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Branded content: It drives revenue for 88% of publishers (and other insights)

February 18, 2020 No Comments

6 Things We Learned About Branded Content from our Storytelling Partners

1. It’s Ubiquitous

According to research done by Digiday, 88% of publishers are driving at least some of their revenue from branded content, making it the second most popular source of income after display advertising. eMarketer estimates that the market for branded content will be worth $20 billion in 2021.

2. But Every Team Approaches It Differently

While many branded content teams react to RFPs, some teams take a different approach. In a recent interview with the Keywee team, Thrive Global’s Head of Branded Content told us that his team built a suite of content ideas that the sales team can sell directly to brands. With this proactive approach, the Thrive Global team is able to guide the cultural conversation with their branded content efforts while still meeting brand needs.

The team at The Studio at The Knot Worldwide also takes a more hands-on approach. Often, they’ll have their brand partners come in for multiple meetings: to look at their past work, meet the creative team, and brainstorm ideas together. After that process, the two teams will sit down together to write a brief.

3. Distribution is Informed by Content

Today, almost every branded content campaign is distributed on content distribution platforms in addition to the publisher’s website. Which channels, though, depends on the content.

The Guardian US creates a bespoke distribution plan for every piece of content, built around the intended audience and KPIs of the campaign. Similarly, Thrive Global chooses channels based on the format of the content, rather than trying to create content built to perform on any one channel. For most publishers, though, Facebook and Instagram are key channels for content distribution.

4. Content is Getting Shorter

Recently, there’s been an industry-wide focus on creating short-form content to meet consumers on the platforms where they spend most of their time. Branded content is no different; It’s now on marketers to create content that’s easily consumed on platforms without sacrificing impact.

According to Thrive Global’s head of branded content, “We’re all scrolling through social platforms. You need to think: what not only gets your thumb to stop, but what gets you to engage with a piece of content?”

5. But Brands Want More Reporting

As brands get more sophisticated, they expect more from branded content campaigns than just “brand lift.” That’s why the branded content team at The Guardian US starts every partnership by understanding the KPIs the brand is trying to achieve, and only then creates the content and distribution plan.

According to VP, Custom Content at The Knot Worldwide, more and more brand partners are asking for guarantees. This means less risk for the brand, and requires campaigns to be measurable and attributable. While this shift can be frustrating for creative teams, it has led to a much more efficient industry, with more oversight on how dollars are being spent. Now, “we’re not just thinking about what we’re making, but how it’s living and being delivered, too.”

At Keywee, we’ve seen branded content campaigns with goals around impressions, clicks, page views, video completion rates, and even lead generation.

Of course, at the end of the day, brands turn to publishers for their expertise. According to the Head of Gear Patrol Studios, “Obviously, clients are very tuned into performance metrics and targeting capabilities, and we definitely bring that to the table. But on top of that, we provide a compelling, beautiful story – that’s usually the primary reason people are working with us.”

6. Branded Content is 99% Communication

A branded content campaign is a partnership between a brand and a publisher, but it’s also a partnership between many internal teams. At Gear Patrol, the branded content team has its own content producers and editors, but still collaborates closely with editorial, video, design, and photography teams to execute on projects. This makes communication key to a successful campaign. According to the Head of Gear Patrol Studios, it’s all about process, communication, and empathy. Her team relies on Slack for real-time communication in addition to a healthy dose of working together in person.

By Keywee

Nicki Kornbluth, Keywee uses Natural Language Processing and AI to connect storytellers with their ideal audiences on Facebook. It works with hundreds of publishers to help them achieve their business goals efficiently and at scale. Website: https://keywee.co/

Sourced from WNIP What’s New in Publishing

In News

7 Ways To Increase The Credibility Of Your Blog Content

November 13, 2019 No Comments

By Susan Guillory

Would you believe I’ve written thousands of articles over the past decade? Each time I write a new article, I have to find a way to make the subject fresh again. I want to ensure that my readers find what I write useful and informative, so I use the following strategies to build credibility with my content. Feel free to use these tips for your own content and see if you attract more blog visitors!

1. Find statistics to back your content

I wanted to find a statistic about using statistics in your content marketing, but couldn’t find one! Until proven otherwise, your content is conjecture. It’s your opinion. That’s why adding statistics and research to your blog articles can help you validate your point of view.

Let’s say I’m writing an article arguing that content marketing can be more effective than any other type of marketing or advertising. That’s just my opinion at this point, but my reader wants proof:

Think content marketing is too big a headache to bother with? Think again, at least if you want to attract new business: content marketing gets 3x the leads per dollar spent than paid search does. Why are you still wasting money on the wrong marketing tactics?

Instantly, I’ve got backup for my argument that content marketing rocks.

Always link to the original source of the statistic. If you found it on a roundup of other statistics, click to the original data. I try to keep the stats I use within a year old so they’re not too crusty to be useful.

2. Source experts to share their perspective

Another way to make your blog content more credible is to ask industry experts to weigh in on a topic. There are actually two benefits to this approach: you get their wisdom and then you most likely get their support in sharing your article once it’s published, so your content reaches more people.

I like to have a few questions that I send to select people. If I’m writing an article about content marketing, I might ask:

Why is content marketing more effective than, say, digital advertising?
What types of content have you seen phenomenal results with?
How can businesses drive leads from a blog article?

