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Content Marketing

6 Ways Content Marketing Is Going To Double Your Sales

Do you feel as though your sales have been in a constant state of decline? Many businesses are are fearful to look at sales estimates or projections, because they are all too aware of the trend.

The truth is consumers have changed greatly over the years.

They can skip past commercials, block telemarketers, even block out ads on the internet. In order to make sales, companies have had to think outside of the box with regard to their advertising strategies.

Consumers are simply more educated now than they have ever been in regards to making purchases.

Almost 92% of all consumers will do some form of online research prior to buying product or service. This may include reading reviews, watching video tutorials, or searching out comparable models.

FREE TRAINING COURSE: Interactive Content Marketing Lead Generation

What Does This Mean For You As A Business?

First it means you need to stop marketing and advertising in the traditional sense! This is a good thing as you may actually save money compared to print and radio ads.

Once you have said goodbye to your old ways you need to embrace content marketing as the new way to connect with your costumers.

Content marketing (definition) has removed the pushy salesperson from the equation and has slowly brought the consumer ready to buy to your doorstep.

If you are unsure how you can use content marketing for your business in 2016, I have included six reasons why content marketing is going to skyrocket your sales!

1) Educates Your Customers

Consumers of the 21st century want to make sure they are getting the best value for their money. As I previously stated they research their products well before making a decision.

Content marketing allows you to become the answer to many peoples questions.

In the past searches were limited to a phrase or two. However, with the introduction of smartphones searches have taken on a more complex manner.

All one needs to do is simply speak a question and find the answer.

If you can be the one to answer that question for the consumer, you are more than likely going to get the sale. In addition, people do not want to get their answers from a corporation, they want to get it from a person they can trust, which leads to our next point.

2) Builds Trust

What happens when you are constantly being sold to by someone? Whether it is online or off? They lose their credibility and trust with the public.

Content marketing allows you to help and give answers without asking for a sale or anything in return. When you create these helpful posts, you begin to build trust with an audience.

If you are abe to build enough of these helpful posts, the search engines will take notice as well. They will begin to index your posts faster and rank them higher.

You can funnel your audience through those helpful posts into your sales pages.

3) Changes Untargeted Traffic Into Customers

Just as you may have window shoppers and tire kickers in a real world mall, they coexist in the online world as well. In a mall, even your best salesmen may not be able to get the average Joe to buy a big screen television.

The big reason is because he knows that is what the salesman wants, and the customer is going to refuse to break down and buy.

However, with content marketing you can slowly build a customer up with helpful information and guides that make him want to buy that very same television.

Not only will they be happy with their purchase, but it was a well informed and non-pressured sale.

In fact, good content marketing should never feel like a sale at all. It is designed to help a customer make the right choice for their needs.

4) Builds Awareness

Content marketing can easily establish you or your site as the authority within your niche. This can be done by posting helpful content in social media channels.

As well as commenting on customer’s questions and comments. As you continue to post this type of content, your reputation will begin to build.

With a higher reputation comes an inherited sense of trust and a much easier platform for selling products and services.

Once again by using the content marketing strategy, no one will feel as though they are being sold to.

5) More Content Equals More Clicks

By creating more content for your website or blog you are adding more of your own content into the search engines.

If this content has been properly optimized it has the ability to drive much more traffic to your website and to your products.

In short by creating high-quality content that is helpful to your targeted audience you will be bringing in free traffic 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on autopilot.

6) Creates New Avenues Of Traffic and Sales

Many businesses are solely focused on the Holy Grail of free traffic and that is from the search engines.

Yet they are missing the mark completely with social media traffic. Social media is begging for the right type of content marketing.

They are tired of click-bait articles and scams and just want something that will make a difference.

By creating quality content that is laser targeted to a focused audience on Facebook or Twitter, it becomes a win-win situation. You now have an increase in traffic from a source you might not have been utilizing correctly.

This can open up new avenues for your blog and website as this audience clicks thru to read all the content on your site.

While social media audiences may not be in the buying mode they are always in the sharing mode, which helps further promote your site.

These reasons should hopefully have you drawing out a content marketing plan or talking to your SEO agency to help you create one.

If you are still unsure about jumping into the content marketing pool, let me toss one statistic at you.

Businesses that blog and offer helpful content to their audiences generate an outstanding 67% more leads than the businesses that do not offer content marketing!

Now are you ready to create some helpful content?

Prepare your social media strategy to push your content:

FREE: Download the free Social Media Performance Handbook that will show you how to set up your social media campaigns in 7 simple steps. Includes 2 bonus strategies not found in this post.


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Content Marketing

How Much Should Content Marketing Cost You?

An interesting shift is occurring in the advertising and marketing world.

More and more businesses are continuing to move marketing dollars in a move to support their content marketing efforts.

As this is happening, many businesses are going an extra mile in search of funds and budget reallocation.

Content marketing budgets are increasing due to the fact that it has proven to be an effective strategy of building web traffic, leads and sales. In addition, it is reducing the cost of lead generation when done right.

The phrase “content marketing” was used as early as 1996, when John F. Oppedahl led a roundtable for journalists at the American Society for Newspaper Editors.

Businesses greatly interested in leveraging the numerous benefits of content marketing appear to have an ever-growing list of strategies and content solutions to select from. They can outsource their content to an agency, hire freelancers or train their in-house teams or a combination thereof.

With the numerous options available, selecting the best option for your business can be difficult.

