It turns out that advice is dead wrong.

As multiple researchers have found over decades of studies, stopping your marketing efforts during tough times is a mistake. Data shows that proactive marketing “pays off” during recessions—for brands across industries, including the likes of Toyota, Amazon, Coca-Cola, etc. As two marketing professors put it in a 2020 Harvard Business Review article: “Firms that maintain their marketing spend while reallocating it to suit the context … fare better than firms that cut their marketing investment.”

When everyone is on high alert, pulling back might seem like the safe bet in the short term. But keep in mind that this moment full of challenges also presents opportunities. Companies need to keep growing to succeed, and content is one of the most effective ways to do that.

That doesn’t mean you should ignore reality and pretend everything is great. The trick, as many researchers found, is to adjust and reallocate your budget rather than gutting your chance at growth. Here’s how investing in content can help you overcome today’s biggest challenges and position your company to succeed long term.

How content marketing leads to meaningful ROI

Paid ads and content marketing have inverse reputations. Ads tend to be annoying disruptions that don’t work well but are very easy to track for ROI. Content, meanwhile, offers buyers a lot of value but takes deeper effort to tie to business results. This strange dynamic is one reason why professionals fall back on paid budgets despite the crappy user experience.

In the last few years, though, content ROI has gotten much easier to track and optimize. If you examine the two tactics side by side, it’s clear content is a better investment, especially if budgets are tight.

Let’s say you have $500. If you spend that on an ad campaign at a $10 cost per click, you get 50 clicks. When the budget runs out, you’ll have to spend more to keep seeing results. But remember, you can’t necessarily tie that click-through rate to sales. You’ve got to hook them and drive them to action.

With owned content marketing, you take that same $500 and work with a skilled creator who produces an asset that truly helps your audience. It can be optimized for search and distributed through your organic channels. That article drives 500 clicks through email and social, and continues to drive results for months to come.

You can always scale ad spend up or down over time, depending on budget constraints. But no amount of paid spend can make up for weak content. Focusing on great content puts you in a better position to succeed and gives you flexibility around distribution.

Remember: Buyers don’t stop buying during a recession. They just get really choosy about where their dollars go.

Where to increase your content spend

There’s a really interesting contrast playing out in marketing right now. According to Gartner, marketing budgets as a percentage of revenue are actually up overall this year compared to 2021. However, ad spend is down, particularly in consumer and B2B tech.

Marketers would be wise to use some of those new funds on ambitious content. And if other companies are making cuts, one advantage is you won’t have to deal with as much competition for attention.

Plus, innovation happens when budgets are tight.

We don’t even have to look that far back to see an example: How we work and interact with colleagues has changed dramatically since the global pandemic. Prior to March 2020, Zoom calls and people working remotely were rare and few and far between. Now? It’s the status quo.

With dozens of companies announcing layoffs, we’re seeing an increase in demand for freelance content creators. Gartner research also revealed that 58% of CMOs don’t think they have the in-house talent “needed to execute on their strategy.” Addressing the talent gap is a smart way to adjust your content spend.

That way, you’ll be able to keep content quality and volume up with a smaller team. You can streamline communication with both internal and external teams with platforms like Slack or even our own Contently, where you can manage deadlines, projects, and communications all in one location.

How to adapt your goals during tough times

In 2016, CEO Tim Cook told a crowded room, “We believe in investing during downturns,” as he reflected on Apple’s response during bleak times, like 2008 at the height of the Great Recession.

Similarly, now is the perfect opportunity to move miles ahead of the competition. For one, you’re already out of the starting gate by understanding the important role storytelling plays in how we connect with brands. We’ve got a few ideas to help you plan your improved path forward and win the day with content.

Focus on big ideas and big rocks

While you’re adjusting your goals to meet the current need, it’s vital you step back and look at the giant opportunity waiting on the other side of the crisis.

Need some inspiration? Procter & Gamble was already famous for their “floating soap” at the start of the Great Depression. As the Depression lagged on, stores cut back on their orders and sales stagnated. P&G could have stopped producing soap altogether to take care of the immediate need. Instead, they realized they had to engage their audience in a different way—people still needed soap—and they created the first ever direct-to-consumer marketing strategy, increasing their soap sales and changing how brands interact with consumers to this day.

