Category: Resources

Paris and the Maison de la Mutualité play host to the SaaStr Europa Conference on June 12 and 13, 2019.

Across the two days, SaaStr Europa attendees will learn actionable SaaS tips and strategies from the best in the industry, which they can use to grow their own companies. The conference also serves as a fantastic networking opportunity and is a great way to meet potential customers and partners.

With over 2,500 attendees and 60 speakers, this event is a must for anybody involved in the SaaS-sphere seeking to learn from the top minds in the business. To help plan your days, here are our recommendations for events to see at the SaaStr Europa Conference 2019.

Wednesday, June 12

Morning

There are no events on Wednesday morning, but registration opens at 10 a.m. You can use the time before talks commence to network with sponsors such as Ingram Micro and Chargebee in the Sponsor Hall Open, which runs all day alongside the main events.

The Braindate Lounge will be open from midday. Following on from the success of last year’s installment at SaaStr, Braindate is once again running its peer-to-peer mentoring program with individual and small group sessions for SaaStr attendees. Make sure to book your Braindate session well in advance.

Afternoon

At 1 p.m., SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin kicks off the conference with Tiago Paiva, founder and CEO of TalkDesk. Their talk is called “From Hackathon to Unicorn”, and will touch on TalkDesk’s major achievements and major industry milestones, including reaching 100 million calls and scaling from 10 employees to over 300, as well as Lemkin’s NanoGram, acquired for $50 million just 13 months after he cofounded the company.

Next, at 2 p.m., you can head to Le Théâtre where SaaS veteran and chief customer officer at New Relic, Roger Scott will discuss “7 Tips and Tricks to Having Happy Customers at Scale.” With Scott’s 25+ years of international enterprise and SaaS experience, his presentation is certain to contain actionable and valuable content.

Following a short interlude, attendees can choose between two presentations at 2:45 p.m., each offering different insights into SaaS optimization.

Tricia Miller, senior director at EMEA Marketing, will be on the Salon Monge stage to discuss something which all SaaS startups require: “The Insider’s Guide to Getting More Leads.” Here you’ll gain valuable insights into how to skyrocket your consumer engagement.

Meanwhile at Le Théâtre, chief customer officer and Egnyte cofounder Rajesh Ram delivers a presentation on “How to Win the Long-Game in Saas” with the mantra “Land, Expand, Explode.” Ram has enviable longevity in the SaaS game, so if you have your sights fixed on the future of SaaS, this talk is crucial for success.

Then at 3:30 p.m. in Salon Monge, Eric Rea, CEO of leading customer interaction platform Podium, will be detailing how he went “From $0 to $60M ARR in 4 Years.” Rea’s business model saw him generate serious revenue levels that most SaaS businesses never reach. Expect his advice to be much sought after.

Le Théâtre plays hosts to “The Rules You Can Break, The Ones You Can’t” at 4:15 p.m. This exciting talk on crossing boundaries in the SaaS field is delivered by two key speakers who have skin in the game: Jos White, general partner at Notion, and Christian Lanng, Tradeshift cofounder and CEO. With White acquiring $150M ARR and Lanng netting 1.5 million customers across 190 countries, few in the industry are better placed to offer advice.

Or, for a how-to on managing an effective team for your growing SaaS company, grab a seat at the Salon Monge stage for the 4:15 p.m. presentation on “Hiring, Firing and Stretching: How to Build Your First Management Team.” Moderated by ScaleX founder Dilek Dayinlari, speakers Hande Cilingir, cofounder and CEO of Insider, and Berkay Mollamustafaoglu, cofounder and CEO of OpsGenie, will deliver valuable tips on team management in the SaaS field.

After an insightful day of talks from top professionals in the game, take the chance to network with key speakers and attendees at the Networking Happy Hour at the Espace Maubert zone from 5-7 p.m.

Thursday, June 13

Morning

To get the second and final day at the SaaStr Europa Conference 2019 underway, Laura Bilazarian, SaaStr venture partner and Teamable cofounder speaks alongside SVP of Sales at Algolia, Gaetan Gachet. This 9:30 a.m. talk highlights how to optimize profit alongside effective team management by “Building a Sales Team that can go from $0-$50M.”

From 10 a.m. onwards, things really start heating up. With 35 presentations delivered by key players in the SaaS industry across all stages, it is impossible to catch all that is on offer. With this in mind, here are some top recommendations for pitches which promise to deliver the most value from speakers who are at crushing it in the SaaS world.

