editor, Author at Mediastreet

In News

YouTube Music tweaks in-app branding on Android, iOS

September 9, 2020 No Comments

YouTube Music has seen a flurry of changes in recent weeks ahead of Play Music shutting down by year’s end. A smaller change sees YouTube Music for Android and iOS revamp its branding.

Original 8/28: YouTube Music has always maintained two logos. There is the homescreen app icon where the white play symbol is at the center of a bright red record/CD, while at other times the main YouTube logo is used followed by the word “Music” in the service’s custom font.

That second brand has long been at the top-left corner of YouTube Music for Android and iOS. Version 3.81 changes it to the first instance on both mobile platforms, though the web client has yet to be updated. That said, the Progress Web App (PWA) has always used the round variant.

Meanwhile, the other place users encounter the dueling logos is on playlist cover art. There is seemingly no logic in whether the circular icon or broader symbol is used in the top-left corner of official playlists. For example, “Your Mix” and “New Release Mix” use the latter, while “Released” takes advantage of the round logo. All three have been recently updated/revamped by Google.

3.79
3.81

Update 9/2: A week later, music.youtube.com has followed in implementing this change. On the web, the logo is quite small.

More about YouTube Music:

By Abner Li

Sourced from 9TO5 Google

In News

Two-thirds of consumers will continue using social media to the same extent post-lockdown

September 8, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from The Drum

A report published by Influencer and GlobalWebIndex has found that two thirds of consumers think they will use social media to the same extent once restrictions are lifted. This comes as the report also finds that 72% of consumers who follow influencers in the U.S. and the UK say they’re spending more time on social media per day since the outbreak of coronavirus.

The news proves that the coronavirus outbreak has shifted the social media landscape in a potentially permanent way. The trends that the marketing industry has seen in recent months are set to have long lasting impacts, with consumers suggesting that their interaction with influencers is here to stay.

The report from Influencer offers custom research on influencer marketing alongside existing research on the coronavirus to dig into the impact the outbreak has had on consumers’ behaviors. The survey taken in May 2020, defined their audience as internet users who say they follow content creators/influencers on social media. This definition rendered a sample of 1,056 (UK) and 1,038 (U.S.) internet users aged 16-64.

The goal of the report was to unearth the effect that coronavirus has had on influencer marketing and consumer behaviours, as well as consumer relationships to content creators. This report is being used as a guide post for brands concerned with how to successfully work with creators moving forward.

Influencer’s findings proved that consumer media use has increased over the coronavirus period, largely because people have been restricted from doing their normal day-to-day activities. The report confirmed that content consumption has risen, showing that 72% of consumers who follow influencers in the U.S. and the UK say they’re spending more time on social media per day since the outbreak of coronavirus.

Gen Z already use social media at high levels, however, the research by Influencer has shown that this has increased to 84%. It was found to be only a little lower for baby boomers at 68%, showing that time spent on social media has increased across all age groups. People are using social media at higher levels across the board, and crucially, they see this as something that they will continue to do.

One of the key findings of the report was that two-thirds of consumers who follow influencers say they’re likely to continue using social media to the same extent once restrictions are lifted. The report showed that baby boomers are more inclined to say they’re likely to continue using social media to the same extent than Gen Z; 69% of boomers say this compared to 57% of Gen Z.

The findings have proven that social media use is at an all time high, and this high is set to continue into 2020 and beyond. Consumer perceptions of social media are shifting, as more people become comfortable with consuming content on social platforms.

Read the full report here: The Age of Influence: How COVID-19 has propelled brands into the era of influencer marketing

Sourced from The Drum

In News

4 Low-Cost Online Marketing Strategies

September 8, 2020 No Comments

By Thomas Griffin,

Not all online marketing has to break your budget. There are several tactics you can implement when resources are tight.

We know that marketing on a tight budget is far from easy. There are many strategies you have to consider, and one misstep can have negative results for your business.

It’s important to touch base with your audience across all platforms, including your website, email, and social media if you want to increase your sales and conversions. The people who visit our websites are spread across the internet, so reaching each subset of your audience can dramatically improve your site’s performance.

Today, we are going to look at several ways you can add powerful marketing strategies to your business without using all of your resources. Some of the tips we mention here today will cost you nothing, except for your time. Other suggestions have a very low cost and are great for small businesses looking to enhance brand awareness and grow their business.

Write high-quality blog content.

Creating content for your blog is, without a doubt, the cheapest way to build your brand. Websites with blogs tend to see more engagement, organic traffic, and sales. Generally, your blog’s content should either educate or entertain your audience while keeping the industry in the spotlight.

One of the things that make blogging so effective is the freedom to use your posts to market to specific customer pain points and goals. So, if your business sells musical instruments, you could create an article on the history of guitars, how to play guitar, or the best guitar solos of all time.

All three posts are targeting the same audience subset — guitar players. However, each title has a unique benefit to your readers. A post on the history of guitars is meant to educate and entertain, which can improve your traffic. The article on how to play guitar is educational and great for growing sales by including links to your products. Finally, the best guitar solos post is meant to be purely informative, and could significantly boost engagement.

Research shows that when people buy your products, at least 60% spent time reading about products on your blog before completing their order. Not having content on your website can cause you to miss out on over half of all sales.

Consumers expect websites to offer more than a standard online store in 2020. They want to visit sites that provide an experience tailored to their needs. Creating relevant, informative content is the first step to marketing your website if funds are tight.

Find guest posting opportunities.

Creating content on your website is a great start, but more work needs to be done if you want to market your site to a broad audience. Our next tip focuses on publishing content on other websites.

Guest posting is essentially when a publication allows other people to create content for their website. The posts are relevant to the industry and help the publication generate traffic while offering more exposure to the business owner or marketer writing the guest post.

If you want to start publishing guest posts on other websites, the first step is to find relevant publications or brands in your industries. You don’t have to restrict yourself to sites that only publish content. Businesses that have a blog and sell a product within your niche are also likely to accept a well-written guest post.

