Content should add value to the conversation by making strong points or sharing research.
Your brand’s reputation could suffer if it’s associated with regular bad content.
Although good content takes time and money to produce, it can offer great return on investment.
Content marketing is one of the dominant strategies in the modern digital marketing world. That’s partially due to its accessibility (since anyone can write and publish content on the web). But it’s also a testament to its effectiveness.
Of course, practicing content marketing isn’t a sure-fire way to generate traffic or even build your brand reputation — especially now. The truth is, marketers everywhere are suffering from the effects of “bad” content, whether they’re the ones writing it or not.
If content marketing is going to survive as a strategy, we need to collectively address it.
What is bad content?
Bad content is pretty much what it sounds like. It’s typically content produced for its own sake, rather than to serve a specific purpose. Instead of being written to inform the public or entertain a specific target audience, it’s written merely to generate traffic or improve the visibility of the brand.
That said, the intent of the piece isn’t the main problem. The main problem is that the content cuts corners, or otherwise adds little value to a given conversation. It doesn’t cover new ground. It doesn’t make strong points. It doesn’t offer new research. Sometimes, it’s not even well written, ending up riddled with typos and semantic errors.
The ongoing publication and syndication of bad content leads to a host of negative consequences for marketers, both on a first order (affecting the publisher directly) and a second order (affecting everyone, even those not publishing bad content).
First order effects
Writing and publishing bad content will negatively impact your brand, even if you see some marginal increases in traffic or brand recognition.
For example:
Reputational damage. When a person reads an empty or poorly researched piece of content, they often look to the author to see who’s responsible for it. If your brand is associated with bad content, it’s going to take a reputational hit, sooner or later. You don’t want to be known as the company that makes shoddy content.
SEO issues. In some cases, an influx of hastily written content can actually harm your positions in search engines. Google‘s search ranking algorithm significantly considers content quality when evaluating trustworthiness and eventual positions; in other words, if you care about search engine optimization (SEO), bad content will do more harm than good.
ROI and cost issues. Writing a piece of bad content still takes time, money and effort. If the bulk of your content marketing strategy is centred on “bad” pieces, it’s going to ruin your return on investment (ROI).
Second order effects
Bad content in circulation also affects the entire marketing industry — even if you’re not immediately aware of these effects.
Consider:
Consumer trust. Consumer trust in brands is already at an all-time low. It’s part of the reason why traditional advertising is met with such scepticism and cynicism in the modern era. The more the internet is flooded with bad content, engineered for marketing purposes only, the more consumer trust is going to fall; increasingly, companies will be seen as greedy manipulators that don’t care about quality.
The efficacy of content marketing. Content marketing originated as a way to build trust with consumers — that’s what made it powerful. But as bad content becomes the new norm, content marketing suffers reputational damage. Everyone’s strategy takes a hit.
Content pollution. Here’s the thing about bad content — it’s cheap and easy to produce. It’s therefore easy to flood the internet with bad content. This “content pollution” makes it harder and harder for good content to stand out and get the attention it deserves.
Is your content bad?
Generally speaking, you should have an intuition for whether or not your content is “bad.” If you only care about it as a tool for generating traffic, if you outsource the work to non-native speakers or if you rush through the content with no regard to its structure, research or writing, you probably have bad content on your hands.
But if you’re in a grey area and you’re not sure whether your content meets a decent threshold of quality, there are some aspects you can check:
Research. Are your claims backed with evidence? Did you look up the counterarguments? Which sources do you cite?
Purpose. Are you genuinely trying to inform or help people? Or are you only interested in optimizing for a specific keyword?
Grammar, spelling, syntax, etc. Your finished content should be flawless after a few rounds of review and revision.
Feedback. How do your readers feel about this content? This is arguably the most important factor, so run surveys to collect more feedback.
There isn’t much you can do about other businesses and individuals writing and publishing bad content, but you can take control over your own approach. Take some time to audit your current content marketing strategy (if you have one) and re-prioritize the quality of your work.
Feature Image Credit: Marketers should have an intuition for whether or not their content is bad or something people will enjoy. Carlina Teteris
Marketing is a crucial element of any successful business, and even small business startups will need to begin building their marketing department as soon as possible. However, some marketing roles are more critical to your business’s success than others. To help you determine which role you need to hire for first, 13 experts from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answer the following question:
“When building a marketing division for your company, what’s one important role/position you should hire first, and why?”
Consider their suggestions to help determine the right first marketing hire for your company.
1. Data Analyst
“The first important position that I would hire for my marketing team is a data analyst. This position is like the core of the marketing department and can help us gather insights into the current marketing scenario. Knowing this will help us understand what’s happening in the marketing world and come up with a more powerful strategy to combat our competitors.” ~ Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
2. SEO Analyst
“For my marketing team, I would definitely hire an SEO analyst first. This is one important position that can work closely with the rest of the team to get our business to the top search results of Google and bring in more traffic to our websites.” ~ Josh Kohlbach, Wholesale Suite
3. Graphic Designer
“All roles within marketing represent an important element to starting the process effectively. However, a graphic designer would be my first choice, because that is who will give shape to the main ideas that you have for the development of a brand. Later, hire a person who will be in charge of the content. These are two basic aspects of marketing and they must be perfectly combined to achieve success.” ~ Kevin Leyes, Leyes Media & VVS, by Leyes Empire
4. Product Manager
“A product manager is a useful position to hire first for your marketing department. A product manager is in charge of product strategy, including vision and development. They work with other departments to ensure that the products your brand creates have market demand and will do well with customers.” ~ Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
5. Branding Expert
“I think that one of the first people to hire for a marketing department is someone with solid branding experience. A person who understands how branding works can take your goals and clearly but broadly inform the direction your brand takes. Then, when you hire content writers, social media specialists and others, they’ll have guidelines that direct their work and also keep them consistent.” ~ Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner
6. Creative Lead
“I suggest hiring a creative lead to help you chart the direction of your marketing. This role is essential to fill first because you might not need as many people in your marketing division as you thought. A creative lead can help you figure out how many people you’ll need to turn your marketing plan into a reality, which makes filling other positions easier.” ~ Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
7. Editorial Director
“It’s important to have an editorial director on board as the head of content. An editorial director ensures that your brand has a content plan that will boost traffic, grow your email list and produce sales, among other things. Hiring them first allows your company to start from the top and work its way down.” ~ Jared Atchison, WPForms
8. Content Marketing Expert
“If you are running a bootstrapped startup, your first marketing hire should be a content marketing and organic promotions expert. You want someone who is an amazing storyteller. You want someone great at earning free press. If, on the other hand, you have a bigger budget and ambitious goals to match, you want to hire someone who has proven they can build, manage and lead a team.” ~ Ben Landers, Blue Corona
9. Demand Generation Marketer
“The first marketing hire any business should make is a demand generation marketer. Demand gen marketers understand that marketing needs to carry a bag and deliver revenue to the bottom line. The first marketing hire sets the tone between the marketing and sales teams, and a demand gen professional will set the role of marketing appropriately — to drive leads that convert to the bottom line.” ~ Kara Brown, LeadCoverage
10. Marketing Generalist
“Your first marketing hire should be a marketing generalist, someone who knows their way around all the marketing channels. They don’t need to be an expert in a specific channel, but someone who can at least operate in those channels. As you continue to grow, then you can hire specialists who can optimize those specific channels.” ~ Jared Brown, Hubstaff Tasks
11. Marketing Strategist
“One important role or position to hire first when building a marketing division is a marketing strategist. It’s important to have a very clear target audience for your business, channels of communication that will be used and key messages. From then on, you can build a team around the marketing strategist so you can build what you and your team have planned.” ~ Alfredo Atanacio, Uassist.ME
12. Marketer With Sales Experience
“Hire a marketer who knows how to sell and can think backward from the close. Effective marketing is about understanding and reverse-engineering the customer journey toward your product or service, and then generating awareness and opportunity pathways to that end. Any cornerstone marketing position must balance and build both brand growth and sales activation initiatives.” ~ Magnus Simonarson, Consultwebs
13. Marketing Director With Management Experience
“I would look to hire a marketing director with previous experience managing a team. Make sure they have hands-on experience with the areas you want them to focus on. For example, if you are going to focus on paid media to grow, then hire someone with previous experience managing large budgets on Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Then task this person with hiring the team, with your input and involvement.” ~ David Boehl, GoLastMinute
Is Clubhouse all you hear about recently? The pandemic gave us a new way to communicate, and everybody seems to be crazy into it. To me, Clubhouse feels like LinkedIn mixed with Facebook and Skype without those irritating algorithms.
