Most brand marketers know they should be socially conscious. Of course. The most effective way these folks can do their job is by remaining conscious of their customers’ needs, wants and values. But therein lies the problem. This “socially conscious” aim traditionally remains in service to convincing people to spend money on products. Basic Marketing 101.
In reality, if you want to transform customers into brand evangelists, marketers should sell the ethos of their brand … not their product. You want your audience to “buy” into the heart and soul of your legacy and values. Only then will the same people support your business long-term.
In short, what if mastering socially conscious advertising meant not advertising your product? At all.
Brands must brush up on the reasons for their very existence, and elevate how they view the function of advertising—to sincerely connect with audiences and incentivize them to support their mission. The first goal out the door should not be tied to profit margin.
I have this conversation time and again with executives across a variety of industries. This inspired me to create a high-level roadmap they can use to craft purpose-driven campaigns:
Do the work.
For marketers with no experience in impact, a foundational component is sincerity. When embarking on brand-sponsored impact storytelling, sincerity is only possible after you’ve dedicated time and energy to bridge your company’s legacy/values with a social issue. Before crafting a purpose-driven campaign, ask: Do we have the right to participate in this conversation? Could the past/present reality of our brand get in the way of our desired goal?
To do the work, enlist external experts with a background in social impact. Ideally, they’ll audit your company’s policies, speak with team members and customers, and deduce how your product or service positively/negatively impacts the world. Now, this exploration may result in a recommendation to make internal changes before embarking on the campaign. But have no fear! Now you get to create change where it matters most: inside your company. You can always move forward with an external campaign, but only when you’ve earned the right to talk about it.
Stop selling products. Enrich lives.
Nobody cares about your KPIs. Most folks are bombarded by adspeak 24/7 and have the tools to see right through the puffs of smoke from Don Draper’s Luckies. Instead of pushing manipulative tactics to turn over SKUs, what if you could detach from the dated construct of commercial content existing to drive sales?
Before you accuse me of being too woo-woo, remember we’re at the conclusion (hopefully) of a global pandemic. We’re all yearning to connect and feel something deeply human and true. If you want to create purpose-driven stories that resonate with people from all walks of life, show them you understand this reality and want to add value to their lives without seeing them as a dollar sign. Human beings long for regenerative relationships rooted in understanding, growth and compassion. Why can’t this exist between brands and customers?
Over the past few years, marketers have embodied versions of this approach, with some even forgoing logo or product placement in their brand-sponsored storytelling. In 2017, Matthew A. Cherry’s “Hair Love” Kickstarter raised nearly $300,000 for a film boosting body confidence and celebrating the relationship between Black fathers and daughters. While Dove helped finance the Oscar-winning short, there was no Dove branding in the film. Unilever made sure Cherry’s culture change took place. They even co-founded the CROWN Coalition, pledging $5 million from Dove towards advancing hair discrimination legislation nationwide.
Dove | Hair Love
Be human.
Storytelling builds powerful connections within the psyche, helping us make sense of the chaotic world around us. Thankfully, it’s impossible to create purpose-driven storytelling that connects from a place of humanity if the creators aren’t being human while making it. You must be human in development meetings, when casting, allocating budgets and creating schedules. Empathy and sincerity aren’t meant to be buzzwords; they’re a way of life.
To create impactful stories, we must first affect the four walls around us, and the people within them. Treat your team members with respect. Pay people fairly. Give them space to recharge after a long week of work. Make sure on-camera talent feels safe and not exploited. Otherwise, you’re just piggybacking on a social cause to increase market share.
Now what?
This is where the work starts. Can your finished campaign represent something bold and artistic that’s worth your audience’s time?
I believe ads only become “worth it” when the viewer is valued by the creators and seen as more than just a “consumer.” If people feel that you took great steps towards ensuring their time was worth a damn, and that your content was crafted to feed their soul, they’ll feel seen. Every time they interact with your brand, they’ll remember that visceral connection. Why not create this transformational space for your audience? Do it sincerely, and I promise ROI will follow.
Farhoud Meybodi is an award-winning writer, director and executive producer focused on mass culture change. He is signed with New York-based production company Honor Society.
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
Not every marketer does influencer marketing, but a large majority do. In our first-ever forecast, we estimate that 67.9% of US marketers with 100 or more employees will use influencers for paid or unpaid brand partnerships in 2021.
Although some marketers cut spending on influencer marketing during the pandemic (such as travel marketers), the interest in working with influencers actually increased; between 2019 and 2020 the percentage of US marketers using influencers grew from 55.4% to 62.3%, according to our forecast.
And budgets for influencer marketing look ready to rise. In July 2020 research by Kantar Media, senior marketers worldwide said they expected to increase budget allocation for branded content shared by influencers by 48% in 2021.