For today’s content marketers, look at your current strategy and goals and adapt them to fit where we’re headed, not just where we are today. That could mean focusing on your most important owned channels like email and social rather than experimenting elsewhere. Or maybe you choose to focus on a few essential big rock content pieces that you can repurpose instead of producing a bunch of shorter articles.

Audit your content

Now is the perfect time to audit the content you currently have and review your data. What are your most popular articles and have any shifted since the beginning of this downturn? Look at individual pieces and ask: How is it performing? Are people reading it all the way through? Is it still generating traffic to your site?

Update some of that content to engage today’s audience (and it’ll do better in search). You may find you have a lot of material on a topic and can create a course out of those pieces. You’ll give customers a way to learn a skill or how to use your product more efficiently, and if they’re new, you get their email address to continue building trust with them.

Listen to your public-facing teams

Your Sales and Customer Success teams are your “ears to the ground.” They know very well what your customers are saying, because they’re on the phone or in a live chat with them on the daily. What are they hearing? What fears and concerns do current clients and prospects share with them?

Take this feedback and use it to generate content that helps address their concerns. (Where do you think we got the idea for this piece?) What content can you generate that can help them make the case for your product or services and prove bang-for-the-buck? This is another moment where you can showcase your value and reinforce why they should choose you—even in the middle of a recession.

While your internal teams are listening to the customers they’re talking with, what are people saying to you on social? Are you asking questions? You should be! This is a great opportunity to be like Slack and create channels dedicated to listening to your customers directly.

Create content for your current customers

Once someone becomes a customer, it may be easy to forget about them and move on to the next lead. But that’s short-sighted and an easy way to lose them. (Anyone fed up with their internet provider and switched just because of poor customer service? Just me?)

Customer success teams tend to be overbooked as they juggle keeping 12 clients happy at once. Retention content is such an important tool that many companies don’t invest in till it’s too late. Creating content specifically for your customers, whether it’s onboarding or beyond, helps strengthen the relationship and can increase profits exponentially.

So as you prepare to balance the need for growth with the urge to save, think about how great content can lift your organization. Now’s not the time to pull back. Those willing to stay the course and double-down with their content can reap monumental rewards that will follow them well beyond the current downturn.

The post Content Marketing During a Downturn: Here’s What the Conventional Wisdom Gets Wrong appeared first on Contently.

Fans love it because Deadpool subverts expectations by being self-aware. You can see a similar idea at play when the writers behind the TV show “30 Rock” created an episode where the characters debate the merits of creating a TV show. Or, to get really meta, when a cafe’s sandwich board proclaims, “This is a sign.”

Right now, budgets are frozen, technology spend has decreased for the time being, and buyers of all manner are fatigued from the barrage of “We’re here for you in uncertain times” emails. This self-aware approach offers marketers a lifeline. And it can be done with playful humor or straightforward analysis.

Going meta—using your product to market itself—can be a clever way to draw attention, stretch your budget, and be disarmingly and refreshingly honest, all while still selling your product.

No but seriously, this is a sign

Self-aware marketing works, but for a different reason than it works in media. While “going meta” in pop culture surprises and delights because it shatters the so-called “fourth wall” and draws people out of what they’re watching, meta marketing typically draws them in. It demonstrates the product by showing it.

Take the billboard pictured below by 3M, the maker of duct tape. The tape appears to be supporting the billboard—an allusion to its utility as a fix-all. It’s cheeky but also demonstrative.

Among my favorite meta assets ever—so enjoyable that I’m still sharing it years later—is the survey software startup Typeform’s article “The Rise of the Conversational Interface.” In it, the author demonstrates the rise and uses of chatbots … by inserting a chatbot into the article. As you read, you can ask the author questions about the article.

When I interviewed Paul Campillo, now the company’s head of brand and communications, I learned that when he started writing it, Typeform didn’t even offer chatbots. Now they do. And it’s because the self-aware chatbot article was such a smash hit that buyers demanded it.

“We were pitching blog ideas about chatbots and someone had this idea to insert one into the article to provide a director’s cut commentary,” Campillo said. “We said, yeah that’s great. But we’ll need a chatbot.”

So they made one. A developer on the team spent a tremendous amount of time trying to understand the structure of a conversation with flowcharts. This raised new questions that influenced the article, which then influenced the chatbot.

“The article was a huge success,” Campillo explained. “People started pinging the heck out of me on Twitter asking, ‘Hey, is this available?’ and after a while, we built it. Now it’s one of Typeform’s three offerings.”