I’ll send a friendly email to people I already know or who I’m connected with through social media and ask them to answer the questions. I’ll give a deadline so they feel a sense of urgency. The result is a nice, long post with different points of view on my topic.

3. Read what’s out there before you write

Even if you know your subject matter inside and out, you should still know what else has been written on this subject before you dive in. I simply Google my topic and read the top results. I’ll usually get ideas for my content and may wander further down the rabbit hole, searching for more specifics I want to include in my article.

Your goal here isn’t to rehash what’s already been written. It’s to find gaps in the existing content on this topic and find a way to write from a different perspective or present a new angle to the story. You can only do that if you know what’s been published.

4. Bold the good stuff

If you’re like 43% of people, you skim blog posts. (There’s your statistic!) People don’t always have time to sit down and read a 3,000-word post—a trend I’m not a fan of. Say it succinctly. They’ll scroll down the page and try to glean what’s most important in the post.

Rather than fight the nature of human beings, make it easier for them. Bold sentences that contain key facts so they can find them easily.

Beyond that, you should be using headers (typically H2 in the dropdown bar in WordPress) to divide the content into sections to make reading easy.

WordPress screenshot showing how to make subheads into H2 tags — Use the dropdown menu in WordPress to make your subheads into H2 tags.

Susan Guillory

5. Use images to illustrate a point

If your article is technical or explains a process, take screenshots to show your readers exactly how to do something. I did just that in the last section to show you where to find the H2 option.

If you’ve got a ton of research in your posts, consider creating custom charts, graphs, or infographics to make the data more digestible.

If your content doesn’t lend itself to screenshots or charts, use stock photos to make your posts visually interesting.

6. Talk to your audience directly

There’s a careful balance to strike between not talking over your readers’ heads while also not treating them like children. You first have to start by knowing who your audience is. If it’s rocket scientists, you better be as smart as a rocket scientist so you can speak intelligently to that audience. If it’s a mixed bag, write to about a seventh-grade audience.

Where did that number come from? There’s something called the Flesch-Kincaid readability score, which analyzes your content to determine what grade level could understand it and how readable it is. If you’re not sure your content is hitting the mark with your audience, use this readability test to see how it fares.

7. Back up your content with examples

If you’re talking about something you think your audience should do, include examples that prove your point. It could be from your experience working with clients or case studies you find online.

For my article on content marketing, I could talk about the work I’ve done for a mobile marketing company, helping them effectively establish themselves as a leader in their space. That might compel readers to want to work with me.

I hope these tips help you enhance your content and build credibility with your blog. Remember: it’s brands that put effort into the content they create that attract more blog visitors and customers.

By Susan Guillory

I am president of Egg Marketing & Communications, a marketing firm specializing in content writing for small businesses and tech companies. I’m also the author of three business books: DIY Press Releases: Your Guide to Becoming Your Own PR Consultant, 101 Entrepreneur Tips and Internet Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs. I frequently blog about small business and marketing on sites including The Marketing Eggspert Blog, AllBusiness, CorpNet, Small Business Trends, Chamber of Commerce, ScheduleBase, and Tweak Your Biz. Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. I frequently blog about small business and marketing on sites including The Marketing Eggspert Blog, AllBusiness, and Cision. Connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

How to Turn Your Book into a Year’s Worth of Content

June 14, 2019 No Comments

By Tanya Hall

If you have a book, you’ve already done the hard work and have a full year’s worth of content at your fingertips. Here’s how to divide and conquer your book to make it work for your online spaces.

Though most entrepreneurs understand the value of a strong online presence, blogging and social media can be a pain to upkeep when you’re also trying to run a business. Even when you set aside the time to focus on your online brand, it can be a struggle to come up with ideas, create content, and find the time to post that content once it’s created.

The good news is that, if you have a book, you’ve already done the hard work and have a full year’s worth of content at your fingertips. Here’s how to divide and conquer your book to make it work for your online spaces.

Step 1 – Start With Blog Posts

Assume your book has 12 chapters. Consider each of those chapters a monthly theme. From each chapter, dissect the information into 4 key points. Turn each point into a blog post by recycling content from the book, changing or adding 10-20% to make it readable as a stand-alone piece of content, and including a fresh example or connection to a current event.

Step 2 – Draft Social Media Posts

After you’ve parsed your book into 52 blog posts, it’s time to think about promoting each blog post to your community in order to drive them to your website to engage further with your brand. Draft one LinkedIn update, one Facebook update, and 3-5 tweets that pull out a fact, quote, or key point from each blog post. Plan to sprinkle those social shares in throughout the week.

Bonus: Are you encouraging people to sign up for your newsletter when they visit your website? Be sure to keep those subscribers engaged! You can easily create 12 monthly newsletters that highlight each month’s theme and corresponding blog content. When it’s time to send, just update with current news and upcoming events to make the content timely.

Step 3 – Schedule In Advance

Once you have you have your individual pieces of content, schedule all 52 blog posts, 52 LinkedIn updates, 52 Facebook Updates, 156-260 tweets, and 12 newsletters. This is the tedious part, but it’s worth it to automate your content calendar. Platforms like Hootsuite can help you keep track.

