Abedeen Social Selling Study

This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group’s methodologies provide for objective fact-based research and
represent the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc.
and may not be reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by Aberdeen Group, Inc.
August 2013
Crossing the Chaos: Managing Content
Marketing Transformation
Most marketing leaders have bought into the concept of content marketing,
but Aberdeen’s new content marketing research shows a startling gap
between the value of content marketing activity and the effectiveness with
which firms execute. However, firms that get it right report significantly
higher lead conversion and lower customer acquisition costs as a result.
This Analyst Insight explores content marketing transformation using data
collected from 96 marketing practitioners, including 81 companies using
content marketing, between April and May 2013. It will put content
marketing into the larger context of nurture-based demand generation,
present best practices as adopted by Leader firms, and demonstrate an
aggregated return on investment (ROI) analysis to help marketing leaders
plan for a successful transformation to content marketing.
Putting Content Marketing in Context — Shaping the
New Buyer’s Journey
If we accept the premise that buyers engage with sales later and later in
their decision journey, a concept initially framed by CEB that Aberdeen calls
the Hidden Sales Cycle, then the role of marketing in the buyer’s journey
takes on a new meaning. Aberdeen’s 2012 report, Marketing Lead
Management: From the Top of the Funnel to the Top Line noted that, on
average, prospects receive 10 marketing touches through the course of a
successful buyer’s journey (one that ends in “closed-won”). This means that
the mission of shaping the buyer’s journey, which once firmly rested with
Sales, is now shared between marketing and sales, with an increasing share
of responsibility shifting to marketing. A buyer’s vision is comprised of a set
of assumptions about both the challenge the prospect is trying to solve and
the critical capabilities that are necessary to solve it. But if even half of the
decision journey happens outside the confines of a traditional sales
engagement, then sales has a narrower window than ever in which to
address these challenges and educate the prospect on solutions. It stands to
reason, then, that companies who can successfully shape their buyers’ vision
earlier in this process will more successfully convert interest into latent
need, latent need into blatant sales opportunities, and are likely to win more
business in the process. As noted in Aberdeen’s July 2013 report Alchemy of
Intent: Content Marketing in the Lead-to-Revenue Cycle, content marketing has
emerged to meet this need. Consider the following:
• Over half of all companies — and 70% of Leader companies —
surveyed indicate that nurture-based marketing is a top pressure
driving their adoption of content marketing;
Analyst Insight
Aberdeen’s Insights provide the
analyst perspective of the
research as drawn from an
aggregated view of research
surveys, interviews, and
data analysis.
Content Marketing Defined
Content marketing is the use of
media to entertain, educate, or
otherwise engage prospects and
customers to generate a value-
added interaction for branding,
retention, and/or customer
acquisition.

Crossing the Chaos: Managing Content Marketing Transformation
Page 2
© 2013 Aberdeen Group. Telephone: 617 854 5200
www.aberdeen.com Fax: 617 723 7897
• Proliferation of new channels (social, mobile, etc.) is the second-
most-cited pressure driving adoption of content marketing; and
• Twenty-four percent (24%) of companies indicate that prospects
and customers have heightened expectations for a more engaging
experience.
The strategic initiatives pursued by Leaders (see sidebar for definition)
reflect their focus on using content in nurture-based marketing campaigns
and starts to paint a more granular view of how these top-performing
companies achieve their success. Namely, 50% of Leaders focus on
improving the targeting of content marketing efforts and nearly as many
(47%) look to increase the quantity of relevant content being published to
their website (Figure 1).
As many know, quality and quantity are often opposing forces. Despite 92%
of all participants indicating producing high-quality content as valuable or
very valuable (4 or 5 on 1–5 scale of value), only 54% rated their level of
execution as effective or very effective (4 or 5 on 1–5 scale of effectiveness
of execution).
Figure 1: Top Three Content Marketing Actions by Leaders
Source: Aberdeen Group, May 2013
Minding the Content Marketing Gap
As first reported in Aberdeen’s June 2013 report Content Marketing ROI:
Quantifying the Value of the Difference, there is a wide gap between the value
that firms place on content marketing activities and their ability to execute
those activities effectively. This gap is illustrated in Figure 2, which shows
the percent of firms ranking specific content marketing activities as a 4 or 5
on a 1–5 scale of value (1= low value, 5=high value) compared with the
percent of firms ranking their execution of the activity as a 4 or 5 on a 1–5
scale of effectiveness (1= not effective, 5= very effective). There are two
29%
33%
41%
47%
50%
53%
0% 20% 40% 60%
Increase the quantity of relevant content
we’re publishing on our site
Focus on improving the targeting of our
content marketing efforts (i.e. content
personalization, situational content, etc.)
Use content in nurture-based marketing
campaigns that move buyers closer to
purchase
Percentage of Respondents, n = 81
Leaders Followers
Defining the Leaders in Content
Marketing and Management
Aberdeen used four key
performance criteria to
distinguish the Leaders (top
35% of aggregate performers)
from the Followers (bottom
65%). Leaders achieved the
following performance metrics:
√ 15.4% year-over-year
company revenue growth
versus 1.6% for Followers
√ 19.7% year-over-year
increase in unique site traffic
versus 2.5% increase for
Followers
√ 3.7% average website
conversion rate versus 2.9%
for Followers
√ 10.2% year-over-year growth
in marketing’s contribution
to revenue compared with
1.6% growth for Followers

