mir_1610_contmrktng

A Marketing Land Research Report

Content Marketing Tools: A Marketer’s GuideSECOND EDITION

M A R T E C H I N T E L L I G E N C E R E P O R T :

© 2016 Third Door Media, Inc. • http://digitalmarketingdepot.com 1 Email: [email protected]

M A R T E C H I N T E L L I G E N C E R E P O R T:

Content Marketing Tools: A Marketer’s Guide

Table of ContentsScope and methodology ......................................................................................................... 2Content marketing overview .................................................................................................. 3

Table 1: How will your content marketing budget change in the next 12 months? ...... 3Content quality and measurement top list of challenges ..................................................... 3

Table 2: What are your organization’s top content marketing challenges? ................... 4Market opportunity creates crowded, maturing vendor market .......................................... 4

Table 3: Select content marketing financial transactions, 2015-2016 ............................ 5Five core elements of content marketing............................................................................... 6

Table 4: Five core elements of content marketing ......................................................... 6Content marketing tool capabilities ....................................................................................... 7

Content creation and curation .............................................................................................. 7Content management .......................................................................................................... 7Content amplification/distribution ...................................................................................... 7

Table 5: Select content marketing tool capabilities ...................................................... 8Content optimization ............................................................................................................ 9Content analytics .................................................................................................................. 9

Choosing a content marketing tool ........................................................................................ 9The benefits of using content marketing tools ..................................................................... 9Content marketing tool pricing .......................................................................................... 10Recommended steps to making an informed purchase ..................................................... 10Step One: Do you need a content marketing tool or platform? ........................................ 10Step Two: Identify and contact appropriate vendors ......................................................... 11Step Three: Scheduling the demo ...................................................................................... 12Step Four: Check references, negotiate a contract ............................................................ 13

Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 14Vendor profiles ...................................................................................................................... 15Acrolinx ................................................................................................................................... 15Adobe (Creative and Marketing Clouds) ................................................................................ 17Brandpoint .............................................................................................................................. 20Content Launch ...................................................................................................................... 22Contently ................................................................................................................................ 24Curata ..................................................................................................................................... 26DivvyHQ ................................................................................................................................. 28idio ......................................................................................................................................... 30ion interactive ......................................................................................................................... 32Kapost .................................................................................................................................... 34Marketing AI ........................................................................................................................... 36NewsCred ............................................................................................................................... 38Oracle Content Marketing ...................................................................................................... 40Outbrain ................................................................................................................................. 42Percolate ................................................................................................................................. 44Rallyverse ................................................................................................................................ 46Scoop.it .................................................................................................................................. 48ScribbleLive (including Visually) .............................................................................................. 50Skyword .................................................................................................................................. 52SnapApp ................................................................................................................................. 54Sorc’d ..................................................................................................................................... 56Taboola ................................................................................................................................... 58Uberflip ................................................................................................................................... 60Zemanta .................................................................................................................................. 62Resources ............................................................................................................................... 64




Scope and methodologyThis report examines the current market for content marketing tools and the considerations in-volved in implementing content marketing software. This report answers the following questions:

• Why is content marketing growing so quickly?• Why do marketers need content marketing tools?• What are the core elements of a content marketing strategy?• What capabilities do content marketing tools provide?• Who are the leading vendors of content marketing tools?• How much does content marketing software cost?

For the purposes of this report, content marketing is defined as: The use of software and/or services to automate one or more of the following marketing functions with the organiza-tional goal of increasing consumer engagement and ultimately, conversions:

•content creation, content curation (discovery); •content management (planning, workflow, regulatory and brand compliance); •content amplification/distribution;•content optimization (SEO, testing, recommendation engines, audience identification and

targeting); and•content analytics.

The definition of content, for the purposes of this report, includes written products such as whitepapers, webpages, and product manuals, as well as native advertisements, sales reps call scripts, plus online images, and infographics.

If you are considering licensing a content marketing tool, this report will help you decide whether or not you need to, and what type of tool will provide the best fit for your organiza-tion. The report analyzes the current market for content marketing tools, including the types of vendors serving the market and the capabilities available. The information presented is rel-evant for both B2B and B2C marketers. The report provides recommended steps for choosing a content marketing tool and contains profiles of 24 content marketing tool vendors.

The Vendors section of this report includes some of the choices available for content mar-keting automation software; it is not a comprehensive collection of all content marketing vendors. This report is not a recommendation or endorsement of any content marketing tool or company. Vendors did not pay for their profiles to be included.

This report was prepared by conducting in-depth interviews in August and September 2016 with leading vendors and industry experts. These, in addition to third-party research, form the basis for this report.

October 2016

Editorial Advisor:Rebecca Lieb, Industry Analyst, Strategic Advisor, and Author, Content Marketing

Research/Writers: Emily Fraser Voigt, Freelance Business WriterBrian Kelly, Principal, Candlewood CreativeKaren Burka, Senior Research Consultant, Third Door Media

Editor: Claire Schoen, Content Services Director, Third Door Media

http://www.rebeccalieb.com

http://thirddoormedia.com/

http://thirddoormedia.com/

LeadREV.snapapp.com

INTERACTIVE CONTENT NOURISHES YOUR CAMPAIGNS

Your marketing must deliver a standout experience and create engagement with your audience. Is your content planting the right seeds?

Interactive content helps your campaigns flourish through better experiences. Watch your marketing bloom to 5x results with a content-enabled strategy across all your campaigns.

Your content ideas are the seeds of great experiences

Plant the first sprouts of interactivity with the free tool LeadREV by SnapApp

Nurture them into interactive seedlings with SnapApp

Bloom into 5x results with content-enabled campaigns

Grow Your Marketing

Plant Your Content Seeds

MAKE YOUR CAMPAIGNS BLOOM

SnapApp is transforming the way marketers think about demand generation by harnessing the power of interactive content. LeadREV by SnapApp enables marketers to take the first step

toward interactivity by creating lightweight, lead capturing experiences out of any PDF.

http://www.LeadREV.snapapp.com




Content marketing overviewContent marketing has become ubiquitous among digital marketers in a wide range of industries. Three quarters of B2C marketers and 88% of B2B marketers now use content marketing to increase sales, generate and nurture leads, and improve brand awareness and engagement, according to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI).

Fundamental shifts in the relationship between brands and consumers are driving significant changes in how – and how often – marketers communicate with their target audiences. Content is being published, shared, and consumed everywhere. There are hundreds of social media, email, and chat platforms, as well as a multitude of media formats, from text to images to multimedia. As a result, brand marketers now use a growing array of content assets to reach more fragmented, diverse customer bases.

On average, B2C and B2B marketers use at least a dozen types of content assets, the CMI found, and more than three out of four marketers reported creating more content in 2016 than in 2015. Topping the list for most popular content type among all marketers are blogs and videos, according to Conductor’s What Content Marketers are Doing Now research.

Marketers are consistently spending more on content marketing. Half of B2C and B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budgets in the next 12 months, according to the CMI (see Table 1).

Table 1: How will your content marketing budget change in the next 12 months?

51%35%

3% 11%

B2B

Increase

Remain the same

Decrease

Unsure

50%

33%

2% 16%

B2C

Source: B2B and B2C Content Marketing: 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America, Content Marketing Institute

Content quality and measurement top list of challenges

The challenge for marketers has become how to create, distribute, optimize, analyze, and manage the growing volume of content that needs to be generated on a daily basis. Producing engaging content is the number one challenge cited by both B2C and B2B marketers, according to the CMI’s research (see Table 2).

Organizational factors such as a lack of resources or content marketing strategy, as well as the rapid pace of Google’s algorithm changes and emphasis on content quality also impact marketers’ ability to use content marketing effectively. Less than 40% of all marketers consider their organizations to be effective at content marketing.

Fundamental shifts in the relationship between brands and consumers are driving significant changes in how – and how often – marketers communicate with their target audiences.




Table 2: What are your organization’s top content marketing challenges?

35%

35%

57%

52%

57%

60%

39%

35%

46%

46%

50%

56%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Producing a variety of content

Lack of budget

Producing content consistently

Measuring ROI

Measuring content effectiveness

Producing engaging content

B2C B2B

Source: B2B and B2C Content Marketing: 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America, Content Marketing Institute

It is difficult to measure the value of many content marketing initiatives. More than half of both B2B and B2C marketers are not clear about what a successful content program looks like within their organization, the CMI found. Yet many CMOs are assuming more bottom-line responsibilities and being asked to prove the value of their content marketing initiatives.

Market opportunity creates crowded, maturing vendor market

This gap between the use of content marketing and the ability to manage it has given rise to a complicated landscape of content marketing vendors. The software and services available range from interactive content apps and testing tools to artificial intelligence-based analytics, automated editorial calendars and social publishing apps, and global networks of content creation professionals.

Venture capital continues to pour into the market. Taboola received nearly $120 million in Series E financing in early 2015, and went on to acquire programmatic ad platform ConvertMedia for $100 million in July 2016 (see Table 3). Outbrain is using $45 million in private equity funds to accelerate product development both organically and through acquisition. The Israel-based company bought ad technology platform Revee in March 2016 and subsequently launched Outbrain Automatic Yield.

Foreign companies such as Outbrain are leveraging the growing interest in content marketing to expand their U.S. businesses. Toronto-based ScribbleLive acquired both SEO platform LinkDex and content creation specialist Visually in 2016, after securing $35 million in Series D funding.

More than half of both B2B and B2C marketers are not clear about what a successful content program looks like within their organization, the CMI found.




Source: Third Door Media

Table 3: Select content marketing financial transactions, 2015-2016

Vendor Date Transaction Notes

Contently February 2016 Acquisition Docalytics, a B2B docu-ment publishing and management tool

DivvyHQ June 2015 Series A $1.9M venture funding

idio April 2016 Venture loan $2.2M

Kapost May 2015 Series B $10.25M venture round led by Cue Ball

Marketing AI November 2015 Series A $2M round from Marin Investments Ltd.

NewsCred September 2015 Series D $42M round led by FTV Capital

Outbrain May 2016

March 2016

Private equity

Acquisition

$45M from undisclosed investorsAd technology and analytics tool, Revee

Percolate May 2015 Series C $40M venture round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners

ScribbleLive August 2016January 2016

September 2015

AcquisitionAcquisition

Series D

SEO platform LinkDexContent creation tool Visually$35M round led by The Open Text Enterprise Apps Fund

SnapApp November 2015 Venture funding $12M from Providence Equity Partners

Taboola July 2016

June 2015

February 2015

$100M Acquisition

Venture funding

Series E

Programmatic ad plat-form ConvertMedia$3M from the Daily Mail$117M venture round from 8 investors

Zemanta September 2016 Divestiture Sold Editorial Assis-tant and Related Posts technology and assets to Sovrn.




Five core elements of content marketingOrganizational goals for content marketing can vary widely, based on industry, company size or target market. An enterprise B2C brand may seek deeper engagement with target audiences through a mobile game app or video. A high-tech B2B marketer might use interactive infographics or product manuals to qualify prospects for nurturing campaigns. However, a core set of five content marketing elements has emerged that can contribute to organizational success with content marketing. Table 4 illustrates select details of each of these five elements.

Contentcreation and

curation

• Create, compile, organize, store content assets• Discover relevant external content sources• Establish links to curated content

• Editorial calendar/collaboration/scheduling• Permissions/access by role, department, location, etc.• Brand compliance/review/approvals/process• Centralized, searchable asset library or repository

• Publish original content to paid media, publisher sites, and social networks

• Identify and push content to social influencers

• SEO through keyword/phrase analysis and optimization• Multivariate and A/B testing• Recommendation engines• Audience identification (i.e., persona building), segmentation, and targeting• Mobile device optimization

• Centralized dashboard• Track and measure key metrics including views, downloads, traffic,

leads, conversions• APIs for integration with CRM, MA, PPC, digital analytics, and other

martech platforms

Contentmanagement

Contentamplification/distribution

Contentoptimization

Contentanalytics

Table 4: Five core elements of content marketing

Source: Third Door Media




Content marketing tool capabilitiesContent marketing tools come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from point solutions that automate workflow to full-service platforms that provide content creation, management, publishing, amplification, and analytics solutions. The content marketing vendors profiled in this report provide one or more of the five core content marketing capabilities presented in Table 4.

