I’ve been focusing a lot on how to plan, build and deploy relationship marketing campaigns as part of an integrated marketing strategy. As you can see, the idea is to start simple and build over time, always mindful of your target buyer’s behavior throughout their buyer journey. By doing so, prospects are more likely to…ᔥ via OpenView Blog
Content Marketing
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Most Topular Stories
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5 Reasons Why Relationship Marketing is Good for Your Organization
OpenView Blog17 Jun 2013 | 3:30 pm -
Three Reasons Why Agencies Make Great Content Marketing Partners
The Content Lab29 May 2013 | 10:03 amBrands and agencies used to have distinct roles in the marketing relationship. Now those roles overlap, creating some to question about who should own content marketing efforts – brands or agencies. Now that brands are making their own content, some argue (including this recent article in Digiday) that the agency role is up in the air. I couldn’t disagree more. Agencies are a critical extension to a brand’s content marketing efforts, and provide strategic value and experience to the process. Agencies Do More Than Just Advertising Even before the term “content marketing”… -
The Big Picture: 5 Ways Images Can Increase Landing Page Conversion Rates
ideaLaunch10 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amA picture is worth a lot more than a thousand words if it drives online sales. Images resonate with viewers much quicker than copy, so they’re an essential variable in your landing page’s optimization formula. When used creatively, pictures can increase landing page conversion rates. When used poorly, they can actually drive traffic away. Some brands expertly incorporate images into their landing pages and are rewarded with higher conversion rates, more leads and higher profits. To connect with your audiences, draw upon these lessons as you build your sales pages. Lesson One: Quit… -
Using Content Marketing Services Effectively: Build a Better Profile
ideaLaunch17 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amWhen sending out dozens of pitch articles without hearing one response is becoming the norm, many writers breathe a sigh of relief when they find good content marketing services. These virtual employment marketplaces are the ideal way for writers to work with many different clients without spending hours pitching titles and sending emails. Your profile is the first and only impression you’ll have with potential clients here, so you need to tailor it to make the biggest impact. Learning what to put in and what to leave out can make a difference between getting hired and being passed… -
Use This Formula To Calculate Brand Engagement On Your Website
contentmeasures.com22 May 2013 | 1:30 amHow much of your website traffic is branded? In other words, how many visitors to your website already knew you existed? And, perhaps more importantly, how many didn’t? If your spending big bucks on awareness campaigns both on and off-line, the effect will be measurable in your website analytics. You just need to know where to look. How To Calculate Brand Engagement To calculate the effect your branding efforts are having on your website traffic we will use a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) called Percent Brand Engagement. Here’s the formula: branded search visits + direct…
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Content Marketing Institute
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34 Essential Research Reports for More Effective Content Marketing
17 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amAs a content marketer, you’re likely seeking reputable research reports and white papers to inform several of your processes, such as: Planning your upcoming strategies Validating the directions you’re taking Making the business case for content in your organization At CMI, we’re pretty passionate about research, too. In fact, we conduct original research every year to help set budgets and benchmarks for your effective content marketing efforts. But, we also like to keep tabs on what others are saying about content marketing, so we can make sure we are keeping up with the… -
Video Content Channels: Which Should You Use?
16 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amCMI video on Vimeo Have a sneaking suspicion that you’re missing out on a world of video opportunity? You may be right. Limiting your brand to YouTube without combing through the other available options may curb your video content marketing potential. A quickly evolving marketplace means frequent stops to reevaluate your online video strategy. To get some perspective on video distribution channels, I spoke with some video experts, including Eric Leslie, President of OnScene Productions and the man behind the lens at events like Content Marketing World. Eric helped me assemble a… -
Create Content Perfection With These 5 Essential Ingredients
15 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amSerial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis often talks about the qualities that, in his opinion, describe the perfect content product: real-time, fact-driven, visual, efficient, and curated. Let’s review: Real-time: Does your content take advantage of current trends and relevant news stories? Oreo created a memorable brand moment with its spontaneous — and perfectly-timed — delivery of the tweet, “You Can Still Dunk in the Dark,” during an unexpected blackout in the middle of Super Bowl XLVII. The image was retweeted more than 10,000 times and received free press from nearly… -
A Strategic Map of Content Marketing Technologies
14 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amHow is content marketing technology different than other marketing solutions? Does anyone really need yet another segmented view of marketing software solutions? These are questions that, candidly, we at CMI started asking ourselves just after the first Content Marketing World event in 2011. At that event, we met with dozens of new technology companies that were either making their debut or would soon formally introduce themselves to the many attendees focused on the practice of content marketing. As we began to dig into some of these companies, and understand the real-world problems they… -
Content Marketing vs. SEO: The Truth Behind A Ridiculous Debate
13 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amThe headlines read… Content marketing usurps SEO… Content marketing has killed SEO… Content marketing overtakes SEO… The word “versus” often appears between these two purported rivals. Shoot me now. Or, wait just a minute and shoot me after you’ve read (and have disagreed with) my strong point of view on the hyper-hyped topic du jour that’s come to be a showdown between content marketing and SEO. From where I sit, it’s a ridiculous argument. Though the topic is often (and shamefully) broached by writers who actually understand marketing strategy, it…
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Online Marketing Blog
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Opening Up Twitter Analytics to All – Smart Marketing Move ala Google
17 Jun 2013 | 6:07 amIs Twitter the right place for your social media investment? Whether you have time or ad dollars to spend, this is a question that marketers are visiting and revisiting as the demand for social media performance increases. According to Twitter, 35% of consumers that follow a brand are more likely to purchase from that brand. Twitter users are also 47% more likely to visit the company’s website and 35% are more likely to retweet content from a business they follow. Is Twitter right for you? How do you know the performance of your Twitter engagement and marketing activities? -
Online Marketing News: Digital Agency of the Future, Facebook Hashtags, Google Gets Waze, Apple Money, Amazon Grocery
14 Jun 2013 | 4:00 amImage: Detail of Skyword Infographic The acceleration of social technologies along with continuously evolving consumer behaviors has many agencies in a state of flux and asking: Where to invest resources? Which positions to staff and how to structure the agency to be adaptable and to grow? For the past few years we’ve been modeling our agency at TopRank Marketing to better adapt and integrate. The holistic approach I talk about here and in Optimize are a reflection of the changes we’ve made to better integrate content, social media and search optimization. With this context, I… -
20 Plus Tips on How to Optimize Your Presentations & Public Speaking
12 Jun 2013 | 4:01 amWhat does it mean to “optimize” your presentations? Keywords in your speech? Including your Twitter handle on all slides? Repurposing the slide content through Slideshare, Flickr, Visual.ly and on blogs? The answer is yes – all of the above. And more. More marketing and communications pros are getting on board with the idea that public speaking is fuel for content marketing. The problem is, the focus on creation and promotion centers around individual content objects or presentations. An optimized presentation strategy means having a narrative or story that includes your… -
Why SEO is Relevant When It Comes to B2B Thought Leadership
10 Jun 2013 | 5:51 amI’ll start this post off with my point: Dismissing search is ignoring demand from buyers & the media. A digital marketing exec I follow on Twitter shared a CMI article that posted this weekend: “Why SEO May Be Irrelevant When It Comes to B2B Thought Leadership”. As a long time realist about the role of search in online marketing, I wasn’t sure if this was simply linkbait or a well reasoned, data-informed argument. It’s a cliche to respond to “SEO is dead” articles because those writers are almost always uninformed or have an agenda unrelated to… -
Online Marketing News: 7 Social Media Sins, Matt Cutts Warns on Links, Rise of Vine
7 Jun 2013 | 4:20 amGluttony, sloth, greed, wrath, lust, envy and pride. Most of us know that committing these sins is wrong. The rest of us were terrified into acknowledging that committing these sins is wrong by Kevin Spacey years ago. So if we know that something is wrong in the real world, why do so many continue to follow the path of the wicked online? Start your Friday off on the path of the righteous by avoiding these seven deadly social media marketing sins, as preached by XPLAIN. In Other Online Marketing News… Warning From Matt Cutts: Paid Advertorial Links Are Still Paid Links Advertorial links,…
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Copyblogger
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How to Build a Massive Email List (Without Being Annoying)
17 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amFact: Email is still (by far) the most profitable online sales channel. That means an essential aspect of your audience is the segment that trusts you with their primary email address. So, it seems fair to say that enticing your prospective customers and clients onto an email list is crucial. Once you start building that list, you always want more. It’s like crack, really. Email subscriber count crack, to be exact. And like any addiction, you start considering desperate measures to get more. Things like annoying the majority of your site visitors in order to increase your daily sign-up… -
“Content” Isn’t a Buzzword, It’s the Future of Your Business
14 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amContent Marketing is a hot topic, no doubt. What you may not know, however, is that it’s been around for a long time, and that it’s finding itself in the midst of yet another “Golden Age” with the rise of the Internet. This is very good news if you’re a content creator. It’s even better news if you’re building authority online. But, are you actually getting the job done? Whether you have no idea what I’m talking about, or you do, and you’d like to take your content marketing skills much further online, we’ve got your back. We’ve… -
5 Writing Links That Will Help You Get Better … Stronger … Faster
13 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amThis week on The Lede … How a 40,000 Word PDF Earned a Massive Audience The Overwhelming Force of “Gradual” How to Write a Good Blog Post, Fast On Finding Real Pleasure in Our Work Twitter’s First Bona Fide Star Want to grab even more useful links, beyond those that make The Lede, plus additional obscure references to The Six Million Dollar Man, adjusted for inflation? You only have to follow @copyblogger on Twitter. // How a 40,000 Word Guide Earned 361,494 Site Visitors and 8421 Email Opt-ins Mr. Patel is a master of taking action on real data. Through this… -
What a Notorious 16th-Century Philosopher Can Teach You About Content Marketing Today
12 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amWhat does it take to get people to pay attention to your content? I think we’ve all read a great piece of writing and thought to ourselves, “Why isn’t this more popular?” (And hey, maybe you even feel that way about your own work!) I obviously can’t answer the entirety of that question in a single blog post, but I will tell you that there is a trait that many popular works of writing seem to share: they are controversial. It’s easy to see why controversy spawns from strife between two (or more) groups of thought. It leads to debate, debate leads to… -
The Surprising Conversion Power of Priming and Conformity
11 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amImagine it’s late Wednesday afternoon. The sun is setting. You are pulling on some sweats after a long day at work when you hear a knock at the front door. Your child — who doesn’t open it — yells up to you that there is a strange man on the porch. And he’s got something in his hands. You slip on some socks (because you are self-conscious about your toes), and jog down the steps. You open the door and see me standing on your porch. I’m smiling. In my arms is a clipboard. “Hi, I’m with Gallup Research. Can I ask you a quick question?”…
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Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad
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Better Blog Writing: Attract Clients, Make Sure Your Posts Get Read!
12 Jun 2013 | 5:30 amYou want to Engage your Blog Readers and encourage them to subscribe to your blog and become regular visitors. Ideally, you want to attract a large number of hungry customers who are interested in partaking of this written food for the soul, but how can you rise above the constant online buzz to attract attention to your blog post? The Internet may be constantly chirping with activity, but that doesn’t mean that all content is worthy of users’ attention in the same manner. According to Neilson.com, there were 181 million blogs around the world at the end of 2011. (In 2006,… -
Your Business Blog: Guest Blogging Etiquette
5 Jun 2013 | 10:53 amLast month, we contributed a post asking if guest blogging is really a necessary element to a good blog. The answer was a pretty resounding “yes.” In light of that, I thought I should elaborate on a few tips for how to be a good guest blogger. First, reciprocal guest blogging can be a great opportunity for all. It helps bring new readers to each blog that is involved. Set standards/boundaries – make sure that before you begin a guest blogging relationship, that all parties involved know what is expected of them. Setting standards for things like post length, how often the swap will… -
Engage Your Blog Readers with Meaty Content
29 May 2013 | 5:31 amYou already know that, “Content is King” on the Internet, but great content is what helps you build a community of loyal blog readers who buy from you. Your goal should be to engage blog readers with the highest quality content you can muster, with absolutely no fluff. There is far too much garbage floating around online that doesn’t help to solve your target market’s problem or add anything new to a discussion. Good business blogs – the ones that have large readership – are like good restaurants. You go there for a good meal and leave pleasantly satisfied. Compare… -
Guest Blogging: Just How Important Is It?
22 May 2013 | 7:30 amHaving guest bloggers post content for your blog can be a great tool to get more readers to visit your site. Typically, guest blogging involves a good deal of cross-promotion, which can be beneficial for all parties involved. Guest blogging has recently become much more common, likely because bloggers are seeing the good things that can come to their blog when they invite others to share. A guest blogging relationship can be as basic or as involved as you and your guest blogger would prefer. You may just want to invite one or two writers to write posts that are their take on content that you… -
7 Content Marketing Questions to Ask BEFORE You Write a Word
15 May 2013 | 4:13 amHere are some key marketing questions to ask and answer before you write a single word of content, if you want to get good content marketing results. When you outsource writing for your blog, newsletter, video or any type of content marketing, be very clear about your content marketing goals. In fact, it doesn’t matter if you’re outsourcing to another writer or doing it all yourself. 1. What do you want your visitor to do after reading or viewing your article, blog or video? For example, do you want them to buy a product? Call a phone number? Register on a form with their email address?
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Influential Marketing
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15 Big Brand Lessons From The 2013 Corporate Social Media Summit
13 Jun 2013 | 12:00 pmThere are all kinds of ways to judge the quality of a conference. Some people look at the venue, or the number of attendees. Other look at the list of speakers, or the keynote presenters. Across the dozens of events I attend every year, I have seen or used almost all of these metrics myself. But yesterday I discovered a new metric while networking with speakers and attendees of the Corporate Social Media Summit. People brought their bosses. Some speakers from last year invited their bosses to come and speak this year. Others brought their peers or bosses to attend. Every annual conference… -
How To Get Better At Networking: 7 Questions With Porter Gale
6 Jun 2013 | 9:03 amRecently I had the chance to sit down with Porter Gale and pick her brain about some smart tips that can help anyone get better at networking. Her new book Your Network Is Your Net Worth features a cover quote from Sir Richard Branson. As if that weren’t impressive enough, she is the former CMO of Virgin America and someone who I’ve crossed paths with a few times at events over the past few years. As you’ll see in the interview below, she’s also one of those people who happens to be gifted at making connections and building an amazingly connected and powerful… -
What An 80s Cult Hit Can Teach You About Curation …
4 Jun 2013 | 2:42 pmIn the 1987 cult hit film Mannequin, a chronically unemployed artist landed a job decorating a department storefront window after saving the owner’s life. His partner is a mannequin who comes life at night – and together they create storefront window displays that get people stopping in the streets. It’s a tale of fantasy, but what if there was a way for your brand to create the same sort of irresistable display, no matter what industry you happen to be in? Content curation is a hot topic these days, as marketing teams everywhere are starting to put more time and effort into… -
Brand Reputation And Why All PR Actually Is Good PR (Unless You’re Already Famous)
28 May 2013 | 10:18 amLots of people who don’t work in public relations will tell you that “all PR is good PR.” In other words, if people are talking about you – it doesn’t matter what they are saying. Then there are those who are in the profession who will usually tell you the exact opposite … that PR can be positive or negative and you need to focus on improving your reputation above all else. Who is right? The problem is, they both are … in the right situation. The Challenge of Obscurity If you are trying to launch an unknown brand, you have the challenge of obscurity. -
How Do Big Brands Answer 16 Essential Social Media Questions?
22 May 2013 | 8:26 amIn just a few weeks, it will be time once again for one of my favourite marketing events of the year. No, it’s not the party-filled serendipity fest of SXSW, or the Las Vegas geek-pride gathering at CES. The event I’m talking about is all business … and that’s why it’s one of my top events all year. On June 12 and 13th in New York, The Corporate Social Media Summit will bring together several hundred corporate brand marketers to talk about a single broad topic: the business value of social media for large brands. It is this singular focus that led me two years…
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Web Ink Now
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What Mick Jagger Teaches us about Public Speaking
13 Jun 2013 | 7:53 amLast night, my friend Nick Morgan and I caught the Mick Jagger Show... er, the Rolling Stones... in Boston. It was a terrific show. Nick is my speaker coach, so we used the Stones show as a "field trip" to watch a master performer in action. And boy, is Sir Mick a master. There is no doubt that anyone who speaks in public can learn from Mick Jagger. As Nick says, "Any time I get a chance to see a legendary performer like Jagger, I jump at it, because it's a chance to learn stagecraft useful for public speakers." The rest of this post is jointly authored: What Mick Jagger Teaches us about… -
Reinventing your product category for a new market
10 Jun 2013 | 6:53 amOne of the best parts of being active on the global speaking circuit a chance to learn from marketers working in a wide variety of businesses. Yesterday I delivered a keynote speech at the Oticon Marketing Boot Camp. Oticon is based in Copenhagen and is the oldest hearing aid manufacturer in the world. The Marketing Boot Camp is a gathering of 200 hearing care professionals, Oticon staff, and outside speakers. What do you think of when you consider hearing aids? I think of skin-tone colored instruments that people use but they want to hide. Usually, needing a hearing aid means you're getting… -
The revolution in business today
7 Jun 2013 | 2:50 pmI recently finished Mitch Joel's new book Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends on It and enjoyed it very much, I asked Mitch to answer some questions for us. As I was reading. it struck me how similar Mitch and I think. We're both talking about the revolution going on in business today, but we come at if from different perspectives. Oh, and we’re both live music fans Mitch is President of Twist Image - one of the largest independent Digital Marketing agencies in North America (although he prefers the title, Media Hacker). So while I spend my days… -
How long does it take you to respond?
3 Jun 2013 | 7:58 amOn Friday, I presented at BMA Blaze, the Business Marketing Association's annual conference. I delivered a mini-keynote and then led a panel In the Moment: How and Why to Do Real-Time B2B Marketing with: - Matt Petitjean, Vice President, Corporate Marketing, ADP - Rich Jurek, Group CMO, The Inland Real Estate Group of Companies, Inc. - Jeff Beringer, Global Practice Leader, Digital + Social Media, GolinHarris During my talk, I used an audience response system to get a sense of the 500 or so senior B2B marketers in the room. My question was "How long would it take you to respond online to a… -
How Ocean Frontiers gets dive customers to share on social networks
28 May 2013 | 9:12 amThis weekend I got my Open Water Scuba certification at Ocean Frontiers Ltd. in the Cayman Islands. I chose Ocean Frontiers because I connected with them on Facebook at the suggestion of a friend and then wrote about how the Ocean Frontiers Green Short Challenge is a terrific way to get people to share on Facebook. I'm so impressed with how Steve Broadbelt, managing director at Ocean Frontiers builds both online and offline customer relationships with his scuba diving clients, that I interviewed him so you can hear in his own words. Steve builds a community of divers who share their…
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Straight Talk with Nigel Hollis
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Google Glass
17 Jun 2013 | 8:34 amA while back I was in a shoe store in New York and saw a young guy who appeared to have a flashlight strapped to the side of his head. Everyone, including the store assistants, were clustered around him ooh’ing and ah’ing. Then I realized. I had just seen my first Google Glass, the device intended to liberate data from the desktop or handheld device and put it right in front of your eyes. Most of the people who have tried Google Glass to date seem to have a similar opinion to Robert Scoble who states: I will never live a day of my life from now on without it (or a competitor). It's that… -
Why Google turned itself into a movie set
12 Jun 2013 | 8:11 amHow do you capitalize on the advantage of a strong brand? Make your brand a movie set. That’s what Google did. The Internship starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson opened at the weekend in the US. While Google did not pay to feature in the movie, there is no doubt that the brand will benefit from the attendant publicity. The Internship probably will not show up at my local movie theater for a while and even when it does I am not sure the Google linkage will be enough to get me to go see it. Any movie that gets a review stating, “Believability has no place in The Internship” and… -
Coca-Cola's Happiness Campaign raises the marketing bar once again
10 Jun 2013 | 7:08 amI am in awe of the latest incarnation of Coca-Cola’s Happiness Campaign. This is marketing at its best, addressing a challenging issue and connecting people to share a moment of enjoyment with someone that they would otherwise never meet, and might distrust if they did. It is common knowledge that the relationship between India and Pakistan is a tense one. Armed border clashes make the global news and low level antagonism linger on decades after the partition of the two nations. The tension is reflected in the curiously choreographed and daily Wagah Attari border closing ceremony. The… -
The more persuasive the claim the better the results? Not in China.
5 Jun 2013 | 8:32 amImagine that every marketing claim you make is met with intense skepticism by its target audience. The more persuasive the claim the more likely it is to be questioned and scrutinized by a host of independent investigators. This might sound like a nightmare, but for marketers of food and personal care brands in China, this is today’s reality. I recently helped deliver a ValueDrivers workshop for a major Chinese brand. After the workshop I was chatting with the group marketing director when he made this thought-provoking statement: Chinese consumers believe they are the most poisoned on… -
What Yahoo! might learn from Unilever
3 Jun 2013 | 3:24 amSo Yahoo! has stumped up over a billion dollars in an attempt to buy Tumblr’s young, cool demographic. Ignoring the fact that you cannot buy a site’s users, only the platform, I can’t help wondering whether the real challenge for Yahoo! is to figure out what role the Yahoo! brand plays in the digital arena. Maybe the acquisition suggests Marissa Mayer is looking to Unilever as a role model in order to create a house of brands. I can’t help feeling that Yahoo!’s problem is that people do not really know what the brand stands for. In the digital world where brands need to provide…
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Conversation Agent
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Visualize Your Story Automagically
11 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amUse your own script or find among an inventory of existing ones and create a storyboard with Amazon Storyteller. As described on the site: Amazon Storyteller is a new application from Amazon Studios that lets you turn a movie script into a storyboard. You choose the backgrounds, characters, and props to visually tell a story. A successful storyboard can tell the full story of a script, or capture its essence in short form, like a trailer. Either approach can be a great way to build an audience for your story and see how people respond to it. The tool is free to use for anyone on Amazon… -
Why so Many Companies Fail to Deliver on Customer Service
10 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amIt is disheartening to experience such a race to the bottom. This past week I made three separate inquiries about a recent booking to American Express Travel, the last one on Twitter because I was hoping against hope... No response. From a company where I have been a loyal customer since 2002. American Express refers to its cardholders as members. Is the yearly fee customers pay the only sign of that membership? Membership alone is not enough According to a new survey by J.D. Power and Associates#, membership -- in the example is a club associated with a sporting goods retailer -- is not the… -
What I'm Reading Now
9 Jun 2013 | 2:39 pmDisruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy -- McKinsey Global Institute, cuts through the noise and identifies 12 technologies that could drive truly massive economic transformations and disruptions in the coming years. The One Thing that Makes a Company Last Forever -- by Marina Krakovsky, Stanford Graduate School of Business. Staying competitive calls for ambidexterity. Instead of choosing between exploiting current opportunities and exploring new ones; you have to do both. The companies that last for decades, according to the author, are… -
Become a Master at Connecting
7 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amRecently, I had the opportunity to meet two incredibly talented and generous pros in person. They both work in the field of innovation for growth, and we discovered we have many more things in common than we thought, even though we have lived in distant parts of the world from each other. It's uncanny how that happens, isn't it? This idea that making connections is also (and I'd argue especially) about helping others get what they want is a good practice. Characteristics of good connectors Good people are fairly easy to spot, even though they are usually head down getting the work done. By… -
Tapping into Your Sense of Purpose
6 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amPurpose is a powerful motivator and ally. Tap into your sense of purpose and there is no limit for better. Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. To book her for a speaking engagement click here.
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Marketing Darwinism
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How to Make the Zero Moment of Truth Work for You
5 Jun 2013 | 9:55 amPosted in Behavioral TargetingBusiness IntelligenceConversionConversion OptimizationCustomer ExperienceInteractive MarketingInternetSearchSEOStrategyUser Generated Content When faced with multiple products, the time it takes for a shopper to make a purchase decision between them is usually three to seven seconds. These critical moments are known as the First Moment of Truth (or FMOT), and they determine whether or not all the advertising and promotion marketers have invested will pay off. Thanks to the Internet, another critical moment for consumer/brand interactions is also getting… -
6 Tips for Turning Big Data into Great Customer Experiences
29 May 2013 | 11:00 amPosted in Behavioral TargetingBusiness IntelligenceConversion OptimizationCustomer ExperienceEnterprise 2.0Interactive MarketingOnline TestingStrategy The phenomenon of big data certainly comes with big promise. After all, having terabytes of data on customer history and behavior is certainly better than trying to extrapolate from just a few data points. For sure, online marketers who make sense of big data are going to be better able to build customer experiences around hard data and evidence rather than on hunches and guesswork. Instead of working on intuition, or crude analytics, you could… -
Amazon vs. Wal-Mart: How Online Strategy Can Meet In-Store Opportunity
22 May 2013 | 11:00 amPosted in CommerceeCommerceStrategy When Wal-Mart announced plans to use its retail locations to fulfill online orders last week, the media and business community broke into a collective game of word association. The word? Amazon. Prior to breaking the news, Wal-Mart was already one of the few companies that could compete with Amazon online. But after unveiling how it plans to do so—by fulfilling online orders in its own stores—Wal-Mart became Amazon’s first serious threat. The irony is that Wal-Mart will fulfill these orders using Amazon’s own in-store locker strategy. Wal-Mart… -
Why CMO’s Need To Be More Involved in Ecommerce
15 May 2013 | 11:00 amPosted in CommerceConversion OptimizationCustomer ExperienceeCommerceLeadershipOnline TestingOptimizationPersonalizationTesting If the $42.3 billion spent online this past holiday season has taught retailers anything, it’s that capturing customers—and their dollars—online is crucial. But online is a big place. And mobile, which can seem like an entirely different universe, looms ever larger. So where to even start if you haven’t yet…started? And who should lead the charge? The modern day merchant must have an intimate understanding of the importance of online and mobile commerce,… -
3 Ways Social Media can Boost Sales Success
7 May 2013 | 10:45 amPosted in BloggingBusiness IntelligenceCommunitiesContent MarketingConversational MarketingEnterprise 2.0FacebookLead GenerationLead NurturingPeopleSalesSocial Business IntelligenceSocial MediaSocial NetworkingStrategyThought LeadershipTwitter Recently there has been a lot of conversation against the importance of relationships in selling such as this recent Harvard Business Review article on Selling is Not about Relationships which makes it seem like social media would not make a good fit for sales people. But a new RAIN Group report proves otherwise and shows that sales people that truly…
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Post-Advertising
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5 Types of Social Media Content Your Audience Really Wants
12 Jun 2013 | 2:39 amWhy do we follow brands? What’s the point? They’re not our friends. We’re not going to make plans with them on a Friday night or invite them to our birthday parties (though some we would if we could). Why do we let them into a world where we’re sharing and consuming content from the people closest to us? Social media has provided a unique opportunity for consumers and brands to connect on a level much deeper than that of a monetary transaction. It may sound obvious, but it’s worth noting that historically, a true fan of a brand didn’t have many options for celebrating his… -
Getting the News into “Brand Newsrooms”
10 Jun 2013 | 1:47 pmCelebrating Oreo’s now-famous twi-jacking (Or is it “twit-jacking?”) of the Super Bowl for the brand’s own milk-and-cookies purposes, the ad business erupted early this year with ecstatic chatter about so-called “brand newsrooms.” While the chatter focused in minute detail on brands and to a lesser extent on rooms, there was virtually nothing about what constitutes news. Apparently, the ad people peddling brand newsrooms know nothing about news. So the brand newsroom conversation has been ill informed at best and nonsensical the rest of the time. The focus on news from brands is… -
What Billions of Cicadas Taught Me About Storytelling
6 Jun 2013 | 8:25 amThe cicadas are coming. Billions of buzzing (relatively harmless) insects will descend upon the eastern United States from Georgia to New England in the coming weeks. If you’re not familiar with them, cicadas are a unique species. For most of their lives, cicadas live underground as nymphs, digging and feeding on roots. After 17 years underground, in the last few months of their lives, they emerge by the billions, seeking high ground (mostly in trees) on which to shed their exoskeletons and emerge as beautiful winged insects. They mate, the females give birth to new nymphs deep within tree… -
Not Everyone is a Storyteller
29 May 2013 | 7:57 amLately, everyone in advertising has become a “storyteller” specializing in “engaging content.” This isn’t true, of course. But I understand why everyone’s making the claim: Digital is the only part of advertising that’s growing rapidly; social media is the red-hot center of digital; to make social work, you need conversation-starting (and sustaining) content. So content creation now is the biggest challenge of 21st century marketing. It’s time-consuming and complicated. Most startling to ad people, it requires a creative and strategic mindset that is alien to… -
An Open Letter to Nutella: Why Did You Eliminate Your Greatest Marketing Asset?
