and the athenahealth content team launched an impressive new digital magazine, athenaInsight. With this new focus, the company wants to emerge as a leading resource for real-time health care data and the context for why it matters. Like Vox, athenaInsight’s role is not just to report, but explain why those reports are relevant.

Using Contently’s editorial platform and engagement analytics, athenahealth looks to become more strategic about how to connect the right stories and data with its target audience. “Contently is going to give us the ability to really drill into the numbers,” Fox explained. “While we know our audience quite well, we don’t yet know enough on which topics drive [the most] interest and engagement.”

With Contently, athenahealth’s creative teams now have the tools to optimize their content and prove the ROI of content marketing. “Our team has always been on the hook for creating content that goes out and gets pushed out by other teams who have the analytics,” Fox said. “We are excited to have our own analytics where we can be on the hook and hold ourselves accountable.”

The company hasn’t just scratched the surface of business storytelling—it has poached top journalists to develop a sophisticated newsroom. Here’s a look inside.

The newsroom headquarters

Athenahealth’s Boston campus is the east coast version of Google’s professional playground. Nineteenth-century industrial buildings surround an expansive lawn where, on a sunny day, a healthy portion of athenahealth’s 5,000 employees have lunchtime picnics between frisbee games.

But that isn’t the only place where athenahealth is taking notes from other industries. The editorial team uses the network’s clinical, financial, and behavioral data to tell stories that inspire dialogue and action.

A journalism mindset

James Furbush, managing editor of athenaInsight, believes the publication can capitalize on a unique opportunity in health care. “There is a lot of green space to have a well-designed publication, to produce great content, and to tap into this data set that we have to provide valuable assets to executives and the health care industry,” he explained.

Showcasing a smart use of data and visual content, athenaInsight is off to a promising start. The story “So far, the ACA expansion is working,” for example, leverages athenahealth’s data and a series of graphs throughout the storyline to give life to the article’s findings that the law has improved health care access for low-income beneficiaries.

Similarly, “The ninjas of patient pay” puts athenahealth’s network data at the forefront of the story. These stories are just two of many data-first stories featured in the digital magazine.

With data-driven sites like FiveThirtyEight and Vox as models, the company hopes to use athenaInsight to establish itself as a leader in health news and health care policy. The site also provides rich ammunition for athenahealth’s marketing and sales departments, which can point to athenaInsight stories as evidence of the network’s superior data collection and insights.

While athenaInsight is data-driven, the company’s content strategy also relies on something more fundamental: Build a strong editorial team. “We need great storytelling,” said Fox. “That’s pretty much all it is.”

In addition to Fox and Furbush, the athenaInsight staff is made up of three full-time writers, a team of Contently freelance journalists, as well as video producers and information designers. Liz Kellogg, design lead for athenaInsight, works alongside the editorial team to create shareable data visualizations based on network findings.

This is just one of many ways athenaInsight resembles digital journalism outlets like Quartz, Vox, or FiveThirtyEight that have invested heavily in data storytelling.

“I wanted to pluck someone from the journalist world and say, ‘Be a journalist on this network. This is your beat. Your beat is called The athenahealth Network,'” Fox said. “They know what makes a great story, a protagonist, and a hero because they were either trained in school or they learned it by doing.”

Joanna Weiss, the publication’s executive editor, is evidence of this commitment to hiring staff journalists. Weiss started out as a reporter for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans before a 16-year stint at The Boston Globe. Furbush, too, came from a journalism background, covering Silicon Valley.

“It all comes down to the basics of journalism, which is curiosity, the ability to tell a story, general fluency with the language, and being able to interview and write,” said Weiss. “With Contently writers, we look for the same thing. Some of the writers have a background in health care, and that’s been helpful because much of the writing is very technical.”

Whether the stories are technical or discuss high-level policy issues, the key is to find writers who know how to turn data into a story. “If we have this bit of interesting information, but we don’t have the answer for what it means, we need someone to go out and do the discovery—to source and explore to find out people’s reactions to this data,” Weiss said. “You really need a journalism mindset to do that.”

The daylight studio

When you enter the athenahealth video studio, the first thing you notice is a large green screen situated next to a set that resembles Good Morning America‘s. Tall windows cast natural light on the set’s guests.

“You know how they do the morning programs with the window [in the backdrop]?” Jacqueline Mow, director of video production at athenahealth, asked. “Our thought was to create a daylight studio like that.”

The video studio, managed by Mow and video producer Laura Longsworth, is part of a larger initiative to use creative content to inspire and inform different departments. At athenahealth, this “culture of content”—as we describe in the Contently content methodology—is driven by a content leader who evangelizes its company-wide adoption and encourages creativity and risk-taking.

At the athenahealth headquarters, this leader is Pierre Valette, athena’s vice president of content and communications, who has a background in television production (he won an Emmy for his work at WGBH) and heads both the editorial and video teams. “The transition from public television to corporate isn’t necessarily obvious,” explained Longsworth, who, along with Mow, came from public TV prior to her work at athenahealth. “The fact that we are all here is partly because of Pierre and partly because we have freedom in terms of how we do things creatively.”

Mow and Longsworth’s creative work is so popular inside the company that they had to implement a formal vetting process for video requests. “Once we got here, everyone and their mother wanted a video for something,” Mow laughed.

Athenahealth’s video team began making client testimonials, product, and sales-enablement videos, but has since widened its repertoire. Today, Mow, five in-house producers, and freelance editors create videos to support client learning and internal corporate communication.

And while the health care industry gets a bad rap for being stodgy and antiquated, athenahealth has integrated humor into its video strategy. Among its top projects is (real!) doctor ZDoggMD’s parody of Jay Z and Alicia Keys’s “Empire State of Mind,” which ran as part of athenahealth’s #LetDoctorsBeDoctors campaign.

But not all health content is a laughing matter. Athena’s client testimonials reveal the way the company’s EHR technology impacts people during times of hardship. One testimonial brought the team down to a free clinic in Texas, where athenahealth’s services helped keep the medical facility alive. The facility, which offered free medical treatment to low-income residents who fell in the crack between Medicaid and ACA insurance and were not covered under Texas state law, used data from athenahealth to prove its services were saving lives. The clinic maintained its funding as a result.

According to the video team, while the story ran separately from athenaInsight, it was well received because it highlighted health care as a political and personal issue. “Health care is one of the greatest challenges in this country,” Longsworth lamented. “There are a million things we can tackle because it touches everybody.”

A new standard for health care

In the next several months, athenahealth will test the effectiveness of its growing content program. For the editorial team in particular, there is pressure to prove ROI, which is why it will look to Contently Analytics‘ engagement metrics to guide its strategy. These analytics will not only serve as a business tool, but also a mechanism to empower the creative teams to ambitiously report on the health care industry.

Yet perhaps the reason the creative teams at athenahealth are so motivated to produce compelling health news is that their mission extends far beyond the company’s software.

“Working in public-policy journalism, you understand that if you can make health care work better, you free up resources to make everything else better,” Weiss said. “The ability to tell real-time health stories and also tell the stories about how to improve health care—that’s something I want to be a part of.”

The post Contently Case Story: Inside Athenahealth’s Quest to Launch the Vox of Health Care appeared first on Contently.

You probably don’t know Jim and Lyn. Or Alberto and Nory. Or Jörg and Brigit. But odds are, you can relate to their stories on some level. They might remind you of your family and friends. And most importantly, their personal narratives could help you be more proactive about your future.

At least, that’s the hope for BlackRock. In partnership with Contently, the investment management corporation recently published “How the World Retires,” an interactive report that profiles six couples around the globe.

The longform report features interactive maps, graphs, photography, a retirement calculator, and 3,000 words of text, but what makes the article stand out is how it balances quantitative and qualitative content. BlackRock took a topic that could’ve easily been dragged down by number crunching and instead provided a nuanced, intimate look at how people are retiring around the world.

What’s just as interesting as the piece, however, is how it came to be made.

Humans over spreadsheets

The finance industry is often maligned for its cutthroat insider culture that may intimidate potential customers. But BlackRock knew that in order to reach the right audience, the company needed to break down that perception and produce content that’s both readable and relatable.

After analyzing content from the BlackRock blog, Ann Hynek, BlackRock’s VP of content marketing and innovation, came to an important conclusion: Personal stories outperform numerical data.

“That’s why we leveraged Contently,” Hynek explained. “The content manager basically said, ‘Give me the list of the countries that you want to explore, and I’ll see if we have freelancers.’ And sure enough, she found freelancers in those six countries.”