Several content marketing vendors offer more advanced features including apps to repurpose passive content into interactive assets, paid media campaign creation and execution, and managed or professional content marketing services.

The following section discusses the five core elements in more detail, and provides a side-by-side comparison of vendor capabilities (see Table 5).

Content creation and curation

Relevant, engaging content is the lynchpin of content marketing. The definition of content has expanded to include advertising text, blog posts, landing pages, emails, infographics, pictures, and videos. Content can be created in house with existing marketing staff, or outsourced through a content marketing vendor that offers access to a network of content creation professionals. Brands can also curate content from external online sources with links to their owned media properties.

Content creation and curation tools facilitate the development, organization, compilation, storage, and publishing of original and curated content assets. Authoring tools vary from WYSIWYG editors and title wizards to content scoring tools that optimize content as it is written. Some tools also provide customizable templates that incorporate brand and design guidelines for consistency. Several vendors repurpose existing content assets into interactive infographics, quizzes, calculators or assessments to boost user engagement.

Content management

Content management centralizes the important functions of content scheduling, collaboration, workflow, and compliance with brand, style, and regulatory guidelines. These tools feature customizable permissions and access that cover both internal and external roles (such as agency partners). Content management is a critical aspect of content marketing because it streamlines, formalizes, and communicates content strategy across the organization. Several vendors profiled in this report offer a managed services options for brands that lack the internal resources to execute a content marketing strategy.

Content amplification/distribution

Content amplification or distribution tools push content assets out to target audiences across multiple channels, including paid media, websites, and social networks. Social sharing among fans, followers, and influencers further drives traffic and consumer engagement. Content amplification tools also can help publishers find the most relevant audiences for their content assets across aggregated publisher networks or manage paid media campaigns.

The definition of content has expanded to include advertising text, blog posts, landing pages, emails, infographics, pictures, and videos.




Table 5: Select content marketing tool capabilities

*Capability available through integration with third-party software vendors.1Content amplification/distribution, content optimization, content analytics, and content management all available through Adobe Marketing Cloud products, which are separately priced. Source: Third Door Media

VendorContent

creation and curation

Content management


Content optimization

Content analytics

Pricing Model

Acrolinx 4* 4* 4 4 4 SaaS

Adobe Creative Cloud1

4 4 4 4 4 SaaS

Brandpoint 4 4 4 4 4 Site traffic flat fee

Content Launch 4 4 4 4 4 SaaS

Contently 4 4 4 4 4 SaaS

Curata 4 4 4 4 4 SaaS

DivvyHQ 4 4 4 4 SaaS

idio 4 4 SaaS

ion interactive 4 4* 4 4 4 SaaS

Kapost 4 4 4 4* 4 SaaS

Marketing AI 4 4 4 4 SaaS

NewsCred 4 4 4 4 4 SaaS

Oracle Content Marketing

4 4 4 4 4 SaaS

Outbrain 4 4 4 4* CPC

Percolate 4 4 4 4 4 SaaS

Rallyverse 4 4 4 4 4 SaaS

Scoop.it 4 4 4 4 4 SaaS

ScribbleLive (Visually)

4 4 4 4 4 SaaS

Skyword 4 4 4 4 4 SaaS

SnapApp 4 4* 4 4 4 SaaS

Sorc’d 4 4 SaaS

Taboola 4 4 4 4 CPC

Uberflip 4 4 4 4* 4 SaaS

Zemanta 4 4 4 4 SaaS





Content optimization software is designed to improve content performance through search engine optimization (SEO), multivariate and A/B testing, recommendation engines, and audience development and targeting tools. The goal is to identify audiences and their interests, develop audience segments and personas, and create content that is relevant to those personas. The majority of content marketing tools that provide optimization software also offer APIs to facilitate integration with existing CRM and marketing automation systems. Content can also be optimized by device, including for desktop, tablet, and smartphone.

Content analytics

Tracking and measuring content performance have become critical tasks, as CMOs come under increasing pressure to prove the ROI of their content marketing efforts. Nearly one third of B2B marketers say that sales lead quality is the most important content marketing metric their organization uses, while 30% of B2C marketers say sales/conversions are most important, according to the CMI.

Content marketing tool vendors have invested heavily in artificial intelligence and scientific algorithms to offer more sophisticated analytics. Metrics related to content consumption and sharing include total views, attention time, social actions, influencer mentions, and engagement rates. Lead generation and sales metrics include total views, lead scores, sales-qualified leads (SQLs), conversions, and return visitor rates. The majority of vendors use a centralized dashboard to track content assets. Many include real-time reporting and notifications and/or predictive analytics to optimize content marketing programs.

Choosing a content marketing toolThe benefits of using content marketing tools

Managing the volume of marketing content that needs to be created, distributed, analyzed, and managed has become complicated, time consuming, and costly for many organizations. Automating these processes can provide numerous benefits, including the following:

• Increase content relevancy and effectiveness. When consumers view and interact with content, they reveal a lot about their preferences and buying stages. By capturing and analyzing their content consumption, you can provide them with more relevant information that may push them further into the sales funnel.

• Improve message consistency across all marketing channels. Managing brand style and consistency is a huge challenge for global brands and multi-location marketers. By centralizing content assets in a CMS or database, those assets can be standardized and monitored for compliance with style and regulatory guidelines.

•Collect more accurate customer data. Content marketing optimization and analytics tools track and measure content consumption across multiple touch points. Metrics are moving from quantity based (i.e., how many pages viewed) to quality based (i.e., time spent reading specific pages). By automating the process, data can be integrated with CRM and marketing automation systems to enhance prospect data.

• Grow social sharing, referrals, and engagement. More personalized, relevant content is shared more frequently across social networks, which will amplify the impact and awareness of your brand.

Tracking and measuring content performance have become critical tasks, as CMOs come under increasing pressure to prove the ROI of their content marketing efforts.




•Enhance marketing campaign profitability. By sending the right content to the right consumers through their preferred channels, campaign efficiency increases and campaign costs decrease.

Content marketing tool pricing

Cost is an important consideration in choosing to automate content marketing. The majority of content marketing vendors license their tools as software-as-a-service (SaaS) that is based on a number of variables such as seats, content assets, consumption, digital properties or accounts. Several vendors also offer flat-fee pricing that is based on traffic guarantees or the creative assets purchased.

Fees vary widely depending on the type of tool licensed and the size of the enterprise. Among the vendors profiled in this report, average annual fees range from $25,000 to $500,000. Professional or strategic services, if needed, will add to the total, as will implementation fees that cover system configuration and integration with legacy systems.

Recommended steps to making an informed purchase

Understanding your current marketing processes, knowing how to measure success, and being able to identify where you are looking for improvements, are all critical pieces of the content marketing decision-making process. The following section outlines four steps to help your organization begin that process and choose the content marketing tool that is the right fit for your business needs and goals.

Step One: Do you need a content marketing tool?

Deciding whether or not your company needs a content marketing tool calls for the same evaluative steps involved in any software adoption, including a comprehensive self-assessment of your organization’s business needs, staff capabilities, management support, and financial resources. Use the following questions as a guideline to determine the answers.

1. Have we identified our content marketing strategy and goals? Automating content marketing can benefit the organization in many ways – but you need to know what you want to achieve and how you’re going to achieve it. Do you want to raise brand awareness or build a more qualified email marketing list? Do you need to nurture prospects along the buyer’s journey or do you want to retain customers and increase the frequency or value of their purchases?

2. Do we have existing content assets that are effective and can be used? Content resides in all different places, not just within the marketing organization. Do you have what you need? Or do you need to create more content…or repurpose existing content?

3. Do we know where our audience is? Have we defined our audience and content channels? Consumer media attention is fragmented across dozens of digital and traditional channels. To engage them, you need to know what their media preferences are, and what content will capture and retain their attention in each channel.

4. Do we have the staff to execute content marketing? Take inventory of your current marketing staff and capabilities. Do you have in-house creative writers and editors? Do you have marketing analysts that can interpret the tool’s data and reports? If not, you will need to consider working with a vendor that offers more of a full-service approach.

The majority of content marketing vendors license their tools as software-as-a-service (SaaS) that is based on a number of variables such as seats, content assets, consumption, digital properties or accounts.




Integration among content marketing, CRM, marketing automation, SEO, and other digital marketing platforms is essential.

5. Who will own or manage content marketing? Content marketing usually falls under the bailiwick of the CMO. However, specific roles vary within each marketing organization. Determine who will be accountable for each aspect of your content marketing initiatives, with the goal of making sure that everyone within the marketing organization understands their roles and responsibilities.

6. Do we have C-level buy-in? Content marketing software can be a five- or six-figure investment annually for enterprise organizations. Skeptical CMOs need to understand what the return on that investment will be. Outlining your strategy, goals, and KPIs is critical to winning their long-term support.

7. Have we established KPIs and put a system in place for tracking, measuring, and reporting results? Once you’ve established clear goals you will need to measure your progress achieving them with a series of KPIs that range from day-to-day traffic increases or time spent on site, to high-level content ROI that links content consumption to conversions.

8. What is our budget? Can we invest in staff training? To maximize your content marketing investment, input should be solicited from all stakeholders and end users for requirements, input, and collaboration. In addition to the costs of the technology (i.e. licensing fees, onboarding costs, APIs, etc.), your staff may need training on how to use the tools as well as content marketing itself.

9. Can we integrate content marketing with our existing marketing systems? Integration among content marketing, CRM, marketing automation, SEO, and other digital marketing platforms is essential. Make sure you understand whether or not your current systems are built with an open architecture and flexible APIs to enable seamless integration with a content marketing platform. If not, find out the costs involved with a custom integration.

Step Two: Identify and contact appropriate vendors

Once you have determined that content marketing software makes sense for your brand, spend time researching individual vendors and their capabilities by doing the following:

1. Make a list of all the content marketing capabilities you currently have, those that you would like to have, and those that you can’t live without. This last category is critical, and will help you avoid making a costly mistake.

2. Take your list of capabilities and then do some research. The “Resources” section at the back of this report includes a list of blogs, reports, and industry research that will help. (Many of the vendors profiled in this report also provide whitepapers and interactive tools that can help.)

3. Once you’ve done the necessary research, narrow your list down to those vendors that meet your criteria. Submit your list of the content marketing capabilities you’ve identified, and set a timeframe for them to reply.

4. Decide whether or not you need to engage in a formal RFI/RFP process. This is an individual preference, however be sure to give the same list of capabilities to each vendor to facilitate comparison.

The most effective RFPs only request relevant information and provide ample information about your brand and its content marketing needs. It should reflect high-level strategic goals and KPIs. For example, mention your company’s most important KPIs and how you will evaluate the success of your content marketing efforts. Include details about timelines and the existing digital technology you have deployed.




When written properly, an RFP will facilitate the sales process and ensure that everyone involved on both sides come to a shared understanding of the purpose, requirements, scope, and structure of the intended purchase. From the RFP responses, you should be able to narrow your list down to three or four platforms that you’ll want to demo.

Step Three: Scheduling the demo

Set up demos with your short list of vendors within a relatively quick timeframe after receiving the RFP responses, to help make relevant comparisons. Make sure that all potential internal users are on the demo call, and pay attention to the following:

• How easy is the tool to use?• Does the vendor seem to understand our business and our marketing needs?• Are they showing us our “must-have” features?