After you find a list of potential publications willing to accept a guest post, it’s time to send out your pitch. Create a highly personalized message where you include the topic you would like to write about, your experience with the website, and why you believe your content will add value to their audience. If you can, make the email personal by including the editor’s name and tell them about some of your favorite posts that recently published on their site.

This form of marketing is perfect for promoting your business or introducing a new product or service.

Create more video content.

Diversifying your content is another excellent way to step up your marketing without breaking the bank. Text is a common form of content, but videos have proven lucrative for business owners across all industries. In fact, marketers that use video claim to see an average lead increase of 66%.

There are plenty of ways to include videos in your content marketing strategy. You can go all out and create a YouTube channel known for driving traffic and engagement to websites. Platforms like YouTube make it easy to build a vast library of helpful content and guides for your audience. Hosting them on YouTube will also decrease loading times if you decide to add videos to your site, which you should.

Why?

For starters, adding videos to your lead magnets can boost on-page conversions by 86%. There are a couple of reasons for this phenomenon. First, users are more likely to watch a video than read a long-form blog post. There’s more to it than that, though.

Videos also encourage engagement because they keep visitors interested in your brand for an extended period of time. Consequently, if someone isn’t sure if they should buy your product, the extra time on your site could help them make a concrete decision.

Build your email list.

Building an email list is one of the best ways to grow your company and increase sales. Email marketing has a stunning 4,400% return on investment, making it one of the most effective marketing tools you have at your disposal.

The thing that makes email marketing special is it allows you to build rapport with each customer over a long period slowly. When you consider that 96% of people who visit your website are not ready to buy, fostering connections is a great way to convince more undecided people to switch to your brand.

You can send various types of content to your subscribers, but most people like content and promotions. Sending out your recently published posts in a newsletter is the perfect way to keep people invested in your brand. You can also send out special offers that encourage email subscribers to come back to your website and make a purchase.

But your emails must have great content and look nice. Visually unattractive emails have a 79% chance of getting deleted when they land in a mobile user’s inbox. Focus on creating concise, helpful, mobile-friendly content for your emails. When you consider that most people check their email using a smartphone, mobile-friendly emails make perfect sense.

The best part about this strategy is it will cost you very little to get started. Despite the low entry fee, you can dramatically grow your business by investing in email marketing.

As you can see, there are plenty of options to consider when you want to market your business. The cost of some choices may seem daunting at first, but when you use these tactics to grow your brand, you’re building a strong foundation for the future.

The profits you gain from this foundation can help you go on to buy pricier tools that deliver even more impressive results for your business. The key is to start the process of growing your business now. You can’t wait for a marketing opportunity to come to you. Instead, take the time to pursue some of these inexpensive marketing strategies to grow your brand.

By Thomas Griffin,

I’m president and CTO of OptinMonster, a powerful lead generation tool that’s installed in over 700,000 websites.

Sourced from Business.com

In News

7 expert tips to live-stream like a pro—and boost customer engagement

September 8, 2020 No Comments

BY DANIEL MAYER

A live-streaming service CEO lays out the do’s and don’ts of elevating your brand with the rapidly growing marketing tool.

As lockdowns and social distancing disrupted business as usual, many companies searching for new revenue streams and opportunities for customer engagement tried their hands at live-streaming for the first time, fuelling 45% growth in the sector between March and April.

Luxury fashion brands, fitness studios, and even farmers have begun live-streaming in recent months, and as the pandemic ushers in long-lasting social and economic changes, the technology is set to become an increasingly prominent part of marketing’s new normal.

Grand View Research projects that the global video streaming market will reach $184.27 billion by 2027, which would make it one of the most valuable mediums for brand promotion. Driving the market’s growth is widespread customer interest in streamed content. Eight in 10 consumers prefer live video to a blog or social media posts—and when video content is highly compelling, the payoff is something to write home about. When a customer enjoys a video ad, purchase intent soars 97%.

Central to its appeal is the human element. Live video marketing enables brands to tell their stories and showcase their products or services in an authentic manner, with the influencer or brand ambassador behind the camera able to directly interact with audiences via live comments and Q&A. This fosters stronger connections between brands and consumers, allowing viewers to feel like VIPs. At the same time, live-streaming on social channels can attract thousands of viewers (including post-broadcast), significantly expanding brands’ potential customer bases.

And the true beauty of it all is that businesses from a multitude of backgrounds and live-streaming experience levels can now create content that drives real results and elevates their brands. Here are 7 ways newbies and veterans alike can up their live-streaming game:

RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH

To effectively engage an audience, it’s essential to understand who comprises that audience and what kind of content will inspire them.

Gather data on your audience’s spending habits, lifestyle, and brand affinities, and you’ll be better positioned to connect with them in a genuine way. It’s also critical to stay on top of current events, particularly amid today’s frenzied news cycle, to avoid the risk of becoming irrelevant or appearing insensitive.

HIRE OR HOST THE RIGHT INFLUENCER

In recent years, companies have increasingly relied on influencer marketing to raise their public profiles. Allowing a popular influencer to conduct a company live stream can be an excellent way of promoting a new product and reaching new groups of followers.

Of course, most businesses don’t have the connections (or the budgets) to hire world-famous celebrity influencers—but trusted local influencers are usually well within reach and are often far more valuable than flashy names. Pascual Yogurt, for instance, recently attracted 7,400 viewers and 13,000 comments to a live stream featuring appearances by a local celebrity chef, a health and wellness expert, and a nutritionist.

HOST-FOCUSED Q&A SESSIONS

To make your live streams as interactive and engaging as possible, it can be helpful to pre-select a Q&A topic to guide the discussion, rather than allowing followers to ask random, unrelated questions. This will make the live stream far more focused and edifying for viewers.

STICK TO A SCHEDULE

Don’t think of live-streaming as a one-and-done or sporadic affair.