22 May 2013 | 1:55 amMy dearest Nutella, For decades your hazelnut spread has turned everyday consumers into product purists. From brownies and cookies to hot chocolate and crepes, Nutella has been the cornerstone of a delicious treat. As you’re aware, since 2007, Sara Rosso—arguably your most passionate superfan—has hosted World Nutella Day. She love(d) your product so much that she wanted the world to dedicate a single day—February 5—to embracing it. What she did was nothing less than astounding. On the World Nutella Day website, Rosso has gathered more than 700 recipes, tweeted and shared on Facebook…
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Conversation Marketing from Portent, Inc: Internet Marketing with a Twist of Lemon
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Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Tracking your Success
14 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amIn charge of building your first PPC account? Don’t have a lot of time or money to spend within AdWords? Well you came to the right place. This is the last post of the six-part blog series in which Portent PPC Strategists Chad Kearns and Tim Johnson lay down the knowledge on best practices for achieving PPC success. Follow along the way or look back to pick up tips on how to build your first PPC account like a PPC superstar. Post #1: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Account Structure Post #2: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Understanding your Campaign Settings Post #3: Building… -
Google Webmaster Tools Query Data is Worthless
12 Jun 2013 | 3:46 pmThe short version, if you want to skip me ranting like a lunatic: Google Webmaster Tools query data is, as far as I can tell, completely, 100% useless. It’s not a good ‘relative comparison.’ It’s so wrong that it might actually be a bad idea to use it at all. Now, here’s the whole, tragic story: What happened I’m a pretty empirical guy. I like my numbers. They’re comforting. So, when the realization dawns that data we all depend on is a big, fat chunk of steaming camel manure, I get a little… Perturbed. This week, Google Webmaster Tools has me reaching for the Valium, when a… -
Google AdWords – Third Party Sitelinks
12 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amOne of the most exciting (and frustrating) parts of PPC marketing is that it’s a constantly changing landscape. A big part of anyone’s job when working in PPC is to keep up on the latest changes to the systems you’re using. The only problem is that Google releases roughly five billion changes to AdWords every day or two (a rough guesstimate on my part). With only so many hours in the day to watch Twitter for new product announcements, it’s really easy for something to go unnoticed or slip through the cracks every now and again. For instance, I was rather surprised… -
3 Ways to Keep Content Zombies from Eating Your Brains
11 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amThe undead are white hot these days. From the “Walking Dead” to “World War Z,” zombies have hit the mainstream—they’re everywhere. Some talk about a Zombie Apocalypse as if it’s a forgone conclusion. A friend recently told me he’s shopping for a new vehicle, and it needs to be a four-wheel drive SUV so he can outrun the zombies. The recent growth of the non-living community includes what I call “Content Zombies”—online content that’s had the life and meaning sucked out of it, but continues to shamble along on corporate Websites and blogs. Content zombies will… -
Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Ad Extensions
7 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amIn charge of building your first PPC account? Don’t have a lot of time or money to spend within AdWords? Well you came to the right place. We’re in week five of our six-part blog series in which Portent PPC StrategistsChad KearnsandTim Johnsonlay down the knowledge on best practices for achieving PPC success. Follow along to pick up tips on how to build your first PPC account like a PPC superstar. Post #1: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Account Structure Post #2: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Understanding your Campaign Settings Post #3: Building Successful Low Budget PPC:…
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Brian Solis
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Disruptive Selection: Nature’s Way of Weeding Out the Average Business
13 Jun 2013 | 9:38 amDisruption! It’s everywhere. I live in Silicon Valley where many say that the terms disrupt and disruption have become buzzwords. Pundits believe that the word is losing its promise and impact through the acts and examples of entrepreneurs and businesses that misuse the word to describe intentions rather than associating it with a desired or natural effect. In some of the startup meetings I attend for example, digital disruption is actually a stated business objective. Instead of “killing it” or “crushing it” many businesses are aiming now to disrupt it! Kidding… -
Plugging into the Future of Humanity: Exploring the Human API
4 Jun 2013 | 11:02 amI had the opportunity to present at LeWeb in Paris, arguably Europe’s largest conference dedicated to the future of technology. The theme of the conference explored the Internet of Things, where devices and things connect to one another to perform certain tasks and/or track activities to improve what we already do or make possible what we’re trying to do. The Internet of Things is bigger than we may realize. We are experiencing a shift from a world of inanimate objects and reactive devices to a world where data, intelligence, and computing are distributed, ubiquitous, and networked. My… -
Content is King! Amazon Invests Millions In Original TV Shows…But Why?
31 May 2013 | 9:26 amMy friend Tim Stenovec (@TimSteno) just published a great story on Amazon’s move to create original programming a la Netflix for The Huffington Post. He was kind enough to include me in his article (thank you Tim). He sent along a few questions as I was boarding my flight from NY to LA. As Tim was on deadline, I needed to send a thoughtful response as soon as I’d have the opportunity to turn my phone back on. The quote in italics is what made the cut…but, I also wanted to share the additional thoughts I sent along for context. Amazon’s move is an interesting one indeed… -
Tune in with Twitter TV
30 May 2013 | 4:34 amHave you ever watched TV while using a laptop, smart phone, or tablet? Wait, why am I asking. Of course you have. That’s what we all do now right? So I guess the real question to ask is how often do you use Twitter vs. Facebook while watching TV? In many ways, Twitter is becoming a bona fide second screen experience while watching television. And in many ways, TV may also serve as the second screen to those engrossed in their Twitter streams. If you think about it, the idea that the TV becomes the second screen to digital experiences is rather provocative. Perhaps this is why Twitter is… -
Be a Tool: Properly Resource Your Enterprise for Social Media
24 May 2013 | 8:25 amGuest post by Danna Vetter, VP, Consumer Strategies, ARAMARK You’ve heard it all before. You do your research. You write the strategy. You set the goals and objectives. You train your community managers. You go live in two weeks. Facebook announces Timeline. You kick [insert EVERYTHING]. There is only one thing that can be done in situations such as these – control what you can control. As marketers, we have all come to rely on these external social platforms, of which we do not own, control, or lead. There is obviously a certain compromise that we all must accept in this new world – we…
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The Toad Stool by Alan Wolk
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Cablevision, New Jersey Transit and the Rise of TV Everywhere
13 Jun 2013 | 3:31 pmThere's news today that Cablevision and New Jersey Transit have just signed a deal for Cablevision to introduce WiFi service onto all NJT trains. (By 2016, but hey, you can't have everything.)Now as a daily NJT commuter, I was thrilled to read this on a personal level, but it's the potential impact on the TV industry that's really got my interest piqued.What this offers is one of the first examples of a legitimate use case for regular out-of-home TV viewing. As I've noted in previous posts, outside of live sports, there just aren't that many places where you'd watch TV away from home. (It's… -
The Not So Secret Life of the American Teenager
7 Jun 2013 | 7:08 pmThere’s been so much written lately about teenagers in the age of social media, so much of it patently ridiculous (e.g. I talked to my sister and her friends and thus extrapolated what all teenagers were up to) and/or posited by people who haven’t actually seen a teenager since they themselves were one, that I felt a tirade was in order. So here goes: What’s the one constant about teenagers, of any generation, beyond the whole horniness thing? The fact that so many teens are constantly trying on new personalities and new identities just to see what it feels like or to see what fits. And… -
The Perils Of DIY Development
5 Jun 2013 | 7:30 am“We’re just going to build it ourselves.” There are few words more disheartening to a tech company than a potential client who decides to build something on their own. It’s easy to understand why: there’s an IT director who’s constantly having to battle the impression that his only function is to fix the printer when it breaks down. Who looks at the product, gets a sense of what it does and decides he can figure out how to build it for half the price the external vendor wants to charge him. There’s the marketing team, who wants to bring in their preferred design team and who… -
Maybe The Meteor Is Inside A Roku Box
22 May 2013 | 1:47 pmWe talk a lot about how it’s going to take a meteor to disrupt the way we watch television, so tightly bound are the legal arrangements that impede innovation. But maybe that meteor is already here and we don’t know it yet.Maybe that meteor looks a lot like a Roku box.Roku is far and away the most successful of the streaming devices, both from a sales perspective and from a usability perspective (I test them out both in the office and at home and Roku is the winner hands down - more content, easier to use and cheaper.)And now, in addition to all the network apps, there are MVPD apps: Time… -
Heresies
24 Apr 2013 | 6:33 amEvery so often it's a good exercise to examine some of the core beliefs of a company or industry and call out the ones that don't make any sense. In the short run, saying out loud what a lot of people have been thinking pisses off those who are heavily invested in these now outmoded ideas, but in the long run, it's healthier for all involved to recalibrate.TV Everywhere Wasn’t Worth The Battle. It sounded like a great idea at the time: you can take your television with you anywhere you go and watch it on your tablet or smartphone. The reality, however, shows a very limited number of…
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Servant of Chaos
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Is Facebook the New Las Vegas?
13 Jun 2013 | 4:00 amYou know how it goes at the international airport check-in counter. Greet customer: “Hello sir” Determine destination: “Where are you travelling to today?” Check passport, print boarding pass etc It’s all pretty functional. From time to time, there might be some off-script personality sneaking through, but it’s rare. Unless you are travelling to Vegas. When I checked-in for my first ever trip to Las Vegas, the routine started as usual. But when we got to point 2 – and I explained where I was heading, the woman stopped and looked up. Her eyes glistened and she smiled. She nodded… -
The Participatory Revolution
3 Jun 2013 | 3:44 amAs part of the Vivid Ideas Festival, innovator, Michelle Williams (founder of Ideaction) curated a knock out event designed to transform the thinking of business, creative and innovation professionals. The resulting one day conference brought together an eclectic mix of speakers, audience members and yes, active participants. If you were like me and could not make it in person, this Storify stream is the next best thing. And Michelle promises a video stream some time in the future. [<a href="//storify.com/MiA_Will/take-part-13" target="_blank">View the story "Take Part 13 -… -
Note to Brands: Make Things People Want
2 Jun 2013 | 6:17 amHave you ever wondered why marketing and advertising is such hard work? We are constantly trying to change the way that people behave and think – positioning brands and businesses in the centre of a relationship that is only ever on the peripheral of our customers’ worlds. And while for us – for the business owner, brand manager or agency – there is a real centrality to our relationship with the brand, it is simply not the case for the vast majority of the people that we want to talk to. As Hugh MacLeod explained back in 2006, “if you talked to people the way advertising talked to… -
Pitch the Future–Young Social Innovators in Action
30 May 2013 | 10:23 pmYou know what it’s like when inspiration hits … an idea galvanises in your mind like a bolt of electricity, sending your pulse racing. And the more you think on it, the more you feel your nerve fibres tingling. But what happens when you tell someone about your idea? Your mouth dries. The words tumble out one on top of the other … you get tongue tied, excited and afraid. What happens if someone steals your brilliance? What if your idea is no good? Now imagine, that you are taking your idea and pitching it to a room of strangers. Imagine that this idea is a deep seated passion and could… -
Twitter + TV Goes Beyond the 30 Second Spot
29 May 2013 | 3:58 pmMany companies spend a great deal of time, money and effort getting people to do something. Like switching brands. Trying a new product. Or watching a TV show. And to do this, they use advertising. TV has been the great transformer of the 20th Century – it has educated us, engaged us and even amazed us. And the thing it transformed was not the world, but our behaviour. But it has always been a one-way street – broadcasting its message from a single point to the masses. And then along came the internet and provided a whole new way to be educated, engaged and amazed. We have always known…
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Hard Knox Life
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Midwest Reboot
29 May 2013 | 8:27 amOn Thursday June 6, I’m headed up to Detroit to take part in Brand Innovators Made in America conference. Fittingly taking place in the Ford Motor Company Conference Center, the conference will look at iconic American brands and their impact on the world. While the day is going to be packed with great sessions, what I’m most excited about is the panel that I’m hosting entitled Midwest Reboot. As we described the panel: When the recession hit in 2008, there were fewer places hit harder than the “Rust Belt” of the Midwest and Detroit was at the epicenter of this… -
The Modern Marketer [Infographic]
19 May 2013 | 1:24 pmThrough my posts on Brand Manager 2.0, I have written quite a bit about how technology is changing the job of a marketer today. Of course, that means I was quite a fan of this infographic from Pardot which talks about a Modern Marketer being part artists and part scientist. In their words, a modern marketer must master: Written Content Visual Assets Social Media Email Marketing Performance Tracking Budgeting and Operations Analytics Campaign Performance Courtesy of Pardot, an Exact Target Company -
A Merging of 19th Century and 21st Century Entrepreneurship
29 Apr 2013 | 9:55 amWhen the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati opened its doors in 1835, the 19th century institution stood in the middle of the fast-growing nation’s busiest startup community. It was a community that would give birth to some of the largest companies in the country including names like Procter & Gamble, Kroger, and E.W. Scripps. A group of 45 young, energetic, and confident merchants came together to organize the Library and put themselves on track to become the entrepreneurial engines of the growing city’s future prosperity. Mercantile LIbrary – Courtesy of Urban Cincy This… -
Business Is About Motion
7 Jan 2013 | 5:30 amOne of my favorite books of 2012 was Get Lucky: How to Put Planned Serendipity to Work for You and Your Business, which was written by the co-founders of Get Satisfaction. Get Lucky shows businesses how to succeed by fostering the conditions for serendipity to occur early and often. One of the principles in the book is “Motion”, the skill of putting yourself in unfamiliar situations, but within familiar environments, in order to engage with previously unfamiliar people and ideas that are connected to your job, your projects, or your interests. Motion is the reason that… -
Kincast makes it easy to video share moments with your family
12 Dec 2012 | 11:18 amEarlier this summer, the guys at Sproutbox introduced me to one of their newest investments, a company called Kincast. In their words, “Kincast is a fun and special way to engage loved ones in a worry-free environment. Chatting, sharing video, sending video messages and creating video cards get everyone involved.” Today, Kincast launches their version 2.0 with a new app that has completely reworked the user experience. The below video does a great job of capturing the value proposition of the company. More importantly, the video captures a key insight that all consumer…
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Web Strategy by Jeremiah
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Collaborative Economy: Live Like Royalty Without Owning a Throne
17 Jun 2013 | 5:26 amEver wanted to live a life of luxury but are just shy of a few billion dollars? Now, with simple web technologies, anyone can have access –without owning it. As part of my ongoing coverage of the next phase of social business, I’m covering the collaborative economy, where people are sharing goods and services using the internet, you can read the definitive report, or peruse all the posts. A collaborative economy of shared ownership and access in luxury emerges. While many associate the collaborative economy for activating the mundane unused meeting rooms, your spare bedroom, or… -
Infographic: Collaborative Economy Startups Proliferating
14 Jun 2013 | 11:41 amThis inforgraphic is part of my ongoing coverage of the collaborative economy (see all posts), which is the next phase of the social business. What’s that? We’ve published a seminal report on what it means for corporations including video, slides and additional resources. Altimeter’s segmented 200 sharing startups to find out why –and how –these disruptive startups are spreading across many verticals, here’s some of the key findings: Excessive influx of startups in every industry. One of the findings is that there is a cambrian explosion of startups,… -
Internet Phases: Past, Present, and Future
11 Jun 2013 | 5:45 amThanks to you, last week’s report on the collaborative economy was readily received, and has been viewed over 26k times, the media picked up on it, and bloggers alike. As we digest what it means, it’s important to recognize this is the next phase in the internet, and the next phase of social business. An interesting finding is that the second era (social) and the third era (collaborative economy), use the same technologies (social technologies) but instead of sharing media and ideas –people are sharing goods and services. This is all part of a continuum and we need to… -
Report: Corporations must join the Collaborative Economy (Slides, Video)
4 Jun 2013 | 10:00 amRight now, customers are sharing media and ideas on social technologies, in the near future, they’ll use similar technologies to share products and services, which will cause a ripple of impacts far more disruptive than what we’ve seen before. [The Collaborative Economy is an economic model where ownership and access are shared between people, startups, and corporations] Disruption: Customers are now sharing products and services with each other, like AirBnb (vs hotels), Lyft (vs buying cars), Lendingclub (vs banks), 99 Dresses (instead of buying clothes), odesk (vs traditional… -
Dear Brands, Our New Relationship Awaits
2 Jun 2013 | 11:52 pmDear Brands, My last two heartfelt letters have been awkward on our relationship. But it had to be written. I told you customers don’t need brands, since we get products and services directly from each other using the sharing startups. In my first letter, I wrote about I wanted an open relationship, then, in my second letter, I confided with you what it felt like to have my own relationship disrupted. The good news is, that I see a solution for us to finally be together. The only way is for us to each give a bit to grow into something bigger. It will be awkward for us both, but…
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Drew's Marketing Minute
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Guilty of the frantic scramble in your marketing?
5 Jun 2013 | 4:55 amI grew up in Minnesota in the 70s and I love football which meant that back when I was a kid, my world revolved around the Minnesota Vikings and our incredible quarterback, Fran Tarkenton. At the time of his retirement, Fran owned EVERY major quarterback record out there. Fran was known as The Scrambler because he was famous for being able to pivot and run around in the backfield, dodging defensive players and giving his teammates time to elude a defender or get open for a pass. He was something to behold. Off the field, he was articulate, intelligent and called a “thinking… -
Is your marketing making you a rock star?
31 May 2013 | 4:39 amMack Collier has hit a home run with his book Think Like A Rock Star* and I really want all of you to get his message. As consumers get more jaded by traditional advertising and marketing that interrupts rather than connects — this book serves up the answer. Why not be so good, create so much goodwill and treat your best customers like the super stars they are — all so you can unleash the word of mouth power of those best customers? We know that there’s nothing more influential than word of mouth and that an endorsement from a trusted friend/source absolutely influences… -
In marketing the constant is change
29 May 2013 | 4:04 amYou know, the annoying thing about clichés is that they’re based in truth, even though that truth may be a bit worn in places. And lately I’ve been very aware of the idiom “the only constant is change” as it relates to business and especially to marketing. Maybe it’s always been this way and our parents and grandparents had to wrestle with constant change too, but it seems to me that the acceleration curve has gotten incredibly steep over the last 15 or 20 years. For example, when I started my career, computers were certainly a part of the mix but we never showed a client a… -
So you want a career in advertising?
21 May 2013 | 4:18 amI was recently contacted by a college student who asked if he could interview me for one of this classes. One of the questions he asked is one I get a lot, so I thought I’d share my answer with you here. If you aspire to be in our business — I hope it helps. If you’re already in the business — what did I miss? What advice would you give to anyone who was aspiring to enter the field of advertising? Yikes… there are lots of things to know but here are some of the biggies. You cannot do it alone so surround yourself with really smart, good-hearted people who you can… -
Moving your prospects to the next step
17 May 2013 | 4:15 amWhen you’re creating any sort of communication aimed at a potential buyer, you want them to do what? When I ask this question, I typically hear a range of answers like: • Know more about our business • Understand how we’re better than our competitors • Wonder if we’re the right fit for them And of course…. • Buy what we sell! All of that is probably true. But it’s too complicated. No matter how or where we’re communicating with a prospect, what we should want them to do is… take the next step. Your job is simply moving your prospect to the next step. That next step might…
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Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect
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The thermostat and the frying pan
17 Jun 2013 | 2:45 amIf you want to cool your house to 68 degrees fahrenheit quickly, setting the thermostat to 62 degrees isn't going to get it temperate any faster than if you set it to 68. It blows full cold until it hits the number, then it stops. (For those down under where it is winter, the opposite is also true--extreme thermostat settings won't warm you up any faster). Frying pans don't work that way. Turning the temperature on the burner all the way up will certainly heat up that pan faster. Ah, an analogy! There is significant pressure on marketers to get it done fast. And so the inclination to spend a… -
"I get it"
16 Jun 2013 | 2:28 amNo need to read the whole book, I can just glance over the Cliffs Notes... I get it. I don't need to hear your whole pitch, just show me the summary slide... got it. No, I already heard about your vacation... remember, I saw the Instagram feed. Him, why would I go out with him? I read his match.com profile. You're probably smart enough to 'get it' merely by reading the 140 character summary of just about anything. But of course, that doesn't mean you understand it, or that it changed you. All it means is that you were quickly able to sort it into an appropriate category, to make a decision… -
Angry is a habit
15 Jun 2013 | 2:13 amIt's easy to imagine habits like a scotch after dinner, biting your nails or saying, "you know" after every sentence. An event or a time of day triggers us, and we go with the habit. It's easier than exploring new territory--it's merely a thoughtless response to an incoming trigger. But emotions can become habits as well. Distrustful is a habit. Lonely is a habit. Generous is a habit. When that stranger doesn't do what you expect, is your response to assume that she's out to get you, trying to make an extra buck, looking for a shortcut? Or do you default to the habit of giving that new person… -
Ping me when it's broken
14 Jun 2013 | 2:50 amHere's how a storekeeper makes sure the store is working: She sits at the register and watches. If the line is twenty people long and folks start walking out, she hires another cashier. If too many people pick up a new product and then put it back on the shelf, she asks for new packaging, or drops it from the inventory. If there's a line outside in the morning, she opens earlier. Alas, the same feedback cycle doesn't happen automatically online. You have to build it into your website--if you don't, the silence may confuse you. If you have no idea if people are walking away in frustration, you… -
A handful of tools
13 Jun 2013 | 12:40 pmHere are some online tools I've been using with a lot of satisfaction. Of course, your mileage may vary: Feedblitz is a reliable, handmade alternative to Feedburner and other corporate solutions. They handle the email and RSS feeds to this blog, and Phil is just a pleasure to work with. Ziggeo is the tool I used to preview thousands of applications for my summer internship. Used correctly, this is an extraordinary way to get insight on a large number of people in a very short period of time. I could see it being a great screening device for anyone running ads on Craigslist, for example.
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Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog
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How To Take Time Off From Technology
28 May 2013 | 8:18 amFor many people here in the U.S., Memorial Day Weekend marks the unofficial start to summer. And even in an always-on world, summer often gives us a bit of a breather — a chance to slow down, an opportunity to take a bit of time off from work. Two of my colleagues are wasting no time. As I write this, both have already unplugged and set off on extended vacations to remote regions where cell signal is scant and email is inaccessible. Both have made me wistful for a long-ago time when I once took a break with little-to-no access to technology. Or for that matter, a time when it seemed… -
6 Innovation Roadblocks Worth Breaking Through
29 Oct 2012 | 4:59 pmIf there’s a poster child for innovation, it’s most likely Thomas Edison. And if there’s a slogan scrawled across his poster, it’s probably his often-cited quote, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”which is generally believed to relate to his work on the light bulb. If you’re looking for a nicely packaged call for the power of perseverance, the rewards received for taking risks, or the benefits of having a go-get-’em can-do attitude you really can’t do much better than these words of wisdom from the man who gave the world the light… -
The Red Queen Effect in Marketing
24 Oct 2012 | 6:40 amIn the well-known race scene in Lewis Carroll’s classic Through the Looking-Glass, the Red Queen tells Alice, “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place Given the pace and pervasiveness of change happening everywhere around us — in technology, in culture, in business, in consumer behaviors and expectations, in media and more — I’d imagine that many marketers feel like they’re racing alongside the Red Queen in Looking-Glass world. Writing and rewriting marketing plans in a constant state of flux. Favoring near term wins over long term value. Adopting agile… -
See the World With Both Eyes Open
16 Oct 2012 | 8:26 amI recently wrote about the curse of knowledge, and — as a recurring theme — my posts often urge business readers to consider common tasks and so-called truths from a new or different perspective. So naturally, I enjoyed Geoff Livingston’s take on a similar topic when he wrote this week about “How Experience Blinds You.” The more experience we gain, the more likely we are to be bound by preconceived notions of the right and wrong ways to get things done. The more likely we are to bring our biases to the table — biases that might have served us well in the past, but might not serve… -
Making Innovation a Core Capability
19 Sep 2012 | 6:12 am“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.” – Peter Drucker It should come as no shock that marketers love talking about innovation. And you’d think that if — as Drucker once said — marketing and innovation are the only two basic functions of the enterprise, then the marketers who can crack the code on innovation, bringing the two together into a single, sublime discipline, would be bathing in tubs…
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Find and Convert » Find and Convert Blog OptimizeThis
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Content Marketing for SEO
13 Jun 2013 | 2:32 amModern SEO Starts with Content Marketing The challenge for the modern digital marketer is the paradigm shift away from optimizing content for the purpose of ranking in Google and toward creating content that serves humans with a great user experience. Unless you’ve been living in a digital cave, you know that Google’s Penguin updates are like a verdict in a court of SEO law: Un-natural back links are guilty of web spam. Relevant content that answers people’s questions is in Google’s favor, resulting in positive SEO results for marketers. Add to that the fact that rankings are… -
Boost Your Content The Power of Quality Images
11 Jun 2013 | 9:00 pmA Picture is Worth a Thousand Words – and more! Have you ever asked yourself “How do I get more people to read my content?” Of course you have. There may be things you can adjust or do differently to increase your readers’ interest and attention span to your website and your blog. But the reality of our busy, fast-paced, visual world is that people are just moving way too fast to see it. Something has to make people stop long enough to want to read your blog or to find out what you have to offer. You have to stop people in their tracks and gain their attention in 3 seconds or… -
Google’s Bottom Line: Quality Content Prevails
2 Jun 2013 | 9:00 pmThe web is abuzz with Google’s latest algorithm update with much focus on the direction of Google search and the ramifications it holds for SEO and digital marketers. Penguin 2.0 is one more example of what digital marketing experts have been preaching for years; delivering a positive user experience through quality content and quality web assets creates a quality outcome. And, this is what Google wants to reward. Quality Content Google’s on-going quest appears to be to filter out the attempted nonsense by some marketers so that the user search experience produces valuable results. Poor… -
3 Skills Needed by The Modern CMO
30 May 2013 | 9:00 amThe Evolution of the CMO Much has been written about the evolution of the Chief Marketing Officer, aka CMO. While not all companies use the CMO title, I like it because it acknowledges the top marketing person as a “chief” level executive in the coveted C suite of an organization. In my view the CMO in today’s business climate must possess three key skills to be successful in the role and for their employer. Each of these skills could be dissected further. Let’s look at each one. Diplomacy An effective diplomat has vision, communication and relationship skills. The CMO must have a… -
Google’s Blueprint for Search Domination
22 May 2013 | 10:00 pmDo you really think Google would reveal its plans on how they want search to evolve? I sure do. If you don’t believe me just ask Matt Cutts. Or better yet just watch him answering the question below. After bypassing the cyborg comments he makes some pretty profound statements that Google should be a “good assistant,” “understand the context,” and “synthesize information.” But more importantly he goes on to say that Google should be able to handle difficult syntax not just by data or knowledge but towards analysis and wisdom. Now what does that mean? Quick Algorithm Recap In the…
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EAT » Blog
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Two Types of Work
12 Jun 2013 | 6:16 amYour Bottom Line is Your Customer’s Experience Finished products are often merely that – finished. Nothing more, nothing less — just complete. We’ve all been involved in these projects. Necessary on some level but uninspired, destined to move no needles nor make any waves. Upgrades rarely reassess. Instead they operate under the assumption that the original, proven hypothesis is still relevant—well, maybe it isn’t. Things change. Projects that affect your customers aren’t ever finished. Done correctly, these projects never really end. Customer-first projects… -
First Impressions: Real Tools for Adopting Brand Voice
10 Jun 2013 | 7:29 amWe’ve all had the experience of listening to a speaker and somehow knowing exactly what word they’re about to say next. With our family and close friends, this comes naturally. We complete their sentences, or roll our eyes when we know their gripes to the letter. Most of us can do a spot-on (not always flattering) impression of at least one relative. We’ve spent so much time with them that their speech patterns, vocabulary and hobby horses become second nature. When it falls on copywriters to speak for a brand, we have to adopt its voice as close to perfectly as we do for our friends… -
Focus On Your Weakness
4 Jun 2013 | 11:41 amStart-to-finish amazing is more of a process than a launch day goal. More often than not you don’t open your doors (virtual or physical) and start knocking off socks on day one. You put your best foot forward, cover up the rough spots with a smile or a well placed distraction and you iterate. Attempts to make everything perfect on day one are a fast train to delays and disappointments. Break it down It’s easy to rest on your laurels in those areas where you’re already doing well. But what about working on weak spots? Here’s a simple exercise that will relieve some of… -
Can We Have A Difficult Conversation, Please?
16 May 2013 | 2:33 pmActionable insights and channel optimization through proprietary technologies — Is that really what you want to discuss? KPI’s and modified metrics? Sounds like great stuff if you are in optimizing mode, but are you looking to optimize, or innovate and change? Is your product/service so good that you are squeezing the best .000001 from an already out-of-this world-amazing thing? Or is optimization easier than the innovation and change that promise greater returns? How about we really get into it? How about we discuss the really difficult internal change that will help your business by… -
Jamming together
6 May 2013 | 9:05 amIn the early 90s I sang in rock band. We were very popular, had major label record interest and despite barely being able to play guitar I wrote most of the songs. How did I do this you ask? I had help, lots of help. Romas Banatis, knife maker extrordinaire was my muse. Romas would spend hours listening to me fumble through song parts. Sitting on milk crates next to one another, he would reconstruct my guitar parts with the patience of a saint and transform them from barely distinguishable notes into songs. “You mean like this?” “Faster or slower?” “Play me that…
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Direct Marketing Observations
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What’s Next for Tumblr?
21 May 2013 | 5:08 amYahoo’s recent announcement of its intent to purchase Tumblr has brought out the virtual fangs. Lets take a look at some of the more creative responses. Tumblr users are passionate and are worried about what will happen to their platform. Is that passion enough to keep their pages safe from being “Yahoo’ed?” If the deal goes down, Tumblr as you and I once knew it, may be done. Though the spin is that Yahoo will not screw it up, it’s tough to think that advertising, for example, does not become a focal point of the pages. The evolution of a “social”… -
Yelp is Broken and Social Flashmobs Apparently Rule
17 May 2013 | 11:03 amI was just reading about the social media meltdown of Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale, if you’re not familiar with it, the restaurant was featured on Chef Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares production that airs on the FOX Network. To give you a quick recap, things did not go well for the owners of the restaurant and for the second time since Ramsay has been doing the show, he walked away and essentially refused to help the restauranteurs out. This act in and of itself says a lot since in his own right, Ramsay can be pretty irascible. So for something to essentially send him… -
When content turns into an ad
14 May 2013 | 10:12 amIt can’t be good… I was going to go off on a rant, but the fact of the matter is…it can’t be good. You feel duped and cheated and misled. -
The Way Social Media Used To Be
2 Apr 2013 | 8:20 amFrom the cartoonery of John Atkinson and WrongHands we give you… Vintage social networking. -
Is Social Currency Counterfeit?