Over at Le Théâtre at 10 a.m., Andrew Filev, Wrike founder and CEO and recipient of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 List for four consecutive years is set to tell you “5 Do’s and Don’ts: Lessons from My Bootstrapping Days with Wrike.” For anyone seeking inspiration, this presentation will help you take your SaaS firm to the next level.

Next up at 10:45 a.m., be sure to keep your seat at Le Théâtre to learn about the different phases of SaaS growth in detail with “Slow Growth to Hypergrowth” delivered by managing director of Insight Partners Teddie Wardi and Felix Van de Maele, CEO of Collibra.

Afternoon

Keen to see how the correct approach to SaaS statistics can enhance the performance of your company? Start the afternoon out right at the Salon Sorbonne stage at 1 p.m. as DFJ’s Josh Stein explains “How to Lie (to Yourself) with SaaS Statistics.”

Next, if you are looking to increase your influence by moving up and collaborating with big businesses in the SaaS field but are unsure quite where to begin, Leighanne Levensaler, managing director at Workday, uncovers “10 Things That Aren’t Obvious About Partnering with Big Companies” at the Salon Monge stage at 2:45 p.m.

Head back to Le Théâtre at 3:30 p.m. for what promises to be an insightful presentation by CEO and cofounder of Lucidchart, Karl Sun. A veteran in the game with his company amassing over 15 million active users, Sun discusses his top lessons learned from his “Best and Worst Marketing Experiments.” Be sure to attend this talk to gain an insight into the mind of one of the most successful marketers in the industry.

Finally, round off a productive two days of talks at Espace Maubert for “Happy Hour with Sponsors We Love” from 5-7 p.m. Get together with the other attendees, network and soak up the invaluable insights you’ve gained from the masterclass speakers of SaaStr 2019. Make sure to say “hi” to our team who will be having a well-earned drink.

Images by: Headway, Wonderlane, Marcos Luiz Photograph

When Apple turned “there’s an app for that” into a national catchphrase in 2009, the company promised that its technology would change the way we live and work.

Today, when it comes to content marketing, there really is an app for that, no matter what content marketers want to do. So many tools, tips and tricks have filled various niches that it can be tough to cut through the clutter and find what really stands out.

Here, we’ve collected 15 tools that are proving invaluable to content marketers today.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs describes itself as “powered by the best and the most complete data in the industry” for tracking and ranking backlinks. Tools like the Content Gap feature tell users where their competitors are ranking for keywords they’ve missed, while the Keyword Difficulty Score tool helps content marketers decide where to focus their efforts first.

Ahrefs parallels content marketing stalwart SEMRush in a number of ways, notes BloggingWizard founder Adam Connell, but Ahrefs is pulling ahead of SEMRush in the keyword and competitor research department. The result is a tool that can help content marketing teams construct a roadmap to the results they want.

Almighty.Press

The downside to many keyword tracking tools is that they track uses of the keyword in real time — which means they can tell you what is trending, but they can’t tell you what will be trending.

Enter Almighty.Press. This tool’s algorithms are trained to identify topics and keywords that are likely to go viral before they actually do so, allowing content marketers to focus their work on what’s about to be big, rather than jumping on the back of an already rolling bandwagon.

Almighty.Press relies on a two-year, 50-million article analysis performed before its launch. In an article for Medium, the company broke down the seven biggest lessons for content marketers it learned from its analysis — which also serve as an excellent guide for creating the sort of content that will be “the next big thing.”

Clearbit

Clearbit has snuck up on a number of content marketers. In 2016, the suite of tools was quietly providing the “data backbone” of tech companies like Asana, Slack and Zendesk, according to Sarah Perez at TechCrunch.

Today, Clearbit stands out as one of the top tech tools of 2018. Clearbit’s tools work seamlessly with Salesforce, displaying data that can help companies improve sign-up rates, find new prospects, personalize customer contacts and even meet regulatory compliance demands, Perez noted.

ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels promises “everything you need to market, sell and deliver your products online.” While a couple of these tools, including CRM and member site capabilities, are still in development, the ClickFunnels suite offers the ability to control nearly every stage of the marketing and sales process from a single dashboard — from online store setup to webpage design and email newsletter management.

While a wide range of tools exist to address these functions individually, such as Shopify for online stores and MailChimp for newsletters, ClickFunnels keeps all the work and information in one place, making it easier to manage and to present a single unified brand image to visitors.