But why did it get so hot so fast? Insider’s Shona Ghosh says “It’s insider-y vibe fuels desperation rather than cool,” and I second it. Its core strength is the need not to miss out on great opportunities.
You can chat with great minds on Clubhouse, like a16z partners, or CEO of Figma, or even Elon Musk, and it feels like you accidentally dialled into a secret meeting. You can hear the latest trends and opinions and even share yours — if a moderator lets you.
In a time when we’re forced to find new ways to communicate and promote ourselves — Clubhouse has real potential, although it could end up being short-lived.
But we have to make the most out of the moment. Currently, Clubhouse is undeniably fresh as it gives that feeling of being a part of an inner circle. The community also seems like a great place to introduce brands and new ventures. From Mark Zukerberg to local VCs and start-up founders, everyone is already there.
And after participating in numerous rooms, I’m convinced Clubhouse is the perfect platform for an industry expert, a start-up CEO, or even an entire brand to get noticed.
So while it might feel tiring to establish a dynamic profile on yet another platform — I say you bag yourself an invite, fill in your bio, and check out these five reasons to use Clubhouse for your corporate comms.
1. New connections always have value
There’s plenty of places to make ‘connections’ but I’d like to argue that Clubhouse is like LinkedIn — just more friendly.
You can easily find a group related to your industry, blend in quickly, and then expand your horizons by following key individuals in your niche.
For instance, now in the tech category, there are interesting and diverse communities of Ukrainian entrepreneurs, European start-ups, VCs, AI specialists, and many more. I personally follow the Communications & PR group, Good Time (this is where you can meet tech giants), Tech Talks, Talk Nerdy to Me, and some more VC, tech, and PR-related.
Also, I follow the most prominent tech reporters, so I get notifications if one of them is talking in a room.
2. More authentic way to boost your brand
I find jumping into Clubhouse rooms is like joining a meetup… without the awkward intros.
You can comfortably ‘sit silently in the corner’ until you get used to a room, and once you’re ready to speak, just raise your hand and jump in at the right time. What I do suggest though, is that you use that inactive time in the beginning to make sure you are well prepared. Know what you want to talk about and have a clear idea about what your goal is for the conversation.
Journalists are starting to host weekly rooms discussing tech trends, M&As, and a myriad of other topics. VCs also have rooms to talk about strategies, deals, and multiplicators. These rooms present a good opportunity for you to share your knowledge and your brand’s latest news, celebrate recent achievements — yours or from the industry — and gain new connections.
If you contribute to chats in an interesting way, you’ll be noticed and possibly followed by key players, which ultimately helps establish good relationships in a more authentic way. Clubhouse rooms go far beyond the capabilities of cold emails and have a way bigger reach than in-person networking (back when that was allowed).
And this is already proven to be working. If you have a good pitch, you could end up immediately raise money, just as Kimi Weinttrraub did in the Shark Tank room.
3. Have more control over your message
Joining a good Clubhouse room feels like speaking at a conference. But instead of the hassle that comes with that, you get more control.
Like Mike Butcher puts it: “Why would anyone go to a conference (real or virtual) any more when they can start or join a Clubhouse room with other people in their field to find out what they need to know?”
Once you have earned attention and followers by participating in various rooms, it’s time to start your own Clubhouse room and invite people to talk. Now you’re putting yourself at the centre of the community, which gives you more control over messaging.
My advice is to schedule your room in advance and avoid busy hours. Now you can either make it completely open for everyone to join in, or just ‘social’ so that only your followers can join. Neither is better than the other, it just depends on what’s the goal of your room.
But what should you do in your room? Well, you can launch or promote a product, like Kuki AI did when its chatbot was interviewed live by futurist and Forbes contributor Cathy Hackl on Clubhouse. Or you can go a more open and simple route of sharing the latest milestones or discuss recent figures.
And why would you do this? I think it really helps using the popularity the platform is currently experiencing to catch people’s attention. Journalists, VCs, and other high-profile people seem to be keen to talk on Clubhouse, perhaps its novelty makes it more appealing than yet another Zoom call.
You have to keep in mind though that this novelty could end fast — so get in there before it’s over.
4. Get ideas for content marketing while working on promotion
One of the best ways to describe Clubhouse is that it’s like listening to a podcast in real-time with an opportunity to participate. And what does that mean for you? It means there’s a flood of fresh ideas to be grabbed — but only for those who are tuned in.
Clubhouse doesn’t have a recording option (yet), so everything discussed will sink into oblivion the second the room is over. Unless you do something about it, that is.
Use the ideas you hear to write a feature or op-ed and pitch it to media outlets — or at least a post on your brand’s blog or Medium. Some content can also be used for social media, analytical material, and researches.
So while you’re hanging out on Clubhouse to find promotional opportunities within the platform, pay attention to the ton of information now available there on a range of topics — like how to launch in a new market or how to improve SF. CEOs, VC, and opinion leaders are spending half an hour per day on Clubhouse on average, so don’t miss out on their insights.
5. Stay on message
Now, this last one is more of a warning than a reason, but still important to include.
A lot of us are still in lockdown and almost none of us are able to attend an offline event. So we go on Twitter and rant about how we are tired and bored and that we’ve binged all worthwhile series already. But don’t do that on Clubhouse.
Starting a room just to discuss what you’re doing on a rainy winter day isn’t the best idea in my opinion. I’ve actually received a notification for a room with that name — and of course, there are book communities, groups to discuss movies, and weather — but don’t mix up your presences on Clubhouse as you would maybe do on other platforms.
Don’t scare away valuable followers you gained with an impulse act of starting a random room. Your followers will likely receive a push notification and may unfollow you if you veer into other fields.
This whole Clubhouse hype could end up being short-lived, so stay laser-focused during its peak and get the most out of it for your brand.
For years, content marketing has been the go-to marketing strategy for new startups. And for good reason. Content marketing is relatively cheap, especially when compared to traditional advertising strategies like print, radio, and TV ads. It’s accessible, since almost anyone can get started in the strategy with minimal experience. And best of all, it’s a prime strategy for long-term growth, capable of seeing compounding returns over the course of years.
But there’s a problem. Content marketing hasn’t changed much in the past 10 years or so. People are practicing the same tactics and following the same fundamentals they’ve practiced and followed for years. They’re still getting decent results, but how long could this continue to last?
The start-up content marketing world is overdue for disruption – a massive changeup to rebuild content marketing from its very foundations. But why is this disruption so overdue and what could an overhaul look like?
Why Content Marketing Is in Need of an Overhaul
Let’s take a look at some of the biggest reasons why content marketing is in need of a major, ground-up overhaul:
Saturation and competition. The first problem is saturation, and by extension, competition. One of the greatest advantages of content marketing has also become one of its greatest weaknesses: accessibility. Anyone with a few hours to spare can learn the fundamentals of writing great content, and you don’t need any fancy equipment or tools to publish it. With even the smallest budget and a limited amount of time, you can make your content available online. Over time, this has led to billions, if not trillions of articles posted on more than 600 million blogs and 1.7 billion websites. If you want a chance at standing out, you’ll need to choose a very specific niche to get started – and even then, you’ll likely be competing with hundreds to thousands of brands that have years-long head starts on you. This makes it both difficult to enter as a new content marketer and difficult to navigate as a consumer.
Consumer familiarity. Speaking of consumers, consumer familiarity has also become a problem. One reason why content marketing became so popular for startups is because it served as an alternative to traditional advertising. Over the course of many years, consumers became fatigued by traditional ads; they don’t like being manipulated, and they don’t take traditional ad messaging as sincere. By contrast, content provides consumers with information, entertainment, and often a seemingly sincere desire to help. But because content marketing has been wielded by so many persuaders and manipulators, even online content is beginning to be treated with the same kind of skepticism as traditional ads.
Automation and predictability. Content marketers have long been enthusiastic about the prospects of marketing automation – the ability to create and execute marketing strategies with minimal manual effort. And certainly, automation has a lot of benefits. However, the introduction of automation tends to make content much more predictable and much less engaging for consumers, especially if most companies are using the same tools in the same way. Additionally, because automation multiplies the amount of content being circulated for marketing purposes, it tends to complicate and intensify the other factors on this list.