Page 3
categories of activity in which this gap appears most acute: content
production and content tracking and analytics.
The ability to produce high-quality content is ranked as valuable or very
valuable by 92% of companies, while just 52% called their level of execution
effective or very effective. Generating / publishing sufficient content to meet
our needs is cited as valuable by 75% of firms, but only 32% of companies
claim effectiveness in execution. On the tracking and analytics side, 77% of
companies say tracking content utilization metrics like visits, views, and
shares is valuable, but only 27% cite effectiveness. Seventy-two percent
(72%) of firms say tracking leads generated from content marketing is
valuable, but only 29% of companies say they’re above average in execution.
But while this content marketing execution gap is also a reality for Leader
companies, the gaps are smaller and the level of execution effectiveness is
significantly higher when compared with Followers, as seen in Figure 3. This
tells us that Leaders are doing something differently and are having greater
success in their transition to content marketing. In fact, it shows the result
of Leaders adopting a set of competencies related to the development,
promotion, management, and measurement of content through the revenue
cycle.
Figure 2: In Content Marketing the Spirit is Willing, But Execution is Weak
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
PerceptionofValue(percentofcompaniesranking
activityas"Valuable"or"VeryValuable")
Effectiveness of Execution (percent of companies ranking
execution as "Effective" or "Very Effective")
Content Marketing Perception of Value
vs. Effectiveness of Execution, n = 81
Producing high-quality content
Tracking the content utilization metrics
(visits, views, shares, etc.)
Generating / publishing sufficient content
to meet our needs
Tracking number of qualified leads
generated
Driving more traffic to our website with
regularly updated content
Generating high-quality links to our content
Ability to personalize web site content
Accurately forecasting and budgeting leads
/ customer acquisition
Ability to roll out new sites or content
quickly
Generating social mentions of content

Page 4
Figure 3: Leaders More Effective in Content Marketing Activity
Case in Point: Cloud Backup Provider
Moves from Blatant to Latent Funnel
To support its growth objectives, a leading cloud backup provider is
shifting its demand marketing focus from “Active Demand” to “Latent
Demand.”
“We’d traditionally used product trials to capture the individual who
knew they needed cloud backup services, the person who was ready to
buy and just figuring out what they needed,” said the vice president of
marketing. “But cloud backup isn’t as well understood as on-premise
backup, so we know that there will never be enough of this active
demand to keep our pipeline full.”
The company is moving earlier in the buyer’s decision journey to identify
potential buyers, often before they even realize they have a need. Or
perhaps more accurately from a content marketing perspective, allowing
potential buyers to educate and identify themselves through interaction
with specific content.
Continued…
24%
13%
27%
33%
27%
51%
37%
37%
46%
46%
46%
72%
0% 25% 50% 75%
Tracking content conversion metrics
Generating social mentions of content
Tracking the content utilization metrics (visits,
views, shares, etc.)
Discovering relevant keywords for our market /
industry
Tracking number of qualified leads generated by
content marketing efforts
Producing high-quality content
Percent of companies ranking
execution as "Effective" or "Very Effective, n = 75
Leaders
Followers
Keep your Content Close-ish
How close should your
marketing content be to your
product or solution? On the one
hand, buyers want quality
content that addresses their
cares and concerns, and they can
generally sniff out content that’s
blatantly salesey. One the other
hand, content shouldn’t be too
far afield that a reasonable
person can’t connect the dots
between what the content is
about and the solution the
company offers. Remember that
just being helpful isn’t good
enough; your content should
help build the buyer’s vision of
success without becoming a
sales pitch. This is where the art
of content marketing really
comes into play.