Congratulations! In just a few days, you’ve created and scheduled a full year’s worth of blog, social media, and newsletter content. Now all you have to do throughout the year is engage, and that only takes 15 minutes a day. Respond to comments on your blog and social channels, share current events and news stories, and interact with others. Try to tie your daily engagement back to your monthly theme (which you pulled directly from your book, repurposed into 4 valuable blog posts, and further developed into a week’s worth of social promotion) to maintain consistency and give your content purpose.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Tanya Hall

Sourced from Inc.

In News

How Content Drives Brand-Trust

April 11, 2019 No Comments

By Chad Pollitt

According to the Content Marketing Institute, on average, it takes six to eight online content touches from a brand for a consumer to become a customer. Some industries can take up to 18, according to Google. Why?

There’s a dozen or so micro-reasons we can likely come up with but what it boils down to is one word – trust. Each time a consumer is exposed to a brand’s content (owned, earned or paid) that person becomes more familiar with the brand. Over time, with enough touches, a trust threshold gets breached and the likelihood of that person becoming a customer is optimized. Of course, this is assuming the content is good/helpful.

That’s precisely why we do content marketing today and why many companies started to do it last decade. Although, admittedly, some used it as an SEO tactic originally, myself included. These brands are what Marcus Sheridan calls “digital sooners.” These are the companies that started doing content marketing last decade in a time of online content deficits. Meaning: there were more people on the web searching for solutions to their problems then there was content to solve them.

This was all well and good for those brands and most were able to drive copious amounts of traffic, visibility and awareness. Many still benefit from this today. Unfortunately, the sooner land rush is long gone for most brands. The rush since last decade has created what most industries are facing today – content surpluses. Meaning: there’s more content on the Internet today than there are people that want to consume it. To put this in prospective, according to Cisco, in 2007 global Internet traffic was about 2,000 GB per second. It’s estimated to be over 105K GB per second by 2021.

Clearly, it’s getting harder and harder everyday to stand out in the crowd with these content surpluses. As marketers we used to be able to hit the publish button on our content and the search engines and social media would drive all of the touches we needed to build consumer trust for our brands. That’s not likely a reality for most companies today.

As a result, we’ve been forced to leverage earned and paid media distribution tactics to get the content touches we need today. In fact, it’s highly likely that content marketing caused the rise of both influencer marketing and native advertising. It had to in our age of content surpluses.

Both distribution tactics lend themselves well to helping build brand trust. It’s not just the content touch itself that builds trust, but rather, the delivery method. If an independent third party writes wonderful things about a brand it screams validation much louder than a brand could do itself. The same holds true with native advertising. Even if a brand pays the New York Times for sponsored content that content is still in the New York Times. That on its own is a huge trust factor.

Content marketers have a guiding light at the top of the pyramid – build trust with consumers. People only go to the web for two reasons – to solve a problem or to be entertained, quickly. Marketers who do one of those two things or both will drive the touches they need to succeed with the help of content amplification and influencer marketing, today. Last decade isn’t coming back and the era of content surpluses is here to stay.

Lastly, television executives spend $5.00 on distribution for every $1.00 they spend on creation. Based on my own research, content marketers do the opposite. This has to change if we want the touches we need to optimize consumers to potential customers.

By Chad Pollitt

Sourced from inPower

In News

How to Create Quality Content That Ranks

March 26, 2019 No Comments

By Usman Raza

Quality content does not always rank. The advantage of Author credibility and how up to date the content is can sometimes be irrelevant to how it ranks. That isn’t to say those factors are useless, but content creators tend to miss an important factor that controls ranking: Relevancy.

What is Quality Content?

This is a simple definition. Quality content is determined by its success. If it has achieved a goal, drives traffic, conversions, or Google search rankings, it is seen as quality content.

The quality of content is not determined by what is put into it as much as its effect on a particular audience or search query.

The definition of quality content has shifted from the past, where it was defined by its relevance to a search query. However today, it is formed by relevance to the people who search for it.

What’s the Difference?

When creating content that is relevant, it is important to realize the difference between content that is relevant to a search engine, and relevant to the person searching. Content should be designed to meet the needs of the customer, first and foremost. That is, producing content that meets the needs of the person searching, instead of matching keywords to a search query.

How to Be Relevant

That is not to say using keywords are bad. Instead, evolve your experience with keywords to prioritize those people. People with problems to solve and questions to answer make content Relevant.

Know your Audience

When creating relevant content, it is important to know your target audience. The best way to do this is with tools like Google Analytics. It is designed to analyze different aspects of a website, from viewer location, most and least searched content and best to worst content.

When creating content based on analysis of your website, keep in mind the nature of your target audience. These questions here are perfect to consider what your target audience is all about.

Who are they?
How old? What gender?
What Social status/ background?
What do they like?
What are there problems?
Where do they live?

Now that you have figured out just what your target audience is like, it’s time to produce content that is based on that information. Make sure to write at a level your audience can easily comprehend.

Finding out the nature of your audience is an immensely experimentative path. However, deciding and sticking to a particular niche is the best way to normalize your audience.When posting content on social media, make sure to utilize analytics tools to determine the state of your content in relation to your audience. Audience analysis helps content creators adapt to their needs to keep content relevant to the audience. This is more officially known as data-driven marketing.

Backlinking

Backlinking is a great way to ensure your content is relevant. Web pages rank because websites link back to them. The reason they are linked to the web page is because they add useful information. Giving and receiving backlinks are truly one of the most powerful ways to rank content.