Minimal innovation. Let’s face it. Over the years, there has been minimal innovation in the field of content marketing. People are using video content more than they used to, and some of the tactics in fields like search engine optimization (SEO) have changed, but most of the fundamentals are the same. If we’re going to continue providing consumers with the best materials and leverage the best marketing approaches available, we need to be able to adapt.
Content marketing is primed for a major change. But what could that change look like? How could content marketing for start-ups evolve in the near future?
Mediums and Channels
One of the most promising areas of development is in an expansion of the mediums and channels available to content creators. Today, if you want to create content, you could write an article, develop a test or quiz, take photos, illustrate new designs, shoot video, or host a podcast – or try to blend a few of these mediums together.
But what about the future? Could we see a rise in the popularity of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)? Will new devices make it possible to interact with content in new ways, such as projecting it onto a wall? Will there be a future technology that can beam some forms of content directly into people’s heads? Some of these possibilities may seem overly futuristic, but they could be exactly the wave of disruption content marketing needs.
Formats
The format of content could also be a source of innovation. Today, most content falls into one of two overarching forms: short-form content, designed to be read or digested in a matter of minutes, and long-form content, exploring a subject or topic thoroughly over the course of hours.
But what about a different form of content altogether? Could we see a rise in popularity of ultra-short content, meant to provide users with immediate insights? Or what about an undercurrent of content, providing people with a steady stream of information throughout the day?
Interactions
Content is already starting to evolve to become more interactive, so it makes sense that interactive content could become the next evolutionary form of content marketing overall. Interactive content has much greater potential for development; since it relies on an interaction with consumers, it can branch off in many different directions. It’s therefore more unique and harder to replicate, leading to more original and noteworthy content.
This content is also more appealing to individual readers and consumers, defeating the consumer familiarity problem. The only real issue is that interactive content currently exists in a limited number of forms (such as tests and quizzes) and creating it is often more difficult and time-consuming than creating its ordinary counterparts.
Hybridization
Content marketing currently has tremendous synergy with other marketing strategies; for example, it’s often a staple component of any search engine optimization (SEO) or social media marketing strategy. But we can innovate in the content marketing world by hybridizing it with other forms of marketing and advertising.
For example, we could blend content marketing and guerrilla marketing together for a much more aggressive, unexpected form of content presentation and consumption.
Pressure Factors to Consider
The future of content marketing depends on the amount of pressure it faces to evolve. If left uncontested and unchallenged, content marketing will never change.
Instead, we’ll only see a change based on the confluence of pressure from these areas:
Channel pressure. If channels like Google make it harder for brands to benefit from content marketing, marketers will be forced to reinvent content marketing, innovate, or relinquish their content-derived traffic.
Consumer pressure. As long as consumers are happy with your content, it will continue generating a return. If they become dissatisfied or demand something better, content transformation is practically a certainty.
Competitive pressure. Perhaps most importantly, if your competitors transform their content strategies for the better, you must follow if you want to keep up – or innovate in your own way to gain an advantage.
It’s hard to say exactly how or when content marketing will undergo its next phase of evolution. And according to some experts, this may be the final form of content marketing; though it may change gradually to keep up with new trends and new technologies, it may never be radically different than it is today.
If you want to get the most value from your marketing strategy, your best bet is to diversify. Continue investing in your current line of content marketing tactics while also investing in novel experimental content marketing approaches – and don’t forget to invest in other marketing and advertising strategies as well.
Yesterday, I witnessed one of the finest pieces of digital marketing that I’ve seen for some time.
For 24 hours my social feeds on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook were clogged with branded content that’d been shared by my friends, connections and followers.
It was an onslaught of user shared content and a tour de force of brand dominance. The campaign in question was called ‘Your 2020 Wrapped’ by Spotify.
The music app’s campaign was simple – show their users what they’d been listening to – and offer them the chance to share this information on social media. Their user’s accepted.
On the same day that Spotify launched this campaign, MyWallSt reported that their share price had risen by 13%.
This graph (from Google) highlights a marked spike on 2nd December, the day Spotify launched ‘Your 2020 Wrapped’.
Contents
Are Social Shares Worth Anything?
I’m faced with a lot of emails – a large percentage of them are about one thing – ‘links’.
I receive requests about guest blogging, updating old content, link exchange proposals, monetary offers – you name it, these people are willing to give it in exchange for a simple URL inserted on our website.
This is an example of a very, very bad outreach email.
Why is it then, in an age when every other marketer and website owner is tilting towards a link-building, Google optimised strategy, that an established brand can increase their share price by 13% in one day with shareable content?
In the remainder of this article, I’ll investigate the value of the social media share, whilst uncovering the 5 steps to the most shareable content on the internet.
And as usual, we’ll have take-aways, videos, supporting images, examples, explainers and tons of shareable content…
Shares and Long Term Results, Is There a Correlation?
The main objective of this article is to provide you with something that you can take-away and action (if you’re mildly entertained – that’s a bonus) because I know social shares can have a big impact on your long-term success.
It might not say it in the textbooks, or the guides, or even list it in the depths of the marketing annuls, but social shares have a noticeable effect on long-term results. Many of the best performing content on Einstein Marketer (in terms of evergreen content scores) are located on pages that boast the highest social share counts.
For example, this is one of our most shared blogs and coincidently, one of our most visited too…
I’m not suggesting that social shares have a direct impact on search ranking, but the evidence shows that more shares = more results.
A study by CognitiveSEO discovered that the top 4 results on search engines have significantly more Facebook activity (with shares being a key part of that).
Shares aren’t just valuable in the short-term. These social signals have an impactful knock-on effect.
Social Shares As Social Proof
Regular readers will understand the delicate balance required to succeed with social proof, and this knowledge is pretty handy when it comes to understanding the importance of social shares (and how to get more of them).
If you weren’t there, here’s what you need to know:
Social proof is the theory that we are impacted by the decisions of the people in front of us
72% of people copied the action of the person in front of them (in our real-world marketing test)
Our Facebook ads performed better when social proof was inserted into the advertising copy (watch the videos if you don’t believe me!)
Social proof doesn’t work well when used in the incorrect places (i.e. in promotions for luxury brands)
Showing your target market that you’re popular by using social proof signals, can help your marketing performance
If you missed it, here’s a video of me handing out leaflets on the streets, to prove the theory of social proof:
Social media shares act as digital recommendations.
Yes, they look amazing on the page and that definitely has an impact on the psychology of your target audience, but more importantly, they allow us to see what the people we trust most recommend.
Who would you trust more:
Your mother
A stranger
This kind of social proof is invaluable for digital businesses – and reveal one reason why it’s so important for content creators and marketers to aim for ‘shareable content’.
The 5 Steps to The Most Shareable Content on the Internet
Before we dive into our 5 steps to the most shareable content on the internet (a grand claim, I know), I need to draw your attention to an article I published a little while ago called, The Psychology of Sharing.
In this article, I analysed a three-part research program conducted by The New York Times known as ‘The Psychology of Sharing’.
The study revealed that the most likely reason people share content is to:
Bring Valuable or Entertaining Content to Others
Define Themselves to Others
Grow and Nurture Relationships
Enjoy Having Others Engage
Spread/Share Good Causes
With that knowledge in the bag, and these 5 points acting as a useful reference point for the rest of this article, it’s time to get into the content marketing tactics that will create irresistibly shareable content.
1. Personalisation
Let’s go back to the very start of this article when I praised Spotify for their excellent ‘Your 2020 Wrapped’ feature.
The one word in this campaign that made all the difference was ‘Your’ – this possessive pronoun (thank me later for the English language lesson) is the reason that they received so many social shares.
If Spotify had created a feature called ‘2020 Wrapped’, and sent their users the best performing artists, songs and genres of the year in total, their results would’ve been very different.
As revealed in The New York Times study, a top reason why people share content is ‘to define themselves to others’ – and let’s face it, there are few better ways to define yourself than by sharing the music you listen to.
Ever seen a t-shirt like this? This is a real-world equivalent of Spotify’s Wrapped campaign.
Personalisation is a key stepping stone towards the holy grail of virally shared content and Spotify hasn’t been the only ones to notice.