21 Mar 2013 | 8:58 amCheck out this image. Now I’m pulling this next blurb from Vivaldi Partners via wikipedia but pay attention to it: Vivaldi Partners defined social currency as the extent to which people share the brand or information about the brand as part of their everyday social lives at work or at home. Now, let’s fast forward to an article that Jay Baer wrote in which he states that online influencer outreach is overrated: I’m not suggesting that influencer outreach is useless or should be abandoned. But, it’s not magic beans. It needs to be looked at for what it actually is – the top…
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HubSpot's Inbound Marketing Blog
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9 Insider Tips for Native Advertising That Actually Works
17 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amNative advertising is all the rage in publishing right now. The Atlantic and Forbes are doing it, as are the Washington Post and The New York Times. Federated Media, the big ad broker, is pushing native advertising. BuzzFeed, the fast-growing news and gossip site, is building a network to sell native advertising. Advertisers believe native advertising is more effective than old-fashioned display ads. A recent study by IPG Media Lab and Sharethrough found that consumers look at native ads 53% more often than they look at traditional display ads. Research firm eMarketer reports that… -
How Small Businesses Saved Me From Living in My Parents' Basement
17 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amToday kicks off National Small Business Week. I have a very personal history with small businesses, and because of that history, I often recommend to many people coming out of college that they try to find a job at a small business if they can. Here's why. Like many liberal arts graduates, I came out of college with a good education, but few marketable skills. I wanted an opportunity to learn real-world skills that would increase my market value, and after many applications and interviews at large corporations, it was hard to find a company I could get excited about. (To be fair, the feeling… -
Facebook Hashtags Take a Page From Twitter’s Ad Business, and Other Marketing Stories of the Week
16 Jun 2013 | 6:00 amAlmost every day, it seems like some company or social network is redesigning itself or adding new features or something. Don’t get us wrong, this isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a lot to keep track of -- especially while we've been busy prepping to celebrate Father's Day today. This week, we’ve got some major redesigns, new features, and even a relaunch that will tickle your marketing fancy. It isn’t often that social networks make many changes to their business facing features, but this week is a whole different story for marketers and brands. Companies like Google and Twitter… -
7 Awkward Marketing Moments Guaranteed to Make You Cringe
14 Jun 2013 | 2:04 pmMarketing can be an amazing thing. If done right, campaigns can make you feel something -- happy, sad, or just a little bit closer to your fellow human beings. If done wrong, however, you may still feel something … but it’s probably not what the company had in mind. Even when the company's trying to be funny or cringeworthy, sometimes it just misses the mark and ends up straight up awkward. You may recognize it through a combination of wincing and laughing -- a common reaction to such instances. Or, you may take pity on the company who thought the marketing ploy was a good idea …… -
How to Handle a PR Nightmare: Break All Crisis PR Rules [Video]
14 Jun 2013 | 9:52 amWant to see the best response ever to a crisis currently making news around the world? There’s a huge scandal going on in Australia over allegations that 17 members of the defense forces, including officers, were sharing explicit emails and photos that denigrate women. The kicker: this happened at a time when Australia has been actively encouraging women to join the Army. Instead of slinking into the shadows to avoid the scandal, Australia’s Chief of Army, Lieutenant-General David Morrison, makes a brilliant move: He tackles the issue head-on in the amazing PSA below. In the video,…
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MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog
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Make Your Social #FAILPROOF
17 Jun 2013 | 2:00 pmSocial media fails are an unfortunate byproduct of marketing—and life—on the web. But let’s be honest—they also provide for some major entertainment. So, we have a laugh at another brand’s expense. We sit back, roll our eyes, and pity the poor person who made such a thoughtless mistake. But if you think you or your brand are immune to social media fails, think again. No brand, no matter how small or large, or how big its marketing budget, is safe from social mishaps. You can either choose to learn from the mistakes of others or be destined to repeat them. The #FAIL: Being Shady The… -
Six Big Lessons Marketers Can Learn From Improvisation
17 Jun 2013 | 7:04 amAs in improvisation, all great marketing is storytelling. Few things will stretch your comfort zone (read: scare the pants off you!) like improvisation. Improvisation is a storyteller’s weight training. There is no safety net or edit button—you are creating scenes in real time on stage based on audience suggestions. It can be downright uncomfortable, and yet, as with regular training, the results are worth it. Here are six lessons improvisation can teach us about marketing. 1. Risk Taking In a world of Big Data and analytics, marketing is a heck of a lot of art. Improvisation involves… -
Young Adults Say Goodbye, Radio; Hello, Internet
14 Jun 2013 | 7:20 amAs overall Internet usage continues to grow, it’s continuing to eclipse other forms of media—and for young adults, the internet has emerged as the place where they spend the most amount of time compared to any other type of media. “Radio’s Future II: The 2010 American Youth Study” from Edison Research shows that American young adults, age 12-24, spend nearly three hours a day on the Internet, which eclipses time spent consuming other forms of media. According to survey results, TV came in at a close second, followed by listening to the radio, playing video games, talking on the… -
Will Your Customers Remember You?
13 Jun 2013 | 7:03 amIf your customers look back on the part of their lifetime when they used your products, will you be remembered? Your decision to base your operating plan on your customers’ priorities rather than on your own earns you the right to customers’ continued business. By tapping into customers’ lives, you open a world of possibilities. You fuel the prosperity engine of your company. To do so, however, you need to be able to answer the following. Do you know the moments in your customer’s life when they need… -
No More Techno-Speak: Businesses Must Communicate Like People Do
12 Jun 2013 | 7:09 amI’ll never forget my first writing gig back in the olden days—the heady ‘80’s—when every software application was new and different. To us, the challenge wasn’t how to differentiate our solution; it was how to build credibility and trust. To accomplish this, writers were directed to write in a specific tone. Companies believed that business folks would feel manipulated by emotion, so only a tone of emotionally distant expertise could possibly develop credibility. To attract and engage readers, writers tried to inject enthusiasm—while steering clear of emotion. Thus…
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Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik
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Excellent Analytics Tip #25: Decrapify Search, Social Compound Metrics
10 Jun 2013 | 2:29 amEveryone likes chasing big shiny objects all the time. What's not to like. They are big. They are shiny. :) But a lot of progress in life comes from doing the everyday small things better. A small improvement, every single day, to move the ball a little more forward. A best practice I've developed is to take a step back and reflect on if I have a good balance between chasing shiny objects and making incremental progress on small every day things. Today's post is from the latter category. It is a story about dealing with a complicated everyday challenge in an incrementally… -
Excellent Analytics Tip #24: Obsess About Real Business Profitability
20 May 2013 | 3:05 amThe art of analysis often fails to deliver ginarmous success simply because of how limited our worldview is when we go about identifying bottom-line impacting insights. Hence, this is a post on a simple concept that will drag you out of your current "what is happening on my website?" comfort zone, and out of your Google Analytics, Site Catalyst, WebTrends worldview silo. Sounds like fun? It is. And you end up becoming rich and famous. Not too shabby, right? Macro Business Context: The Big Deal Digital is an obsession for almost everyone who reads this blog. Part of the reason is… -
Eight Silly Data Myths Marketing People Believe That Get Them Fired.
29 Apr 2013 | 2:40 amIt turns out that Marketers, especially Digital Marketers, make really silly mistakes when it comes to data. Big data. Small data. Any data. In the last couple months I've spent a lot of time with senior level marketers on three different continents. Some of them are quite successful, but sadly many of them were not. In the latter group I discovered two common themes: 1 Some absolutely did not use data to do their digital jobs. This group should be fired immediately, so I'm not going to talk about them. [A benchmark for you: If you are not spending 30% of your time in 2013 with… -
The Lean Analytics Cycle: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act
8 Apr 2013 | 2:17 amThis should not be news to you. To win in business you need to follow this process: Metrics > Hypothesis > Experiment > Act. Online, offline or nonline. Yet this structure rarely exists in companies. We are far too enamored with data collection and reporting the standard metrics we love because others love them because someone else said they were nice so many years ago. Sometimes, we escape the clutches of this sub optimal existence and do pick good metrics or engage in simple A/B testing. But it is not routine. So, how do we fix this problem? This thought was in my mind as I was… -
Excellent Analytics Tip #23: Align Hits, Sessions, Metrics, Dimensions!
18 Mar 2013 | 2:24 amWeb Analytics tools have become pretty feature rich, and the future promises to bring even more goodies (Universal Analytics anyone?). But these features bring with them new problems that we hadn't imagined before. Mostly because the limitations in the tools meant we were unable to make these mistakes. Today's post is about a new problem I'm starting to notice, which only exists because our tools have become so much cooler and handed us so much power: constant mismatching of hit- and session-level metrics and dimensions. This particular problem exists primarily because…
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SEO Copywriting
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Bad SEO content, good Google rankings: What now?
17 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amGreetings! Glad you’re here, as today mark the start of a new video series, SEO Content Writing Tips. The inspiration for this new series comes from you, our blog readers, and the questions you ask Heather. So thank you and keep ‘em coming! Today, Heather discusses a question that she gets all the time, which is: should I rewrite “bad” pages that have good Google rankings? This is an excellent question, because a lot of folks have pages on their sites that position well, but the content itself doesn’t really thrill them. So what’s an SEO copywriter to do? Listen in as Heather… -
5 SEO writing myths that cost you money
13 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amQuit letting money fly out the window. Tighten up your SEO writing campaign! SEO writing doesn’t work. Google keeps changing their algorithm. I guess I’ll go eat worms.. (No, not really – although I couldn’t resist throwing in that childhood ditty.) Although you may be laughing at the “eat worms” part, it’s true that many people are seriously confused about SEO writing. Instead of embracing it and seeing its potential, they pretend it’s “not important.” The result? Potential profits fly out the window. How sad. Here are the most… -
SEO content marketing roundup, week ending June 12th
12 Jun 2013 | 3:09 amIn this week’s latest and greatest online marketing news, content marketers discuss content creation, guest blogging, brand promotion and online communities, B2B and email marketing, as well as video and visual content marketing. The SEO and search community discusses Google’s recent announcement regarding mobile SEO and rankings, its disavow links tool and analytics, author rank, SMX Advanced 2013 sessions, Bing developments, and PPC. Meanwhile, social media marketers note Facebook’s cut-back of ad products and its killing off of sponsored stories, and discuss YouTube’s new… -
5 tips to guarantee your guest blogging pitch doesn’t suck
11 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amI see a lot of guest blogging pitches. Most of them are simply ignored because most of them are really, really bad – sometimes they’re so bad they make my brain hurt. But every once in a while, someone manages to make their pitch stand out from the cesspool that guest blogging has seemingly become. What’s their secret? They get “it”. What is “it”, and how do you get “it” if you don’t already have “it”? Let’s find out by looking at some actual examples of emails I’ve received from people who want to write for my… -
SEO Copywriting Checklist: Why your video sales letter sucks…
10 Jun 2013 | 3:00 am…(and what you can do about it!). Greetings! Today’s video post of the SEO Copywriting Checklist series was inspired by an email Heather received, which linked her to a video sales letter. A very long video sales letter – as in, 12 minutes long. Heather wrote the solicitor back, saying “I wanted to learn more about your product, but I don’t have 12 minutes’ worth of time to sit there and watch a video without having more information. “So if you want to send me information in an email, great! But I read fast, so I like to have that information in text form.” Heather is not…
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Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy
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How to Create Customer Profiles to Reach Your Target Audience
17 Jun 2013 | 4:00 amCustomer profiling may sound like a mug shot lineup of your customers, but the goal of this post is not to imprison your customers. On the other hand, I hope to offer three steps to creating and evaluating the types of people you are looking to sell your products or services to so that you can effectively market to them. A useful customer profile (aka a persona) is akin to a comprehensive how-to guide on reaching your ideal customers. It gives you a structured look at their goals in trying your product, the features and content that matters most to them, and the messaging that will help them… -
Being Loud About 3M’s Quiet but Powerful Innovations
14 Jun 2013 | 4:00 amGreg Gerik, 3M @ggerik Greg Gerik, Social Media Leader for the Global E-Transformation Team at 3M, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss managing a diverse and international company’s social presence, innovation through product diversity, and why he wants to move away from being associated entirely with social. Read on for some of the highlights and tweetable moments, or listen to the full podcast. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors for helping us make this happen. Please support them; we couldn’t do it without their help! This week:… -
Pringles and Star Wars Channel The Force For Fun in Crowdsourced Video Contest
13 Jun 2013 | 4:00 amThe force is strong with this one. In a galaxy not so far away, a popular snack food brand, Pringles, has joined forces with the iconic movie franchise, Star Wars, to launch a crowdsourced video contest. Themed around, “The Force For Fun,” one video will win $25,000 and a chance to be featured as Pringles national advertisement. The contest is hosted on Tongal, a platform that facilitates creative and video content for brands through crowdsourcing. Described as a, “totally out of this world alliance,” the goal of the campaign is to take a fun, clever, and adventurous approach to… -
How to Promote Your Content Across Owned, Earned, and Paid Media
12 Jun 2013 | 4:00 amContent marketing evangelists have spoken – “Create great content that appeals to your customers and you’ll profit.” While this is true, marketers often forget the importance of promoting their content – people don’t find content by mistake, or by accident. Every content plan needs a complementary promotion plan that combines paid, owned, and earned media. Beyond Simple Sharing on Corporate Social Accounts I was watching a video where one content marketing evangelist went through the strategy and creation of content in great detail, but completely ignored the importance of… -
Social Notes: How Technology is Giving Music Power to the People
11 Jun 2013 | 4:00 amImage via BigStockPhoto.com We have come a long way. The music industry has gone from the days of public payola to public crowdfunding of albums that haven’t even been recorded. Social networking, crowdfunding, digital distribution, music streaming services, mobile technology, and affordable recording equipment has put the power of music in the hands of the people. This has allowed artists to take their careers into their own hands and allows fans to enjoy their music more affordably. So what has brought about this evolution? And what can music marketers in the digital space do to make sure…
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PR 20/20 Blog
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Marketers Need to Learn to Code: How to Get Started
10 Jun 2013 | 1:44 pmHello World! There is a significant push right now to learn to program, led in large part by code.org. Their video below features some of the most accomplished technology innovators, including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and the Miami Heat's Chris Bosh, and has been viewed over 10.3 million times. As marketers, we may never write full software programs. In fact, as described to me by an actual developer, to code programs and do it well, you have to live in these languages. However, this doesn’t mean we should ignore Chris Bosh’s sage wisdom. By nature of our… -
6 Ways to Win Executive Buy-In for Inbound Marketing
31 May 2013 | 7:30 amWhy do we need a blog? What is the ROI of social? What if we get sued? I want to review this before it’s published. Who will own this? Sound familiar? At times, working in a marketing department can feel like being on trial. You’re constantly defending programs, proving value, fighting for dollars. HubSpot’s 2013 State of Inbound Marketing annual report asked marketing teams about their top challenges. While only 5% cite executive sponsorship as their paramount challenge, the most common challenge—proving ROI—points to a crucial need to drum up and… -
You Are Not a Bot. Stop Marketing Like One.
22 May 2013 | 9:15 amThere’s an old riddle that asks: “Would you rather I give you a million dollars this month, or a penny today and double your money daily for a month?” The smart money is on the penny. You’d have $10,737,418.24 after 31 days. That’s the power of compounding—or exponential—growth. It’s not just a financial concept: It has critical implications for marketers, too, thanks to a guy named Moore. Gordon Moore was Intel’s founder. He showed us that the number of transistors you could fit on a circuit doubled every two years. Put in practical… -
Blogger Outreach: A Tactic to Keep Your Strategy Fresh
16 May 2013 | 6:35 amThis is a guest post by Kristen Matthews, marketing and community manager for GroupHigh in Boulder, Colorado. She loves the collaborative elements of modern marketing so feel free to contact her for anything at Kristen@grouphigh.com and follow her on Twitter @Kristenwords and @GroupHigh! As outbound marketing tactics become obsolete, establishing relationships with bloggers who can promote your brand via word of mouth is becoming more important than ever. Now that modern consumers are wired to tune out traditional ads and have the self-empowerment to research brands on their own, marketers… -
Schema.org SEO Markup: What Non-Coder Marketers Need to Know
10 May 2013 | 4:37 amWhen the world’s largest search engines, including Google, Bing, Yahoo! and more, collaborate on an initiative to improve the indexability of the web, marketers should take notice. In June 2011, these search giants did just that, and the result was a new microdata mark-up called Schema.org. Microdata is simply HTML tags put around different web page content to provide valuable context to search engines. There are a variety of microdata tagging systems out there, so to help webmasters, and in turn themselves, leading search engines banded together to create a standardized tagging system…
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Social Media Explorer
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Rebooting With Mitch Joel
17 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amThere are few authors I’d recommend buying their books based solely on who they are and what they know. But Mitch Joel is one of them. With his first book, Six Pixels of Separation (Business Plus, 2010) he solidified his reputation as one of the leading minds in digital marketing. His new book, CTR ALT DEL: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends On It (XXXX, 2013) Joel is at it again, telling us what we need to know to be successful tomorrow, not just today. The book goes beyond “be social” and “think mobile first” and makes the media… -
5 Key Elements of Viral Content [Infographic]
14 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amThe goal of every content marketer is to have his/her information shared across digital channels by their audiences. This is often easier said than done. What factors contribute to people sharing the content they consume online? In researching the content for this infographic I came across a post in my Delicious archive that helps answer this question. Leo Widrich over on the Buffer Blog wrote a great post about what makes content spread. In it, he analyzes some of the elements that helped one particular blog post get over half a million likes. He also references an interesting research paper… -
The Social Media Tortoise and the Hare – Part 1
13 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amThe concept of social listening is not a revelation, but merely a fait accompli. If you are able to push information somewhere, someone will eventually want to measure its effectiveness. The business world’s bend towards the painful statement (at least to me), “Can you show me the ROI?” is as inevitable a question as the sun rising. And while this type of thinking is often the death of new ideas (because sometime you just can’t see the ROI when culture is involved), I have to admit its importance to bringing people along in the change game. So what is this series all about? I… -
Show, Don’t Tell: 5 Lessons In Communication
12 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amI recently attended a conference dedicated to creativity and commerce called C2-MTL. The paradox of the event is that you can’t teach people to be creative with traditional teaching methods. Yet I walked away awash in ideas. How did this happen? How can you teach someone something that isn’t teachable The conference played by the first rule of communication: “show, don’t tell.” Show, don’t tell is about conveying a message so that the lessons learned are personalized, rather than a list of laws. That’s a tall order. One that we, as marketers need to take to heart. Here are 5… -
West, Texas – #GivingTuesday
11 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amWe human beings are pretty amazing. We love “new” and “sensational.” And we love to help. In the USA, that pursuit leads to raising over $39 million for the victims of the bombing at the Boston Marathon and millions more for the horrific disasters caused by the tornadoes in Oklahoma and elsewhere. But it also means that we often “miss” disasters once the news cycle rolls on. Disasters like the one in West, a town in Texas. On April 17, a fertilizer plant explosion damaged a 37-block area of the town, leaving 15 dead, over 200 injured, and destroying…
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9 INCH MARKETING
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Top Restaurant Examples from Purple Goldfish including Five Guys, Rainforest Cafe and Maggiano’s
16 Jun 2013 | 8:05 pmDining out is the ultimate experience. A number of factors ontribute to the overall experience. More than just the food, things like service, surroundings and ambience impact this highly sensory experience. Here’s a slideshare showcasing the top restaurant examples from the book, What’s Your Purple Goldfish – [...] -
15 Ways to Drive Employee Engagement and Reinforce Culture via the Green Goldfish
9 Jun 2013 | 5:36 pmWhat’s Your Green Goldfish Executive Summary Motivation for employees is sagging. Recent reports show that motivation has fallen off at more that half of all companies. In difficult economic times, how can companies boost employee morale and drive high performance? The simple answer is doing the little [...] -
Top B2B examples from the Purple Goldfish Project including FedEx, Disney and Wufoo
5 Jun 2013 | 6:36 amLeading brands that give a “little extra” BtoB Special thanks to Derek Bildfell for inspiring this post. I had a chance to connect with Derek at the CXPA Member Information Exchange in San Diego. In Derek’s words: I haven’t seen alot of B2B Lagniappes, but I did [...] -
9 Customer-Centric Marketing Lessons from Apple to Zappos
3 Jun 2013 | 12:56 pmUnlocking the Keys to Loyalty and Word of Mouth Today’s consumer is empowered. Companies need to differentiate themselves to stand out in a sea of sameness. Brands need to find ways to leverage their most important asset: current customers. Referrals and word of mouth are keys to [...] -
7 Simple Ways to Raise Your #custserv from Ordinary to Extraordinary
2 Jun 2013 | 1:07 pmBook review: Delight Your Customers by Steve Curtin Delight Your Customers is a new book on customer service (AMACOM) by Steve Curtin @enthused. The official launch date for the book is June 11. You can pre-order it here, or opt to get the eBook right now by clicking [...]
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TheContentWrangler.com
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More Than 90% of Companies Do Not Have A Formal Content Strategy
12 Jun 2013 | 3:58 amAccording to research from Gartner, less than 10% of enterprises have a content strategy. Although they don’t use the term “content” (they say “information”), the result is the same: strategic thinking about the information we provide our customers is just starting to gain traction among upper management. In most enterprises, it is non-existent. Business leadership will need to make some major changes in order to tackle (and exploit) the “information explosion” occurring today. Gartner says most businesses need to introduce new roles and new skills in… -
The King of Topics: DITA XML Meets ‘Billy Jean’
10 Jun 2013 | 3:31 amBy Cheri Mullins Note from Cheri: With profound apologies to Michael Jackson in memoriam, Michael Jackson fans, songwriters, lyricists, and technical communicators everywhere. “XML” (set to the Michael Jackson classic, “Billy Jean”) [1st Verse] DITA has a lovely theme Using Schemes I Don’t Mind, But What Do You Mean You Are The One? That Will Dance With The Code That We Pound Apps Say They Are The Ones That Will Dance With The Code That We Pound [2nd Verse] They Said Its Name Was XML, And It Works So Well And Every App They Devise Dreams Of Being The One That… -
[Video] The Editorial Side of Content Strategy: An Interview with Margot Bloomstein
9 Jun 2013 | 4:09 amMargot Bloomstein, Brand and Content Strategist at Appropriate, Inc. shares what she does from the editorial side of content strategy, helping brands effectively communicate their value propositions. In this interview, filmed at the Intelligent Content Conference in San Francisco (February 2013), Bloomstein explains that her work centers around helping clients solve “thorny content strategy problems,” many of which are “laced with politics and intrigue”. Bloomstein says she leverages her experience to help her clients “confront, prioritize, and wrangle their… -
In Search of Professional-Grade Content Marketing
14 May 2013 | 3:07 pmScott Abel By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler Most marketers just don’t get it. Twitter is not a fax machine. A PDF is not an eBook. Brands aren’t inherently interesting. Millions of people rely solely on smartphones to access the web. And nobody—except maybe your boss—checks your Facebook page in hopes of discovering your latest product announcement. In just a few short years, the marketing landscape has changed dramatically—but most marketers haven’t. It’s not entirely their fault. Change is hard and humans tend to resist it. Even marketers. Today’s consumers live in a… -
“Word Up!” Gets APE’d by Guy Kawasaki (That’s a Good Thing)
12 May 2013 | 11:00 pmEditor’s Note: Join us May 17, 2013 at 10:00AM PT for our BrightTALK webinar, Language Matters: How To Write Powerful Sentences & Paragraphs, featuring Marcia Riefer Johnston. Register today! It’s free. Marcia Riefer Johnston By Marcia Riefer Johnston Many thanks to The Content Wrangler, Scott Abel, for introducing me to Guy Kawasaki’s inspiring work and for encouraging me to tell this story. —Marcia Recently, I had an experience that any writer would give an arm for. I had my book APE’d by Guy Kawasaki. Who’s Guy Kawasaki? When big companies want a speaker to…
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Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com
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On another channel, stuff I’ve written lately
14 Jun 2013 | 10:22 amI confess. I’ve been a post-slacker on the RexBlog.However, over on the Hammock blog, I’ve participated in a couple of posts that might interest two or three of the 12 RexBlog readers.The post called “How Safari’s Shared Links Will Reward Content Your Customers Love” predicts that browsing patterns among non-techie users will change when links from their LinkedIn connections and Twitter subscriptions become a prominent default feature on the browser that accounts for around 10% of the mobile and desktop web traffic. (By the way, this post was from… -
The best recommendation I’ll give all year – Steep Canyon Rangers w/ Steve Martin & featuring Edie Brickell
30 May 2013 | 11:14 amCredit: Eric Frommer, via Flickr. (Creative Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)If you live in or near a city where the bluegrass band Steep Canyon Rangers is playing, buy your tickets now and thank me later. As you can see from that tour link, most of their performances this summer include the addendum, “w/Steve Martin & featuring Edie Brickell.”Last night, my wife and I attended one of those “w/Steve Martin & featuring Edie Brickell” performances at Nashville’s spectacular Schemerhorn Symphony Center. As much as I hate to admit it, bluegrass sounds almost as good… -
Recommended listen: Ray Manzarek on Fresh Air
24 May 2013 | 7:31 pmPromotional photo of The Doors. From left-John Densmore, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison. Source: Wikipedia CommonsOn the way home earlier today, I heard this fascinating interview by Fresh Air host, Terry Gross, in which she speaks with Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist for The Doors. Manzarek died from cancer on May 20, so the show re-aired this interview recorded in 1998.I highly recommend a seven-minute segment of the interview to anyone interested in the process of creation, be it music or any type of art that uses a collaborative process and draws from various sources. It starts… -
When disaster strikes “someplace else,” first send money (continued)
21 May 2013 | 4:38 amIt is with deep grief that we learn of the magnitude of the loss of life caused by yesterday’s tornado in Moore, Oklahoma. That so many of the victims were children is especially sad. Parents, especially, know it is the realization of that which we fear the most. Below is a re-posting of a blog post I’ve written, in various ways, in the past. As I know is true for all of us, my thoughts and prayers are with the people who are now coping with the aftermath of this disaster:Over the years, I have written about many natural disasters and the human toll they’ve taken. I believe… -
A great idea from Nashville featured on CNN
20 May 2013 | 2:50 pm[It's National Bike Month. And yes, this is another post about bicycling. You'll really like this one. I promise.]Last fall, I had the privilege of spending six Thursday evenings volunteering at Nashville’s Oasis Center’s Bike Workshop. As I said in a Flickr set I posted at the time, during a six week session at the Workshop, disadvantaged kids get to choose a bike they will learn how (by doing) to take apart and then completely rebuild. At the end of the program, their work will be rewarded by earning the bike — and the knowledge to know how to keep it maintained.Last…
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Savvy B2B Marketing - Latest Blog Entries
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Making allies of your enemies - Kona DataSearch
10 Jun 2013 | 5:52 amInnovation. We all know it’s important for business growth but how do we get to it? Where does it come from and how do we grab that elusive minx? In a recent TED Talk Martin Villeneuve explained the process and solutions he used to make his long-held dream of creating a science-fiction movie based on his vision of the future come to pass. He explained how passion in his group led to people coming up with answers. Villeneuve explained how, if a person couldn’t be there for the movie, well then they created a hologram of him. How futuristic instruments not yet made… -
Savvy Week in Review: May 2
3 May 2013 | 8:06 amIf you are like one of our 5-year-old daughters, you're very excited to see May is finally here. The flowers, the baby animasls, everything so new! Speaking of new, here are our favorite new posts from the week. Enjoy! Good Reads for B2B Marketing - Staple Yourself to a Lead via @PointClearPD A wrap up of terrific reads for our wrap up. The B2B Website Audience Litmus Test by @ardath421 Don't waste time designing your site for those who aren't likely to visit it. How to Use EBooks Strategically to Reach Your Content Marketing Goals - by @writemartpam via @copyblogger You say… -
Week in Review: April 26
26 Apr 2013 | 2:15 amApril is flying by! But we've managed to catch some real gems in our nets this week from around the blogosphere. Here's hoping they reinvigorate you as much as the new life springing up all around us! For Brands, Small Is The Next Big Thing by @davidbrier via @FastCompany This is an interesting concept that has some relevance for B2B (especially software) businesses. 19 Warning Signs Your Infographic Stinks by @neomammalian via @KISSmetrics Please, please don't publish stinky infographics. Write drunk; edit sober. How to blog like you mean it by our own… -
10 Must-Dos for Successful B2B Lead Generation
22 Apr 2013 | 4:00 amWe are pleased to present this guest post by Clare Moorhouse, Search Manager for Torpedo Group in the UK, named one of the top B2B marcomms agencies in 2012. Read on for ways you can set yourself up for lead-gen success. Lead generation is the lifeblood of any business. Yet many companies struggle to capture, manage and convert meaningful leads for their business. Effective B2B lead generation requires strategic planning and persistent monitoring. Whatever type of B2B lead generation campaign you are planning, the basic principles of generating… -
Week in Review: April 12
12 Apr 2013 | 8:00 amHave spring fever? Want to try something new? For some great inspriration, check out favorite posts from the week. What else do you have to add? Which Company is Most Useful to You? by @JayBaer This is a question you need to ask in terms of your brand's value to your customers. Linkedin Founder Reid Hoffman's Advice for Entrepreneurs by @zachcb1 via @KISSmetrics Lots of great lessons here! Double Your Leads Instantly With This Simple Evergreen Tweak by Garrett Moon of @todaymade via @KISSmetrics (it's a two fer!) This is a great tactic, IF it's used properly. …
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Article Writing & Marketing Insights - EzineArticles Blog
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Are You Killing Your Writing Success?
17 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amOn a Writing Hiatus? Come back before it’s too late! Your authority as an Expert Author is dependent on the frequency with which you write and publish articles. Perhaps you’ve taken a break from your writing efforts because … you thought you published enough articles you had extenuating circumstances, such as an illness you couldn’t find the time to write you didn’t know what to write Whatever the reason, you could be sabotaging every effort you put into writing by not writing. By not keeping up with your writing and publishing efforts … your audience will… -
Take Advantage of Your Expert Author Status
14 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amPublish to Gain Authority and Proven Credibility You could choose to solely post content on your own website and wait for the visitors to come (emphasis on the word “wait”). Or you could choose to be more assertive and proactive with your brand by publishing high-quality, unique content both on and off your website via article writing, guest blog writing, column writing, and more. Publishing content on a trusted platform helps you build exposure, enhance credibility, increase connectivity, and foster authority. Combine these great benefits together and you’ll have packaged… -
Creating an Effective Call to Action that Gets Results
12 Jun 2013 | 7:00 am14 Tips to Write Powerful Calls to Action Your time is precious, so it always strikes me as odd when Expert Authors don’t dedicate a little more time to the call to action in their articles. A call to action is a pitch to motivate your audience to take action. Calls to action commonly appear in the form of buttons or graphics on a website. In article writing, a text-based call to action occurs twice in article submissions: 1) in the summary where the reader is compelled to dive into the article and 2) in the Resource Box where the reader is encouraged to visit your highly relevant… -
Guide to Entertaining: Writing Informative Content with a Creative Twist
10 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amTake Time to Be Creative Anyone can have the perfect setup to entertain with the hip “this” and the trendy “that” to please guests. However, most parties will fall flat if your heart isn’t in it because you’re too distracted by achieving perfection. It’s a hard lesson, but we all learn it: You’re not going to please everyone. Once you get over that hurdle, you’ll relax and allow your creativity to become the driving force behind a party that will be remembered for a long time. The same is true for writing. Anyone can write a litany of… -
Losing Readers? Keep Them on Your Website By Improving User Experience
7 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amYour Website Needs More Than Curb Appeal Spammy looking websites are a HUGE turn off for visitors. Let’s say you’re looking for a new home and you find a house that has amazing curb appeal. The description depicts a welcoming neighborhood and all of the amenities you need and want. In fact, it’s so inspiring that you begin to envision plans for each room: dinner parties, cozy reading nooks, and more. You excitedly arrange a tour to inspect the house with the realtor. As you enter the house, your reality shatters like a brick thrown through a glass window. You wonder if…
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Pybop: Exceptional Web Content for Exceptional Businesses
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Three Geeky Terms Content Strategists Should Know
12 Jun 2013 | 11:10 amWhen building a mobile, video, or web content strategy and working with all the players who pull together an online content project, it’s helpful to know what the heck they Read MoreThe post Three Geeky Terms Content Strategists Should Know appeared first on Pybop: Exceptional Content Strategy & Brand Storytelling. -
How to Best Deliver Bad News by Email
22 May 2013 | 10:06 amLook on the Bright Side Companies change direction. Leadership shifts. People make mistakes. Sometimes a brand needs to communicate an uncomfortable story to its audience … while not making it Read MoreThe post How to Best Deliver Bad News by Email appeared first on Pybop: Exceptional Content Strategy & Brand Storytelling. -
The Interactive World of Mobile: Where Do Editors Fit?