However, understanding how each of the available solutions can best align with your business goals, customer needs and budgeting restrictions is important prior to making a leap into brand promotion with content driven strategies.

Although most of the content marketing strategies have been successful for various business models, not each and every tactic will be effective for your specific needs.

meeting-determine-content-marketing-costs

Identify Your Content Needs

The very first step towards determining the amount you should be spending on content marketing is identifying all your content needs. A content marketing audit is recommended.

According to a research carried out by the Content Marketing Institute, less than 21% percent of marketers can track their return on investment from content marketing.

The key to a fruitful content marketing effort is ability to measure and keep track of your ROI to avoid being among the eighty percent of marketers who are not sure whether they are succeeding on failing.

To avoid this lack of understanding on the kind of content marketing solution that will be most effective for your business, be sure to make decision based on your customers’ needs.

Budget for All Your Goals

Once you have established your business needs and goals, you can commence budgeting for your content marketing techniques. There are different prices you can encounter while doing your research but the rule of thumb is that you should receive optimal vale for what you pay for.

Read on for an insight on what you should expect to spend with different content marketing ventures.

1. Hiring an Internal Content Marketing Expert

Hiring team of professionals or a single content manager to work on a full-time basis can be an expensive route to take.

content marketing expert social media costs

Especially if you are just beginning with content marketing. Taking into account the training time, this can be very expensive. However, with adequate resources at your disposal, this can prove to be the most cost-effective investment for your long-term content marketing needs.

Hiring an internal content marketing expert can cost you about $48,000 to $150,000 or more per year. In most cases, the costs associated with such hiring is mainly based on their track record, years of experience and of course their geographical location.

Such individuals should also have some extra skillsets such as social media know-how, digital marketing, copywriting and search engine optimization among many others.

2. Outsourcing to a Content Marketing Agency

In most cases, a powerful content marketing strategy usually includes a healthy mix of content types. Some of them can be accomplished on a short-term basis whereas the in-depth content types require more time to develop and heavily strain your staff resources.

hire content marketing agency and costs

In addition, your team might not have the expertise to develop a content marketing strategy. For in-depth specialty projects, outsourcing to a consultancy or agency can be the best solution.

Majority of the content marketing agencies pride themselves of service diversity to encompass your business needs. In addition, agencies hire professional staff with great expertise in their job.

Outsourcing can cost you as low as $1500 per month and can go up to $10,000 or more per month. Prior to hiring a content agency, ascertain that their services and package offerings align perfectly with your business goals. Standalone numbers are not meaningful. Only when put into context of the objectives, process and results does it matter. Some of these factors will not be known up front. That’s part of the marketing game.

3. Contracting with Copywriters and Freelancers

This is one area where pricing can be a bit complicated since quality of work, experience level and speed of delivery affect the entire cost.

content marketing freelancer costs hiring

There are numerous websites where you can publish your content needs with a budget and wait for freelancers to bid.

If your business has specific needs that require fast project turnaround, specific industry knowledge or attention to detail, it is advisable to look for content marketers specializing in your needs for optimal results. In this case, a content marketing project can go for as low as $50 and as high as $3000.

Content marketing is here to stay and knowing how much you can spend is extremely important. It is important to understand how to incorporate it into your entire marketing strategy and not end up spending heavily.

If you need a content marketing project and cost assessment for your business, get in touch with our consultants:

NEED SOME HELP? Contact Us Here and schedule your time.


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Content Marketing

12 Uncommon Content Marketing Productivity Tools That Save Hours Each Day

(Updated March 27, 2018)

Top 12 Content Marketing Productivity Tools

Content marketing can be very exhaustive and time-consuming.

However, with a good plan, tools and resources, you can make it more effective.

Using the right content marketing productivity tools should help you achieve that goal.

Here are 12 of the most uncommon content market productivity tools that should help save more time.

#1 – SEMrush.com

You can use this content marketing tool to identify how your competitors are ranking on Google.

Using SEMrush, it’s easy to assess the amount of traffic going to your competitors’ websites as well as the keywords being used to get higher rankings.

What you need to do is enter the web address to your competitor’s website and this tool will reveal the list of keywords used for ranking on Google.

semrush content marketing tool

Steps to get started with SEMrush:
Open a free account on SEMrush and register yourself and you can gain access to the top keywords your competitors are using to drive traffic to their websites. You can begin by entering their web addresses (URLs) and watch for both the organic and paid results, traffic numbers, cost per click and more.

If you’re aware of these keywords, maybe you can use some of them to bring more traffic to your own site.

#2 – BuzzSumo.com

This content marketing tool allows you to discover the type of content that gets shared the most.

Naturally, you want to create content on your website that gets shared across numerous social media platforms.

Using Buzzsumo, you can find out the commonly shared content and shape your own content around the same topics.

buzzsumo content marketing tools most popular posts

Steps to get started with BuzzSumo:
Using this tool, you should enter your own address or your competitor’s website address and find out which content is mostly shared across different social media channels.

Also, you can search for keywords and find any content related to these specific keywords that’s shared the most.

You can use Buzzsumo to examine the type of content shared on specific social media channels and produce content to similar to what’s targeted on these channels.

You can use this to get statistics about what’s working, and use it to get new ideas for your own content marketing strategies.

#3 – Canva.com

Canva is a power tool used to prepare any promotional visuals to be used on your website. It might be very expensive to hire graphic designers for every image that’s need to go on your website.

Well, through Canva, you can perform any graphic design features needed on your site without the need for graphic design skills. You can produce professional and impressive images using a streamlined and simple interface.