The benefits of backlinks for content ranking are:

Ranking is Organic – Backlinks drive organic traffic to your website. Organic traffic ranks content and web pages a lot higher than paid traffic. Websites and content that ranks organically are also more likely to be clicked.

Organic traffic is ideal for establishing trust with consumers over time while PPC traffic is great for producing short-term conversions.

Index Speed – Backlinked pages can be found more quickly by a search engine’s bots which in turn index’s it much more effectively. The quicker a page is indexed by a search engine, the faster it can start ranking.

Referral Traffic/ Low Bounce Rate – When producing blog content, the aim is to have a low bounce rate. This is the rate at which people come to your website and the time they spend on the website. If the content does not constantly grab the attention of the readers, then high bounce rates are sure to come as a result.

When receiving or giving backlinks, referral traffic is distributed from the referer to the authority content. Referral traffic is good because it usually has a low bounce rate. Since referral traffic is comprised of users looking for extra information relevant to the primary search query, it has lower bounce rates.

Also, referral traffic is trackable in Google Analytics, making it a useful way to monitor the strength of a backlink.

How Backlinks Affect Relevance

Backlinks should come from pages that are relevant to the content. This is how backlinks create relevancy.

When backlinking content to a web page, you create referral traffic to the backlinked website. Although this does not inherently create more traffic to your webpage, it does, however, increase its ranking on a search engine and strengthens the credibility of the page if the backlink is relevant to the page’s topic.

When receiving a backlink from another website, users are referred to you. This improves the relevance of your page and drives referral traffic to your page. Since that traffic is referred, there will be a low bounce rate for users who have searched that topic. This also establishes your page as a form of authority because your source supports related content.

When creating content, It is important to know your audience and seek the support of backlinks. When users view content that is relevant to their needs and supported with information that is also relevant, the content will rank highly in search engines. Use keywords that relate to your target audience and seek the aid of data to drive content that highlights your audience’s needs.

By Usman Raza

Usman Raza is a CEO of Usman Digital Media and co-founder of Christian Marketing Experts, content marketing specialist at webdaytona.com. He has been writing for magazines and newspapers since 2001, and editing and managing websites since 2006. Usman has a BA in Business Development, Philosophy, and English. A generalist,… View full profile ›

Sourced from Business 2 Community

In News

Consume Wisely – How to Deal with Too Much Content

February 5, 2019 No Comments

By Mile Živković

I know that a piece of content about too much content is kind of ironic, but hear me out. With every company out there putting out blog after blog, reading all the latest content seems like a chore. Good news for us writers, but if you’re trying to catch up on your reading list, you could end up spending hours every day just to stay on top of the latest content.

This is obviously not a viable strategy, so it’s highly important to hand-pick your reading list, unless you want to spend the better part of your workday wading through countless blogs and LinkedIn posts.

If you’d like to free up more of your day and become more productive with your use of time, here’s a few ways to battle the avalanche of content being created every day.

How did this all happen?

Unfortunately, the world didn’t all of a sudden develop the love for the written word. Blogging was quite popular even before content became big, but the advent of content marketing really made blogging blow up to what it is today.

While writing content for the sake of providing valuable information to readers is a noble cause, it’s not what drove the increase in the amount of content published. At a certain point in time, people realized that by writing content for specific keywords and aimed at specific audiences, they could increase visits to their business website and ultimately improve their bottom line.

Image source

Ever since, there’s been an avalanche of content from companies and individuals battling for keywords, visitors, shares and backlinks. As a result, there’s now more than 2 million blogs posted every day.

If you’re a marketer, tough luck, as you have to break through a lot of noise to get to your target audience. On the other hand, if you’re a reader looking for valuable content, you’ll also have to sort through lots of fluff and poorly written listicles to get to truly valuable, actionable content you can learn from.

Here’s how you can do that in a few easy steps.

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Set up an RSS feed

When you’re used to reading several dozen blogs at a time, it can be overwhelming just to check them for new updates. Imagine opening 30 different tabs to see if there’s something new posted to read, and doing that every other day.

RSS feeds are a convenient way to tackle this problem. Simply subscribe to your favorite websites’ RSS feeds and you’ll get their latest updates in your preferred feed reader. Instead of manually visiting each website, the feed reader will give you a headline, short description and a link for each new post.

You can sort and manage your RSS feeds according to categories or how important they are to read for you. In this way, you’ll always be on top of what’s left to read.

Don’t go too broad

You may have heard of the Shiny Object Syndrome, or SOS. Say that you’ve just found a blog on the effectiveness of influencer marketing on Instagram. Then you delve deeper and find another one on how to use Instagram stories for advertising. Then an article pops up on how a sneaker brand uses stories for ads, and you go to a video on sneaker trends, ending up on a podcast about collecting sneakers in 2019. This is all very interesting, but you’ve strayed far from your initial topic of research.

Although having many interests is an admirable trait, it won’t help you decrease the amount of content you consume every day. In order to avoid a cluttered reading list, focus only on topics that you need to learn about at a given moment.

The human mind is prone to wandering – about 47% of the time every day. If you don’t want each of your reading sessions to turn into an endless search for interesting information, stick to what you want to learn about and go over your content topics one at a time.

Set things aside to read for later

Has it happened to you that you run into a great blog or case study but you just don’t have the time to read it immediately? You can simply put it away for later. However, there’s a chance of forgetting what you want to read, so you can try out some of these techniques.