A bigger brand has made a bigger splash, with a bigger marketing campaign based on the shareability of their personalised content.
Coca-Cola’s ‘Share a Coke’ campaign is one of the most famous marketing campaigns in recent memory – and I couldn’t write an article about creating shareable content without mentioning its name.
The campaign involved Coca-Cola removing their brand name from labels and replacing them with the 250 most popular names of each country they were released in.
A bit too sugary for my taste, but a purchase is tempting when the product has my name on it.
In the first year of the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, photos were tagged with the hashtag ‘#shareacoke’ more than 500,000 times, and Coca-Cola gained more than 25 million Facebook followers (Source: Investopedia).
The personalisation of their products gave them the leverage to increase product sales AND the platform to build on their growth – thanks to the shareability of their personalised bottles.
Before 2011, Coca-Cola had seen ups and downs but never surpassed its peak share price in 1998. After their ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, their share price did nothing but rise until 2020.
How to Personalise Your Content For Shares
Creating shareable content via personalisation requires one very important thing: data.
Without information, you simply can’t personalise anything.
For instance, regular readers will know that my name is Josh, and therefore have enough data to personalise a message to me. A message or comment like this will capture more of my attention than one addressed as ‘Dear Sir’.
Data is a touchy subject – but nobody seems to care when it’s used to let us show off, as Spotify’s campaign proved.
Spotify succeeded because they had collected tons of data from their customers. Coca-Cola succeeded because they had enough resources to create a blanket personalisation campaign.
We don’t all have the budgets or data holding of companies like Spotify and Coca-Cola, so here are a few ways that anybody can use personalisation in their marketing campaigns and content to increase shareability:
Know your audience: Start with a customer avatar, create stuff that will help your ideal customer.
CRM Tags: Tag actions and behaviours in your customer relationship management software, and use this to inform future promotions, e.g. tag everyone who buys specific products and tailor their future communications around it.
Pixel/Cookies: Track behaviours and actions on your website and create custom audiences based on this behaviour, e.g. clicks, scrolls, URL visits, conversions. Retarget each segment with personalised content.
Collect More Data: Use sign-up forms to collect as much information as possible – first names, last names, company names, location etc. Use this information in communications.
Analytics: Use Google Tag Manager and Analytics to track what content your audience is most in tune with, and create more of it!
Implement a Live Chat: Create a live chat/messenger option for website visitors and personalise their conversation and future interactions with your website.
2. Let Them Share!
I see too many talented creators and marketers fail to offer their audience the chance to share their work.
It’s as easy as this:
Click on the share buttons below to spread the word:
BTW: The social share buttons (above) are provided by a company called Social Warfare. They act as a WordPress plugin. Install these (or a similar plugin), activate them and add them to your website – it’s not rocket science.
Calling your audience to share shouldn’t be restricted to written content, it should be done in videos and podcasts. too The best times to do this are at the start and end of your content.
These sharing recommendations are known as a ‘call-to-action’.
We can explain why calls-to-action work, thanks to a 1966 book by James J Gibson, called The Senses Considered as Perpetual Systems.
Good luck to anybody who tries to read this – it’s not for the faint-hearted.
Gibson coined a term known as ‘affordances’. This explains why certain objects have properties that direct us to take action.
For example, when we see a button, we instinctively know (and want) to press it, when we see a doorknob, we know to twist it, when we’re faced with a switch, we want to flip it.
Thanks to digital, affordances have stretched much further than simply flicking and turning switches. We know to pinch our fingers to zoom in, double-tap to like (on Instagram) and drag down to reload pages.
It’s up to you to provide your audience with the correct sharing ‘affordances’, so they’ll instinctively want to share your content.
Unfortunately, there isn’t an option to add 3D knobs and switches to your content, but, as you’ve already noticed, there are some powerful ways to use share buttons in your content:
Make it visible: Use floating bars at the side or bottom of your content to keep your share buttons in-view at all times. When the ‘I want to share’ moment hits, the option needs to be there.
Embed share buttons: Don’t ram sharing buttons down your audience’s throat, embed them where appropriate
Ask, be polite: Don’t tell your audience to do stuff, ask them politely. Many of them will understand the importance and impact of a social share and will do so if you ask.
Use incentives: A click-to-tweet is effectively a free piece of content for your audience, offer them the incentive. Alternatively, offer them offers/deals etc within your email content in exchange for shares.
Colours: Green’s and oranges are the most commonly used CTA colours, why not try using them in your social share buttons. It might be worth testing.
Show share numbers: If your content regularly receives high levels of shares, put a share counter beside your share buttons. This technique uses social proof to encourage more shares – just don’t overdo it!
3D Buttons: Design your share buttons so they look like they’ll depress when they’re clicked on. Alternatively, change their design when a mouse hovers over them.
3. Stand Out!
Doing the same thing as everyone else achieves below-average results – especially when you’re relatively new in content.
It pays to stand out – and the currency for your achievements are social shares.
The number one reason that people share content in The New York Times study was ‘to bring valuable or entertaining content to others’. People are inherently social creatures, and they are always looking at ways of helping their social circles (and raising their standing within it).
Standing out requires creativity, skill, ingenuity and having the bravery to go against the grain, or in the words of a Nobel prize winner:
‘The opposite of a great idea is another great idea.’
Niels Bohr
A sports brand like Nike would be well advised to use athletes in their ads as aspirational figures that are aligned with their products. However, one of their most virally shared campaigns was their ‘Find Your Greatness’ ad, where they did the exact opposite:
Or a drink brand like Guinness should – to any rational thinker – hide that their product is slow to pour, but instead they advertise it like a badge of honour.
And it’s one of the foremost reasons that at a time when everyone is publishing as much content as possible, I’ve decided to reduce the number of blogs being published on Einstein Marketer, in order to raise the level of quality that’s associated with our brand.
Great ideas come at both ends of the spectrum. Find which end suits you and create content that warrants the ‘stand out’ motivated share.
And if you need further inspiration, here’s an apology from KFC that received tons of shares for ‘stand out’ reasons:
How to Make Your Content ‘Stand Out’
The Austrian psychologist, Ernest Dichter, released a study in 1966 about word-of-mouth marketing.
He discovered that the most common reason for somebody to recommend a product to a friend was ‘product involvement’. This occurred when an experience with a product was so novel and pleasurable that it simply had to be shared.
You must aim to elicit that same feeling with your content.
A brand that have achieved this with their content is Blendtec, with their infamous YouTube videos, ‘Will it Blend?’:
But, how can you use content to stand out and gain those all-important social shares? Here are a few ways that we’ve used them in the past:
Think of a good idea and do the opposite: Let’s face it, you aren’t the only person online creating content – your good idea has probably been executed before. Why not flip it on its head and try the opposite?
Do something immeasurable: Almost everything online can be tracked, but why not try something that can’t be tracked – have longer conversations with prospects, post less, post more, publish elsewhere, go offline, create branded merchandise.
Create nonsense: I only know one brand of blender, because Blendtec is the only one who created nonsense content with their product. If you have a product, try some nonsense for yourself.
Be honest: Trust is one of the hardest commodities to find online – being honest about yourself, your brand and your journey will stand out from the crowd.
4. Positivity
I’m smiling already.
‘Positivity’ is an especially relevant point for me because I regularly share it. My most recent retweet (at the time of writing) was about the world’s first Covid-19 vaccination:
And I’m not the only one, in Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger and his colleague analysed seven thousand articles to discover what elements contributed to their most emailed articles.
Add this book to your reading list
They discovered that there were two primary factors that led to the sharing of articles:
How positive the article was
How excited it made the reader
Joy is a feeling that we instinctively want to share it with others. Spreading happiness builds and nurtures relationships and gives us enjoyment (both of these are top 5 psychological share factors according to The New York Times study).
News sites like Good News Network are often seen shared on social media.
The message itself doesn’t have to be positive to incite positive sharing feelings. As brands and marketers, it can be difficult to find feel-good topics when we’re creating content about our products or problem-fixes.
Instead, we can use easter eggs (hidden gems in our content) or our medium delivery to spark joy in our audience. Check out this promotional video about train safety:
This video for Dumb Ways to Die has been viewed more than 200 million times on YouTube and even has a mobile app.