What it means for marketers: Influencer marketing has its pitfalls, but an increasing percentage of marketers are working with influencers. Considering the important role they play in other trends in our list of social media predictions for 2021, such as social commerce and livestreaming, the impetus to use influencers will continue to grow.
You need time, a coherent and precise strategy, and the core expertise to optimize your digital presence.
In today’s world where people are glued to their devices for work and for play, the most important advertising delivery platforms are internet-connected devices. According to the PEW research center, 28 percent of American adults are on the internet “almost constantly,” while 45 percent report using it “several times a day”—meaning that 81 percent of Americans use the internet a whole lot every day.
If your business hasn’t established its digital presence, you can be almost certain that your competitors will reach your customers first. Eighty-one percent of consumers conduct online research before making a purchase. That’s not the only reason you need a digital presence, though. Digital marketing is about more than just existing on the internet. Instead, you can utilize the web to become a powerhouse of sales generation, customer loyalty, and brand recognition.
It’s not difficult to optimize your digital presence, but you do need time, a coherent and precise strategy, and the core expertise—digital marketing isn’t just a skill you can pick up on the fly.
Below, we’ll look at five ways a digital marketer can help superchare your business.
1. Precision email marketing sales funnels.
Almost 294 billion emails are sent and received daily, but email campaigns are somewhat unique. When done correctly, your readers will hang on every word and look forward to your correspondence like an old pen pal. When done poorly, your emails will get dumped in the trash before they’re even opened, often doing nothing more than annoying your potential customer.
An email campaign done right not only grabs attention but builds a tangible relationship with your potential customer by providing interesting and valuable content, exclusive deals, and more—eventually converting your readers to customers.
When handling your email, a good digital marketer will:
Curate and purge email lists, removing inactive email addresses.
Draft engaging email campaigns that increase brand awareness and build consumer trust.
Develop alternate email campaigns for specific lead varieties.
Design email layouts to match your brand aesthetic and messaging.
Develop leads through email communications with potential clients.
2. High digital visibility.
As we mentioned earlier, most customers perform some kind of online research before making a purchase. If you’re hitting your visibility goals, you’ll be the first name to pop up when a customer conducts product research. If you’re not doing anything, your competition will show up first.
To be visible on the web, you’ll need an artful social media presence, precision SEO (search engine optimization), and perfect mobile responsivity on all of your digital platforms. A good digital marketer knows how to work where all of these factors intersect. They’ll assure you’re the first name to crop up when a customer searches for products or services in your field. They’ll also make sure your name appears with reputable sources, and that your reputation speaks for itself.
3. Data-driven analytics.
Sure, you may be getting lots of likes on your Facebook posts, and your blog may get a few shares here and there, but these are just “vanity metrics” —ultimately, it can be difficult to tell whether or not you’re getting any tangible return on your investment.
Fortunately, digital marketers don’t treat their field like some nebulous art form that can only be qualified in the abstract (that stuff is for painters and musicians). Instead, they work in the field of tangible statistics and data analytics. A good digital marketer will not only track your numbers but will also ensure they improve over time. Some of the statistics you should see are:
Organic, direct, referral, social, and paid traffic
Click-through rates (CTR)
Macro and micro conversions
Consumer engagement
Site speed
4. The power of customer engagement and reputation management.
Social media is one of the most fundamental ways the internet revitalized the marketing game. Your customer base can communicate with you at the click of a button. Major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are necessities. You can’t simply just exist on these sites—you have to actively use them to engage your clientele. A heavy stream of social media traffic doesn’t mean anything if you’re not able to convert those visitors into customers.
A skilled digital marketer will do more than keep your posts fresh. They’ll personally engage with your audience, listen to their wants and needs, and respond in a way that not only leaves the customer happy but also curates a positive reputation for your business.
Which brings us to one of the most overlooked elements of social media: reputation management. In the digital era, news of a negative customer experience travels nearly instantaneously. Take into account review sites such as Yelp and Yahoo Reviews, and it may seem like a single bad day can become a permanent black spot on your digital reputation.
Not so with a skilled digital marketer. While monitoring customer feedback and conversation, your marketer will speak directly with disgruntled customers and help solve their problems quickly and resolutely.
It’s easy to create content the wrong way, though. Too many businesses fall into the prototypical “advertisement trap” where each piece of content they publish feels like a blatant call for business while providing no valuable information or entertainment to the consumer. Returning viewers, this does not create.
When you ask what kind of content your company needs, you should think of the content you would like to consume. Good web content is ideally entertaining, but above all else, it should be useful.
This is where a digital marketer can be most useful. They’ll help you create content that postures you as an expert and a thought leader in your industry. This content can come in all shapes and sizes, including:
Blogs and articles
Podcasts
Videos
Guest articles
Webinars
Apps
Digital contests
As you may have pieced together, content creation is an art form. This is another reason to have a professional handle the labor—poorly created content will turn a customer away quicker than rotten bananas.