Typeform’s success fits a pattern. People increasingly want things they can see, try, and apply without sales pressure. Consumers are fatigued and fed up with traditional marketing tactics. If your product is good enough, enthusiastic users will indirectly do your marketing for you. Product-led advocates implore marketers to let buyers see your product organically in action rather than just pouring money into paid ad channels.

Plus, going meta can be easier on marketers who are trying to figure out how to do their jobs in the middle of a pandemic recession while also reckoning with the country’s long unaddressed racial issues. There is no easy way to be both sensitive and clever, so brands are finding simple ways to show what they’re selling with a more honest approach that doesn’t sacrifice creativity.

I’ve seen more and more companies launching webinars on how they use their own software. The really good ones are building trust with no-BS stories of trial and error—just people trying to figure it out and help other people. This path gives potential customers a chance to see what they’re paying for without PR glitz.

From the calendar scheduling app startup Chili Piper inserting “book a meeting” links into its own marketing assets to the real estate AI startup Skyline AI using its own data to run reports, more brands are trying to use their software to advertise it.

And you know what they’re all finding? It’s both earning them attention and, in many instances, saving them money.

The budgetary benefits of self-aware marketing

Now that I’ve highlighted self-aware content, you’ll start to see it everywhere.

“If you’re lucky enough to have a product you can show without having to shoehorn it in, there’s really nothing more cost effective,” said James Winter, VP of marketing at Brandfolder. “We offer a DAM—an organizational platform for your company’s creative assets. When our sales reps reach out to prospects about Brandfolder, they create a Brandfolder, fill it with that company’s own assets, and send a link. People love it. It’s genuinely useful to the situation, gets them invested and comfortable with the product early, gets the point across, and yeah, it doesn’t cost us a thing.”

Self-aware marketing can also save you agency fees—particularly in B2B software—since this kind of content relies on internal expertise. If it’s really clever and sparks a discussion on social media, you’ll get a better bang for your marketing buck.

The customer data platform Segment, for example, ran a billboard campaign across major cities that got some major social media pull-through. It demonstrated the frustration people feel with bad data by buying billboards that addressed each city by its rival city’s name—in San Francisco., it read, “Good morning, LA!”

This @segment billboard in SF is well done pic.twitter.com/1u22MoHzpd

— austin petersmith (@awwstn) April 9, 2019

“This actor in L.A. got caught up in the joke of it all and posted a picture of our billboard to his followers asking if we meant it to be there—twice,” said Maya Spivak, Head of Global Brand Marketing and Communications at Segment. “We got tens of thousands of these wonderful organic impressions.”

If cost savings, added attention, and selling without appearing to sell aren’t enough to convince you to try meta marketing, there’s one more benefit: It’s oddly liberating. Plus, if your boss asks, why are you dedicated so much time to a self-aware project, you can fire off your own laconic Deadpool retort: “Because it’s my article.”

The post In Tough Times, Self-Aware Marketing Helps You Stand Out & Save Money appeared first on Contently.

We’ve nailed down the top 10 takeaways from content marketers at SXSW—and how you can put their insights into action for branded content.

1. Understand your content marketing goals.

Many marketers are still just experimenting with content marketing, but that doesn’t mean that proper measurement can be put off for later. Much of the discussion at SXSW centered on how marketers need to go past shares and engagement and create smarter benchmarks to really gauge success.

The consensus? Set measurable goals from the get-go, and then funnel your resources to create content and distribution strategies that will deliver on those goals.

https://twitter.com/mharrist/status/576424315140222976

 2. And where to spend your dollars.

If you’re investing in content marketing, you already understand that traditional advertising might not deliver the impact your brand needs. But great content on its own isn’t a brand-building strategy; you need to get it in front of people. And the budget for that paid distribution can come from one key place: bloated banner spends.

"Banners have 99 problems and a click ain't one" #SXSWInteractive #SXSW #Contentmarketing

— Charlotte Steentoft (@charlottejorg) March 16, 2015

 3. Content is everywhere…

Content marketing has the potential to be anything. So if you’re putting out another old white paper or blog post, it’s time to shift your focus. Consider what your audience really wants, be it a GIF, recipe, infographic, or behind-the-scenes essay. Show what your brand is capable of.

https://twitter.com/alisonjherzog/status/576461800251633664

 4. … so make it fun…

Every time you post, ask yourself, “What does my audience gain by engaging here?” If you can’t answer that question, step away from the laptop and take a walk until you think of something worth sharing with the world.