Setting a regular schedule—ideally with at least two weekly live streams—is the best way to maintain a steady drumbeat of viewer engagement. This will keep your most dedicated, high-value customers coming back for more, while providing plenty of opportunities for new followers to engage with the brand. Promoting your broadcast via email, your website, and social channels before, during, and after the event will help maximize viewership.

PRACTICE BEFOREHAND

To head off glitches during a live broadcast, create a private Facebook group where you can practice going live before your first broadcast. This will allow you to identify and resolve any technical issues, adjust your lighting and background for optimal visual appeal (prioritizing ample natural light), fine-tune your messaging, and polish your performance.

Warming up also gets the host into “on-air” mode before the broadcast starts—making it less likely that they’ll begin the stream with dead air or awkward “Are we on?” moments.

FORGET THE FANCY EQUIPMENT

Viewers aren’t tuning into live streams in search of elaborate, highly choreographed content; after all, it’s live-streaming’s authenticity that makes it such a big draw. So don’t worry about buying expensive equipment such as ring lights and HD cameras. A desktop or laptop camera is more than enough to get started. (Smartphone feeds, however, tend to be shaky, with spotty video and audio quality.) As you become more experienced, you may decide to invest in third-party apps and upgrading your gear, but it’s not necessary at the beginning.

EXPERIMENT

As with any other marketing initiative, make sure to experiment and mix it up with different topics and formats. This will help you pinpoint which content most resonates with your audience and can help you refine your streams to best suit your goals—whether you’re streaming as part of your sales funnel or to connect with existing customers.

To survive in the post-pandemic normal, businesses must continuously adapt—and live-streaming provides a vital opportunity to adapt to a changing world in which we’re more online than ever before. As lockdowns ease and routines return, live-streaming will remain as a valuable engagement tool.

The next marketing revolution won’t be televised. It will be streamed.

Feature Image Credit: Priscilla Du Preez/Unsplash

BY DANIEL MAYER

Daniel Mayer is the CEO and cofounder of live-streaming service BeLive.

Sourced from Fast Company

In Sales

This WordPress SEO plugin might leave your website vulnerable to attack

September 7, 2020 No Comments

By Anthony Spadafora.

If left unpatched, this security flaw could lead to complete site takeover

Wordfence’s Threat Intelligence team has discovered a vulnerability in a WordPress plugin installed on over two million sites called All In One SEO Pack.

If exploited, the flaw could allow authenticated users with contributor level access or higher to inject malicious scripts which are executed when a victim accesses the wp-admin panel’s ‘all posts’ page.

After discovering this medium severity security issue, Wordfence reached out to the plugin’s team and All In One SEO Pack received a patch to fix the issue just a few days later.

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Users of the plugin should update to the latest version of All In One SEO Pack (3.6.2) immediately to avoid falling victim to any potential attacks that try to exploit the now patched vulnerability.

All In One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack is a WordPress plugin that provides several SEO features to help a site’s content rank higher on Google and other search engines.

As part of the plugin’s functionality, it allows users with the ability to create or edit posts to set an SEO title and description directly from a post as they are working on it. This feature is available to all users with the ability to create posts such as contributors, authors and editors.

Unfortunately before the plugin was patched, the SEO meta data for posts, which includes the SEO title and SEO description fields, had no input sanitization. This allows lower-level users like contributors and authors to inject HTML and malicious JavaScript code into those fields.

As the SEO title and SEO description for each post are displayed on the ‘all posts’ page, any values added to these fields would also be displayed there in an unsanitized format which would cause any saved scripts in these fields to be executed any time a user accessed this page.

In version 3.6.2 of All in One SEO Pack, the plugin’s developer has added sanitization to all of the SEO post meta values so that any code injected into them would be unable to become executable scripts.

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Feature Image Credit: Pixabay

By Anthony Spadafora

Sourced from techradar.pro

In Sales

What Makes A Successful Landing Page: 11 Must-Have Elements

September 7, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from Forbes

In this era of online marketing, a landing page is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. In most cases, the difference between closing a sale and having a consumer choose a competitor can be chalked up to not having an engaging landing page.

Professionals in the field can immediately spot if a landing page has the right features that will convert visitors or simply make them look for something else. But what are these elusive elements that make up the perfect elements of a landing page? We asked 11 experts from Forbes Agency Council to share some of the crucial and irreplaceable components a landing page should have in order to convert visitors. Here’s what they said.

1. Simplicity And Efficiency

Limit the narrative. Simplicity is key in telling the story efficiently. Be focused with your approach and don’t make it about multiple offerings. Center on that one thing that makes the product or service the best option and make sure it’s obvious. Great visuals help, but to convince a consumer, you need to hammer home the value. – Paul E. Benninghove, Pavone Marketing Group

2. Crystal-Clear Value Proposition

A crystal-clear value proposition will make or break your landing page’s conversion rate. If a visitor doesn’t immediately understand what you’re selling, and why they must have it (or learn more about it), you’ve lost them. So don’t get too clever in your headline — just make sure it’s working hard to convey the compelling reason a visitor should read on. – Howard Breindel, DeSantis Breindel

3. Direct Message, Minimalist Design

A direct message and a minimalist design are key to a successful landing page. I have seen a 30 to 50+% conversion on landing pages with a concise message, form at the top and simple form with fewer than five fields. A landing page with a simplified design and direct message increases your conversion rate and gets the prospect to the next step of the buyer’s journey. – Elyse Flynn Meyer, Prism Global Marketing Solutions

4. Fast Loading Time

Load time plays a critical part in the success of a landing page. Visitors don’t like to wait, and each year, that wait time becomes shorter before they decide to hit the back button. The last thing you want is a beautiful landing page that nobody sees load. Always consider load time when creating landing pages; watch your image sizes and make sure to compress any that are too large. – Randy Soderman, Soderman SEO