“How the World Retires” required collaboration in Mexico, Germany, Chile, Australia, the UK, and America—a logistical labyrinth. Not only would the project need on-the-ground interviews with the couples, but it also called for data and research specific to the retirement policies of each country. Fortunately, Hynek was able to work with her account manager to streamline the planning and editing.

BlackRock also teamed with local photographers to capture the couples in each country. Once Hynek learned that tweets with visual elements boost Twitter performance, she knew strong photography was critical.

“Especially when you think about these couples that have been together for so many years and they’re about to embark upon their next journey—there’s a lot of emotion there,” Hynek said. “Being able to actually see who these people are when you read their stories makes for a much more impactful experience.”

The foundation

“How the World Retires” may have marked the first time BlackRock used Contently’s network of 60,000 freelancers, but the company has been using the Contently platform to manage its blog for over a year.

“Everything we were doing before was basically on a spreadsheet and I just thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore,'” Hynek said.

While Hynek handles most of the editing and writes some articles herself, BlackRock’s content has become more robust and sophisticated due to the support Hynek receives from internal teams. “It was people from retirement, investment strategy, and smart data who were saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got this great content. How can we work with a contributor for you to get this live on the blog and into our social channels?'”

Every Thursday, Hynek holds a meeting with these teams to discuss industry developments and trending news. They then look at the blog posts that have performed well, sift out the most successful tactics, and brainstorm new stories. Blackrock publishes at least one story a day, six days a week.

BlackRock’s output combines smart financial analysis like “How to Ballast a Portfolio With Bonds” with more approachable stories about culture like “The Truth About Productivity.” The result is a content hub that provides in-depth content for all consumers, whether they want to learn about investing, the global economy, or individual retirement solutions.

People leading people

In just a few months, “How the World Retires” has proven to be a huge step forward for BlackRock’s content efforts. Since the finance industry is full of valuable, engaging data, it only makes sense that top financial services companies would take advantage of the opportunity to present that information to audiences in creative ways.

“I think the average five-hundred-word post is essential. We know that it works,” Hynek said. “But I also think creating a place where there’s a variety of content—a richer user experience—is something that’s huge for us.”

Since going live, “How the World Retires” has generated six times the engagement of the average BlackRock post. And the company also built an exclusive slideshow distributed on Business Insider, which had four times as many pageviews as the average piece of syndicated content.

Looking ahead, Hynek plans to continue to create influential, compelling content that drives engagement. Drawing on the success of the retirement report, BlackRock is looking to pursue personalized stories from around the world and incorporate more interactive elements and data visualization.

“For the most part, it’s [about] brand awareness,” Hynek said. “We want to be a thought leader in the space.”

The post Contently Case Story: Inside BlackRock’s Ambitious, Global Storytelling Effort appeared first on Contently.

When Victoria Beckham announced plans to take her growing fashion empire to Hong Kong, well-heeled circles took note. However, this wasn’t the only story making headlines. Global enterprises and real estate tycoons were interested in what the move said about the health of Hong Kong’s retail sector.

One of the deepest investigations into the story didn’t come from a traditional publisher; rather, it came from a brand. For real estate advisory firm JLL, Beckham’s expansion was an opportunity to discuss Asian retail insights on its thought leadership platform, Real Views. It’s just one example of the brand’s conscious efforts to tell stories that relate to larger economic issues and industry developments.

“It is really about turning everything on its head,” said Madeleine Little, director of global marketing at JLL. “We’re looking at the impact real estate has on the wider world, rather than how the world impacts real estate.”

Real Views’ most popular piece to date is about Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, and his contribution to the small island’s booming real estate market. After Yew passed away last March, JLL told the story of how he created a near-perfect property market that transformed Singapore’s economy.

These types of stories weren’t always the norm for JLL, which partnered with Contently to expand its content program. “The content we put out for years would be considered traditional, such as press releases and research reports,” Little said. “While we still produce this content, we have expanded our storytelling efforts as a way to demonstrate JLL’s expertise and to reach more diverse audiences.”

Unifying a global team

Every month, PR teams from JLL’s three regions—Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and EMEA—hold monthly strategy calls to share regional developments and discuss new communications initiatives.

Several years ago, they realized the companies they admired were producing high-quality content that covered topics that went far beyond promotional material. “We were quite conscious that we weren’t really producing any content of that kind—that real sort of storytelling,” Little said.

JLL launched Real Views to move beyond publishing company-centric stories. With the new website, JLL wanted to focus on larger societal and economic issues, such as the interplay of real estate development and technology and the role of housing in sustainability.

Contently gave JLL a unified platform for global collaboration and content creation. “Contently added real value to the content creation process,” Little explained. “We work virtually with colleagues across the world, so being able to have all communications in one place was a big benefit.”

On Contently, JLL could coordinate stories between its key regions and work across different time zones. “When you have endless emails flying around, it all can get a bit overwhelming,” Little said. “When our teams started to use the Contently platform to help the workflow process, it really made a difference.”

The technological integration worked to help JLL develop its global content operation, with content focused on international trends and issues. Real Views publishes five pieces per week, with content created by JLL’s in-house writers and eight freelancers from Contently’s network of over 60,000 creatives.

“It’s hard to find good freelancers, so it’s great that we are able to add to our existing roster through Contently,” Little said. “They get to know us, our brand, and the Real Views style and tone, so it works well.”

Devising a storytelling strategy

JLL’s new approach places the real estate firm in the middle of larger, more meaningful conversations. Instead of promoting services or consultations, Real Views showcases JLL’s thought leadership.

“If you look on our website, we are doing a lot that probably surprises people,” Little said. “Yes, we buy and sell big office blocks, but there’s also so much more we do. For example, our work around sustainability and how workspace design can drive productivity for firms.”

In the article “The rise of the innovation oriented city,” Real Views explores how cities around the world are creating big urban development projects to establish communities built on innovation, collaboration, and communication.

In addition to showcasing employee insights on global trends, JLL also succeeds at turning dry subjects into engaging stories. While articles about warehouse work might not sound as relatable as something about office culture, JLL has figured out how to make the topic interesting to its intended audience. For example, “Are warehouses set for a wearable tech revolution?” tells the story of how warehouse workers are using augmented reality (AR) technology to become more efficient and avoid critical errors on the job.

“It’s a constant journey, digging further and deeper, and really understanding what’s driving audiences to certain stories over others,” Little said. “It’s really important to listen to our audience and respond to what they like and are choosing to read.”

JLL focuses on data that measures the depth of the relationship between the firm and its readers. It uses Contently Analytics to measure engaged time spent with a story and scroll depth, prioritizing the quality of engagement over page clicks and shares.

“We really like the analytics capability within the platform,” Little said. “Measuring the success of content is important to us as it confirms we are producing what our audience wants to consume and demonstrates the value of content to our stakeholders.”

To ensure content reaches a high-value audience, JLL publishes a weekly email newsletter and uses a mix of paid media to reach new audiences. The company also drives traffic to the stories with A/B-tested headlines through paid social campaigns.

“Every month we’re monitoring what’s working and what’s not working,” Little said. “Our strategy is constantly evolving.”

Yet for Little, the key to optimizing content comes back to the core element of JLL’s strategy: produce high-quality content. “Without great content to start with—and having a clear reason for doing it—you’ll have nothing to amplify, distribute, or measure,” Little said. “It’s a constant circle and flow between those key factors.”

Global momentum

JLL’s content plan has been successful because of its commitment to storytelling, its strategic approach to measurement, and its optimization process.

Within JLL, the Real Views content team is setting an example for the rest of the company about the long-term benefits of strategic storytelling. By creating a culture of content, Real Views team members have turned content into a tool that can empower multiple departments within the organization.

“We would love to be the team within JLL that is innovating and introducing best practices to other teams and colleagues,” Little said.

Going forward, the company will continue to enhance its strategy by listening to user feedback and experimenting with multimedia content. The key, Little emphasized, is to keep moving.

“Everything in digital moves so quickly and there’s always a new way of reaching audiences and measuring your engagement with them,” she said. “We very much feel we can’t stand still.”

The post Contently Case Story: How JLL Used Editorial Technology to Facilitate Global Content Production appeared first on Contently.

According to Visually, the first infographics date back to 30,000 BCE, when images were drawn on cave walls to communicate information about populations, animals, and resources. Thousands of years later, the Egyptians used hieroglyphics to tell stories about life, work, and religion. Fast forward to 1857, when the English nurse Florence Nightingale used diagrams to convince Queen Victoria to improve the conditions in military hospitals.