20 May 2013 | 1:17 pmDo You Need a Mobile Editor? Does your mobile project need an editor? And will any professional editor do? The Interactive World of Mobile: Where Do Editors Fit? by Shelly Read MoreThe post The Interactive World of Mobile: Where Do Editors Fit? appeared first on Pybop: Exceptional Content Strategy & Brand Storytelling. -
Your Brand Story: Write the Last Line First
14 May 2013 | 11:00 amHow Does Your Brand Story End? The other day, I had lunch with an enthusiastic startup CEO; she really wanted to talk content strategy. She has an amazing product and Read MoreThe post Your Brand Story: Write the Last Line First appeared first on Pybop: Exceptional Content Strategy & Brand Storytelling. -
Exploring Your Brand’s Personality with Story
8 May 2013 | 10:35 amI’m declaring Wednesdays Creative Writing Day … and that means for brands, too! When you’ve worked with the same brand for a while, it’s easy to get stuck in a Read MoreThe post Exploring Your Brand’s Personality with Story appeared first on Pybop: Exceptional Content Strategy & Brand Storytelling.
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Straight North Internet Marketing Blog
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Profiting from Patriotism: Marketing the American Flag
10 Jun 2013 | 6:41 amThis week marks the celebration of Flag Day as proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and Americans have spent these almost 100 years debating whether or not the flag should be used in company marketing efforts, many citing the laws in place for the proper display of the red, white, and blue. Does seeing the American flag on your beer can inspire or appall you? Should the flag appear in TV clothing campaigns or wave from multiple poles in a car lot during a summer holiday sale? There is a pretty thorough list of ways to properly display the American flag, including rules that range… -
Smashing Magazine Launches Must-Read Download for Web Writers
5 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amWeb writers seeking to improve their craft and strategy will appreciate the new eBook offerings from Smashing Magazine, which has just launched a new eBook bundle centered on mastering content and copywriting. These new eBooks contain guidance, insights, practical tips, and all-out warnings about what not to do whether you’re a new writer or a seasoned pro. Straight North’s own Brad Shorr is a featured contributor to both books, sharing his advice on Web copywriting, SEO, content strategy in design, and more. Designed for anyone wanting to “improve your copywriting skills,” the new… -
How Niche Related Do Websites Need To Be For A Successful Guest Post?
28 May 2013 | 6:48 amGuest posting has become a strong strategy in a number of different industries. SEOs and link builders use it to gain back links, bloggers use it to spread their name across the web and to reach new readers, and webmasters use it to get outside views and opinions as well as more content on their site. All of this has led to an explosion of guest posting services and strategies that are supposed to make it easier, or at least make your guest posting endeavors more effective. One of these main strategies is to keep your target websites for guest posts within your niche, but just how related to… -
Compete with a Goal: How Product Reviews Make Your Product Soar
21 May 2013 | 9:30 amAhh, to show up on Google’s first search page, your product or service prominently displayed, front and center, for all of the Internet to see. What a lovely thing, indeed. Everyone can find you; you are feeling pretty darn good about your business prospects, aren’t you? The question is: How can you make this a reality through product reviews? Product reviews can be used in clever and search-friendly ways — even helping you decide how to rank specific keywords and create healthy competition within your industry. Many people read product reviews before making a… -
5 Tips for Using Hashtags to Promote Your Business
16 May 2013 | 10:19 amAs more and more businesses establish their presence on social media, it becomes harder and harder to stand out from the crowd and make your message heard. One way to connect with users in your target audience is to use hashtags so that your posts and updates show up when users search for content in your niche. Hashtags became very popular on Twitter, but they can also be used on Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn. Learning how to use hashtags appropriately can help you to get more followers and more exposure for your brand, leading to more traffic and more sales and…
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Jeff Korhan
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3 Facebook Hashtag Marketing Tips
13 Jun 2013 | 7:49 pmThe newly launched Facebook hashtags could prove to be the savior of Graph Search – the recently launched Facebook search feature. Graph Search does what it promises – returning search results based on the social graphs of your Facebook friends, fans, and followers. This means that you tend to see search results only for those friends and businesses with whom you are already closely aligned. If you happen to be using Facebook for outreach and marketing, the new hashtag feature will extend your reach dramatically. This will create both risks and rewards, so you will want to choose… -
Connected Economy Alignment is Value
8 Jun 2013 | 4:30 amIn this connected economy, the challenge is not connectivity – but alignment. If you look for differences you will find them; and if you seek alignment, cooperation, and collaboration, you will find that too. This is why learning to effectively manage your business networks is without question the key to your business success. Alignment is the result of taking connectivity to the next level. This is often accomplished by partnering or collaborating to progressively achieve mutually beneficial objectives. Who are these partners? These are logically team members, friends, and influencers,… -
Every Business is Now a Media Company
2 Jun 2013 | 9:55 pmThere was a time when every business courted the media. They (the media) were rightfully considered business partners because they could significantly help any company interested in publicizing an event or similar happening as news. Today, every business (large or small) is now its own media company - and that is a responsibility that should not be taken lightly. If your business makes the effort to learn the new forms of media it can build a platform that will become an essential digital asset for connecting with current and future customers. Consumers are Hungry for News “Consumers… -
5 Tips for Using LinkedIn Contacts
23 May 2013 | 7:37 pmLinkedIn is in the process of rolling out LinkedIn Contacts. In addition to several new features that are giving it a new look and feel – if offers enhanced functionality for better managing your relationships and social engagement. There is no question that all of the major social networks want you to use their service as your social dashboard. However, many social networkers prefer to use an independent tool such as Hootsuite to effectively manage their social networks and build relationships. One of the challenges is there is a disconnect between public social networking and… -
Social Marketing is Relationship Selling
17 May 2013 | 4:16 pmThe Social Marketing Process ©Jeff Korhan Mainstream small business will more reliably get better results from social media if they view it more as selling than marketing. Why? Because effective relationship selling is personal, and now marketing is too. As social influences continue to profoundly affect business, just about every business activity is going to require relationship building skills. Traditional marketing or advertising was something you did – to your communities. Whereas, social marketing in our digital environment is something we do – with our communities. That…
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Sparksheet
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After Groupon: What’s Next in the Evolution of Online Retail?
17 Jun 2013 | 7:08 amIn 2012, e-commerce within the United States accounted for 28 percent of all global sales. It’s clear that Americans love to shop online, but “global” is the key word here. In China, for example, the e-commerce industry is forecast to be worth $370 billion by 2015 – up from $74 billion in 2010. Over in Latin America, Forrester predicts that Brazil’s online retail sales will reach more than $25 billion by 2017, and eMarketer projects Mexican e-commerce sales will reach $7.98 billion this year and continue growing into 2016, when annual sales could reach $13 billion. Meanwhile, in… -
Vine: A Great Teaching Tool for Brands
14 Jun 2013 | 10:38 amGame of Thrones star Maisie Williams appearing in a viral Vine video. Odds are you’ve seen a Vine video even if you haven’t heard of Twitter’s six-second video app. After the shocking penultimate episode of the recent season of HBO’s Games of Thrones the Twittersphere blew up with reactions from devastated viewers. One of the best posts came from series star Maisie Williams, who posted a funny Vine video in reaction to the events in the episode. Millions watched it, including many who’d never heard of the social media platform. Vine is the number one free app in North American… -
The Purpose-Driven Company: Q&A with Whole Foods’ John Mackey
12 Jun 2013 | 7:02 amImage via wholefoodsmarket.com. You’ve said that you think companies today ought to be “purpose-driven.” Do you think there’s a difference between a purpose and a brand? Brand is just an abstraction. I use that word sometimes but I’m not a big fan of the word because sometimes when people talk about managing their brand they move away from authenticity. Your brand is just the way people think about the company or the product, so I don’t think the brand is more important than the purpose or the values of the organization. I sometimes think businesses get that confused. If you… -
Brand Marketing at Cannes: A Unique Challenge for Alcohol Brands
10 Jun 2013 | 5:04 amA crowd of Cannes revelers gathers in one of the festival’s many tents. The Cannes Film Festival attracts nearly 5,000 media guests from around the world to the South of France each year to report on the film industry and its stars. But in recent years, Hollywood has had to share the spotlight with the luxury industry, as global brands have dominated the festival with sponsorship programs, VIP events and high-profile marketing activations. As Le Monde reported, “l’enjeu de l’image” – the strategic importance of being seen amidst the festival’s in-crowd – has become an… -
Hashtag Marketing: How Brands Are Using Hashtags to Engage Across Platforms
7 Jun 2013 | 10:00 am#TheBasics Budweiser used a hashtag campaign to name the newest edition to its herd of Clydesdales. A hashtag is a simple way for people to follow a specific topic or trend on Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus and soon Facebook. For brands, hashtags can be a fun way to get exposure, engage with fans and allow customers to share and promote the brand’s message. But not every hashtag has legs. To create a successful hashtag campaign, brands first have to come up with a catchy, unique tag – preferably something short – and they need to share it across platforms so it can start trending.
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Content Mastery Guide
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How to Get More Customers AND Referrals With Your Business Blog
16 Jun 2013 | 10:04 amYour business blog has two distinct audiences – those who will buy from you, and those who will refer you. 1. Those who will buy from you These are the people who may visit your business, buy your products, or hire you for a service. Before that, they may check out your blog to learn more about the people behind the business, get a sense of how you operate, and see if you really know your stuff. Once they’re fans, customers or clients, people keep visiting your blog to see your latest news, stay in relationship with you, and get your expert tips. 2. Those who will refer you… -
Which Types of Blog Posts are Right for Your Business?
10 Jun 2013 | 2:51 pmBusiness blogging is a great way to keep your website fresh and attract new customers, but some people find it hard to see how blogging could work for their particular business. This list of eight types of blog posts has something for everyone. 1. Advice, “how to’s” or instructions – People are online everyday looking for help and ideas they can trust. Success tips: Answer the questions you’re asked the most by clients, prospective clients, colleagues, friends and family members. Imagine you’re writing to an absolute beginner who knows nothing about the… -
Blog Before You Tweet: Lessons from Tweetstock 8
3 Jun 2013 | 10:44 amThough blogging is a form of social media, many business owners jump onto Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn long before they even consider blogging. And while it seems as though it will be easier to write a 140-character tweet than a 500-word blog post, the most common concern I hear about social media is, “I never know what to say!” I often use the expression that blogging is what turns social networking into business networking. Blog posts demonstrate your expertise and tell your story to the people in your social networks. You can accomplish this with various types of content,… -
Business Blogging Can Be Easier
25 May 2013 | 12:06 pmThe two core messages that I share with business owners are that blogging is an effective way to attract new clients, and that blogging can be easier than you think. If you’ve tried blogging and stumbled, or you feel stuck before you even start, these 10 strategies will make blogging easier. Reading other blog posts. When you regularly visit other business blogs that you find helpful, you will have real-life models to inspire your own blog. Repurposing existing content. There’s a good chance you already have things you could transform into blog posts, so why start from scratch? -
Once You’ve Met, Then Connect – Taking Your Local Networking Contacts Online
14 May 2013 | 8:21 amThis is the third post in a three-part series about building online and offline relationships. In Part One we discussed how blogging can strengthen your credibility with colleagues in your local community. In Part Two, I shared my story of building my local network by starting online and then continuing those relationships in person. Now, let’s look at how to transform your network of clients, prospective clients, and referral sources into an online community that reads, shares and benefits from your content. Step 1: Research When you’ve met someone you want to stay connected with, see if…
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SchneiderB.com
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Weekend Update – June15
14 Jun 2013 | 2:00 amHappy Social Media Saturday! Listed below in my Weekend Update are links to interesting things I found on the web this week: cool tools, great blog posts, or questions/comments from one of the SchneiderB.com online communities – anything that stuck out to me and I think is worth sharing. I encourage you to check them out for yourself! Blog Post: How to Claim & Set Up Local Profiles: From Google+ to Yelp – Claiming and setting up local profiles is an important branding activity that has tremendous SEO value. Most websites that offer local business listings follow the same… -
Ultimate Cosmic Listening Choices, Itty Bitty Digital File
11 Jun 2013 | 1:00 amBrandon Warren via Compfight This is a guest post by Kris Dietz – co-founder of RankPop.com – an SEO services firm. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stuck in traffic, but that wasn’t the reason I was angry. I was angry because all the radio stations I had programmed into my car were playing complete and utter trash. Either the music was too poppy or too metal or too… too… I don’t know. I’ve got needs, and they don’t involve a lot of the music I hear out there. Maybe I’m just getting old, and should switch over to talk… -
Weekend Update – June08
8 Jun 2013 | 1:00 amluke chan via Compfight Happy Social Media Saturday! Listed below in my Weekend Update are links to interesting things I found on the web this week: cool tools, great blog posts, or questions/comments from one of the SchneiderB.com online communities – anything that stuck out to me and I think is worth sharing. I encourage you to check them out for yourself! Blog Post: Six Steps to Mastering Online Stats – As a competitive youth golfer, I compulsively tracked everything from fairways hit to sand saves to putts. Every stat provided an insight that helped me improve. But as I grew… -
WOMbound: A New Term for Word of Mouth Marketing
3 Jun 2013 | 2:00 amThis blog post originally appeared on Rick Newberry‘s Enrollment Catalyst Blog and I thank him for letting me share it on SchneiderB.com. I have been a huge proponent of word of mouth marketing. Why? Because word of mouth works and is the most effective way to reach customers. Many of my blog posts and presentations focus on this concept as it relates to word of mouth marketing in independent and faith-based schools. Word of mouth is always the number one way that a prospective parent discovers a private school. As I have thought about word of mouth marketing in light of the current… -
Weekend Update – June01
31 May 2013 | 6:09 pmThomas Hawk via Compfight Happy Social Media Saturday! Listed below in my Weekend Update are links to interesting things I found on the web this week: cool tools, great blog posts, or questions/comments from one of the SchneiderB.com online communities – anything that stuck out to me and I think is worth sharing. I encourage you to check them out for yourself! Blog Post: Building Successful Low Budget PPC: Crafting Engaging Ads - In charge of building your first PPC account? Don’t have a lot of time or money to spend within AdWords? Well you came to the right place. We’re in week…
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OpenView Blog
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5 Reasons Why Relationship Marketing is Good for Your Organization
17 Jun 2013 | 3:30 pmI’ve been focusing a lot on how to plan, build and deploy relationship marketing campaigns as part of an integrated marketing strategy. As you can see, the idea is to start simple and build over time, always mindful of your target buyer’s behavior throughout their buyer journey. By doing so, prospects are more likely to…ᔥ via OpenView Blog -
How Good Are You at Using Social Media to Distribute Your Content?
17 Jun 2013 | 1:27 pmThe number of social media sites has exploded in recent years, bringing hundreds of potential new marketing channels onto the scene. With so many options — more than 500 by some accounts — it’s easy to get distracted and to waste time experimenting with new channels to distribute content that may not actually provide any…ᔥ via OpenView Blog -
Expansion-stage CEOs: Have You Found Your Second-in-Command?
17 Jun 2013 | 11:48 amphoto: subarcticmike Successful fast growth companies have a secret sauce: A problem solving, operationally focused second-in-command. I am not going to beat around the bush: Being an expansion-stage CEO is incredibly hard. CEOs are busy, overworked, super-stressed, and lonely. OpenView’s founder and managing director Scott Maxwell has written a whole series of valuable blog posts on…ᔥ via OpenView Blog -
6 Steps to Retooling Your Professional Services During the Expansion Stage
14 Jun 2013 | 7:30 amKen Lownie, a consultant specializing in building and scaling professional services teams, share six steps for optimizing your professional services business. ᔥ via OpenView Blog -
Use Your Internal Recruiters as Advisors: 4 Business Insights They Offer
14 Jun 2013 | 6:30 amWhen it comes to hiring, internal recruiters are the eyes and ears of the market. Learn more about the business insights recruiters offer and how to take advantage of it.ᔥ via OpenView Blog
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ideaLaunch
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Using Content Marketing Services Effectively: Build a Better Profile
17 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amWhen sending out dozens of pitch articles without hearing one response is becoming the norm, many writers breathe a sigh of relief when they find good content marketing services. These virtual employment marketplaces are the ideal way for writers to work with many different clients without spending hours pitching titles and sending emails. Your profile is the first and only impression you’ll have with potential clients here, so you need to tailor it to make the biggest impact. Learning what to put in and what to leave out can make a difference between getting hired and being passed… -
Hire a Freelance Writer–Who’s Best Qualified?
14 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amAt one point or another, every business/nonprofit may need the services of freelance writers for hire. The services may pertain to different needs: website content, white papers, organizational/staff profiles, employee handbooks, blogs, SEM traffic-building articles, etc. Regardless of the reasons for hiring one, it pays to hire writers that are experienced, skilled/talented, and capable of completing assignments according to specified deadlines and guidelines. The “right” writer can help you achieve your goals; the wrong one can cause unnecessary delays and hamper progress. Fortunately,… -
Developing a Content Brand to Drive Your Blog
12 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amStorytelling is the heart of a good business blog. What does that mean? Some companies look to build a brand and use content marketing blogs to get there. That would technically be branded content – people don’t mentally connect with the blog, just the company that produces it. That approach lacks finesse. You’ll get the occasional passerby looking for tips on how to clean a hard drive or make effective use of cloud technology. Yeah, I’m yawning already. What Steve Jobs Got Right “Do you want to spend you life selling sugar water or do you want to change the world?” Steve Jobs… -
The Big Picture: 5 Ways Images Can Increase Landing Page Conversion Rates
10 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amA picture is worth a lot more than a thousand words if it drives online sales. Images resonate with viewers much quicker than copy, so they’re an essential variable in your landing page’s optimization formula. When used creatively, pictures can increase landing page conversion rates. When used poorly, they can actually drive traffic away. Some brands expertly incorporate images into their landing pages and are rewarded with higher conversion rates, more leads and higher profits. To connect with your audiences, draw upon these lessons as you build your sales pages. Lesson One: Quit… -
7 Serious Landing Page Conversion Rate Mistakes
7 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amEffective landing pages are designed to be simple: a web page with the sole purpose of spurring your web visitors to perform a desired action. Designing a successful landing page is much more difficult than most marketers anticipate. Successful landing pages: Encourage visitors to subscribe to an email newsletter Promote a downloadable report or eBook Sell a product or service Here are some landing page optimization tips to help you avoid the most common design mistakes: 1. Unreadable copy This is a prefect exemple of what to avoid. Bad spelling, poor grammar and nonexistent or incorrect…
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contentmeasures.com
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Use This Formula To Calculate Brand Engagement On Your Website
22 May 2013 | 1:30 amHow much of your website traffic is branded? In other words, how many visitors to your website already knew you existed? And, perhaps more importantly, how many didn’t? If your spending big bucks on awareness campaigns both on and off-line, the effect will be measurable in your website analytics. You just need to know where to look. How To Calculate Brand Engagement To calculate the effect your branding efforts are having on your website traffic we will use a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) called Percent Brand Engagement. Here’s the formula: branded search visits + direct… -
One Argument For Quantity in Content Marketing
6 Feb 2013 | 9:49 pmGravity is a function of mass. To be more precise: Gravity is the means by which objects with mass attract one another. The sun has a mass that is 330,000 times the mass of the Earth. The sun is a gravitational monster! The gravity of the sun is so powerful that other objects of massive gravity, such as the Earth, are attracted to it and surround it. We call it orbit. Becoming The Center Of Your Solar System The goal of all things marketing is to get more sales. Good marketing creates something that members of the target market will pay attention to. Buy into. Gather around. Savvy… -
A Time-Tested Marketing Trick That May Make You Feel Like A Dummy
6 Feb 2013 | 9:37 pmIn 1950, the short-lived comedy sitcom The Hank McCune Show introduced the American TV audience to “canned laughter.” Most television viewers would describe “canned laughter” or “laugh tracks” as phony and obvious. But despite the scorn of TV watchers and critics, the laugh track has been with us since its debut over 60 years ago. Here’s why: Laugh tracks work. And the principles that make laugh tracks work, can be employed to grow your business. The Law Of Social Proof Dr. Robert Cialdini, Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State… -
Print and Steal This Headline Swipe File But Use It For Good, Not Evil
4 Feb 2013 | 8:07 pmEvery business owner that is working in the “digital age” should have a Headline Swipe File. I break out this document when I am writing: An article title A headline for a sales page An email subject line A name of a presentation A name of a video etc, etc And, I copy and paste other people’s good headlines when I see them — hence the name “swipe file.” The right headline, subject line, presentation title, etc can make a huge difference. Just be sure to deliver on the promise you make in your headline. You can download and use my headline swipe file by… -
Why D.I.S. is Crucial to your Content Marketing Strategy
4 Feb 2013 | 12:46 amThe shift in marketing dollars from traditional advertising mediums to the emerging mediums available to us via the Internet has more to do with the consumers behavior than the seller. Many businesses today are holding onto the hopes that this is all a fad, that this will all go away. Then they can go back to business as usual. Marketing was much easier when it was controllable. It was much easier when all you had to worry about was getting an average product out to market and ensure that the 4 P’s of Marketing were evident in your ad. It was much easier when the company steered…
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The Content Lab
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Your Content as Conversation: ConFab Minneapolis 2013 Recap
12 Jun 2013 | 11:44 amThere was a lot to love about this year’s ConFab Minneapolis, one of three annual ConFab events where businesspeople discuss content strategy and marketing, including how to make content better, how to organize it more effectively, and how content can help all our clients succeed. The most important learning we took away from Confab 2013 is that marketing content must serve as a conversation. The brand’s role in the conversation is to communicate your brand, vision, and the benefits of your products/services directly to the reader. Doing so builds trust with customers and improves… -
Apple's iTunes Radio and the Revenge of the Music Publisher
10 Jun 2013 | 1:15 pmToday’s launch of Apple’s iTunes Radio streaming service puts Apple in the rare position of playing catch-up to rival streaming services like Google All Access. And, for once, the balance of power in the music industry has tilted in favor of content publishers instead of the technologists. Marketers should also watch to see how successful the iTunes Radio advertising model plays out. iTunes Radio could signal Apple’s willingness to try more ad-supported models for an increasingly mobile society. Apple launched the highly anticipated iTunes Radio streaming service today at… -
iCrossing Studio Embraces Art and Science of Content
31 May 2013 | 9:43 amPrepping a presentation for the FedEx Future of Content Symposium in Memphis a few weeks ago gave me an unexpected chance to reflect on my first six months at iCrossing, and more specifically the Studio. Located in the Hearst Tower, the Studio is iCrossing’s internal production department, responsible for managing and producing all of the video content work that iCrossing creates. I believe the Studio is also an innovative resource for practicing the art and science of content marketing. Coming from a traditional content production background, I have been fascinated to work at a company… -
Three Reasons Why Agencies Make Great Content Marketing Partners
29 May 2013 | 10:03 amBrands and agencies used to have distinct roles in the marketing relationship. Now those roles overlap, creating some to question about who should own content marketing efforts – brands or agencies. Now that brands are making their own content, some argue (including this recent article in Digiday) that the agency role is up in the air. I couldn’t disagree more. Agencies are a critical extension to a brand’s content marketing efforts, and provide strategic value and experience to the process. Agencies Do More Than Just Advertising Even before the term “content marketing”… -
Yahoo!/Tumblr: All about Content, Data, and Mobility
20 May 2013 | 10:42 amOn May 20, Yahoo! announced it will acquire Tumblr — a deal that delivers on Marissa Mayer’s mission to build an organization focused on positioning both Yahoo! and its ad partners at the “center of users’ daily habits.” Tumblr is a rapid-fire content and community juggernaut. If Yahoo! doesn’t “screw it up” (as promised in its press release), Yahoo! will have a tremendous asset at the company’s disposal. Advertisers who might have ignored Yahoo! in recent years will want to take another look as Yahoo! builds an organization powered by content,…
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Outbrain » Blog
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“Fashion Heaven, Fashion Hell” – AOL’s MyDaily Amplifies and sees heavenly results
10 Jun 2013 | 7:04 amMyDaily is an online publication owned by AOL, aimed at stylish, quick-thinking women. With high quality content, MyDaily is always looking to attract new readers – specifically young fashionable women aged 18-24. MyDaily’s “Fashion Priest” campaign was a content rich, highly targeted campaign, featuring unique and original video and blog pieces, Twitter and Instagram content. The campaign was timed to launch in-line with the red carpet and fashion season when content is rich and in abundance and the audience are most engaged, and aimed to target core readers online, driving them… -
To Host or not to Host (Your Branded Video)
5 Jun 2013 | 9:44 amVideos comprise a growing proportion of content circulated by brands in Outbrain’s network. As you might expect, there is a lot of variation in where brands choose host the videos that they amplify on Outbrain’s platform. While many videos are hosted on owned domains (i.e., the brand’s site or owned domain designated for content marketing), others are hosted on 3rd party video hosting sites like YouTube, Vimeo, or Flickr. We were interested in finding out whether branded videos perform better on owned domains or on 3rd party hosts, namely, YouTube. To address this question, we drew a… -
Why Is Google So Afraid Of Paid Content?
4 Jun 2013 | 12:32 pmGoogle is dropping the hammer on paid content, which it defines as “advertorials or native advertising,” issuing forth a kind of edict that this kind of content shall have no effect on search results, and furthermore, if it’s not disclosed properly, even the publishers who support it may be barred from Google News. When it comes to disclosure of paid content, Google is 100% correct. Native advertising should be clearly labeled as such so users know what they’re getting into. Anything less is tantamount to willful deception on the part of both the advertiser and… -
How to Harness the Magic of Post-Click Engagement
4 Jun 2013 | 11:01 amRemember when you were a kid and you invited your class to a party? Do you remember anxiously wondering, “Will they come? How many will show up?” And then, as if by magic, the doorbell rings and, one after another, in they come… and it’s party time. I recently attended CMW Sydney and had the opportunity to learn, share and discuss insights on content marketing and native advertisement. I began noticing a common theme across those conversations – a tendency to focus on questions like, “How do I get traffic?” and “How much traffic will I see?”… -
How Labeling Blog Posts Impacts Engagement
24 May 2013 | 2:09 pmFor brands that are engaged in content marketing, there is little doubt about the importance of creating and sharing owned content, such as a blog hosted on the brand’s site. What remains a big question is how to best showcase links to blog content to customers on various digital platforms (i.e, search, social, content recommendations). With just a blog name, a post title, and perhaps a small image and brief text preview, how does a brand maximize engagement with that piece of content? We conducted a study on approximately 6,000 links to blog articles that brands paid to distribute on…
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@TMGmedia
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Why Content Marketing Is Good—For Me and You and Everybody Else
12 Jun 2013 | 1:18 pmRecently I was teasing a colleague who is making a bundle teaching a workshop on “storytelling” to a group of communication professionals, who presumably already know how to tell stories. Jocularly, he replied that the real sharpers these days are the self-styled “social media experts.” “Notice,” he added, “how I tiptoe around your newfound enthusiasm for ‘content marketing.’ ” The sources of my gathering enthusiasm, I now feel compelled to explain, are two: First, content marketing is the smoking-hottest trend in business communication since the advent of the Internet,… -
10 Mobile Trends for 2013 (That Brands Need to Embrace)
28 May 2013 | 4:00 amA revolution is upon us. Okay, so maybe that’s a little dramatic, but mobile is evolving and its value is growing with it. With more than a billion smartphones in consumers’ pockets—and more than a billion people now connected 24/7—it’s more important than ever for marketers to adapt their strategy to mobile trends. The Internet is constantly at our fingertips; we want what we want, when we want it and how we want it. Hear that, businesses? To engage with consumers in the mobile era, you must understand the shift in consumer behavior—immediacy and convenience fuel actions. Mobile… -
Lois Lane Isn’t Dead, She’s Reinvented: How Journalists Can Adapt to the Changing News Sphere
22 May 2013 | 11:25 am“When I went here, all I wanted to be—I mean from the time I was 13 years old and saw Lois Lane on television—I wanted to be a newspaper reporter.” This is a quote from Nora Ephron when she received an Alumnae Achievement Award from her alma mater Wellesley College in 2006. Ephron came to New York City in 1960s to work as a reporter at the New York Post. Fifty years later, her dream career now ranks as the very “worst job,” according to a recent survey by CareerCast.com that graded 200 occupations. So, is the once “glamorous” image of a confident, intelligent woman striving to… -
3 Ways to Engage with Today’s Empowered Consumer
20 May 2013 | 7:51 amThey say knowledge is power. If this is now the case, then consumers today are armed to the teeth with more of both in an increasingly competitive and dynamic marketing arena. First, let’s take a look at this ever-changing landscape: In 1970, consumers were exposed to an average of 500 ads per day. Today, this number is ten times higher. Brands are creating their own narratives, videos, and custom content—gradually transitioning to becoming the new media. Consumers’ relationships with brands have changed and consumers are now talked to, not at. (Heidi Browning Pearson, SVP of… -
50 Tweets From #WhatsNextDC Day Two That You May Have Missed
8 May 2013 | 12:47 pmDay Two of the What’s Next DC Marketing and Communications Conference did not disappoint. The larger venue at the Studio Theatre gave way to more speakers and more stages, which of course meant more sessions to choose from. I love having options as much as the next person, but I don’t know anyone who can be at two places at once. Do you? Attendees were forced to make difficult choices all day, such as whether to attend the World Bank’s presentation on incorporating Tumblr into its social media strategy, or Hilton Worldwide’s session on how retailers can engage and…
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GeorgePasswater.com
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Landing Pages: 5 Points to Remember for More Conversions
12 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amAs I’ve said before, landing pages are important to your marketing mix. To truly convert your audience and get them into your funnel, you need to use a landing page. Done right, they will be a primary tool in your conversion toolbox. Now, yes, done right, they convert like crazy and get you more leads, but done wrong, you’re wasting a lot of effort on a little return. From different clients and others I’ve seen on the web, there are many who understand how landing pages work, but don’t always do it right. Now I’ve been a part of many a project where I’ve built and even improved… -
3 Reasons to Use Buyer Personas in Your Content Marketing
7 Jun 2013 | 11:39 amWho are you writing to? What types of offers do you present in your content marketing? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you need to invest in nailing down who defines your target reader and/or buyer. Sure, you could just bang out content and throw it against the wall and see who reads it. Although something many might do, I know it doesn’t speak to who reads it, let alone help you generate any leads. Now you might be saying, “All valid, but WHY do I need to use a buyer persona in my content marketing?” 3 Reasons for Buyer Personas in Content Marketing You can’t be… -
Are You Making These 3 Email Marketing Mistakes?