Even better, you can create similar images to be used on the same content rather than using the same image over and over again.

Figure 1 – Easy designer layouts and editing

canva-graphics-options

Figure 2 – Preset sizes and images + custom dimensions

canva design options

Steps to get started with Canva:
Create a free account, and login via Twitter, Facebook or email. Using the app in your browser is free, and many textual and picture elements can be used for free to start. If you want to upgrade, you’ll get additional images and tools to make it even better. There is a team version, starting at $9.95/month, but the first 30 days is free.

#4 – QuillEngage.com

This tool allows you to monitor your results without the need for using Google Analytics which can be quite exhausting and time consuming.

quillengage-analytics-reporting

Steps to get started with QuillEngage:
Create a free starter account, and connect with your Google Analytics profile.

Pick the template you need, and save. Quill Engage will send a weekly (or daily) email with a complete interpretation of your website’s results which is simple and easy to understand.

QuillEngage has different pricing models for you to start, from free, basic and premium pricing structures:

custom-google-analytics-reporting-quillengage-pricing

#5 – EditFlow.org

Using Edit Flow, you can build your own editorial calendar which is an essential part of content marketing.

If you plan your content accordingly, you can become more productive and produce better content for your visitors.

edit-flow-wordpress-editorial-calendar

Steps to get started with EditFlow:
This tool is a free WordPress plug-in that allows you to view all the drafted posts to adjust dates accordingly, send messages to all the team members and also set custom status updates that match your workflow.

Create an account, and follow the simple instructions.

#6 – Do Share (Google Chrome Web Store)

This is a Google Chrome plug-in that allows you to post content to your personal Google+ profile. Currently, it’s not possible to schedule any posts through Google to your personal profile.

However, by using Do Share you can hold any content until the time for posting it arrives. Of course, your browser must be open when posting time comes around in order for the tool to work properly.

Also, you can pick content from Google+ and send it to the tool for later posting.

#7 – Zapier.com

This is an automation tool that allows you to link 300+ applications and perform automated tasks.

zapier-trigger-based-app-automation
Using Zapier to great a new subscribers trigger for Aweber.com

Using Zapier, you can create a triggering task (referred to as Zaps) that automatically initiates different applications.

For instance, you can use this tool to create posts of Facebook and put the rest on queue to post on other social media channels.

Check out many IFTTT recipes also – another task automation tool.

#8 – Buffer.com

Just like Zapier, Buffer offers an automation feature where you can post to numerous social media channels.

bufferapp-social-media-sharing-automation

Therefore, you don’t have to necessarily log into each one of your social media profiles in order to copy paste your posts.

Let this content marketing tool do all the job for you.

#9 – Momentum (Google Webstore)

Yet another Google Chrome Plugin, Momentum allows you to plan your tasks and provides daily reminders.

momentum-dash-plugin-productivity-tool
Momentumdash.com – chrome plugin for productivity

Therefore, if you plan on updating your website’s content on any particular day, you can use this tool to keep everything in check and make sure that everything is completed in time.

You can also use this app to monitor the rest of the tools you’re using for your content marketing efforts. Once you confirm your account, you’ll be ready to go.

chaosmap seo blogging tips

Combine this plugin with calm.com and get more work done with less distractions.

Also recommended: A good summary of tools and techniques as a companion guide, was done by HealthAmbition.com You can find this here.

#10 – Self Control App.com

Do you always find yourself distracted every time you are on the internet?

Do you need an app that blocks your access to other distracting websites when you’re working on your site’s content?

self-control-online-block-distractions-mac
Self Control App: Block distractions and get more productive online (Mac Version)

Well, thanks to Self Control , you can achieve exactly that.

Specifically for Mac users, the app blocks your access to any distracting websites allowing you to allocate more time to your site.

Basically, you set a period of time and a number of sites to be blocked then your access to these sites will be blocked during that time.

Regardless of whether you delete the app and restart your computer during that time period, nothing changes.

#11 – Slack.com

If you’re working with a content marketing team, you need a platform where communications are easy and effortless between all the team members.

slack-messaging-tool-communication
Slack.com – better communication and productivity across channels and teams

Well, using Slack, you can achieve exactly that.

Here, everything is in one place and you can search for it very easily.

It’s the best communication tool for most modern content marketing teams.

#12 – Evernote.com

When creating and marketing content for your website, you’re likely to create notes and comments you need to add or follow-up on.

evernote-productivity-for-life-online
Evernote.com – turn on your team collaboration and productivity

Keeping track of these notes can be very difficult.

Well, if you’re using an app like Evernote, you can easily get access to these notes whenever you need them.

BONUS:
Don’t forget to include the amazing co-schedule product when discussing calendaring and team work for your content marketing and social media projects.

coschedule wordpress social media plugin calendar
Coschedule.com – WordPress productivity tools and calendaring functions for social media and more

It fits right into your WordPress CMS, and has a nifty Chrome browser plugin too. It’s our mainstay product.

BONUS: Get the free lead generation guide that will show you how to quickly get more leads from traffic. Includes 2 bonus strategies not found in this post.

We also hear great things about hipstersound and defonic, but have not installed/tested them yet.

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Content Marketing

The Definition Of Content Marketing Made Simple

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is strategic planning that puts into motion intelligently researched marketing steps to get more customers.

Content marketing is about the goal of developing content assets that drive eyeballs to acquire more customers.

Watch the content marketing definition video:

Who and How?

Find out what your audience wants…

and provide content to answer
those questions..