Today, digital infographics essentially serve the same purpose: to influence perception and behavior by helping an audience visualize complicated data. Yet with a deluge of visual content hitting the Internet every day, even the best infographics can get lost. In 2016, brands have to develop a process that ensures infographics get maximum visibility.

One company successfully embracing this tactic is ad-tech firm The Trade Desk, which has wisely invested in visual content to generate attention and drive brand awareness. Under the leadership of senior marketing manager Kat Vesce, the company has restructured its marketing and PR strategy around the use of infographics. To initiate this visual content strategy, Vesce’s first move was to find a top designer.

After exploring Contently’s network of 60,000 freelancers, it didn’t take long for The Trade Desk to find the right contributor. “We only work with one graphic designer who has done incredible work for us,” Vesce said.

That individual is Niege Borges, a Brazilian-born graphic designer and illustrator who operates out of Brooklyn. In the bio on her Contently portfolio, Borges even describes herself as an “enthusiast of infographics.”

“Since we found [Borges], we decided not to look for art elsewhere,” Vesce said. “She hits even the craziest of deadlines and has been a huge asset for us.”

Accessing reliable talent solved three problems for The Trade Desk: quality, budget, and cadence. With a professional designer, Vesce’s team didn’t have to worry about learning new software or hiring a full-time employee. And once The Trade Desk got into a flow, it was easy to consistently commission and publish new infographics.

“We realized that our proprietary data was an untapped marketing asset,” Vesce explained. “They were making maybe three or four infographics per year, so when I came on board, we made it a goal to do twelve.”

While companies often fret about including freelance talent into an established workflow, the process has been seamless for Vesce’s team. Vesce meets with the analytics department to hone in on interesting data and brainstorm storylines before assigning the project to Borges, who takes ownership from there.

Working with a freelancer has also made it easy for her team to focus on other marketing duties, such as lead generation and nurturing. “With the help of Contently, we’ve been able to get infographics off of our plates and onto someone else who can take over project management,” Vesce said. “That shift in execution frees us up to do so much more.”

The strategy has led to a great deal of media buzz. For example, during the 2015-16 NFL playoffs, an infographic about the buying habits of the fans from the remaining eight teams was picked up by a variety of outlets like Adweek, Forbes, and The Drum.

Eye-tracking studies from the Nielsen Norman Group show that images carrying information trigger online readers to pay close attention, suggesting audiences will retain more from infographics than typical articles. And according to the marketing automation company Wishpond, brands that publish infographics get 12 percent more traffic than businesses that do not.

As The Trade Desk continues its infographic push—be on the lookout for a motherlode of visual data for an upcoming Mother’s Day project—Vesce is always thinking of ways to impact the entire organization.

“Infographics tend to live on long beyond the initial launch,” she said. “When our CEO, Jeff Green, participated in an interview for an article on CNBC, he used some of the data from our political infographic research to exemplify his thoughts.”

Developing a regular publishing cadence through Contently’s technology and freelance network has allowed Vesce to serve as her own sort of ad-tech Florence Nightingale. Thanks to the earned media coverage, The Trade Desk has easily hit its brand exposure KPIs.

“Infographics allow us to tell a visual story with our data,” she said. “Our goal in using data to illustrate a tangible example is to empower advertisers to understand the level of precision and accuracy that is possible for their campaign.”

The post Contently Case Story: How The Trade Desk Used Infographics to Transform Its Marketing Program appeared first on Contently.

In the tech world, small teams run short on something all professionals wish they had more of: time.

At Better Weekdays, the career services startup that helps universities pair students with jobs, founder Chris Motley wanted to invest in content marketing. With a team of three, he just didn’t have the capacity to do it well. He needed a solution that would provide the technology, talent, and strategy to run a full-fledged content operation.

“We pulled the trigger on Contently when we had three people in our company because it was something I could literally run in ten minutes per week,” said the CEO. “I’m an okay writer, but I don’t have the time, and it’s not the same as people who do this for a living. The quality of the content and its structured approach is why I went with Contently.”

With Contently, Motley gained access to over 70,000 professional freelance journalists and multimedia creatives, each specialized in their respective field. The integration of this freelancer network left him time to focus on the other important responsibilities of a CEO.

And time, Motley said, echoing the old cliché, is money. “The thing ROI doesn’t account for is time—and that is the key point.”

Since May 2015, Better Weekdays has published over 100 long- and shortform stories on the Better Weekdays Blog, such as, “What Students Really Need from Career Centers” and “How to Help Unemployed Recent Grads and Alums.” Already, they’re making an impact. While online readers generally lose attention after just eight seconds, the average Better Weekdays reader stays engaged for over two and a half minutes—over 18 times the amount spent on general online content.

According to Motley, Better Weekdays’ stories are valuable because they cover a wide range of topics from the perspective of specialized freelancers—everything from an article aimed at helping students look for work in a marine lab, to one that explains what makes an engineering student competitive in Silicon Valley. “I don’t find ROI in writing content that adds to the millions of things already out there on job search,” he explained. “The only way to ‘skin the cat’ is to curate content specifically for an individual.”

Motley’s strategy is to use high-quality content to empower the entire organization, not just the marketing department. The power of storytelling, he explains, affects everything from a blog post to an investor pitch deck. “At the end of the day, it’s all connected.”

As Motley and his team expand their content program, he remains committed to investing in technology and talent services that promote efficient, high-quality storytelling.

“When you’re an entrepreneur in technology, and you’re building something out of basically nothing,” Motley said, “the only way you can get people to support you is by telling stories.”

And one of the biggest places he’s seeing support is from his investors.

“My investors know they will see the value of content strategy because when you’re trying to educate, inspire, and engage a segment of the market, the most efficient way to do it is through storytelling.”

The post Contently Case Story: How Better Weekdays Upped Its Efficiency and Redefined Content ROI appeared first on Contently.

Crickets may be pleasant on a warm summer night, but they’re a nightmare if you hear them after you tell someone a story.

Unfortunately, when financial services companies start creating content to boost their marketing, the dreaded sound of crickets are all too familiar. However, for Aberdeen Asset Management, an investment management firm based out of the U.K., trying to get a response from an audience on social media became a crucial turning point in its content marketing efforts.

“That was the trigger for us to become more organized,” said James Whiteman, Aberdeen’s head of investment communications. “You need a big, monstrous content strategy to [be heard].”

A method to the madness

Thinking Aloud, Aberdeen’s blog launched in partnership with Contently last year, offers commentary on financial events and investment strategies through a wide variety of articles and videos. There’s also a strong mixture of newsworthy analysis and evergreen advice. For example, this week, “Chinese Circuit Breakers” gave readers a timely look at the impact of falling stock prices in China, but the site’s most popular story, published in October, include short animated videos that explain “The Seven Deadly Sins of Multi-Asset Investing.”

The company ultimately decided to create their own media hub from scratch after trying (and failing) to be heard on social media. Aberdeen realized it was nearly impossible to compete without a cohesive content strategy.

Thinking Aloud has set up three categories to cover its most important pillars in more detail. The Bigger Picture focuses on world news from an investment perspective, Investment Clarity discusses macroeconomic trends, and Culture and Inspiration balances out the investment-heavy information by delving into broader anthropological issues that show off the softer side of the brand’s personality.

Aberdeen consistently differentiates itself from other financial content marketing by taking on unique angles that demonstrate its storytelling capabilities. Topics on the three sub-sections range from the “The Ten Golden Rules of Equity Investing” to a culture piece that uses study data to compare how the effect of classical music on the brain is similar to how the brain analyzes the stock market.

Aberdeen uses Contently’s content marketing platform to manage its process for creating stories and measuring results. “[Ordinarily,] managing the calendar is hard and quite complex,” Whiteman said, “so there’s no coincidence on why we adopted Contently on that front.”

By using the platform to create and optimize content on an ongoing basis, Whiteman can ensure that he’s never without a new story to publish. And most importantly, he’s able to make sure the content he already has is as effective as possible.

Getting stories seen

Even though Aberdeen has become an impressive publisher in the financial space, the company has still had to deal with its fair share of challenges.

“There’s a big learning curve on how best to produce the content,” Whiteman explained, echoing the thoughts of brands everywhere. “And not just how to produce good, interesting content, but how to promote it.”

