Content marketing: how a multi-channel approach increased organic traffic by 97%
- Transfer
Summary
Regardless of the size of the company or the target audience, content marketing is the most important tool for B2B marketers. Done with quality, it can become the core on which other marketing channels are based.
In this case, we are talking about how the European CRM system developer SuperOffice used content marketing in all of its promotion tools. At the same time, withstanding competition with such monsters of the market as Saleforce and Microsoft.
Find out how SuperOffice has applied content-focused tactics in SEO, social media, and email marketing. As a result, organic traffic increased by 97%, and the number of leads increased by 43%.
Client
SuperOffice is a European CRM developer that has been operating since 1990. The product is used by more than 12,000 customers in 7 European countries. CRM is presented in 6 languages. The main users of CRM are small and medium-sized businesses.
Situation
Although SuperOffice is a pretty niche CRM developer for small firms, companies have to compete with international heavyweights such as Salesforse and Microsoft.
They have a small marketing department with only two employees. Jennifer Lim Lund leads the department, and Stephen MacDonald is responsible for content marketing.
Stephen explained the main marketing tasks: “We needed to find new channels of traffic for potential customers and increase our market share. Content marketing was our natural choice. Since this tool could be used immediately and without high costs. "
SuperOffice first launched a blog to increase traffic from search engines. Also, annually, for the same purpose, 3-4 reports were issued (for free download by potential customers). This case study shows how a company increased traffic and leads using a multi-channel approach.
Campaign
MacDonald said that in 2012, SuperOffice had 32,000 site visits. The team set the task to double this figure - up to 72,000 visits in 2013 and up to 100,000 visits in 2014.
To achieve this goal, as a basis, a content marketing strategy was used. The SuperOffice team wanted to increase both traffic and the number of leads from search engines.
Channel number 1. SEO
MacDonald described seo as a giant marketing channel. “This is a channel in which we see an increase in traffic from year to year. We focus on selecting key queries, optimizing internal pages and linking. ”To analyze and select keywords, the team used tools like Google's Keyword Planner, SEMrush and Buzzsumo. They also analyzed the level of competition, and based on this we selected a list of high-frequency keywords with a low level of competition.
MacDonald explained this approach: “We can’t break the budgets of competitors, so we select the right keywords and create high-quality content around them.”
One of the problems when using seo was that they had 8 sites in 6 languages. First, the team prepared the content and optimized for search engines in English. Then I sent this content with instructions for posting in the offices of other countries. Further content should be translated and optimized for these countries. This created a certain problem, because employees in other offices were not sophisticated in seo. “There was a really serious gap in the level of knowledge, which is why we try not to overload our offices with content,” MacDonald explained.
He also mentioned that the team learned how to improve seo during the campaign. “One of our important discoveries is how many opportunities there are to improve the ranking of popular keywords. This is obtained by selecting words with low competition or no competition at all, and then creating cool content based on them, ”said MacDonald.
He added: “For example, we found the key phrase“ sample service letters. ” This phrase had no search content at all. So we created a post on our blog with the title “7 samples of letters of service for any business.” This has become one of the popular queries that leads us to 50-60 potential customers per month. ”
Channel number 2. SMM
SuperOffice is active on the following resources:
• Google Plus
LinkedIn was taken as a basis, so there was the main target audience. Other platforms were used as the most popular at that time.
Each platform used its own approach:
• Twitter: content was posted 3-4 times a day of release, and 1-2 times during the week
• LinkedIn: new content was posted only 1 time
• Google Plus: new content was posted only 1 time
• Facebook: new content was posted only 1 time
MacDonald said his strategy in social. networks was very simple: “as soon as we create content, we need to make sure of its distribution. Although Google does not say that they do not take into account the ranking of social activity. networks, in fact, we saw that traffic growth from search, with the active placement of content in the social. networks, ”continued MacDonald.
He also revealed how the SMM strategy is applied for the main goal - to increase traffic from search engines. “We grew from 20 reposts to 200 reposts when placing one post. Social activity "Media increases brand awareness, and this, in turn, increases the number of queries from search engines."
Channel number 3. Email Marketing
The team has formed a base with more than 50,000 subscribers. This database was collected mainly through subscription forms on the site, through the distribution of reports and studies, at various events. Subscribers were segmented only by language.
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For the content marketing impulse, you had to send at least 1 letter across the entire subscriber base.
MacDonald said, “When we create the next batch of content, we announce it through our subscriber base. Recently, we began to send a second letter with a new heading or text to those who did not open our previous letter. This is how we increase the number of downloads of our content. ”
This tactic began to be applied after tracking the behavior of subscribers. “We created the next material, but realized that not many people know about it. Therefore, we decided to send all subscribers letters with a link to download new content, and it worked. Since we saw a surge in downloads and increased traffic, we continued to do so in the future, ”said MacDonald.