Page 5
Case in Point: Cloud Backup Provider
Moves from Blatant to Latent Funnel
To achieve this transition the firm is embracing content-driven lead
nurturing. The marketing team is starting this transition by first
understanding and mapping out that buyer’s decision journey for cloud
backup services and building a plan to move buyers through an integrated
demand funnel. This includes implementing lead nurturing tracks in their
marketing automation systems, and developing content assets that map
to key stages and buyers in their journey. They have also made several
new hires to support content marketing initiatives, including new
directors of corporate communications and inbound marketing. Content
marketing isn’t a separate effort, but rather an integrated part of its
demand and corporate marketing efforts.
From a content perspective, the company’s objective is to become a
trusted source of information about cloud applications, software-as-a-
service (SaaS), and the cloud more generally. As the firm makes its
transition to both lead nurturing and content marketing, they’re initially
focused on correlation metrics between things like site and blog traffic
and marketing conversions. They will also use content to better
understand the buyer, for example by tracking volume of key search
terms like “cloud to cloud backup” as an indicator of awareness. The firm
also closely tracks the impact of content on conversions across the
demand funnel. Ultimately the company’s goal is to generate over 50% of
new marketing leads through inbound organic content marketing.
Best Practices of Leaders
Getting Content Right
In many respects companies with effective content marketing practices think
like publishers and put the appropriate processes in place to support
development of their content assets. Companies should start with a plan
that maps content to buyers’ decision journey (what types of content are
needed early in the exploration stages of the journey versus content
required later in the consideration and evaluation stages). Figure 4 shows
that 52% of Leaders do this today, compared with just 27% of Followers. As
content marketing sophistication matures, firms marketing and selling to
multiple personas should look to align content development with both
funnel stage and persona. Leaders are nearly twice as likely as Followers to
follow this practice (38% versus 20%). In short, Leaders are considerably
more likely to get content “right,” as in right content for the right persona
at the right time.
Content Marketing Fast Facts
√ An average of 60% of
marketing leads are generated
through direct / outbound
marketing, 40% through digital
/ inbound channels
√ In the last 12 months, Leaders
have increased content
marketing-based leads by
17%, compared with 12% for
Followers
√ 37% of companies report that
leads from content marketing
are of higher quality, while
33% report they’re about the
same; 9% of firms report that
content marketing-driven
leads are lower in quality

Page 6
Figure 4: Content Alignment Critical to Success
Inside Job — Managing Content Marketing Internally
From an organizational perspective, content marketing is clearly an inside
job, with 92% of companies indicating content development and
management is either entirely or mostly managed in-house. An interesting
pattern emerges when we look at companies that report a well-defined
process for managing the content development; the content cycle time
increases compared with companies without such a well-defined process in
place, from an average of 41 days to 46 days. This difference isn’t great, but
is made greater because it’s counterintuitive. However, we find that the
performance of firms with well-defined content marketing processes far
surpasses that of other companies in several key areas: average website
conversion is more than twice that of other firms (5.9% versus 3.8%) and
average email click-through rate that’s 30% higher than other companies
(4.5% versus 3.4%), as seen in Figure 5. This data indicates that, as often
happens, defined processes can add time to the equation, but produce a
better result in the end.
Figure 5: Well Defined Content Marketing Processes
59%
52% 52%
38%
45%
39%
27%
20%
0%
20%
40%
60%
Content marketing efforts
are well-aligned with
sales methodology
Process to align
development of
marketing content with
search engine
optimization (SEO)
strategy (understanding
of keywords, etc.)
Process to align
marketing / sales funnel
stage
Process to align
buyer persona
PercentageofRespondents,n=81
Leaders Followers
3.4%
3.8%
4.5%
5.9%
0.0% 2.5% 5.0% 7.5%
Average Click-Through Rate (CTR)
on email marketing
Average website conversion rate
Current Performance, n = 81
Well-defined process for managing the content
development
All Others
Content Marketing Map Defined
A content marketing map or
matrix is a helpful planning tool
for aligning content marketing
efforts to the funnel stage and
persona of the buyer. The map
can be used to strategically plan
the types of content needed at
each stage, as well as
operationally to inventory the
content assets available, and
where there are gaps to be
filled.