Since this realization, Aberdeen has developed a way to consistently produce superior content—getting it to the right readers through a combination of creativity, content management, and strategic paid promotion.

From the U.K., a small editorial team works with in-house writers in the U.S. and Singapore. The writers collaborate on stories with Aberdeen’s investment experts to help promote the investment firms industry leadership.

“If it’s a bond fund manager talking about the next big thing, we try to work out whether they have a strong opinion or something interesting to say,” Whiteman said. “And then, we tie it into what’s important to our target audience as well as to others.”

When the site launched in February, Whiteman initially struggled to find enough internal story ideas that met the company’s standards. But as the site’s profile and popularity increased since then, so too has the number of pitches sent his way.

“More and more employees are submitting pieces and ideas, rather than us having to drag it out of the business,” he said.

Unlike some brands that compile their stories months out, Aberdeen’s development process fluctuates (much like the stock market itself). On average, it takes two to four weeks to complete a story—six months for “hero pieces” with video animations. But to stay as relevant as possible and publish at the speed of news, Aberdeen has also configured a way to post with efficiency—within a week, if needed.

For example, last Halloween, on the morning of October 26, Whiteman was approached with a concept that would feature “zombie companies”—an ongoing topic of conversation in the industry. The story was live by October 30, just in time for the holiday.

Content & PR: An unbreakable bond

Since story angles often come from topical news and events tied to specific regions of the world, public relations plays a big part in Aberdeen’s content strategy.

“We’re always thinking, is there a PR opportunity?” Whiteman said. “We have to be alive to the fact that others have bigger audiences, but over time there will be places where ours starts to supercede other publications.”

Whiteman works closely with the company’s PR team to regularly develop stories that run in the Financial Times and other industry outlets. And to expand the site’s impact and reach, the editorial team makes sure that their audience gets to read the best content through email newsletters and financial advisory networks popular in the asset management world.

“[Clients] are always looking for content that showcases our products and some intellectual capital around us,” Whiteman said. “PR and content marketing sit nicely side-by-side.”

This May, for instance, when Thinking Aloud published an inventive piece comparing the financial crisis in Greece to the music of British ’80s rock band Dire Straights. The story worked PR wonders, getting tweeted by Reuters Asia editor Peter Thal Larsen and became the centerpiece of a story on CNBC.

Additionally, the company’s animated guide to “The Seven Deadly Sins of Multi-Asset Investing” was picked up by numerous media outlets, including Business Insider, Think Advisor, and Wealth Manager.

Good company

For Aberdeen, Thinking Aloud isn’t just about chasing clicks, but remaining reliable and relevant—and in turn, developing a loyal audience. While content is the main focus of Aberdeen’s marketing strategy, the editorial team continues to grapple with how much to spend and where, when it comes to promotion.

Aberdeen is primarily investing in paid social, paid search, native advertising, and content recommendation to boost traffic. Although Whiteman declined to give specific data, he said that Aberdeen uses Contently Analytics to measure ROI, mostly focusing on audience engagement metrics.

“We have faith that by working backwards from the solid foundation of great content, we can become far more effective at distribution and measurement over time,” Whiteman said. “Through Analytics, there’s real value from Contently in terms of looking at engagement and measuring attention.”

As Thinking Aloud looks to build on its first year, delivering a steady stream of quality content remains the top priority. “Building an audience is a bit like being a good friend,” Whiteman said. “Not only do you have to be a good listener in order to be good company, you also have to have something interesting to say.”

The post Contently Case Story: How Aberdeen Makes Smart Financial Content Accessible appeared first on Contently.

Contently Case Stories is a series highlighting some of Contently’s most successful clients.

In early 2014, SodaStream made waves in the news when CBS banned one of its Super Bowl ads, allegedly because the spot criticized Coke and Pepsi, both of which were also sponsors of the big game. The decision had a huge impact on SodaStream’s future—not only did coverage of controversy lead to 6 billion PR impressions, but it also shifted the way the company thought about the role of content in its marketing efforts.

Earlier this year, the Israeli company, which sells DIY products that let customers turn tap water into flavored carbonated beverages, decided to launch a blog, The Stream, in partnership with Contently. SodaStream knew that a product-focused blog would have trouble attracting readers; covering the beverage industry, specifically carbonated water, has its limits. But it didn’t take long for SodaStream to find a solution. First, it crafted an audience-first content strategy, focusing on science, health, and DIY tips to save the environment. Then, it invested in Contently’s Smart Distribution services to spread those stories to its target audience through paid channels.

In the first three months, SodaStream was able to attract 97,000 readers, 94,000 of whom came via paid channels. Leaning so heavily on paid distribution does come with risk—marketers have to worry about the quality of the traffic and need to pay attention to how long readers are spending with the content. But in SodaStream’s case, that traffic was composed of high-quality and premium readers. Engagement rates exceeded 90 percent, and the average attention time jumped over two minutes.

Perhaps most importantly, the average finish per engaged story hit 87 percent, which Itai Bichler, Head of Global Digital Marketing at SodaStream, found particularly impressive. “Our finish rates are great, which speaks volumes about the quality of the content we’ve been able to create through Contently,” he said.

To Bichler, finish rates are the “holy grail” of metrics when it comes to CPG content marketing: “It’s really about how many people get all the way down to the end of the story.”

SodaStream’s chief goal with the publication was to drive brand awareness, and the health, environment, and DIY angles proved to be a hit. In addition to dozens of recipes, readers can check out “How to Quit Soda in 7 Steps,” “Don’t Trash It, Transform It: 8 Stylish Ways to Upcycle Common Items,” and “How to Create Your Own Natural Household Cleaners.”

The Stream’s stories were meant to bring consumers in at the top of the funnel, mostly by offering actionable tips. The brand built a team of writers from scratch, sourcing the appropriate talent through Contently’s global network, and used the talent and resources to produce a steady stream of blog posts and infographics in a short amount of time.

When it came to distribution, Outbrain was the channel of choice. Outbrain’s model effectively drives traffic by serving readers relevant links when they’re in content discovery mode on top sites that include the likes of Time, CNN, Mashable, and Slate. If those links lead to premium content, visitors turn into loyal readers, who then—if all goes to plan—turn into customers.

So far, SodaStream’s distribution campaigns have had a clickthrough rate (CTR) that consistently hovers around 0.4 percent, which is double the rate of any of their display campaigns.

“With Contently’s distribution offering and services, SodaStream is able to confidently amplify content to target audiences,” Bichler said. “We’ve seen high-quality audience segments engaged five to eight times longer on the U.S.’s top publications, and all with a reduced CPC.”

With engagement like that, SodaStream no longer has to worry about being beholden to major cable networks. The company now has a much more balanced publishing output and is in firm control of its own messaging and distribution.

“Contently has quickly become our end-to-end solution partner for content creation and distribution on a single platform,” Bichler added. “And that’s a game-changer for us as we expand aggressively across the North America market.”

Amanda Weatherhead is the Distribution Manager at Contently.

The post Contently Case Story: How Smart Distribution Got SodaStream 100K Readers in 3 Months appeared first on Contently.

As a data-driven marketing and loyalty analytics company, Aimia has always been focused on making customer insights clear and actionable for marketers and C-suite executives around the world. Based on that helpful approach, the company has been able to build the kind of trust that drives conversions.

With a long sales cycle, content serves to bridge the gap between generating brand awareness and making the sale. However, a couple of years ago, the company realized that only relying on traditional content marketing methods—like producing 20-page white papers—wasn’t going to cut it. With audiences starting to consume more mobile content, Aimia needed to diversify and expand its B2B marketing operation.

That challenge prompted the company, in partnership with Contently, to launch Aimia Institute, a groundbreaking subscription-based digital content platform that uses longform articles, infographics, video, and op-eds from leading experts to inform senior marketers worldwide on how to build stronger customer relationships.

“Contently fulfilled a very strong need. In fact, they upped the ante. We moved from a relatively tight individual network to forty thousand people worldwide,” explained Aaron Dauphinee, general manager of Aimia Institute. “Now we can not only rely on North American writers, but we can step up the game and get a writer in the United Kingdom… We could get a writer potentially in Singapore. Now, we can easily access local writers who help support our business units better because they understand the nuances of the regional markets. It was a breadth and reach that matched and mirrored our global operation.”

The Aimia Institute offers everything from full-blown consumer research reports to interactive facts, presenting a comprehensive view of the data-driven marketing and analytics space. Impressively, all of this was accomplished with a content team that had been scaled down from nine employees to just four.