Funny messages and personal content are key to great engagement http://t.co/l9Fnc7dV25 #contentmarketing #SXSW

— Mafer Poveda Franco (@Coplui_tri) March 17, 2015

5. … and make it applicable.

Have customers coming back to your brand for informative and useful content. It will secure your brand as a dependable resource and make you a more viable contender when customers are to convert.

https://twitter.com/findingpeace/status/576416033122197505

6. But know how to define what content means for your brand…

It’s wonderful to jump headlong into content marketing, and there’s an infinite amount to explore. That said, help your team define what content means to your brand. By laying those guidelines, teams are better able to craft great assets that tie back to real brand goals.

https://twitter.com/cabedababe/status/577502097228185600

7. … and above all else, employ strong writers.

A friendly reminder for brands everywhere: It takes a lot of good writing to cut through the clutter and make a brand narrative successful. Staff your teams accordingly.

Brands will write many of the articles that used to be written by journalists #SXSW #ContentMarketing #SXSW2015

— Franz Buchenberger (@FzBr) March 13, 2015

8. To know thyself is to know thy audience.

Many brands start producing content with specific marketing aims and expect the audience to flock. Reverse that system and you’re looking at an eager audience who provides brands the topics that organically interest them. Red Bull (extreme sports fans), GE (science nerds), and Amex (small-business owners) are all great examples of brand publishers that serve their niche brilliantly.

(Full disclosure: GE and Amex are Contently clients.)

#Contentmarketing is not about creating the most buzzworthy content, but to appeal to core demographics @homeaway #contentfix #sxsw

— Juha Frey (@juhaf) March 16, 2015

9. I.e., get on your fans’ level.

To get those topics, you need to be present where your audience is, and that’s where your big data and social listening skills need to come into play. But you still need to create content that makes sense for that platform, so don’t make things like Perrier’s bizarre party hub on Tumblr.

Brands should be where their audiences are and speak of relevant topics. Not just brand topics. #ContentMarketing #mpost #sxsw

— lukehejl (@lukehejl) March 13, 2015

10. And earn their trust.

The buzzword to keep in mind here is authenticity. All the relevant content in the world won’t convince a wary customer to ‘like’ or support your brand if content reads as contrived.

High engagement comes from ascribing to what consumers already enjoy and helping include your brand in the conversation. And it doesn’t need to be #TheDress or another timely event to start the dialog. Consider what everyday instances pique the interest of your audience and help get them talking.

"Shouldn’t we be spending our resources on trust rather than traffic?" @markwschaefer #SXSW #contentmarketing

— Michael Schmidtke (@michaschmidtke) March 16, 2015

Feel like there’s more to content marketing at SXSW? We want to hear all about it. Let us know at @contently.

The post 10 Content Marketing Takeaways From SXSW appeared first on Contently.

Contently now has around 75 full-time employees, including a CEO and head of finance—both of whom are more interested in hearing about exactly how much money I’m planning to spend and how I’m going to spend it than how budgets aren’t cool. So instead of a spreadsheet, I convinced them I’d write this article. I don’t actually have half a $500K content budget (not YET, at least), but if I did, here’s how I’d spend it.

1. A full-time editor: $90K

Content strategy is nothing without the editorial workhorse in-house to make it spin. Your editor is the one who controls the daily flow of content, makes sure everything is on brand and interesting, and is responsible for attracting and maintaining your audience. They handle everything from story ideation to line edits to helping with social media copy. It’s possible that the editor you hire can be freelance, but it’s key that they not be remote. Having the editor in the office every day is priceless in helping said editor understand the business goals of your brand.

It’s important for editors to have creative freedom so they don’t have to worry about business peeps looking over their shoulders—but it’s equally important they understand exactly how their work helps drive your business forward.

2. Contently: $132K

(Editor’s note: Self-promotion alert.)

Duh. I’d want a software solution that lets me manage approvals, workflow, payments, calendars etc, and I’d prefer that it include an analytics suite that’s useful for a brand. If I were just starting out, I could use some combination of Google Analytics, Excel, Freshbooks, Trello, and the power of Crom to hack this together, but the hassle of working with multiple vendors comes with a huge opportunity cost.