First, you can use bookmarks. I belong to the minority of people who still use them, but I have to admit that they’re not practical or easy to handle. If you’re already using them, make sure to sort them properly immediately after you bookmark a page.

Second, if you’re using RSS to catch up on your blogs, try a tool like Feedly. It has a list of all the blogs which you’re following so you can simply add some to your “Saved for later” column to catch up with. If you’re more used to reading on the phone, you can use the mobile app called Flipboard to get the same RSS functionality on the go.

Skim through content

As a writer, I’m probably going against myself when writing this, but you really should not be reading everything you lay your eyes on. There’s an immense amount of poorly written content out there which simply does not deserve your attention, so you should know from the start if a blog is worth 5-10 minutes of your time. In fact, 43% of blog readers admit to skimming through content.

First, check out the headline. As much as writers dislike this fact, 80% of all readers pay attention to the article headline only, while 20% will go on to read the body. A great way to consume less content is to stick to this rule and decide whether something is worth your time based on the headline only.

Image source

However, note that you’re missing out on the big picture, so it’s a good idea to scroll through the article for more information. Luckily, we’re past the era of clickbait titles, so nowadays you will see less of those. However, even the best of writers are sometimes constrained by things such as keywords, character limit or perhaps even editor guidelines.

That’s why you should take a glance at the article body as well. First off, make sure that it looks readable – this means short paragraphs (3-4 lines) and plenty of white space. Second, pay attention to the subheadings. They need to be present (of course) and break down the topic into logical chunks of information so that you get an idea of what the blog is about just from the subheadings.

Finally, check to see if there are any photos. While they aren’t necessary for great content, they break up the monotony of too much text and they’re an opportunity to illustrate a point from the text. The overall effect is staggering – blogs with images get 94% more views than those without them.

By devoting just 5-10 seconds to skim through a piece of content, you’ll save yourself the time of reading something that is uninteresting, provides no value or is just poorly written.

Pay attention to links

If you know a thing or two about SEO, you’re probably aware that links are good for your blog. Links pointing to you mean higher authority and better positioning in search engine results. However, great content also has links going out to other, relevant websites.

Think of Wikipedia – all of the facts on their entries have to be backed up by data, either from books, research papers or some other source. If the piece of content has a statement somewhere, it should have a link to it. For example, blogs are the 5th most trusted source of online information.

Naturally, if the piece of content reflects the author’s personal opinion, it won’t need too many sources and links. However, by taking a quick look through links, you figure out the credibility of the content, writer and the website where it’s posted.

Conclusion

Even though there’s countless blogs being published every day, you can stay on top of your reading list by applying some of the tips outlined here. As content marketing doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon, it will be increasingly important to properly budget the time you spend on consuming content in 2019 and beyond.

How do you deal with content overload yourself? Is there a method that we missed that you personally use? Do let us know in the comments!

Feature Image source

By Mile Živković

Sourced from Business 2 Community

In News

3 Simple Changes That Will Supercharge Your Content

September 13, 2018 No Comments

By Zach Heller

Content marketing is an all-encompassing term that has peaked and fallen off in years past. But just because use of the term is on the decline, doesn’t mean that successful content marketing strategies are any less effective.

In fact, the companies that are succeeding with content are using it to drive more sales, more loyalty, more brand awareness, higher levels of community engagement, and more.

But too many companies are still wasting their time doing content for content’s sake. It’s time to take a hard look at the return on investment of your content marketing efforts. What is it doing for you? What value is it adding?

If your content marketing is barely moving the needle, you need to make some changes. And if you are not ready to throw in the towel for good, you need to test some new practices that have potential to improve your results.

Here are three things you can do to get more about of your content marketing efforts:

1) A/B Test Your Headlines

Just like we test different subject lines for our emails, in an effort to get more people to open and read them, we should test different headlines for any piece of content.

A good headline makes all the difference. The right headline grabs attention and leads a user to view the piece of content we publish.

And though there are countless resources for best practices when it comes to headline writing, the only way to know for sure what headline will attract more readers is to test them in the real world. A free tool like Google Optimize will allow you to test multiple headlines for every article and settle on the one that gets the most visits, clicks, reads, conversions, etc.

2) Make It Easy to Share

The sites that succeed with content benefit from engaged readers/users. As a company, there is only so much that you can do to promote your content by yourself. To get real results, you need to leverage the virality of the web.

Content that is easy to share is more likely to get shared.

Making your content easier to share is not hard. There are existing plugins you can add to your website that allow people to publish to their preferred social network with one click. And you can (and should) customize the way your content appears when someone adds them to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and others.

3) Invest in Media

Too many marketers treat content as a one-size-fits-all process. We write blog posts and articles and hope they get shared. But this outdated vision of the web is bound to fail.

Today, there are so many different formats to experiment with, that if you only write articles, you shouldn’t expect to succeed.

It may take more time and money to create engaging video content, live video, Snaps, images, and infographics, but this is exactly the type of content that gets shared. The content and the audience should determine the format, not the team you have or the budget you’re working with.

If budget and people are limiting factors for your company, perhaps you should invest elsewhere and ignore content marketing for now.