Here are ten ideas for creating a solid content marketing strategy.
1# Set your goals
SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. You need absolute clarity about what you want to achieve with your content and how you will go about promoting it. Do you want to generate leads, promote your brand, or build a community?
If you don’t have a clear goal, you can’t focus your content and it will be difficult to know where to promote it.
If you want to create a simple marketing calendar including details such as topic, content details, keywords and target persona, Hubspot offers some free Microsoft Excel templates for this purpose.
2# Know who you’re writing for
A top priority for 73% of content creators is to create more engaging content. The only way to do this is to get to grips with who your customers are and what they are really interested in.
You need to create a customer persona from data which you can obtain in many different ways such as surveys, telephone and face-to-face interviews.
Building up a comprehensive persona gives you the power to write directly to a person. At the very least, you need to make sure you know the age ranges, gender breakdown, geographic location and purchasing power of your target audience.
3# Identify content that resonates with your audience
It’s no use writing content if it doesn’t resonate with your audience. If you’re writing for an audience of sophisticated, fashionable woman, how-to articles revealing style tips would be a good fit.
If you’re writing for millennials, entertaining content full of gifs would be more appropriate. There are endless types of content and topics and you need to focus on what your audience will read because it offers value to them.
4# Produce consistent, high-quality content
It is better to create fewer high-quality posts than huge volumes of lackluster content. Make sure your headlines are arresting – don’t over-sensationalize but try to capture the attention of your audience.
Always include pictures because humans process images much faster than text. A good mix of content includes videos, infographics, images and text.
Everything you publish should be well-researched – always check your facts and never make promises you can’t deliver on. If you don’t produce content on a regular basis, you will lose out on traffic and if necessary, use the help of freelance content creators.
If you are managing the marketing for your business and also studying part-time or if you are a full-time student, it’s better to take help from a dissertation service or an essay writing service for your writing requirements for thesis, dissertation and college essays.
This will allow you to have more free time and focus equally well on college work and the website or the brand that you are working on for content marketing. The essay writers service helps you choose the best best paper writing service reviews for your writing needs. Specialized my assignmenthelp offer you quality work in less time.
5# Use the right marketing channels
Spend time creating practical, credible, entertaining content and then spend more time distributing it through the right channels.
This may sound daunting but here are some ideas for a content distribution strategy.
Post your content on your social media channels.
Reach out to communities or forums that may be interested in your content.
Send emails to your current customers with links to your latest content.
Let influencers know if you mentioned them in a blog post.
Syndicate your content piece on large news sites.
Transform your content into another type of content and publish it on a different platform.
6# Make your content actionable
You need to make sure that people are able to act on what you put out. Pull people in by promising to fix their pain or add value to their lives. Provide them with solid, evidence-based information and you will earn their trust. Once you have earned their trust, they will be ready to take the action you suggest.
If your content is not producing sales for your business, it is failing in its purpose. You need to use calls to action – they won’t be obnoxious or annoying to your customers if you’ve already built trust and they will bring results. Put your calls-to-action in optimized, strategic positions, run A/B tests on them, and invite users to buy your products.
7# Appeal to the emotions
Your content will have more impact if you can appeal to the emotions of your audience. The brands that tend to thrive are those who are adept at eliciting the right emotions. They know how to evoke awe, laughter, amusement, or joy. Using images and stories is a great way to elicit emotion.
Images of faces and certain colors can help to make your audience feel a specific emotion. Why not identify a specific color that’s tied to a certain emotion and incorporate it in your content. For example, if you have a romantic post about Valentine’s Day gifts, incorporate the color pink.
8# Improve your conversion funnel
You may know how to produce high-quality content, but you may not understand how to turn it into sales. Your conversion funnel is the path a customer takes from being a first-time visitor to an actual customer.
You should be able to define the main channels a customer passes through, such as visiting your site, becoming an email subscriber, visiting your sales pages and becoming a customer.
You can use analytics to find out if you have an effective conversion funnel. If no-one is buying your products, it could mean that your product doesn’t meet the needs of your audience – either you have the wrong product or the wrong audience.
Search Engine Optimization has evolved over the past ten years and SEO experts use many different best practices to earn ranking. SEO is complex and you might not want to go into all the intricacies.
However, it doesn’t hurt to at least research targeted keywords and learn how to use some basic website optimization to improve your rankings. There are many resources available to help you test your site’s SEO health over time, such as SEMrush.
10# Use influencer content marketing
Consumers are becoming blind to advertisements and you need to incorporate different strategies to appeal to them.
Aligning with an “influencer” or someone who has a large following and credibility in a certain niche enables co-creation of content that will build awareness and drive sales.
Using social media influencers helps to generate measurable results when they subtly promote your brand.