28 May 2013 | 12:07 pmHow many unsubscribes did you get from your email list today? It’s normal to get some, but if you’re getting a mass exodus from your list, you might want to reconsider what you do with your email marketing. To calm the tides of people leaving your list, let’s look at 3 mistakes you should avoid to keep more email subscribers. 1. Irrelevant content Do your subscribers wait in anticipation for your emails? Or do your emails make your readers fall to sleep? Be sure your content is relevant to their needs and keeps them chomping at the bit for more. That means finding out what your audience… -
How to Get More Sales out of Your Email Newsletter
14 Dec 2012 | 7:17 amGreat googly moogly! How many times I’ve got them or had prospective clients have them? What am I talking about? Email newsletters that have no thought into them. They are powerful tools to nurture leads into opportunities and ultimately sales; only if you do it the right way. I have a checklist of sorts I follow for this and today, I’m going to share part of it. Segmented Target Readers I’ve talked about a target or “perfect” reader for your content. It’s someone you picture across from you as you’re crafting your email. Now, for an email newsletter that gets prospects talking,… -
How to Create Emails Your Readers WANT to Read
17 Oct 2012 | 10:02 amEmail marketing is a powerful way to connect with your audience and bring in more sales opportunities. The problem is many companies don’t know what to write about or just shoot out blatant sales emails. If you do that, you’ll see more unsubscribe rates and less success with your lead generation. Instead, let’s look at a few ideas for emails that your email readers WANT to read. Three Ideas for Creating Emails Readers WANT to Read Write About Your Day Remember the show Seinfeld? Wasn’t it the show about nothing? Each episode revolved around the goings on of the main characters. What a…
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Maastary B2B Marketing Blog
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Is Your Web Strategy Too Important to Leave to Your Web Team
6 Jun 2013 | 2:53 pmYour web strategy is an increasingly important part of your overall customer relationship and sales process. Yet many companies address their web strategy as just a visual, interactive medium with which to convey product and service messages. In effect, they treat it a little more than an online brochure. Today 85% of B2B customers start their buyer’s journey on line and stay on line through the purchase process. Indeed, CXOs have over 65% of their interactions online (Sirius Decisions 11/12). By 2020 Gartner predicts that over 80% of B2B purchases will be made without human interaction. -
5 Ideas on Building a B2B Thought Leadership Engine
28 May 2013 | 10:33 pmBarraged by an endless stream of information, decision makers are becoming far more discerning about what they read and who they look to for advice. They know where to find the product and solution details – vendor websites – but if you want to influence their decision criteria, you have to get to them early in their purchase process. Doing that means providing “insight”. Valuable insight is something that gets heeded, passed around and recommended. In fact, best practice is to trigger the buyer’s journey by challenging existing ideas with new ways to succeed. This approach… -
4 Ways to Ensure Your Digital Marketing Strategy Works
17 May 2013 | 10:29 amTo evaluate your digital marketing strategy, don't begin with your website. People often say to us. “My website isn’t working well. Can you help me with SEO? Or, I need to redesign my website, can you help me?” Unfortunately, starting with the website is putting the cart before the horse. Without an effective marketing foundation, the website is just an additional cost. Here are four steps to assess and realign your digital marketing strategy. Review Your Marketing Strategy: Your digital marketing strategy is a component of your over-all marketing strategy. As a result, it… -
B2B Web Marketing: Using HubSpot to Drive Sales via Social Media
7 May 2013 | 9:36 pmThe big challenge with web marketing today is that time has replaced dollars as the currency when it comes to building a successful online strategy. In the past, companies with bigger dollar budgets (and better agencies!) out spent their competition to get the best advertising placements. Today, while advertising still takes a large portion of enterprise budgets, it’s less effective. More must be done with digital marketing because the “eyeballs” have moved to a wide number of locations on the Internet and, in particular, social media sites. And the buyers who own those eyeballs… -
It’s Time to Transform Your B2B Web Marketing Strategy
26 Apr 2013 | 8:25 pmTen questions that indicate where in the spectrum of “buggy whip to maglev*” your current B2B web marketing strategy lies and whether you should rethink it – now! Have you a written document that describes your target market segments, your buyer’s journey and your target business personas? Without an objective and focused view it’s likely that your content marketing efforts will lack relevancy and appropriate personalization. The result could be poor quality leads and difficulty converting even seemingly good leads into sales. Are you influencing the influencers? PR and Media…
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Content Marketing Blog
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Lessons Businesses Can Learn From McDonald’s Recipe of Brand Transparency
12 Jun 2013 | 5:30 amA recent unconventional Q&A session at the McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting showed that even some of the youngest consumers are concerned about brand transparency. After 9-year-old Hannah Robinson addressed the CEO of McDonald’s Corp., Don Thompson, asking, "Mr. Thompson, don't you want kids to be healthy so they can live a long and happy life?" Thompson responded by talking about his children and their experiences eating McDonalds, according to an ABC news article. In this case, he chose to express appreciation for her interest in fruits and vegetables, adding that he also likes… -
Did the Sun-Times Jeopardize Journalism by Trading Photographers for iPhones?
7 Jun 2013 | 5:30 amOne of the most recognized newspapers in the country made a major move last week. The Chicago Sun-Times laid off its entire photography department, affecting 28 employees. Every single photojournalist, including Pulitzer Prize winners, was shown the door. Their replacements will be freelancers and reporters armed with iPhones. The Sun-Times released this statement: "The Sun-Times business is changing rapidly and our audiences are consistently seeking more video content with their news. We have made great progress in meeting this demand and are focused on bolstering our reporting capabilities… -
Cheerios Faces a Battle Against Bigotry in Social Media Marketing
5 Jun 2013 | 7:22 amNegative reviews and comments can happen to the best of companies in social media, even family-friendly Cheerios. It’s how you handle them – authentically and professionally - that can actually put you back on top. Cheerios recently released a sweet commercial called “Just Checking” about a little girl trying to keep her dad’s heart healthy (by dousing him) with the cereal. The little girl is bi-racial, as her Caucasian mom and African-American dad are in in the spot. Cheerios posted the ad to YouTube, as it does all of its commercials. But, after a surprising bombardment of racial… -
Top Content Marketing Mistakes Many Businesses Make
21 May 2013 | 5:30 amMany brands are finally having an “a-ha” moment when it comes to content marketing. Although we’re making great strides in changing mindsets from traditional old-school marketing, there are still many mistakes being made by big and small companies alike. Here are the top content marketing missteps that are made most often. Throwing it out there to see if it sticks. Launching new content with no plan or clear direction is a waste of time and energy. Creating a content strategy with objectives and measurable results is essential. Putting too many chefs in the content kitchen. -
How to Avoid a Social Media Meltdown over Negative Reviews
15 May 2013 | 9:21 amIt makes every marketing manager’s heart flutter: the notification email that your company or client has been the subject of an online review. If you’re promoting good products or service, chances are the post on Yelp, Trip Advisor, or Google is good, and you can breathe a sigh of relief. But negative reviews happen even to the best of companies. It’s how you handle them that can actually put you back on top. And if marketers ever needed a lesson on what NOT to do, Amy’s Baking Company Baking Boutique and Bistro demonstrated that this week. The Scottsdale, Arizona bakery was the…
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Content Marketing for Technology
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Using webinars in your content strategy
12 Jun 2013 | 9:54 amWebinars or webcasts are hardly a new technology, but they’re still hot in technology marketing. Content marketing as a marketing strategy has breathed new life into the whole idea of webinars and webcasts. In a new study published by the research organization Silicon Valley Voices, webinars rank highly as a strategy for multiple phases of the content lifecycle: [Source: Silicon Valley Voices, 2013 Marketing Trends report] Webinars and lead generation Webinars are great for lead generation because people are willing give you their email address in exchange for the anticipated value… -
Content marketing and the new marketing reality
24 May 2013 | 11:30 amIs content marketing an over-used term? Probably. Is it over-hyped? Maybe. But make no mistake, it is the new reality for marketing organizations – ignore it at your peril. [Google Trends shows recent uptick in search activity for Content Marketing] The trend has been building for years in the B2B technology area, as buyers have been changing how they research and buy solutions. Give away the good stuff When I started in technology marketing, marketing saved its really ‘meaty’ materials for the sales team. Anything that included target audience, potential objections or… -
Business blogging pays off
9 May 2013 | 4:57 pmNot sure whether it’s worth your time to create and maintain a blog for your business? HubSpot’s latest survey on inbound marketing answers that question with a resounding YES. The survey highlights the fact that blogging is a remarkably effective means of inbound marketing: “Seventy-nine percent of companies who have a blog report a positive ROI for inbound marketing this year, compared with just 20% of those companies that do not have a blog.” [HubSpot 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report] But blogging requires time and persistence Business blogging delivers… -
Curating research as a content strategy
11 Apr 2013 | 9:50 amMy last blog on research as a content strategy talked about the many content marketing benefits of creating original research. But what if you don’t have the time or resources to create or commission original research? Research may still have a role to play in your content strategy. If you can’t create, curate. Research can be an important part of a ‘content curation’ strategy, in which you collect relevant and interesting content for your followers or customers. Find some interesting research and put your own spin on it. I did that recently in this post citing… -
Research as a content strategy
1 Apr 2013 | 5:52 pmIf you’re pursuing a ‘thought leadership’ strategy and want to make some noise, consider adding original research to your content marketing strategy. Got data? The key is coming up with good original research. Look through your own data sources. You may be able to find emerging trends in the course of doing business with your customers or buried in your ‘big data.’ One of my clients, ThreatMetrix, publishes threat trends discovered in its global threat network. Commission a survey. Another option is to commission research into your market or prospects from a…
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Content Insights
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Exploring the Early Days of Engineering Automation
12 Jun 2013 | 9:00 pmShopped for a Father's Day card lately? You'll see plenty of golfing, fishing, and barbecuing themes. While my father enjoys many of those hobbies, that's not what stands out most to me about him. What stands out to me are two things: 1. As an electrical engineer, he could fix any appliance in the house, from the TV to the oven to the sewing machine. (The ice maker was his nemesis for a while, but eventually my dad even fixed that.) 2. Growing up, my friends never really understood what he did for a living. When asked, I'd mumble "Something about automation and… -
Trust and Travel Content
10 Jun 2013 | 9:00 pm"How on earth did we plan trips before the Internet?" my friend, Kate, and I pondered out loud as we chatted about summer vacations. "I remember growing up my parents used to write to hotels and parks asking for brochures, and that was pretty much all we had to decide on a family vacation," she said. You could always get the advice (and added fee) of a travel agent, but even that would not guarantee much more, or more credible, information. And I can't imagine what trying to plan a business trip or event was like. Things have changed quite a bit since then. In… -
Preparing for Content-Driven Collaboration
5 Jun 2013 | 9:00 pmMany companies talk about collaboration but fail to execute. Content has a lot to do with that. To actually do collaboration well, a content strategy must combine with both technology and a culture truly open to collaboration. For Lance Yoder (right), Program Manager at Cerner, collaboration must involve analyzing current content consumption and figuring out how technology can help Cerner do it better. And when you consider Cerner is a global health company that helps optimize processes and eliminate error for healthcare providers and consumers, the stakes for successful collaboration through… -
Two Must-Watch Experiments in Sponsored Content
2 Jun 2013 | 9:00 pmIn my last post, I explained what sponsored content (or native advertising) is. Since then, two rather juicy and high-stakes experiments in sponsored content launched. Let's take a look at each for lessons they might offer media properties and marketers. Yahoo!: Tumblr Serves Native Ads After acquiring Tumblr, Yahoo! added sponsored content within two weeks. What exactly is the change? Each time you log into your Tumblr dashboard, you'll see a sponsored post featured, such as this one on the right for a new family TV show: If you refresh the dashboard or leave it and come back, you… -
Sponsored Content, Branded Content, + Native Advertising
18 May 2013 | 9:00 pmSponsored content, branded content, and native advertising. Oh my. When it comes to content, we're not in Kansas anymore. As the worlds of marketing and publishing collide, you might hear such terms thrown around. Let's take a closer look at these terms and their implications for marketers and media properties. First Things First: Definitions + Examples Branded content, sponsored content, and native advertising are sometimes used interchangeably, but there is an important distinction. Branded Content Quite simply, branded content is content that brands publish themselves on…
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Jontus Media
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Which Microphone Should I Use for Podcasting?
17 Jun 2013 | 1:48 pmThe Rode Procaster, Sennheiser 421 ii & Heil PR40 Compared The Heil PR 40 A lot of podcast consultants out there talk up Heil PR-40 as the go-to mic for podcasting. Listen to Cliff Ravenscraft, Ray Ortega, and Daniel J Lewis and they all rave about the Heil. It’s almost as if you feel you have to have the Heil to be a proper podcaster. Of coures, that’s not the case. The Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB Cardioid Dynamic mic is a great microphone that comes in under 40 USD. I love my Heil PR 40 and use it on my Online Marketing & Communications Podcast; however, I want to… -
What Makes a Great Business Blogpost ?
10 Jun 2013 | 1:52 amIn this week’s episode of Online Marketing & Communications I look at some of the key strategies we can employ to increase the way we connect with visitors to our sites with effective blog posts. Those of us that invest in blogging as part of our online marketing strategy really need to be getting the results we deserve for our efforts; however, often publishing without a clear strategy can result in traffic but little or no conversion. As far as I’m concerned it all comes down to creating content that really answers the problems and issues that people go online to solve. -
Teach Your Customers What You Know
6 Jun 2013 | 1:00 pmOne of the best things you can do on your website is to teach customers how to solve the problems they go online to find answers for. Let’s say, for example, that a solo entrepreneur is starting to build their own website with WordPress. They stumble upon the Genesis Framework and the excellent premium themes by StudioPress; they buy one and then start to customize it. Trouble is, they can’t figure out how to create different sidebars for different pages on their business site. So they go online to try to solve this specific problem and stumble upon a video I’ve made… -
Writing with Verve on the Blogging Journey
31 May 2013 | 12:34 pmI talk to Jayme Soulati (@soulati) about her new book Writing with Verve on the Blogging Journey , which is an exploration of the time she has spent blogging and thinking about blogging and business. Jayme is a creative thinker and generously shares a personal insight into her journey behind the keyboard. She also takes a stand for newbie bloggers, afraid to enter what might appear to be a very saturated place. We talk much more about Jayme’s attitude to blogging, her experiences and participation in the PR and Marketing community but that’s not to say we don’t consider just… -
Using Video Tutorials to Grow Your Business
25 May 2013 | 3:00 pmI invited Mike Russell, from Music Radio Creative, onto the podcast this week because he produces some outstanding video tutorials. Mike Russell I first became aware of Mike last year and have quickly become a fan of his own podcast which focuses on the tips and tricks you need if you’re getting started as a podcaster, radio host or DJ. What sets Mike apart from many of the other podcasters working in this space is the quality of his video tutorials. They primarily focus on using Adobe Audition, the audio-editing software, and offer such insight and clear tips that he’s quickly…
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Cohen On Content
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The “Ins and Outs” of Digital Signage Software.
14 Jun 2013 | 9:00 amThe “Ins and Outs” of Digital Signage Software. Click “>> Read more” or “>> Leave Comment” below to leave comments. -
Cohen Rants Content
9 May 2013 | 10:24 amCohen Rants Content and Motivating Digital Signage Viewers. Click “>> Read more” or “>> Leave Comment” below to leave comments. -
Stuart Armstrong – ComQi
16 Apr 2013 | 12:29 pmPlease be warned! My interview with Stuart Armstrong, President Americas at ComQi, is long…12 minutes. But didn’t want to cut into Part I and Part II and ruin the flow. A lot of great info about where the digital signage industry is going and convergence with mobile platforms. Click “>> Read more” or “>> Leave [...]
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Industrial Marketing Today
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Creating Thought Leadership for Manufacturing and Industrial Companies
17 Jun 2013 | 7:31 amThought leader is a term first coined in 1994 by Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief of the Booz Allen Hamilton magazine, Strategy & Business and used to designate interview subjects for that [...] [ This is only a content summary. Please click on the headline to read the full article. Visit my website for more content on industrial marketing.] -
How Mobile Technology Helps Component Manufacturers Make Their Printed Catalogs More Productive
5 Jun 2013 | 7:23 amComponent manufacturers are keenly aware of the fact that design engineers must first specify their components or parts before purchasing can place an order. These manufacturers have relied on their [...] [ This is only a content summary. Please click on the headline to read the full article. Visit my website for more content on industrial marketing.] -
9 Must-Have Content Assets for Successful Industrial Websites
24 May 2013 | 7:45 amCompiling any kind of list is always risky because we all have our own preferences and there is no way someone else’s list can satisfy everyone. This is my list [...] [ This is only a content summary. Please click on the headline to read the full article. Visit my website for more content on industrial marketing.] -
Does Your Website Content Meet the Needs of Industrial Buyers?
15 May 2013 | 9:40 amWhen was the last time you actually read the content on your industrial website? Put yourself in your buyer’s shoes and see if the current content will persuade you to [...] [ This is only a content summary. Please click on the headline to read the full article. Visit my website for more content on industrial marketing.] -
Industrial Content Marketing – Dazed and Confused
22 Apr 2013 | 7:24 amHow many of you remember the song “Dazed and Confused” from Led Zeppelin’s debut album based on a folk song by Jake Holmes? I am finding industrial content marketing in [...] [ This is only a content summary. Please click on the headline to read the full article. Visit my website for more content on industrial marketing.]
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ContentLEAD
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ContentLEAD celebrates National Small Business Week with content marketing offer
17 Jun 2013 | 12:50 pmJune 17 to 21 is National Small Business Week, and ContentLEAD is celebrating by offering SMBs a discount on technical integration services. Related posts: Honoring National Small Business Week With an Offer To Kickstart Your Online Leads Google+ Hangout about social media to honor National Small Business Week Report: Small business marketing efforts should cater to recovering economy -
Google+ Hangout about social media to honor National Small Business Week
17 Jun 2013 | 12:02 pmNational Small Business Week will feature three Google+ Hangouts, focusing on marketing techniques to help SMBs make money online. Related posts: Honoring National Small Business Week With an Offer To Kickstart Your Online Leads ContentLEAD celebrates National Small Business Week with content marketing offer Have a YouTube Channel? Survey shows new opportunities to win website traffic -
Twitter’s long-promised analytics comes to Ads customers
17 Jun 2013 | 6:30 amTwitter introduced a new content analytics feature for its Ads clients, but it's not a widespread analytics offering for every user. Related posts: SMBs are never alone with Google’s new content analytics sharing feature What do SMBs get out of Pinterest’s new analytics tool? New Year’s Resolution: To focus on these social marketing metrics -
Why Bing’s easy paid content analytics can inform content marketing decisions
16 Jun 2013 | 8:00 amSmall business owners engaged in both organic and paid search campaigns can use content analytics to inform all of their internet marketing strategies. Related posts: SMBs are never alone with Google’s new content analytics sharing feature Content marketing can help drive conversions from paid search clicks Local marketing gets a lift with Google Maps, Bing -
SMBs can generate B2B leads with website content
15 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amSMBs should create website content to target B2B leads, because companies are going online to research future purchases. Related posts: Looking to generate more leads? Study says host a contest Generate B2B leads with email, SEO and content marketing [study] LinkedIn’s focus on content will help SMBs generate additional B2B leads
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Phelps Blog
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Are we truly communicating?
21 May 2013 | 5:50 pmWe're all in the communications business. But how do we know if we're really communicating with each other? One of the most fundamental ways is acknowledgment. The nature of their work necessitates that law enforcement and the military grasp this concept. In fact, military protocol says that for true communication to happen, there must be: 1. communication sent2. communication received3. communication acknowledged This makes good sense in our daily lives, as well. When we receive a request from family, friend or business associate, best practice is an immediate response… -
Branding your online newsroom
21 May 2013 | 5:44 pmSmart brands are turning their online newsrooms into centralized news headquarters that include news stories, photos, videos, financial and organizational updates, social media feeds, blog content, reviews and media coverage. What was once a simple webpage with a chronological list of press releases is now a constantly evolving source of fresh, compelling content. TEKGROUP International, Inc.'s "2012 Online Newsroom Survey" results showed that 97 percent of journalists surveyed consider an online newsroom important. Journalists use online newsrooms as major sources of… -
Selling it in - the Steve Jobs way
21 May 2013 | 5:40 pmSteve Jobs had it right so many times and in so many different ways. I recently stumbled on yet another way his brilliance transcends his untimely death. Here are my five favorite rules the Oracle of Palo Alto followed when selling his ideas: Write a single sentence description for every idea. Concise enough to fit in a 140-character Twitter post? Now that's strong. Create a villain — a problem in need of a solution — that allows the audience to rally around the hero. Let that hero be you and your product/service. Stick to the rule of three. Divide the presentation… -
Reaching a re-emerging target audience - Meet H.E.N.R.Y
21 May 2013 | 5:39 pmA consumer demographic has re-emerged since the recession and, while they are small in numbers, they are strong in spending. Prepare to get reacquainted with HENRY. HENRY stands for "High Earners Not Rich Yet." Currently defined as those making $100-$250K, they encompass about 21 million households and represent 90 percent of affluent consumers, which in total account for more than 40 percent of all U.S. consumer spending. They are the "heavy lifters" when it comes to economic spending. Unity Marketing's "Annual State of the Luxury Market Report"… -
We got engaged! At Knowledge Tap, that is.
2 May 2013 | 12:48 pmSmart brands are grabbing consumers' attention in bold ways—from innovative 3D projection on landmark buildings and mannequins to rich, multi-screen experiences that enable viewers to dig deeper into the content they want, to apps that encourage users to explore and share music, ads and TV shows. Inspired brands have found a way to reach consumers using traditional media in non-traditional ways.This was the conversation held last Wednesday at our latest Knowledge Tap event – Let's Get Engaged. Industry experts Joshua Cohen, president & CEO of Pearl Media; Garrett Jamison,…
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HarrisonAmy
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10 Ways to Build Trust in a Sales Page
14 Jun 2013 | 11:01 amCan you build trust with even the most nervous customer? You’re a trustworthy expert right? Of course you are, I know that, and you know that, but when writing sales copy it’s easy to take for granted that your readers should trust you. Even if you’re marketing to an audience that knows you, it helps to have a checklist of trust-builders you can use. So here we go: 1. Testimonials When previous customers write to tell you how great you are, don’t just enjoy the warm glow and file away the compliment, use it in future sales pages. As consumers we know that a company is… -
5 Things You Must Do When Asking Anyone To Review Your Sales Page
13 Jun 2013 | 6:25 amOkay, I’ve read your sales page and here’s what I think… You’ve got a product that will set your customer’s world alight. You love it, previous customers have loved it and you want to reach more people. So you sit down to write a sales page to let new people know all about the benefits of your offer. It’s not easy because you’re trying to fit in all of those selling points into a sales page structure that flows well, builds suspense, and reads easily. But you persevere, you get your headline in there, your opening, the details of your offer and a call… -
Direct Mail Copywriting Case Study: Selling Racing Tips
7 Jun 2013 | 8:17 amYesterday I received a direct mail package. I don’t know how the mailer got my address because the offer is to buy horse-racing tips and I can’t remember the last time I visited a track. Because I’m not the target market, my instinct was to bin the mailer. I’ve written previous copywriting case studies on direct mail packages and thought this would be an interesting one for the collection. Let’s see how the writer is using different techniques to try and encourage the reader to read the mailing in full and take up the offer. The Headline This style of headline is… -
CMS! Ep 8: How to Start Your Content Marketing
5 Jun 2013 | 2:08 amAlready in this series of Content Marketing… Stripped! We’ve looked at creating a customer profile, choosing topics for starter content, choosing the right tone of voice and setting content marketing goals. This is all good and well but there’s such a thing as too much planning. As you can see in this week’s episode: Why planning and learning cripples content marketing You might be familiar with a saying that goes something like this: A wise man learns by the mistakes of others, a fool by his own RUBBISH. If we’re not talking about mistakes that kill, I’ll… -
10 Twitter Headline Styles Readers Love to Click
31 May 2013 | 5:44 amEvery now and then you’re just not in the mood to master copywriting principles, you just need something you can swipe quick and use in your own copy. I hear ya. So this morning I did some research (aka hanging out on Twitter) to grab a sample of headline styles that use different copywriting techniques to get the reader’s attention. Use this list to give you some quick inspiration for your own eye-catching headlines. 1. Address Insecurities A powerful headline technique is to address the concerns and insecurities of your ideal customer. Carol Tice, the writer of this tweet, helps…
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Marketing with Video and Rich Media Blog
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We’re entering the ‘post-hardware’ era of corporate video production.
8 Jun 2013 | 1:55 pmVery soon, hardware will cease to be a differentiating factor in corporate video production. Way back in the day (i.e. five years ago) the equipment you owned defined your place in the video production hierarchy. Big production houses had very expensive equipment and charged accordingly. Then, out of the blue, Canon added a basic video capture feature to one of their portrait cameras and the video production industry has never been the same. Today, professional video editing software is virtually free – so cheap that the cost is immaterial. Premiere, Final Cut, Media… -
Video Pre-Production Planning Check-list – 11 Steps to a Successful Project
16 Apr 2013 | 5:51 pm“Let’s really think this through before we start” is likely the best business advice you will ever receive. Too many video production projects start part way through the process – with a ‘cool idea’, a bad idea, a misguided idea or worst of all, no idea at all. If you haven’t taken the time to properly plan out your production, it will likely fail. By ‘fail’ I mean fail to achieve any measurable business objective. (Being ‘up on your website’ isn’t a meaningful business objective.) There are many different types… -
Google Glass, Lifecasting and the Future of Business Video
21 Feb 2013 | 8:24 pmWelcome to the billion channel universe. {Overheard somewhere in the distant future, say…. next year.} “CSI Toledo is a re-run and there aren’t any new disasters on CNN, let’s watch Roger Kaputnik’s lifecast and see what he’s up to! The implications of Google Glass are far-reaching. From privacy issues, to changes in lifestyle, to new forms of entertainment and gaming, to education, to global communication, to new business behaviors, this is a big deal. While it’s difficult to say which new wearable devices will be the next big thing, or how these… -
8 Ways to Convince Your Boss to Invest in Video Marketing
12 Feb 2013 | 1:23 pmWe’ve seen this movie before… Remember a few years back when you were trying to convince your boss that your business needed a real website – not just a ‘web presence’ (an html version of your brochure.) Fast forward to today… finally, your website has evolved to become the information and transactional epicenter of your business (congrats!) but you realize that’s still not enough. Now, everywhere you look on the web you see video. Every social media ‘poke’, ‘share’, ‘link’, ‘favorite’ and… -
Is the video production company you hire properly insured?
8 Feb 2013 | 2:35 pmAnd is your company properly protected? When you hire a video production company or independent production professional you expect them to be fully insured against all reasonable dangers and liabilities that might arise as a result of their engagement. Chances are, nothing will go wrong… but if something does go wrong you’d better hope that you and your production company are fully protected. If you video production company is not fully insured they may not be able to ‘make whole’ any damages that result from their actions. Most video production professionals…
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Brafton
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Google Authorship not necessarily limited to website content
17 Jun 2013 | 2:20 pmMarketers have been alerted about the benefits of setting up Google Authorship, which links online content to authors' bylines via Google+ profiles. Rich snippets that feature writers' pictures and names next to domains entice clicks and provide better visibility in SERPs. A recent study from Search Mojo's Janet Driscoll Miller found that Authorship might not be limited to website content, and brands may be able to build authority with other indexable filetypes as well. Miller told Search Engine Land that her experiments revealed Google can infer Authorship in PowerPoint files, Word documents… -
Cutts: Original photos don’t add SEO value to branded content for now
17 Jun 2013 | 11:52 amMarketers that publish content for SEO know creativity and originality are key to SEO success. Google's search algorithm updates have been revised to weed out spammy online content more effectively - i.e. unoriginal articles, blogs, product descriptions that do not provide internet users with value. Still, Google's Search Engineer Matt Cutts' latest Webmaster Help Channel video says the photos attached to news articles don't necessarily have to be original... yet. Cutts explains that as far as he is concerned, the leading search engine does not use any signals that rank domains higher in… -
Buzzword no more – “Tweet” added to Oxford English Dictionary
17 Jun 2013 | 10:05 amSkeptics that usually refrain from adopting buzzwords like Tweet and big data into their lexicons should take note - even the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has officially accepted both terms. Marketers who have been reluctant to fully embrace the social network should take this as a signal that Twitter is more than a flash in the pan, and social media content produced for the channel is an important part of branding efforts. The 2013 OED release will include "Tweet" as a noun and verb, referring to use related to the social network. While most words must be current for a decade before… -
Sources compete to prove the content ROI of Twitter marketing [data]
17 Jun 2013 | 9:00 amEver wonder how much a Tweet is worth? Analytics firm SumAll has the exact dollar amount. According to analysis of Twitter traffic through conversion, SumAll found that a single Tweet generates approximately $25.62 in revenue. A ReTweet produces a return of $20.37. While these values may seem substantial for 140-character posts, SumAll CEO Dan Atkinson explains that the content ROI rarely matches the amount of resource dedicated to social media marketing in today's highly digital marketplace. More, data found that additional Tweets don't necessarily mean more revenue - it takes… -
Travel brands Tweet their way to social media marketing success
17 Jun 2013 | 8:00 amNearly all businesses recognize the value of social media marketing. Brafton previously reported that 86 percent of brands think social media content contributes to their success, and 97 percent use social networks to promote their products and services. Still, some marketers are leveraging social media better than others, according to the recently released 2013 Social Brands 100 report from Headstream. The findings show brands are more successful when they have presences across major channels, but focus their efforts on the networks where target audiences are most active. Travel industry…
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Content Writing Blog: Content Gyan
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Dedicated content writer to keep track of your personal branding
6 Jun 2013 | 8:21 amThe more content you have on the Internet, the stronger presence you enjoy. You need constant content for your website, for various blogs you might be maintaining and multiple social media and social networking profiles that you would like to keep abuzz with latest updates. You can either live a busy, productive life, or you can focus on generating content for your personal brand; you can’t achieve both. Gary Vaynerchuk, a well-known entrepreneur has hired a dedicated content writer who will constantly follow him, record his conversations and comments and then turn them into blog posts… -
How I handle repetitive revision requests from content writing clients
3 Jun 2013 | 1:49 amI normally don’t charge extra from my clients for multiple revisions. Whenever I undertake a new content writing assignment I let it be known to my clients that although I charge an hourly rate, once I have submitted a document in its complete form from my side, I stop tracking the time and afterwards, if there are some revisions, I don’t charge for that time. This can be a bit tricky and counterproductive and you have to draw a line somewhere. Why in the first place a document needs to be revised? It carries lots of errors in terms of wrong data, misspelled words, typos and… -
Why it’s important to search engine optimize your content
31 May 2013 | 9:45 pmLee Odden in a blog post titled The Truth About Content Marketing and SEO aptly says: What good is great content if no one can find it? How useful is findable content when it doesn’t engage and persuade? and then he says: The only thing worse than no SEO at all, is ALL SEO. This is where we have to be very careful. Most content writers and content marketers don’t know where to draw the line. My main point of interest is the first highlight, that what’s the use of writing and publishing great content if nobody knows of its existence, if nobody is able to find it? If you are… -
Does your business need a regular dose of content writing and content marketing?