…while you get them involved.

Where do you publish content?

Learn where they hang out and  provide content within those locations with different media, different messages, and publish at different times (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly)

Why Content Marketing?

To get more customers while you build trust, authority and leadership for your brand.

Bonus benefits from Content Marketing work

  1. Better conversions and engagement!
  2. Prospects and customers see you as the go-to person/company!
  3. Search engines (SEO) will love your website!
NEED SOME HELP? Contact Us Here and schedule your time.


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Content Marketing

The Essential Content Audit: 7 Ways To A Successful Content Marketing Review

Content marketing has become a ‘go to’ option for online businesses in a bid to outdo competition and maximize earning potential and build brand presence.

This certainly sounds appealing and demonstrates its value, but does it always work out as intended? No, and the reason comes down to many enterprises being unable to pinpoint what works and what does not.

Let’s take a look at what is required to have a comprehensive content audit done on the business to ensure things are up to scratch.

Content Audit Process
Courtesy SearchEngineWatch

The following seven ways are going to guarantee the total content review is completed as required and all details are being assessed prior to tweaks being made. You should not be making changes until everything has been sifted through as required. This is a big part of what is required.

“A content audit is an accounting of all currently published web content and a cornerstone of content strategy”

1) Be Clear On The Site’s Direction

What is the site’s direction (overall goal)? What do you want your existing and new content to actually provide for you? Ultimately, how/where/what will your audience consume?

You have to be willing to have this in mind immediately.

It will guide the audit and ensure you are looking for specific things during the process.

If the goal is to rank better, SEO is going to be heavily playing into all actions taking place.

Are you looking for conversions through the site? This should be taken into account during the audit then.

When you have a direction to focus upon, it will make things that much easier.

The audit requires direction to drive home results and be meaningful.

2) Scan The Site

Begin to scan the site. You can use a manual approach, but make sure to combine that work with tools that spider your site too. You may have forgotten about old content that is ready and ripe for review and re-purpose.

The first time around, don’t start picking out flaws. Just collect, store and then read through and see if there are any severe mistakes – or opportunities you’ve missed.

Some of this content may have been published in the past, but you forgot to read through it as a reader & consumer. This is essential to determine what is good and what is not.

This has to be completed beforehand to ensure the content is relevant, and that the architecture (navigation, access points) flows as nicely as it should. After this is done, you will have an audit trail in hand of what has to be fixed.

Create a checklist of changes – things like new titles, re-write, different format use (for example PDF to HTML) and distribution points.

3) Perform Keyword Research

It is essential to take a look at what keywords have been used in the content and which ones are lacking. Comprehensive keyword research at this stage is important. Often old content will benefit from an ‘upgrade’ in the keyword selection and nomination for use.

The idea is to start working on related keywords that will fit in with the content you have written.

This makes it easier to replace over optimized keywords which have been ‘spammed’ into the content either on purpose or by mistake.

4) Focus On Removal And/Or Rewriting

You will have three options to choose from.

You can leave the content, remove it, or rewrite the parts needing change.

If the content is not relevant now (users, search engines) for certain keywords and topics, you could easily rewrite it and make positive changes. This will help drive traffic in especially if you replace the old keywords with newer ones.  Remember, it’s about the reading value and experience also – don’t just think about keywords.

Check for duplicate content in copyscape, one of the tools at your disposal.

The content you leave should suit the direction of the site, be optimized well for keywords in and topics within your niche, and be easily consumed. Also, remember that you may find that existing content could be repurposed into PDFs, Videos, and Audio. Leverage all channels appropriately. Find out what your audience likes, and provide that too.

5) Assess Content Gaps

There are going to be certain ‘content gaps’ you will have to assess during the audit.

You may have content that needs a tighter integration within the topic. These are potentially missed opportunities from the past, or you were not aware of them. Use a tool like Google Keyword Planner (within the Adwords interface) to see what existing and new topical groups might be. Add value within the gaps.

6) Analyze Traffic

Where is the traffic going? What pages are driving in the best results? Which ones are converting the best? Are there correlations between pages that are converting compared to those that aren’t? And, are there pages driving traffic, but the bounce rate is too high?

You should be able to pinpoint all of this information by running a comprehensive web traffic analysis. Patterns will start to develop whether it has to do with incorrect keyword usage and/or poor content.

Whatever the case may be, it is important to determine opportunities and fix them as soon as possible after the audit is completed.

7) Pinpoint Accuracy And/Or Viability Of On-Page SEO Work

When content is being put up for the first time, it is easy to make silly mistakes with regards to on-page SEO (visible and non-visible content/code).

Whether it comes in the form of URLs not using keywords, headlines and HTML tags being over optimized, or the content simply not being written as a user would expect it.

Make sure to assess all of these details during the audit to see which pieces have to be tightened to reap the rewards of on-page SEO.

These seven ways are going to make a substantial difference in the long-run.

The business will be able to maximize its potential with relative ease as long as the content audit is done perfectly. No one is going to get it right the first time around and that is a given.

It takes practice and those who are willing to put in the hard yards are going to get fascinating results. Those who don’t are going to struggle and that is always difficult. Run a content audit as soon as possible to see how things are moving along. The results can often be surprising to those who were not as prepared as they should have been.

Take the information you are getting and make the necessary tweaks to help bolster the business. It is all about paying attention to details and learning from one’s mistakes because everyone is going to make them from time to time.

NEED SOME HELP? Contact Us Here and schedule your time.