By Zach Heller

My name is Zach Heller. I am a marketing professional with years of experience in branding, digital marketing, direct response and marketing communications. I have entrepreneurial and consulting experience, and love working with small and medium sized companies to help direct marketing efforts toward growth. I am the sole operator… View full profile ›

Sourced from Business 2 Community

In News

Understanding the Relationship Between Landing Pages and Pillar Pages

July 2, 2018 No Comments

By Marjorie Munroe

The algorithms powering search engines are changing to better solve for user behaviour and intent. But when’s the last time you evaluated your content strategy to account for this shift? Critically examined the format and information available across the different areas of your site?

Understanding the relationship between landing pages and pillar pages can be key to determining how to attract, engage, and delight visitors coming to your website.

So, how did we get here?

In 2006, the internet was a different type of competitive landscape when it came to marketing content. In the early stages of inbound, writing 350-word blog posts with the correct balance of links and keywords was sufficient to get in front of your ideal audience.

But then something happened.

Small and medium-sized businesses across different industries found success through the adoption of inbound. Word spread. More companies began to implement the same best practices, the same tactics, and created the same types of content.

Today, over a decade later, the internet is saturated with content, and strategies and tools that became comfortable to an inbound professional are becoming less effective (RIP Keywords). Search engines like Google and Bing have begun to sift through content for relevance and surface only what best matches the intent of a user’s query.

And these changes are being felt—keenly. According to the 2018 State of Inbound report, 61% of marketers list growing their SEO and organic presence as a top company priority. 61% (not a typo) also list that generating traffic and leads is their top marketing challenge.

We’re facing an online world of shrinking organic real estate. It’s harder to surface your content and your answers in front of the correct eyes and actually attract net new visitors to your site. What’s a content marketer to do?

Well, it can’t be all doom and gloom. Enter pillar pages.

What’s a Pillar Page?

Also known as a content pillar, a pillar page is a website page that covers a broad topic in depth and is linked to a cluster of related content.

A pillar page covers all aspects of the topic on a single page, with room for more in-depth reporting in more detailed blog posts (called clusters) that hyperlink back to the pillar page. While pillar pages broadly cover a particular topic, “cluster” content addresses specific keywords related to that topic in depth.

For example, say you wanted to create a pillar page about content marketing, your broad topic. You might want to pursue clusters about blogging or social media posts, which are more specific keywords within the topic of content marketing.

Currently, there are two major types of pillar pages: resource pillar and 10x content pillar pages.

A resource pillar page is known for the following characteristics:

Heavy on internal and/or external links
“Bookmarkable” reference page

See an example here.

A 10x content pillar page is known for the following characteristics:

Deep dive on a core topic
Format is similar to ungated ebook (usually with an option to download)

See an example here.

But, how does creating a pillar page help you?

In short, search engines reward websites whose content is organized by topics. This can help you rank for queries that matter most to your business and your customers.

Looking to learn more about creating and using pillar pages on your website more generally? Check out this lesson and head over to your content strategy tool to get started today.

What Is a Landing Page?

As the cornerstone of the marketer’s traditional conversional path, landing pages are essentially website pages designed to convert visitors into leads. Unlike a pillar page, which is built around the principle of ungating your content, landing pages and their forms act as the gatekeepers to some of your most valuable content offers. See examples here.

Regardless of the exact asset being offered, the simplified flow of a conversion path including a landing page is as follows:

Visitor becomes aware of content offer.
After clicking a link, ad, or call-to-action button, the visitor is redirected to a landing page.
They choose to fill out the form on the landing page.
The visitor is redirected to a thank you page, where they can download their offer or receive the offer in an email follow-up.

You may notice that’s a lot of steps—a lot of opportunity for a visitor to not complete the desired action. Conversion optimization (yes, that’s a pillar page), of course, can help you frame your offers in a way that best suits your audience’s preferences, but it’s not a silver bullet.

Already, marketers, sales, and services reps across different industries are declaring the form is dead. The efficacy of new conversational tools like bots and messaging apps certainly seems to support this claim.

But, not all hope is lost for the longtime landing page lovers. That’s where the relationship between landing pages and pillar pages comes in.

Creating substantial pillar pages, ones that actually rank well for your desired broad topic or “head term,” takes time. It can also be difficult to determine the exact topic your website visitors find the most interesting or what resources they find the most useful. You don’t want to put all your effort and resources into creating and ranking in an area that isn’t conducive to building relationships and powering your flywheel.

So what do you do?

If you have existing landing pages and you’re just getting started with your pillar page strategy, great. Landing pages and your existing offers can give you a wealth of data on what your website visitors find interesting and are willing to “pay” for with their personal information. This insight can help you determine what topics your buyer personas care about and where you may want to build authority.

Repurposing is a core tenant to an inbound marketer. Longer form assets that you’ve already created (think ebooks, white papers, etc.) can be the best fodder for your pillar pages.

Sometimes, however, the journey to your pillar page won’t be so clean cut. Keyword research and building authority can be difficult and time consuming (even if you’re using awesome tools like Keywords Everywhere). You can use your landing pages as testing grounds for new and potential pillar pages.

How?

Identify which of your offers are substantial enough to eventually become the backbone of a pillar page. Then, begin to progressively ungate your content bit by bit into the copy of your landing page. Over time, the copy that frames the conversion opportunity will evolve to become more of a resource. This is one of the most organic ways to create a 10x pillar page from a traditional landing page.