In the long run, a solution like Contently is going to save me money and help me get my content out the door faster. I also like that I get an extra editor and a bunch of smart freelance writers through Contently—it just saves me the trouble of going out and finding them myself and the payroll costs of having to hire them. Trying to take on these tasks internally winds up costing significantly more in terms of money and resources. I should know—it’s part of the reason Contently was founded.

3. A content strategist: $20K

I’d want someone to come in and take a long-term strategic look at what content I should be producing and when I should be producing it. The content strategist straddles the business and editorial worlds and can create a valuable roadmap for my editor to follow. This would include things like a competitive analysis, a detailed editorial calendar, and some recommendations for what kind of creative professionals I should be looking for.

4. Longform content: $90K

I don’t really care about memes or snackable content. I’m running a B2B business, and my audience consists of professionals looking to learn something about their craft.

Ninety thousand dollars gives me the ability to produce 200 stories for $450 each. When we talk about building “high-value audiences,” this is how we do it—smart content, built by smart people, specifically for my target demographic. The CMO of a large brand isn’t interested in a Facebook post that says, “Like this post if you eat ice cream!” She wants nuanced, actionable intelligence that’s going to help her do her job better.

5. Daily content: $62.5K

I want to keep up with the daily drumbeat of industry news—whatever my industry is—but I’d like my content to stay original. That means publishing every day with a unique take on what’s going on so my readers have a reason to come back every day. With $62,500 allocated for daily content, I can produce approximately 250 stories at a $250 rate, which works out to one piece of content per weekday for a year.

Readers aren’t going to come to my site if they can read the same thing in The New York Times or in a trade magazine. My daily content would take a relevant story and tell my readers exactly what it means and how it will affect them.

6. Original images and art: $30K

To stand out, I can’t pair my original story with a stock image five other publishers are using. The second someone sees happy business people, they’re clicking away faster than a Rick Roll link. Opting for original art, photography, infographics, and design is a relatively minor investment that has a major impact.

7. Video: $30K

Video is poised to be a huge growth area for content marketing in 2015. It’s expensive to do at scale, but it’s a very effective way of spreading your content and differentiating yourself from competitors. If this article was on how to spend $1,000,000 on content, you’d see me putting a lot more stock in this area.

8. Audience development: $60K

Reaching an audience has never been easier if you have the cash to do it. Outbrain, Facebook, Twitter, and a number of other platforms offer access to huge audiences at an efficient CPC. It’s super easy to waste a lot of money here on “low-value” clicks—people who open an article once but are very unlikely to become return users (and even less likely to become customers). But it’s also possible to acquire high-value readers at a relatively small cost if you’re delivering awesome content and driving email signups. What channel works best for you will depend on your brand, your goals, and what kind of content you’re producing. But once you’ve figured out what works, this is a great area to efficiently increase your spend.

A couple of notes I’d like to add as we wrap up:

— I would also invest in a content platform, since you need somewhere for all this great content to live. This isn’t really a “content” expense per se, so I’m not including it in my budget, but you can really spend as much or as little as you like. We built The Content Strategist as a custom WordPress site, which didn’t cost us very much.

— If you’re paying close attention, you’ll notice this adds up to $514,000. Like I said, I suck at budgets.

— This certainly isn’t the only way to spend $500,000 on content. You could blow it all on a really high-end Super Bowl ad or hire David Remnick away from The New Yorker to be your editor or dump the entire budget into native ads.

Got a better idea? A more nuanced breakdown? Tweet it at me at @samslaughter215. If we get enough responses, we’ll run a follow-up article.

The post How to Build an Amazing Content Marketing Machine for Half a Million Bucks appeared first on Contently.

How to Get a Bigger Content Budget in 2015

Every ambitious content marketer wants a bigger budget, but doing so is tricky. Celine Roque and Natalie Burg spoke with some of the most successful content marketers in the business to get their six secrets to success. Read it.

Build vs. Buy: Why Top Brands Are Leaning on Freelancers to Build Hybrid Newsrooms

Build or buy? That’s the question haunting marketers tasked with building brand newsrooms or content studios. Alyssa Hertig went to some of the biggest brand publishers around to figure out what works best:

As we speak, marketing directors around the country are being tasked with an exciting but unenviable challenge: “Do content marketing.” But how? It’s difficult to know where to begin. Do you spend months building the perfect in-house team? Hire a bunch of freelancers? Or embrace some combination of the two?

Each brand will necessarily reach different answers to fit its specific needs. There’s no definitive best way to build a brand newsroom, but top brand publishers seem to have settled on a similar formula of in-house teams and freelance talent that lets them create content that matters—and at scale. Read it.