Conclusion
What is of primary importance is to create quality content and then do whatever you can to share and promote it. You don’t have to worry about all the more complex aspects until you have mastered the basics.
By putting these ideas into practice, you will be able to make sure your content marketing is focused and brings you better results.
Author Bio:Sharon is marketing specialist in essay writer service and writer from Manchester, UK. When she has a minute, she loves to share a few of her thoughts about marketing, writing and blogging with you. Currently, she is working as a marketer at BestEssay. You could follow Sharon on Facebook.
What content types work best? Is content important for SEO? This monster collection of content marketing statistics will answer all of your questions.
There’s been a long-standing debate as to whether content marketing is as effective as it used to be.
Sure, there’s more competition… But content marketing is not only still effective as a branding and acquisition tool, due to the maturation of new channels it might be more effective than ever before.
We put together this monster collection of statistics to prove it.
…or continue scrolling to read 29 crucial content marketing statistics you’ll need to guide your strategy in 2019.
*Editor’s note: Check how well your content is performing with our Google Analytics Content Analysis dashboard. It gives a breakdown of sessions, along with how many goal completions each page is generating:
General Content Marketing Stats
1) Content marketing costs up to 41% less per lead than paid search
First of all, let’s discuss why content marketing should be a huge part of your marketing plan.
Your marketing mix might include several channels–such as paid ads, social media marketing, and email. Why should content be a priority over those?
Here’s why: Research by Oracle found that content marketing costs up to 41% less than paid search for larger businesses, and 31% less for mid-sized companies:
2) 47% of buyers view at least 3–5 pieces of content before contacting a sales rep
So, why does content marketing get such a great ROI for the cost (compared to paid search)?
It’s because 47% of B2B buyers view at least 3-5 pieces of content before contacting a sales rep. That’s right: Before a sales demo, and long before an initial contact form submission, your target leads want to feast their eyes on content.
3) 53% of content marketers’ goal is to attract new visitors
With the previous content marketing statistic in mind, it’ll come as no surprise to learn that over half of the marketers we surveyed said their content is written to attract new visitors:
Just less than half (47%) of our experts said their content is designed to nurture or educate existing leads.
Both are worthwhile strategies, because B2B buyers are looking for content at all stages of the sales funnel–not just the beginning. Your content is a great way to retain the users you’ve already got.
4) 79% of content marketers write their content for people (rather than search engines)
There’s no doubting that SEO is a huge part of content marketing.
We’ve previously likened it to the chicken and the egg: You can’t have great content without SEO, but your SEO won’t be successful without incredible content.
Despite Google being a huge priority for marketers, 79% of the people we surveyed said their first priority when creating new content was to write for people:
Blogging Statistics
5) Blog posts account for 64% of all content being created
Our experts said blog posts account for 64% of all the content they’re creating, compared to almost 80% two years ago:
So, what other types of content are included in the other 36%? Here are some examples:
White papers
Videos
Podcasts
Case studies
Emails
Remember: Content doesn’t always have to be written text.
6) 61% of consumers made a purchase after reading recommendations on a blog
While written text doesn’t form 100% of the content a company creates, there’s a reason why blogging forms the majority.
It’s because 61% of consumers made a purchase after reading recommendations on a blog.
Whether you’re a SaaS, eCommerce or service-based business, your customers want to read content before they hand over their payment details–and they’ll finish their purchase, as a result.
7) The most important blogging KPI is “email signups”
It’s a well-known fact that blogging takes a while to see results.
You can’t publish a blog post and expect to see hundreds of sales overnight; nor can you expect a lead to purchase after consuming a single piece of content.
Our survey indicates that businesses do see content marketing as a long-term strategy, with the majority voting “email signups” as their most important blogging KPI:
8) Content ideas from customer inquiries are the fourth most-used methods of finding content ideas
Finding new content ideas can be tough. So, we asked a handful of content marketers where they found them.
Personal ideas take the top spot; inspiration from other blogs take second; feedback from their team take third.
But arguably the most important–customer inquiries–are ranked fourth. (Despite those people being the audience you’re writing for.)
9) …but just 42% of companies are talking with customers to understand their needs
Companies are using customer inquiries as a source of content ideas.
But even more worryingly, just 42% say they’re talking with their customers to understand their needs.
Without speaking to your customers, how do you know what type of content they want to consume, or the topics they’re most interested in?
(Schedule surveys into your post-purchase emails to get this type of feedback. Or, take a look at the questions your sales team are frequently asked. It’s a great source of content ideas.)
10) WordPress is the most popular blogging platform
So, are you convinced to start blogging (if you aren’t already)?
11) 87 million posts were published on WordPress in May 2018
If you’ve picked WordPress as your blogging platform of choice, you’ve got plenty of competition.