30 May 2013 | 9:50 pmShould you regularly write and publish content on your website just for the sake of content marketing? Joost de Valk mulls over this question in his recent blog post. Being a content writer who makes a living off encouraging people to publish as much content as possible I would say yes. Otherwise, I would say, it depends. I repeatedly write on my website as well as on my blog that don’t write content merely for generating traffic, unless you earn revenue from advertisements (even then relevancy is very important). But I slightly disagree with Joost, and his friend whose post he has… -
Search Engine Optimization with Better Content Writing
29 May 2013 | 11:37 pmYesterday Business2Community posted my blog post, “Search Engine Optimization with Content Writing” in which I talk about how you can organically improve your search engine rankings by creating better, useful content rather than resorting to unreliable, the so-called, “SEO tactics”. Although there is nothing wrong in making your website SEO-friendly in terms of layout and source code, eventually it is your content writing, at least right now and in the foreseeable future, it is your textual content that ultimately impacts your search engine optimization results. Should…
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Adventures In Digital Writing, Publishing & Marketing
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How Google’s Latest Penguin 2.0 Update Affects You
23 May 2013 | 2:29 pmGoogle has released their latest algorithm update which they have named Penguin 2.0. According to Matt Cutts (head of Google’s web spam team), this update will have an even stronger impact than Penguin 1.0 did, so I thought it would be worth talking about today. If you own a website/blog then you need to care about this. A lot of people get a little glassy-eyed when I start talking SEO stuff, so I’m going to keep this really simple. What are some of the changes webmasters like us can expect and how will it matter. Most of my readers are not into black hat SEO stuff. Link… -
How To Change The Name And URL Address Of Your Facebook Page
18 Apr 2013 | 6:44 pmI created my first Facebook Page several years ago when I didn’t really know what the heck I was suppose to do with it. Back then my brand was a bit narrower (article marketing), so like the SEO keyword freak I am, I gave my page the url address of www.Facebook.com/Article.Marketing.Income. This url served me well because my page came up pretty high in search engine rankings when someone searched for “article marketing income”. But that was then, and this is now. My brand has evolved and grown and article marketing is only part of what I know and teach. So I was ready to… -
Amazon’s Kindle Cover Creator
7 Apr 2013 | 2:20 pmThere may be another indicator that independent writing and publishing is on the rise and profitable. Amazon has a new Kindle Cover Creator tool in Beta testing for those using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). When I say that adding this feature proves that indie publishing is profitable, it’s because I believe Amazon wouldn’t bother with the cost of creating and adding this feature if they didn’t know that it meant increased sales for them. While the covers that you can create with this generator are average at best, some of them are still pretty decent looking versus some… -
Finding The Time To Write
13 Mar 2013 | 5:24 pmFinding The Time To Write Your First Book Can Be…Challenging One of the biggest obstacles that new writers tell me they face when writing their first book is finding the time in their already hectic schedules to write the darn thing. It’s such a prevalent issue among writers, that it can totally cripple them and zero writing gets done. That’s why I thought it was a topic worth discussing on my blog. So here are my thoughts on this issue. First Problem – Hearsay Paralysis One of the problems I see is that writers and aspiring authors often psych themselves out based on… -
Why You Should Never Delete Pages From Your Blog
21 Feb 2013 | 11:14 amLearn From The Blunders Of Big Companies Like Nivea® I have the hands of a great grandmother from years of neglect, so I thought that perhaps this year I’d start taking a little better care of them:) One of the solutions for that was to always be prepared with some sort of hand cream in my purse and at my desk (where I spend much of my time:) So I purchased a travel tin of Nivea hand creme probably about two months ago to keep at my desk. The tin lasts a pretty long time and today I noticed that they were running a promotion which was printed inside of the lid. The promotion looks like…
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Content Strategy Hub
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My Yogurt Tells Me Stories: Content Marketing Beyond The Sale
12 Jun 2013 | 8:37 amIt’s snack time. I’m currently eating a Siggi’s yogurt. Well…apparently it’s not really yogurt. It’s more like an Icelandic skyr. Before eating a Siggi’s I had no idea what “skyr” even was. So how do I know it’s skyr? Because it told me. Both the front and reverse side of the label tell a story. The front of the label is how I got this yogurt in my fridge in the first place. Rather, that’s how my girlfriend got the yogurt in the fridge. She’s a dietitian. And although I feel as though I can live off of cheese, bacon and… -
The Surest Way to Succeed as a New Entrepreneur (And 20 Tweetable Quotes)
28 May 2013 | 8:57 amThere’s a lot of stuff to read isn’t there? So much stuff that it can make your head spin. My “to read” list keeps growing on a daily basis. And it’s very easy to get stuck in the trap of constantly absorbing new information. Then some of that information contradicts each other. And now you’re in real trouble. You start analyzing. You get paralyzed. As a part of this month’s “Word Carnival” I am to pick ONE piece of advice to give to new entrepreneurs. Something I wish I knew on my first day of business. I had to rattle my brain a… -
Six Ways Accountants Can Use Content To Boost Their Bottom Line
17 May 2013 | 10:03 amAs a former accountant I recognized that there is a knowledge gap in the marketplace. After getting a Master’s degree in accounting from one of the highest rated programs in the country, I realized I knew plenty about accounting but close to nothing in terms of marketing. That is obviously a problem for anyone trying to start their own business. Because every business is in the business of marketing. Self-employed accountants aren’t in the business of accounting…they are in the business of marketing their services. Making the problem worse, accountants are often put into a… -
Value Proposition Testing: Optimize Through Email in 5 Easy Steps
13 May 2013 | 10:36 amCrafting a value proposition that speaks to your target audience can make a world of difference. People have wants and needs. And if you can explicitly address those wants and needs in your value proposition, you are much more likely to get more leads, and in turn more customers. But how do you craft a successful value proposition? You can address features, value branding. There are so many choices. But just assuming which part of the offer you should address can get you into a whole lot of trouble. In today’s post, I want to share with you a video from MECLAB’s Marketing… -
Weekly Roundup: Marketing Goodies & Tools to Simplify Your Life
28 Apr 2013 | 10:41 amThere is a lot of content on the net. It can be pretty difficult to sort through it all and figure out what’s worth spending your time on. I’ve written about content curation in the past, and decided to put curation into action by starting a weekly roundup post. This is the first one. Maybe the first of a weekly series. We’ll see if you like it . If you came across something awesome this week that you don’t see here (which is very likely) feel free to share it in the comments below. Cool New Tools Added to the Toolbox: The first thing I want to start with this week…
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B2B Digital Marketing
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Why Good Content Delivers Bad Leads
12 Jun 2013 | 4:45 amCongratulations, you are a B2B content marketer. You have created a great industry blog and library of premium content. You promote your content through search, social, emails, newsletters, even banners. You are seeing strong traffic, engagement with your blog content and a steady increase in registrations for your premium content. There’s just one little problem: the leads are crap. Ok, there are a few good opportunities mixed in, but most are not the decision makers you need to reach or they are from businesses that are too small. Others simply aren’t interested. Education Is… -
What Really Happens When Influence Increases?
6 Jun 2013 | 4:36 amJoe Fernandez of Klout recently said Klout’s goal is to help every person maximize their individual influence. It is no secret, as a marketer you want to influence purchases. You use advertising, content marketing, PR, and the influencer programs Klout wants to sell, to change perceptions and purchasing behavior. But what would happen if Klout achieved this goal and every person became more influential? How would it impact you as an individual and as a B2B marketer? (addition: I’m not saying Klout is necessarily a measure of influence, that needs its own separate discussion!) The… -
6 Best Tactics for B2B Lead Generation
4 Jun 2013 | 4:25 amYou need to generate leads, right? If you are a B2B marketer, particularly one focused on making a complex sale in a large enterprise, the answer is almost certainly a resounding yes. The B2B lead generation landscape has changed tremendously in the last decade. Today, B2B lead generation relies heavily on digital marketing and this list reflects that switch. To make this list, tactics must be cost effective, measurable and scalable. In addition, they need to offer sufficient targeting for the broader marketing efforts of many mid-sized or large enterprise marketers. The B2B Lead Generation… -
Outbound Marketing for Modern B2B Marketers
30 May 2013 | 4:17 amInbound marketing may be the hot topic for B2B marketers today, but today’s big B2B inbound marketers are all active outbound marketers as well. So how do you pair your outbound marketing activity with your inbound marketing? Here are six ways outbound marketing can support and scale your inbound marketing efforts and some of the channels that are appropriate for each one. Before we start, here is the purpose or definition of inbound marketing I use: Inbound Marketing: Be found through the recommendation of others and delight everyone that finds you. How Outbound Marketing Contributes… -
3 Reasons B2B Marketers Should Not Use Microsites
28 May 2013 | 4:25 amIf online advertising isn’t a meaningful part of your B2B marketing program, you may have dismissed the recent uproar caused by Firefox’s decision to block third party cookies. However, it doesn’t just impact online advertisers. Many B2B marketers will be impacted as well. One of the biggest casualties will be your campaign microsites. Third party cookie rules don’t consider who actually runs a website. Have you ever created a microsite with its own catchy domain name? Your cookies will be treated as third party cookies on your campaign microsite. How Third Party…
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Right Mix Marketing Blog
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6 Things Good Content Marketing Can Do for Your Business
10 Jun 2013 | 3:32 pmGuest post by Ryan Currie Content Marketing is more than just a buzzword, it’s an essential tool for your business. Whether you own a small company, are working on a startup, or your business is booming like never before, you need to invest in smart content marketing now. Here are a few things a coordinated content marketing plan can do for your business: 6. Content marketing builds brand recognition. The great thing about content marketing is that you can use it to tie your brand to a product, a movement, or even whole adjacent industries. The more quality unique content you put out… -
Social Media and the Law: What You Need To Know
7 Jun 2013 | 11:12 amGuest post by Noah Kovacs Let’s face it, in today’s ever social world, your best friends, family members and work colleagues are only a click away. But what is an essentially a good avenue of staying in touch, can also be a dangerous one, too. Imagine having a Facebook photo of you imbibing a bit too much at a cousin’s bachelor party, passed on and viewed by your boss. Hardly an appropriate image of you to have representing his law firm, but where exactly do privacy and civil liberties collide with fire-able offenses or civil suits? Let’s take a look below and see: Where does… -
Google+ for SEO, Author Rank and Local: What’s the Verdict?
2 Jun 2013 | 10:24 pmGuest post by Daniel Page Opinions around the blogosphere and the tech press seem to be divided about Google+ and its value as a social media network for business. On the one hand we have SEO’s who are hyping it as the big thing for everyone involved marketing a business, and on the other hand we have the doubters and their constant refrain of “Google+ is a ghost town; I get no interaction there”. The truth lies somewhere in between. On balance, we think that businesses who are serious about inbound marketing can’t really afford to ignore Google+, at least in the long-term. -
How to Conduct an SEO Audit Using Free Tools
29 May 2013 | 12:31 amGuest post by Kapil Jekishan Carrying out an SEO audit on your website allows you to analyze its current SEO state and take informed steps to maximize its future performance. Audits are also a useful way to gain an insight into the SEO strategy used by your competition. By analyzing you website’s source code it is possible to gain free access to all the important information needed to SEO audit your site, but doing this manually can be a complicated and time consuming process. Fortunately for those looking to advance their SEO knowledge, using an SEO Toolbar can provide you with the… -
6 Reasons Your Blog Content Won’t Go Viral
22 May 2013 | 5:33 pmIt’s like Deja Vu. I’ve had this same conversation with representatives from a Fortune 500 financial services company, with a B2B industrial lighting distributor and several consumer-facing companies like wineries, restaurants, real estate agents and retailers. It goes like this. Them: We have a blog. We don’t seem to get any traction. Should we continue writing? Me: Do you know what your customers care about? Are you creating content that teaches them something, solves a problem, entertains them or provides information about tools or resources that they would care about?
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Copywriter
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Texting isn’t killing language – it’s just a different one
28 May 2013 | 1:40 amGreat TED talk from John McWhorter… -
How a one-track mind helps your business
28 May 2013 | 1:37 amSooner or later, your company will need to come up with an advertising message. All companies start with the same question: “How can we get as many people as possible to choose us?”. They set out to achieve, instinctively and -
Scripts
24 Sep 2012 | 12:42 pmCopywriter| GoReport Script GoReport needed a copywriter to create ideas and a script to promote their software, which helps users write reports faster than ever before. (Animation by David Henderson Design) -
Websites
24 Sep 2012 | 12:35 pmWalker Communications asked me to write their web copy in a way that captured the style and character of their agency. -
Advertising
24 Sep 2012 | 12:34 pmThis poster was part of a campaign I worked on for Innovation Flooring. They wanted a poster campaign to tell customers about they’re NI-made carpets, as they are one of the few flooring companies to sell carpets made in
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The Integrated Marketing Blog from D Custom
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Friday Five: National Geographic’s multi-channel integration
14 Jun 2013 | 7:20 amRead about the multi-channel integration happening at National Geographic, a question all CMO’s and chief executive officers must ask, Hillary Clinton joining Twitter, the “war” between content marketing and SEO, and MTV’s newest venture, MTV Other, a digital content lab.The post Friday Five: National Geographic’s multi-channel integration appeared first on D Custom. -
Insigniam at the World Innovation Forum
12 Jun 2013 | 8:50 amOur client Insigniam is at the World Innovation Forum in New York City this week. It is a two-day event centered around challenging the conventional, celebrating the unexpected, and experiencing innovation.The post Insigniam at the World Innovation Forum appeared first on D Custom. -
Friday Five: Creative thinking for non-creative jobs
7 Jun 2013 | 6:30 amRead about tips on maintaining a creative-minded workplace, the Dollar Shave Club’s newest viral video, Feedly’s attempt to become the new home for Google Reader users, the Vine app welcoming Android users, and Google+’s ranking among US social media users in this week’s Friday Five.The post Friday Five: Creative thinking for non-creative jobs appeared first on D Custom. -
The history of the meme
5 Jun 2013 | 9:14 amContent marketing can be stressful. So when we need a laugh at the D Custom office, we're often trading animated GIFs and memes that we either find online or create ourselves. However, memes aren't always just for laughs. In some cases, created memes have turned out to be incredibly lucrative as brand marketing, and even spurred the creation of meme blogs that became real content creation businesses.The post The history of the meme appeared first on D Custom. -
Video is changing the game of (brand) journalism
30 May 2013 | 1:51 pmThe Chicago Sun-Times laid off 20 full-time staff members from their photography department today. Why? Because they're making the shift to video and other multimedia elements. Sun-Times reporters will now shoot footage with their iPhones to go along with stories. It's sad for the talented people who lost their jobs today, but it's not a surprising move.The post Video is changing the game of (brand) journalism appeared first on D Custom.
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Marketing Technology for Growth
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Search Party: Google and the Evolution of SEO
17 Jun 2013 | 3:52 amWelcome to the search party, folks. It’s a bit crowded; everyone’s confused, and – oh, what’s that? Someone’s talking really loudly… OH HEEEYYY Google - How yooouuu doing? As marketers, we’re all grappling with the paradigm shift in search that’s happening. You’ve heard it all before: traditional SEO is dead, Panda update 28.4 is coming next week, Google’s going to take over the world, yaddy-yaddy-yaahh. Just the other day, my whiz of a colleague, Chris Horton, and I were talking about this crazy, always-changing definition of search that’s got us, frankly, in quite of a… -
The Best Branded Content of the Week: June 15, 2013
15 Jun 2013 | 6:16 amBranded content can be found in many different forms. Sometimes it appears as a video, sometimes an infographic, and other times integrated into a social app like Facebook. This week, we celebrarate the technological versatility of branded content by showcasing four companies that are doing it right. Even though they are big brands, the means they are using to create this content are available to everyone. Take note, and get inspired to create some excellent branded content marketing of your own. Adobe—Photoshop Live I think I may be a sucker for marketing that involves… -
Nobody is Watching Your Video Because Your Title Sucks - #MarketingTechMin
14 Jun 2013 | 3:40 amHere at SyneCore, we often like to discuss the value of creating video content for your customers. However, sometimes it can be a problem to get people to actually watch this content you create. In a world full of short attention spans and endless entertainment options, how do you produce video that people will actually want to click on and watch until the end? This week, Spencer and Jacey give a few simple tips (based on personal experience) for creating more valuable, entertaining video marketing for your customers. Hint: it all starts with an attention-grabbing title. … -
New Study: The Widening Digital Gap between the Consumer and Marketer
13 Jun 2013 | 12:19 pmThe majority of marketing studies tend to focus on either the consumer or producer (business) side of the equation, essentially only telling half of the story. I tend to prefer a more holistic approach. Such is the case with a newly released study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and Lyris analyzing the differing perceptions among marketing executives and consumers regarding the effectiveness of various marketing channels. The study finds significant gaps in perception regarding how consumers prefer to engage with brands, what influences their purchase decisions, and how they view… -
Social Commerce: I Know You’re Selling Me Something
12 Jun 2013 | 8:53 amA new study sponsored by Lyris and published today by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EUI) looks at both consumers and marketing executives in consumer product industries in order to analyze the effectiveness of different marketing channels. The study finds some initially striking information about purchasing decisions and preferred marketing channels. Here’s what they found when speaking with consumers: When initially introduced to a product, 37% of consumers prefer email, followed by printed catalogues and personal referrals. When they are about to buy a product, 36% of consumers…
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Legal Internet Marketing Blog
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5 Things that Have Changed Internet Marketing & Website Development
24 May 2013 | 4:00 pmThe constant factor in the relationship between Internet marketing and website development is Change. Whether you work in the field of online marketing or run a business, the evolution of content, SEO, web design, social, and local listings significantly impacts how a website is structured and how it targets visitors for conversion. Since listing all of the changes that have occurred since the Internet’s inception would take until Thanksgiving, the below blog focuses on the main evolutionary changes that we’ve seen at SLS Consulting. 1. Write for Your Audience First – In the past,… -
Even Google+ Needs a Redesign
16 May 2013 | 10:07 amIf you’re in the Internet marketing business or run your own company’s online campaign, you’ve probably heard about the 6th annual Google I/O conference in San Francisco that began yesterday and will last until May 17. Mainly targeted for software programmers, the developer conference has raised eyebrows and drawn the attention of many. One of the biggest highlights so far is the Google+ redesign. If you’ve ever felt like a website redesign wasn’t worth your time or money, think again. If Google launches a redesign of its social platform, it shows us that there is always room for… -
Hit by a Google Panda Update and Don’t Know Why? The Answer Might be in Your Content
15 May 2013 | 9:00 amContrary to what you might think, Google’s ultimate goal isn’t to sabotage your website’s search engine rankings. What makes Google the powerhouse that it is rests in its desire for webmasters to create the best user experience possible. All of the recent and up-and-coming algorithm updates are structured with this objective in mind. You have to remember that Google provides a service to the public. Whatever terms we enter into search, we expect to quickly and easily find the information that fits without having to do a lot of sifting through irrelevant or poorly written material. While… -
6 Tips on How to Blog When There’s No Time
13 May 2013 | 9:00 amWhether you’re a lawyer, mom, or SEO, or all of the above!, we all face the same problem – we have no time. Or at least, this is how most of us see it. If you love doing something, shouldn’t you make the time for it? I know, easier said than done. What about blogging? If you love to write, writer’s block still happens, and you may not have the time to sit at your computer for hours on end waiting for the words to come. If you hate to write, blogging can be that much harder. However, not being a writer or hating to write are not excuses for neglecting to blog if you run a business. If… -
Creativity and Online Content for Marketing, Not as Different as You Think
9 May 2013 | 2:04 pmFor many, the process of continually writing online content for a marketing campaign can be a draining task. While creating new content that has not been on a site before, or hopefully on any other site, is vital, a writer may feel like he or she is running out of topics or creative juices. If this is happening to you, do not be afraid, you are not alone. However, do not let yourself simply accept the idea of running out of creativity or topics. This will lead to monotony, which in turn leads to bad writing, which can negatively impact the strength of a marketing campaign. But what can you do…
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OpenView Blog » Kevin Cain
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How Good Are You at Using Social Media to Distribute Your Content?
17 Jun 2013 | 1:27 pmThe number of social media sites has exploded in recent years, bringing hundreds of potential new marketing channels onto the scene. With so many options — more than 500 by some accounts — it’s easy to get distracted and to waste time experimenting with new channels to distribute content that may not actually provide any…ᔥ via OpenView Blog -
Social Media Lessons from @HillaryClinton
10 Jun 2013 | 2:59 pmHillary Clinton added a new accomplishment to her long list of achievements on Monday when she made her debut on Twitter. Within hours of setting up her account, she had followed four, sent out her first (and thus far only) Tweet, and picked up over 180,000 followers. In the process, she also brought a new…ᔥ via OpenView Blog -
Marketing Confessional: I Dream About Viral Content
4 Jun 2013 | 5:47 amAs a content marketer, I dream about creating viral content that blows up online… I imagine the promotion I’d get after seeing OpenView’s latest eBook get shared a few thousand times on LinkedIn. The rock star status I’d attain if our latest video reached a million views on YouTube… And then I wake up. The…ᔥ via OpenView Blog -
These 5 Steps Will Make Your Content Development a Breeze
28 May 2013 | 10:30 amAccording to the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs’ 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report, the greatest challenge facing most B2B content marketers is content development, and specifically, being able to produce enough content to move the needle. Not surprising, right? Effective content marketing hinges on producing a steady stream of high-quality content — we’re talking…ᔥ via OpenView Blog -
Pump Up the Volume: What’s Your Content Promotion Strategy?
13 May 2013 | 2:33 pmIf you’ve ever taken the time to create a high-quality piece of B2B content, then you know that there’s nothing more frustrating than when it doesn’t get properly promoted. I mean, what’s the point of creating great content that never gets consumed? And yet, effective content promotion seems to be a recurring challenge plaguing many…ᔥ via OpenView Blog
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Content Equals Money
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Pixar’s Most Creative Marketing Yet: Monsters University Trailer Site
17 Jun 2013 | 2:00 pmSummer movie season is well underway, and with it has come the new Pixar film, Monsters University, which was released on June 10. If you haven’t seen Pixar’s Monsters University trailer site that appeared right around college application season, it’s worth a look. Creating Another World Through Marketing This brilliant little piece of marketing nails the atmosphere of the film by simulating a real college website. By exploring the Monsters University trailer website, you can find out more about the “college,” including activities, sports, and even how to apply. Just like with any… -
How to Write a Blog Post (for People Who Hate to Write)
17 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amSome people hate writing. Perhaps you are one of them. If so, the idea of writing a blog post might sound like the most miserable self-promotional task you could undertake on behalf of your small business. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be drudgery. Blogging for business – even if you hate writing or consider yourself to be a terrible writer – isn’t terribly difficult. (What is hard is writing really great content that generates conversions and grows your business substantially… but that’s what a content writing service is for.) Ready to get started? Here’s how anyone… -
Jay-Z and Samsung Partner Up for Exposure
17 Jun 2013 | 6:57 amFiguring out new and creative ways to get brand exposure can be difficult at times. Every brand runs into problems at some point in its marketing development where ideas seem to come slowly, if at all. Other times businesses and agencies have more material than they know what to do with. Samsung and Jay-Z appear to have both agreed on a great idea to boost their brands and their exposure. Exclusive Music Deal News late yesterday broke about a deal between Jay-Z and Samsung to benefit Samsung Galaxy owners. As Catherine Shu writes on TechCrunch, “Samsung is giving away one million copies… -
For Parents And Kids Alike: Movie Marketing for Despicable Me 2
17 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amDespicable Me 2 promises to be one of this summer’s blockbuster hits, and its current advertising campaign will most likely only increase its appeal to parents and kids alike. The Despicable Me franchise has been issuing short, occasion-appropriate clips from the film to advertise its July 3rd release. Among them has been a Mother’s Day clip, and more recently, this spot on how to get rid of summer guests, entitled “Excuses.” How Despicable Me 2 Lures Adults We all know when a guest has overstayed their welcome, for Gru – the evil mastermind turned loving dad of the films – guests… -
Why Sarah Palin Should Be a Content Marketing Role Model
14 Jun 2013 | 1:11 pmAs I was browsing the pages of Google News to stay up-to-date with the latest in entertainment, politics, science, and other trending stories, I was surprised to see numerous headlines about Sarah Palin. Now, this post isn’t meant to be political at all, but it still impresses me that even after 4 years without holding or running for office, Palin is still able to make headlines – even just because of a single tweet or Facebook post. From “death panels” to “blood libel” to her latest tweets on the IRS, I can’t think of any other politician who could make the front page of any…
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Velocity Partners
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Cool shit from The Future of Digital Marketing 2013
6 Jun 2013 | 3:13 pmFODM is a terrific, thought-provoking conference. Here's some of the cool shit I learned by going. -
Salesforce acquires Exact Target: what it means to B2B marketers
4 Jun 2013 | 10:23 amWhat does the latest consolidation in the marketing automation space mean to B2B marketers? A lot as it turns out. -
How to master Content Marketing Metrics in 8 easy reads
3 Jun 2013 | 1:18 amWhy metrics are a critical success factor in content marketing – including 8 really good pieces of content, -
I’ll have what she’s having is not a marketing strategy
29 May 2013 | 3:42 amCopying our peers' tactics is not the way to success; "I'll have what she's having" is best left to lunch decisions -
We’re looking for a writer
28 May 2013 | 12:55 amWriting is at the very heart of Velocity. Now we need a strong B2B copywriter to help us do great things.
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Video Maker Tips
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Small Business Video: 4 Tools To Make Great Videos Within Your Budget (Without Breaking The Bank)
17 Jun 2013 | 10:02 amBudget image by Shutterstock 4 Must-Have Tools To Make Your Small Business Video Looking to produce your own small business video? Smart move. Content rules on the web, whether it’s a promotional video, informational video, explainer video, or a testimonial. But how do you do this without blowing the budget or timeline? These four tools will make the process as quick and painless as possible without breaking the bank. GoAnimate How does the idea of creating visually appealing animations with no prior experience sound? Let your personality shine through in your small business… -
Site Update: New Business Friendly Looks!
13 Jun 2013 | 3:47 pmBusiness Friendly just got a little more casual. GoAnimate proudly presents our newest Business Friendly addition: New looks! Now your character can be a little overweight, look glamourous in pinstripes, rock a mohawk, show off a member’s only jacket, or wear a plaid shirt. Perfect for showing off a wide spectrum of diversity, your real client base, or just every day people. See just a few of the latest updates here: To take advantage of these new, fun assets, log in or sign up at http://goanimate.com/business. Open the Business Friendly Video Maker. Once inside the studio,… -
Case Study: Bond Agency Boosts Website Engagement with 22 GoAnimate Videos
10 Jun 2013 | 2:00 amJW Surety Bonds is America’s top surety bond provider and one of a very few that can approve bonds instantly online, using proprietary software. The bond agency normally ships bonds with 24 hours of payment, and its large bond volume allows it to negotiate the lowest rates with the top carriers in the country. The Challenge: Making a Dry Subject Engaging The surety bond industry overall is lagging in the use of technology, but JW has embraced the Internet to grow over a 10 year span, from a two-person operation to an agency that writes bonds nationwide. Still, the surety bond… -
The People Behind the Product: Meet the GoAnimate Team!