5. Message Match

The most important part of landing pages is message match. You have to make sure your landing page (particularly the copy) matches where they came from. If they clicked on an ad about a 20% off promo code, your headline needs to say exactly that. People are looking for instant confirmation they are on the right page or they will bounce off. Make sure your lander matches up with your source! – Marc Hardgrove, The HOTH

6. Strong Call To Action

Apart from the obvious requirement for eye-pleasing design with minimal wording, you need a strong call to action. Limited-time offer deals are one of the most effective ways to trigger impulse buying and increase sales, in addition to selling a solution to a common customer problem. Know your target market! – Sophie Bowman, Brand Branding PR

7. Problem-Solving Differentiators

Include problem-solving differentiators. As marketers, we can get caught up in showcasing features. We can’t forget that the landing page needs to provide a valuable solution. Filling your pages with jargon can do more to alienate audiences than convert them. How will you save them time, cash and business headaches? Focus on how your unique approach will add greater value than your competition’s. – Bernard May, National Positions

8. Authenticity

You must express “why” you, your company, your product or your service has value and purpose. No one is going to dig to find out what you need them to know. Keep it simple, direct and impactful, and make sure it’s authentic to your brand and consistent with all other communication platforms. Be clear on what you offer and what people can expect when they engage you. – Pat Fiore, FIORE

9. Great Creative

Your brand is your story, and if your creative is an afterthought, your potential customer may be turned off. Show your customers you care about your relationship. With all the clutter out there, it’s helpful to stand out and know the story you’re telling. Putting effort into your communication, both your messaging and visuals, will give your story the presentation it deserves. – Marc Becker, The Tangent Agency

10. Testimonials, Mobile Optimization

There are two key elements that I consider really important: 1) Testimonials — at least three real reviews or videos from actual customers increase the conversion rate dramatically; 2) Mobile optimization — it seems obvious in 2020, but many people still don’t realize how optimized should a landing page be, and they don’t test it on several mobile devices before launching it. – Stefano Mongardi, TheWebMate

11. Quizzes And Tests

Include quizzes and tests in your landing page. We found that quizzes and tests perform better. Not all landing pages can have a simple “Do You Qualify?” style test, but if you can, include it instead of a standard contact information form. – Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design

Sourced from Forbes

In News

7 Things to Consider Before Scheduling Instagram Posts

September 7, 2020 No Comments

By Chris Makara.

It’s been a while now since Instagram updated its API to allow for third party tools to be used to help schedule Instagram posts.

Depending on how you use social media for business, you may or may not have explored this option.

If you have, great! Share your experience in the comments below.

If you haven’t, the big question for today is… why not?

Every month, 1 billion people use Instagram. Companies that aren’t on social media, or those that rarely post, are missing out on a free or pay-as-you-go marketing opportunity.

And in this world, companies with a purpose and the ability to connect to consumers as people are the ones in business for the long haul.

Why Businesses Should Use Instagram In Scheduling Instagram Posts

Image Source

So what do you stand to gain by boosting your Instagram strategy? What does Instagram scheduling offer that manual posting is lacking? Is there room for advanced social media content automation?

Here are 7 things to ask yourself before you get down to business scheduling Instagram posts.

1. How much time are you wasting every day manually posting Instagram updates?

When you add up the time it takes to stop, think about a post, capture the image, make your image Insta-worthy, consider and craft the copy, and post to Instagram, you’re looking at a couple of decent chunks of time taken out of your day. Not to mention the time wasted getting back into your workflow once that’s been interrupted.

Advance scheduling of Instagram posts allows you to set aside a block of time at your convenience to do all this at once. No interrupting other work and no time spent refocusing, which means you’re actively increasing your productivity to get more done in a shorter amount of time. You can set it all up and then move on to the next thing, knowing posting for the day/week/month is taken care of.

Bulk.ly Advance Scheduling Of Instagram Posts

2. What could you be doing with the time you get back in efficiency gains?

Do you have other social media sites that could use some attention? How about engaging with your audience? Or even exploring new business opportunities?

Consider what you “never” have time for and have always wanted to do. If this list is compelling enough, then the hours saved by scheduling Instagram posts in advance may be worth more than you originally considered.

3. Do your updates often contain copy or fact mistakes?

Rushing to manually post in real-time can lead to oversights when it comes to proper spelling or fact-checking. If you’re catching yourself making mistakes on a regular basis, it may be because of a lack of focus or the pressure to hurry and get a post out between meetings or before lunch.

When you take time to build out a calendar of posts and schedule content in advance, you can double-check copy for spelling and grammar mistakes and identify pieces of information you need to research further… before posting. All without the pressure of daily responsibilities calling on you every step of the way.

4. Do you forget to post some days? Then overdo it on others?

Inconsistency in posting not only confuses your audience, but also erodes their trust. When will they get new information? Can they expect to see images of that new product you’re offering on sale today?

If they get something different every time, are constantly waiting for an update, or feel like your posts are so frequent it’s overwhelming, they’re going to stop following and engaging.

There are countless social media marketing tools that allow you to build out a schedule that’s balanced and that delivers when you say you will. Scheduling posts allows you to do that, no matter what your day brings because it’s all taken care of in advance.

Buffer Social Media Marketing Took for Scheduling Instagram Posts

5. Do you have a strategy when it comes to hashtag use?

Some businesses have abandoned any hashtag strategy altogether in favor of flooding updates with them. This strategy seems to be the go-to for businesses with a lack of time and forethought. They’re essentially throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.

When you plan what you’re going to post and schedule everything out in advance, you can more readily identify common themes and research the most popular hashtags related to your topic, product, industry, customer base, etc.

Posting with a handful of smart, well-researched hashtags can ensure your updates end up in the right feeds, in front of your target audience.

6. Would highlighting relevant events or holidays on social media benefit your business?

It seems like there’s some kind of holiday trending every day on social media. Days celebrating pancakes, dogs, boyfriends, movies… depending on your industry, leveraging these “holidays”, as well as national holidays, for use in a social media marketing campaign could be a smart way to reach current and potential customers.