Cyfe

Tools like Clearbit insert themselves into platforms like Salesforce, enhancing the platform’s existing capabilities. Tools like ClickFunnel seek to replace the functions of other popular tools by incorporating them all into a single platform.

Cyfe takes a different approach, creating an “all in one business dashboard” that allows content marketers to combine widgets from the tools they use most often. For instance, a business that uses MailChimp for newsletters, Shopify for sales and PayPal to process payments can pull all of these tools (and dozens of others) into a personalized Cyfe dashboard. The result is an enhanced ability to monitor an up-and-running enterprise without having to transport it to a new system — or to waste precious time managing logins for every site.

GrooveJar (and family)

GrooveJar offers a suite of tools that make it easier to understand how and why customers behave the way they do — and to adapt your content marketing behavior accordingly in order to boost conversion rates at any stage in the marketing funnel.

“A tool like this is valuable because it streamlines and automates strategies you already know you should be implementing,” FE International founder Thomas Smale said of GrooveJar. The suite of tools can help content marketing teams turn their abstract knowledge of sales psychology and lead nurturing into real results.

Hotjar

Wish you could know exactly how users are scrolling, hovering and clicking on your site? And how to turn that information into better content, conversion and engagement? Hotjar knows.

Hotjar uses heat maps to track how site users click, tap and scroll. Recordings of visitors’ mouse movements provide additional feedback on how real people use the site in real time, while funnel and form analyses give essential data on how forms are used and where visitors drop out of the process. The result is a real-time view of customer behavior, combined with an array of UX tools and analyses allowing Hotjar to do far more than its mouse-tracking predecessor, MouseFlow.

Keyword Tool

How do you find the long-tail keywords that your audience actually searches for? Many content marketers use Google’s autocomplete feature to gather four or five options.

Keyword Tool offers an easier way to use Google Autocomplete. Instead of producing only a few most common options, Keyword Tool generates dozens or even hundreds of long-tail keywords. The tool allows users to specify which domains and languages to include in the results.

The free version generates up to 750 keywords, while Keyword Tool Pro doubles the length of this list and offers additional analysis features.

Kred

Several years ago, the big name in social media influence was Klout. Today, it’s Kred. The number one reason for the shift? Transparency.

Klout established itself by being the first site on the block to quantify social media influence and presence, but it did so in a black box fashion that some, including Forbes’ Scott Levy, found unsatisfying and too easy to manipulate. “Hire someone to spam your twitter handle (like some gurus I know) and all of a sudden you’re a social rocket scientist,” Levy wrote.

In May 2018, Klout folded, leaving content marketers who used social scoring to choose influencers looking for alternatives. In June 2018, Kred announced the launch of Kred 2.0. The new and improved Kred incorporates additional social media networks, offers verified Kred profiles, and even incorporates a Kred-specific cryptocurrency, according to Cameron Bale.

Throughout the process, Kred’s rules for calculating scores have stayed transparent, and its willingness to shift along with the Internet’s interest in image-heavy social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest and in digital currencies indicates that Kred may continue rolling out useful tools for content marketing.

Magisto

Video remains a growing priority with a growing base of interested viewers, according to Gary Henderson, founder and CEO of DigitalMarketing.org, in an article for Forbes. As a result, many content marketers are turning their attention to the best ways to use video to meet their goals. And tools like Magisto are making video easier than ever.

Magisto’s smart video editor uses AI to help marketers edit and release high-quality, attention-grabbing video in minutes. With video taking over the Internet, a tool that can improve both the quality and quantity of the video a content marketing team produces can be game-changing.

Mix (formerly StumbleUpon)

StumbleUpon has been an old standby since 2002, but on June 30, 2018, the website and its related app closed for business. Instead, StumbleUpon reincarnated as Mix.

Mix operates on the same basic principle as StumbleUpon — introducing users to content based on their topic interests and what other users have added to the site or marked as interesting — but with a twist: It also incorporates users’ social media presence, says founder Garrett Camp.

Mix’s great contribution to content marketing is twofold. First, in taking some of the “wacky game of roulette” feel out of StumbleUpon, as Megan Farokhmanesh at The Verge described it, Mix makes it easier to put content in front of audiences that are genuinely interested in what it offers.

Second, Mix makes it easier than ever for marketing teams to snag relevant, interesting content and influencers that might otherwise never cross their radar. It’s a great source for articles to include in a curated content newsletter.