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Content Marketing General

11 Compelling Reasons Why You Need Content Marketing In Your Life

There was a time when businesses could simply cobble together a few web pages and boast of building an online presence.

Those times were so simple.

However, Internet has grown tremendously and become so competitive that mere presence on the web is not sufficient to increase business anymore.

You need to market your business, so you can serve prospects & customers better.

Content marketing is the key to online marketing success.

If you still have any doubts, here are 11 compelling reasons why you need content marketing.

1. Build Your Brand

Some businesses still don’t understand the value of investing in their own brand. The business landscape is so competitive that businesses cannot survive by competing on price alone. You need to focus on building your brand to succeed online.

Content marketing allows you to give your company a voice. Content can be in any form. It can be in the form of white papers, e-books, blog posts, infographics and videos among other things. The goal is to let the consumers see your business through the content present online.

2. Free Search Engine Traffic

Search engines love fresh content and when you are going to give them highly useful content on a regular basis, they are going to send loads of traffic your way. However, it is important that the content is of good quality and that the content and keyword themes are relevant, well researched and timely.

Half baked content can potentially harm your brand and your website. Another important thing to note is high quality content will continue to deliver high quality traffic for years to come. This is the magic of “ever-green” content.

3. Get More Customers

Research studies have reported that content marketing can greatly influence decision-making and purchase intent of consumers. In other words, spreading high quality content around the Internet (in the right channels for your market) will allow you to influence buyers during the research phase.

It is estimated that more than 80% of consumers search for information online before making a purchase. Content marketing allows you to be in front of the consumer during the research phase and sell suggestively.

4. Native Advertising

Native advertising is quickly becoming the next big thing. In fact, there are quite a few billion-dollar companies successfully driving traffic through native advertising. High quality content allows you to draw in the target audience using native advertising.

While driving traffic is important, converting them to paying clients is more important. Good quality content on your website will convince the visitors to buy from you. TIP: Test native Facebook videos. Facebook videos are trumping YouTube.

5. Consumers Want Content They Can Trust

While it is true that there is a lot of content online, the truth of the matter is that most of the content leaves a lot to be desired.

Consumers are always looking for useful and in-depth information on products or services they are looking to research and buy. Content marketing done in the right way can help you in gaining trust of customers.

6. Social Media Traffic

Social media cannot be ignored as it has become a big driver of traffic these days. Although the customer journey and purchase intent is different on social media than a user of search engines, you are missing out if you don’t have a social media strategy in place.

Almost everyone has an account on at least one of the many social media sites including:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube

…and others. Find our where your prospects are hanging out, and build out a presence on those social networks. High quality content that is naturally shared by people on social media has high potential to drive huge amount of traffic to your web properties.

7. Decreasing Attention Span

National Centre for Biotechnology Information (read: https://www.statisticbrain.com/attention-span-statistics/) recently published some statistics about what everyone already knows.

Average attention span has gone down to 8.25 seconds in 2015 as compared to the average attention span of 12 seconds in the year 2000.

In simple terms, high quality content in various forms, spread all over the Internet, can help your business by drawing the attention of consumers who are looking for something interesting.

8. Excellent ROI

One of the main advantages of content marketing is that it offers excellent return on investment when done in the right manner. It makes overwhelming financial sense for small and medium businesses that cannot spend too much money on advertising.

In fact, big brands such as Coca Cola are spending tons of money on content marketing to keep and grow the mindshare.

The cost of attracting visitors to your online properties has been increasing at an astronomical pace. In many markets, businesses are forced to pay upwards of $20 per click. Keep in mind that this is just the cost to attract the customers to your web page and call-to-action (you have one, don’t you?)

The final cost depends on your conversion rate.

On the other hand, the cost of native advertising is extremely low and the content is always there. Content does not vanish from the Internet. It will keep sending you customers for a long time.

9. Consumers Love Free

Everyone likes free things.

If you take a look around, the Internet is filled with freebies. Some of it is in the form of a gift cards or actual physical products but most of the free goodies available on Internet are in the form of digital content. It is also a form of content marketing.

A well-written piece of content has the potential to attract thousands of customers to your web properties and subscribe to your newsletter. It is easier to gain subscribers by giving them free content in the form of informative videos, e-books or white papers.  TIP: Make sure to reach out to influencers in your topic. They might be interested in reading your content piece. If done right, they’ll probably share it with their tribe too. Think about their audience and the value it brings.

10. Content Marketing Delivers High-Quality Leads

You can always drive traffic to your website through advertising but the truth is that the quality of leads driven through advertising cannot match the quality of leads through content marketing. In fact, research suggests that content marketing done in the right manner has the potential to convert 30% more organic visitors into sales leads.

Arguably, high quality content attracts high value customers. They keep coming back for more and it is easier to convert them into paying clients.

11. Manage Your Business Reputation

Smart marketers have taken advantage of the social media and other online marketing channels to make their content go viral. There are a number of success stories where a piece of viral content has driven tones of leads and sales for a business. However, it is a double-edged sword.

Negative things about your business (even if totally false) can also potentially go viral which means that it can adversely affect the image of your business in the eyes of the consumer. Content marketing can help you in managing your business reputation if you already have high-quality content all over the Internet.

When consumers search for your business, it is more likely that consumers will find that content and know the truth about your brand instead of looking at your brand from someone else’s perspective.

As your visibility and traffic improves from your content marketing strategies and tactics, make sure to capture the leads:

BONUS: Get the free lead generation guide that will show you how to quickly get more leads from traffic. Includes 2 bonus strategies not found in this post.