But in the frenzy of other priorities, we tend to lose track of dates or miss out on proper lead time to execute on a formerly brainstormed campaign idea. Building out calendars in advance and scheduling posts helps with awareness of planning windows and makes it more likely that there will be ample execution time.

7. Have you considered automation?

If you’re looking to grow your business with Instagram and take advanced scheduling to the next level, automation may be right for you.

Automation only maximizes the litany of benefits mentioned above, in that you can let go of regularly coming up with new content to schedule and having to update your queued content lists as they run dry.

With automation, the posts keep posting – all you need to do is add one-off updates (breaking news, product promotions, etc.) into the mix as they arise.

Of course, you’ll need to first identify enough evergreen content to share so that your updates will remain relevant, and so you’ll have enough content to populate your queues so followers aren’t seeing the same posts all the time.

Tools like Bulk.ly can be synced directly to Buffer and often feature product blogs full of helpful articles to help you learn how to use automation to advance your business and social media goals.

Instagram Autimations for Scheduling Instagram Posts

Instant doesn’t translate well from personal to business

The “insta” nature of Instagram suggests that this platform is made for instant posting, instant engagement – capturing an instant and getting it out to your followers in real-time.

That makes sense for personal accounts and social media celebrities. But for businesses, such a strategy is less effective and wrought with risks, from missed opportunities to reputation-damaging mistakes.

Scheduling Instagram posts merges both worlds, with automation taking it to the next level.

One last thing to consider: Can you really afford NOT to schedule your Instagram updates?

Guest author: Since 2003, Chris Makara has developed a broad digital marketing background with a focus on SEO, Social Media, Automation and Analytics. He is the founder of Bulkly, a social media automation tool for individuals and small businesses.

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By Chris Makara

Sourced from Jeff Bullas

In News

The story of content marketing

September 4, 2020 No Comments

BY: AILEEN LAMB

Content marketing has its roots in custom publications, specifically John Deere’s The Furrow, which launched in 1895. Still in production today, the original brand magazine was ahead of its time, teaching farmers ways to be more profitable. Fast forward 125 years and value creation is still at the centre of what content marketers do. Only now, we’re operating in a world of rapid tech evolution and growing economic uncertainty.

Custom publishing started evolving into the platform-agnostic content marketing in the mid-2000s. New Media, which began operating as a custom publisher for brands in 1998, dropped the “Publishing” from its name in 2011 to signal its transition to a digital-first content agency.

Digital enabled the shift from assuming what customers wanted or needed to know – now they can tell us directly. Today, brands that listen to and engage in honest conversation with their customers are the ones excelling in the marketing game.

Over the past decade, the volume of content consumed on digital devices has increased at an incredible rate. And Covid-19 accelerated this even more, with much of the world confined to homes sometime during the 2020 global pandemic.

South African statistics showed a rapid increase in online traffic when lockdown started in March 2020. While this is slowly decreasing as the economy opens up, it remains high. As Covid-19 fatigue has set in, users have migrated from news channels to more localised content on what they can do and how during the adjusted lockdown regulations.

This has certainly been picked up on food brands. Food24 (owned by New Media) and Woolworths Taste saw a 78% and a 181% increase in unique users respectively when lockdown level 5 was in effect. This follows local and global trends, where isolation and social distancing have both necessitated far more home cooking and given people time to learn and experiment. Many South Africans were also seeking to recreate the magic of eating out at home.

SimilarWeb shows that visits to the top 100 cooking and recipes websites worldwide increased by 33% from February 2020 to April 2020. In terms of the South African audience, total visits for this category increased by a massive 86%, understandably, given the lack of food delivery options under Level 5 lockdown.

Chapter 2: from vanity metrics to true ROI

To connect with a customer, it’s clear that you have to offer them content that’s relevant to them on their preferred platform. There is a tendency to stop there though, to focus on views, shares, likes and comments. But content marketing, when measured correctly, should be linked to specific business outcomes and data collected from customer engagement through to point of sale and beyond.

When Taste adapted its content strategy in response to lockdown, it was not to increase sales, which might have been seen as profiteering off a crisis, it was to make the lives of the Woolworths shopper easier, supporting them with affordable, pantry-friendly recipes. We worked with keyword research, data from social media and data on top-selling products to predict and respond to trends.

This was so successful that Woolworths decided to continue posting Taste content to its own channels and, despite lockdown regulations easing, to continue featuring “lo-fi” made-at-home videos. Another result was that click-through rates on strategic content on Woolworths’ direct mailers peaked, with one content piece receiving a 66% CTR and another receiving 59.7% CTR in March.

An example of concrete ROI that directly ties to the bottom line is Vodacom. Calls to Vodacom’s customer care line have dropped by many thousands as a direct result of SEO-optimised how-to content on the Vodacom now! blog. Using a formula developed by the client, we’ve been able to determine that these posts save Vodacom around a quarter of a million rand a month. Vodacom customers – and, as a bonus, its competitors’ customers – are finding this content via Google.

How do you determine what’s of value to your client’s customers though? And how do you strategically plan your content to make sure it aligns with what they’re looking for, ultimately leading to ROI? Market research and consumer insights are key, and the digital revolution has allowed us to read people in a way print never could. Layering these insights into marketing calendars ensures a balance between what clients want and what their audiences need.

The data-driven digital journey we’ve taken has allowed us to continue adding value to our clients. Years ago, we began to work with them to purposively ramp up their digital migration. This has kept them relevant to consumers, diversified our portfolio and further reduced our dependency on print ad revenues.

The next chapter: from digital-first to interactive experience

New Media completed its acquisition of established tech solutions agency Swipe iX in June 2020. This brought the full-stack app and web development, and UX and interaction design into the stable.