10 Questions You Should Ask Your Next Content Marketing Partner

Today more than ever, marketers are being tasked with getting a content operation up and running—and fast. Often, that means bringing in outside help, but with no standard protocol for vetting potential partners, it’s all too easy to make the wrong choice. Luckily, Ray Cheng is here with a list of 10 crucial questions you need to ask. Read it.

Meet the Men Behind Red Bull’s Explosive Content

Red Bull and GoPro are the envy of the content marketing world. Their secret sauce? A couple of daredevils with a small content shop, writes Natalie Burg.

The Red Bull Signature Series Dreamline BMX contest recently wrapped up its third year of giving riders the chance to, as the 2013 event coverage put it, “attack the most innovative BMX dirt setup that we have every seen. A course that many people are saying could alter the sport.” And that’s not just Red Bull’s opinion.TransWorld RideBMX calls Dreamline “the premier dirt contest of the year”—which is exactly what Luke Seile and Paul Williams, co-founders of the branded content firm Become Co., had in mind when they created it. Read it.

Is This What Your Content Marketing Brainstorm Looks Like?

And finally, I leave you with our first-ever TCS comic, which we’ll be doing at least weekly, but probably more often.

And to read my rant against culture-hijacking by brands that accompany it, head here.

Otherwise, keep on cranking and fighting that hibernation. We’ll see you Monday.

The post Content Catchup: How Top Brands Build Their Newsrooms, Red Bull’s Secret Team, and More Must-Reads appeared first on Contently.

We’ve already created in-depth guides for navigating each of the four major platforms we advocate experimenting with: Twitter, Outbrain, Facebook, and LinkedIn. With our guides, you’ll learn the best Twitter campaigns for your marketing needs, how to grow an audience through Outbrain, hyper-targeting with sponsored Facebook posts, and boosting your thought leadership on LinkedIn.

Now, we present a tl;dr version of the four guides in one neat package to help you answer questions like: Which platform is best for B2B marketing? Which platform is best for hyper-local B2C content? Which platform is easiest to create ads for? Which platforms are still evolving?

Whether you’re just getting started or looking to run a mix of sponsored posts on multiple platforms, let this comprehensive guidebook light the way.

Twitter

Twitter is our go-to channel when we want to drive a little extra paid traffic to a post at Contently. Visitors from Twitter tend to be highly engaged and are very likely to share your content, creating an organic boost on top of your social distribution. But you can do a lot more than simply drive referral traffic on Twitter, and each type of sponsored campaign offers unique benefits.

Engagement Tweets: Use Engagement Tweets if you want to encourage more people to click on a link and read your content. This is the easiest type of campaign to put together. You can either compose a new tweet on the campaign page or just choose one you’ve already published.

Followers Campaigns: These campaigns are set up for the sole purpose of gaining new Twitter followers. They’re basic—just text, no links or multimedia of any kind.

Website Cards: If you want to add a call-to-action button to your promoted tweet, you can create a campaign for website clicks or conversions. It’s best to use this type of campaign to promote a piece of content that has an actionable conversion, such as an ebook that can be downloaded in exchange for an email address. You’ll have to create a Website Card, which includes an image, a headline, a URL, and a call to action for your reader to click. To track conversions from that call-to-action button on the Website Card, set up a website tag.

Leads Campaigns: Similar to conversions campaigns, except you’ll be creating a Lead Generation Card instead of a Website Card. The Lead Generation Card is optimized for gathering email addresses directly from Twitter, whereas the Website Card is best for adding a visual touch to a piece of content that readers can click that leads to a conversion on your website.

Still, no matter which campaign you choose, there are a couple of similarities across the board. In terms of scheduling, you can either start the campaign immediately and run it until you exhaust your budget or choose specific start and end dates. Twitter recommends using a few tweets for each campaign. This allows you to diversify your offerings and engage a wider audience, but, most importantly, it allows for trial and error so you can optimize future campaigns.

When it comes to targeting your desired audience on any type of campaign, there are some key tips to remember. If you’re targeting based on interests and followers, it’s smart to target followers of your competitors’ Twitter accounts. Try between seven and 10 and swap some in and out for future campaigns. There is also an option to limit targeting to specific devices or platforms. Website Cards are optimized for mobile, so it’s best to target users on mobile devices for these campaigns.