Other questions to ask each vendor include:

1. How will the platform help us create more valuable content or get more value out of the content we’re already producing? If you need help developing content, know the differences between vendors that offer content creation services and content optimization tools. Some content marketing vendors provide access to networks of skilled writers, designers, and photographers. Other vendors offer apps that will boost the value of existing content assets by optimizing them for search engine rankings or consumer engagement.

2. Does your platform make it easier to manage the content marketing process, such as asset review, approval, and publication? Workflow is a critical piece of the content marketing puzzle, especially at the enterprise level when compliance with regulations, brand guidelines, and editorial style are difficult. Find out what type of workflow tools are included to facilitate those processes.

3. What metrics or analytics do you provide? Content marketing measurement is moving beyond quantity based metrics such as traffic and social shares to in-depth engagement insights that pinpoint the key reasons why certain content pieces are more successful than others. Examples of these key elements for performance can include attention time, author, topic resonance, rich media type, distribution channel, and A/B headline testing.

4. How easily does the platform integrate with our existing PPC, CRM, and other marketing technology platforms or tools? When content marketers can reduce the number of steps it takes to publish, they can focus more on creating engaging content. Integrating digital marketing systems has become critical for brand marketers that are trying to increase consumer engagement. Find out if the vendor offers an API to connect with your existing systems, or if you will have to invest more in custom integrations.

5. Do you have customers in our vertical industry? How successful have they been with the platform? When they’re not successful, what are the reasons? B2B and B2C marketers may have different goals for their content marketing initiatives. As a B2B marketer, you may be looking to fuel the sales pipeline for your reps, while a B2C brand may be seeking more customer engagement. Find out if the vendor has experience with companies in your vertical that may have goals similar to yours.

Workflow is a critical piece of the content marketing puzzle, especially at the enterprise level when compliance with regulations, brand guidelines, and editorial style are difficult.




6. How quickly and efficiently can we set up, train our staff, and use the platform? How involved will our IT team need to be? The first three months of working with your content marketing partner are critical for future success. You need a company that understands how to help architect the best possible content operation so you can scale efforts across all departments easily and efficiently. Find out what the average implementation period is for a company of your size and vertical, and if the tool can be easily used by marketing end users without IT support.

8. How scalable is the platform? While your current content marketing needs may be simple (i.e., increasing engagement by turning passive content assets into interactive assets), your content marketing initiatives may expand and grow quickly into new channels or across global locations.

8. What kind of ongoing support and client engagement will your account team provide? Content marketing vendor support varies from self-serve (i.e., online knowledgebase) to full serve, with management services and dedicated support teams. Consider your internal skills and resources to understand how much help you’ll need during the life of your contract and how quickly (or slowly) the vendor will respond to your email or phone support issues.

9. Are there any add-on or hidden costs or fees? If a vendor charges for white-glove services every step of the way, your total cost of ownership will be a lot higher than you may expect. Make sure the premium pricing matches up to your budget and the quality of service you’re expecting from them. Also, verify the time it takes to go live, because if it takes longer than expected, you will probably incur more charges.

10. What new features are you considering? What’s the long-term roadmap and launch dates? The content marketing landscape is rapidly maturing. It’s important to understand the vendor’s level of innovation and the ability to add and track emerging technologies. Knowing a vendor’s new feature release schedule and its ability to stick to committed timelines is also very important.

Step Four: Check references, negotiate a contract

Before deciding on a particular vendor, take the time to speak with one or two customer references, preferably someone in a business similar to yours. The content marketing vendor should be able to supply you with several references if you cannot identify ones yourself. Use this opportunity to ask any additional questions, and to find out more about any questions that weren’t answered during the demo. Make sure that the person you’ve been referred to is someone who is a primary user of the solution. Consider also asking these basic questions:

• Why did you move to a content marketing tool or platform?• Why did you select this tool over others?• Has this tool lived up to your expectations?• How long did the system take to implement?• Are you also using additional tools for content creation, optimization (SEO), amplification,

or management? • Were there any surprises that you wish you’d known about beforehand?• Where have you seen the most success? The biggest challenges?• How are you measuring your own success?• How easy was the set-up process and how long? Did the vendor help?• How responsive is customer service?• Has there been any down time?• What is the most useful, actionable (favorite) report the tool generates?• What do you wish they did differently?• Why (or why not) would you recommend this platform?

Before deciding on a particular vendor, take the time to speak with one or two customer references, preferably someone in a business similar to yours.




Although not all vendors require an annual contract, many do. Once you’ve selected a vendor, be sure to get in writing a list of what technology and support are covered in the contract. Ask about what kinds of additional fees might come up. Are there charges for custom integrations, if so, how much? What is the hourly charge for engineering services, and is there a minimum? What partner organizations are available to install and integrate the tool? If you need to train a new hire mid-year, what will that cost? What is the “out” clause? Obtaining the answers up front – and having them in writing – will ensure fewer surprises or additional costs down the road.

ConclusionThere is a strong marketing imperative to automate the processes involved in content creation, publishing, amplification, optimization, analysis, and reporting. The relationship between brand and consumer has changed, and the convergence of user-generated online content, social media, and mobile have put control firmly in consumers’ hands.

With this opportunity has come a number of challenges for marketers, as well. Namely, how to create, distribute, optimize, analyze, and manage the growing volume of content that needs to be generated on a daily basis. Organizational factors such as a lack of resources or content marketing strategy, as well as the rapid pace of Google’s algorithm changes and emphasis on content quality also impact marketers’ ability to use content marketing effectively.

A crowded field of content marketing tools has emerged to help brand marketers automate their content marketing strategies and tactics. The software and services available range from interactive content apps and testing tools to artificial intelligence-based analytics, automated editorial calendars and social publishing apps, and global networks of content creation professionals. Choosing the right partner begins with conducting a rigorous internal evaluation to determine your business priorities, needs, and goals. Armed with this information, your organization can move forward and reap the benefits of content marketing with the right partner and the right strategy. n

There is a strong marketing imperative to automate the processes involved in content creation, publishing, amplification, optimization, analysis, and reporting.


Vendor Profiles



Acrolinx 2033 Gateway, 5th Floor San Jose, CA 95110(T) 866-749-3700

Corporate HQ Friedrichstraße 100 10117 Berlin Germany (T) 49-30-288-848-330 www.acrolinx.com

Target customer

• Global, enterprise B2B brands.

Key customers

Adobe FacebookGoogleIBMPayPalSiemens

Key executives

Dr. Andrew Bredenkamp, Founder and CEOUlrich Callmeier, CTO and COOCharles Frydenborg, Global VP, SalesSteve Rotter, Strategic Marketing Advisor

Company overview

• Founded in 2002. • 100 employees.• Born out of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence.• Additional offices in Berlin and Tokyo.

Product focus

• Content optimization software that uses an advanced linguistic analytics engine to assess and improve written content in order to drive increased conversions.

http://www.acrolinx.com




Vendor Profiles



Product DetailsContent creation and curation

• Integrates with over 30 content authoring tools, from common authoring environments such as Microsoft Word and Google Docs to advanced XML editors and Creative Suite products.

• Supports a wide range of style guides, rule sets, and languages, including, English, French, German, Swedish, Chinese, and Japanese.

Content management

• Integrates with 64 enterprise systems, such as Adobe Marketing Cloud, Salesforce.com, SDL, WordPress, and IBM WCM.

Content amplification and distribution

• Integrates with Adobe Experience Manager, Drupal, FirstSpirit, Sitecore, and WordPress.


• Advanced AI technology “reads” content and helps guide writers to create better content.

Smart Guidance Wizard “reads and learns” users’ preferred terminology, and provides recommendations on language and style to increase the content’s impact.

Voice Guidance helps users fine-tune the clarity and tone of their content.Acrolinx Findability (due to launch in November 2016) will help ensure that content is easy to find when people enter targeted keywords in a search engine.

Analytics

•Content Analyzer enables users to evaluate and score large volumes of content in file folders, URLs, and websites.

Provides 360-degree Content Scores on all existing content within the user’s asset library.

• The dashboard helps users visualize every aspect of their content performance from content quality trends to team performance and usage.

Export tools and APIs allow Content Score data to be correlated with other critical business metrics like page views, conversions, customer ratings, and purchases.

Pricing and support

• Typical installation is over $100,000.

Acrolinx 2033 Gateway, 5th Floor San Jose, CA 95110(T) 866-749-3700

Corporate HQ Friedrichstraße 100 10117 Berlin Germany (T) 49-30-288-848-330 www.acrolinx.com





Vendor Profiles



Adobe (Creative and Marketing Clouds)345 Park AvenueSan Jose, CA 95110-2704(T) 408-536-6000www.adobe.com

Target customer

• Students, photographers, designers, marketers, agencies, and large enterprise brands.

Key customers

Heifer InternationalHyatt HotelsMastercardMattelMcDonald’sT-Mobile

Key executives

Shantanu Narayen, President and CEOBrad Rencher, SVP and GM, Digital Marketing Bryan Lamkin, SVP and GM, Digital Media Abhay Parasnis, CTO

Company overview

• Adobe Systems founded in December 1982.• More than 40 worldwide offices in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, the

Middle East, and Africa.

Product focus

• Adobe Creative Cloud is a cloud-based, subscription service that allows users to download Adobe’s professional, creative applications across desktop and mobile devices.

Provides online services for file sharing, collaboration, and publishing. Includes services such as Creative Cloud Libraries, Creative Cloud Market, Creative Cloud Extract, Typekit fonts for desktop and web, and a suite of mobile apps that integrate with Adobe desktop apps.

• Adobe Marketing Cloud, a separate solution from Creative Cloud, is a cloud-based, subscription service that enables marketers to leverage centralized and shared data, content assets, and profiles.

Solutions include Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, Adobe Media Optimizer, Adobe Campaign, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Audience Manager, Adobe Primetime, and Adobe Social. •Tag management, profile and audience management, digital asset sharing, administration and user management, and mobile services are included.

www.adobe.com

www.adobe.com

www.adobe.com


Vendor Profiles




The June 2016 release of Creative Cloud includes the debut of the new Character Animator preview in After Effects CC, plus performance enhancements across Cre-ative Cloud (CC) and updates to Adobe Stock – including deeper integration within CC and the addition of an all-new premium collection of high-quality stock content. •Adobe Stock gives users access to

millions of images, graphics, and videos that are built into Adobe Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, and other favorite apps. Enables users to find the right asset, right away, and build it into their content.

• New Adobe Experience Design (preview) app for UX designers to design and prototype user experiences in one tool.

Content management

• Adobe Experience Manager, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud or purchased independently, provides content management capabilities.


• Available through Adobe Experience Manager (part of Adobe Marketing Cloud) and enables customers to organize, manage, and deliver creative assets and other content across digital marketing channels. Specific capabilities include:

Digital asset management.Web content management.Social communities.Forms management.Mobile application development.User generated content management.


• Available through Adobe Target (part of Adobe Marketing Cloud) and provides:

A/B and multivariate testing.Rules-based targeting.Automated decision-making, targeting, and personalization. Adobe Media Optimizer (part of Adobe Marketing Cloud) is a programmatic ad-buying solution that helps users forecast the best mix of search, display and social ads based on budget. It also automates the execution of a user’s media plan and helps find the best way to deliver relevant content to a customer’s high-value audiences

Analytics

• Available through Adobe Analytics (part of Adobe Marketing Cloud), provides customers with digital marketing insights via custom reports and dashboards. Features include:

Real-time web, social, video, and mobile analytics.Advanced, ad hoc segmentation, predictive analytics, rules-based and algorithmic attribution.

• Data integration with offline and third-party sources.

• Integration with other Adobe Marketing Cloud products for email marketing, remarketing, audience segment creation and sharing, and advertising optimization.

• Data accessible in real time, or via daily/hourly data feeds, streaming feeds, reporting APIs, native Excel integration, and scheduled reports.