He also mentioned the added benefit of this approach in email marketing. “When we send letters to 50,000 subscribers, we saw that they not only download materials, but also share them in social networks. networks. Thus, it increased brand awareness and increased organic traffic. ”
Channel number 4. Content marketing
Content marketing was the foundation of the entire campaign, and SEO, social media and e-mail played supporting roles. Content fueled email newsletter and social activity. networks, also having a direct impact on SEO.
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The basis for the content and the entire campaign were reports and studies for download. The features and requirements of each of these channels influenced the generated content.
MacDonald said that they, together with Lund, chose a topic for each such report and prepared the materials themselves. They outsourced the design to a marketing agency from Denmark.
MacDonald told how they chose the topic for the material: “The topics were taken based on the latest industry trends, key queries and Google counter data when we saw the popularity of topics on our blog. On this basis, we created more detailed and detailed material. ”
He added that creating the material usually took 6 weeks, including copywriting, design and translation. 10-15 specialists were involved in this.
Content calendar
The content strategy in SuperOffice was methodically worked out and contained a calendar divided into weekly, monthly and quarterly activities.
Weekly
Weekly events included the publication of a new blog post, including the posting and editing of guest posts that should have been consistent with SuperOffice's publishing policy.
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MacDonald said that the main goal of each post was to increase the organic traffic on the site.
He said, “We maintain high quality publications. We analyze each post by the number of visits, reposts and downloads. We determine the most popular posts for the quarter. We write extensive material on these topics.
For example, the most popular blog categories are “CRM” and “customer service”. Having identified this, the team focuses on developing content on these topics.
Using this approach, the team found out what worked to generate content from the search. “An important lesson we learned is that you don’t need many authors to publish several posts a week. In 2012, we started working with 14 authors, posting 3 posts per week. We almost did not notice traffic growth. Then we changed the approach, starting to publish 1 post per week, but with emphasis on the quality of the material. Increased publication from 500 words to 1000 words. After that, we saw an explosive increase in traffic. ”
Blogging was an important part of the entire media strategy, because the blog posted a lot of content, which was distributed weekly in the social. networks. However, the blog was not integrated into e-mail marketing. MacDonald explained that the blog was in English, so links to posts were not used when sending letters to subscribers from all countries.
Monthly
Monthly content tactics included the development and placement of a report, digital book and reference book on four main topics:
• CRM
• Sales
• Marketing
• Customer service
This content was translated into 5 languages and then posted on sites in all countries where SuperOffice was present. This translation was done through specialized services, and in the future, employees from different countries adjusted the texts as necessary.
MacDonald said the team perceived reports, digital brochures and directories as the same type of content, albeit different in volume. He added that different pieces of content could be distributed somewhat differently. “We use the same promotion tactics for reports, guides and digital books. However, we use banner ads to promote volumetric content during the peak season of sales. For example, in January we launched a campaign to promote a CRM customer guide. ”
MacDonald explained how such voluminous content was integrated into SMM and email tactics. “When we publish a new report, we announce it on our blog and in the social. networks. We also send a letter in which there is a download link to a new report on our subscribers database. ”
Quarterly
Quarterly activity does not include the creation and posting of new content. Instead, SuperOffice audits and optimizes existing sites.
“We use Moz to analyze the positions of keywords, we look at words that are from 6 to 20 places. We’ll focus on pushing these key requests to higher places in order to further increase traffic, ”said MacDonald.
He added, “For example, if we see the“ CRM UK program ”request at 7th place, we select pages of the site that can be optimized to raise this request to places 3 through 5. We can create new headers, make links or write new ones anchor texts. "
The team performed the following steps in the optimization process:
• Analysis of search queries on Google
• Analysis of the positions of keywords and CTR
• Review of current headings and meta tags
• Creation of new headers and meta tags to increase CTR
• Monitoring conversion and the number of responses for a certain period
Another important part of quarterly activity was internal linking. The team analyzed the relevance and relevance of the content to user expectations in order to further re-link blog posts and other pages. MacDonald said: "We studied all new blog posts every month and looked for options to link the posts and pages of the site."
results
MacDonald said that one of the most important aspects of all the efforts was that content marketing influenced all marketing activities. As a result, site traffic increased, the number of potential customers increased, which ultimately increased revenue.
Compared to 2013, in 2014 there was an increase in the following indicators:
- Increase in search traffic - 97%
- The increase in potential customers who came from the search - 43%
- Nearly 10,000 leads reached through blogging, reports, digital brochures and guides
- Increase in the monthly blog audience - 108%
MacDonald added that blog readers shared posts over 8,500 times.
He summed up the results of the content marketing campaign with advice for marketers, saying, “we are not an army of content creators, but we can issue more than 50 posts per year and several reports and reports. Whether you are a small business representative or a large corporation, the success we have achieved at SuperOffice can be repeated. ”
Case Study
1. E-mail
2. Landing Page for Report
3. Blog Post