Swipe iX also specialises in emerging technologies such as machine learning systems that target the most relevant content to those who would most benefit from it, and big data-powered gamification techniques that can help motivate interactions with content. Augmented and virtual reality platforms, as they continue to mature, will also play a much bigger part in creating immersive content experiences, as will the use of conversational agents in crafting interactive storytelling experiences.

If you provide customers with what they want and tailor it according to your business objectives, it’s a win-win. As the story of content marketing unfolds further, the ethical usage of data and emerging technologies will increasingly come into play, deepening the connection between brands and their customers.

Machine learning, AR, VR and the like are not just “cool”, they pack a real punch in terms of telling engaging brand stories, ultimately improving customer affinity and retention, even in the midst of a global crisis.

BY: AILEEN LAMB

Sourced from BIZCOMMUNITY

In News

Content and Content Marketing Are Not the Same. Here’s How to Frame the Top 11 Content Formats.

September 4, 2020 No Comments

By Julia McCoy.

The term ‘content marketing’ is getting thrown around a lot, but discerning marketers know what’s going on: A lot of things getting labelled as content marketing are anything but.

On the internet, content is anything that expresses thoughts, information or experiences through written, visual, or audio form.

This article is content. The 95 million photos uploaded to Instagram today are content. The 500 hours’ worth of videos uploaded to YouTube in the last 60 seconds are all content.

The internet is built with content and always has been. It also means everyone has content, and everyone creates it all the time.

That creates some confusion when it comes to content versus content marketing. A lot of content is intended to market a brand … but that doesn’t mean the brand does content marketing.

Here’s why.

What does content marketing really look like?

Content marketing is a strategic approach to marketing that emphasizes the creation and delivery of valuable content to attract, retain and convert a clearly defined audience.

In other words, it’s using content strategically to provide solutions to problems that either your business or your readers have. Great examples abound:

The fitness brand that creates a community and encourages its subscribers to share knowledge.
The home décor retailer that distributes a monthly magazine on minimalism and good housekeeping practices.
The SaaS platform that uses gamification to encourage users to discover and get to know its features.
The travel company that uses a thrilling interactive website to hint at the experiences it offers.
The health supplement site that publishes a vegan recipe blog.

Do you see a difference? All of these efforts position you as an authority in your industry, demonstrate your expertise in your topic over the long run and cultivate trust in your audience by putting their needs and interests first.

How to tell if you’re doing it right

You’re doing content marketing (and not just content creation or digital marketing) if your content:

Puts your audience first. Be customer-focused, not company-focused. You’re delivering helpful, valuable content and letting the customer decide when they trust you enough to buy from you.
Links back to a business goal or solution to a problem. You’ve laid out how your content works together to further your business goals.
Rarely, if ever, actively promotes your brand outright. CTAs are great, but you aren’t trying to push your readers to your solutions.
Attracts readers to your turf. You’re building authority by providing readers with a destination to which they can keep returning.
Gets published consistently and continuously. You’re building trust by proving you’re an expert in the matter over time rather than publishing one-offs.
Uses metrics to measure and optimize. You can identify what’s performing well, and where you need to improve based on data.

To master content marketing, you must master these 11 content types.

High-performing content is central to your content marketing, but the way you craft it can make or break your strategy. It’s not enough to simply create eBooks, blogs and catchy social media that provide helpful information … that’s still biased toward your brand.

People are catching on to even that now.

Yet, with all the content creation that you will still do, it can be easy to lose your focus. Here’s an overview of how to use the eleven main types of content in content marketing:

Blogs. Make sure they’re optimized for SEO because they’re one of the best ways to boost your page ranks. Include a CTA and consider opening up comments for further engagement.
Case studies. Illustrate your expertise by taking your readers on a journey that showcases solutions to their pain points.
eBooks. They make great lead magnets, especially when you craft a magnetizing title and supply information people can’t find elsewhere.
Emails. Write direct, powerful, concise copy that contains information that can change your readers’ lives. They’re a direct line to your audience and can build long-lasting relationships when done well.
Headlines. Powerful, compelling headlines (that don’t sound spammy!) let your readers know exactly what they’re getting. They’re also a great way to convey brand with language.
Meta titles and descriptions. Put yourself in your readers’ shoes and let them know you have the answers they’re searching for right now.
Product descriptions. Optimize with keywords and describe products in terms of benefits rather than features.
Social media posts. Create an experience that puts them at the center and encourages engagement. This helps your audience connect with your brand emotionally and can help you find their pain points.
Video scripts. Tell your brand’s story engagingly. You can also include the script text on the page to make your content more accessible, and boost SEO.
Web content. Make important or helpful information prominent, include a clear CTA, and use high-quality images to craft a powerful message.
White papers. Explore relevant topics in-depth and give your target audience ideas that they can apply to their own problems or daily life.

Content making content marketing work: an example

By now, I hope I’ve demonstrated how content creation is intrinsic to content marketing. However, just because you’re creating content, it doesn’t mean you’re doing content marketing.

I want to drive things home with an example.

Let’s say that we’re growing an athletic clothing brand and looking for ways to attract more customers to our e-commerce site. We’ve decided to turn to content marketing for help. It might look like this:

1. You want to increase your brand’s presence on Google and social media, but you don’t want to constantly annoy your readers with ads. How else can you get your brand in front of your readers?

You decide that the best way forward is to start a blog full of topics that interest your readers. A few things that come to mind include clean eating, exercising at home, and personal empowerment. You can also talk about clothes, of course, but your models can all wear your brand, which eliminates the need for more direct advertising.

2. You start your blog, set up your social media and let your following know about it.

Engagement metrics indicate that readers are most excited about exercising at home. Looking through their comments, you notice that things like staying focused, finding the right space, and keeping a schedule are all major pain points that they have.

3. You respond by creating an online guide to exercising at home.

You use a combination of eBooks chock-full of challenges that are available as lead magnets, and video tutorials for exercises hosted on your site. To demonstrate how popular your guides are, you create a way for users to record their progress and encourage each other.