Pricing and support

• Tiered Creative Cloud membership plans include:

$9.99/month for the Photography Plan (includes Adobe Photoshop


www.adobe.com

www.adobe.com

www.adobe.com


Vendor Profiles



Product DetailsCC and Lightroom CC).$19.99/month for students and teachers Creative Cloud All Apps plan, or for Creative Cloud Single Apps plan for individuals.$49.99/month for Creative Cloud All Apps plan.$79.98/month for Creative Cloud All Apps plan + Adobe Stock.

• Customized enterprise pricing based on seats or users, as well as number of apps licensed.

Discounts available with annual contracts.Enterprise customers supported by dedicated customer care staff, on-site onboarding, and 24/7 email and phone.

• Adobe Marketing Cloud is a SaaS-based solution that can be purchased separately from Adobe Creative Cloud.


www.adobe.com

www.adobe.com

www.adobe.com


Vendor Profiles



Target customer

• B2B and B2C mid-market brands.

Key customers

BankrateClub MedDirect BuyGallery FurnitureLincoln Technical InstituteSears

Key executives

Scott Severson, PresidentDavid Olson, SVPAdam McBroom, CTO

Company overview

• Founded in 1996.

Product focus

• Content marketing services and software company encompassing content strategy, content development, and content distribution.

Brandpoint500 5th Street SouthHopkins, MN 55343(T) 877-374-5270www.brandpoint.com

http://www.brandpoint.com/




Vendor Profiles




• Content creation and curation• On-staff writers and designers develop

blogs, articles, ebooks, social posts, newsletters, whitepapers, emails, and infographics.

•BrandpointHUB content marketing platform enables customers to create their own content and manage their content workflows through the entire lifecycle.

• Within the platform, users can curate internal content via the asset library.

Content management

•BrandpointHUB is a content planning, collaboration, and workflow platform enabling users to manage the content management lifecycle including ideation, planning, editorial calendar, content creation, workflow, approvals and legal reviews, and publication.

• Streamlines content review, comments, and approval process. Automatically publishes assets to websites and social networks.


•MAT release service distributes sponsored content assets to digital media sites (Hearst Media, GateHouse Media, Tribune Publishing, etc.) and social networks.

Guarantees 800 digital publisher placements and an average site audience of 80 million.

• Infographic distribution service delivers an average of 700 online placements per infographic.

Guarantees 500 placements and an average site audience of 70 million.

•BrandpointHUB integrates with WordPress, HubSpot, and all major social media platforms.


• SEO audits of keywords and search phrases by Google-certified content strategists used to create customized content strategies and editorial calendars.

Analytics

•BrandpointHUB’s Measure feature provides in-platform statistics on how much content is in a given campaign, how efficient writers are, and at what stage of the workflow bottlenecks occur.

• Third-party metrics from Google Analytics and social media channels demonstrate content performance.

Pricing and support

Flat fees based on guaranteed site traffic. • Project-based engagement ranging

from $5K-$250K.•BrandpointHUB is $50/seat per month

with discounts for annual contracts available.

• Complimentary onboarding services.

Brandpoint500 5th Street SouthHopkins, MN 55343(T) 877-374-5270www.brandpoint.com





Vendor Profiles



Content Launch16935 West Bernardo Drive, Suite 170 San Diego, CA 92127(T) 800-983-1385www.contentlaunch.com

Target customer

• Digital marketing agencies and B2B SMBs in verticals including software, healthcare, and technology.

Key customers

CiscoIBMKimberly ClarkKonica MinoltaMcKesson

Key executives

Jon Wuebben, Founder and CEOSean Ganser, CTOMicah Potter, Senior Software Engineer

Company overview

• Founded in 2003 as Custom Copywriting. • Raised a total of $425,000 in two funding rounds, including $200,000 in seed funding

in October 2014.

Product focus

• Content planning, creation, distribution, and measurement services aimed at helping customers connect and convert.

Software set for release in October 2016.

http://www.contentlaunch.com




Vendor Profiles



Content creation and curation

• Provides quality assessment of existing content assets.

• In-house writers create blog posts, e-books, whitepapers, website pages, landing pages, workflow emails, autoresponders, press releases, case studies, feature length articles, sell sheet content, brochure content, sales letters, and newsletters.

• Video editing and production services for digital agencies, small businesses, and startups.

Content management

• Editorial Calendar enables users to schedule and plan content and content marketing tasks by day, week or month.

•Content Launch tool enables users to plan, create, collaborate, schedule, publish, and track content directly from within the application.

Planning module generates topics based on keywords or phrases, analyzes content trends in client’s industry, and provides four to five customized content plans based on a company questionnaire. Included content creation tool for blog posts, website pages, landing pages, e-books, whitepapers, case studies, feature-length articles, and social media content. The tool features rich text and video content editing. Users can tag content, track changes, and share content internally. Integrates with Buzzsumo, which uses contextual analysis of information and user preferences to find the industry content that’s relevant to customers.Existing content can be uploaded

to Content Launch for future reuse.


• Integrates with seven content platforms including WordPress, and small business marketing automation providers HubSpot and Act-On.

• Integrates with Outbrain, which recommends client’s content on premium sites to engage new audiences and increase brand exposure.


• Influencer outreach included in monthly subscription.

Analytics

• Application dashboard provides a content score, putting focus on content performance and current tasks.

Pricing and support

• Free: 10 content distributions/month.• Pro: $99/user/month. Unlimited content

distribution.• Agency: $99/agency client/month. 25

content distributions/client/month.• Enterprise: $250/user/month. Unlimited

content distribution.• Annual contracts not required.

Product Details

Content Launch16935 West Bernardo Drive, Suite 170 San Diego, CA 92127(T) 800-983-1385www.contentlaunch.com





Vendor Profiles



Target customer

• B2B and B2C enterprise brands.

Key customers

American Express OPEN ForumCoca ColaFacebookGeneral Motors UberWalmart

Key executives

Joe Coleman, Co-founder and CEO Dave Goldberg, Co-founder and CTOShane Snow, Co-founder and CCOPaul Fredrich, VP, Product

Company overview

• Founded in December 2010.• 110 employees.• Raised $12.3 million in venture financing from Lightbank, Sigma Prime Ventures,

Sigma West, Dave Lerner, Contour Venture Partners, ff Venture Capital, and Consigliere Brand Capital LLC.

• Acquired Docalytics in February 2016. Integrated the technology into the Contently platform as Document Analytics.

• Additional offices in London, San Francisco, and St. Paul, MN.

Product focus

• Content planning, creation, publishing, and analytics platform that provides access to a global network of professional content creators.

Contently598 Broadway, Fourth FloorNew York, NY 10012(T) 646-767-6817www.contently.com

http://www.contently.com




Vendor Profiles




• Contently freelance talent network includes 55,000 professional journalists, designers, videographers, and photographers globally.

•Pitch Requests feature allows users to request story ideas from vetted professional freelancers who can pitch the user through the platform.

• Customers work closely with freelance brand editors, who oversee every detail of the brand’s content strategy and ensure the process runs smoothly.

Content management

• Editorial calendar maps out customized strategy and content production workflow through unified interface.

Users can add, subtract, or move assignments; sort by category, due date or topic; and manage multiple publications.

• Asset library allows users to store all content assets in one place, then tag and sort them by contributor, date, asset type or keywords.

• Custom workflows approvals ensure compliance.

• In-line comments and version comparison allow users to collaborate within the platform.


• Integrates content with user’s CMS for one-click online publishing:

Third-party CMS including WordPress, Tumblr, Drupal, Adobe Experience Manager, Medium, Sitecore, and HubSpot. Our Stories API pushes content directly to the user’s chosen CMS. Custom integrations are available for enterprise customers.

• Integrates with marketing automation tools: Marketo, Eloqua, HubSpot, Salesforce Pardot, and MailChimp.

• Integrates with LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

• Integrates with content amplification tools: Outbrain, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, SumoMe, Nativo.

These are fully integrated into the platform and with Contently Analytics.


•Contently Smart Distribution enables users to optimize headlines, images, and channels for maximum impact.

Works in tandem with Contently Analytics to identify which content to promote and where to promote it.

• Customizable dashboards and data-driven recommendations throughout the content creation process enable users to improve their content over time.

Analytics

•Contently Analytics measures in-depth engagement metrics.

Document Analytics provides metrics on all downloadable assets (such as PDFs, whitepapers, and ebooks). Page-by-page engagement analytics show which topics are most engaging for specific audiences and provide insight on how to optimize content length, organization, and cadence. Heat maps show exactly where readers click, hover, share, and skim.Contributor Analytics tell marketers how contributors’ content is performing, how often they file stories on time, and more.

Pricing and support

• Customers sign one to two-year tiered contracts that include SaaS licensing, content production, and creative services fees.

Contently598 Broadway, Fourth FloorNew York, NY 10012(T) 646-767-6817www.contently.com





Vendor Profiles



Target customer

• Small, medium, and large enterprises in the B2B and B2C spaces.

Key customers

Alcatel-LucentIron MountainLiberty MutualMargaritavilleRogers CommunicationsSAP

Key executives

Pawan Deshpande, Founder and CEOAmber Picotte, VP, MarketingWard Parry, VP, SalesJeff Suarez, VP, Engineering

Company overview

• Founded in 2007 by a team assembled from MIT and Google.• Introduced its Content Marketing Platform (CMP) in April 2015. • Employees tripled in the first half of 2016 with the focus on rapid adoption of Curata’s

Content Marketing Platform (CMP), and continued expansion of its flagship Content Curation Software (CCS).

Product focus

• Enables marketers to discover and distribute content across the web; it also offers operational workflow and production management plus analytics that show which content is contributing to revenue – and which isn’t.

®

Curata141 Tremont StreetBoston, MA 02111(T) 617-229-5544www.curata.com

http://www.curata.com




Vendor Profiles




•Content Marketing Platform features:Users can build template workflows with different processes for ebooks, infographics, video, or more. Users can create any type of content, and are not required to create or edit it in Curata CMP. Integrates with web analytics, marketing automation, and CRM systems such as Google Analytics, Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot, and Salesforce.

•Content Curation Software features:Discovers the relevant content from around the web using RSS feeds, keywords, hashtags, social handles, etc., bringing this content to the user. Self-learning engine selects external content for curation, intelligently adapting to user’s preferences. Users can organize, annotate, and publish curated content to a variety of sources such as blogs/microsites, email newsletters, social accounts etc. via a streamlined interface.

Content management

• Customizable editorial calendar to plan and execute content programs across contributors, channels, and timelines.

• Users can schedule and automatically distribute curated content on customizable schedules.

• Users can set permissions and access based on role, and set task and compliance processes.

• Software contains built-in CMS for users who lack one.


• Users can schedule and route content to the following channels:

Major social media channels: Buffer, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter.CMS vendors: WordPress, Drupal,

ExpressionEngine, Joomla, HubSpot, Movable Type, and built-in CMS.Email newsletter apps: Act-On, Eloqua, MailChimp, Marketo. API can integrate with any proprietary CMS.


• Content Curation Software uses machine learning to predict which content is most relevant for a user based on what they have shared or rejected.

• Software automatically generates SEO optimized landing pages for key terms such as people, products, locations, and organizations mentioned in the news.

Analytics

• Integrates with various data silos from web analytics platforms, marketing automation systems, CRM, CMS, as well as two dozen social channels.

• Reporting dashboard pulls together third-party analytics to display consumption metrics, social shares, pageviews, bounce rates, and marketing and sales pipeline metrics.

• Reports identify which contributors and content types perform best at different stages in the sales funnel.

• Can create dozens of custom reports using filters, date ranges, etc.

Pricing and support

•Content Curation Software: $667 - $2,500/month per topic area.

Additional channels/API access cost extra.

•Content Marketing Platform: $1,000 - $5,000/month, based on a user’s number of lead records.

• Annual contracts required.• Support includes onboarding specialists,

customer success managers, quarterly business reviews, monthly webinars, knowledge base and forum, and unlimited email and phone support.