Categories
Content Marketing

Become a Content Marketing Expert? The 14 Best Blogs To Follow About Content Marketing

Want to become a content marketing expert? Or, you need somebody on your team to learn more to help create strategic content plans for your company?

Content marketing is all the rage these days and as is the case with all things popular, there are hundreds of blogs on the subject.

Well, nobody has the time to go through all the content published on content marketing. Content marketing covers a lot of ground and it is not possible to cover all the related topics on a single blog.

Therefore, you should read a variety of blogs covering the whole spectrum of content marketing to stay ahead.

So, here is the list of 14 best blogs to follow about content marketing in no particular order.

  1. Social Media Examiner

https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/

As the name suggests, this blog covers various aspects of social media websites including Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat and various others. The unique thing about this blog is that they explain everything in an easy to follow manner and they know what they’re talking about.

In fact, all of their posts are shared hundreds of times on various social media websites and they are a living example of content marketing done right.

  1. Copyblogger

https://www.copyblogger.com/blog/

This blog was started by Brian Clark in 2006 and since then, it has retained its position as one of the authorities on blogging and copy writing. They have a number of high quality posts on developing the right content to share and how to develop the right content marketing strategy.

  1. Buffer

https://blog.bufferapp.com/

If you haven’t been living under a rock, chances are that you would have heard of Buffer App. It is a popular web-based tool that allows users to manage their social media shares. You will find some excellent blog post on analytics, social media marketing, content marketing and various other things.

One thing that sets this blog apart from other blogs in this category is that they are very transparent about their own experiments on social media and content marketing. You can learn a lot by regularly reading this blog.

  1. Hubspot

https://blog.hubspot.com

Hubspot is a widely popular suite of tools for inbound marketers. There are a number of authors sharing high-quality content on this blog. In addition to tips on content marketing, the authors share a lot of useful information on search engine optimization strategies as well as other digital marketing things.

  1. Quick Sprout

https://www.quicksprout.com/blog/

Neil Patel is well known in the industry for SEO. The focus of his blog is to get more traffic through search engines with the help of content marketing. He sits on the boards of various companies and you can learn a lot about social media, analytics, blogging, conversion optimization, landing page optimization, automation and various other things on his blog.

  1. Moz

https://moz.com/blog

Moz is at the top of the list when it comes to SEO and inbound marketing. They do have a paid section but even the free information offered on the blog is full of various strategies, tricks and tips to improve brand and content marketing in addition to social and search.

There are a number of highly popular posts on this blog by various authors.

  1. Seth Godin

https://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Seth Godin is a bestselling author and is credited with developing the term, permission marketing. His blog is chock-full of useful information on creativity, business and marketing. The good thing is that the blog posts are short and thought-provoking. You can learn a lot by studying his marketing strategies.

  1. Kissmetrics

https://blog.kissmetrics.com/

While Kissmetrics is known for their analytics solution, their blog has excellent information on content marketing, SEO, social media marketing and various other things. The unique thing about this blog is everything is backed by data and examples. You won’t feel lost on this blog.

  1. Content Marketing Institute

https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/

Joe Pulizzi is the founder of CMI. He was talking about content marketing even before it was a thing. He is a very well known expert on content marketing and advises a number of brands. The authors on this blog have worked with a number of brands and have helped these brands in formulating their content strategies. They know what they are talking about.

  1. Curata

https://www.curata.com/blog/

Curata is a popular software tool for content marketing. They started in 2007 and since then, they have helped hundreds of businesses in creating and curating high-quality content with the help of their software platform.

Their blog is full of high quality information on content marketing that is backed by solid data. On this blog, you will also find lists of high-quality resources on everything related to marketing.

  1. The Content Wrangler

https://thecontentwrangler.com/blog/

This is Scott Abel’s blog. Here you will lots of informative posts on content marketing strategy, content management and related stuff. He works with a lot of clients as a social media specialist and content management strategist.

  1. Social Triggers

https://socialtriggers.com/blog/

It was founded by Derek Halpern who is well known as an entrepreneur and expert marketer. On his blog, you will find informative hosts on product launches, increasing traffic through content marketing, analytics, increasing your conversion rate, social media and various other things related to online marketing.

  1. Convince and Convert

https://www.convinceandconvert.com/blog

It is the brainchild of Jay Baer. This blog has won numerous awards and is widely known as an authority in the content marketing field. As the name suggests, the focus of this blog is on creating a winning content marketing strategy. They work with a number of brands and you will learn a lot about various aspects of marketing on this blog.

  1. Occam’s Razor

https://www.kaushik.net/avinash/

It is the blog of digital marketing expert, Avinash Kaushik. Kaushik is well known as an analytics expert and he writes interesting blog posts on content strategies and digital marketing. Overall, you will gain a lot of actionable insights by regularly reading this blog.

BONUS:

https://problogger.com

This is a must-read, must-follow blog. Very applicable and unique material from the classic blog and content marketing superstar, Darren Rowse from Australia. He started writing early on, and one of the few bloggers that is considered a total leader of his craft. You should follow his photography content also.

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH THIS NEWFOUND TRAFFIC? TURN THEM INTO LEADS OF COURSE:

BONUS: Get the free lead generation guide that will show you how to quickly get more leads from traffic. Includes 2 bonus strategies not found in this post.

Categories
Content Marketing General

12 Strategic Content Types That Drives Targeted Web Traffic

If you want targeted web traffic, you need to have a content strategy.