If you’re uncertain about Mix — as a number of the app’s Google Play reviewers appear to be — several other options exist, notes Mihir Patkar at MUO. Those include Discuvver and URL Roulette, which operates on a “give a link, get a link” system that encourages content marketing teams to put their own work into the system in order to see what fans are posting as well.  

Tweriod

When is the best time to tweet? Both urban myths and data-backed studies abound, according to Nathan Ellering at CoSchedule. The latter are often based on how Twitter users as a whole behave, resulting in answers that are highly predictable for the general population.

But the very best time to tweet isn’t when everyone is available. It’s when your target audience is available. That’s where Tweriod comes in.

By analyzing both the user’s tweets and their followers’ tweets, Tweriod can provide a specific timeframe in which the bulk of the user’s followers are listening, making that window the best time to put information in front of their eyes.

Uberflip

Much of marketing today is about selling customers an experience rather than just a product or service. Uberflip focuses on selling the experience by helping content marketers “personalize content at scale,” creating custom experiences for each customer.

The concept of creating engaging, personalized customer experiences at scale is a compelling one: In April 2018, Uberflip announced the closing of a $32-million funding round, according to co-founder and CEO Yoav Schwartz.

Unbounce

One of the biggest hurdles for marketing teams is the bounce, when website visitors leave instead of stepping into the sales funnel. Unbounce seeks to reduce the bounce rate by offering a cohesive suite of tools for creating and testing custom landing pages, website popups and sticky bars.

For content marketers who are new to HTML or who want to focus their energies on content creation rather than landing page design, Unbounce’s templates are designed for ease of use — no coding required.

Unbounce’s client list includes such content marketing luminaries as Hootsuite and Uberflip. Many of Unbounce’s users are so devoted to the site that they’ve invested the energy to develop workarounds to some of its limitations, such as Robin Lord’s recommendations for getting around the one-form-per-page limitation of Unbounce.

Xtensio

One of the best ways to get more mileage from outstanding content is to repurpose it in various genres and contexts. A longform blog post can make a great video script, infographic or white paper — if you have the time and energy to devote to its transformation.

Xtensio makes the transformations easier. Content creators and marketing teams can collaborate on Xtensio folios, which can easily be shared, downloaded and transformed from document to slideshow. Perhaps best of all, Xtensio is free to use, allowing content marketers to get the most from their best content without an onerous investment.

The Future of Content Marketing Tools

Content marketing continues to be one of the most popular forms of reaching an audience, and the tools to do it have risen to the challenge. Whether you want to know the best time to reach your Twitter audience or you need a one-stop dashboard to manage your entire marketing funnel, there’s a tool for that.

 
Images by: stockasso/©123RF Stock Photo, everythingpossible/©123RF Stock Photo, sifotography/©123RF Stock Photo

B2B marketing on Facebook isn’t effective.

That’s how Sana Ansari, general manager of 3Q Accelerate, sums up the thoughts of the industry. Most B2B marketers believe it is too hard to get content in front of the right professionals. They’d rather use email.

But as she goes on to say, these assumptions are wrong.

Facebook, in fact, is an essential tool for B2B marketers. Business decision makers are on Facebook, after all. According to research from marketing agency Mighty, business decision makers spend 74 percent more time on Facebook than other people. They are also likely to have more friends than the average Facebook user.

It also remains the most popular way to share articles by some margin. In Fractl and Buzzsumo’s study of 1 million of the most popular shared articles, they found that 90 percent of social shares came from Facebook.

As an essential tool, B2B marketers and executives need to know how the platform works and, more importantly, how it handles business content in 2018.

What’s Changed?

Brands, for the most part, are being forced to pay to promote their content. As startup marketing advisor Sweta Patel explains, “Facebook has built a pay to play platform where companies are forced to promote their posts.” But it’s not just companies. It’s anyone who uses Facebook in a promotional way. As Digiday author Ilyse Liffreing discovers in an interview with an online influencer, even influencers have to pay to play.

The change has come slowly and over several years. In fact, a Facebook sales deck obtained by AdAge in 2013 contains the line: “We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site.”

As a comprehensive Buffer post compiled by Alfred Lua shows, Facebook started making this statement a reality in September 2014 with an update in which posts that asked for engagement were ranked lower. Since then, Facebook has released at least three updates that specifically targeted branded content.

But perhaps the biggest update came at the start of 2018.