®

Curata141 Tremont StreetBoston, MA 02111(T) 617-229-5544www.curata.com





Vendor Profiles



DivvyHQ117 W 20th Street, Suite 202Kansas City, MO 64108(T) 877-573-4889www.divvyhq.com

Target customer

• B2C and B2B, SMBs to enterprise brands.

Key customers

AARPBen & Jerry’sGeneral MillsMarketoRoche DiagnosticsSamsung

Key executives

Brody Dorland, Co-founder Brock Stechman, Co-founder

Company overview

• Founded in June 2011.• Raised $1.9 million in series A funding in June 2015.

Product focus

• Cloud-based, content collaboration tool designed to help marketing teams plan, assign, schedule, and produce digital and traditional content assets.

http://www.divvyhq.com




Vendor Profiles




• Once scheduled, content ideas can be created within the Divvy content editor, which includes a robust WYSIWYG editor, asset storage, team collaboration (commenting), and approval routing tools.

• Users can also create any type of content using their preferred applications (such as Word, Photoshop, InDesign), then route files as attachments to appropriate person for approval.

• Built using the language encoding standard UTF8, the database can support and store any known foreign language.

• Content teams can curate and store content ideas in the DivvyHQ Parking Lot, a structured repository.

Content management

• The Dashboard provides a centralized view of all content projects per user. Dashboard columns include:

Recent Activity: a chronological feed of recent actions, task updates, and comments.Content Items Due: a list of all content items that are due in the next 30 days. Published Content: a list of published content items in the last 30 days. Production Tasks: a quick list of the user’s assigned tasks.

• DivvyHQ calendar interface allows users to visualize the schedule of all content initiatives and filter calendars by the following criteria:

Individual departments, markets, brands, teams or clients (for agencies).Individual content types (blog, email, social, website, etc.).Buyer segments, profiles or personas.Content topics, categories, themes or campaigns.

• Task management features allow the

creation of production tasks for each content item.

• Divvy Pro and Enterprise customers can create custom workflow templates for each calendar or content type to automate production task creation and deadline scheduling.

• Integrations with cloud storage applications Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive, facilitate file discovery and collaboration.


• Social platform integration enables direct publishing of social content to platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.


NA

Analytics

• Internal reporting helps align content output to strategy.

Pricing and support

• Divvy Lite: $25/user/month with an annual contract.

Month-to-month plan: $30/user/month.

• Divvy Pro: $95/user/month with an annual contract.

Month-to-month plan: $105/user/month.

• Divvy Enterprise: $195/user/month with an annual contract.

Month-to-month plan: $215/user/month.Unlimited user plan: $2,500/month.

• 14-day free trial available.• Online and phone support included;

enterprise pricing also includes dedicated support specialists.

DivvyHQ117 W 20th Street, Suite 202Kansas City, MO 64108(T) 877-573-4889www.divvyhq.com





Vendor Profiles



IdioThreeways House40/44 Clipstone Street,London, W1W 5DW United Kingdom(T) 44-203-540-1920www.idioplatform.com

U.S. Headquarters214 West 39th StreetSuite 603A, 6th FloorNew York, NY 10018 (T) 646-237-5201

Target customer

• Enterprise and mid-market B2B brands in the media, enterprise technology, and financial services industries.

Key customers

Blackrock Fitch RatingsIHSIntelJP Morgan Pega

Key executives

Edward Barrow, Co-founder and CEOAndrew Davies, Co-founder and CMOJames Griffin, CTO

Company overview

• Founded in August 2006.• Raised a total of $10.96 million in equity funding from six investors, including a $2.16

million venture loan in April 2016.

Product focus

• Content intelligence platform designed to identify, analyze, and integrate content consumption and audience behavior data with CRM to increase marketing and sales engagement with prospects.

http://www.idioplatform.com



Vendor Profiles




NA

Content management

NA


NA


•Digital Experience provides real-time, personalized content across channels based on individual interests and audience segments.

Leverages artificial intelligence to personalize content automatically.Integrations with Salesforce, Oracle, Pardot, Eloqua, IBM Marketing Cloud, Marketo, InsideSales, and Adobe Customer Experience Manager.

•Sales Enablement integrates predictive audience profiles and content/conversation recommendations with CRM to increase sales rep engagement with prospects.

Integrations with Salesforce, Oracle, and InsideSales.Includes call center integration.

Analytics

• Tracks and measures content performance based on audience interests and content consumption.

Utilizes natural language processing (NLP) to extract and analyze keywords and phrases. Five European language sets offered (English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian); additional languages sets can be provided per client demand.Dashboard identifies, analyzes, and displays individual profiles and audience segments.Reporting surfaces content, channels, and campaigns driving conversions.Competitive Intelligence enables users to benchmark their content strategy in real-time against their competitors and the trade press at a granular level.

Pricing and support

• SaaS-based subscriptions based on the number of unique visitors.

Pricing starts at $2,000/month for one product or $3,000/month for both.

• Salesforce app pricing based on seat licenses.

$500/month for a minimum of 10 users.

• Average annual customer spend ranges from $30,000 to $400,000.

IdioThreeways House40/44 Clipstone Street,London, W1W 5DW United Kingdom(T) 44-203-540-1920www.idioplatform.com

U.S. Headquarters214 West 39th StreetSuite 603A, 6th FloorNew York, NY 10018 (T) 646-237-5201




Vendor Profiles



ion interactive200 East Palmetto Park Road, Unit 107Boca Raton, FL 33432(T) 888-466-4332 www.ioninteractive.com

Target customer

• Mid-market to enterprise level B2B and B2C organizations.

Key customers

D&BDellFiservGE Key Equipment FinanceSymantec

Key executives

Justin Talerico, CEOScott Brinker, President and CTOAnna Talerico, Executive Vice President

Company overview

• Founded in 2007.• 65 employees.• Profitable, privately held.• Additional office in Cambridge, MA.

Product focus

• Content marketing platform enabling marketers to create, test, and measure interactive content marketing experiences without the need for internal development resources.

www.ioninteractive.com

http://www.ioninteractive.com



Vendor Profiles




•Quick Start Cloud offers a library of hundreds of pre-fabricated and customizable, drag-and-drop interactive content experiences -- such as whitepapers, infographics, quizzes, assessment tools, calculators, and configurators -- that can be branded and launched within hours. Customers can launch Easy Quick Starts in 60 minutes or less with no training.

•Creative Studio digital design environment enables customers to design their own interactive content assets from scratch, without code. Marketers add content, control screen sizes, personalize and create app-like interactivity using a drag-and-drop interface.

• Includes interactive versions of Vimeo, Brightcove, Ooyala and HTML5 videos, which enable viewers to create their own, highly relevant story by making choices within videos.

Content management

• Integrates with upstream and downstream marketing automation and CRM applications including Act-On, HubSpot, Oracle Eloqua, Salesforce, Salesforce Pardot, Marketo, and DemandBase.


• Integrates with major social media platforms including Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, as well as email marketing automation platforms such as ExactTarget.


• Enables users to repurpose existing content into two-way interactive content aimed at driving up consumer engagement, conversions, and measurability.

Analytics

• Built-in actionable analytics on consumption, conversion and engagement.

• Users can download reports in Excel and PDF formats.

• Integrates with a user’s existing analytics platforms.

Pricing and support

• SaaS-based licensing fees range from $2,000/month to $10,000/month based on traffic volume and service level. Unlimited number of seats/users included.

• Annual contract is required. Pilot periods are available, enabling customers to try the software before committing to the annual subscription.

• Managed services option available to develop and execute interactive content experiences on behalf of customers.

Creative services staff includes account managers, designers, writers, and web producers.

ion interactive200 East Palmetto Park Road, Unit 107Boca Raton, FL 33432(T) 888-466-4332 www.ioninteractive.com

www.ioninteractive.com




Vendor Profiles



Target customer

• B2B enterprise brands.

Key customers

DemandwareDun & BradstreetIBMLinkedInRing CentralSalesforce

Key executives

Toby Murdock, Co-founder and CEOMike Lewis, Co-founder and PresidentNader Akhnoukh, Co-founder and CTO

Company overview

• Founded in April 2010.• $18.95 million raised in six rounds of venture funding from 17 investors, including

$10.25 million in series B funding in May 2015 from Access Venture Partners, Cue Ball Capital, Iron Gate Capital, and Salesforce Ventures.

Product focus

• Multi-tool platform designed to align teams, tools and channels, enabling organizations to execute, distribute, and analyze content across the buyer’s journey.

Kapost1433 Pearl Street Boulder, CO 80302(T) 720-446-9085www.kapost.com

http://kapost.com/

http://kapost.com/

http://kapost.com/


Vendor Profiles




•Kapost Studio enables planning and execution of content projects, initiatives, and campaigns.

Integrates with content editing and sharing platforms such as Google Docs, Microsoft Office Online, Tumblr, and WordPress, as well as content providers such as Getty Images, Curata, and Visually.

Content management

• Workflow tools include automated calendar, collaboration, and tasks.

• Campaign tools for organizing related content.

• Strategy tools for organizing content around personas, buying stages, theme, and other metadata.

•Kapost Gallery acts as central repository for all finalized content assets and files.

Enables asset sharing and distribution across departments, regions, and product lines.

•Content Auditor gathers digital content from websites, blogs, and YouTube.

Content can be organized by persona, buying stage, theme or custom attributes.

•Kapost Salesforce App integrates Kapost Gallery into lead, contact, and opportunity records to provide content recommendations based on most effective content for that part of the buyer’s journey identified with specific data on SFDC records.


• Content integrates with 50 publishing and marketing tools via the Application Center.

Partners include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and SlideShare.


•Application Center features CMS, social, marketing automation, CRM, and content sharing and editing apps from partners including Drupal, Hootsuite, Joomla!, Marketo, Oracle/Eloqua, Outbrain, Pardot, Scripted, and Tumblr.

Analytics

•Kapost Insights analytics help marketers understand the internal/external reach of content, cross-channel metrics, and focuses on persona-driven metrics that track content assets by personas and sales stages.

• Measures cross-channel leads, conversions, and movement through the sales pipeline.

Content scoring tools track and measure how each content asset is driving leads and conversions, including identifying patterns for how content is furthering buyer journeys.

Pricing and support

• Tiered SaaS-based subscription fees based on apps licensed.

Pro: Starts at $3,500/month with an annual contract and adds Calendar, Campaigns, and Analytics apps, as well as unlimited integrations.Enterprise: Customized pricing includes all Starter and Pro apps as well as single sign-on, advanced security, global view, API, and custom integrations.

• Add-on professional services offer best practices content operations consulting, interactive workshops, and customized 18-month content marketing roadmap.

Kapost1433 Pearl Street Boulder, CO 80302(T) 720-446-9085www.kapost.com

http://kapost.com/

http://kapost.com/

http://kapost.com/


Vendor Profiles



Marketing AI 403 - 128 West PenderVancouver, BCV6B 1R8(T) 855-248-7377www.marketing.ai

Target customer

• SMBs and large enterprises, including marketing and corporate communications divisions.

Key customers

AecomZillowSalesforce.comTeradataCentury LinkSchlumberger

Key executives

Greg Marlin, FounderJean Nairon, Director, Customer Success and MarketingKirk Hasley, Director, Customer DevelopmentJordan Lapp, VP of Engineering

Company overview

• Founded in 2012 in Vancouver, Canada. • Raised $2 million in Series A funding from Marin Investments Ltd in November 2015.

Product focus

• Marketing.AI is a cloud-based content marketing tool that aligns strategy, tracks execution, and measures results through an Editorial Calendar.

http://www.marketing.ai




Vendor Profiles




• Centralized around editorial calendar for collaborative planning and creation of content.

• Users can draft rich text and HTML content within the application and keep track of assets such as videos and images.

• All content or communication items are tracked through workflows and due dates.