Below is an extensive list of 12 strategic content types that you should consider to acquire those targeted web visitors.

1. Original and Informative Blog Posts

Blog posts are an important part of you content strategy for several reasons.

  • When women and men browse the internet, they are often searching for useful content.
  • When you create blog posts, make sure to write with a purpose, whether you are telling a story or trying to help educate others on a specific topic.
  • Use your knowledge and some research to create engaging blog posts.
  • Never copy something that someone else has written.

Keep your paragraph shorts and keep the content looking clean with subheadings. If it is engaging enough and looks good, there are people who are going to share it and continue to read other blog posts you have written.

For SEO, make sure to have a keyword map and keyword research in place.

2. Creative and Useful Videos

When you want to learn how to do something, do you prefer reading a tutorial or watching one?

Even though written content is often engaging and informative, videos add a sense of personalization.

  • Create a video where you are discussing your niche.
  • Provide tips that people probably want to know about or show them how to do something.
  • While recording your videos, make eye contact with the camera.
  • Show a softer, friendlier side.

If you are funny and kind in your videos, people will relate to you, and they will keep on watching.

If your videos are interesting enough, they could even go viral.

Even Bill Gates (twitter) went viral with this video:

3. Accurate and Relevant Infographics

Infographics give you the perfect opportunity to combine facts with images.

  • You may be able to easily create your own using a photo editing software program.
  • Gather the statistics for the one you are creating
  • Research the information several times to make sure the statistics are accurate
  • Turn them into an infographic using images and fun text.

If you have never made an infographic before, you may not even know where to start.

Consider using a search engine to look at others that are already on the web.

They may give you some inspiration for how your infographic should look in terms of size and color.

Start with infographic creation tools like piktochart and infogr.am

personalprofessionalpictures4. Captivating Professional Images

Some pictures really do tell a story, so why not share them?

Instead of using pictures that belong to others, take your own with a professional camera to ensure your images look their best. Tie the pictures you have taken in with your niche.

Post them on social media accounts, especially Instagram and Pinterest, and allow people to share them.

5. Frequently Asked Questions Section

Whether you are selling certain types of products or services, having a frequently asked questions section will work in your favor.

It allows you to address some of the most common questions people tend to ask you about your business without constantly repeating yourself.

And, you can include essential keywords into some of those questions and answers, which will help you with search engine optimization.

customerreviewsareimportant6. Honest and Meaningful Reviews

Are there companies sending products out to you in exchange for an honest review?

Even if they are not sending the products to you, it would be wise to add a review section in which you discuss different products you have tried.

Your customers and followers will read the reviews and may follow your suggestions.

For example, there may be a certain product that makes life more convenient.

You could discuss what you like most about it. If your followers buy it, you are helping them out. And, if they end up loving it as much as you do, it will help build a trust between you and them.

7. Fun and Interesting Audio Series

If you are successful at what you do, why not share advice with others?

People can choose to listen to the audio series whenever they want to, whether they are on their way to work or sitting at home.

  • Create your own audio series in the form of a podcast.
  • The audio should certainly be entertaining and interesting because you do want people to continue listening.
  • Always offer something new if you want people to enjoy the podcast.

Podcast hosting here if you want to get started today.

8. Promotion via Email Messages

Quality content is not just important for your website.

While marketing for your business, the content in your promotional email messages should be engaging, fun and short. You do not have to write multiple paragraphs.

Instead, write out a few catchy sentences, offer some type of deal to your mailing list and add an image on the side.

Start simple, and work into deeper content for your members and clients. (special email segment)

Email messages are not nearly as complicated as some people think.

And, they are an essential component for your content strategy.

9. Interactive Poll

Make sure that you are inviting your followers to communicate and interact with you.

Add a poll or quiz to your website and social media accounts to ask for opinions from these followers. It shows that their opinions are important to you, but it also helps you figure out what types of improvements you need to make.

Polldaddy and Surveymonkey are great tools to help you here.

10. Monthly Business Update

There are many people who enjoy reading about progress.

  • Create a monthly business update that discusses some details about expansion.
  • Talk about improvements that you have made and goals that you have managed to reach throughout the month.

These updates may inspire others.

11. Professional Guest Posts

If you are creating guest posts for other websites, you are on the right track. However, do not forget to allow people to guest post on your website.

Of course, you get to decide who you want to allow to write these posts.

Consider selecting those who have a large following (to help push your message too) or a fantastic message to spread.

12. Current News Spot Light

Keep up with topics that are trending by including a current news spotlight that updates people about things that are going on in the world and with different celebrities.

Not only does this allow for a discussion between different people, but it keeps people on your website for a longer period of time.

If you use these types of content, there should be absolutely no problem driving traffic to your website.

Finally – total success from content marketing for corporations requires buy-in, as well as an ongoing, creative process for handling it.

Here are additional success factors: (from Content Marketing Institute)

WANT US TO HELP YOU? Take a look here.

content-marketing-success-factors

Categories
Content Marketing

10 Unusual Ways to Use Content Marketing to Promote Your Business

Content creation continues to emerge as a very important part of an online marketing strategy.

You can’t just build an appealing website but throw in some mediocre content and make it rank well. These days, people know how and where to get what they want; and Google is responding to that. High quality content that caters to people’s problems is the key to drive traffic to your website and make your audience share it to others, therefore multiplying your reach.

Content marketing can be a much more affordable and effective way to help your SEO efforts these days. Writing high quality content (assumed) produces links faster and naturally gets shared on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, and the like.