On January 11, Facebook published one of its most impactful algorithm updates to date, one that sought to emphasize “meaningful interactions.” It was part of the platform’s push to make sure that time on the platform is well spent, and a reaction to the criticism Facebook faced for its role in promoting “fake news.”

As a result, Facebook began prioritizing content from family and friends over content from branded Pages.

How the New Algorithm Works

Joshua Boyd, content and community manager at Brandwatch, combed through Facebook webinar slides to put together a picture of how Facebook’s new algorithm works. You can find all of the slides related to the algorithm here.

The Facebook newsfeed is based on four factors: inventory, signals, predictions and score. The inventory is all of the available content on Facebook. Signals are the criteria that Facebook uses to decide which content you will like. These can include:

• Comments and likes on a person’s status or photo
• Engagement with publisher content posted by friends
• Replies to comments on videos
• Shares on Messenger
• Who posted the content and when it was posted
• Time spent on the content and how informative the content is

Predictions are the actions taken from the signals above. They are when Facebook decides to show you the content based on what it knows about you. Score is the value Facebook assigns to a piece of content based on its relevance to the user. The higher the score, the more likely it is to appear.

What Does This Mean for B2B Content?

Facebook’s January 2018 algorithm update has had four major impacts on B2B content marketing:

There’s Been a Serious Fall in Organic Engagement

As you might expect, brands have seen huge drops in organic engagement of their branded content.

A study by data analytics company Parse.ly of 600 sites in its network showed that Facebook referral traffic declined by an average of 25 percent between February 2017 and October 2017. Two-thirds of publishers in the study saw a decrease in traffic. For those experiencing drops in traffic, half experienced drops of 20 percent or more.

The truth is that this latest drop is just one in a trend that we have been seeing for the past five years. As content marketing strategist Maxwell Gollin makes clear, in 2014 organic brand engagement was already just 6 percent. And from January 2017 to June 2017, engagement on branded content fell by more than 20 percent.

Quality, Not Quantity, Is Key

You really need to add value if you want to see organic traction in 2018. Neil Vogel, CEO of Dotdash (formerly About.com) explains why: “Facebook is not a public utility.” They want people to have a newsfeed that they enjoy. Otherwise, those users won’t come back. If you aren’t posting things that people will enjoy, Facebook has no incentive to show your content.

For most companies, this will mean seriously rolling back their posting schedule. The top brands are doing it already. Lux Narayan, CEO of social media analytics company Unmetric, analyzed data from the top 20 B2B brands based on a list from Millward Brown. Among his findings was the fact that there was a negative correlation between the number of posts and engagement. The less brands posted, and therefore the more measured each post was, the more engagement it generated.

For Shannon Tien at Hootsuite, creating quality content is the single biggest piece of advice she can give to brands. Make sure you are “researching your audience, running tests, and regularly checking your analytics,” she says, so you know exactly the kind of content your audience wants to see.

Taking Hootsuite’s own Facebook post on creating social video as an example, Tien shows that the company knew the post would do well on Facebook because

• it was of value to their audience (and therefore share-worthy),
• the caption provoked emotion (and therefore made readers more likely to click),
• and it was presented as trustworthy rather than salesly.

Video Posts Need to Be Just as Engaging

In February 2017, Mark Zuckerberg labeled video a “megatrend.” This announcement, on an earnings call with investors, was followed up by serious investment by the social network. As Digiday senior reporter Sahil Patel notes, Facebook started to pour money into video in order to rival Netflix. By the end of 2018, the platform will reportedly have spent a billion dollars to make these video dreams a reality.

Marketers quickly jumped on video. A study by Wyzowl found that 68 percent of marketers surveyed published videos on Facebook. Of those respondents, 87 percent found it to be an effective strategy.

But that effectiveness could be coming under attack. As Paul Casinelli, VP of product marketing and strategy at Brightcove, points out, video was highlighted by Facebook as one content type that would receive less prioritization after the engagement update. The reason? Video is laid back and too passive in nature to encourage social interaction.

Casinelli goes on to point out that there are several ways brands can still make video work. They key is to live within the guidelines that the 2018 update puts forward and make engaging, high-quality content that encourages interaction.

This is a point backed up by Facebook’s own vice president, Adam Mosseri, in an interview with Wired’s Fred Vogelstein. Mosseri was quick to point out that although there will be “less video,” page content will still be important, especially if that content is shared and talked about by friends.