• Approvers, editors, and managers log in to the app to review and approve media before it is published.

• Curation of internal content through asset library. Customers can upload historical content as part of onboarding process.

Content management

• Tools for managing content delivery in an editorial calendar.

• All items, including changes and comments, are tracked from ideation to completion and publication.

• Personal Calendar views keep individual team members on track.

• Content Audit tool enables users to identify, label and track content according to type, target audience, goals and stages.

• Agencies can manage multiple clients from one interface.


• Tools for distributing content to common channels like social media, email automation, and content management systems.

• Key integrations with marketing platforms such as Facebook, HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, Twitter, and WordPress allow users to draft, approve, and publish content from one place.


NA

Analytics

• Through integrations with third-party publishers, data on likes, shares, retweets, opens, and clicks is pulled into the application and presented in a single dashboard.

• Based on these results, users can adjust strategy and execution on the fly.

•Theme-Cycle Grid shows how content aligns to themes, objectives and target audience across your Buyer Cycle.

Pricing and support

• Price range: $600-$1,800/user annually.• Pricing is based on monthly and annual

subscription and charged per user license.

• Annual contract is required.• Customer support available to

subscribers includes training, help, and access to online community.

• Customer Success also helps customers optimize their content and communications delivery.

Marketing AI 403 - 128 West PenderVancouver, BCV6B 1R8(T) 855-248-7377www.marketing.ai





Vendor Profiles



Target customer

• B2C and B2B enterprise brands in a variety of sectors including financial services, pharmaceuticals, technology, and retail/CPG.

Key customers

CapgeminiConAgra FoodsJockeyMicrosoft Pepsi Visa

Key executives

Shafqat Islam, Co-founder and CEOAsif Rahman, Co-founder and CTO

Company overview

• Founded in 2008.• 150-plus employees.• Raised $89 million in venture financing, including $42 million growth equity funding

in September 2015, which was led by FTV Capital followed by existing investors FirstMark Capital, InterWest Partners, and Mayfield Fund.

• Additional offices in London and Dhaka.

Product focus

• NewsCred content marketing software enables brands to manage content creation, distribution, and measurement across channels, teams, and global markets on a single platform. Strategic and editorial services help brands build their content strategy from the ground up.

NewsCred386 Park Ave. S., Sixth FloorNew York, NY 10016(T) 212-989-4100www.newscred.com

http://www.newscred.com




Vendor Profiles




• Responsive templates for desktop, tablet, and smartphone with thousands of available plug-ins enable easy customization of branded content sites, blogs or landing pages.

• More than 15 available content formats enable users to scale for depth and breadth of creative.

• A proprietary network of writers, photographers, videographers, and designers produce high-quality, original content for NewsCred clients.

• Editorial services help users manage day-to-day curation and content processes.

• Licensed content is available from thousands of leading publishers, such as AP, The Economist, and Wired. By publishing name-brand content on their sites, brands own the traffic instead of linking away, which can increase conversions.

Provides brands with over 40 million articles, 30 million images, across 160,000 topics. Content spans 19 verticals across, more than 70 countries, and over 15 languages.

Content management

• Planning, workflow, and governance tools centralize content marketing efforts on a single platform, ensuring brand guidelines are adhered to while allowing for local market flexibility.

• Content planning and publishing calendars enable users to view and manage all content marketing activity.

• Campaign briefing and planning tools enable users to define and execute their marketing strategy.


• Asset management and campaign sharing tools enable users to integrate and distribute content across teams, channels, and markets.

• Integrates with a brand’s existing CMS or helps brands design, build, and host a custom CMS.

• Users can schedule content to publish across websites, blogs, feeds or social channels.


• Enables users to prepare content for paid promotion across various social media channels.

• Users can discover which topics resonate with their audience, and use these insights to optimize the editorial planning process.

Analytics

• Users can analyze content performance by campaigns, sources, authors, topics, distribution channels, and tags to understand how content performs against their audience and funnels.

Pricing and support

• Custom pricing for software, content, strategy, and editorial support.

• Scaled rollouts possible across global markets and lines of business.

• Dedicated client development manager with industry expertise to support content marketing programs on an ongoing basis.

• 24/7 support, aiming for response times of less than 20 minutes.

• NewsCred hosts and supports all server, software, security, and availability.

NewsCred386 Park Ave. S., Sixth FloorNew York, NY 10016(T) 212-989-4100www.newscred.com





Vendor Profiles



Oracle Content Marketing500 Oracle ParkwayRedwood City, CA 94065(T) 800-633-0925https://www.oracle.com/marketingcloud/products/content-marketing/index.html

Target customer

• Small business, midmarket, and enterprise.

Key customers

CVENTIndiana UniversityLifeSizeLojas ColomboPetRelocation

Key executives

Laura Ipsen, SVP and General Manager, Oracle Marketing CloudChris Lynch, Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Oracle Marketing CloudJeff Cohen, Director, Content and Social Marketing, Oracle Marketing Cloud

Company overview

• Oracle was founded in 1977.• Compendium was founded in January 2007.• Oracle acquired Compendium in October 2013.• Oracle Content Marketing is part of the Oracle Marketing Cloud, which includes

previous acquisition Eloqua.

Product focus

• A cloud-based, content marketing platform that helps customers plan, produce, and deliver engaging content across multiple personas and channels throughout the customer lifecycle.

https://www.oracle.com/marketingcloud/products/content-marketing/index.html






Vendor Profiles




• Produce content optimized for search engines on corporate websites and company blogs.

• Create metadata tags, title tags, and keyword descriptions that attract visits.

Content management

• Centralized, intuitive calendar-based tool displaying active and draft campaigns, events, emails, and content assets.

• Built-in workflow capabilities for content creation, review, and distribution.

• Marketers can organize content in one central repository to enhance relevancy, schedule messaging, and use in-depth topic modeling features to develop content creation plans.

• Tools include content scoring model, related topic ideas, title wizard, and custom content tagging.


• Publish content to blogs, websites, microsites, email, and landing pages.

• Promote content across social channels with Oracle’s Social Relationship Management or Oracle Content Marketing’s in-app social promotions tool.

• Integrate with Oracle Marketing Automation (Eloqua) to deliver relevant, targeted content to email and landing pages.


• Defines personas and audience segments.

• All content tagged by persona and funnel stage.

• Integrated with Eloqua marketing automation software to map individual personas to user segments and feed digital marketing campaigns.

Analytics

• Main dashboard provides a quick look at content production and workflow with:

Unique content contributors.Number of outstanding content assignments given to content contributors.The amount of content published in that given time frame.Social promotions associated with the content.

• Traffic and conversion statistics include: Number of visitors.Average time on page.Events/Actions.Number of keywords used to find content assets.Referral traffic. Traffic sources.

Pricing and support

• Contact Oracle for pricing and support options.

Oracle Content Marketing500 Oracle ParkwayRedwood City, CA 94065(T) 800-633-0925https://www.oracle.com/marketingcloud/products/content-marketing/index.html







Vendor Profiles



Target customer

• B2C SMBs, agencies, and enterprise brands.

Key customers

AllstateFederated Media (FM)General Electric (GE)New York PostSlateTime Inc.

Key executives

Yaron Galai, Co-Founder and CEOOri Lahov, Co-Founder and COOElise Garofolo, CFOYuval Ben-Itzhak, CTO

Company overview

• Founded in January 2007.• $194 million in eight rounds of venture funding from eleven investors, most

recently $45 million in May 2016 from backers including Susquehanna Growth Equity, Rhodium, GlenRock Israel, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Carmel Ventures, HarbourVest Partners, Gemini Israel Ventures, Index Ventures, and Vintage Investment Partners.

• Acquired real-time predictive analytics engine Visual Revenue in March 2013.• Acquired ROI-tracking content startup Revee in March 2016, and used the

technology as the basis of Outbrain Automatic Yield service.• Partners with publishers and marketers in over 55 countries, including the U.S., U.K.,

France, Brazil, India, and Japan.• Additional offices in Netanya, Israel; London; Paris; Munich; San Francisco; Chicago;

Washington, DC; Atlanta; Singapore; Sydney; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Milan; Madrid; and Tokyo.

Product focus

• Content discovery platform providing recommended links to increase traffic and generate revenue.

OutbrainArieh Regev Street 4 Netanya, Israel

U.S. Headquarters39 West 13th StreetNew York, NY 10011 (T) 646-867-0149www.outbrain.com

http://www.outbrain.com/


Vendor Profiles




•Outbrain Engage chooses recommended content, with algorithms that determine the best links for each user, including contextual similarities, post popularity, and audience patterns.


•Outbrain Engage is designed to help marketers and publishers offer on-site content recommendations.

Discovery Modules showcase most engaging content and redirect audiences to specific site sections.Editorial Suite toolset includes on-the-fly controls to change headlines or images, based on real-time testing and conversion metrics.Outbrain Automatic Yield, a content recommendation tool, enables publishers to get a more accurate understanding of how much revenue individual pieces of content are generating in real-time.

• Provides responsive design, customized mobile modules, and mobile optimized content recommendations.


•Outbrain Amplify distributes content as recommendations on third-party publisher sites.

• Dashboard streamlines workflow by unifying all campaign components – campaign management, campaign reporting, and campaign settings.

Publisher network includes 100,000 sites including CNN.com, Slate, and ESPN.

Analytics

• Integrates with analytics platforms such as Google Analytics

Pricing and support

•Amplify customers choose daily budgets and CPC limits.

• Online help center, email, and phone support included.

• Dedicated campaign management teams service enterprise customers.

OutbrainArieh Regev Street 4 Netanya, Israel

U.S. Headquarters39 West 13th StreetNew York, NY 10011 (T) 646-867-0149www.outbrain.com

http://www.outbrain.com/


Vendor Profiles



Percolate107 Grand Street, 2nd FloorNew York, NY 10013(T) 646-470-8346www.percolate.com

Target customer

• B2B and B2C mid-market and enterprise brands.

Key customers

Anheuser-Busch InBevGE Levi’sMasterCard PandoraUnilever

Key executives

Noah Briar, Co-founderJames Gross, Co-founder

Company overview

• Founded in January 2011.• $74.5 million in venture funding, including $40 million in Series C funding led by

Lightspeed Venture Partners in May 2015. • Additional offices in Austin, TX; London, U.K.; Miami, FL; and San Francisco, CA.

Product focus

• Provides brand compliance, planning, content creation and curation, audience acquisition, social relationship management, and analytics.

http://percolate.com/


http://www.percolate.com


Vendor Profiles




• Content creation tools include Photographer and an integrated image editor for creating images.

• Certified content partners generate creative at scale for global clients.

Partners include Scripted, Getty Images, Visually, Shutterstock, FlashStock, Tongal, and Twenty20.Certification criteria includes competitive rates, content that aligns with brand guidelines, integration with the Percolate platform, transparent, flexible content rights, and permissions across brand channels.

Content management

•Percolate Planner is a cross-channel marketing calendar that connects content, event, media, advertising, social, and mobile marketing.

Offers in-line brief creation and conversation streams.Users can use tags to index and filter content by tag, topic, event, campaign, etc.

•Media Library acts as a single storage destination for marketing images and video.

Syncs with Percolate’s web and mobile content creation tools, including Photographer or Ambassador.Users can search and sort images and video by date, tag or marketing performance


• Proprietary publishing tools push content directly to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest.

• Supports WordPress, Drupal, and other content management systems through API.

• Paid media campaign execution through internal Facebook and Twitter workflows, as well as integrated partnership with SocialCode.


•Ambassador mobile app optimizes content for employee and brand advocate mobile devices.

• Partners with Facebook and Twitter to manage paid media campaigns.

Analytics

• Central architecture tags all content assets with metadata to track and measure clicks, shares, retweets, engagement rate, paid media impressions, etc.

• Customizable based on organizational KPIs.

Pricing and support

• SaaS-based subscription pricing based on number of markets or brands.