7 Jun 2013 | 2:00 amCartoon Faces, Flesh & Blood Hearts The team of us who bring life to GoAnimate’s creative space sometimes find it a little too easy to get lost behind our animated faces. We love the medium and we love the tools, but we make a point never to forget that everything we do needs to be used and usable by living, breathing, flesh and blood people. There’s no better reminder than to remember that we, too, are such people. (And to allay the suspicion that we’re all just virtual employees created by a Pinky-and-the-Brain-esque madman, intent on using animated video in a sinister and… -
Press And Mentions: Palo Alto Push For Nikola Tesla Statue
30 May 2013 | 12:50 pmImage via San Francisco Chronicle, by Terry Guyer Welcome to our Press And Mentions section, where we’ll show off some of our favorite mentions from around the web that feature GoAnimate for Business and our popular consumer site, GoAnimate.com, out in the wild! In today’s post, we’re featuring something a bit different. Our friends at Northern Imagination put together these animated videos using GoAnimate for Business to help promote a Kickstarter project to bring a statue of Nikola Tesla to the Silicon Valley complete with a free wi-fi signal. Nikola Tesla is an…
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Content Row
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3 Steps to Creating a Google+ Authorship Photo to Enhance Search Results
22 May 2013 | 5:35 amInternet marketing wizards are always looking for a magic bullet (or a whole clip of bullets) that will lead to an increase in free traffic. Most of the low-hanging fruit that Internet marketers have chased over the years, however, have been plucked away by the long, strong arm of Google. Link-farming worked for longer than it should have; meanwhile, some marketers still haven’t gotten the memo that keyword stuffing is also an obsolete tactic. The majority of decent marketers these days know that it’s a combination of killer content, savvy social media, and legitimate… -
Keep Old Content Relevant for New Traffic
11 Feb 2013 | 10:38 amYour content may be old, but it still has something going for it. Organizations often suffer from myopia when it comes to content. They write a piece, publish it, forget about it, and continue onto the next article repeating the same process, all the while forgetting about posts already written. Those posts are sitting there, completed, ready to do their job entertaining and informing your readers. But they are sitting there, forgotten. Think about all that content you have sitting around suffering from this middle child syndrome, jealous that your attention is only on its newest siblings. In… -
Why Infographics Make Great Content [Infographic]
6 Nov 2012 | 7:05 amAn infographic from Neo Mammalian Studios, an infographic creation agency, attempts to explain how visualizations affect that way that we perceive and understand data. The meta-infographic uses research from a variety of sources, including Google Analytics, to show the apparent value of visuals. Neo Mammalian Studios notes that 99 percent of all sensory information is filtered out by the brain almost instantly due to the sheer volume of information that we process every day — about the equivalent of 174 newspapers for a typical Internet user. This means that only 1 percent of… -
Why Great SEO Content Doesn’t Need to Be SEO’d
14 Sep 2012 | 3:01 pmIf you’ve owned or managed a website any time in the last decade, you’re probably already familiar with the basic concepts of search engine optimization. SEO is an established set of techniques that aim to improve your website’s search engine ranking. In the past, a website with highly optimized content could easily rise to the top of Google or Yahoo! by tricking search engine spiders. Some of the most common SEO content techniques included: Keyword Spamming – This is one of the most common SEO content techniques and involves repeating a certain keyword or phrase a… -
Positive Content Has a Better Chance of Going Viral, Study Says
6 Aug 2012 | 6:15 pmStop being such a Debbie Downer if you want your content to go viral. A paper by University of Pennsylvania Wharton School professors Jonah Berger and Katherine L. Milkman indicates that web content is more likely to go viral if it creates a positive response in readers. People share media for a number of reasons, including altruism, a need to appear helpful or knowledgeable, and social transmission. Social transmission essentially encompasses everything that people do to relate with one another, build relationships and ease tension. In a survey cited in the study, nearly 60 percent of…
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The Wikipedia Marketing Blog
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Beware of "Best Practices" for PR on Wikipedia
17 Jun 2013 | 5:10 amIt's human nature for the field of public relations to develop best practices based on what "works." However, what's most effective and what is proper, ethical and legal to do doesn't always go hand-in-hand. Astroturfing review sites works and in some countries the press can be bribed. However, your company may have higher standards of ethical conduct, especially if the legal department has a say. For organizations that make it standard operating procedure to comply with the law, there's a lot of "best practices" on public relations participation on Wikipedia that are actually encouraging… -
Three Principles for Following Social Media Disclosure Laws on Wikipedia
31 May 2013 | 6:52 amThis post was first published by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. Whether you’re reading WOMMA’s Social Media Disclosure Guide, the newly updated .com disclosures guide from the Federal Trade Commission or the FTC’s application of advertising and marketing guidelines to crowd-sourced websites, the message is clear: Readers must know when the source of their information is someone with a material connection to the subject. But many reputable and honorable companies haven’t thought about how this applies to Wikipedia or constructed policies to ensure compliance like they have… -
3 Keys to Successful Content Marketing on Wikipedia
20 May 2013 | 4:25 amThis blog was first published on SocialFresh. Offering content to Wikipedia's editorial community is different than traditional content marketing. The content is rule-bound. The editors are thorough. And we must produce neutral content about the company, rather than a thought-leadership subject. Some companies have such strong opinions about themselves and certain controversies they are involved in, it can be an emotional process to write neutrally on it. Recently I've seen many public relations professionals following the best practices established by Chartered Institute of Public Relations,… -
Five Lessons from British Petroleum's Wikipedia Debacle
24 Mar 2013 | 4:01 pmWikipedia's content on the Prudhoe Bay (depcited above) oil spill was written by British Petroleum This time it's British Petroleum who is at the center of media controversy for their participation on Wikipedia. BP's corporate communications team has been participating on the Talk page of BP-related articles for about a year, but Wikipedia's editors grew uncomfortable when entire rewrites of content written by BP regarding their environmental record were copied and pasted into the article by volunteers. BP followed Wikipedia's policies… -
6 Ways For PR Firms To Ask For A Correction On Wikipedia
18 Mar 2013 | 6:55 amThis post was first published on SocialFresh. Qorvis recently joined the ranks of PR firms like Bell Pottinger, Portland Communications and Finsbury that stand accused of manipulating Wikipedia entries for their clients. Something that stood out from the summary at The Daily Dot was that Qorvis is defending their actions with a familiar tune - accusing Wikipedia of not providing reasonable processes to correct errors and have their clients' reputations treated fairly. That inspired me to write this post on six ways to correct errors, address bias or contest content ethically and safely as a…
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Function Writing Group
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How Content Marketing Will Save The World
4 Jun 2013 | 5:00 amThe future of our planet hangs in the balance, and who would have thought that it’s up to you, the content marketer, to save the world? The future of news will be defined by our ability to inform, educate and communicate. Journalists, photographers and content marketing specialists will guide the population into a brave new world of information through the articles they choose to publish and the opinions for which they choose to advocate. Here’s how the content marketing machine will save our planet. 1. Content Marketing & Embracing Technology Let me qualify this: even though… -
How Shakespeare Promoted Blog Posts (WIthout Irritating the F&#K Out of Everyone)
23 May 2013 | 5:00 amDid you know that the only reason William Shakespeare was more popular than his brother Juan was that he didn’t hammer his plays, poetry and songs down everyone’s throat? It’s true. The lesser-known Juan Shakespeare was actually quite the wordsmith back in the day. Butter-Churn Magazine named him Stratford Upon Avon’s most eligible bachelor in the spring of 34. FIFTEEN-34, that is – which was coincidentally the year the blog post was invented. No one likes self-centred, impossibly unaware bloggers like Juan, especially when they drive their smart-donkeys to… -
Part 2: How Freelance Copywriters Meet, Greet & Monetize in 6 Months
15 May 2013 | 5:00 amThere’s no point in me lying to you at this point, right? Right. Becoming a freelance copywriter is about much more than just making the decision to switch to a freelance lifestyle and reading online resources – one needs friends in order to start getting paid. If I wanted to lie, I’d tell you that once you take a few online courses, say from Hubspot or Copyblogger, that a surging mass of zombie-like clientele will storm the door to your downtown exposed brick-laden shared workspace. This is part 2 of a two-part mini-series. Here’s part 1: How to be a Paid Freelance… -
(Part 1) How to be a Paid Freelance Copywriter in 6 Months
2 May 2013 | 10:30 amGetting paid to be a freelance copywriter is a wonderful gig: you get exclusive access to great parties your own bathroom, no one steals your sandwiches out of the fridge, and best of all, you don’t have to wear pants. Like, ever. This is the first in a two-part mini-series for people who want simple, tangible steps to becoming a paid writer. Alright, honestly, being a freelance copywriter isn’t ALL champagne and silk toilet paper all the time. What it is, however, is a rewarding, creative and interesting job that encourages daily personal development and life-long learning. I… -
How to Write Radical Headlines Without Even Trying
17 Apr 2013 | 1:14 pmIf you’re anything like me, you’ve gone through the five clinical stages of grief when trying to decide on an appropriate headline for an article, blog post or obituary: This is the greatest headline ever! OH GOD CRIPPLING DOUBT This headline accurately and scientifically introduces the subject of my piece. This headline is so boring, no one will read my article, I need to quit writing, pass the ice-cream How do I write a better headline that encourages new and existing traffic to read my post? Look, we all know that headlines are the most important element to getting your posts…
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Business Strategy Innovation
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Free Public Innovation Keynotes in Wyoming
2 Jun 2013 | 10:37 amThis week I will be giving two free innovation keynotes in Wyoming before heading off to Miami to do some client work. Both Wyoming innovation sessions will have free admission and are open to the public. If you live in … Continue reading → -
Now Available in Spanish – Nine Innovation Roles Cards
21 May 2013 | 5:41 pmI am proud to announce the Spanish language design of my Nine Innovation Roles card deck, made possible by the translation efforts of Vanessa López De la O from Mexico. Spanish speakers can read more about the Nine Innovation Roles … Continue reading → -
Partners Wanted – Taking Nine Innovation Roles Global
15 May 2013 | 5:24 pmI was in Boston, MA last week for the Front End of Innovation conference and had the opportunity to train dozens of potential corporate Nine Innovation Roles trainers as part of my quest to set the Nine Innovation Roles free … Continue reading → -
Free Nine Innovation Roles Train the Trainer Session
5 May 2013 | 10:33 amI will be in Boston, MA this week for the Front End of Innovation conference May 6-8, 2013 at the Seaport World Trade Center, joining 650+ innovation managers and thought leaders from around the world who are serious about learning … Continue reading → -
Las Ocho I’s de la Innovación Infinita
4 May 2013 | 6:37 amGracias Vanessa López De la O para su traducción! Algunos autores argumentan que la innovación exitosa es la suma de la idea más la ejecución; otros hablan más de la importancia de la intuición (insight) y su papel en impulsar … Continue reading →
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Content4Demand
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B2B Marketing Content: Not Everyone Finishes What They Start
13 Jun 2013 | 1:59 pmThere’s a fascinating article on Slate.com about how much — or how little — people typically read when they view online content. According to data traffic analysis firm Chartbeat shared with Slate, more than a third of the readers on a typical site won’t scroll down. A majority of visitors drop off during the first half of an article. Relatively few make it all the way to the end: I’m absolutely sure this is all true. It matches my own experience as a reader, and I’m pretty confident it matches your experience, too. So let’s cut to the chase and… -
Forrester: Diversity Is Driving B2B Marketing Tactics
31 May 2013 | 12:27 pmHere are some interesting results from a recent Forrester study of B2B lead origination tactics: There are several ways to slice this data. What interests me, however, is the fact that we’re still seeing growth across a pretty broad range of B2B marketing tactics. In fact, the only tactic that shows a net loss in terms of planned usage is video. (That’s actually a bit surprising, and I would love to know what’s going on there.) If I had to single out a particular tactic, however, it would have to be LinkedIn. It’s got a solid edge over Facebook and Google Plus in terms… -
Multi-Platform Content Marketing: Sometimes It’s Necessary, But Sometimes It’s Not
21 May 2013 | 1:50 pmAn interesting blog post by Joe Pulizzi recently appeared on Business2Community. It summarizes some of the most important lessons he’s learned during a his career as a content marketer. My favorite might be this one:You don’t have to be on every platform to assemble a killer content marketing campaign. In many cases, it’s smart to weave your story onto multiple platforms. It’s entirely possible to have a killer webinar series, amazing blog, outstanding video program, and cutting-edge digital magazine all at the same time. But there is another way. You may decide to focus and… -
For B2B Content, Sometimes Less Can Be More
9 May 2013 | 12:44 pmB2B marketers talk a lot about content creation. A lot of that talk centers around how hard it is to get enough content; we throw around phrases like “feeding the beast” and point to surveys that consistently show how a lack of content is a major headache for marketers. At the SiriusDecisions Summit this morning, we got a case study that took a different, and refreshing, point of view on this topic. Joe Levin, Head of Sales Enablement at CDW, said the company had colossal content challenge on its hands: four content portals, more than 20,000 pieces of content and no unified search… -
B2B Content Sharing: The Surprising Benefits Of A Balanced Attack
26 Apr 2013 | 6:13 amThe results of our 2013 B2B Content Preferences Survey continue to offer up food for thought. There’s a comprehensive summary available at Demand Gen Report, but today I wanted to share some results that didn’t get as much attention when I wrote that DGR feature. Here’s the raw survey data, which I think is descriptive enough to include here: First, let’s set aside the outliers: Podcasts are increasingly rare as B2B content assets, and interactive presentations (such as Brainshark or Slideshare) are an up-and-coming format that is still gaining traction. Next, look at…
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Reputation Capital: Premium Content for B2B Inbound Marketing
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Healthcare IT Marketing: Think Like a Doctor to Get One’s Attention
17 Jun 2013 | 6:00 amThis guest post is by Emily Paulsen, who writes about health and healthcare for publications, healthcare organizations and government agencies. If you’re marketing a healthcare IT product — say an electronic health record system or a mobile health tool — you’re trying to get the attention of physicians. Even if your contact is the practice or office manager, you still have to sell the clinicians on the value of your product — and that’s no easy task. Clinicians are tough customers, and you’ve got some pretty tough competition for their attention— namely, their… -
Content Marketing News Roundup: Facebook Hashtags Edition
14 Jun 2013 | 8:00 amAt long last Facebook enabled hashtag functionality on Wednesday, which of course made Facebook hashtags the big social media, advertising and marketing story of the week. Both haters and lovers of the popular social media topic tagging convention came out to state their opinions and make predictions about what the change will mean for users and marketers. Of course only time will tell how Facebook hashtags will work out, but I gathered a few stories that help explain what the change means to marketers and advertisers and how they should take advantage of all the tagging that’s already… -
Startup Insights: An Interview With Mary Ellen Slayter
13 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amStartups are hot these days and starting a business is an appealing idea to people who are looking for more independence or seeking to escape a difficult job market. But, how do you get a startup off the ground? In a May podcast, InPower Women founder Dana Theus spoke with our own founder, Mary Ellen Slayer, about how she came up with the idea for this business, overcame obstacles and put Reputation Capital on the road to success. I’ve written up the highlights of the startup insights Mary Ellen shared during their conversation. Recognize Opportunities for Innovation The world is… -
5 Tips for Achieving Live Video Success
12 Jun 2013 | 6:15 amThis guest post is by Jennifer Donogh, an owner and president of Ovaleye.tv which offers live, online event production services using Ovaleye’s streaming media engine, to businesses and organizations across the United States. She is also the host of the weekly live show, Young Female Entrepreneurs. Small business owners are adopting live streaming video more and more, both for marketing purposes and in their services. I know: video is already intimidating. But now it’s going to be you, front and center — and live. Scary, right? But the shift to live video is already happening. Case… -
Confused About Using Twitter for Your Small Business?
11 Jun 2013 | 7:00 amIf you’re thinking about using Twitter for your small business, you’ll need to understand how it works, but that’s not easy because Twitter perpetuates a lot of misunderstandings. I suspect that all this confusion about how to use Twitter is the main reason people bail before they really give it a chance to do them some good — which it can, if used correctly. Twitter is a platform for conversation and collaboration. To successfully use Twitter for your small business, you have to introduce yourself to people who matter, and to encourage those kinds of people to…
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Pamorama | Social Media Marketing Blog
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A Beginners Guide to Content Marketing
16 Jun 2013 | 2:24 pmContent marketing has changed the way consumers research and buy your products. Every day, people form impressions of brands from many touch points: Ads, product experiences, tweets, Google, Facebook, blog posts, websites, and conversations with family and friends. Unless they are actively shopping for something, a lot of that information passes them by. But when something triggers their buying impulse, those stored impressions become critical — they are top of mind as consumers look to making purchases. In the traditional sales funnel, consumers begin with a set of potential brands and… -
7 Popular Types of Social Media Fans [Infographic]
9 Jun 2013 | 11:47 amIf you’re using social media to market your company, you know that social media fans are not all alike. Many different types of people follow you on social networks. While every person is different, social media fans and customers can be broken down into roughly 7 categories. Once you understand who these customers are, it’s easier to target them to improve brand awareness, find leads, and drive sales. Here’s a look a who they are, why they’re following your brand on social media, and what to do to get the most out of them. The folks at ReachLocal, a localized-marketing… -
4 Tips for Providing Value to Your Social Media Fans and Leveraging the Network Effect [Infographic]
8 Jun 2013 | 2:57 pmAttract brand ambassadors by building relationships with fans and offering them what they’re looking for. Whether your customer community is large or small, the glue holding it together is devotion to your brand and the products/services you sell. Your social media fans will purchase more from you and are more likely to spread the word about you than customers who haven’t connected with you via social media. What is the network effect? The network effect is a phenomenon through which a product or service becomes more valuable as more people use it, thereby encouraging… -
Social Media is Key to B2B Content Marketing [Report]
1 Jun 2013 | 5:55 pm91% of B2B marketers now use social media as a content marketing tool. B2B marketers are distributing their content on social networks more than ever before. A recent study conducted by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs confirms that content marketing remains a top priority for B2B marketers, with the vast majority leveraging the practice as part of their marketing strategy. But many are uncertain about how to successfully employ the many tactics available to them. Content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is… -
7 Facebook Marketing Case Studies
19 May 2013 | 4:26 pmLearn some inventive ways to integrate Facebook into your social media marketing strategy. Every day, businesses are inspired to bring creative marketing ideas to life on Facebook in ways that have a real impact on their bottom line. Many have discovered how to leverage their Facebook communities to strengthen brand loyalty and communicate directly with customers. As your company invests in the social network for marketing, advertising, and branding, it’s useful to have a few examples of what others have done with the platform. These case studies look at the goals, approaches, and…
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Create Better Content
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Guatemala on a Budget
24 May 2013 | 12:26 pmGuatemala on a Budget (and in a Backpack) from Pete Burr on Vimeo.Earlier this year I was given the opportunity to travel with 15 students and 2 other faculty members on a 12 day trip to Guatemala. For the students the trip is part of a religion elective entitled "The Church in the Modern World." It is offered every summer as an elective to a select group of rising juniors. The trip typically goes to El Salvador but because of a State Department travel warning issued earlier this year we are traveling to Guatemala.So what does all of that have to do with this Blog? One of… -
Why The Magic Lantern Raw Developments Matter...
20 May 2013 | 4:08 pm14-bit Raw Video on my Canon T3iIf you follow a lot of film blogs like I do, chances are you have heard more than enough about what the guys over at Magic Lantern have been able to do with their ever evolving software add-on.Side note - If you have never heard of Magic Lantern go Lifehacker has a thorough article explaining how it can supercharge your Canon DSLR.Just recently the guys over at ML discovered how to shoot Raw video on the Canon 5D Mark III and Canon 5D Mark IIBy keeping the shutter open to constantly capture raw images up to 24 frames per… -
Create Better Content.
17 May 2013 | 11:07 am"Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. now you're a director. Everything after than you're just negotiating your budget and fee." - James CameronWe all have our own personal opinions about James Cameron and his work but you have to appreciate that quote. The more you create the better you will become. I've been toying around with the idea of starting a blog for quite some time. I didn't start initially because I wanted to try something different,…
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thereadywriter.co.uk
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Why I took my business off Facebook
11 Jun 2013 | 5:01 amWhy unpublishing the Ready Writer Facebook page was one of the best decisions we'd ever made. -
Why ‘So what?’ are the two most powerful words in your sales copy
21 May 2013 | 7:13 amFind out the two little words that can transform your sales copy in minutes -
Six FAQs about Author Rank and Authorship
7 May 2013 | 3:13 amExplaining Google Author Rank and Authorship to industry newbies can be a path strewn with confusion. Our quick answers to these six FAQs should provide some clarity about these two developments from Google. -
Preparing your business for Google Authorship and Author Rank
2 Apr 2013 | 3:53 amAuthor Rank – when it is launched – and Authorship offer great opportunities for your business in terms of your search engine rankings and the potentially higher sales that can come with increased visibility -
Google Authorship – what it is and why it can make or break your business website
18 Mar 2013 | 6:00 amGoogle has finally found a way to provide high-quality, authenticated content for their customers. It’s called Authorship, but what does it means for your web business?
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Inbound Marketing Blog
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A 7-Day Plan to Improve Your Twitter Reach
17 Jun 2013 | 5:05 amMake the Most of Your Social Media Strategy Are you unhappy with your number of followers? Do you sometimes feel like you’re Wile E. Coyote, and Twitter is your Road Runner—always one step ahead of you? There is hope. Yes, the Twitterverse can be big and complex. But with the right know-how and a little time spent on planning each day, you can navigate your way through the network and gain more followers in no time. Here’s our 7-day guide for improving your Twitter reach. Day 1: Look for Useful Content If you Tweet it, they will come. People will follow Twitter users who post helpful or… -
4 Ways to Make Sure Your Calls-to-Action Aren’t Utter Fail
16 Jun 2013 | 5:05 amYou Only Get One Shot Your call-to-action is arguably the most important feature on your landing pages and in your marketing emails. The whole point of this button is to pull visitors in, to get them to take the next step in the journey to becoming your customer. If you’re not taking full advantage of this powerful tool, shame on you. But what if you’re really trying? What if you’ve got calls-to-action on every pertinent page and email, but you’re still not getting traction? It’s time to take a look at your strategy and design to make sure you’re not making grave errors that cost… -
3 Reasons to Avoid Ridiculous Marketing Jargon
15 Jun 2013 | 5:05 amAre You Alienating Customers with Your Made-Up Words? Marketing jargon is a part of any marketing professional’s daily life, much to the chagrin of the average consumer. Still, even though most people react to made-up or repurposed words with the following expressions— —marketing professionals insist on throwing around words like low-hanging fruit or buzzworthy or, ewww, viral. Sure, there are some industry-insider words that mean nothing to anyone but the professional using them, and if that marketing professional understands the words coming out of his own mouth, more power to him. -
Faux Pas and Slam Dunks in the Marketing Humor World
14 Jun 2013 | 5:05 amHow to Use Humor in Your Marketing Personalizing your brand is a must. You know this from the reaction you get to your own business’s efforts to reach its customers on a personal level. The same can be said for failing to do so; interactions, conversation and general interest in your brand declines sharply when you fail to engage your followers on social media in ways that resonate, even if it’s something as simple as making them laugh. Humor has long been one of the big guns of marketing and advertising; studies show that humor helps communicate a brand’s regard for its customers’… -
5 Tips to Grow Your Business With Social Proof
13 Jun 2013 | 5:05 amSharing Customer Feedback for Maximum Exposure “Don’t use this company. It sucks.” What would you prefer? Reading that statement from the outset and saving your time and money? Or finding out way too late that a company does indeed suck? This is the value of social proof. It lets people hear voices besides your own talk about the benefits (and sometimes, the disadvantages) of your product or service. Of course, you want people to buy from you, so you want to leverage positive social proof so that customers know your service is excellent. Below are 5 ways to do just that, and some advice…
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Content Warfare Blog
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Transcending the Transaction through Useful Marketing with Jay Baer | #32 Content Warfare Podcast
16 Jun 2013 | 11:10 amJay Baer from Convince and Convert stops by the Content Warfare Podcast this week to discuss his new book Youtility and why the successful maketing of the future will actually be “Useful” to our audience. Useful marketing transcends the transaction giving consumers tools or resources they actually want to use in their everyday lives. I was very excited to have Jay on the show, not just because he was named one of America’s top 3 social media consultants, but because in general his advice kicks ass… If you’re not currently, listen to the Social Pros Podcast and… -
How to Properly Share Content on Google Plus [Video]
14 Jun 2013 | 4:42 amGoogle Plus is a different kind of social media network. In truth, Google Plus isn’t a social media network at all, but rather the “Social Layer” of the Google enterprise. Google Plus is the fabric that binds all Google platforms. It’s our history of authority… …and whether by design or destiny Google Plus has attracted a more sophisticated audience. We can’t share content on Google Plus the same way we do on Twitter or Facebook. We need to give our Google Plus audience a reason to +1, comment, share and ultimately follow our link. This engagement is… -
Where Inspiration DOESN’T Come From (how to invent your own Flux Capacitor)
11 Jun 2013 | 3:36 amAs the story goes, Doctor Emmett Brown invented the flux capacitor from a vision he received in 1955, after slipping off his toilet while hanging a clock and subsequently bumping his head on the sink. This is inspiration to most people. A brief moment in time, an accident, a gift in which we are chosen to receive a great idea. For the flux capacitor is the keystone to time travel, in the Delorian time machine in which the entire Back to the Future series storyline is based. Without the flux capacitor the story never happens. In their world, it would be impossible for Marty and Doc Brown to… -
Adding Social Love to Your Facebook Marketing Strategy with Amy Porterfield | #31 Content Warfare Podcast
9 Jun 2013 | 5:57 amThis week Amy Porterfield joins us to explain how adding a little “Social Love” to our facebook marketing strategy can drastically improve results. The audience we’re trying to reach logs into Facebook to be entertained and educated. That makes relentless self-promotion The Worst facebook marketing strategy for attracting the quality fans we need to grow our business. So how do we attract new fans and make sales using a Facebook marketing strategy that doesn’t interrupt and irritate our audience? Answering this question is the exact reason that Amy stopped by (and… -
The Hero Moment
5 Jun 2013 | 8:08 amAs a child, I thought I would be more today, than I am. more successful… more rich… more famous… more… Growing up I wanted to be an astronomer. I taught myself a bunch of constellations and was addicted to Star Wars and science fiction movies. Maybe that says something about me. I told myself it meant I was imaginative and creative… …but it really meant I was a dreamer and a watcher. Isn’t that what astronomers are? They watch the heavens and attempt to witness origin. I was watching my own life, waiting to see success materialize. I lived through…
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Content Marketing Cardiology
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Customise your Facebook Business Page for lead generation. Here’s how!
13 Jun 2013 | 9:55 pmIf you're new to Facebook Marketing you may not know about Facebook Page tabs, so I thought it would be helpful to go over some of the basics on the blog. -
5 Pinterest Traffic Success Secrets From Pinning Pros
27 May 2013 | 5:18 pmBrands can learn a lot from how individual taste-makers grow and maintain their followers. Here are five success tips from the Pinterest pros. -
5 good reasons to set a hashtag for your business event
19 May 2013 | 3:16 amThe month of May is getting away from me. It doesn’t help that I’ve had back to back conferences in the past week and am in the midst of organising my 3rd annual mums’ retreat for next weekend. So, today is just a quick post about the importance of setting a hashtag for your next [...] -
Women entrepreneurs: Why you’re not the problem in your business
6 May 2013 | 7:33 pmIn my work as a content marketing mentor, I've seen it's not uncommon for women entrepreneurs to doubt themselves, especially when things don't seem to be clicking for them. -
Traditional marketing is dead and inbound marketing buried it!
29 Apr 2013 | 6:37 pmContent marketing and inbound marketing are relatively new terms in the marketing sphere but if you’ve been burying your head in the sand, it’s time to pull it out! When I was at uni (many, many years ago) and studying communication, the interruptive marketing model was drummed into us. Here’s what we were taught: What’s [...]
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Content and Curation Marketing Software and Services
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B2B Content Marketing Academy Report: 71% of B2B Prospects Find Statistics Unmoving
28 May 2013 | 6:20 pmStatistics and Content Marketing In a new report from the B2B Content Academy, 71% of B2B decision-makers claimed articles or sales presentations littered with statistics did not provide true motivation or assistance in their buying decisions, although 82% noted bottom-line results and ROI were important factors to them in the decision-making process. Alarming stats, indeed. But here’s the most interesting part about those numbers, as well as the B2B Content Academy itself: they don’t exist. That’s right, I made them up. Did I create these numbers and fake organization as a gimmick to… -
Content Marketing Infographic [Infograph]
23 May 2013 | 10:03 amA very comprehensive Content Marketing infographic by Demand Metric. This is on of the very few infographics that actually gets the whole process of content marketing. It tells you why you need content marketing (lead generation and cost savings long-term) and basic tactics on the content marketing process. A Guide to Marketing Genius: Content Marketing Powered by Demand Metric This eBook is designed for B2B content marketers who want to use curation as part of their strategy. We will try to be practical, helping you make the best strategic and operational choices. The post Content… -
The State of B2B Content Marketing [Infograph]
21 May 2013 | 11:16 amThe infographic below from Uberflip focuses on the B2B Content Marketing space. While the lead 91% number is often quoted, I believe if narrowed down to those who are “actively” performing content marketing as a strategy, the number would be much less. In the small to mid-sized enterprise space where we work, this number is certainly smaller. While most companies are testing or trying to use content in their marketing mix the major problems we see are a lack of strategy, low value content and consistent execution. One company we recently talked with paid a freelancer, overseas, to… -
Is Your Enthusiasm Killing Your B2B Sale?