Research by Backlinko found there were over 87 million blog posts published on WordPress sites in May 2018–which is over 27 million more than two years prior:
12) 15% of SaaS companies don’t have a blog
Sure, there are millions of companies you’ll be competing with when you start a blog. But not every business has a blog on their website–especially when it comes to SaaS.
You’ve invested time and effort into creating content, and you’re starting to see a handful of email signups as a result.
But you’re still not ranking in search.
You’re not alone. In fact, Ahrefs discovered that the vast majority (90%) of content gets no organic traffic from Google:
Solve that problem by applying these SEO fundamentals to your website, and tracking your content’s SEO performance with our Google Analytics SEO dashboard.
14) Over 30% of marketers think social media is the most effective way of driving traffic
If Google doesn’t drive traffic to websites, what does?
Our experts think social media is the answer, with more than 30% voting it as the most effective channel for driving traffic to the content they produce–shortly followed by email and paid social:
15) Posts with longer headlines get more social shares
If you’re sharing your content to social media, you can’t just post the link to your Facebook Page and expect people to flock to your website.
You’ll need to optimize your content for social media.
What does that optimization look like? According to this data, you’ll need to write longer headlines for your content. It’s proven to help garner more social shares:
Content Marketing ROI
16) The most important KPI for content marketers is “leads”
Earlier, we mentioned that the main KPI for blogging is email signups.
That’s the same for content marketing, as a whole–with our experts voting “leads” as the most important metric to measure the success of their strategy:
17) 72% of successful companies measure their content marketing ROI
It’s important to know whether the content you’re producing is achieving the results you’re hoping for.
Content Marketing Institute found that 72% of the most successful companies measure their content marketing ROI, compared to 22% of the least successful:
18) Only 8% of marketers consider themselves “successful” or “very successful” at measuring content ROI
Despite the most successful companies tracking their content marketing ROI, it seems like not many marketers know how to do it.
Research has found that 2% of companies consider themselves “extremely successful” at measuring content ROI, and just 6% think they’re “successful”:
19) The majority of marketers measure their content success every week
Earlier, we touched on the fact that content marketing takes a long time to pay off. You can’t publish a piece of content and expect leads overnight.
Unfortunately, there is no “best practice” for how often you should measure your content marketing ROI. The more content you publish, the more frequently you could measure it–but you’ll need to give your content enough time to get the wheels turning.
20) The average conversion rate for a blog is 19%
Email signups is the most popular content marketing KPI.
If you’ve chosen the same metric, you might be wondering what the typical blog conversion rate is so you can tell whether yours meets (or beats) it.
The majority of marketers we surveyed said 1-5% of visitors to their blog turn into a newsletter subscriber, with the average visitor-to-subscriber rate falling at 19%.
21) Almost half of marketers prefer multi-touch attribution models
When you’re measuring content marketing ROI, your figures can vary massively depending on the attribution model you’re using. It can be either:
First-touch: The first page they visited
Last-touch: The page they visited immediately before purchasing
Multi-touch: The several pages they visited throughout the process
Almost half of our marketers said they prefer a multi-touch attribution model, particularly because it allows you to track a customers’ full journey through your funnel:
Content Marketing Teams
22) In 55% of organizations, one person manages the editorial calendar
Content marketing isn’t a one-man-band job. As you’ll see later, content departments are teams, with several people helping to drive those subscribers.
So, how can you encourage more people within your workforce to help with content creation?
Start by explaining the value that content gives, and how it’ll help improve the day-to-day life of the people you’re trying to involve. (For example: If you’re asking a sales rep to contribute content, tell them they’ll have a detailed link to pass onto customers who ask the same thing.)
Content Marketing Budgets
24) Marketers allocate of 26% of their total marketing budget to content marketing
Ah, the fun part of marketing: Budgets.
Even though you’re not directly investing cash into a platform (like Facebook Ads, for example), content marketing still needs an investment–which usually comes from a broader marketing budget.
Izea found that on average, B2B marketers allocate 26% of their overall budget to content marketing. That comes down to 22% for B2C companies.
25) 32% of a content budget goes to development, and another 27% to distribution and promotion
Once you’ve got the percentage split you’ve got to assign to content-related tasks, you’ll need to decide where to spend it.
Data by Target Marketing found that on average, 32% of the budget does to content development, and 27% heads towards paid distribution and promotion.
26) 56% of B2B marketers increased their spend on content creation
Just 32% of the average content marketing budget is spent on creation.
However, that seems to be on the rise. Content Marketing Institute found that 56% of B2B marketers increased their spending on content creation in the last 12 months:
28) 68% of marketers think blogging is more effective than two years ago
With these content marketing statistics in mind, it’s interesting to think where we’ll be in a few years time. (Especially when things have changed so much within the previous two.)
We wanted to get a rough prediction on what content marketing might look like beyond 2019, so we asked whether marketers found blogging more (or less) effective than two years ago.