Two product tiers: mid-market and enterprise.

Percolate107 Grand Street, 2nd FloorNew York, NY 10013(T) 646-470-8346www.percolate.com



http://www.percolate.com


Vendor Profiles



RallyverseRallyverse1201 BroadwayNY, NY 10001(T) 646-504-9563www.rallyverse.com

Target customer

• B2B and B2C agencies and enterprise brands in the technology, healthcare, retail, human resources, and automotive markets.

Key customers

CDK GlobalDemandforceHumana Johnson & JohnsonKorn FerryMicrosoft

Key executives

Joe Doran, Co-founder and CEOGabe Bevilacqua, Co-founder and COOJorge Varona, VP, Engineering

Company overview

• Founded in May 2010.• Small company with less than 25 employees.• Self-funded and profitable.

Product focus

• An end-to-end content marketing platform providing content creation, curation, discovery, publishing, recommendations, analytics, and reporting.

http://www.rallyverse.com




Vendor Profiles




• Enterprise content curation platform supporting first- and third-party content curation, discovery, and recommendations based upon a machine-learning algorithm.

• Publishing toolset for posting text, images, and videos directly to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts.

• Blog publishing tool set to build blog posts and create HTML package posts for marketing emails.

• Complete content calendar.

Content management

• Editorial calendar for scheduling and sharing content posts.

• Customizable role-based workflow tools for determining editing and publishing permissions.


•Social Selling: One-click posting tools enable users to package brand-approved content for sales teams, recruiters, colleagues, and executives to share with their social networks.

•Content Hubs: One-click publishing tools to create new web experiences programmatically on your website to attract and retain visitors.


• Patented content recommendation algorithm monitors real-time conversations on social media to determine the most relevant content and topics.

Built-in feedback mechanism improves and personalizes recommendations.

• Connects brand-owned content assets for surfacing and publishing relevant existing content.

Users can search for and select content by keyword, category, and individual sites.

Analytics

• Audience analytics derived from Twitter Firehose and LinkedIn proprietary audience segment data.

• Tracks content effectiveness, including clicks on individual posts.

• Day-part analysis provides insights into engagement by time of day.

• Reports can be downloaded as CSV or accessed via API. Printable charts right from the dashboard to include in emails or presentations.

• REST API available to retrieve brand settings, recommendations, and carts.

Pricing and support

• SaaS-based license based on number of brands, markets or geographies (i.e., branded Facebook page for the U.S. versus branded Facebook page in Germany).

• Average annual enterprise customer spend ranges from $70,000 to $200,000.

• Account setup, email, and phone support included in pricing.

RallyverseRallyverse1201 BroadwayNY, NY 10001(T) 646-504-9563www.rallyverse.com





Vendor Profiles



Scoop.it48 2nd StreetSan Francisco, CA 94105(T) 888-991-3577www.scoop.it

Target customer

• SMB and enterprise B2B brands.

Key customers

DockerIBMRenault NissanRing CentralUniversity of San FranciscoZuora

Key executives

Guillaume Decugis, Co-Founder and CEOMarc Rougier, Co-Founder and PresidentVincent Demay, Chief Technology Officer

Company overview

• Launched in 2011 as a content curation service. • Subsequently launched business and enterprise versions of the Scoop.it content

marketing platform. • Raised a total of $13 million in three funding rounds, including the last round of $2.6

million.• Additional office in Toulouse, France.

Product focus

• End-to-end content marketing automation solution designed to save time producing, curating, managing, and distributing content as well as amplify its impact through AI technology.

http://www.scoop.it/




Vendor Profiles




• Users can:Discover content instantly based on chosen keywords.Curate, edit, and enrich third-party content.Create original content using Scoop.it template.

• Blogging tools include a rich text editor, image upload, and video/multimedia content embed.

Categorize and tag both curated and original content. Review and edit blog posts in Google Docs, then schedule through Scoop.it Content DirectorPublish, schedule, and promote content to all their channels. Curated posts are automatically pre-formatted to fit a website’s look and feel. Users can edit these at will for greater impact. Uses machine learning to prioritize content that meets the user’s needs.

Content management

• Collaboration workflow enables users to create, review, edit, and validate drafts of either curated or original content.

•Smart Calendar enables users to visualize objectives.

• Centralized content inventory provides a 360 degree view of content assets.


• Integrates with:Websites and blogs such as Drupal, HubSpot, WordPress, and custom CMS (through an API).Social networks Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Twitter.Email newsletter services such as

MailChimp.Collaboration apps Google Drive, Slack.Social media tools Buffer and Hootsuite.Marketing automation providers HubSpot, Marketo, Zapier.

• Custom content site editor and CMS.• Users can discover and publish content

on the go with iPad, iPhone and Android apps.


• Artificial intelligence engine performs real-time content audits, analyzes content performance, and monitors competitors content to suggest optimizations such as:

New keywords to use.Trending content to curate.Low performing content to optimize.

Analytics

• Users can break down content marketing ROI across fundamental KPIs to understand where bottlenecks are: volume, amplification, traffic, and leads.

• Granular view of performance for each piece of content (views, shares, and leads).

• Integrates with marketing automation systems or landing page builders.

Pricing and support

• $4,000/year for the core platform (content creation, content management, social distribution, and analytics).

• $2,000-$4,000/year per module (content curation, email distribution, content optimization, multi-user workflows, and content sites).

• Includes onboarding services and dedicated account management and support.

Scoop.it48 2nd StreetSan Francisco, CA 94105(T) 888-991-3577www.scoop.it





Vendor Profiles



ScribbleLive (including Visually)303-49 Spadina AvenueToronto, ONCanada(T) 416-364-8118www.scribblelive.com

Target customer

• B2B and B2C marketers, publishers, and agencies.

Key customers

CNNESPNFast CompanyMashableRed BullSamsung

Key executives

Vince Mifsud, CEOSylvia Ng, VP, Growth and AnalyticsDivesh Sisobraker, Chief Product OfficerAaron Dun, SVP, Marketing Company overview

• Founded in September 2008.• Raised $58.9 million in five venture rounds, including $35 million in Series D in

September 2015. • 2014 acquisitions include Cell Journalist (April) and CoverItLive (July).

Acquired Appinions Inc., an influence analytics marketing platform, in March 2015.

• Acquired Visually in January 2016, Scompler in February 2016, and SEO software provider Linkdex in August 2016.

While Linkdex will be folded into the ScribbleLive platform, Visually will exist as a separate brand for the immediate future.

• Additional offices in New York, San Francisco, London, Berlin, Munich, Dubai, and Melbourne.

Product focus

• An end-to-end content marketing platform designed to help marketers plan, create, and publish content.

http://www.scribblelive.com




Vendor Profiles




•ScribbleLive Engage integrates user generated content (UGC), social discussions, influencers/blogs, original and curated content from leading media and brand publishers.

• Visually connects brands with global network of content journalists, designers, animators, and developers to create premium content assets including infographics, videos, micro content, and interactive websites.

Content management

•Scribble Live Plan is used to create and publish content to multiple channels, with editorial calendars, workflow management, and role assignments.

• Visually’s cloud-based Project Center houses creative briefs, which outline customer goals, style guidelines, and communications.


• Interactive content assets can be embedded on websites, blogs, social networks, and email.

•ScribbleLive Influencer uses scientific algorithms to identify topics, tactics, and publications that are driving a given conversation.

Also analyzes the impact of influencers to align with influencers, amplify messages, and understand the campaign impact they generate.


•ScribbleLive Insights crawls millions of content assets across the web, social, blogs, and forums to pinpoint trending topics and discussions, and how brands can engage those audiences.

• Google partnership ranks content

published through the ScribbleLive platform.

Google recognizes search queries that describe ScribbleLive live events, and features recent posts from that event in a carousel-style feature in search results. When users click on posts, they are redirected to the webpage that hosts the event.

Analytics

• All ScribbleLive accounts are equipped with a basic analytics package that tracks page views, posts, comments, time on page, live watchers, engagement time, and more.

• Add-on enhanced metrics package includes audience engagement, content engagement over time, and audience profiles.

Pricing and support

• All products within the ScribbleLive platform are priced separately as follows:

Engage pricing starts at $2,000/month.Insights pricing starts at $2,500/month.Community pricing starts at $2,000/month.Influence pricing starts at $3,000/monthPlan is customized based on need. Visually pricing is based on assets created.•Infographics start at $2,450•Videos start at $6,250.

• Three levels of support are available and include 24/7 access to ScribbleU, unlimited access to weekly webinars, all product updates, and 24/7 access to email support.

• ScribbleLive also offers add-on training, implementation, and consulting services.

ScribbleLive (including Visually)303-49 Spadina AvenueToronto, ONCanada(T) 416-364-8118www.scribblelive.com





Vendor Profiles



Target customer

• B2B and B2C enterprises.

Key customers

ADPAutoTrader.comIBMMasterCardOverstock.comPhilips Lifeline

Key executives

Tom Gerace, Founder and CEORob Murray, PresidentDarryl Gehly, EVPJohn Mihalik, CTO

Company overview

• Founded in December 2010.• $25.5 million in private funding, including $11 million in September 2014 from Cox

Media Group.• Acquired video production marketplace Vidaao in September 2014.• Technology Center located in Pittsburgh, PA.

Product focus

• Content marketing services and platform that includes access to a global network of content creators, workflow management, digital asset management, and proprietary analytics to measure content relevancy and results.

Skyword38 Chauncy Street, 14th FloorBoston, MA 02111(T) 855-SKYWORDwww.skyword.com

http://www.skyword.com




Vendor Profiles




• Supports original content in any format (article, slideshow, image, infographic, video, whitepaper, and email). The platform is translated into 13 languages, 23 dialects, and offers more than 20 currencies.

Language support includes interface, grammar/style/spell check, search optimization, and local market search recommendations and performance measurement.

Content management

• Offers access to a searchable database of global writers, videographers, photographers, and graphic artists organized by domain expertise, social influence (by topic), language, location, and performance metrics.


• Customers can schedule, create, and manage Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter posts.

• Enables content creators (authors, videographers) to promote and amplify content via their own social channels.

Measures creator promotion and reports efficacy to both the customer and creator.

• Partners with third-party vendors for content amplification services.


• Assignment creation tools advise content strategists how frequently terms are searched, allowing them to select assignments.

Provides creatives, editors, and other reviewers with SEO scoring that grade each piece of writing during the creation/review process.

• Create and manage customized keyword lists that drive future content assignments.

• Measures how Skyword-created content ranks in search results for the customer’s brand and shows progress over time.

Analytics

• Pixel-based tracking system measures content consumption.

Metrics on readership by topic, consumption of each individual content asset, keyword rankings, article rankings, source of traffic, and social shares. Creator analytics measure whether writers submit content on time, how much editorial overhead is required for their work, and how effectively the contributor drives traffic from earned search and social.

• Integrates with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ APIs to gather social sharing information.

Leverages Google Analytics for reach, engagement, and conversion metrics

• Leverages marketing automation integrations with Marketo and Eloqua for content performance metrics in acquiring and engaging leads

Pricing and support

• Monthly subscription fees for creative services, program management, and editorial production based on content volume and publishing frequency.

Customers pay contracted content creators through the Skyword platform (no mark-up or tax involved).

• Average annual enterprise spend from $60,000 to $500,000.

Skyword38 Chauncy Street, 14th FloorBoston, MA 02111(T) 855-SKYWORDwww.skyword.com





Vendor Profiles



Target customer

• B2B marketers and B2B marketing agencies.

Key customers

Blackbaud CEBCiscoHewlett Packard Hyland, creator of OnBasePenguin Random House

Key executives

Seth Lieberman, CEORussell Franks, President and COOMatt Carey, SVP, SalesAaron Dun, SVP, Marketing Company overview

• Founded in September 2010.• 200-plus customers.• 70 employees.• Received $12 million in funding from Providence Equity Partners in November 2015.