The function conversion opportunity (read: form) will likely also change. You can eventually remove it completely. However, you don’t want to leave your pillars without conversion opportunities. The form that initially gated the content offer can become the method by which visitors download the offer, thus adding additional value to their learning experience.

So certain landing pages and their offers can gradually become pillar pages. This will help you meet the need of changing user behavior. So is there a case for creating landing pages at all?

In short, yes.

Unlike pillar pages, which aim to cover topics broadly, the strength of landing pages is their focus on a single objective. If you’re running social media advertising, for example, you can craft the page to perfectly match the intent of the ad that your visitors clicked on. They help your marketing efforts remain flexible and highly curated.

Additionally, every business is an expert in something. The reason content is an effective marketing mechanism is because it enables you and your team to become a knowledge broker. You provide value by offering your expertise (and eventually your product) as a means to help solve your visitors’ problem. This helps build trust over time and thus the flywheel continues to turn.

But you can’t provide the best experience without personalization, without understanding who you’re talking to. So while it does make sense to create pillar pages and topic clusters to create awareness and education, it’s still helpful to have some of your most qualifying offers as part of an information exchange.

That is, your conversion ecosystem shouldn’t degrade because you offer this exciting new resource. Quite the opposite, in fact. Pillar pages offer an opportunity to provide a lot of immediate value, create trust, and showcase your company’s authority as an expert on a topic. Much a like the tide, which raises all ships, this should positively impact your conversion opportunities.

And having a diverse conversion ecosystem, one that includes both pillar pages and landing pages, allows you to:

Take into account the many different ways people prefer to exchange information.
Cater to your website visitors’ preferences.
Get the information you need to continue to nurture your leads, prospects, and customers.

And that’s pretty powerful. So rather than thinking about how one tool could replace another, think about difference in the purpose and functionality of each. Think about how landing pages and pillar pages can connect or communicate. When matched against your buyer personas and website visitors, how are you currently using both to drive the most impact?

By Marjorie Munroe

Sourced from HubSpot

In News

6 Ways to Exceed Your Content Marketing Clients’ Expectations

May 14, 2018 No Comments

By Will Blunt

Are you providing tangible and consistent value to your content marketing clients?

Unfortunately, most agencies aren’t.

They are good at selling the benefits of content and mapping out a strategy, but when it comes to execution their attention waivers. They’re either getting distracted and moving onto the next opportunity, or they simply don’t know how to get results.

Being ready to deliver value and actually delivering value are two very different things.

When it comes to the crunch, if your agency is not providing consistent results to your clients, then they will lose interest.

You need to regularly refine and improve the way you execute. It’s about creating WOW moments for your clients and exceeding their expectations time and time again with exceptional service, unprecedented results, and continuous optimization.

Below are six vital components of execution that will keep your clients humming in excitement just like day one, all year round!

1. Deliver results

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“No sh*t sherlock”

You probably just muttered that to yourself. And for good reason, it’s not rocket science to suggest that delivering results is an important part of client retention.

But what is interesting, and something a LOT of agencies get wrong is understanding how to deliver the kind of results that will prevent your clients from ever questioning their investment with you.

This is where the sales conversation and strategy development phase are so crucial. Both you and your client need to have a succinct definition of what success looks like. There can’t be any grey area.

If you have accurately quantified what the client cares about, then delivering results becomes a lot easier. This allows you to document clear expectations that align with your experience and ability to deliver results, because it’s something you have done before with similar companies.

Your goal should be to create an environment where the only possible outcome is a positive one for your agency. If the client has higher expectations of results than what you KNOW you can achieve, then say goodbye. Don’t work together. Wish them luck with someone else, and focus on backing winning horses.

Don’t assume you know what a client wants and why they are paying you because most of the time your assumptions will be off the mark. Ask the right questions and create a shared meaning for success.

By delivering outcomes directly associated with the things your client is drawing a budget for makes retention a no-brainer.

2. Create a cadence for reporting

Whatever you do… don’t go silent.

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Without a doubt this is the most common reason agencies lose content marketing clients. You settle into an engagement and after a few months, it all becomes a little easier, because your processes are in place and humming along nicely. You’re publishing regular content, building assets, and the train is in motion. Things are looking good from your perspective.

But the client stops hearing from you. Radio silence.

Even though the engine is on in the background, the lights are off and the client is in the dark. They start to question why they are paying you. “What exactly are they doing for us?”

By the time they bring this concern to your attention, it’s too late. You’ve lost their engagement and they have already found an alternative way to approach their content strategy.

This is exactly why you need a regular cadence, at least monthly, of reporting back to the client. They want to know about the results, yes, but they also want reassurance about exactly what they are getting from their investment.

You need to create a repeatable reporting process that shows the client resource allocation, content output, and relevant outcomes. This report should closely relate to the initial contract and agreed definition of success for the engagement.

If you’re looking for a tech solution for this, Klipfolio offers a custom dashboard that connects data and enables regular client reporting.

3. Make informed decisions

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Your clients want insight, not just activity. They want to be confident that the people executing their marketing strategy are in it for the long haul and dedicated to growing their business almost as much as they are. They want thought leaders, not project managers or pencil pushers.

To fulfill this desire you need to be proactive. Don’t wait for them to come to you with ideas or important updates to their strategy, get ahead of the game.

Before you send them that report every month use the data to develop insights of your own. Look for gaps in their strategy, opportunities for improvement, and areas that need your attention.

