Measuring Online Brand Value in Content Marketing

I recently interviewed Andrew Davis of Tipping Point Labs at Starbucks in Cambridge, MA.  Drew is Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder of Tipping Point Labs, a digital content creation shop that helps clients sell products through content marketing strategies.

TPL’s blog was recently rated the #1 blog on Junta42! Drew credits his team who releases new content every day!

I asked Drew why content marketing has become so important and what do we mean by digital content marketing? Drew points out that consumers are looking for more information about products, whether it’s a low engagement product or a high engagement product. Consumers may not start their research at a vendor’s website. So, marketers have to be available to buyers through valuable content that is easily found and is influential. The idea is to create the right kind of content that makes its way down to the consumer.

It’s all about valuable content that builds relationships, influences buying decisions and drives revenue.

The Influence Pyramid

One of TPL’s clients is Breville, an Australian maker of kitchen products including coffee makers. When they entered the U.S. market and they hired TPL they set out to find amateur influencers such as the Coffee Geek, and Single Serve Coffee and Heather Perry. These bloggers write content about coffee every day! They are influencers. In my social media marketing book, I call these people rock stars!

Prosumers – are people who are really engaged, but they don’t write every day as the influencers do. But, they are willing to write reviews at specialty websites such as Amazon.

Consumers – the end buyer in the mass market. They read a lot, but they don’t write. They consume and they are influenced by others who have conducted research or purchased products with something to say.

When you consider the shape of the influence pyramid the numbers at the top are much smaller. It is a finite audience at the top and an infinite audience at the bottom. Traditional advertising in this value chain has tried to sandwich itself in the middle and the bottom through mass advertising. But traditional advertising is no longer trusted. However, the influencer’s recommendation is built on trust and is therefore very valuable and trusted.

Measuring Results

TPL uses Google Insights to measure results. For example, TPL measures the espresso market in the U.S. in the food and beverage category. TPL measures through an online brand value chart to show the growth of online brand value and correlate it to revenue. This method of measurement is a new approach. TPL is hoping it will have long term validity. They also measure the impact of influencers blogging about a product such as Breville.

I asked Drew for a B2B example of successful content marketing. He told me about ORLive, an online community who transmits live surgeries online to provide education to surgeons. It’s educational content to help surgeons learn about new technologies. It’s been a successful content marketing strategy for device manufacturers by educating surgeons.

Any conversation with Andrew Davis is always enlightening and enjoyable. Sitting around the corner from MIT in Cambridge on a sunny August day was the icing on the cake for this podcast interview. I encourage you listen to the entire interview to hear more not covered in this blog post summary.

Drew promises to visit me in Florida during the winter when it’s cold and snowy in New England and warmer and dryer in Florida. You can connect with Drew on Twitter. You’ll be glad you did.

Bernie Borges
@berniebay

Impact of Economy on SEO Services

On the date of this writing, the world is in a financial crisis unlike anything we’ve seen since the great depression (years before my birth).  Yet, I’ve noticed a very interesting trend in our business.  Lately, there is increased demand for our SEO services. 

I noticed the trend about a month ago when more inquiries and referrals started coming our way for SEO services.  So, I started asking prospective new clients what they are doing right now in the face of this economy?  The answer I’m hearing consistently doesn’t surprise me.

Most businesses across all industries are cutting expenses.  Some industries are affected more than others impacting the severity of their cutbacks.  Most marketing managers are being forced to cut marketing expenses. 

So, why are we seeing increased demand for SEO services?  Because marketers are cutting back other more traditional forms of marketing and relying more on the web to “find and convert” new sales opportunities.

Marketers are relying more on inbound marketing strategies through the web and it starts with search engine optimization (SE0) recognizing that when someone has found them on the web and contacted them, they are a potentially serious buyer.  In this economy, most sellers want to avoid wasting time with tire kickers and only spend time with serious buyers and the web is the most efficient medium to source out serious buyers.

While this is good news for internet marketing services companies like us, there is one word of caution I share with new clients.  I advise all client not to put all their eggs in the Google basket.

I inform all our clients that our web analytics prove that the top five referring sources of traffic to Find and Convert’s website include Google as well as other social media sites such as StumbleUpon, Twitter, Junta42 and Sphinn.

I advise all our clients to build a rock solid foundation in their SEO plan, and build out a social media marketing strategy on top of it for best long term results.  I’ve always believed we should “fish where the fish are,” and Google is not the only pond that has fish.  Focusing an entire internet marketing strategy just on Google would seriously overlook “other ponds of fish.”

Your thoughts?

Bernie Borges

 

Junta42 Top Content Marketing Blogs

Our blog is focused on providing tips, ideas, best practices and advice on Internet marketing.  My hope is our readers benefit from this blog. 

The Find and Convert blog has just been recognized by Junta42 with the #7 rank on its top 42 Content Marketing blogs, out of a total of 118 total content marketing blogs.  Our blog is recognized for Internet marketing content. 

The complete Junta42 listing of content marketing blog sites is here: http://www.junta42.com/top_42_content_marketing_blogs/.

The press release from Junta42 provides more detail including their criteria for selection.

While the recognition for good marketing content is cool, the best thing about this is the convenient access to so many other great content marketing blogs on one list! 

I hope you get value from the complete list of content marketing blogs and the Find and Convert blog.