Another big advantage is Content marketing doesn’t get affected by algorithm updates, making it count as a big investment for the long term. Now that you know just how important high quality content is for both Google and your audience, you need to guarantee results. There are many tactics utilized now by different businesses worldwide, but these 10 unusual, non-conventional ways of using content marketing to promote your business may just do the trick for you.

1. Research, Research, Research

Staying in research mode at all times will always be better than being stagnant and just sticking to the same formula over and over again. You need to be updated about content marketing for you to never run out of great and effective content ideas. Research will keep your mind fresh, making idea pop into your head and increase the quality of your content. As soon as you get ideas based on the current trends in content marketing, jot them down and develop them until you have a good outline to work on.

how to organize content marketing in your business
(Click to see larger image – From Altimeter Group)

In connection to doing your research on a regular basis, you should think out of the box when it comes to choosing the topic and title of your articles. Know the latest things happening in your industry and write about them with a unique and thought-provoking angle in mind. You should learn how to stimulate your readers’ minds and make everything more interesting than usual. Many businesses are writing content, so you should know how to stand out.

3. Write with Personality

At the end of the day, your audience are people and they would want to read something that sounds like a relatable human being actually wrote it. Whether you’re writing a press release or a blog entry, it’s important to incorporate who you are and what is unique about your brand. Developing your writing style for your business and finding your own voice (if you are a content writer) is an ongoing process. Let the content you produce innovate by developing your own voice and knowing what works well with your target audience.

4. Create Infographics

Infographics is a one-two punch when it comes to content marketing. Not only do you create content that matters, you produce them through images that make them more interesting and shareable. Looking at a full page of text can sometimes feel basic and boring, so incorporating infographics to your content marketing will make your strategy more effective than usual.

5. Different File Types

Converting your content into a PDF file, slideshow, or eBook is an unusual but effective strategy. This is especially effective for content materials that aim to inform. These file types are print-ready and can be projected so your readers can use them as a reference material or as a lecture. Make sure you leave links leading to your website so your readers can always go back to your site for future references.

6. Giveaways

Some businesses are stuck with using content creation to inform and persuade, but it shouldn’t end there. Just like any marketing strategy, having some kind of promo or giveaway will definitely spark interest to your content. Giveaways are unusual blog traffic method that can generate massive blog traffic. Get your visitors to participate by sharing your posts to various sites and subscribe to your feed. This way, you can retain them and even earn some loyal followers in the long run.

7. Blog Commenting

The good thing about blog commenting is you gain blog traffic and also earn a backlink. Same with forum commenting—simply use your site URL as your forum signature and when you make comments, it will be displayed alongside your posts. Join active forums and blogs, start commenting today (and regularly), and see the amount of traffic you can drive to your blog.

8. Promote Your Content Daily

Content creation is a marketing strategy, so you must know how to promote your content. Direct promotion involves sharing your content through email and social media, while indirect promotion involves building connections with key players and credible sources related to your business. You need to have techniques for both of them to work effectively, and this requires daily practice. Make it a habit to perform all these promotional tasks. This is the only way your content will get noticed, and ultimately, help your business grow.

9. Get Affiliated

Affiliates are important because the more partners you have, the more exposure your business gets. This promotes business stability and identity in the long run. Learn to choose affiliates wisely. They should be related to your business or the key interests of your target audience. Learn how to deal with them in a friendly manner so that your relationship will grow overtime.

10. Create Shareable Content

We live in an online world dominated by social media. People now have the means to share to their followers what they’re interested in. If you can create content that is shareable, contains important keywords, and is interesting, it will rank high in search results, make people talk, and introduce your business to a wider audience. One of the greatest ways to drive traffic to your website is to create valuable and engaging content that is highly shareable and relevant to a large group of people. Make sure everything you write is so exciting that people will want to share it to their own social networking accounts.

The opportunities of content marketing and promotion are already vast, but they continue to expand by the minute. Growing your business is the bottom line objective with content marketing.

Use these 10 unusual strategies and always remember to step it up a notch to promote your business the best way possible. Do all this with one primary goal in mind: how can I provide useful, helpful value to my community and market?

BONUS: Have you tried NewsJacking for your company, product or service? Here’s a detailed look at how to get big media attention: Get the authority book from Meermann Scott today (Kindle/Amazon link)

Resources:

https://www.quicksprout.com/the-advanced-guide-to-content-marketing-chapter-5/

https://creativemarket.com/blog/2013/07/03/10-tips-for-driving-traffic-to-your-website-part-1

https://www.netmediablog.com/increase-blog-traffic-in-2013

photo credit: AltimeterGroup | cc

Categories
Content Marketing

The Data is In On the Future of B2B Content Marketing in 2013

Content is the answer to effective B2B marketing efforts.

Each year MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute measures trends and specifically B2B marketing trends. What was found in the “2013 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends-North America” is the clear direction pointing to the increasing importance of content marketing. It remains a top priority as 9 out of 10 marketers are using it.

B2B marketers are spending more, distributing content on more (and different) social platforms and, although with uncertainty about effectiveness, are using additional delivery methods (tactics) to distribute their message.

In fact, content marketing fills 33% of B2B marketer budgets (up 7% from 2012). It doesn’t matter the size of the operation; large companies such as Microsoft, small business and solopreneurs across the globe have continued success and benefit from the advantages. Sadly, organizations that fall into the 9% not invested in content marketing are behind the curve and will fall fast to the sidelines.