Aimia’s in-house team now works with more than a dozen freelance writers, designers, and researchers at any given time to fill the site with high-quality content in a variety of formats. For instance, one monthly consumer research study can lead to more than 10 different pieces including longform articles about key findings—like “Putting the Long Term Back Into Loyalty“—with accompanying infographics, slideshow summaries, and video assets.

Aimia also uses Contently to organize and manage a robust editorial calendar. “To manage more than 1,400 pieces of content, which is approximately what we have published on our digital platform in just over two years, requires more than a spreadsheet,” Dauphinee said.

As for weekly content, Aimia Institute teams up with subject matter experts in business and academia to produce opinion pieces. And 10 times per week, readers can check out “Views on the News,” curated posts full of the top industry stories with Aimia’s own perspectives on their relevance to marketers.

Additionally, other business teams at Aimia are leveraging Contently’s research services to turn first-party consumer research and data into fascinating reports and insights.

With such a nuanced content program in place, Aimia Institute subscribers have increased 5x over the last year. Additionally, Aimia is now surpassing its peers on the Contently platform across most metrics including average engaged stories per person, average finish, and average attention time per person, which is at four minutes—16x the average attention for a web article.

“Without measurement, you really can’t be effective,” Dauphinee said. “Contently enabled us to do that in a way that I feel personally is more accurate than Google Analytics.”

He noted that the key difference is Google Analytics counts any site visit as a true pageview, which can skew results, whereas Contently Analytics only counts individuals who spend at least 15 seconds with the content as engaged readers.

“With Contently, we’re getting a really accurate understanding of when people come to the site and read our content, so we have more certainty on what’s working or not,” Dauphinee added. “And if it isn’t working, we’re able to tweak it. And if it is working, we’re able to create more and more.”

The major goal for Aimia Institute is to establish a two-way conversation between marketers and consumers—what Dauphinee calls a “utopia” for most content marketers. “It couldn’t just be a means for us to sell our products and services,” he said. “It had to allow for a forum where marketers could come to learn and be educated about topics that are meaningful and of interest to them.”

Moving forward, Dauphinee hopes to keep building on the company’s momentum by ramping up efforts in distribution, webinars, and video tied to live events.

“You need to have the fortitude to be able to evolve your strategy when it comes to content,” he said. “The audience is both king and queen here. You need to flip the lens and say, ‘What is going to meet their needs? What is going to provide a solution that makes their lives easier?’ And if you start with those pain points and structure your content from there, you’ll have a strong path.”

The post Contently Case Story: How Aimia’s Thought Leadership Is Building Strong Relationships appeared first on Contently.

When Josh Golden joined Xerox in March of this year as VP of global digital marketing and communications, the company was chomping at the bit for a fresh brand platform. Now, it has an entirely new brand strategy, a redesigned website, a new content marketing platform, and a “customer-centric” view of its customer base.

What a difference six months—and a commitment to content—can make. “It’s been a massive shift,” Golden said. “And an exciting ride.”

The shift was a necessary one. Xerox was founded in 1906 and is widely known only as a printer or document technology company. In fact, it delivers specialized services across a wide range of industries, from healthcare to transportation, government, customer care, HR, finance and beyond.

The problem? Not enough traffic to its website ever discovered the breadth of services Xerox offered.

Over the past few months, Xerox has re-engineered its site around content for prospects and customers–everything from expert interviews to e-books, case studies, and Slideshares–all designed to help prospects attack the issues that most matter to them.

“Content is all about educating prospects but also about helping them do their jobs better,” Golden said. “Inform people, and they’ll consider your solutions. But you need to earn that consideration – don’t just expect it as a brand-given right.”

It’s a massive undertaking for Xerox. “Contently offers us the kind of workflow infrastructure we need to run content programs at scale,” Golden said, emphasizing how Contently’s content management engine relays topics to content developers then tracks them through publishing.

The new Xerox.com, created by digital agency VML and UK-based B2B marketing agency Velocity Partners, puts content front and center. In a major ad push, the brand has introduced TV spots, print ads, and online ads developed by both VML and Y&R New York. These were launched around the U.S. Open tennis tournament (of which Xerox is an official partner), using the tagline “Work Can Work Better.”

Xerox’s strategy reflects the new role of the B2B decision maker. Historically, buyers looked to supplier sales reps to learn about new products. Today, digital channels have turned that dynamic on its head.

A recent study from Cascade Insights suggests that 82 percent of buyers view at least five pieces of digital content from the supplier they ultimately choose.

Additional research from CEB found that B2B buyers are typically 57 percent of the way through the purchase process by the time they contact a vendor.“That’s a tremendously strong motivator for us to engage with buyers earlier and help them answer their questions all along the purchase journey,” Golden said.

The brand’s ultimate goal is to give each of its target audiences the information they need to move forward. The content development strategy includes optimizing content for search; distributing content across social channels; and nurturing leads towards a sales conversation.

“A content ‘snack’ might point to an article that goes into greater detail, then lead to an in-depth e-book before we even mention a specific product,” Golden said.

By packaging content this way, Xerox increases the odds that potential customers will listen to what it has to say. “Our approach is to provide helpful, engaging and challenging content for business decision makers,” Golden explained. “It’s all about their information needs first – way before you’ve earned the right to recommend solutions.”

In addition to e-books and SlideShares, Xerox is leveraging infographics,which Golden considers to deliver the best chance of achieving cut-through and getting shared. Given that some Xerox services, like those relating to public transportation, aren’t openly visible to the average consumer, the brand has to take extra steps to make them known. Infographics tell a story that resonates with a broader audience, while also educating customers about key issues.

“This is a learning strategy,” Golden said, “We’re finding out more and more every day about what works.”

To date, Velocity Partners has created the digital content, meeting with Xerox teams to discuss business priorities and devise story ideas that mesh with the brand’s new marketing strategy. Once Golden’s team has vetted these content concepts, they move into the development phase through the Contently platform.

While Golden’s ultimate objective is to produce site content that’s “extraordinarily timely and relevant,” he acknowledges the value of telling engaging brand stories that last. “Evergreen content will be kept relevant,” he said. “We will constantly update it and keep it fresh.”

Moving forward, Xerox is also investing heavily in social media and working to target business influencers who can increase the content’s exposure. “It’s so very important to have a great brand story, and we’ve developed this with the ‘WorkingBetter’ hashtag and philosophy,” Golden said.

In other words, Xerox has taken its own advice: It’s found a way to make content work better.

Editor’s note: this story has been updated to reflect additional information from Xerox.

The post Contently Case Story: How Content Is Helping Xerox Rebrand appeared first on Contently.

This could be a teaser for a National Geographic piece or an excerpt from a lost John Irving novel. But it’s actually part of a riveting adventure story published in Experience More, a digital magazine from W. L. Gore & Associates, launched in May in partnership with Contently.

Each month, the brand that pioneered the category of performance outdoor apparel delivers eight original stories featuring everyday adventurers doing extraordinary things. For example, in this fall’s “Unknown” issue, readers have their pick of journeys on which to embark—from Jimmy Chin’s groundbreaking Mount Meru climb to one adventurers trek across the Wadi Qelt from Jerusalem to Jericho.

This isn’t Gore’s only effort in content marketing. As part of a broader global branding campaign, the brand had launched an educational, product-differentiating campaign page to help consumers peel back the layers of its advanced waterproof, breathable, and durable technology. But there was still something missing.

“We were doing a good job of talking about the technical differentiating benefits of Gore-Tex products,” said Josue Sierra, the North American digital marketing associate for Gore. “But we needed to better connect with consumers through our shared passion for the outdoors.”

With the strategic support of LaneTerralever, the lead agency working with Gore on this campaign, the team decided a high-quality monthly online publication would be the right approach. LaneTerralever was tasked with identifying the key resources needed—namely, a workflow organization tool and access to writers who could bring these adventure stories to life.

“The challenge was to find the right partner to collaborate in creating unique, original content that would inspire our audience to get outside and explore,” Sierra said. “Through LaneTerralever and Contently, we were able to set up a process that allowed us to make this happen each month.”

Using Contently’s platform, Libbie Miller, the content strategy director at LaneTerralever, was able to set up a comprehensive, efficient editorial workflow that flowed smoothly between all parties involved. The team also didn’t have to worry about capturing beautiful images for each story, since Contently was able to provide writers with backgrounds in photography.

