Content2Conversion Conversations: Piecing Together The Engagement Puzzle

Christine Elliott, Associate Director at Crowe Horwath, views customer engagement as a “puzzle” and her marketing team is continuously looking for ways to put more of the pieces together to get a clearer picture as to how buyers are interacting with content.

Demand Gen Report caught up with Elliott as she prepares for her presentation at the upcoming B2B Content2Conversion Conference, titled: Lead Nurture 2.0: Shifting The Focus To Optimization And Creating Leverage. She discussed the connection between content and engagement and some of the metrics Crowe Horwath leverages.

Demand Gen Report (DGR): The theme of the event this year is the impact of content on engagement and campaign results. Are you seeing a greater focus in this area?

Christine Elliott: Absolutely. I would say that that our primary focus is figuring out the puzzle that is engagement and what it means. Just because somebody looks at a lot of content doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about where they are in the buying cycle. We’re trying to identify what are the true drivers of an opportunity through the content. We don’t have it figured out; but if anybody does, I would like to talk to them.

DGR: Many of the sessions at B2B Content2Conversion will focus on measuring the impact of content. Are you seeing a lot more attention paid to reporting and engagement metrics?

Elliott: No question about it. Over the past couple of years we have probably tripled our efforts in terms of content strategy and development, as well as measurement. We have a large nurture program that now has 110 pieces of content, and we measure everything from open rates and click-throughs to forwards.

We found that when we produce a piece of content that people pass along to others, that certainly counts in terms of engagement. It’s a part of our lead score, actually.

DGR: What are some of the other content metrics you are looking at?

Elliott: We’re exploring all of the different ways people engage with our content and what we can infer from that. We check on what types of content are doing well with which audiences. We do title tracking and content types — an infographic versus a checklist, versus an article — to measure how they perform with the various title groups that we’re going after.

DGR: Can you give us a preview of your session on developing next-generation content and lead nurturing strategies?

Elliott: Phase one was about setting the foundation and studying a strategy and putting a team together to work on it and evaluating all the opportunity. Phase two, for us, is really optimizing and operationalizing content development, management, distribution and building the whole value chain around content.

DGR: How can marketers convince their higher-ups that attending a conference like this is important?

Elliott: Content marketing and demand creation are constantly evolving. I think the value of events like B2B Content2Conversion is being able to be on the forefront. You can hear from your peers how things are going and gather some great information on best practices. I have always been able to take things I’ve learned from conferences like Content2Conversion and come back and apply them at my company. I would suggest making the case to the higher-ups that that is what you’re going to do.

 

Click here to register for the B2B Content2Conversion Conference.

Click here to view the conference agenda. 

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