16 May 2013 | 3:36 pmContent marketing centers around building trust with your audience (leads, influencers, prospects, and customers). Companies engage without hard selling as a means to drive profitable customer action. Their tools are content pieces that answer questions and educate. The medium is the internet, be it search, social media, or email. From a B2B standpoint, content marketing often concerns itself with generating leads that are sales ready or sales qualified. These leads are then handed off to a sales representative. From a business perspective, content marketing efforts are for naught if trust… -
B2B Marketing: 9 Ideas for Solving Your Biggest Content Challenges
15 May 2013 | 8:19 amThis blog post by Michele Linn from Content Marketing Institute tries to answer a question by our own Andy Detweiler, and thus I want to one of the first to curate it. She mentions “curtation” under the quantity answer, #2. I would argue that curation can and should be used under #1, engagement and #6 variety. After-all one of the fundamental tenants of content marketing is to engages with your customers and prospect without hard selling to drive profitable customer action. One great way to engage leads is to share with them curated content though social channels, an email…
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B2B Inbound Blog
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A Guide for Optimizing Your LinkedIn Company Page
12 Jun 2013 | 10:29 amAfter reading Viveka von Rosen's excellent book, LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day, and discussing how to make LinkedIn work better for you on my podcast with her, I decided to spruce up my LinkedIn Company Page. I have a ways to go, but focusing on the Home tab which included making and uploading a banner image was a good start. The other major feature to update and optimize for me was the Company Description (see example below). Here I share with you the updated information on such things as image sizes, character limits and thoughts gleaned from Viveka on how to best optimize these… -
The Rise of Social Business and Lovable Cultures
28 May 2013 | 6:55 amA note about this post: This is a companion article to two podcast interviews I conducted. One with Amber Naslund of SideraWorks on the topic of social business, the other with Katie Burke of HubSpot on lovable marketing and culture. Thanks to both Amber and Katie for the thoughts shared and actions taken to move these important concepts forward in practical ways! I am experimenting with expanding and cross-pollinating coverage of topics between the mediums of podcasting and blogging. If you've been reading this blog, thank you! You may also find the B2B Inbound Expert Interviews Podcast of… -
How to Make a Podcast More Visible in iTunes
12 May 2013 | 9:20 amBloggers love it when you comment on their articles, link to and share them with their friends and followers. You can do the same for podcasters - and they too will love you for it. Why? Leaving comments, sharing and linking to blog content helps the blogger in many ways. Most importantly, these activities foster engagement and helps the blog and blogger to grow. I'm not just talking about growing one's audience and influence, but it helps the blogger develop writing chops. It informs and helps to hone one's craft, voice and message. Advantage Podcasters Podcasters can have all that,… -
Clash with Conflict to Create More Engaging Content
1 May 2013 | 9:07 amSometimes, even well-written headlines, web copy, landing pages and blog posts fail to engage and move people to take action. By take action, I mean to sign-up to an email list, download a white paper, buy something or just make a tiny shift in consideration of an idea or different course of action. This is, after all, the goal of content marketing - to persuade and trigger action. This is what the Content Marketing Institute clearly indicated in the article What is Content Marketing?: "Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to… -
Doing Our Work in the Face of Tragedy
16 Apr 2013 | 12:17 pmIt is with the deepest of sympathy and love for Boston and all those touched by this tragedy that I offer these inadequate, yet heartfelt words. Yesterday I was gripped with shock and sadness over the terrible tragedy at the finish line of the 117th Boston Marathon. I was deep in work when, for some reason, I happened to check Twitter and saw a series of tweets about what had just occurred. Desperate to receive and share information, I flipped on the TV to the news and network channels, monitored Twitter, Facebook and texted my wife. I have many friends, former colleagues/co-workers, business…
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Up All Night Creative
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We’re Hiring! Freelance Journalists With Great Interviewing Skills Wanted
16 Jun 2013 | 8:40 amUp All Night TeamUp All Night Creative is looking for writers with interviewing skills and an interest in customer experience and business intelligence.The post We’re Hiring! Freelance Journalists With Great Interviewing Skills Wanted appeared first on Up All Night Creative. -
Why Empathy is Good Business
11 Apr 2013 | 4:59 pmMegan KaperaEmpathy and business aren’t often used in the same sentence. But what most companies don't realize is how powerful empathy can be. In fact, a marriage between empathy and business has the potential to yield impressive results.The post Why Empathy is Good Business appeared first on Up All Night Creative. -
Embarrassing Writing Habits: Why I Have A “Writing Outfit”
26 Mar 2013 | 11:28 amCortney PhillipsCapote wrote lying down. Cheever wrote in his underwear. Once upon a time, I wrote in a blue fleece jumpsuit from Forever Lazy. Why do writers have embarrassing habits, and how do we get them?The post Embarrassing Writing Habits: Why I Have A “Writing Outfit” appeared first on Up All Night Creative. -
2013 Survey: CMOs Stumped by Social Media Measurement and Integration
4 Mar 2013 | 2:35 pmStephanie KaperaDigital media spend is on the rise, but marketing executives are struggling with basic questions like how to measure social media activity and how to organize content marketing workflows. I've got some suggestions and examples from brands like American Express and companies in the real estate sector. Read on to find out more.The post 2013 Survey: CMOs Stumped by Social Media Measurement and Integration appeared first on Up All Night Creative. -
Our Go-To Sources for Marketing Wisdom
26 Feb 2013 | 9:46 amStephanie KaperaIf you've had it with the "5 Ways to Use Twitter to Engage Customers" types of posts, we've got your back. This is our handpicked list of the "best of the best" marketing blogs, organized into a Google Reader bundle so you can click one button to subscribe to them all. There might be some you know, but we think we've also uncovered some diamonds in the rough you're not reading yet. The post Our Go-To Sources for Marketing Wisdom appeared first on Up All Night Creative.
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Copy Points
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The Power of Control
13 Jun 2013 | 4:52 pmPart 7 of a 7-part seriesControl is another powerfully persuasive word you should use when pitching customers, says Kevin Hogan, author of The Science of InfluencePeople desperately need to feel they're in charge of situations, able to shape outcomes, and prepared to counter threats.So let customers know they're in control. They'll listen to you. -
The Power of Your Customer's Name
11 Jun 2013 | 3:20 amPart 6 of a 7-part seriesYour customer's name is a powerful persuader, says Kevin Hogan, author of The Science of InfluenceInserting it into a verbal or written request can increase your chances of getting compliance.You instantly win favor, because you're honoring your customer's individuality.But exercise caution, or you'll creep her out.Don't wear out your customer's name. Excess will arouse suspicion. Insert her name only where it's natural to do so, such as the opening and close of your request.And be sure to pronounce or spell the name correctly. A… -
The Power of Thanks
7 Jun 2013 | 1:54 pmPart 5 of a 7-part seriesKevin Hogan, author of The Science of Influence, says the fourth "magic word" is pleaseSo it shouldn't surprise you the fifth stealthy persuader is, you guessed it, thanksThanks is a word we often forget to include in emails, posts, ads and verbal requests.But it's irresistible, because it says you're grateful for the customer's consideration.So use it more often.Thanks! -
The Power of Please
5 Jun 2013 | 3:48 amPart 4 of a 7-part seriesWe're taught as children to "Say the magic word" for good reason.Please is indeed magical, despite the fact we're all aware that its express purpose is to persuade, according to Kevin Hogan, author of The Science of Influence.Including the word in emails, posts, ads and verbal requests is guaranteed to boost their persuasiveness.So please do it. -
The Power of Imagine
4 Jun 2013 | 3:42 amPart 3 of a 7-part seriesImagine works as a persuader because it's one of the few requests we don't automatically resist.That's why Kevin Hogan, author of The Science of Influence, says it's one of seven "magic words" guaranteed to make you more persuasive.By asking your customer simply to imagine she's using your product, you're asking so little she's bound to comply with your request.
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blog.colosimarketing.com
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Lock in Attraction by Converting Website Visitors
6 Jun 2013 | 11:45 amWhen it comes to nurturing relationships with website visitors, you need to get beyond the initial attraction and impress audiences with content that keeps their interest. The next step is to convert visitors into leads for business development by gathering their contact information. Contact information is essential to continuing engagement. The question is…“how will you get visitors to voluntarily provide their contact information?" The answer to this question is that you need to give them something in return in the form of content. Content can be in the form of… -
Methods of Attraction in the Game of Inbound Marketing
23 May 2013 | 1:46 pmWhile the rules of attraction for the human species are not clearly understood, the rules of attraction in the game of inbound marketing are pretty clear-cut. The scientific rules have already emerged. Inbound marketing works on a conscious level to motivate complete strangers to take action for reasons that are tucked inside your firm’s content. Think back to when your long-term client relationships began with a spark. That spark is that initial message or action that caught their attention. What is that spark? What caught your client’s eye? It may not… -
Inbound Marketing Workflow for Professional Services Firms
16 May 2013 | 2:44 pmInbound marketing aims to create content people love. What does that mean? Create content people love? To understand this concept, begin by referring to the inbound marketing workflow provided below. This workflow aims to provide insight as to how to apply resources to put these methods into practice. It is also a tool for making greater strides in nurturing the relationships in a manner that is in alignment with meeting a firm’s business goals. The inbound marketing lifecycle stages include: (1) attract visitors, (2) convert leads, (3) close clients and, then (4) delight… -
Illustrate Ideas and Showcase Visual Content on Pinterest
26 Apr 2013 | 9:29 amWhen it comes to social media channels, Pinterest tops the chart for using visual content as an inbound marketing tool. Visual content in the form of an image or video can communicate a qualitative or quantitative viewpoint. They can show a vision or assist audiences with visualizing how to execute a plan. A series of images or a video can also show change. Combining this social media channel with a solid inbound marketing strategy, will help your audiences see how your firm can use pictures to illustrate ideas and provide solutions. Try telling a story about your firm by… -
Deliver the Magic of Digital Storytelling to Your Audiences
11 Apr 2013 | 10:40 amAs a professional services marketer, you are tirelessly looking for new ways to engage your audiences. It can get discouraging to perform traditional marketing methods and not know if you are really making a connection. You attend professional seminars and lectures that cover important points to consider. However, you can’t seem to find the right ingredient that allows you to bridge the gap from concept to emotional connection with your audiences. Along with many other marketing professionals, you’ve known your firm’s story for a long time. The story is part of the…
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Insights
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Mobile Usability: Tips for Creating Great User Experiences
10 Jun 2013 | 12:15 pmToday, few of us have only one screen in our lives. And the number only keeps growing. Between tablets, smartphones, laptops, and the like, we access information via applications or websites from a variety of screens, on devices with a range of capabilities. What does this constant interaction with our inanimate friends mean? Businesses need to focus on creating positive user experiences. They need to develop applications and websites that are quick to load and easy to use. Nothing frustrates a user more than slow loading information and confusing… -
Marketing Automation Saves Time and Money for AEC Firms
5 Jun 2013 | 6:30 amYou plan, develop and track your projects - why not do the same for your marketing? These days, marketing automation seems to be the most popular kid on the block. And for good reason. It saves tons of time and can do wonders for your bottom line. It is a solution to the time constraints faced by a variety of marketers and companies, and offers particular benefits for AEC firms. As a professional in the AEC industry, most of your time is likely taken up with proposal writing, project management, office management and generally making sure office processes run… -
Introduction to Workflow Mapping
3 Jun 2013 | 10:08 amWorkflows allow you to create a customized marketing plan by automating the steps in your lead nurturing process. Types of emails, when communication is sent, at what time of day, lead status updates, and more can be automated to ensure that you are communicating with your leads in a way that effectively moves them down the sales funnel, without annoying them with too many emails or irrelevant information. So, how exactly do you map workflows anyway? HubSpot Workflows is a fantastic tool to automate your workflows, so we’ll use it as a reference to explore the possibilities in… -
How Buyer Personas Are Key to Enterprise Inbound Marketing
29 May 2013 | 6:38 amWe all know that customers can’t buy things they don’t know exist. Identifying and reaching them is crucial to the success of any business. With this in mind, defining buyer personas is the foundation for your enterprise inbound marketing strategy, and is crucial for creating and disseminating content that will appeal to and reach your target audience. Let’s look at out how to create your buyer personas and consider the people in and outside your organization that shape your content development process. Who is Your Customer? Who are your customers? If you’re unsure of the… -
Email Marketing: Converting Offline Leads to Online Leads
27 May 2013 | 8:08 amEmail marketing is a cost-effective way to reach your leads and customers. Reduce your printing costs, save time, and reach your leads in a timely manner. In the digital age full of smart phone coupon apps, digital customer loyalty programs and even paying for products in brick and mortar stores with your smart phone, email marketing is an easy introduction into reaching todays consumer. It’s not hard to see how your business can benefit from email marketing – the hard part is perhaps getting started. How do you take the leads and customers you have and turn them into an email list? Below…
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Yaagneshwaran on Business!!
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Is your marketing Taken Already???
9 Jun 2013 | 1:06 amNo matter if you’re marketing a self-published or trade-published book, you as an author are responsible for your own marketing. There could be no better marketer than you as an author. The good news is that now is a much better time than ever for authors with the advent of social media and especially people vlogging(Video blogging)on Youtube!! Traditional marketing and advertising has largely become an ineffective waste of money and free internet marketing has allowed for exposure beyond any author’s wildest dreams. 3 KEY POINTS: 1. Define your target reader audience clearly- A clear… -
LivingSocial®- What went wrong?
2 May 2013 | 11:30 pmLivingSocial®, the daily deals site. What went wrong? The hackers gained access to customer data on their servers including emails and encrypted passwords. Although the company feels the passwords are encrypted and it would be difficult to decode them, more than 50 million of their users have been asked to reset their passwords. Now, does encryption save you? Encryption is all about transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge. So, if a third-party possess the knowledge to decrypt it, your information is safe no more!
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Convert With Content
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How To Motivate Yourself To Blog & Where To Find Inspiration
17 Jun 2013 | 5:30 amBlogging is one of the most important things you can do for your business. Of course, you have to have a website too, but the blog—the blog is gold. Websites serve as placeholders for people to find you and contact you. Blogs serve as lead generators. And as a small, medium, or large sized business, leads are something you need. Why Blogging Works Jason Clegg, our CEO, wrote a fabulous article about why blogging is the new SEO. A well-written and regularly updated blog will help get you to the top of the search engines naturally and organically. The main reason is that,… -
Facebook Hashtags And What It Means For Your Business
14 Jun 2013 | 10:12 amFacebook just launched hashtags. With the success of hashtags on platforms like Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram, this seems to be a logical move for Facebook. They only just launched today, so we'll see how it plays out, however, from a marketing standpoint, this is good news. What's A Hashtag? In its most simple terms, a "hashtag" is a way to categorize Tweets, photos, and now Facebook statuses by keywords. Hashtags make searching the social web much easier, because you can see posts by people you wouldn't have known existed otherwise. By connecting with people who use the hashtags… -
Socially Stephanie - Answering Your Social Media Questions
7 Jun 2013 | 9:18 amWe have great news, our VP of Social Media, Stephanie Frasco is now a weekly columnist over at Social Media Today. Make sure you follow Socially Stephanie every Friday as she answers your most pending social media questions. As a recap, here's what you might have missed. Socially Stephanie: Social Strategy for Wedding Photographers Socially Stephanie: Time Management Socially Stephanie: Social Media Outreach & Networking Don't forget to leave your questions for Stephanie here as well. ConvertWithContent is your source for social media and content marketing information, tips and… -
Content Curation - Overview
14 May 2013 | 4:18 pmAnalytics are like a drug to me. I am addicted. Okay, I guess I can say that about LinkedIn too. But in all honesty, not a day goes by where I'm not logging into our statistics to see where our traffic comes from. More often than not, I'm seeing traffic coming from specific content related sites. It is partly an effort of our own blog promotion and partly a reaction to content curators out there who are sharing our content. This makes a blogger very happy! In this article, we'll get down to business about how you can curate content for branding yourself and your business as an expert in your… -
BundlePost - A Social Media Streamlining Tool
13 May 2013 | 3:16 pmIf you are anything like me, your morning might look like this. 6AM the alarm is buzzing. Stephanie rolls over in bed and places her arms far above her head, extending into a deep stretch. One turn to the left in a fake-stretching move and bam, cell phone is in hand. A click to my email application to give it enough time to load while I head on over to my Twitter app. Check the replies and do a little hashtag search. Respond if needed. From there it's off to Facebook, mentally taking notes of anything I might need to address. Any news? Anything that needs immediate response? Okay, I'm done.
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scribewise.com
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Content Strategy At The Speed Of News
17 Jun 2013 | 4:21 amA big question that many brands ask is what’s the right amount of content? And almost invariably, their position is we don’t want to do too much. People don’t want to hear from us, they say. Our industry is boring, they say. Quite frankly, that is antiquated thinking. Trust me – there are people in your industry, i.e. your prospects, that are searching online right now for information about your business. In this information age we crave the latest and greatest information. Consider this – the Wall Street Journal publishes several hundred articles every day. Huffington Post… -
Hashtag: #loveFacebook
13 Jun 2013 | 7:44 amThey got their start in one of the nerdiest (and now quite dusty) corners of the internet. Hashtags made the news this week when Facebook announced that it’s adding functionality to the pound key. It’s big. Just check CNN, the New York Times, and Aljazeera. Sure, people have been using hashtags on Facebook for a long time, but the new development is that Facebook hashtags will now be clickable and indexable like they are on other social sites like Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Vine. The origin of hashtags can be traced back to IRC (internet relay chat) channels, one of the earliest… -
Has Your Brand Crisis Gone Viral? Follow Fathead's Example
11 Jun 2013 | 8:28 amLike a jaw-dropping episode of Game of Thrones, a PR crisis can gain attention and evoke all kinds of responses in a matter of seconds. In most cases, you just can’t make this stuff up; and I guiltily can’t get enough. What did a brand do wrong? How is it going to handle it? What crazy B.S. or brilliant apologies are being offered now? But since we all love a happy ending, it’s encouraging to see a brand successfully manage its reputation in the face a potentially detrimental PR crisis. While we recently looked at a company who did it completely wrong, we can now take a look at one who… -
5 Ways To Jumpstart Your Stale Corporate Blog
10 Jun 2013 | 4:15 amIf it’s been five weeks since your company updated its blog, you have a couple of choices. You can shake your head embarrassingly, roll your eyes and commiserate with colleagues about how “the company doesn’t get it.” You can take down the blog because you realize it looks ridiculous to have a blog that is updated so infrequently. Or you can try to fix the problem. A blog that goes weeks and weeks without being updated is an embarrassment. It demonstrates to the outside world that you really don’t have your act together. So, yeah, that’s bad. Here are five ways to jumpstart the… -
Influencer Marketing: Content Marketing on Steroids
6 Jun 2013 | 10:20 amContent is only as good as the audience it reaches. We talk a lot about creating good, trustworthy, credible content, but if no one ever reads what you’ve crafted, it’s a total waste of time. In a complete content strategy, the work has only begun once you’ve published content online. The next step is to identify influencers across platforms who will serve as network extenders. Word of mouth is one of the most effective ways to spread marketing messages. Time was, getting media placement was just about the only way to get your message across. While editorial is still a highly effective…
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Social Media Explorer
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Rebooting With Mitch Joel
17 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amThere are few authors I’d recommend buying their books based solely on who they are and what they know. But Mitch Joel is one of them. With his first book, Six Pixels of Separation (Business Plus, 2010) he solidified his reputation as one of the leading minds in digital marketing. His new book, CTR ALT DEL: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends On It (XXXX, 2013) Joel is at it again, telling us what we need to know to be successful tomorrow, not just today. The book goes beyond “be social” and “think mobile first” and makes the media… -
5 Key Elements of Viral Content [Infographic]
14 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amThe goal of every content marketer is to have his/her information shared across digital channels by their audiences. This is often easier said than done. What factors contribute to people sharing the content they consume online? In researching the content for this infographic I came across a post in my Delicious archive that helps answer this question. Leo Widrich over on the Buffer Blog wrote a great post about what makes content spread. In it, he analyzes some of the elements that helped one particular blog post get over half a million likes. He also references an interesting research paper… -
The Social Media Tortoise and the Hare – Part 1
13 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amThe concept of social listening is not a revelation, but merely a fait accompli. If you are able to push information somewhere, someone will eventually want to measure its effectiveness. The business world’s bend towards the painful statement (at least to me), “Can you show me the ROI?” is as inevitable a question as the sun rising. And while this type of thinking is often the death of new ideas (because sometime you just can’t see the ROI when culture is involved), I have to admit its importance to bringing people along in the change game. So what is this series all about? I… -
Show, Don’t Tell: 5 Lessons In Communication
12 Jun 2013 | 3:00 amI recently attended a conference dedicated to creativity and commerce called C2-MTL. The paradox of the event is that you can’t teach people to be creative with traditional teaching methods. Yet I walked away awash in ideas. How did this happen? How can you teach someone something that isn’t teachable The conference played by the first rule of communication: “show, don’t tell.” Show, don’t tell is about conveying a message so that the lessons learned are personalized, rather than a list of laws. That’s a tall order. One that we, as marketers need to take to heart. Here are 5… -
West, Texas – #GivingTuesday
11 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amWe human beings are pretty amazing. We love “new” and “sensational.” And we love to help. In the USA, that pursuit leads to raising over $39 million for the victims of the bombing at the Boston Marathon and millions more for the horrific disasters caused by the tornadoes in Oklahoma and elsewhere. But it also means that we often “miss” disasters once the news cycle rolls on. Disasters like the one in West, a town in Texas. On April 17, a fertilizer plant explosion damaged a 37-block area of the town, leaving 15 dead, over 200 injured, and destroying…
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CopyPressed
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Fresh Pressed: 6/17/2013
17 Jun 2013 | 12:00 pmToday’s Category: Content Creation Alternative Types Of Content That Will Increase Organic Traffic Content, content, content – this is all I have been hearing about in the past few years. The problem is that the only type of content that people seem to be perpetuating is written one. Unfortunately, although written content is the most wide-spread traffic building strategy at the moment, it is also poorly done. It […] The WordPress.com Dashboard Gets a Beautiful Makeover Each day, you blog, you create, and you make things with your WordPress.com site. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the… -
Types of Spammers that Can Ruin Your Marketing Campaign
17 Jun 2013 | 11:00 amWith the creation and increasing popularity of social networking sites, a new monster has reared its ugly head. Well, I guess “new” isn’t the right way to describe it; let’s say an old monster has found a new way to cause new trouble. Recently, email spam has become highly regulated to the point where a whopping 95% of spam emails are either rejected or thrown into a spam folder. Since the crackdown on email spammers, a new platform has arisen: social networking sites. You work hard to create your content and lay out a strategic plan for when and how to share it on social sites,… -
Could Facebook Bring Video to Instagram?
17 Jun 2013 | 9:30 amNow that Facebook has incorporated hashtags, the rumor mill has moved on and is buzzing about something else. Everyone is speculating about the press event that Facebook is holding this Thursday, with the top contenders betting on Instagram adding video. A small team has been working on a big idea. Join us for coffee and learn about a new product. TechCrunch was reportedly tipped off by an anonymous source about the social network’s incorporation of video and believes that this is Facebook’s attempt to draw users away from Vine. Last December, Instagram broke up with Twitter and stopped… -
4 Characteristics of Viral Videos & Brands that Use Them
17 Jun 2013 | 7:30 amSome of the most unlikely videos go viral because they’re just great videos. You never know when someone will capture that unbelievable, candid moment that captivates the world and sends the subject into the spotlight. Companies and brands are spending big bucks these days to try to create that type of moment and ride the wave to viral video glory. Here are four characteristics key to a video’s success that some brands are really getting right. 1. Captivating Personalities It’s essential that the subjects of a viral video have that special something that draws the viewer into the… -
Fresh Pressed: 6/14/2013
14 Jun 2013 | 12:00 pmToday’s Category: Miscellaneous Black Eyes and Bruises: How to Finish a Blog Post That’s Fighting You Most of the time, blog posts just kind of flow from my fingers as I type. I might do a bit of an outline before I start, but I can finish the first draft of most posts in under an hour (and sometimes in as little as 10-15 minutes). But every so often, a […] How We Got to the Relationship Era Culture is the “stories we tell ourselves about ourselves,” wrote Clifford Geertz in 1973. What the virtuoso anthropologist meant: stories reveal our social reality as much as they shape them.
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Content Marketing Experience
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Prediction: brands will become audiences instead of publishers
15 Jun 2013 | 12:05 amToday, content marketing is strongly connected with social media. The significantly grown attention for content marketing and the “brands as publishers” view is related with a maturation of social media marketing and even of social business (that is part of digital business). However, content marketing and social are also connected in a way your business [...]The post Prediction: brands will become audiences instead of publishers appeared first on Content Marketing Experience. -
Industry news/analysis: Cision launches content marketing software
14 Jun 2013 | 6:44 amCision, mainly known in the PR, media and communications industry enters the content marketing software market. The company already offered solutions for PR professionals, including CRM tools for PR management, influencer lists, editorial calendars (media outreach), all-round media monitoring (including social and online) and media analysis tools. As content marketing is the hot topic among [...]The post Industry news/analysis: Cision launches content marketing software appeared first on Content Marketing Experience. -
Content and conversion: 8 recurring landing page mistakes to avoid
8 Jun 2013 | 12:25 am’8 landing page bloopers’ is a paper/presentation by landing page specialist Ion Interactive (see below), outlining some of the most common and ignored mistakes made with landing pages. In the end, many content marketing goals are about conversion and include landing pages. We covered the paper before somewhere else and originally it contained 7 landing [...]The post Content and conversion: 8 recurring landing page mistakes to avoid appeared first on Content Marketing Experience. -
Consolidation in the marketing automation space: what about content?
7 Jun 2013 | 4:05 amThe consolidation in the marketing automation industry keeps shaking up the market. After last year’s series of acquisitions, the latest move is Salesforce.com’s pending acquisition of B2C marketing automation vendor ExactTarget, and at the same time of B2B marketing automation vendor Pardot, acquired in 2012 by ExactTarget. It’s clear Salesforce.com and others are going for [...]The post Consolidation in the marketing automation space: what about content? appeared first on Content Marketing Experience. -
Awesome content marketing lessons from Gary Vaynerchuck
6 Jun 2013 | 7:27 amGary Vaynerchuck is a famous self-made marketing expert and entrepreneur. Forbes.com, the go-to information source for the world’s best business leaders, broke news on the awesome new social media strategy of Mr. Vaynerchuck. And, guess what: it’s a social content strategy. But there are more sources I gathered for you to learn some content marketing [...]The post Awesome content marketing lessons from Gary Vaynerchuck appeared first on Content Marketing Experience.
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Limor's Storytelling Agora
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Storytelling in an open space
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They are looking at you
17 Jun 2013 | 7:51 pm -
My author link
17 Jun 2013 | 7:50 pmLimor Shiponi לימור שיפוני The Story Telling Company Inc מספרת סיפורים בכל מדיום – עין בעין, בכתיבה, מדיות דיגיטאליות, באזזים שיווקיים ובכל דרך בה יכול סיפור לצאת החוצה ולהגיע אל מי שצריך ורוצה לשמוע אותו. מנחה סדנאות במדיה חברתית לאנשי … Continue reading → -
Storytelling can’t be a buzzword!
6 Jun 2013 | 4:22 amBuzzword – a combination of ‘verbing’ a noun to make it look elegant, fresh and dynamic and an attempt to re-brand and hence own, something that has been out there for ages. As discussed on this blog before, storytelling is … Continue reading → -
I repeat: content marketing isn’t storytelling
3 Jun 2013 | 11:36 amThe other day I met a guy who ‘does’ content marketing. When he heard I’m a storyteller he looked at me as if he found his long-lost sister and cheered, “we do the same thing!”. A little sorry for ruining … Continue reading →
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The Content Company
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Content Marketing Sweetens the Mix [Infographic]
12 Jun 2013 | 10:19 pmHow popular has branded content marketing become this year? In a recent article, Direct Marketing News reported that 66% of brands and 65% of agencies consider branded content marketing to be very important or most important to their overall marketing efforts. According to the following infographic, 70% of brands and 77% of agencies have used […] -
Content & Story Telling – The Pixar way?
23 Apr 2013 | 10:13 pmCan you think of all the Pixar movies you have watched or seen the trailers of? Now when I think back I find that there is not a single one where I thought oh crap no way am I seeing this. What I realised is that Pixar movies may be super blockbusters or mediocre but […] -
A Pint of Guiness & The Content Company
19 Apr 2013 | 1:56 amSo what is The Content Company all about? We figured lets get our colleagues to tell all about why they love working here and what they love about the people they work with. You’ll also get a glimpse of what each one of us will be bringing to the table at TCC. This month we […] -
Tête à Tête with ‘MAD’ about Comics Abhijeet
17 Apr 2013 | 1:45 amBeing a Comic artist is a really tough job in India and there are many talented artists and it’s a really competitive business. In the coming months we will be interviewing some talented comic artists across the Indian Landscape to give you their perspective on the Comic Industry here! Abhijeet Kini is a popular Mumbai-based illustrator who […] -
Understanding Cross-Platform Consumer Behaviour
12 Apr 2013 | 2:04 amFrom smartphones and tablets to laptops and television, 90% of all media interactions today are screen-based. We took a closer look and discovered that there are two distinct ways people move among screens to get stuff done: simultaneously and sequentially. This study shows how these two modes of interaction trigger specific behaviours such as online […]
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Content Marketing Blog
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Lessons Businesses Can Learn From McDonald’s Recipe of Brand Transparency
12 Jun 2013 | 5:30 amA recent unconventional Q&A session at the McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting showed that even some of the youngest consumers are concerned about brand transparency. After 9-year-old Hannah Robinson addressed the CEO of McDonald’s Corp., Don Thompson, asking, "Mr. Thompson, don't you want kids to be healthy so they can live a long and happy life?" Thompson responded by talking about his children and their experiences eating McDonalds, according to an ABC news article. In this case, he chose to express appreciation for her interest in fruits and vegetables, adding that he also likes… -
Did the Sun-Times Jeopardize Journalism by Trading Photographers for iPhones?
7 Jun 2013 | 5:30 amOne of the most recognized newspapers in the country made a major move last week. The Chicago Sun-Times laid off its entire photography department, affecting 28 employees. Every single photojournalist, including Pulitzer Prize winners, was shown the door. Their replacements will be freelancers and reporters armed with iPhones. The Sun-Times released this statement: "The Sun-Times business is changing rapidly and our audiences are consistently seeking more video content with their news. We have made great progress in meeting this demand and are focused on bolstering our reporting capabilities… -
Cheerios Faces a Battle Against Bigotry in Social Media Marketing
5 Jun 2013 | 7:22 amNegative reviews and comments can happen to the best of companies in social media, even family-friendly Cheerios. It’s how you handle them – authentically and professionally - that can actually put you back on top. Cheerios recently released a sweet commercial called “Just Checking” about a little girl trying to keep her dad’s heart healthy (by dousing him) with the cereal. The little girl is bi-racial, as her Caucasian mom and African-American dad are in in the spot. Cheerios posted the ad to YouTube, as it does all of its commercials. But, after a surprising bombardment of racial… -
Top Content Marketing Mistakes Many Businesses Make
21 May 2013 | 5:30 amMany brands are finally having an “a-ha” moment when it comes to content marketing. Although we’re making great strides in changing mindsets from traditional old-school marketing, there are still many mistakes being made by big and small companies alike. Here are the top content marketing missteps that are made most often. Throwing it out there to see if it sticks. Launching new content with no plan or clear direction is a waste of time and energy. Creating a content strategy with objectives and measurable results is essential. Putting too many chefs in the content kitchen. -
How to Avoid a Social Media Meltdown over Negative Reviews
15 May 2013 | 9:21 amIt makes every marketing manager’s heart flutter: the notification email that your company or client has been the subject of an online review. If you’re promoting good products or service, chances are the post on Yelp, Trip Advisor, or Google is good, and you can breathe a sigh of relief. But negative reviews happen even to the best of companies. It’s how you handle them that can actually put you back on top. And if marketers ever needed a lesson on what NOT to do, Amy’s Baking Company Baking Boutique and Bistro demonstrated that this week. The Scottsdale, Arizona bakery was the…