4. To maintain engagement, you start up an email newsletter with the latest challenges, shoutouts for people who have achieved their goals and occasionally a promo here or there.

Throughout this, you continue to grow your online community, adding more content to your blog that addresses questions or pain points. You even start a hashtag that your followers can use to highlight their fitness efforts so that they can spread the word about you.

5. At some point, you realize that you can enrich your readers’ experience with case studies and white papers.

You begin to include “white papers” about health and fitness that are relevant to your target audience. You also start to create case studies of “success stories” from your community.

6. As fitness centers start to notice what you’re doing, you start getting offers for sponsored classes and requests to sell your brand in their shops.

Your content marketing is now extending your brand’s reach into the offline world. You’ll continue all of the efforts above, as the results are feeding further content production.

Can you spot all eleven content types above? Look carefully. They’re here.

(Bonus: Do you know what brand I just described? Spoiler: This is Athleta’s content marketing strategy. Check it out at https://events.athleta.com/)

Now you know the difference between content and content marketing in 2020.

The main difference between content versus content marketing? Content marketing involves a lot more than just content creation. In fact, the emphasis isn’t content creation at all, but crafting an experience that improves the lives of your readers. If you’re putting your readers first, addressing pain points and producing exceptional quality content consistently, then you’ll grow your brand while you cultivate authority and trust. That’s content marketing.

Hopefully, I’ve left you with an idea or two about your content marketing strategy. Now, go forth and convert that target audience into passionate fans.

Feature Image Credit: sunanman | Getty Images

By Julia McCoy

Sourced from Entrepreneur

In News

SaaS Marketing: How to Get More Quality Leads for Your Brand

September 4, 2020 No Comments

By Brent Csutoras

Discover three tactics that can help your SaaS brand become more discoverable and exponentially grow qualified lead volume.

Many SaaS marketers are working diligently but they are just not seeing the marketing qualified lead (MQL) growth they’re striving for.

On August 12, I moderated a sponsored Search Engine Journal webinar presented by Garrett Mehrguth, CEO, Directive.

Mehrguth explored:

Actionable ways to make SaaS brands more discoverable on search engines.
Strategic methods to build brand impressions.
The actual math behind why the current marketing funnel is financially broken.

Here’s a recap of the webinar presentation.

SaaS Marketing: A Differentiated Approach

Have you ever felt helpless to grow your pipeline?

Are you working hard, but not getting results?

You aren’t alone.

Many marketers are experiencing the same things – for a plethora of reasons.

But one of the biggest reasons is that things have changed with the funnel.

In the old funnel, marketers needed to do top of funnel awareness campaigns because consumers can’t
discover the brand without them.

But then websites like Amazon and Yelp started to grow by aggregating people’s opinions of a product.

And now, people are able to get their own interest in something, evaluate their options, then become aware of what exists, and so on.

In this new funnel, what’s so so important is understanding the reality you’re playing.

So how do we adapt to this new reality as SaaS marketers?

The Big Idea: Your Brand Is Better Than Your Website

The big idea that we need to embrace here is that your brand is now more important than your website.

This isn’t to say your website doesn’t matter – it’s just that it matters less compared to your brand.

Bottom of Funnel: Websites Are No Longer Ranking

If you look at the B2C query [best day trading software], you’ll find four ads above the fold:

Here, your click-through rate doesn’t widely vary from the fourth spot to the first spot.

Mostly your CPC does OK.

Down below, there are SERP features and then different third-party review sites.

What’s really interesting about this is that individual websites and their core pages are no longer ranking – and that’s for a B2C query.

Now, if you look at a B2B query for [best accounting software], you’ll see SERP features at the top, four ads, and then PCMag.com, Capterra, and other review sites.

QuickBooks, one of the most popular software companies among business owners for accounting have a very strong market share, yet you won’t see their website anywhere in the organic listings for this query.

It’s not that QuickBooks has bad SEO.

It’s that the search engine results pages have changed.

If consumers have expressed that they want to hear what other people are saying before they buy a $5
burrito, then they will surely want information before they buy a $20,000 software.

And so what Google decided to do here was put their searcher first.

They realized that these searchers want unbiased information.

So if you aren’t showing up on these queries, you’re missing out on up to 30% of your market share.

SEO is no longer about trying to get your website to rank for bottom of the funnel queries because it can’t – Google won’t allow it.

Another thing is that some third-party and review sites are starting to bid.

This is driving up the cost per click, decreasing the profitability, and it’s cutting competition.

This new reality is happening and we need to be aware of it.

Organic CTR

Almost all SaaS marketers still universally default to advertising at Google Ads.

The truth is, that’s not necessarily the best option.

If you advertise on Google Ads, you’re going to average a 2-4% click-through rate.

Let’s say 100 people are searching for that accounting software query.

If our plan to advertise the people with purchase intent on a search engine is G0ogle Ads, we’re only capturing 4% of the total addressable market.

While the number one organic result is now a listing on a third-party website.

This means you can be a start-up accounting software company, build a great product, and get some raving fans (i.e. 10-15 users compared to the millions on QuickBooks).

Immediately, you’ll look like a true competitor to QuickBooks by simply paying to be X, Y or Z on a review site.

When you change your fundamental and understand how you can position your brand in a strong spot, you’ll have the chance to capture the number one spot and get up to 32% of market share.

With this, you almost have complete discoverability and that is an important part of being able to drive marketing qualified leads (MQLs).

Across millions of dollars of spend across multiple SaaS clients, Mehrguth’s team is averaging a 4% CTR.

You don’t necessarily want too high of a click-through rate because ideally, you want to use your ad copy to pre-qualify your clicks.

In other words, if you are required to do X amount of seats or X amount of price, a really great way especially if you’re a mid-market or enterprise organization who doesn’t win on price but instead on quality, you can include
base fundamental pricing in your ads.

Then you’ll essentially be able to disqualify the wrong clicks, qualify the right ones, and lower your cost per
acquisition (CPA).