“Thanks to the great support from our digital agency, and the processes and structure provided by Contently, it has actually been easier than most expected,” Sierra said. “By centralizing the internal process around one single Gore marketing team point of contact, we’re able to identify stories that require extra input, brand review, or fact-checking. This ensures we publish authentic, high-quality stories that consumers will enjoy reading, while increasing the reach of our brand campaign.”

All three companies were also able to work together to deliver content that seamlessly integrated Gore-Tex products when appropriate.

“Through the online magazine, we’ve been able to reach that balance where we’re highlighting our brand and technology while also engaging our consumers about the outdoor lifestyle,” Sierra said.

For example, Experience More is features a column called The Lab, which tells the story behind the Gore-Tex product technology.

To get the content in front of outdoor enthusiasts, Gore’s marketing team leverages LaneTerralever’s resources to execute a multi-tiered approach that includes email newsletters, paid social distribution, and Contently’s integration with Outbrain. To measure and report back on the success of their content, LaneTerralever relies on Contently Insights to track key engagement metrics.

“As a content strategist, I think there are a lot of vapid measurements out there that don’t actually mean anything at all,” Miller said. Through Contently, she’s able to check on metrics that tell her not just how many people are coming to the site, but also what people are doing with the content: Are they sticking around? Are they looking at more than one story? How far down the page are they reading?

“We can get a real sense of whether our content is hitting the mark or not based on those meaningful analytics,” Miller said. “We’re able to see that behavior unfold … and modify our strategy to make changes along the way to better serve our reader needs, and in turn, deliver on our brand goals.”

After just three issues were published, Sierra and the brand marketing team saw a 72 percent increase in visits to their content since launching Experience More in May, and a 23 percent week over week growth in organic search traffic. Sierra also found that visitors to the online magazine are spending 40 percent more time on site than they are on other campaign microsites that are part of the same effort.

Additionally, Experience More is generating impressive amounts of engagement, including organic lift and social shares. A story about a woman and her dog adventuring on their own through the Colorado wilderness was the highest-performing piece in terms of social activity.

“It’s nice validation to know that we’re not just putting out content, we’re putting out meaningful content,” Sierra said. “We’re making content that matters to consumers, and that we hope will encourage and inspire more outdoor recreational activities.”

With their fifth issue out now, and sixth and seventh issues in pre-production, Miller feels they’ve really hit their stride.

“Now that we’ve got our feet under us, it’s a matter of just improving the overall reader experience and starting to really grow this publication,” she said. This includes syndicating content with international partners, optimizing the packaging and presentation, and even tapping into video content creation. But no matter where Experience More may take Gore and its readers, these efforts always point back to the same goal.

“As an ingredient brand, we want consumers to recognize our products as enablers of great outdoor experiences,” Sierra said.

The post Contently Case Story: Inside the Launch of The Gore-Tex Brand’s Gorgeous Adventure Mag appeared first on Contently.

If you go to the Chase.com homepage, you’ll find something that’s unique in the finance industry: a company website that puts investigative, multimedia stories prominently next to customers’ banking and servicing. Under the banner of “News & Stories,” you’ll find everything from an in-depth profile of LeBron James’s mentorship programs, to a series from business owners called “What I Wish I Knew,” to a masterful five-part series on the revitalization of Brownsville, New York. It’s not necessarily what you’d expect from a bank that serves 50 percent of U.S. households, but it’s also telling. America’s largest financial institution has now become one of its most ambitious brand newsrooms.

Chase’s foray into content reflects the evolution of its brand. “We aim to deepen our relationships with customers into lifelong relationships. We want our customers to know that we are here to create content that can help manage their lives,” said Susan Canavari, Chief Brand Officer at JPMorgan Chase.

A content strategy two years in the making

Chase’s evolution into a storytelling-driven brand did not happen overnight. It takes a lot of work to build a successful newsroom inside a company as large and storied as Chase. From the start, Chase was driven by a belief that “content humanizes financial brands and builds relatability,” said Stacey Warwick, Head of Brand Innovation at JPMorgan Chase. “It’s important to provide [consumers] with content when they need it—[content] that impacts them at every point in their lives.”

Beginning in 2013, Warwick and Brian Becker, Head of Content for the Chase newsroom, strategically rallied internal support for the company’s newsroom. The duo took a three-pronged approach. First, they established a system of governance and standards; then they developed relationships with creators; finally they created an editorial board chaired by the CMO and attended by a broad set of senior-level employees.

“We had to set up our infrastructure and then show the organization how it could work,” Becker said. “We needed to prove that content can improve marketing’s effectiveness. We also built standards, governance, and communication that reinforced that we would be responsible and thorough.”

This structure allowed Chase’s content operation to grow quickly. So did the success of the content. “News & Stories” launched as a platform to provide customers with high-quality financial tools and advice, often from internal thought leaders. The impact was immediately clear: Users who consumed content spent three times as long on the site and were applying for Chase products at a higher rate. Content was helping Chase build stronger relationships with its customers and connect with new audiences.

That helped the Chase newsroom make a case for getting even more ambitious with its content, partnering with Contently and other creators to produce inspiring pieces of multimedia storytelling that tie back to the products and services Chase offers its customers. “Partners such as Contently helped as we built more structure in our organization around the newsroom and provided access to talent across different locations and topic areas,” Becker said.

Particularly impressive was “Brownsville,” a five-part series highlighting the leaders working to revitalize the Brooklyn neighborhood. Through investigative reporting and accompanying video interviews, Chase revealed how Brownsville residents are coming together to build a stronger community. The stories highlight important programs like Quardean Lewis-Allen’s Made in Brownsville, an organization that employs at-risk youth in the fields of technology, design, and advertising.

The fascinating story is a sign of what’s to come for the Chase newsroom.

“That really reflects where we’re trying to go, which is a lot more content that’s episodic, tied together visually, and increasingly aligns to our products and services. Additionally, this reinforces the commitment we have to the local communities we operate in,” Becker said of “Brownsville.”

It’s also a reflection of Chase’s unique approach to content. In addition to providing customers with crucial financial advice and small-business tips and stories, Chase also aspires to broaden its reach by telling stories that get to the heart of what’s important to the communities it supports. Ultimately, Chase’s ability to reach a large number of people with its content might be the most impressive thing of all.

A sophisticated distribution strategy

The addition of “News & Stories” to the Chase homepage in late July was a big deal, introducing the 35+ million people who visit Chase.com each month to the company’s impressive storytelling. But when it comes to content distribution, the newsroom didn’t stop there. First, it was able to pull off an impressive feat by meeting the notoriously tough standards to be accepted into Google News. The company has already seen a tremendous growth in organic traffic as a result.

The company recently partnered with theSkimm, a daily email newsletter for millennials, which regularly sends articles from “News & Stories” to its subscribers.

“It’s been a tremendous win,” Warwick said of the partnership. “Readers who viewed us on their emails felt more favorable towards our brand, and theSkimm’s target audience is getting financial information they need.”

Chase also leverages it sponsorships through partners like Madison Square Garden and the US Open to create timely and engaging stories tied to major sporting events. For instance, when the New York Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning faced off in the NHL Eastern Conference Finals this year, Chase interviewed spectators and former players to tell the story behind the game. And when Serena Williams made her run to win the 2014 US Open, Chase provided a behind-the-scenes story that reinforced its commitment as a sponsor.

Naturally, all this relevant content has proven to be powerful ammunition for Chase’s social channels. “Good, relevant content is inherently shareable, so we are very focused on using our content as a source for social channels and search,” Becker said.

Measuring success and moving forward

Chase is deeply committed and disciplined when it comes to measuring the success of its content, measuring views, shares, time spent on site, and lead generation for each piece, among other metrics.

“Most of the feedback we’ve received from customers is positive,” Canavari said. “I think a lot of them are surprised. We feel much more authentic, and we’re trying to be much more helpful in the environment we operate in. It’s always something we intend to do, but I think we’re really showing it better through the content we’re creating.”

Chase plans to keep growing its newsroom in order to build stronger relationships with its customers.

“We need to continue to find surprising and unexpected points of contact in our customers’ lives where we can communicate and relate to them,” Canavari said.

Appropriately, this plan fits Becker’s advice for big brands looking to jump into content: Step up to the plate and be brave. “Be an evangelist at your company and strive to make things better,” he said. “Establish risk and controls early on, and train the organization from being challengers to supporters until this becomes business as usual.”

The post Contently Case Story: How Storytelling Is Helping Chase Build Its Brand appeared first on Contently.