Try watching that video and telling me that you don’t want to hit these share buttons…
If your singing voice isn’t quite up to a catchy new jingle, and you’re fresh out of inspirational stories, there are other ways to generate positivity.
Excitement and positivity are similar emotions, you can use either to create the shareable content you’re seeking.
Here are a few ways to make your content more positive and your shares more frequent:
Release dates:If you have a product, content or changes to your business that will impact your customer positively – create content about them and build excitement. Computer game companies earn $$$ in pre-orders from shares of their release date promos.
Product teasers: If you have something that’s in development, a completed prototype or potential change to your services – create a content teaser and post it on social media. Think positively!
Staff stories: We’re social creatures, and people love people. Try using your own funny industry-related stories, or those of your staff.
Video: It’s much easier to share positive emotions about a mundane topic when you’re on video on doing it.
Curate: Use your social channels to curate positive news from other sources. You won’t own the content, but you’ll be the messenger.
Think positively: Don’t force the feeling. Positive vibes radiate off you when you’re in the zone and will flow into your content too. Enjoy the process!
5. Stories
In 1996, a few weeks before the Olympic Games, a young athlete was diagnosed with stage 3 testicular cancer. A year later, after undertaking chemotherapy and having the cancer removed, he was declared cancer-free and started his own foundation.
The man was Lance Armstrong, his foundation, Livestrong. Fast forward 7 years and Armstrong had just picked up a record-breaking 6th consecutive Tour de France.
This seemingly impossible story led to Nike selling more than 80 million yellow wristbands with his foundation’s ‘Livestrong’ branding:
It’s probably best not to mention what happened to Armstrong a few years later.
This yellow bracelet went ‘purchase viral’, and the same thing happens to content and marketing campaigns when they’re attached to the correct story.
In the UK, many people eagerly await John Lewis’s Christmas advert (if you’re not a Brit, John Lewis is a large department store) because they’re always built around touching stories.
When these ads drop, you cannot move on social for shares of their video.
My favourite John Lewis ad wasn’t even created by them. In this ad, Twitter teamed up with a man named John Lewis, who lives in Virginia, US and owns the Twitter handle @JohnLewis. Because of his username, he is regularly inundated with tags, mentions and requests from UK twitter users:
Since @johnlewis tweeted this ad, it has been shared more than 25k times from his account alone.
BTW: If you haven’t seen a John Lewis Christmas advert, check them out on YouTube.
Stories are an amazing way to elicit emotion. They give us the opportunity to share good causes (like the Livestrong band), build relationships and entertain others – 3 big psychological reasons why we share content.
I opened this blog with a story about Spotify to capture your attention, and I’ve weaved in several more to keep you engaged. As a creator, marketer and entrepreneur, you must understand the value of attention.
A great story can pull new audiences from their ferociously busy newsfeeds – giving you the chance to convert that into a share.
Watch me briefly explain the value of attention on stage at EMC 2020.
How to Use Stories In Your Content
Stories are everywhere, it’s just a matter of knowing how to find them. Here are a few ways that anybody can use stories to create irresistibly shareable content:
Brand stories: Your business must’ve started for a reason, and there has to be some background to this. This is your brand story – you simply have to use it. Think of the emotional steps that took you from where you were, to where you are today.
Customer stories:This type of story are great on landing and sales pages because they increase conversion rates. Ask your existing customers to talk about their life (in relation to your product’s problem-solving ability) before and after they found you. Use quotes and videos to build trust in your brand.
Progress updates: Nobody ever started at the top of the tree. If you’re on your way up, show your audience every step along the way. We are all living, breathing stories. Use updates to build a community who are invested in yours.
Vlogs/blogs: Vlogs and blogs are a great way to go into more detail about your journey. You can reveal problems you’ve faced, shortcuts and advice.
The 5 Steps to the Most Shareable Content On the Internet
There we have it – the 5 steps to the most shareable content on the internet.
We’ve been through highs and lows, witnessed some great modern marketing campaigns, and put the theory of shareable content to the test with examples and explanations.
As a quick recap, here are our 5 ways to create shareable content:
Personalisation
Let them share!
Stand out!
Positivity
Stories
If you can tie two or three of these elements together, you’ll create something that is irresistible on social media.
I’ll be back soon with more super-valuable content like this – as always, scroll down to the bottom of this page to subscribe for updates…
…and please share this article to spread the knowledge (and love).
Josh is an award winning content marketer and the Director of Content at Einstein Marketer, previously working as a content manager, freelance copywriter and marketer. He writes, edits, proofs and strategises content for Einstein Marketer’s agency and their clients, sharing the most successful tactics and strategies with his lovely audience. He hates writing in the third person, follow him on the social links (above) so he can get back to writing as himself.
e all have those pieces of writing that strike a chord within us each time we read them. You know what I’m talking about — those works that hit you in the feels with their is-the-author-inside-my-brain sentences.
Think about why you love your favourite authors and writers. What do they offer that you can’t get enough of?
For me, that’s how I feel whenever I read something by Stephen King or Sloane Crosley. Those two know how to transport readers smack-dab in the middle of a story.
When King writes about doom and gloom and apocalyptic nightmares, you feel it to your core.
When Crosley describes her New York City apartment, you’re sitting right there with her on her couch.
It’s their ability to immerse readers into their plotlines with strategic language that makes them exceptional writers.
In fact, that’s what inspired my newsletter/side project, Kat Loves Copy.
But how do they do it?
I’m going to share three ways to swiftly win over new readers using tried-and-true writing methods.
I’ll also show you how to apply these techniques to content marketing, whether it’s for your clients or your own work.
1. Write like you speak
The quickest way to lose your audience’s attention is to write in a way that sounds like a lecture from the economics teacher, played by Ben Stein, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
And what do we say to writing that’s boring? Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
The best kind of writing reads like a conversation between the author and the reader.
It’s engaging. It’s two-sided. Readers feel invested in what you have to say, just as they would if you were having the conversation in real life.
So, how do you achieve that to win new readers? Write as if you’re speaking with a friend or colleague. It may sound simple, and in many ways, it is, but it takes practice.
Let’s look at two different approaches to this writing technique:
First, think about how you might explain a topic to your friend:
What words and phrases would you use?
How would you position your opinion?
What titbits or examples would you lean on to get your point across?
It may be helpful to make a list of these answers as you think of them so you can refer back as you write.
For example, instead of writing, “Here are six homemade dog treat recipes,” you could say, “Let’s look at six different homemade dog treat recipes because, let’s be honest, our four-legged friends deserve a variety of treats.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. The first example is completely fine. But the second example has more personality to it, which will likely be more engaging.
The second approach is to record yourself having a conversation with a colleague (or solo) about your topic of choice.
Listening to how you discuss, analyze, and present different sides of your argument can drive clear, yet descriptive, writing. Just be sure to cut unnecessary filler words.
I recommend recording a video call, so you can pick up on things like your body language and visual queues, if you’re speaking to someone else.
2. Use figurative and descriptive language to paint a picture
Want to transport your readers into your narrative instantly?
Dust off your grade school English textbook and revisit the figurative language chapter.
Let’s review the most widely used figures of speech:
Simile
A simile is when you compare two, unlike things using “like” or “as.”
For example, that puppy is as cute as a button.
Or, reading that blog post was like watching paint dry.
Comparisons help clarify your message and explain the familiar yet undefined. They’re a type of metaphor and excellent writing tools for when describing something with one word doesn’t quite feel enough.
Metaphor
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.”
Metaphors are workhorses of description that intrigue your audience and help you win new readers. They allow you to paint a picture beyond corresponding adjectives and nouns.
“A freshly paved tar road enveloped the night sky” is far more vivid to read than “the night sky was dark,” right?
Hyperbole
With hyperbole, it seems as though the more exaggeration, the better. And hyperbole is just that — extreme exaggeration.
“Please sit down because having produced nine million award shows, I know the producer’s up there saying, ‘Hurry, say thanks fast.’”
These figures of speech help convey ideas, points of view, and details. Just make sure you’re using them in a way that adds value to your readers and doesn’t distract.
“When you write content and copy, your most important job is that of Chief Empathy Officer for your audience.”
Connection. It all boils down to connection. You could craft the most eloquent, well-written article, but it won’t mean a single thing unless it connects with your reader.
Empathy is a powerful tool that fosters a bond between you and your readers.
