Must Market

The great title of this scoop says it all. Everyone is creating content marketing but no one is sure how the top of the conversion funnel, those things we do like blogging and social media that drive traffic, and the bottom of the funnel, the magic land of conversions and ROI live, are connected.

There are several problems trying to connect traffic generation to ROI and conversion including:

* Attribution.
* Lack of accurate tools.
* TIME.
* Lack of predictive analytics.

Attribution, knowing where converting traffic came from, can be a bear. Conversion funnels can be peppered with visits; content and referring URLs What was the magic combination that actually created the conversion? Sophisticated analytics model attribution and assign some weighted value, but this is riff with bias and accurate enough (generally) to calm the riot. Some modeled attribution still beats NONE since no modeled attribution can lead to cutting off your websites proverbial nose to spite its face.

Time is part of the attribution problem. Some content lasts for a day and that are all its ever going to do. Other "evergreen" content can last for a year sending converting traffic all along. How do you know when you have short or long term content? By how it behaves and that is defining a bard door after horses are already out.

There is a missing algorithm in all of this. The magic QUANT math that can accurately connect funnel tops to bottoms. The problem is that QUANT math better be flexible and have some Artificial Intelligence-like flexibility or it isn't of much use since the web is a constantly changing sea of data, attribution and time.

We will master these complex FACTORS and find a way to better connect our funnel tops and bottoms someday soon. In the meantime bailing wire and chewing gum ROI systems will continue to rule our content marketing investments.

POST NOTE
I Scooped this amazing Jeff Bullas article and thought about it more. The tipping point is bigger than just Social Media Marketing. Beyonce worked the album to make it VISUAL. This took 18 months, but she succeeded (not hard when you are Beyonce).

As you read the amazing stats below how Beyonce BLEW UP social media and commerce with her Surprise album read Jeff's post about how she changed her approach too since there may be more than one tipping point here - Social Media Marketing & Visual Marketing on SMM.
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Great Scoop by Mike of a Jeff Bullas post noting how Beyonce may have marked our social marketing roi tipping point. Here are quotes from Jeff's post:
 

The tipping point?

With the evolution of the web there are some events that are small but significant. One of those happened on December 13, 2013. It was when Beyonce launched her latest album with an update on Instagram just captioned as “Surprise”

This broke convention.
 

Normally millions are spent on traditional media. Lady Gaga hyped her latest album by spending millions on bus advertising, billboards, 2 pop up stores and performed countless interviews. The result. She sold 305,000 copies in 2 weeks.

Beyonce, who has 8 million Instagram followers and over 53 million fans on Facebook decided to go straight to her fans. She decided to give the bus a miss. It was launched directly to iTunes and social media. She invoked the power of  ”World of Mouth”

The results

* It sold 828,773 copies in 3 days

* Twitter reported 1.2 million Tweets in 12 hours

* It was the largest single week ever in the Apple iTunes store

* It was iTunes fastest selling album worldwide

Jeff notes implications including

The lessons and what can you do

You may be not a Lady Gaga, Beyonce or a famous singer but the lessons are there. Start building your “own” digital assets. The world has changed. It is digital and it is social.

*Take control of your own digital future and build your own online assets and authority.

* Grow your social networks now. The priorities are still for the most part Facebook and Twitter. It will also depend on the demographic, audience personas, media preferences and industry. So you will also need to consider Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Slideshare and YouTube. It will also be determined by whether you sell to business (B2B) or to consumers (B2C).

* Create the best content you can. Repurpose it in a range of media including visual.

* Publish and promote it everywhere on social media.

* Don’t forget your other digital assets. This includes a blog, search engine optimisation, continue to increase your email subscriber list and keep up your content creation. It also means using content marketing in your mix.

* Boost your marketing with paid and targeted social media advertising. It doesn’t have to be expensive. You may need to get marketing traction fast and can’t wait to build the social networks from day one.

Marty
I agree with Jeff's points, would go easy on the paid stuff until you know what works, and would add these:

* Use G+ Author Rank as a great way to carry your klout with you.
* Crowdfund content - find ways to create community around your content and best way is to put THEIR content on YOUR websites.

* Contests and Games - great social content you can create with low costs and high User Generated Content (UGC) & social value.

* Be SOCIAL on Social Media - say congratulations, thank you and ask for favors. 

* Create video content because it is engaging, highly social and easy to move around the web. 
* Do Hang Outs On Air because they are fun and LIVE and so a little dangerous.