The majority think it’s more effective:
29) Almost 50% of marketers would focus on blogging if they started from scratch
Judging from that previous statistic, any form of content (particularly blogging) isn’t set to die down anytime soon.
Elise Dopson is a freelance B2B writer for SaaS and marketing companies. With a focus on data-driven ideas that truly provide value, she helps brands to get noticed online–and drive targeted website visitors that transform into raving fans.
A new study that includes a University of Kansas researcher has found that the level of smile intensity in marketing photos influences how consumers perceive the marketer’s competence and warmth, which can lead to different results depending on the context.
“We found that broad smiles lead people to be perceived as warmer but less competent,” said Jessica Li, a KU assistant professor of marketing in the School of Business. “We ask how that can influence consumer behaviour and in what situations might marketers want to smile more broadly.”
The study by Li and her co-authors was published online recently and will be in the January issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, one of the leading journals on marketing academic research.
Participants in the study viewed images of marketing photos that depicted the marketer either smiling broadly or only slightly. The researchers found that in advertisements for services that carry higher risk, consumers were more likely to assign competence to marketers that smiled only slightly rather than more broadly, which was associated with warmth but not necessarily competence. Credit :Journal of Consumer Research
The researchers conducted experiments in which respondents viewed marketing images that included marketers with either broad or slight smiles. Also, they conducted a content analysis of postings on a crowdfunding website, Kickstarter.com, where people commonly seek donations for causes or business ventures.
Past marketing and psychological research has focused on smiles leading consumers to perceive people as being friendly and viewed in a more positive light. However, Li said the research team’s new study shows that is true but that there can be a trade-off in how a smile might elicit action from a consumer.
Li said one consideration is the context of the service the marketer is providing and whether or not there is potential risk associated with it.
The intensity of someone’s smile in a marketing image elicits two fundamental dimensions of social judgements – warmth and competence, the researchers found.
Li said broader smiles that tend to elicit more warmth seem to be more effective in promotional ads for a service that would carry less risk. But photos with a slight smile did better in marketing scenarios where services were higher risk, such as a medical procedure, legal representation or investment in a startup company.
“If I see an ad with a heart surgeon who smiles really broadly at me, I might think she is really warm, but not choose her to be my doctor because she seems less competent than a surgeon with a slight smile,” Li said. “If the risk is really low, such as going to the store to get a new shirt, then the competence of the salesperson isn’t as important and I respond more positively to the broad smile.”
In their analysis of Kickstarter.com, when the page creator’s profile photo exhibited a broad smile that tended to elicit perceptions of warmth, the total amount of money pledged decreased by more than 50 percent, and the average contribution per backer was 30 percent less than when the creator’s photo included only a slight smile.
“Project creators with a slight smile are perceived as more competent,” Li said. “More people wanted to donate to their project because they believe this competent person is able to deliver the product.”
However, a more intense smile does appear to elicit more buzz on social media or other low-cost behaviours. Profile photos with a broader smile received twice as many Facebook shares than someone with a slight smile.
“It’s intuitive that if you seem to be friendly but not competent, people will want to help you in low-cost ways but not necessarily be willing to give you a lot of money,” she said.
The study could be valuable for marketers as they strategise on how to best elicit a response for their products. “Warmth and competence are such important judgements,” Li said. “We want to make sure we are giving people the right signal.”
I think it goes without saying that just about everyone in the digital marketing space is looking to become an influencer in one way or another.
Whether you want to improve your authority amongst potential clients, find yourself speaking at a conference, or even publish your own book, you first need to build your overall authority and influence.
Over a decade ago, I started off on a journey in digital marketing that was based almost completely on building my influence as an SEO and Social Media Marketer, so I wanted to share some of the things that have worked for me over the years.
“Influence will lead marketing efforts by 2020,” according to Ted Coine. “It’s the most effective form of ‘advertising’ there is…”
1. Write About News or Features
Whether it’s on your own blog, a third party site like LinkedIn or Medium, or guest writing on a site like Search Engine Journal, I strongly believe writing is one of the core ways to build your influence.
I also think one of the key angles you should write about is to cover news and review features from various sites, tools, or communities, both in beta and just being released. Not only does it keep your name visible in the most current of topics, it also allows you to provide one of the most valuable aspects of an influencer; the cliff notes we all care about.
Tips to improve your success:
Follow the Developer and Support sections of all the platforms or services related to your business or expertise. I cannot count the number of times we have found developers talking openly about coming features or explaining how existing features work in a way that was unknown to the masses, allowing me the opportunity to write about these before most people even knew they existed. Additionally, this allows you to identify areas of discussion where people are looking for guidance and show you which articles would make you the most helpful and influential.
