How content marketing can deliver a new ROI – Return on Inspiration
Content marketing is rapidly evolving, yet although everyone is talking about it not everyone is doing it. This is surprising when it plays so much to the heart of what marketing is about – creative content which captures consumers’ imagination.
Patrick Hourihan
We’re in a new world order where brands have shifted from speaking at consumers towards more of a two-way dialogue, with consumers expecting brands to be open, transparent and accessible. At the same time, younger consumers in particular are more willing to accept and value sponsored content. Content marketing represents a big opportunity for marketers but a concern is that they’re not always sure how to do it right.
Existing research shows that 71 per cent of marketers have identified not knowing how best to measure content marketing ROI as a barrier to wider adoption. We all understand the need to deliver against the bottom line and the focus on ROI is necessary when the objective is purely sales driven, but where does that leave other factors such as brand building? Once the preserve of the TV ad campaign, brands are now recognising digital content marketing as an effective way to build their brands without the confines of a 30 second spot and in a much more interactive way.
In order to define the optimal content marketing experience for consumers, we conducted what we believe to be the largest content marketing study of its kind in Europe. Spanning four markets – UK, France, Germany and Italy – we spoke to more than 4,000 consumers through focus groups, using semiotics analysis and quantitative research. Through our partnership with the Marketing Society we spoke to some of the industry’s leading brands so that we could incorporate both brand and consumer viewpoints into our findings.
In the case of content marketing we believe the industry should rethink what it means by ROI and come at it from an entirely new perspective. We’ve called our study ‘Return on Inspiration’ for that very reason, because we found inspiration to be the number one driver of a successful content marketing campaign. When achieved and done right, an inspirational campaign has proven uplift on behaviours such as purchase intent, brand affinity and likelihood to share content by up to a factor of x1.84.
We are witnessing an evolution of the content marketing purchase cycle, where people are jumping in at various stages. The purchase funnel is becoming less linear, more organic and fluid, with content marketing helping brands drive other goals such as brand building and relationship building, as well as driving sales.
Inspiration has two trajectories in consumers’ minds, either it inspires them to try new things or it shows them things they have never seen before. Trust is the key to unlocking inspiration and known brands tend to be more trusted, providing a gateway to inspiration. Yet all brands, whether new or established, have the potential to inspire. According to our research there are six steps to creating inspiring content marketing:
The 6 steps to inspiring content
Your aesthetic, your content: use aesthetics and design which incorporate an ‘open’ and fun use of visuals to engage consumers and entice them to want to find out more
Knowledge empowers: provide content that lets consumers learn something or gives them useful advice, tips or information on how to get the most from a product
Tell real, compelling stories: tell bite-size stories which are interesting and compelling to capture consumers’ imaginations, keeping an honest tone of voice
Show positive intent: show that it’s not just about the brand but that the consumer comes first and that you can add value to their content consumption experience
No trust, no inspiration: be authentic because consumers who say they trust content are 3x more likely to share content or feel positive about the brand
Keep entertainment simple: keep content light-hearted, simple or fun to boost shareability
It is evident that content marketing should start with inspiration and work upwards to measurement and ROI, which is about more than simply the views or hits a piece of content gets. Done right, content marketing is highly shareable and boosts brand talkability. In fact, we’ve seen content marketing campaigns on Yahoo and Tumblr deliver earned media of up to 40 per cent of the entire campaign spend. That kind of earned impact is invaluable for brands and using inspiration the return on investment of content marketing can be far reaching.
Patrick Hourihan is director of research at Yahoo EMEA