It’s tough to get millennials to think about their finances. Understandably, they can’t be persuaded to trudge through complex jargon, let alone plan for something that might not affect them until retirement. So how do you arm 3,000 financial representatives across the nation with the tools they need to reach this increasingly valuable audience?

You create high-quality, visually stimulating content that speaks millennials’ language and can be shared easily across social networks—just as Guardian Life Insurance has done in partnership with Contently.

“Saving for thirty years down the line is all fine and dandy, but we focus on how to protect you now,” said Tara Meehan, head of social content at Guardian Life Insurance. “That’s why content is so important for us—to be able to tell that story in a way that’s easy to understand.”

Today, Guardian’s social accounts are chock-full of engaging infographics and blog posts, but they started the year in a much different place—devoid of a solid strategy, and working with a third-party vendor to post clickbait articles that didn’t fully represent their company’s values.

“That’s where Contently came in,” Meehan said. “[It’s crucial] to be able to have a vendor that really puts the story first to help push our philosophy forward.”

Now, through Contently, Guardian is armed with a team of five writers and two go-to designers to produce content to help millennials make better financial decisions. But Meehan doesn’t just create what she thinks millennials need to hear. Instead, she pays close attention to what most interests them.

“It’s not a case where I have a calendar and say, ‘Okay, on this date at this time, I’m going to make sure I have this and this,'” Meehan said. “That, to me, rings somewhat inauthentic. It’s kind of like checking a box.”

With football season in full swing, the company is giving its audiences an opportunity to plan their fantasy teams and finances at the same time. The company’s new infographic, “How Solid Is Your Offensive Line?,” highlights the four levels of protection their customers need to stay in the pocket and be a successful financial quarterback.

Meehan knows the content is doing its job because it’s generating conversations on social media and helping financial representatives set up new appointments. Engagement is the big goal.

“For us, the ROI of content isn’t sales,” Meehan said. “The metrics that I really look at are likes, shares, and—the biggest one—comments. That’s the conversation. That’s the opportunity.”

That’s not to say that this engagement doesn’t play an important role in the sales funnel. Once someone comments on a social post, Meehan encourages the financial representative to reach out and respond. That strategy is working.

When Josh Parsons—a Financial Representative with Opes One Advisors, a Guardian Life agency based in Dallas—shared an infographic about wedding planning, one woman commented comparing the cost of weddings today to when she got married 20 years ago.

“How would you react to that in the real world, if you’re at a cocktail party and someone says that to you?” Meehan asked. “Do you just stare blankly at them, or do you say, ‘Hey, unfortunately I couldn’t help in that instance, but perhaps I can help in this one.'”

Parsons followed up with an email, which led the woman to introduce him to her son, a medical student, for financial advice.

“He’s doing that with all content [we produce] now,” Meehan said.

As a result, Parsons and his fellow representatives are engaging in conversations that are beneficial to both parties: The commenters learn more about how Guardian can help them with their finances, and the representatives gain a better understanding of their customers’ needs. Most importantly, appointments are coming through.

To deliver the content, Guardian works with Socialware Voices, a social business solution specifically for the financial services industry, which streamlines legal approvals.

Overall, the company’s new approach is working. Contently-produced content is shared by Guardian’s financial representatives on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter more than any other type of content. It’s also generated the greatest reach and highest average number of re-shares among the company’s content mix.

“Thankfully, the content has been so good from Contently, and it’s been so well received that message has gotten through and people are excited to share content,” Meehan said. “And they’re really seeing the results.”

The post Contently Case Story: How Guardian Life Uses Content to Reach Millennials appeared first on Contently.

Contently case stories is a series highlighting some of Contently’s most successful clients, and telling the stories of how we worked together to produce great content and great business results.

“Energy is a good story.”

That’s the tagline of Eniday, a new online magazine produced by Eni, an oil and gas company headquartered in Italy.

Launched this month in partnership with Contently, Eniday aims to peel back the curtain on advancements in technology, exploration, sustainability, and energy efficiency.

“Like most energy companies… we are thinking about the future,” said Marco Bardazzi, the company’s executive VP for communications. “We are developing new ideas about what we will do in 50 years and how energy will be handled in the long term.”

Eni wants to be known for protecting and preserving the environment through the development of advanced technology and programs that minimize greenhouse gas emissions. In order to communicate these ideas to new audiences, Bardazzi pulled from his background as a journalist and worked with his team to devise a content-based solution.

“We think that the storytelling approach works very well for an energy company like Eni because we have 84,000 people in 83 countries across the world, and they are doing amazing things,” he explained.

But launching an operation with such widespread coverage presented a few major challenges for Eni’s communications team:

1. How would they scale a project that taps into these various international markets?

2. How could they appeal to all their consumers by publishing in both Italian and English?

When brainstorming how to answer these questions, a lightbulb went off. Eni decided to combine its strong in-house resources with help from the outside to maximize the impact of its publishing efforts.

“We didn’t want to actually create a newsroom inside the company, because it wasn’t feasible, and it wasn’t the right approach,” Bardazzi said. “We wanted to have people around the world working with us and to have a pool of talent that was much bigger than what we could build in-house.”

That’s when the company found Contently.

“We had looked at a few different options and decided that Contently was the right partner for us,” Bardazzi added, “particularly because of the storytelling approach and connection to the network of journalist talent.”

Through Contently, Eni was able to supplement its team of Italian writers with a new international team that could bring a wide range of stories to life.

Just one month after starting its editorial operation, Eniday launched, focusing on five verticals —Sparks, Human, Technology, Education, and Talks—with compelling content that looks at the future of energy development.

For example, “The World’s Biggest Wind Turbine” dives into the creation of the mammoth Vestas V164-8.0 MW, which stands at 721 feet and weighs more than 6,500 tons. The piece documents the impact of such technology—built by MHI Vestas Offshore Wind—which can create enough energy to power 7,500 homes.

Another popular story, “Drilling on Mars,” explores how Eni is aiding the ExoMars space mission to develop a drilling system that can explore Martian soil.

According to Bardazzi, one of the most buzzed about pieces among Italian readers is “A Martian Chronicle,” in which managing editor Marco Alfieri tells the story of all he has discovered while working at Eni. Delivering an in-depth and sometimes humorous perspective on how the company operates, Alfieri ends his piece with a list of “other things” that have struck him during his first few days at Eni. These include “The kebabs and vegetarian dishes in the cafeteria,” “The endless meetings,” “The compulsive use of Outlook Calendar,” and “the phrase: ‘let me ask and I’ll get back to you…'” Like most stories on Eniday, Alfieri’s article runs in both Italian and English.

Along with harnessing internal talent like Alfieri and using experienced contributors from Contently’s pool of journalists, Eni is also sourcing writers and content from its other impressive initiatives, such as About Oil, its digital think tank and print magazine; the Eni Foundation, the company’s charitable outreach organization; and Eni University, a corporate masters program.

With all of these contributors on board, Eniday hopes to publish at least one piece of content per day by the fall—be it a story, video, or infographic. In fact, the company hustled to launch the publication this summer in only one month so it could perfect its workflow and cadence in time for its official launch event in October.

“[Eniday] is really something new for the Italian market, so we would like to stop for a second and really think about where communications is going in this moment,” Bardazzi said of the event, which will include a workshop on digital communication. “We are a company that is 60 years old, but we would like to have a startup approach to content.”

To distribute Eniday’s content, Eni is working closely with representatives from Twitter, Facebook, and Google to optimize social outreach and SEO for promoting their stories to English-speaking audiences.

“The idea is to create our own community and build on it,” Bardazzi said. “That will be very useful in terms of making the company better known, developing ideas about energy and technology, and also providing crisis management tools.”

As Eni builds its audience, it plans to tap into Contently’s Insights program in order to analyze how readers are responding to every piece of content so the editorial team can adapt the strategy accordingly.

“It’s very exciting to tell stories about this kind of exploration in energy. I don’t think there are many other companies like ours that are doing this type of content outreach,” Bardazzi said. “There is still a huge possibility for technology companies to take the storytelling approach and talk about the excellent advancements in their industries.”

The post Contently Case Story: How Eni Launched a Stunning, Futuristic Mag in Just 1 Month appeared first on Contently.

Lots of banks talk about helping customers with content, but few put their money where their mouth is. An occasional blog post here, an instructional video there—for most banks, that’s enough to check the customer service box.

But what if a bank did more? Enter Great Ideas for Small Business and MoneyFit, two publications launched this April by BBVA Compass with the help of Contently.