Work to join any Beta programs available which give you access to features well before anyone else. Even if they are not advertising a program, spend some time connecting with developers and then ask them to be included in any testing. I have been in Beta programs for Google, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Yahoo Buzz, and many others over the years, which definitely helped with my influence as a Social Media Marketer and an SEO.
Make sure to not only write about a specific news event or feature but also add in a personal expert commentary, summarizing how the news or feature would benefit your readers. This is essential to increasing your influence and authority, as it shows not only that you are following the news and features, but that you have enough overall understanding and expertise to have an opinion and comment about them.
2. Build Connections and Relationships With Real Influencers
At my first conference, I remember watching Matt Cutts being swarmed by eager SEOs just waiting to get a question in. I remember hearing someone comment that he doesn’t drink alcohol at conferences, preferring to only drink Sprite, so instead of getting in line and waiting to ask my one question of probably the most influential person in Search Marketing at the time, I went to the bar and grabbed a Sprite.
I walked over and handed it to him, saying by the looks of this crowd, you seem like you could use a Sprite, nodded and walked away. He smelled it, smiled, and took a drink. From that point on Cutts and I were pretty good friends, leading to me being invited to more than one NDA meet and greet at Google’s headquarters, as well as many private conversations that helped me in my SEO career a ton!
I have many stories like this, but the point is: you are who you surround yourself with.
Take the time to build real friendships with influencers in your space, as it will result in your influence increasing (as well as earning you a few cool friends, which everyone could use more of).
Tips to improve your success:
Identify influencers you would actually want to be friends with. Find some common interests, listen to their interviews, read their comments on posts, and find areas of similar interest or expertise to potentially connect around.
Always do something for your new friend first, before ever asking for anything for yourself.
Try only connecting with one to two people at a time, so you can focus and be genuine with your interactions.
Interact with influencers multiple times, through commenting, replying, or contacting, prior to trying to meet them in person or at an event.
3. Make Yourself Available to be Heard
Being quoted or interviewed for influential and well-known publications can help immensely in improving your influence as a marketer. Not only are you exposed in a very prominent way to new audiences, but you can also reference being published in prominent publications to help improve your perceived influence through your own channels. I have seen many experts reference their publications on LinkedIn, in their biographies, and on their websites.
Signing up for services like HARO, a site where reporters and individuals are connected, can help you identify opportunities where a publication might be looking to connect with experts in your space.
Additionally, you can reach out to reporters and authors who are already covering topics you would like to be included in, to offer yourself as a source for future articles.
As Ann Handley said to me, when I asked her what she thought about growing your influence; “The road to influence is paved in generosity..” So be generous and share your expertise with others. As she said:
“The etymology of influence or “authority” is the Latin “auctoritas,” which also eventually gave us “author.”
That root makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Because the best authors give generously of their knowledge, with honest empathy for the needs and burdens of their audiences.
“Authoritarian” types might think that authority gives permission to strong-arm or bully. But true authorities know that you can only earn authority from generously helping others.
So the road to influence is paved with generosity. Help others in any way and in any format you can — via blog posts, questions, videos, Facebook Lives, or wherever un-answered questions live!”
Tips to improve your success:
Although HARO offers a free service, try out their paid subscriptions, as they offer features that could increase your chance of being contacted by an author or journalist.
Review sources you would like to get quoted in, identifying which authors tend to include quotes. Make efforts to connect with the authors that you feel are more likely to reach out to you when they need quotes.
4. Quote Influential People
As Oprah Winfrey would say, “surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.”
I did this a little while back on an article I wrote called “The Logic Behind One Thought, One Paragraph”, which quoted a number of experts on the topic. You have probably noticed already, but I did the same thing with this article, reaching out to known experts on influence, like Kristopher Jones who had this to say when asked some of the things that worked for him:
“Launch your own Ask Me Anything (AMA) series. That’s what I did back in January and I’ve been able to engage with tens of thousands of people. Leveraging Facebook Live has allowed me to interact in real-time with followers that I normally don’t get to connect with and in the process I’m able to deliver value, which I believe is the hallmark of influencer marketing.”
When you reach out to experts and influencers around a topic which you are writing about, you not only improve the quality of the article and the information it contains but in your readers’ eyes you also elevate your level of authority and influence.
Even the ability to acquire a quote from an influencer, says something to your influence.
Tips to Improve Your Success:
Once you have received a quote from a selected expert or influencer, connect with them on any social channels you feel make sense. Review their social accounts to see where they are active to help you decide where to connect. This way you can continue to engage with them going forward.
When your article is completed and published, send it to the people you quoted, as they are likely to share it with their followers, improving your influence and visibility as a whole.
5. Share Your Expertise
I would guess that if you are really looking to increase your influence, you have at least a couple of skills you are worthy of being an influencer for, so start showing off your skills whenever possible.