Promoted Content Will Be More Important

Which content you promote and how you promote it will become more important than ever. As organic reach continues to fall, it’s only natural that companies will start to pay to connect with new audiences. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Paying to promote content on Facebook shouldn’t just be seen as an expense. It should be considered an investment. Organic reach can only take you so far, says Rich Mintz, executive vice president of Blue State Digital. Organic Facebook traffic is great for retention, but it doesn’t help brands reach anyone new.

Paid promotion can also get results. If one of your main goals with Facebook is engagement, says marketing agency Santy, dedicating a larger portion of your monthly budget to promoting a post doesn’t just ensure your content will get viewed; it will guarantee engagement.

But you will likely have to pay more for that engagement. Mark Zuckerberg himself predicted that time spent on his platform would go down after the update. And despite Facebook Vice President John Hegeman saying advertisements will be unaffected, the result is clear for Paul Mead chairman of VCCP Media: “Less time on Facebook and fewer ads can only mean that the ads that do show are more expensive.”

Images by: Mimi Thian, Tim Bennett, inbj/©123RF Stock Photo

Content marketing got its start at least as early as 1732, when Benjamin Franklin launched Poor Richard’s Almanack to share stories, advice and helpful tips — and to promote his own printing business.

In the 18th Century, Franklin could hardly have predicted the rise of the Internet. But he may have foreseen that content marketing provides a powerful way for businesses to connect with customers. He might also have guessed that every technological change in our communication tools would lead to new ways to reach customers via content marketing.

Content marketing has undergone a major change in 20 years. In 1998, such marketing was still primarily paper-based. By 2008, digital tools like blogs, podcasts, video and webinars made up a significant portion of ongoing content marketing efforts.

Now, there’s Alexa.

Voice-activated tools like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa are quickly becoming ever more present in our lives. That presence is still a very recent change, however. Notice how the Content Marketing Institute’s Five Content Marketing Trends to Watch in 2017 makes no mention of voice-based content marketing.

Yet Alexa in particular has become a content marketing channel to be reckoned with.

Why Alexa?

Amazon’s Alexa isn’t the only voice-interactive device available, but it offers two of the most exciting opportunities for content marketing:

• The creation and use of Alexa Skills
• The ability to integrate into the user’s home life in unprecedented ways

An Alexa Skill is, essentially, an app users can download to customize their Alexa’s capabilities. Commonly used Skills include those that allow Alexa to pair with a home’s security system or lighting. Amazon currently estimates that “tens of thousands” of Skills are available for the device, and an increasing number of them are developed by specific brands.

For instance, Sahail Ashraf at Business 2 Community recently praised Ask Stubb, a Skill designed to connect users to the Stubb’s barbecue sauce brand. Users reach Ask Stubb by simply saying “ask Stubb,” followed by their question. Ask Stubb responds with expert advice on a wide range of cooking topics — and it does so in the voice of Stubb’s particular character, creating the impression of talking directly to the brand as one would to a friend or a trusted colleague.

Similarly, the Ask Purina skill offers up advice in its own sphere of expertise, which it defines broadly. When users “ask Purina” a question, they don’t have to limit their queries to pet food. The brand’s Skill can answer a wide range of questions about various dog breeds, helping users determine which pet is the right choice for their family and how best to meet their pet’s needs, according to VentureBeat’s Cosette Jarrett.

A brand’s Alexa Skill allows it to shape its brand message and personality, build connections and reach customers in a highly personalized manner. And Alexa makes it possible to integrate this approach directly into customers’ home lives in ever more intimate ways.

A Pathway to More Personal Marketing

Content marketing has entered the home for decades. Periodicals created by specific businesspeople (Poor Richard’s Almanack) or brands (like the Michelin restaurant guides or LEGO’s fan magazine) have long lived on kitchen tables.

By acting as a voice-responsive part of the home environment, Alexa takes this intimacy one step further, speaking and responding almost like a member of the family.

The “family” feeling isn’t merely sentiment. It’s fact. According to Daniel Terdiman at Fast Company, a recent Google study of 1,600 Google Home and Amazon Alexa users found that 41 percent of voice assistant users say “it feels like talking to a friend, or at least another person.” Many even respond accordingly, saying “please” and “thank you” as part of their interactions.

The study also found that users tend to put their devices wherever the family congregates: 52 percent of voice assistant owners kept the device in the living room or family room. Perhaps most surprisingly, according to Terdiman, the bedroom outscored the kitchen: 25 percent of users keep Alexa or Home where they sleep, while just 22 percent use the device where they cook or eat.