Setting your budget for a campaign includes three main parts: 1) a daily minimum budget 2) a bid range per engagement and 3) total spend for that campaign. The budget and bid can be adjusted while the campaign is running. For example, you might want to adjust the bid at different times of the day or week, such as when a buzz-worthy event takes over the conversation on Twitter. During these instances, you may have to bid higher to get eyeballs on your content.

Twitter allows you to view your campaign stats based on a certain range of dates, platforms, locations, and demographics. The “Engagements” tag will break down campaign performance by individual tweets, impressions, clicks, retweets, replies, followers, and engagement rate. Pair this information with the offerings from Twitter Analytics to see how your sponsored tweets are performing in comparison to your regular posts.

Facebook

It’s much simpler to create sponsored posts on Facebook than on any other social platform. Before or after you post a piece of content on Facebook, just click the blue “Boost” button and customize.

First, choose the audience you want to reach. If you choose “People who like your Page and their friends” or “People similar to people who like your Page,” then the majority of the targeting is done for you. You simply have to add a price and start the campaign. However, if you choose to target your own pool of users, you can narrow your audience by location, age, gender, and interests.

While a campaign runs, you can add money, but you cannot adjust your targeting specifications. Once the campaign is completed, click the “See Results” button at the bottom of your post to review how your campaign performed.

In our experience, CPC seems to be a bit higher on Facebook than on Twitter. However, hyper-targeting by location on Facebook has proven incredibly useful. For example, it’s a good place to target readers who freelance in Chicago if you want to promote a piece about the best coffee shops to work from in the city.

Outbrain

Outbrain, a content discovery platform, is a great option for publishers looking for an easy and efficient way to drive readers to their site. How do you do that? By generating lots of headlines. Outbrain places these recommended links next to and below articles on high-quality news sites like Hearst and Condé Nast publications, so they must be engaging enough for readers to click on.

To start, choose “Create New Campaign,” and submit the URL of the piece of content you want to promote. Name it, put in your budget, and define your schedule. Choose your type of campaign based on the format of the content or where you want it to appear: video, mobile, or desktop. In general, mobile CPCs do very well, especially with fashion and retail content.

The budget can be assigned on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis. According to Contently client services manager Amanda Weatherhead, you’ll often see lower CPCs earlier in the week, month, or quarter, and then it becomes more competitive to get eyes on your content. So budget accordingly. For example, if you have $10,000 allocated for a quarter, spend $5,000 in the first month, $3,000 in the second, etc. If you decide to set a daily, weekly, or monthly budget cap, Outbrain’s system will divide by each day to distribute content evenly.

Now, for the headlines: It’s best to come up with several variations for each link and include different images and subheaders. Oubrain’s algorithm will optimize and show the best performing ones more often.

When it comes to measuring the success of your content distribution, Outbrain primarily tracks clicks, but you can also track conversions through a code that you embed on your page, similar to Twitter. Outbrain recommends a CPC for each piece of content, and if you’re beating that with a lower price per click, it’s a good sign you have a strong content strategy and engaging headlines. But be sure to check the visit duration and bounce rate of your Outbrain referral traffic in Google Analytics to make sure Outbrain readers are actually sticking around once they land on your site.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s ad program is the holy grail of hyper-targeting—particularly for B2B marketers. You can target audiences based on location (down to the city), gender, age, LinkedIn groups they might belong to, skills, and even schools they attend or graduated from.

However, the most unique and useful option that LinkedIn provides is targeting by company name, category, and industry size, as well as by job title and seniority. For example, if you’re looking to acquire in retail, you can promote a thought leadership piece relevant to retail marketers’ interests and target them directly, even going so far as to target the senior VP of a specific company.

The budgeting options are similar to those on Twitter, offering the ability to set a total budget for the campaign, daily maximum spend, and length of time you want the campaign to run. However, LinkedIn differs by offering the option of paying per click (every time someone clicks on your post) or per impression (every time LinkedIn shows your post, per 1,000 impressions). You can choose one and then enter a bid for the most money you want to spend when the action is completed.

You can also set up a few broader campaigns and assign multiple pieces of content to each. Continuing with the above example, say you want to target retail companies with multiple pieces of content and just a $500 budget. Set up one overarching campaign for targeting these retail companies and then simply choose that targeted campaign when you go to sponsor each piece of content. The results will show up directly under the sponsored post on your page with an option to further manage or adjust the campaign as it progresses.