It helps you figuratively reach out from the page and say:
“I understand your problem or concern, dear reader, now, let me show you what to do about it.”
From a content marketing perspective, this is true whether you’re trying to sell a product or get readers to take any form of action.
But first, you have to understand your audience enough to write something that resonates with them. If you don’t know your audience, you won’t know how to connect with them and naturally win new readers.
Knowing your audience means knowing how to serve them, and that’s the cornerstone of high-quality content. However, the buck doesn’t stop there.
Once you know your audience, you have to write in a tone that matches. In other words — and I say this lovingly — read the room.
If your tone doesn’t match the topic, it will be difficult (if not nearly impossible) to create a bond with your reader.
To do this, put your research cap back on. The same principles apply when figuring out how to write in your own voice. What language does your audience use? What phrases or words do they resonate with?
Get inside the mind of your audience, figure out what they need, and deliver.
Prioritize your audience
Most people are short on time and attention. That means you only get one chance to capture their hearts and win new readers.
By injecting details and your personality into your writing, you’re able to open the door to connect with your readers and encourage them to stick with you.
But while your writing voice is important, make sure your readers can still find themselves in your words.
Content marketing is a contact sport. Just like any coach, you’re in charge of preparing for the game and carrying out those plans. Such is the life of a content marketer, where you must balance content marketing strategy vs. execution.
You can’t “win” at content marketing without a solid strategy. Nor can you do so without the ability to execute on it consistently. Let’s look at how both of these functions are critical to your game plan and how to find the right balance.
Quick Takeaways
A fruitful content marketing return for your organization requires both strategy and execution.
Different resources and tools are necessary to handle both sides.
Finding the right balance ensures that you can consistently publish content that’s relevant and engaging for your audience.
Having a Strategy Doesn’t Always Mean Your Content Marketing Is Effective
Just because you have a strategy, it doesn’t mean it’s effective. This is something many organizations struggle with due to a variety of reasons. They don’t have leadership buy-in, resources are slim, it’s just words in a document, or it’s not really a cultural foundation.
It’s easy to get derailed with your strategy. It’s also something that’s living and breathing. It’s not static. Rather, so many things, internal and external, influence it. Just consider the pandemic impact. This global health crisis changed the message and strategy for basically every company.
However, you can’t dwell on your strategy and stop executing it because it’s not perfect. It never will be. You have to start somewhere with good enough and then look at your content performance analytics and data to determine if your strategy is on point or way off.
What Makes a Content Strategy Effective?
If you aren’t sure if your strategy is effective, then it’s time to find out. In general, the most successful ones have these attributes:
Specific definition of goals and the KPIs (key performance indicators) you’ll rely on to measure effectiveness.
Detailed and heavily researched buyer personas. You must really know your audience to develop content that will resonate with them.
Types of content (blogs, eBooks, webinars, video, etc.) you’ll use and how they align with your buyer persona preferences.
Channels you’ll use to disperse and distribute content (social, email, paid, etc.)
Tools you’ll need to develop content workflows, track audience behaviors, set up campaigns, aggregate analytics, and leverage automation.
Foundational language that should influence every piece of content you create (value prop, USP (unique selling proposition), elevator pitch, taglines, vision statement, and mission statement).
Content production goals (how much throughput do you commit to every month—check out these insights on blog frequency, for example).
If your strategy addresses all these points, you should feel pretty confident that it can be effective. The challenge for many is how to execute it.
Content Marketing Execution: Turning Strategy into Action
Coaches create game plans with precision, and then they attempt to execute it. They know they’ll have to course-correct along the way because the unexpected is inevitable. When you watch an NFL game, you know these guys are professional athletes, the best of the best, but you can also tell when they aren’t executing—dropped passes, sacked quarterbacks, and huge mental errors.
That can all happen in content execution as well. Strategists lay out the plans for a content team to be successful. Yet, the same challenges keep popping up. Some of the biggest around execution are consistency and content creation workflows.
There is certainly reason for friction here. However, it’s not difficult to improve this part of execution. Technology is the answer. A content marketing platform can streamline workflows, provide you with dynamic content calendars, and help you identify where the impediments are.
For example, you might have a few design resources, yet they’re necessary for almost all types of content. If that’s what’s slowing your production, you can consider hiring more in-house talent or outsourcing.
You’ll likely never have “enough” resources. But redistributing them and augmenting your team with outsourced talent can help you reach your content production goals.
Data Should Influence Execution
Execution isn’t on autopilot. The content performance data you generate and analyze should inform it. It could change your strategy, as well. For example, you may learn that your audience has a high preference for visual content over written content. You’ll change your execution of tactics based on this to meet your audience’s expectations better.
Execution Requires All Hands in the Same Circle
Sports teams huddle and put their hands together to show they are one. Your content marketing team should do the same when it comes to execution. Much of this comes down to accountability and transparency. When you have a technology platform that tracks the status of every project, you’ll have a clear picture of who isn’t playing their role.
Then it’s time to investigate the issue and find out what’s actually happening. It may be a time to coach up, add resources, or make a cut.
Finding the Right Balance for Your Business
Content marketing strategy vs. execution is a core concern for any organization committed to content marketing. Having the right balance means your strategy has all the essentials, and you refresh it regularly but aren’t getting caught up in it being perfect. On the execution side, it means analyzing why you aren’t meeting production goals and how to fix your strategy so you hit your goals.
These two areas are necessary for achieving wins in content marketing—more traffic, leads, and sales. And we can help!
If you’re ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content published consistently, check out our Content Builder Service.
Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today and generate more traffic and leads for your business.
Michael Brenner is a Top CMO, Content Marketing and Digital Marketing Influencer, an international keynote speaker, author of “Mean People Suck” and “The Content Formula” and he is the CEO and Founder of Marketing Insider Group, a leading Content Marketing Agency . He has worked in leadership positions in sales and marketing for global brands like SAP and Nielsen, as well as for thriving startups. Today, Michael helps build successful content marketing programs for leading brands and startups alike. Subscribe here for regular updates.
Both B2B Marketers and Buyers Increasingly Sold on Conversational Marketing
B2B marketing professionals have found email, online live chat, social media, and chatbots have all seen increased usage in 2020, while phone and video call use has fallen by more than 10 percent, according to recently-released B2B buyer communication survey data of interest to digital marketers. MarketingCharts
B2B Tech Firms Cut Marketing Budgets Due To Pandemic: Study
Despite an overall drop in marketing spending due to the global health crisis, budgeting for digital and content marketing are the most likely to see increased spending, while some 60 percent of B2B technology firm executives say that their key performance indicators (KPIs) haven’t undergone change. MediaPost
Subject Matter Expertise A Growing Factor for B2B Buyers When Evaluating Vendors
In 2020 over 32 percent of B2B and professional services buyers see subject matter expertise and industry knowledge as the top attribute when evaluating firms, a rate over 11 percent higher than 2018 figures, with client service flexibility the only other element that became more important during the past two years — two of several statistics of interest to online marketers in recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts
7 ways COVID-19 has changed B2B customer experience forever
The pandemic has blurred the lines between B2B and B2C marketing, brought more intelligent automation to customer experience (CX), and made trust a more important factor, and Adobe has taken a look at how these changes will play out in 2021 and beyond. Adobe (client)
Linked Rolls Out Company Engagement Report
LinkedIn (client) has launched a Company Engagement Report offering new insights for B2B marketers, especially those using account based marketing (ABM), featuring a variety of organic and ad engagement metrics, the Microsoft-owned professional social platform recently announced. Adweek
Facebook Once Again Experiments with Up and Down Votes for Comments to Optimize Engagement
Facebook has begun limited testing of Reddit-like upvoting and downvoting options among certain Facebook Groups, with an eye towards boosting relevant content and engagement levels, recent observations of the social media giant have shown. Social Media Today
Google’s Working on a New Process Which Would Convert Static Website Assets into Video Content
Google has launched URL2Video, a new prototype utility that incorporates some of Google’s AI systems to turn static website digital assets into video content, in a move that could lead to new digital marketing opportunities, the search giant recently announced. Social Media Today
Social Media Trends 2021 Global Report
Content remixing, memetic media, and nostalgia marketing are among the trends marketers are likely to see more of during 2021, according to recently-released global social media survey trend data from HubSpot and Talkwalker. Talkwalker
Microsoft Clarity, the company’s tool for visualizing user experience, is out of beta
Microsoft has widely released Clarity, a free service offering a variety of user engagement and other metrics using site JavaScript, previously available only in beta form, the firm recently announced. Marketing Land
B2B Content Marketers Getting More Successful in Building Credibility
B2B content marketers say they have found creating brand awareness, educating audiences, and building credibility and trust as the top three benefits of B2B content marketing over the past year, followed by lead generation and building loyalty with existing customers, according to recently-released survey data of interest to digital marketers. MarketingCharts
ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:
A lighthearted look at “CX is more than a department” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist
New Photo Filter Shows What You Would Look Like in Facial-Recognition Database — The Hard Times
TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:
Lee Odden — #TimTalk – The Business of B2B Influence with Lee Odden — Timothy Hughes
Lane R. Ellis — 10 Tips for Prioritizing Tasks to Make the Most of Limited Small Business Resources — Small Business Trends
Lee Odden — 40 Marketing Quotes to Provoke Thought and Inspire — Visitor Queue
Have you found your own top B2B marketing stories from the past week of industry news? Please let us know in the comments below.