Page 7
Content Measurement and Analytics
The notion of lift from the direct marketing world offers a useful model
when thinking about content measurement and analytics. Lift is the
incremental improvement versus the mean enjoyed by a particular campaign
or segmentation. In the case of content marketing, it’s the incremental
improvement in the performance of a page, email, or other campaign based
on a particular piece of content compared against the average across all
comparable uses. But keep in mind that there are a multitude of factors that
impact the performance of a campaign beyond the content (timing,
segmentation, SEO, form length, etc.); limiting the extent of these variations
will produce a clearer picture of content performance.
To be able to measure content lift, it’s necessary to capture metrics
associated with specific content assets. As seen in Figure 6, Leaders are 58%
more likely than Followers to track how specific content is performing (79%
versus 50%) and more than twice as likely as Followers to track attribution
to content (39% versus 18%).
The metrics that matter will vary depending on the type of content and how
it’s being used. Metrics like inbound site traffic and conversion rates are
useful for top-of-funnel content, while late-stage conversion rates (e.g.,
MQL-to-SQL) or length of the sales cycle may be more appropriate for
content used in mid- and late-stage funnel.
Figure 6: Leaders Track Content Performance
Content Marketing Technologies
There are multiple technologies that firms use to support content marketing
efforts (see sidebar). The reality of these multiple, sometime overlapping
solutions points to the fact that content marketing is, by and large, modern
79%
44%
39%
50%
37%
18%
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
Ability to track how
specific content is
performing
Ability to capture
content metrics across
all channels (corporate
site, blog, social)
Ability to track
attribution to a specific
piece of content (i.e.
well-defined attribution
model in place)
PercentageofRespondents,n=81
Leaders Followers
Analyst Insight: Key Content
Marketing Technologies
√ Web content / web
experience management
system to manage and
optimize “owned” content
through web properties
√ Marketing automation
platform to support content-
based nurture campaigns and
the ability to score leads based
on content interaction
√ Marketing resource
management / digital asset
management tools support
the workflow, development,
hosting, and distribution of
marketing assets across
marketing teams
√ Search engine optimization
(SEO) tools that help
organizations manage the
“findability” of content through
both off- and on-page analysis
and recommendations
√ Content marketing
platforms used to manage the
creation, distribution,
measurement, and optimization
of content marketing across
channels

Page 8
marketing. As a result, nearly every marketing technology is supporting
some element of the content lifecycle. Firms should carefully consider how
these solutions integrate and work with each other. One common
connection is the integration of marketing automation platforms with web
content management to support lead scoring, a practice adopted by 64% of
Leaders and 45% of Followers. Some interesting special purpose, content-
centric solutions for content marketing are also emerging, including content
curating, content development networks, and integrated content marketing
software platforms.
Developing an ROI Model for Content Marketing
The impact of content marketing can be seen by comparing the
performance of companies using content marketing with the 16% of
companies without a content marketing initiative in place today. The results
of this comparison seen in Table 1 show a stark difference in several key
marketing performance indicators.
Table 1: Content Marketing Users versus Non-users
Performance Metric
Content
Marketing
Users
Non-users
Conversion rate from marketing response
to marketing-qualified lead (MQL) 7.6% 1.0%
Average click-through rate on email
marketing campaign 3.4% 1.8%
Average website conversion rate 2.9% 0.5%
By developing the capability to measure the performance and ultimately the
lift associated with specific content elements, companies can develop a
simple return on investment (ROI) model for their content marketing
efforts. Start by modeling the change in conversion rates through the
marketing funnel to understand the impact on marketing campaign yield. In
other words: how many unqualified marketing responses, aka raw leads, are
needed to generate a single marketing qualified, sales-ready lead. If the data
for the average marketing-qualified lead to closed-won conversion rate is
not available, then the yield can be based on the number of leads needed to
generate a customer. By factoring in average cost per marketing lead, we
can determine the average marketing cost per customer, and extrapolate
the difference in yield to determine gross content marketing ROI.
Aberdeen’s methodology provides a basis for quantifying the value of
content marketing best-practices at an aggregate level by using a version of
the model outlined above.