And these users don’t merely accept engagement with brands; they approve of it. More than half of the study’s participants said they wanted to hear about deals or sales from Alexa or Home. Forty-eight percent liked receiving personalized tips, and 38 percent already used their devices to seek customer service or support from various companies.

The result? “Personalization at scale,” a marketing approach that creates a one-on-one feel for each of the thousands or millions of customers that access it, according to Chitra Iyer, editor-in-chief of MarTech Advisor.

The Challenge of Scaling Voice-Based Content Marketing

Past attempts at personalization at scale haven’t always resulted in useful information for customers. In some cases, Rupa Ganatra notes at Forbes, it’s actually pushed people away, as in the common situation where browser ads recommend products that the use has already purchased.

Sometimes, too, marketing efforts will use their best guess as to customer desires based on demographic data, with occasionally off-putting results. “Traditionally, audience segmentation was done by categories such as age, gender and disposable incomes,” Dr. Janet Bastiman, chief science officer at StoryStream, tells Ganatra. “Today, retailers need to be looking at how their customers actually want to engage with them and look at what they’re interested in.”

For Bastiman, this means more ads about smart devices and computer hardware. For users engaging with Alexa or other voice assistant devices, it means focusing their attention on the Skills that are most useful or interesting to them.

Using Alexa For Content Marketing: 4 Tips for Success

Fortunately, Amazon has made it relatively easy for companies of any size to engage with customers through the company’s various voice devices. The Alexa Skills Kit, or ASK, provides the tools necessary to build customized Skills, which can be provided easily to customers through Amazon’s website.

As with any form of content marketing, Alexa can help companies get mediocre results, or it can help companies get outstanding results.

Here are a few key points to consider when launching into the Alexa content marketing sphere. These should nudge your results toward the “outstanding” side of the ledger.

1. Rethink Your Keywords

Humans use language differently when conducting text searches versus voice searches, according to Ashraf, this time writing for Locowise. For instance, a text search often boils down to basic focus words: “best burgers in Seattle” or “how much to feed 8 pound dog.”

When the same query is presented to Alexa, however, it gets longer. The user has to get the device’s attention, then phrase the query in a way that tells Alexa what is needed. Alexa has no response to “best burgers in Seattle.” To get the answer they seek, users need to be more verbose: “Alexa, tell me where to find the best burger restaurants in Seattle.”

Brands and marketers have been calibrating content to fit the short, punchy form of text keywords for some time, but the results from voice systems using these keyword algorithms can come up short. Think about how users might ask the device to access your Skill, and then how they might ask that Skill specific questions.

2. Use Your Subject-Matter Expertise

Whisky maker Johnnie Walker has developed a deep understanding not only of the processes required to make consistently enjoyable spirits, but also of how their own products fit into the wider world of whisky.

The company’s Skill, named “Johnnie Walker,” provides Alexa users with their own personal guide to whisky. Users can find bottles that fit their personal preferences or even participate in a guided tasting session.

While Johnnie Walker could have limited the Skill to a voice-based FAQ, the company instead decided to use its years of accumulated knowledge to become the kind of trusted guide that both novice and experienced whisky drinkers can trust — sharing and thus building its reputation as an expert in the field.

3. Make Existing Information Easier to Access

Many weather apps include pollen measurements, air quality indicators and other tools that allergy sufferers can use to determine how (un)comfortable they’re likely to be on any given day.

However, these tools are often buried within broader apps or websites, which can make them a pain to access. Enter Johnson & Johnson, makers of allergy medicine brand Zyrtec, which created “Your Daily AllergyCast.”

This Skill offers information about weather, pollen counts and specific allergens in response to a single question, saving users time and making them more likely to access its information. The Skill can even build a personal Allergy Impact Score, which allows users to make more informed decisions about their daily needs.

4. Above All, Be Useful

“When you can just speak to your voice device to order your shopping, renew your car insurance, or offer holiday inspiration, the balance of power for brands hangs in the balance,” Content Marketing Association consultant editor Dominic Mills notes. “This places a premium, first on brand presence, and second on utility or helpfulness.”

After all, the power of Alexa Skills as content marketing assets lies in their use. Customers who download your company’s Skill but never use it aren’t engaging with your company or brand. The more helpful a Skill is, the more likely that users will return to it again and again — and place your brand top of mind every time they do.

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