Thanks for taking the time to join us for our weekly B2B marketing news, and we hope that you’ll return again next Friday for another examination of the most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.
By Lane Ellis
Lane R. Ellis (@lanerellis), TopRank Marketing Social Media and Content Marketing Manager, has over 36 years’ experience working with and writing about the Internet. Lane spent more than a decade as Lead Editor for prestigious conference firm Pubcon. When he’s not writing, Lane enjoys distance running (11 marathons including two ultras so far), genealogical research, cross-country skate skiing, vegetarian cooking, and spending time with his wonderful wife Julie Ahasay and their three cats in beautiful Duluth, Minnesota.
Every day, billions of people use the internet and smartphones. Because of this, digital marketing has become one of the most important aspects of an organization’s overall marketing strategy.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing can mean slightly different things to different people. For example, the tactics used by an e-commerce platform will be different from bricks and mortar businesses.
The most common types of activity encompassed within digital marketing include:
Content marketing
The shift towards content marketing has been significant over the last decade. Creating and distributing valuable content to your target audience to build awareness, trust, and inbound leads.
Content marketing can take the form of blogs, whitepapers, video content, case studies, infographics, and podcasts.
Social media marketing
There are a number of social media platforms used by brands in order to drive traffic and engagement. While much of the activity on social media can be classed as content marketing, the chance to listen and engage with an audience makes it a viable marketing channel in its own rite.
Social media continues to evolve as new platforms emerge. The most popular being Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, WeBo, and TikTok.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Gaining quality organic traffic through major search engines such as Google and Bing. Strategies can include optimizing websites, building backlinks, and SEO friendly content.
Search engine marketing (SEM)
The other side of the search engine coin to SEO. Search engine marketing refers to the paid activities used to increase search engine visibility and drive traffic through Google Adwords or Bing Ads.
Affiliate marketing
This particular form of marketing is becoming extremely popular. Affiliate marketing is when a person or company is paid a set commission for every sale or traffic they generate for another company. This particular form of marketing is popular with bloggers and solopreneurs, who can pivot content quickly in order to showcase affiliate links.
Every year Amazon pays out hundreds of millions of dollars in affiliate fees and is one of the most popular programs of its kind in the world.
Pay per click (PPC)
Similar to paid search, you pay a pre-set amount whenever someone clicks on your ad.
Email marketing
The granddaddy of digital marketing. Every year we hear that email marketing is dead, but it is still a staple of a solid digital marketing strategy. When it’s done properly, regular or automated email marketing is still a powerful tool, especially combined with personalized marketing techniques.
Instant messaging and bots
WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat have, between them, billions of users all around the world. That is an unmissable opportunity for brands looking to get their messages out there.
The use of bots, in particular on Facebook, is a great way of interacting with your audience in a scalable, on-brand way.
What does it mean to outsource digital marketing?
Outsourcing your digital marketing means that you are using a person, company, or companies to take care of those aspects of your overall marketing strategy. This could be for a number of reasons including a budget, lack of internal resources, or being too big or too small to be able to have the necessary resources in the house.
What does in-house digital marketing mean?
An in-house team will plan, execute, and report on all digital marketing activities using a team employed by the organization.
What are the benefits of outsourcing digital marketing
There are many reasons that you might want to outsource your digital marketing, including:
Budget – smaller businesses know that they need to implement some form of digital marketing to grow, but cannot afford to hire a team full time to do this. Instead, they will use third-party/parties to plan and implement digital marketing on their behalf. Types of outsourcing could include web design, social media, SEO, and so on.
Knowledge – because digital marketing companies make their money from just that, they need to keep their knowledge, skills, and technologies on the leading edge at all times. You can benefit from this continuing development without having to put yourself off your team through the recommended training or costs.
What are the cons of outsourcing digital marketing?
There are some potential downsides to turning over your digital marketing to a third party.
Less personal – by handing over your marketing strategy to someone else, you might find that your brand begins to develop in different ways in order to attract new audiences and customers. If you’ve been responsible for your brand and marketing to date, it can be difficult to let go.
Finding the right team can be difficult – while working with the right team can fundamentally change your business success for the better, choosing the wrong team can be damaging.
It takes time to find the right people. You need to work with those that you connect with and work hard for you. There are plenty of horror stories out there that put people off hiring an outside agency.
You need to commit to a strategy – in order to create a comprehensive digital marketing campaign, you need to commit to a budget, and strategy at the outset, as well as have. It is unfair for you to move the goalposts frequently. You’ll also need to sign something along the lines of a digital marketing proposal and it’d make sense to get acquainted with one prior to signing it.
You are one of a number of clients – your business may not be as important to them as you’d like it to be. That’s not to say that you won’t be treated professionally, but you cannot always expect to be a top priority.
What are the benefits of in-house digital marketing?
Dedicated to one client, you – there are no other clients vying for your marketing team’s attention, so you know that your company always takes top priority.
Quicker response times – if your marketing team works with others within your organization on various tasks, having a team on-site, dedicated to you can cut out a lot of red tapes. For example, if a certain department has an idea for a campaign or would like something promoted at short notice, you don’t have to try and negotiate with an outsourced team to try and bump your request to the top of the list.
Better brand knowledge – because the team is part of your organization, they live and breath your brand every day. This can then be translated seamlessly into your campaigns.
What are the cons of in-house digital marketing?
Costs – as covered earlier in the article, digital marketing encompasses a lot of different specialisms. Recruiting and training people in all of these areas can be very expensive. In addition to salaries, you also have to consider recruitment costs, benefits and ongoing training needs.
Skill levels – each area of digital marketing could be done by one person full time. But it is usually down to a few people who are expected to do everything. They often end up gravitating towards the areas they prefer, or never developing in-depth knowledge in a number of areas.
Potential to be overworked – if you hire a single person to do all of your digital marketing, as well as your traditional marketing tasks, you run the real risk of burning them out quickly.
Fewer contacts and special deals – digital marketing agencies can often have great contacts and deals in place with other sites or providers. In house teams often don’t have the time of the financial clout to do this.
Less strength in depth – if you are using an agency and someone is out sick, then there are usually other people who can take over the project at short notice. This usually isn’t the case with small in house teams. If someone in your team leaves, you are without any skill in certain areas until they are replaced.
Does it make sense to combine the two?
Many businesses find a good balance between in-house teams and outsourcing. It usually works best when there is an experienced marketing point person who can lead on the strategy development and then recruit and oversee the people or companies who will then actually implement the digital marketing campaigns.
This works well for a number of reasons. Having a single point of contact who has overall responsibility for digital marketing helps to streamline planning and decisions. Small in-house teams can also take care of some of the days to day digital marketing tasks that need doing and respond to in house requests quickly.
From a digital marketing agency perspective, it is always easier to deal with someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to leading a marketing function within a company and has realistic expectations.
For those companies who are deciding whether or not to recruit an in-house team, or outsource, this article provides some of the pros and cons of each course of action. Remember, what works for one company will not always work for another. It might make sense to outsource your digital marketing requirements at the beginning, then move towards a blended team as you scale up. Alternatively, if you are large enough to recruit a full digital marketing team, then you will have an entire department dedicated only to your organization.