Many SaaS companies have been brainwashed that the lower your CPA, the better.

What they do is they take your most expensive terms and they stop bidding.

Unfortunately, sometimes your most expensive terms are also your most valuable.

Even though third-party sites, such as Capterra and Software Advice, have much higher CPCs, they have much better close rates and cost per opportunity.

This means you are getting more qualified leads.

Financial Model

How SaaS owners decide to allocate capital is the most important part of marketing.

Simply reallocating where you spend your money can help grow your business significantly.

To do this, you can follow what’s called LTV:CAC modelling where you are going to understand the actual lifetime value versus the customer acquisition cost of all of your marketing channels.

There are two ways to proceed with this.

LTV:CAC SaaS Non-Trial

If you have a SaaS firm and you don’t do a free trial, here’s the spreadsheet you can use.

You also have a budget template where you can model out different scenarios and then look at each of your channels in real time.

It also allows you to put in all your numbers (i.e., at the product level) and calculate it.

You can run through any type of scenario and see what’s most efficient.

This is helpful because the second you start modelling this out, driving budget, and working on these types of elements, you’ll get much better alignment from your CFO and build trust with the CMO.

LTV:CAC SaaS Free Trial

If your SaaS offers free trial, you can use a simple but awesome model where you can see how much your team costing, software costing, ad spend, how many customers you want, etc.

And then it’ll compute your LTV:CAC ratio, as well as months to recover.

You can start to use it as a log to get better at forecasting budgeting.

Validated Tactics

If you’re the CMO of a mid-market to enterprise SaaS firm, here are a few validated tactics to consider if you want to increase your marketing qualified leads.

Paid tactics

Google Ads
Podcasts
LinkedIn
Review Sites
Terminus
Sponsored Webinars

Organic tactics

SEO
Content
Partner Marketing
PR

One thing you need to have in place before you get too deep in your tactics is to make sure you have the foundation right.

You may have all sorts of templates or tools to use, but that’s codependent on how people move through your funnel.

Ideally, anyone on your team should be able to go into your marketing platform, get the data they need, and be effective.

Nothing is more powerful than your team having the information they need when they need it – and being
able to actually do it themselves.

So now that you have your spreadsheet right, you’ll also need your data.

What’s next?

With revenue being such a big gap, you should also be thinking about OCT, or offline conversion tracking.

That would entail integrating SalesForce into your Google Ads.

The reason this is so important is because Google has come a long way and you can now trust Google Smart
Bidding.

Directive’s paid search team rebuilt all their accounts in Q2 and migrated away from the old-school way of thinking of single keyword ad groups and started bringing their clients into target CPA.

Now the issue with target CPA is how do you determine it if you don’t know your LTV:CAC ratio?

So this is why using the budget modeling template is really helpful.

1. Smart Broad Campaigns

The way Smart Broad campaigns work is that you’re going to “trust” Google’s engine.

You’ll want to integrate it with Salesforce using offline conversion tracking and then run broad keywords.

You can’t just let your account run wild so negatives are super critical.

Daily management is also extremely important.

2. Conversation Ads

One of the issues with SEO and PPC in the traditional sense is that you can’t control firmographic data.

Google has rolled out some white-label reports with industries and employee size, but the data’s not there yet.

But LinkedIn always had this phenomenal ability to give firmographic data.

For instance, you can target demand gen marketers with x amount of employees in these industries.

You can use “single persona ad groups or campaigns”, write essential one asset, and advertise to a specific target audience.

Now that conversation ads are here, it gets even better.

Conversation ads allow advertisers to “start conversations with professionals and business decision-makers via LinkedIn Messaging.”

You can use this to book a discovery call, leverage gift-giving as an offer, and so much more.

Mehrguth’s team has been working on this and saw exceptional results across the board.

3. Content Marketing with Partners

Content marketing is tough especially for SaaS companies that don’t have a brand.

Producing content is useless if you don’t have a distribution plan in place.

This is why your content marketing needs its promotion buit in.

PR is tough because you are trying to be the guest. Let’s simply reverse the roles.

Consider these ideas to boost your content marketing campaigns:

Sour interviews.
SaaS marketing competition.
Friday roundtables.

Empowering People

Marketing starts with your team and needs to bubble up into your vision at a boil.

Create a culture where your team can submit new ideas and has their own model.

Share this Financial Model for Submitting New Content Ideas to your team members to encourage them to make a business case.

All of a sudden, you’ve just given your team rocket fuel.

They can now drive strategy, have complete alignment, know if a campaign’s going to be successful, and be fully empowered.

Q&A

Here are just some of the attendee questions answered by Garrett Mehrguth.

Q: You talked about branding. I often find it difficult to justify ROI for spend done behind branding. Have you ever come across such a dilemma?

Garrett Mehrguth (GH): A lot of times, people think about how much money they need to spend to grow.

What I’ve found is that in B2B, we have really long sales cycles.

It’s always challenging to get funding from finance to spend at the top of the funnel. We often get money for the bottom of the funnel because it’s easy to prove ROI quickly.

However, we know that the bottom of the funnel is co-dependent on brand, but it seems like the “results” come just from the bottom of the funnel.

However, time goes by, and you start to wonder why you haven’t built a brand.

So when you think about brand advertising, try to set your budget up to spend just enough, so you never stop, so that eventually you can prove it out.

From there, start to grow that budget slowly.

A small budget used strategically, that you let run its course, with incremental growth is a wise way to change your financial modelling and get more approval.

Q: Our SaaS is dipping our toes into marketing. What are the 1-3 tactics or channels I should focus my attention on so I can get some immediate wins and maximize my small budget?

GM: Review sites, Google ads, and case studies.

By Brent Csutoras

Managing Partner at Search Engine Journal and a Digital Marketing Consultant, providing consulting, training, and coaching services at an hourly … [Read full bio]

Sourced from Search Engine Journal