Page 9
Table 2: Value of the Difference — Counting Waterfalls
Performance Metric Leaders Followers
Average website conversion rate 3.7% 2.9%
Conversion rate from marketing response
to marketing-qualified lead (MQL) 10.5% 7.1%
Website traffic needed to generate a
closed-won opportunity 6,345 12,243
Marketing responses needed to generate a
closed-won opportunity 237 350
Per customer acquisition cost (based on
average cost per marketing lead of $110) $ 26,036 $ 38,416
Using only website conversion and lead to marketing-qualified lead (MQL)
conversion rates as variables (20% “plug” used for MQL-to-SQL and SQL-
to-close rates), Table 2 displays the unique site traffic and marketing
responses needed by Leaders and Followers to generate a “closed-won”
opportunity, i.e., a customer. When these metrics are considered in terms
of per customer acquisition cost using the average cost per marketing-
generate lead of $110 reported in our survey, the difference between
Leaders and Follows — essentially the cumulative value of the best-practices
adopted by Leaders — is over $12,000 per customer acquisition cost.
Recommendations
To win in the hidden sales cycle Marketing must do more than just “be
there” to capture value at the buyer’s moment of recognized need, it must
create value by helping buyers solve their business problem. This message
seems to be getting through as Leaders plan to increase their budget for
content marketing programs by a whopping 31% and Followers by a still
impressive 19% over the next 12 months, while content development
budgets are expected to increase significantly as well (by 22% for Leaders
and 18% for Followers over the next 12 months).
Companies planning to increase their use of content for both inbound and
nurture marketing should consider the following:
• Planning is Indispensable — President Eisenhower famously
quipped “I have always found that plans are useless but planning is
indispensable.” Develop a content marketing plan that takes
organizational design and the content map into account.
• Consider underlying processes — Effective content marketing
— particularly content marketing for lead nurturing — requires
more than just great content, you need the supporting processes
that constitute an integrated demand funnel.
Content Marketing Futures
√ Leaders plan to increase their
content marketing platforms
budget by 31% over the next
12 months, compared with a
19% increase for Followers
√ Over the next 12 months,
Leaders plan to increase their
content development budget
by an average of 22%,
Followers by 18%

Page 10
• Prepare for “Lift”-off — Use a measure of lift to track both the
evolutionary impact of content marketing (i.e., how average website
traffic, click-through rates, landing page conversion rates, etc.
increase over time) and the impact of specific content assets versus
the mean.
• Consider integrated solutions to support content
marketing — As noted above, content marketing is influencing
nearly every aspect of modern marketing. Firms should consider
how discreet technologies operate as a system of solutions, and also
consider emerging content marketing software platforms, an
integrated, content-centric solution to manage the development,
distribution, measurement, and optimization of content across
channels. Thirty-two percent (32%) of Leaders and 27% of
Followers report using a content marketing platform today, with an
additional 28% of firms planning to adopt one in the next 12
months.
For more information on this or other research topics, please visit
www.aberdeen.com.
Related Research
Content Marketing ROI: Quantifying the
Value of the Difference; June 2013
Alchemy of Intent: Content Marketing in
the Lead-to-Revenue Cycle; July 2013
Publish or Perish: Content Marketing is
the New PR; March 2013
Content Marketing Comes of Age;
October 2012
Lights, Camera, Call-to-Action: Trends in
Video-based Marketing; September
2012
Search Management Drives Higher
Conversion, Lower PPC Costs; August
2012
Web Experience Management: From
Content to Customer; June 2012
Author: Trip Kucera, Senior Research Analyst, Marketing Effectiveness &
Strategy, (trip.kucera@aberdeen.com) LinkedIn @TripKucera
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(800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.
This document is the result of primary research performed by Aberdeen Group. Aberdeen Group’s methodologies
provide for objective fact-based research and represent the best analysis available at the time of publication. Unless
otherwise noted, the entire contents of this publication are copyrighted by Aberdeen Group, Inc. and may not be
reproduced, distributed, archived, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent by
Aberdeen Group, Inc. (2013a)

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