Come to them armed with industry insight, knowledge of the latest marketing trends, and specific recommendations as it relates to their unique situation.

Let them know that you are doing everything possible to get them to the end of the rainbow. Surprise them with insight, inspire them with success stories, and delight them with action.

Then you will be a strategic partner, not just a service provider.

4. Automate and optimize

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According to the Aberdeen Group, nearly 70% of best-in-class companies are currently using (or implementing) marketing automation.

For your agency to grow, automation and optimization of your client delivery is essential.

Automation helps speed up and improve all sorts of tasks that can enable growth. According to one report by Redeye and TFM&A, the benefits of marketing automation include:

Taking repetitive tasks out of marketers hands, allowing them to focus on new/more exciting projects (36%)
Better targeting of customers and prospects (30%)
Improving the customer experience (10%)
Better email marketing (9%)
Reduction of human error in campaigns (8%),
Lead management (4%) and multichannel marketing (3%)

Embracing marketing automation is an easy way for your agency to scale the marketing efforts of your clients, as well as save on time, energy, resources and skills.

You get better results and keep your clients happy with less effort. Perfect!

5. Add additional value

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By automating and optimizing a portion of your clients’ marketing activity, you create space to add additional value.

Now you have time to be proactive and brainstorm ways you can strengthen the bond you have with your clients. This is the icing on the cake.

Here are some ideas for adding value to your clients that don’t take too much effort but create a lot of social currency:

Call them up at least once a month to check in, see how they are, and ask if there is anything else you can do for them.
Seek out helpful articles about their industry and send them 3 to 4 takeaways that relate to their business.
Provide out-of-scope advice and guidance about their other marketing activity.
Introduce them to people in your network that could provide mutual benefit or opportunity.
Recommend their product or service to relevant friends, families, and colleagues.
Take them and their team out for lunch or send them a gift certificate to strengthen your relationship.

Each of these things is fairly small but they all contribute to a well-rounded relationship with your clients. It’s no longer a transaction, but a partnership. Partnerships are hard to break.

6. Extend your services

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Once you have onboarded a client and are exceeding their expectations, it’s time to start thinking about extending your services.

By extending your services, you not only increase the revenue you receive from a client, but you also become further entrenched in their organization. The more value you create for your clients, the less likely they are to churn.

An extension of your services may be providing additional content marketing solutions. For example, if you are simply managing their social media accounts, there may be an opportunity to start writing blog content, producing videos, or building links. Alternatively, you could diversify your services by offering AdWords management, SEO, or web design.

Of course, how you go about extending your services will depend on the makeup of your agency. For some agencies, you will already have the resources, processes, and infrastructure to provide additional services immediately. For others, you will need a way to satisfy additional demand. This may be through hiring more team members, outsourcing to freelancers or contractors, or finding a white label service solution.

Once you lock down a process for resourcing the extension of your services, it will be much easier to replicate with other clients.

That’s how you retain clients, increase revenue, and grow your agency.

By Will Blunt

Will Blunt is the Founder of FlypChart.

Sourced from Flypchart

In News

How To Up Your Social Media Skills

April 23, 2018 No Comments

Sourced from Social Hire

In today’s world of work, social media is a huge part of a company’s success. But because it’s so relatively new to most people, it can be extremely tricky to get right. Here are seven tips to help keep your social media strategy on the right path.

Get Well Versed In Successful Copywriting

Copywriting is a key feature of social media management. To drive engagement up, not only does your content have to be captivating, but your voice should be engaging, interesting and appropriate. Good copywriting is a skill best learned through practice, so get used to studying other successful copywriting in order to find a formula that works.

Consider Branching Out Into Other Forms Of Content

Today’s world is very visual, and reading words may not be engaging enough anymore. Consider graphics, pictures, videos, or even careful use of memes and jokes to make you feed more appealing and encourage engagement from followers.

Work On Public Speaking

In spite of the fact you may predominantly be working from behind a computer screen, it’s still important to build your confidence in public speaking if you’re working in social media. This is particularly a useful skill in terms of social media outlets like Facebook Live, Instagram Story and Periscope, which are high impact in terms of reach and engagement.

Know Your Audience

It’s well known that a bland and broad social media strategy is far less likely to be successful. Know specifically who you’re trying to reach and engage with and make your posts speak more specifically to them. As a social media manager you’ll likely be interacting one-on-one with customers, so skills like verbal empathy and being a good conversationalist are extremely important.

Be Experimental

The world moves very fast nowadays, and sticking to just one strategy on social media is a sure-fire way to look tired and behind the times. Trying new things is essential, and keeping up with internet culture can really help keep your feed fresh and encourage people to come back to it time and time again.

Maintain A Sense Of Humour

It can be easy in such an important position to take the job very seriously. While professionalism is highly valued, social media runs on funniness, so it’s imperative to keep things light and amusing. Not only will it endear your followers to you, it also hugely ups the chances of going viral.

Remain Authentic

There’s nothing worse than inappropriate use of slang and internet in-jokes. It’ll just make you look like you’re trying far too hard. Instead, maintain a tone of voice that feels natural and that you’re comfortable with. People generally dislike fakeness, so being yourself I actually a huge boon to social media management.

Annie Walton Doyle writes for Inspiring Interns, which specialises in sourcing candidates for internships and graduate jobs.

Sourced from Social Hire