The publications are meant to provide guidance for two underserved audiences: small-business owners, for Great Ideas, and average folks looking for proven financial advice, for MoneyFit.

“We have a bank that’s made up of financial professionals who have a lot of knowledge and know how to make good financial choices,” said Amy Johnson, director of SEO and content marketing strategy at BBVA Compass, “and we wanted to make sure that we have a platform where they can connect with our audience. We want to make sure our expertise is accessible to the folks that need it. That’s our primary objective.”

By taking advantage of Contently’s network of freelance journalists, BBVA Compass has been able to scale this expertise to its liking—in these early stages, the company plans to publish 16 engaging, high-quality stories on each site every month. Add the fact that video content is on the way, and you’ve got the making of two impressive publications.

BBVA Compass realized early on that producing a huge amount of content wouldn’t be enough—striking the right tone was also crucial.

“I think the challenge is sounding like a human because we don’t always interact with our banks as people,” Johnson said. “These sorts of topics are human, and they’re real, and they should come across as human and real.”

To help find this tone, Contently provided BBVA Compass with experienced writers who have been producing friendly, informative financial articles their whole careers. Take Emma Johnson, who, besides starting her extremely successful blog WealthySingleMommy.com in 2012, has written for The New York Times and appeared on every talk show imaginable.

Visit either of BBVA Compass’ publications and you’ll find bright colors, smiling faces, and supportive article headlines. According to Johnson, the aesthetic is meant to reflect that the company legitimately cares for your financial well-being.

“We budget and look through our pantry and find ways to save money and teach our kids about finances the same way anyone else does,” Johnson said. “And we as a bank have a real interest and a real passion for making sure our consumers are well-equipped to make good decisions where they can do whatever their passion is.”

Johnson gives the example of her neighbor, who’s an artist looking for financial advice—she’d much rather have her neighbor focusing on art rather than worrying about her financial future. And that’s where MoneyFit comes in.

MoneyFit focuses on life stages—graduation, a birth of a child, buying a home—and advice for those in times of great financial stress. It also features more general financial overviews of big topics such as auto loans and credit cards, which can often be predatory ventures for consumers if they’re not informed.

Great Ideas for Small Business features similar formats, except the focus—if you couldn’t tell by the name—is on small-business owners. Articles range from educational lists, stories of tweets gone wrong, and more specific guides such as how to apply for an SBA loan.

Great Ideas has also begun to host events for small-business owners, meant to “bring together business leaders in the community and small-business leaders, and discuss topics that are really important in the community,” according to Johnson.

It’s easy to cynically write off the publication’s goals as simple brand building—which the team would readily admit is an undeniable part of the initiative—but there’s a lot to be said for bankrolling finance publications meant to help everyday folks instead of big-time investors.

Overall, the blogs have electrified the team behind them, who feel like they’re serving those who need the help the most.

“I think in the financial industry, that’s something really remarkable,” Johnson explained. “And it’s something I can tell you I have not necessarily encountered in other financial institutions. [We’re] honestly just encouraging consumers to make decisions that are best for them whether or not it’s best for our bottom line, and I think that’s amazing.”

The post Contently Case Story: Inside BBVA Compass’ Ambitious Mag Aimed at Main Street appeared first on Contently.

Marriott International wants to own the travel space. It has designs on becoming the world’s biggest travel publisher—to take publications like Travel + Leisure head on by putting content in front of consumers before they’re even thinking about booking a trip. Ambitious? Yes. But armed with new online travel magazine Marriott Traveler, the company just might do it.

The site comes weeks after the launch of “Two Bellmen,” an original short film that has already generated 3.6 million views. Both projects are the fruits of Marriott’s 65-person global content studio, and both are part of the company’s mission to rethink marketing. “How does a brand that’s been around since 1927 continue to evolve and adapt and stay relevant?” asks David Beebe, Marriott’s vice president of global creative and content marketing. “You need to innovate.”

(Marriott Traveler was created in partnership with Contently.)

For Marriott, that meant accepting that brands no longer control how consumers interact with them. Content produced by the company is always travel-related and contextually relevant, but it isn’t necessarily about Marriott. “The days of interruptive marketing are over,” says Beebe, who left the Disney-ABC television group last summer to help launch Marriott’s content studio. “If we provide value to consumers, they’ll provide it back to us.” Marriott Traveler’s value comes in the form of original content targeting both leisure and business travelers. So far, the magazine has taken readers behind the scenes in New Orleans, but it’s a rolling model. Additional sections covering Orlando and Chicago are slated to launch in the coming weeks with some 300 pieces of content in all. The cities weren’t chosen at random. Marriott used both internal data from Marriott.com and third-party data to determine the most popular destination cities, as well as which cities lacked good content.

Eventually, the publication will go global. Marriott is hardly the first brand to launch a magazine, but what differentiates it from most of its peers is that marketing isn’t operating in a silo. The company is wholly devoted to the six-month old Marriott Content Studio, and as a result it’s been able to ramp up projects very quickly. “I think the foundation of what we’re doing in the content space is built on 100 percent buy-in from our executive leadership,” Beebe says, adding that the effort is a global one, involving all 18 Marriott hotel brands. “That’s why a lot of brands fail. For us, this isn’t a strategy someone down the hall is trying out. Everyone is committed.”

Marriott also isn’t integrating its brand into a third-party platform, something Beebe considers to be an outdated marketing model. “We have the opportunity to become a publisher of content but also own the audience, and that’s what you see with Marriott Traveler,” he says. Marriott Traveler was built on Marriott.com, which boasts 36 million monthly visitors and 48 million Marriott Rewards members, to leverage its built-in audience. Says Beebe, “If you add up all our own platform eyeballs, it’s much larger than any publisher out there. We’ve got a media network just sitting here. We’ve activated it now.”

Marriott Traveler joins an impressive stable of content that fits into three categories: utility, destination, and entertainment. The former is fulfilled in part by exclusive development deals with social influencers who create travel videos, the latter by “Two Bellmen” and a TV series called “The Navigator Live” that’s distributed through AXS TV.

In addition to Marriott Traveler, destination content comes in the form of brand-specific in-room magazines like JWM and The Ritz-Carlton Magazine, and original travel articles on Gone, part of Medium.com. “Yes, the travel space is crowded with content, but it’s not like we’re trying to launch a new travel brand from scratch,” Beebe says.

Internally, a group of about ten people plucked from multiple teams within Marriott are guiding the Marriott Traveler project. Their leader is editorial director Marc Graser. Graser is a former senior editor with Variety who Marriott recently hired to oversee creative content across platforms. None of that content is developed in-house. Rather, Marriott sets the direction and uses Contently and other partners to create the content itself.

To get the tone right and ensure authentic, accurate reporting, Marriott and Contently sought out writers who had experience with New Orleans or who lived there themselves. Marriott brought on travel vlogger Sonia Gil to create videos for site, and even secured consultations from Marriott associates who were locals. “Our content providers are writing with a voice, so you connect with the content,” Beebe says. “There’s a name, a byline, and that makes it more legit.”

Marriott is promoting Marriott Traveler through paid media on search and mobile. Soon, the company will add utility and entertainment content to the site to create a hub that will feed content into Marriott’s booking engine and reward member emails. Its primary goal is to get consumers to book a room, but Beebe says that isn’t the only metric by which it measures content success. “You have to make an emotional connection. That’s the new business transaction.” Marriott is also looking at time spent with the content, views, and brand perception, as well as tracking bookings that result directly from a visit to the Marriott Traveler site.

What Marriott is attempting to do goes beyond content marketing to become an entirely new marketing model. The majority of its content is designed to be not just a cost center, but a revenue center. Because it doesn’t feature a strong brand tie-in, it’s valuable to other distributors, and advertisers, too. The Navigator Live is already being licensed internationally, and Marriott will monetize Marriott Traveler by selling sponsored content and native ads to third-party advertisers. “That money goes toward producing more content,” Beebe says. “If you scale it right, marketing starts funding itself.”

While its unorthodox strategy is “still an education,” Marriott believes it’s past the point where it needs to convince people that what it’s doing makes sense. The company will continue to buy media to get in front of consumers, even with traditional travel publications that are now competitors. Its objective, though, is to go beyond renting an audience to build and maintain its own. “Magazine publishers ask, what’s the difference between us and you,” Beebe says. “We take it one step further. We are a publisher. We say we’re going to own the travel lifestyle space like Red Bull owns action sports. We just happen to sell hotel rooms.”

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