Marketing Archives - Page 11 of 13

February 3, 2017February 3, 2017

How to Build a Better Lead Form

Say you’re walking on the sidewalk, minding your own business on the way back from lunch, when you lock eyes with a street canvasser. The canvasser, dressed in some ill-fitting mesh vest and a visor, gets ready to sell you on a good cause. You want to support the cause, but you also hate the intrusion of the hard sell and don’t want to give away your personal information. She opens her mouth to initiate small talk, but you walk right by, avoiding eye contact and trying to stifle the guilt. Lead forms are the canvassers of the marketing world. In any exchange of value, both sides need to evaluate whether they’re getting something useful in return. On the street, it’s not worth it for most people to take out a credit card and hand over sensitive information to donate to a charity when they can just do so […]

How to Stop Overthinking Your Content and Start Writing What Your Customers Love

You might find it hard to believe, but content doesn’t have to be game-changing to perform well and achieve its objectives. In my experience, a lot of marketers are fixated on creating that “perfect” piece of content. They tell themselves they won’t settle for anything less, but the reality is that what they wind up creating is rarely as revolutionary as they hoped it would be. There are a few reasons why. Perfectionism isn’t healthy It causes stress, which in turn can cause high blood pressure, cardiovascular problems, and increased susceptibility to infection, and much more. If that’s not enough to worry you, consider this: However hard we try – perfection is unattainable . Perfecting your content is unhealthy, and on top of that, you’re setting yourself up for failure. That brings me nicely to this next point. ‘Create the best content ever’ isn’t a tangible goal If you […]

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February 3, 2017

Enough Already About the Value of Content

There’s a simple way to fix all the bad content brands publish: spend time with your audience I am sick of reading everyone’s trends for 2017 about content value: “For 2017 it’s not quantity, it’s quality.” “Marketers will be producing for value, not volume.” “You’ll see better content out there, not more content out there.” Right. Because marketers are always looking to produce content with no value. Makes a lot of sense. Let’s publish a lot of nonsense and see if we can do our jobs with it. As long as we check that box off on the editorial calendar (that no one is looking at, ever), we will be “getting it done.” Stop, Stop, Stop You know what the real problem is? Someone (a lot of people) had to write about what was going to happen in 2017. And this ‘everyone’ knows we’re producing way too much content […]

A System for Easily Publishing Consistently Great Content – A Pamela Wilson Series

This five-part series is a guest contribution from Pamela Wilson of Big Brand System . Content marketing works — you know that. It’s one big reason you read ProBlogger! You like the content here and you want to learn more about how to create it yourself. It’s all well and good to talk about how to write content effectively, of course. But at some point, you’ve got to actually do it. Regularly. Content marketing works best when it’s done consistently over time. One single piece of well-written content won’t turn your business around. It’s the act of creating and publishing useful content over time that creates business results. Prospects and customers begin to trust you when you show up and are helpful week after week. You become like a wise friend who’s always there to lend a hand. Which, of course, can seem like an incredibly daunting task and […]

How Virtual Reality Could Change Content Marketing

No longer the domains of ultra-early adopters and video gamers, virtual reality and augmented reality are poised to take off in the coming 24 months. “We see qualities in VR/AR technology that can take this from niche-use case to a device as ubiquitous as the smartphone,” Goldman Sachs Research wrote in its Virtual and Augmented Reality report. More consumers are expecting to see the power of virtual reality too. According to Greenlight Insights 62% of consumers say they would feel more engaged with a brand that sponsors a VR experience and 71% of consumers think a brand is forward-thinking if it uses virtual reality. Expert insight Sarah Hill is the CEO and chief storyteller for StoryUP, one of the early pioneers in virtual reality for brands. She explains why VR is finally gaining a foothold, and what marketers should understand before they dive in. CCO: Describe what virtual reality […]

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January 29, 2017January 30, 2017

The 7 Traits of Successful Content Marketers

One of the most influential authors of my personal and career journey is Napoleon Hill. Napoleon Hill’s classic Think and Grow Rich was first published in 1937. Now, in its 80th anniversary year, Mr. Hill’s lessons are still extremely relevant and valuable. I had the opportunity to dust off my copy of Think and Grow Rich (from 1960, with dog-eared and coffee-stained pages) a few weeks back during the holiday break. In its relation to content marketing, I noticed some clear takeaways that most corporate marketers simply do not embrace. In the book, 15 powerful chapters are helpful to all individuals, but seven chapters were spot-on relevant to content marketing . Here are quotes from the seven chapters with my notes for each one. Caution from Joe: The book is extremely chauvinistic. If you read it, just prepare yourself for that. 1. Desire “Whatever the mind can conceive and […]