Product focus

• SnapApp’s interactive content creation platform helps marketers accelerate demand generation strategy by creating and delivering personalized content that engages customers.

SnapApp222 Berkeley Street, 8th FloorBoston, MA 02116(T) 855-762-7277www.snapapp.com

http://www.snapapp.com/



Vendor Profiles




• Simple content creation tools featuring a drag-and-drop WYSIWYG interface and design customization.

• Offers a wide range of customizable interactive content types, including assessments, calculators, tests, polls, surveys, interactive whitepapers, contests, brackets, and galleries.

• Interactive content assets can be embedded on websites, blogs, social networks, and email.

•LeadREV by SnapApp is a free tool that enables users to add interactivity, lead capture, and analytics to PDF content.

Content management

• Integrates with marketing automation, CRM, CMS, and email service providers including Oracle Eloqua, Marketo, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Act-On.


• Publish content to any channel – web, email, mobile, blog, social, and landing pages.

• Integrates with existing marketing tools such as Oracle Eloqua, Marketo, HubSpot, Pardot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and Act-On to deliver more leads for scoring, nurturing, and qualification.


• Content created within the SnapApp platform makes use of flexible layouts, flexible images, and cascading style sheet (CSS) media queries to detect visitors’ screen size and orientation and change the layout accordingly. A responsive design feature is available within the SnapApp platform.

Analytics

• Customizable dashboard tracks and measures campaign results.

Customer Success Managers work with customers to analyze results, and share recommendations and best practices.

• All content interactions are captured and flowed into marketing automation or CRM platforms in real-time.

Data can be used for lead scoring, trigger campaigns, disqualifications, and sales intelligence.

Pricing and support

• SaaS-based licenses start at $20,000 annually.

• 90-day onboarding and training as well as ongoing strategy consulting included.

• All customers work with dedicated Customer Success Managers on platform training, KPIs, and programmatic strategies for leveraging content.

SnapApp222 Berkeley Street, 8th FloorBoston, MA 02116(T) 855-762-7277www.snapapp.com




Vendor Profiles



Sorc’d 222 W. Merchandise Mart Plaza12th FloorChicago, IL 60654(T) 312-953-6060http://marketing.sorcd.com

Target customer

• B2B, SMBs, content and marketing agencies, enterprise brands, and academia.

Key customers

1871BraftonBurson-MarstellerImaginationRise InteractiveUptake

Key executives

Bob Girolamo, President and CEO Dom Scandinaro, CTOEmily Girolamo, SVP and GM, Marketing

Company overview

• Founded in April 2014.

Product focus

• Suite of cloud-based content aggregation tools empowering users to build stronger content faster through efficient research capturing, collective knowledge sharing, seamless process integration, and one-click citation during creation.

http://marketing.sorcd.com




Vendor Profiles



Product DetailsContent curation and creation

• Users can highlight and save snippets of research that they’ve found interesting or important to their own cloud-based library. Snippets can be shared with the community or remain private for individual or group use.

• Recalls snippets and integrates them later with a single click while creating content in Google Docs and Sheets; Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook; and private systems with an API.

Content management

NA


• Push interesting snippets of relevant information to major social channels: Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.


NA

Content analytics

NA

Pricing and support

• Sorc’d Basic: Free.All snippets are visible to all Sorc’d users.

• Sorc’d Premium: $124.99/year.Individual account with private features and access to all public snippets as well.

• Sorc’d Business: $240/user/year.Group of any size with centralized private snippets only from that group and access to public ones.

• Complimentary training sessions.• 30-day free trial available.

Sorc’d 222 W. Merchandise Mart Plaza12th FloorChicago, IL 60654(T) 312-953-6060http://marketing.sorcd.com





Vendor Profiles



Taboola19 W. 22nd Street, 5th floorNew York, NY 10010(T) 212-206-7663www.taboola.com

Target customer

• B2B and B2C publishers and brands in the financial services, entertainment, sports, politics, news, and healthcare markets.

Key customers

Ancestry.comBen & Jerry’s General ElectricHuffington PostMSNThe Motley Fool

Key executives

Adam Singolda, Founder and CEOEldad Maniv, President and COOLior Golan, CTO and Taboola Israel GMPaul Jelinek, SVP, Business Development

Company overview

• Founded in July 2007.• Announced $117 million in Series E funding in January 2015 from Comcast Ventures,

Advance Publications, Carlo de Benedetti, Groupe Arnault, Yahoo! Japan, Marker, Bearing Capital, and Baidu.

An additional $3 million in venture funding from the Daily Mail was announced in March 2015.

• Acquired Perfect Market, a digital publishing software provider, in August 2014.• Acquired ConvertMedia, which produces software that connects publishers and

advertisers and delivers video advertising campaigns on mobile and desktop, in July 2016.

• Additional offices in Los Angeles, Tel Aviv, New Delhi, Sao Paolo, London, Bangkok, Shanghai, and Tokyo.

Product focus

• Content discovery platform using predictive algorithms to recommend editorial and sponsored content to consumers across a wide network of publishing sites.

http://www.taboola.com




Vendor Profiles




• Discovers content using predictive algorithms to recommend editorial and sponsored content to consumers across a wide network of publishing sites.

Content management

NA


• Uses mathematical algorithms to analyze consumer browsing history, context, geography, collaborative filtering, and social media trends to predict content consumption interests and needs.

Recommended content delivered within a customizable on-page widget.

• Serves 360 billion recommendations each month on high-traffic publishing sites including USA TODAY, Huffington Post, MSN, Business Insider, Chicago Tribune and The Weather Channel.

• In 2016, Taboola signed strategic partnerships with major global publishers such as Microsoft’s MSN Worldwide, Yahoo! Japan, and Verizon’s AOL.


•Newsroom provides newsrooms with real-time and historical performance insights and recommended actions that have a positive traffic impact.

Supports desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

• Offers advertisers goal-based campaign optimization, targeting, retargeting, and a mobile app for campaign management.

Analytics

•Taboola Backstage provides partners a 360-degree view of how content is performing. The dashboard tracks an array of metrics (e.g. CTR, conversion rate) in real-time, and tabs allow users to filter the data by variables such as country or platform.

Pricing and support

• Demand-side, CPC-based biddable marketplace.

Publishers and advertisers place bids based on budget and ROI goals.

Taboola19 W. 22nd Street, 5th floorNew York, NY 10010(T) 212-206-7663www.taboola.com





Vendor Profiles



Uberflip135 Liberty Street, Suite 401Toronto, ON M6K 1A7Canada(T) 888-694-2946www.uberflip.com

Target customer

• B2B enterprises and large businesses.

Key customers

MicrosoftOracleRBC Royal BankStaplesSysproUPS

Key executives

Yoav Schwartz, Co-Founder and CEORandy Frisch, Co-Founder and COOShannon Dougall, VP, MarketingColin Coller, VP, Engineering

Company overview

• Founded in 2008.• Approximately 60 employees.• Privately held and self-funded.

Product focus

• Content marketing platform and services that:Manage content: Aggregate blogs, social content, ebooks, whitepapers, videos, and more in a content hub designed for discoverability, engagement, and conversions.Tailor experiences: Create targeted content streams with added contextual calls-to-action plus gated premium content to convert visitors into leads.Measure performance: Gain insight into content performance with Uberflip’s Content Score, and pass behavioral data to marketing automation software.

http://www.uberflip.com




Vendor Profiles




• Content curation software brings content into one centralized content experience.

• Designed for sales enablement, allowing sales reps to send tailored content to leads and prospects.

Content management

• The Uberflip Hub organizes content into channels and segments by type, topic, vertical, persona, or custom groupings.


• Comes with built-in integrations to connect the Hub with existing content marketing operations.

• Instantly trigger campaigns based on content consumption and get insight into content ROI by tracking the buyer journey.

• Content channels include RSS, YouTube, Wistia, SlideShare, social channels, and more.

• Engagement tools include Disqus, BrightInfo, and more.


• Integrates with marketing automation platforms such as Marketo, HubSpot, Eloqua, Pardot, or any custom integration to pass on lead information.

Analytics

•Content Score gives a breakdown of the impact of each piece of content at a glance, from the number of views to the leads it generated.

• Metrics dashboard gives an in-depth look at how content and calls-to-action are performing.

• Integrates with Optimizely and Google Analytics.

Pricing and support

• Uberflip has three levels of pricing: Exclusive: $1,200 monthly (billed annually).Elite: $1,800 monthly (billed annually).Enterprise: $3,500+ monthly (billed annually).

• Each new customer is assigned an onboarding specialist to get their Hub up and running, access to the onBrand team to customize the look and feel of the Hub, and a Success Coach for ongoing training and support.

Uberflip135 Liberty Street, Suite 401Toronto, ON M6K 1A7Canada(T) 888-694-2946www.uberflip.com





Vendor Profiles



Zemanta33 W. 17th StreetNew York, NY 10011(T) 718-541-3566www.zemanta.com

Target customer

• Large B2C and B2B brands and their digital agencies who are responsible for the paid promotion of marketing content.

Key customers

AllstateIntuitiProspectOvativeVarick Media ManagementWilliams-Sonoma

Key executives

Todd Sawicki, CEOAndraz Tori, CTO and FounderBostjan Spetic, CPO and FounderDavid Kaplan, VP, Client Development

Company overview

• Founded in September 2007.• Raised $8.4 million in venture funding from Union Square Ventures and Eden

Ventures• Sovrn purchased the Editorial Assistant and Related Posts technology and assets from

Zemanta in September, 2016. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Zemanta will continue to focus on the Zemanta One marketing content distribution platform.

• Additional offices in San Francisco, Seattle, and Slovenia.

Product focus

• Demand-side platform (DSP) that automates the paid promotion and distribution of content.

http://www.zemanta.com




Vendor Profiles




• Provides visibility into the bids, creative, publishers, and networks driving success.

• Zemanta proprietary algorithms automatically adjust bids and budget allocation.

Content management

• Upload and manage content within a single library. Zemanta automatically formats content for every ad unit.


• Direct access to more than 25 social, native, mobile, and discovery networks designed to deliver content to high-value audiences.


• A/B title and thumbnail testing.• Proprietary algorithmic bid

optimizations.• Manual CPC bid adjustments by

network.

Analytics

• Real-time analytics identify top-performing content, networks, and publishers.

• Includes impressions, clicks, CTR, and CPC.

• Integration with first-party analytics (i.e., Google Analytics) for engagement and conversion measurement.

Pricing and support

• Zemanta charges a software license fee based on the actual media costs.

Zemanta33 W. 17th StreetNew York, NY 10011(T) 718-541-3566www.zemanta.com







ResourcesWebsites

Contentmarketinginstitute.comDigitalmarketingdepot.comMarketingland.comRebeccalieb.comSearchengineland.com

White papers/ebooks

Content Methodology: A Best Practices Report by Rebecca Lieb and Joe Lazauskas, published by Contently. www.contently.com

10 Questions to Ask Your Next Content Marketing Partner, published by Contently. https://contently.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/10-Questions-1-col-1.pdf

Research Reports

B2B Content Marketing: 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America, published by Content Marketing Institute, MarketingProfs, and TrackMaven. contentmarketinginstitute.com

B2B Content Marketing: What Marketers are Doing Now (and What They Should be Doing Tomorrow) published by Conductor. www.conductor.com

The Content Marketing Software Landscape: Marketer Needs and Vendor Solutions, written by Rebecca Lieb with Jessica Groopman and Charlene Li. Published by Altimeter Group. www.rebeccalieb.com

http://Contentmarketinginstitute.com

http://digitalmarketingdepot.com

http://marketingland.com/

http://Rebeccalieb.com

http://searchengineland.com


https://contently.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/10-Questions-1-col-1.pdf

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com

http://www.conductor.com

http://Rebeccalieb.com

mir_1610_contmrktng

Documents