Darya Jandossova Troncoso is a photographer, artist and writer working on her first novel and managing a digital marketing blog – MarketSplash. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family, cooking, creating art and learning everything there is to know about digital marketing.
There are so many directions in which you can take your marketing strategy these days, it can make you dizzy.
SEO, PPC, email, social… the list goes on! Of course, most brands will choose a combination of several of these methods.
But I’m going to explain exactly why I think content marketing is better than PPC and why you should focus the majority of your efforts on your content strategy.
Quick Takeaways
When implemented properly, content marketing offers a higher ROI than PPC in the long-term.
PPC might bring traffic to your site but it won’t make it convert. Only content can do that for you.
Paid search and other types of advertising have their place but it’s essential to have a solid content strategy to back them up.
What Is PPC Marketing?
But first, let’s recap what exactly I’m talking about when I say “PPC”. PPC stands for “pay per click,” is also known as “paid search” and is technically a form of advertising. PPC ads show up on top of “organic search” results on your search engine.
When you launch a PPC marketing campaign, you’ll place ads on a search platform like Google or Bing (this is also known as paid search marketing), on a social network such as Facebook or Twitter, or on other ad platforms.
Rather than paying upfront to place your ad for a set amount of time, you’ll pay the ad platform when your ad is clicked.
In most cases, there are many more advertisers than there are ad spots. The platform decides which ads to show by using a bidding procedure. The advertiser that has bid the highest amount for a particular search query or audience will get the best ad placement. However, they’ll also pay more when someone clicks through to their site.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a strategy that revolves around using content (blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc.) to attract relevant visitors to your website, raise awareness of your brand, and boost sales and conversions.
Rather than being sales-focused like an ad, in most cases, this content doesn’t directly pitch your products and services. Instead, you provide useful, entertaining, or inspiring content that improves the lives of your audience in some way.
Publishing a blog is one of the most common types of content marketing and one that’s easy for anyone to start, whether they’re an individual on a shoestring budget or a large enterprise.
1. Content Marketing Is Significantly Cheaper in the Long Term
When comparing different digital marketing strategies, PPC is right up there with some of the most expensive.
PPC can get you to the top of Google if you’re willing to pay for it. But you’ll have to keep paying to stay there.
These costs can add up quickly, especially in competitive industries where keywords can go for several dollars a click.
On the other hand, content marketing needs only a modest initial investment to get you started. If you’re really running on a tight budget, you can create content yourself with the only cost being your time.
With time and effort, high-quality content can reach the top of search engine results naturally. This means you can be getting those clicks for free instead of paying for each one. And you won’t lose your rankings until someone creates better or more relevant content than you.
The ROI of content marketing and PPC has too many variables to suggest an “average” for each method, even on a per industry basis. But whatever industry you’re in, while PPC may seem to offer a more attractive ROI initially, content marketing almost always offers a better ROI in the long-term.
Content marketing not only attracts more leads for your money, but it generates better quality leads too.
Lead quality is critical for optimizing ROI and increasing revenue. There’s no point in paying for leads (via any method) if they’re not converting.
One of the biggest complaints coming from sales teams is that the leads they get from marketing are low-quality ones. This situation can easily happen when sales and marketing aren’t in alignment and only care about their immediate targets. 55% of sales reps surveyed by Demand Gen said that what they want most from marketing is “better leads”.
Producing high-quality content is one of the most effective ways of attracting high-quality sales leads.
Just because you’re paying for leads, it doesn’t mean they’re great quality. A lot of the time leads from PPC are poor because they don’t know your brand or understand your product when they click your ad.
On the other hand, leads generated by content have already been introduced to your brand and educated on some level. And the longer they stick around and keep consuming your content, the better these leads become.
3. Content Marketing Generates Long-term Results
Content marketing campaigns must be planned on a much longer timescale than other marketing techniques. Some people consider this a negative, but being a slow burner offers huge benefits too.
Content marketing builds traffic and rankings that you own. This may happen very gradually, but once you start seeing the results you want, you’re not going to lose them overnight.
The time and money you invest in content marketing now will continue paying dividends well into the future. A single piece of content that might have cost you a couple of hundred dollars to produce could end up generating business and leads worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for years to come.
PPC, on the other hand, is most definitely a short-term strategy. You’ll see the results immediately but if you want to keep having success, you’ll need to keep going.
Anyone can buy clicks, but the value drops to zero once you stop.
4. Content Marketing Is a Simple Model That’s Hard to Mess Up
There’s a real art and science to successful PPC marketing. Not only do you have to know what keywords to bid on, but you also need to bid the right amount, optimize your ads for a high click-through rate, and craft your landing pages carefully to get the results you want.
PPC can be very effective when done well, but in most cases, you’ll have to invest a significant amount of cash before you can see results. If managed properly, PPC can be a good investment but you need a decent budget to get started.
For this reason, it’s sheer madness to attempt a PPC campaign unless you know what you’re doing. If you get lucky then you might see results, but more often than not, you’ll burn through a significant amount of money and have no results to show for it.
As PPC is so complicated, with many moving pieces, most brands using PPC marketing will either employ an in-house expert or outsource to a marketing agency specializing in PPC. Of course, this adds more expense to an already pricey marketing model.
Content marketing, on the other hand, is about as simple as you can get. While there’s certainly a lot to think about when you’re putting together a content marketing campaign, you can’t really get anything “wrong”.
In the worst-case scenario, you’ll publish some content that doesn’t really do anything for you. But all you’ll have lost is the time it took you to create that content or what you paid for it (and content marketing is very affordable compared to other types of marketing, remember).
I’ve seen organizations achieve impressive success with content marketing without following any real plan or tracking results, which just goes to show how simple it is. Those who regularly publish high-quality content and consistently deliver value will be rewarded for their efforts eventually, even if they don’t get all the fine details perfect.
5. People Trust Content More Than Ads
Google is constantly changing the way in which paid ads are displayed in the search results to try and make them blend in more seamlessly with the organic results. The reason for this is that most of the time, searchers don’t want to click on ads.
Most web users these days know that companies have paid to appear in the ads at the top of the search results, whereas web pages that are listed at the top of the organic results are there because they’ve earned it with a great reputation and high-quality information.
Research by Nielsen has found that 53% of consumers don’t trust ads listed in search engine results and 52% don’t trust ads on social media.
Trust in advertising, in general, has been gradually declining in recent years, with customers preferring to do their own research and more likely to follow recommendations from their peers than brand ads.
Content marketing isn’t advertising. It’s a great way to build trust rather than erode it.
5. You Can’t Succeed in PPC Without Also Investing in Content Marketing
So let’s say you do have the budget to inject into running a PPC campaign and you’re working with an agency that really knows what they’re doing.
You still won’t get the best results unless you also concentrate on creating really great content.
Just think about it – even if you’ve got a really well-written ad and your targeting is spot on, you still have to win over the users that click on the ad.
So that comes down to sales copy, right? Well, yes and no. It’s certainly important to have really well-crafted and optimized landing pages. But your success will be limited unless you’ve also thought about your content marketing strategy.
You might get some sales from users who’ve never heard of your company before and end up on your landing page. But you can greatly increase your chances if you’ve got a library of great content to back you up.
Great content gets shared and comes up frequently in search results. So, if you’ve been doing your job with content marketing well, there’s a good chance that the user who sees your ad and clicks through to your landing page might have seen one of your articles or videos while researching or on their social feeds. When they keep seeing great content from your brand, they’ll remember it and you’ve got a much better chance of making that sale.
While PPC might be great for attracting people to your funnel, you still have to get them through the funnel. And websites that have adopted content marketing convert at a rate that’s six times higher than those that haven’t.
PPC ads can convert well for users who are ready to buy. But for the rest? A report by Gleanster Research revealed that only 25% of your leads are ready to buy at any given time. So what do the other 75% want?
They want to find out more about your company and products or services. They maybe don’t even know yet that they have a need for your products and services. By publishing high-value informational content that addresses their challenges, you can ensure that they stick around for longer. You have a much better chance of making that sale when they’re finally ready to buy.
PPC can still be an effective part of your overall marketing strategy when planned carefully. But it must be used in combination with content marketing if you want to achieve the best results.
Content marketing is a low-cost marketing technique that offers an impressive ROI if you’re willing to stick with it for the long-term.
If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content published consistently, check out our Content Builder Service.