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January 28, 2017January 28, 2017

We have now entered a phase where it is no longer sufficient to just provide content and products online

A few years later, the concept of Content Strategy helped shift editorial understanding of web content as more than just uploading a catalogue, to the art and craft of combining writing, linguistics, digital assets and technology in a hyperlinked medium. We have now entered a third phase where it is no longer sufficient to just provide content and products online, but to offer customers a full smorgasbord of consumables from products to rich media with social interaction that can keep them busy for hours. Businesses refer to this as maintaining their Feed.

A few years later, the concept of Content Strategy helped shift editorial understanding of web content as more than just uploading a catalogue, to the art and craft of combining writing, linguistics, digital assets and technology in a hyperlinked medium. We have now entered a third phase where it is no longer sufficient to just provide content and products online, but to offer customers a full smorgasbord of consumables from products to rich media with social interaction that can keep them busy for hours. Businesses refer to this as maintaining their Feed.

A few years later, the concept of Content Strategy helped shift editorial understanding of web content as more than just uploading a catalogue, to the art and craft of combining writing, linguistics, digital assets and technology in a hyperlinked medium. We have now entered a third phase where it is no longer sufficient to just provide content and products online, but to offer customers a full smorgasbord of consumables from products to rich media with social interaction that can keep them busy for hours. Businesses refer to this as maintaining their Feed.

In 1983, Thomas Wolf wrote an essay for Esquire about Intel Founder, Robert Noyce . Noyce grew up in midland Iowa on a family farm and he revolutionised office design by incorporating the egalitarian landscape of his childhood. Gone were the cubicles, offices, and hierarchy. Instead, he introduced the first “open plan” space where employees were perceived as equals and had free range of the farm, er, I mean firm. A few years later, the concept of Content Strategy helped shift editorial understanding of web content as more than just uploading a catalogue, to the art and craft of combining writing, linguistics, digital assets and technology in a hyperlinked medium. We have now entered a third phase where it is no longer sufficient to just provide content and products online, but to offer customers a full smorgasbord of consumables from products to rich media with social interaction that can […]

How to Diagnose Your Traffic Issues with These SEO Tools

Believe it or not, SEO is not a rocket science. In most cases, it comes down to the most obvious common sense things, like easy-to-understand website structure, well-written relevant copy, carefully picked descriptive page titles, etc. Some more complicated problems may occur (those that require professional help) from time to time, but in most cases, you can identify and fix things with tools. Here are 5 SEO issues preventing your site from getting more traffic and tools that can handle those: 1. Broken Links and Redirects It’s the most widespread problem, for both big and small websites. The Internet never stops growing: Many pages go down in redesigns, website moving or selling, outdated or sold-out product page, etc. There are plenty of reasons why a page may cease to exist. An estimated 37,000 websites are hacked every day which results in hundreds of thousands of non-existent pages and broken […]

5 Reasons SEO Should Take a Back Seat With Website Content

It makes sense at times to produce content without worrying too much about the SEO aspects. (Please know it isn’t easy for me, an SEO professional, to write that.) Some SEO purists suggest that website content be optimized at all times. It’s inevitable that someone – or a team – will follow an internal process and think about the content with an everything-SEO mentality. But there are situations when you don’t need to sweat SEO – or can at least scale back the effort. Here are five occasions to consider. 1. You’re writing about a new trend B2B and B2C brands sometimes want to be out front with a new industry phrase – long before it’s widely used. The phrase may not even have any or much detectable search volume. Businesses should write about emerging trends to underscore their expertise and vision and SEO may not be top of […]

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January 24, 2017

How to Boost Your Digital Marketing With PR

Recently, I listened to the CEO of a multibillion-dollar corporation tell me about his company’s profit and loss; and I realized that he considered marketing, sales and PR — all of it — as a single line item. In this man’s mind, anything driving new business belonged in just one single category. I can understand how that might seem logical; however, when you look at these separate operations as a joint function, you can’t really see how one affects the other. In fact, they are complementary; so lumping them together makes it hard to understand how to maximize those investments. What’s more, if you don’t think about the symbiotic nature of your various outsourced functions, you could be wasting money on ineffective initiatives. How critical is it to capitalize on your PR team’s earned media in your digital marketing? If the 2016 presidential election was any indicator, it’s your […]