Brandon Gutman: How do you get people to discover your content?
Julia Fitzgerald: At Sears Holdings Company we use various ways of connecting people with our content. For FitStudio, the Sears online fitness community, we use multiple fitness experts as our content creators. The expert contributors all reach various wellness communities and draw them to the FitStudio content. We leverage our online platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, and Shop Your Way, to promote the FitStudio content. We also use some of our more traditional Sears marketing assets to let our customers know about FitStudio. We do use some paid methods of distribution as well. Since we have such a rich library of fitness content, we leverage services that allow people to choose our content from multiple online portal links.
What is the ROI on your content marketing efforts? How do you measure success?
While FitStudio is a major content marketing initiative, it is one of several Sears multichannel programs. Depending on the program, we have various ROI related metrics. For some programs, we are measuring membership acquisition, engagement, page views, return visits, coupon redemption, or purchase. Most of these metrics feed into a lifetime value of an engaged customer equation that ultimately determines ROI.
Many people may not know that Sears is the largest seller of fitness-related products. Why did Sears decide create to create FitStudio and what is the value you get from the initiative? What part do you see the brand playing in the conversation of how to get in shape, fitness and how fitness should be a part of everyone's lives?
We realized that when shoppers come to Sears looking for a piece of fitness equipment, what they really are looking for is a 15 pounds lighter, fitter, or healthier version of themselves. And while the equipment is often a key component to their goal, they also need information and motivation to keep on track with a healthier lifestyle. FitStudio was the perfect solution for Sears to provide – free of charge – expert advice from fitness professionals and nutritionalists. In addition to the advice, FitStudio is a social venue where people can connect with each other and the fitness experts for information and encouragement. While the Sears brand is successful at selling fitness equipment, we have challenged ourselves with FitStudio to extend the brand beyond the equipment and to stand for the motivation and know-how to get America in shape.
Content discovery platform, Outbrain, is working with many Fortune 500 organizations including the ones featured in this series. Therefore, we went to Gilad de Vries, VP Brands and Agencies at Outbrain, for his expert perspective.
Brandon Gutman: For brands like GE, General Mills and Sears that are already leading a substantial content marketing strategy, how is Outbrain taking them to the next level?
Gilad de Vries: Brands that are heavily investing in content marketing understand that getting as many people as possible to engage with their content helps both with building brand awareness and brand affinity as well as plays a part in their SEO and social strategies. They know that creating a robust content marketing strategy goes beyond just posting the content on social channels or optimizing it for SEO, so they're looking to expand the reach, which is why they turn to Outbrain for its efficient, performance-based (flexible CPC) buying model.
On the other hand, does it make sense for brands just beginning their content market strategy to partner with Outbrain? What should they be doing on their own to get started?
To get started we recommend that brand managers really think about what kind of content would entertain or inform their audience the most. What will be so interesting for them that they will actually want to share it. Great examples include Colgate's oral care advice, P&G's pet care information or recommendations for mobile apps from Verizon Wireless.
It's OK to start small. It makes sense to get people to discover your content as soon as you start to develop it, so you get important audience insights like what they really enjoy, where they come from, how long they stay, how they respond to different calls to action alongside the content, etc. Armed with these insights, marketers can continue to develop content that will resonate. In addition, it's important to mention that most content marketing strategies also take advantage of earned media. So assuming the brand does PR, there's usually more to work with from a content perspective than the brand initially thinks.
Check out Outbrain’s "The State of Content Marketing, 2012" report at http://blog.outbrain.com/2012/03/state-of-content-marketing-2012.html
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