Content marketing, even if you’re not the one executing the work, is a major investment of your time, energy and resources. A company can’t just hire an agency and say, “Hey, go ahead and launch this thing and report back on it in a month.” It doesn’t work that way. There are so many things to consider when it comes down to planning and executing a content marketing strategy, but here are three considerations to whet your whistle. Money Let’s go ahead and start with the topic no one likes to talk about. Money. The Content Marketing Institute found that …
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Read MoreCall it the great blogging debate. Should you post short, topical posts at a high frequency like multiple times a day? Or is it better to post in-depth posts with only the most highly-targeted information less frequently? The answer lies somewhere in between. What you want are quality blog posts in a quantity that drives traffic to your website, converts that traffic into leads, establishes your brand as an authority and drives long-term results. Blog frequently. Frequent blogging really does drive traffic. It also improves SEO and fosters a connection with your target audiences. HubSpot and Moz ran concurrent experiments to determine the …
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Read MorePerformance data for specific channels will help you gauge how engaged your audience is, based on the type of action they’re taking. However, tracking, analyzing and reporting marketing campaign success can be tricky. There’s a wealth of data you can pull from your website, blog and social channels. So instead of leaving your team to guess which metrics are important, use these KPIs as a guide for earned, owned and paid content. Paid social media metrics Social advertising platforms have become increasingly informative. Marketers can be as general or specific as they choose targeting audiences on most social platforms. To …
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Read MoreYou know your organization or brand should be pushing out content to your audience and followers, but getting over the hurdle of what to post can be a challenge. We’ve talked about generating content for Twitter, but let’s take a step back and see how you can generate ideas that can be used across all of your platforms. Role Play First, think of the adage about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. That is typically a healthy exercise as you contemplate what the audience you are trying to reach wants to read or what problems they are trying to solve. …
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Read MoreContent marketing has been around for ages and its accelerated growth and use especially in the last few years shows that it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. 89 percent of Americans use the internet to find new products and services and research potential purchases. The way consumers shop today differs vastly than they did even just 10 years ago. They are no longer swayed by overt, aggressive sales and advertising tactics—instead today’s buyers (both b2b and b2c) prefer to do the research and decide for themselves which vendor they want to go with. All of this discussion points to the …
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Read MoreReading online isn’t much different than in print. Some of us read every word on every line, but for the rest of us – we’re skimmers. If a headline captures our attention and piques our interest, we’ll make the decision to invest time and read the full article. As it turns out, writing blog headlines is just as much a science as it is an art. Sure, you need to eloquently string a cohesive series of words together to tee up your article, but you also need to appease the search engine gods. Here are four best practices for you …
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Read MoreYes, understanding your business (think: value proposition, mission statement) is important. But I’d argue that truly understanding your customers is even more crucial. If you don’t know your target customers, how can you successfully market and sell your products and services? Creating buyer personas, a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, is one of the best ways to generate leads and ultimately close sales. There are dozens of questions you could ask yourself, your team and your customers to help develop buyer personas. To keep from getting bogged down in too many details, here are five of my favorite strategies …
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Read MoreGathering buy-in from internal stakeholders on a content strategy often can be a difficult feat. One of the most successful and helpful ways to get everyone in the boat rowing together is to involve internal stakeholders in the content marketing process early on. Sales teams, in particular, can be helpful in shaping content strategy as they typically have a deep well of knowledge about both the products you sell and your key prospects. The next time your team sits down to map out a content campaign, consider including your sales team as part of the strategic discussion. Here are some …
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Read MoreThere’s a significant difference between clicks to your website and true inbound lead generation. While it may be tempting to report those larger web traffic numbers as “leads,” the reality is that you can’t be certain that those folks are actually prospective customers. Website traffic is important Don’t get me wrong, traffic to your site is important. After all, it’s the first step in generating customers though online marketing efforts. But if your end goal is lead generation, it’s essential to consider clicks and leads as two separate entities when reporting marketing campaign successes. Clicks vs. leads A click is …
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Read MoreFirst of all, it’s a lot less expensive and time intensive than it used to be. For example, we’re shooting this with about an initial investment of two to three thousand dollars worth of equipment that we don’t have to keep on buying over and over again. Plus, even if you’re looking at an outside videographer, those costs are a lot less expensive than it used to be. I’m shooting this video today, but we’re also shooting three or four other videos that you’ll see in the coming weeks. So we’ll knock these out in about an hour. Some interesting …
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