Final thoughts

Each of these platforms provides unique opportunities for your needs in terms of boosting distribution and audience growth. By testing out each one, marketers can find the one that serves their objectives the best. For us, that’s Twitter. For Upworthy, it’s Facebook. For you, it may be Outbrain or LinkedIn. It’s important to experiment with each option and double down on the ones that are most effective for your content mix.

The post The Paid Social Distribution Playbook appeared first on Contently.

If you want to generate more traffic for your brand publication, don’t underestimate the power of compelling headlines.

Outbrain, a content discovery platform, is a great option for publishers looking for an efficient way to drive readers to their sites. And how do you do that? By generating lots of headlines. Outbrain places recommended links of your stories next to and below articles on premier news sites like Hearst and Condé Nast publications, and with the right combination of compelling headlines and clever packaging, you can drive high-quality audiences to your content at a relatively low cost.

This is the second release in our series of detailed playbooks to our four favorite platforms for paid content distribution: Twitter, Outbrain, Facebook, and LinkedIn. (Check out our Twitter playbook here.) And when it comes to Outbrain, you can’t go in blindly and expect your numbers to jump. Here’s what you need to know to rock the platform like a content marketing superstar.

Which type of campaign should I choose?

Choose the type of campaign based on the format of content you’re sharing or where you want it to be placed. The options are: video, mobile, and desktop. Mobile campaigns tend to do very well, reaching audiences on the go who are willing to click around, especially with fashion and retail content.

How can I target my desired audience?

On Outbrain, you can geo-target readers by country, state, and Designated Market Area (DMA). However, the main targeting strategy here is to grab people’s attention by experimenting with engaging headlines.

Outbrain advises publishers to add as much content as possible to each campaign, which means testing different headline variations to entice readers along with different combinations images and subheaders. You can test as many variations as you want, and we usually test 12–15 variations of headlines, along with several image variations. Outbrain’s algorithm will optimize accordingly and show the best performing headlines more often. You can also add content to a campaign already running, which allows you to swap headlines and maximize performance.

Outbrain also recommends a few best practices for getting the most out of your headlines:

— Use strong adjectives, numbers, and questions—including words like “who,” “hot,” and “surprise.”

— Keep headlines concise, between 80 and 100 characters.

— Don’t be pushy with words like “must” and “need”—instead, use reader reference words such as “you” and “your.”

How should I budget my spend?

The budget can be assigned on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis. According to Contently’s Client Services Manager Amanda Weatherhead, you’ll often see lower CPCs earlier in the week, month, or quarter before it becomes more competitive to get eyes on your content. So plan accordingly to get the most bang for your buck.

For example, if you have $10,000 allocated for a quarter, spend $5,000 in the first month, $3,000 in the second, and $2,000 in the third. If you decide to set a daily, weekly, or monthly budget cap, Outbrain’s system will divide by each day to distribute content evenly.

The CPC is also adjustable throughout the campaign, so if you notice people are loving your content and eating up your budget quickly, you can drop the CPC. If engagement is low, increase your bid.

At Contently, we set up monthly campaigns for our clients and create progress reports at the end of each month.

How can I measure the success of my campaigns?

When it comes to measuring the success of your content distribution, Outbrain primarily tracks clicks, but you can also track conversions by embedding a code on your page, similar to Twitter. You can customize conversions to fit your specific goals, such as e-book downloads, email signups, or a purchases on a retail site. In Campaign Settings, you can also enter your tracking code into Google Analytics to better measure its progress.

But be sure to check the visit duration and bounce rate of your Outbrain referral traffic in Google Analytics to make sure readers are actually sticking around once they land on your site—ultimately, you’re not just hoping that people will click on your headlines; you’re hoping that they’ll click, spend time with your content, and keep coming back.

Outbrain suggests a certain CPC for each piece of content, and if you’re beating that figure with a lower price per click and Outbrain visitors are spending time with your content, there’s a good chance you have a strong content strategy in place.

Remember that tools like Outbrain can help tremendously when trying to build an audience, as long as you know how to use what’s in your toolbox.

For further reading on paid content distribution, check out our guide to Promoted Tweets, and check back next week for our guide to Facebook.

Correction: December 4, 2014
​An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Outbrain can only geo-target by country. Outbrain can target by country, state, and Designated Market Area (DMA).

The post The Content Marketer’s Guide to Growing an Audience Through Outbrain appeared first on Contently.