Webinars are great opportunities to share your expertise with a potentially large and eager audience. Whether you create and host your own, partner with someone to have the opportunity to host a webinar with their audience, or purchase the ability to host a webinar, it can be an extremely effective way of increasing your influence.
“Podcasting is a great way to build targeted influence, especially if you create a solid, interview-based show. Asking smart questions of well-known guests positions you as a relevant player in the field.” ~ Jay Baer
Like webinars, people are listening to podcasts in an effort to learn from experts and influencers, so they are primed to view you as both.
Search around for who hosts webinars and podcasts, start interacting with them, and then when the time is right you can broach the topic of being a guest.
Additionally, there are a number of sites like Quora and Inbound, where you have the opportunity to answer user’s questions and showcase your expertise. One side benefit of participating in Q&A sites is the insight you get into what people are looking to learn, which can lead to really effective and timely articles.
Don’t forget online conversations, like the chats that occur on Twitter regularly, which provide great opportunities to not only show off your expertise but also connect with other influencers at the same time.
“Participate in Twitter chats. There are dozens of chats going on at any given time, and the more active chats can be great avenues for showing your knowledge on a topic. I started out participating in Twitter chats, and after a while, as I became better-known, I often was asked to be a guest on a chat. The amplification your tweets get, along with the wider visibility among people who care in a particular topic, is well worth the time spent.” ~ Amy Vernon
Tips to improve your success:
When looking for podcasts to be a guest on, consider the audience, the format used for the show, and how often episodes are published. These can all help you in considering which podcasts to attempt to be a guest on.
When answering questions on Q&A sites, it is acceptable and often times helpful to link back to resources you either created or are aware of. Don’t abuse this, but definitely take advantage of it to increase your influence.
6. Speak at a Conference
Public speaking is likely one of the most effective ways to increase your influence as a marketer, providing you dedicated time in front of other influencers and attendees, as well as providing the opportunity for interviews, media coverage, and other speaker opportunities.
Unfortunately, of all the tactics for increasing your influence, this might be one of the harder ones. That said, once you feel you have a number of the other discussed tactics working for you, then start throwing your name into the hat when conference speaker pitches open up for applicants.
Tips to improve your success:
Review previous conference sessions to determine what topics a specific conference typically provides. This will help you in your pitch to be within a realm of interest while suggesting a slightly current or different angle on the topic.
Identify the conference employees and hosts, so that you can begin engaging with them. Fair or not, a good amount of speaker selection is based on who you know. Impress someone associated with the conference ahead of time and it will improve your chances of being selected as a speaker.
7. Understand the Psychology Behind Influence
One of the best things you can do to really help improve your influence as a marketer is to really understand how influence works.
There are numerous videos you can watch on YouTube, courses you can take, as well as books you can read such as the best-selling book “Influence“, which can all help you understand some of the important aspects to influencing people.
You would be amazed at how even a simple change in vocabulary can have a significant impact on your efforts. For instance, take this example the author of Influence, Robert Cialdini, shared with me:
“When you are asking people for feedback on a proposal or plan, don’t request their ‘opinion’ on the matter. Instead ask for their ‘advice’ concerning it. Why? Because when people are asked for their advice, it puts them in a cooperative state of mind, which makes them more likely to support your idea.”
“One crazy way to build influence is to do something truly remarkable. Like cure some disease. or build the next billion dollar unicorn company, or come up with truly new and innovative ideas (etc.) Too many people claim to be influential experts in their field but are actually somewhat unremarkable. People like Elon Musk or Bill Gates didn’t have to do influencer hacks to build their influence. They’re experts because they’ve accomplished amazing things.”
When my friend Larry Kim shared this with me recently, my first thought was, “Well I am not Elon Musk nor Bill Gates, so what remarkable thing would I do?”
The truth is we are all capable of finding something remarkable to do within our industry and if you want to increase your influence in marketing, then start finding that one thing that will help set you apart.
9. Go Forth & Influence
Call it drive, grit, or whatever you like, if you want to be a marketing influencer then you can do it, so long as you keep driving forward and never stop trying!
I hope that some of the above tips help you on your path and I look forward to hearing your story soon.
When you’re writing to advertise your service or product, simply having good content isn’t enough to make sales.
Describing your lovely business will not be sufficient to drive sales or traffic, however there are some insider secrets that can radically improve the marketing potential of your content.
1. Don’t Post And Move On
You could be posting amazing content on a regular basis, but that doesn’t mean people will find it. The point of marketing is to cast a wide net and reach as many people as possible. For every post you write, you need to spend as much time promoting it. This could include sharing your post across various social media platforms, or networking with other bloggers. You can reach out to people with a big voice in your field and ask them to share your post, or even pay social networks to promote your content. Just leaving your content out there, hoping people will stumble upon it is ineffective.
2. Make Sure Your Writing Is Awesome
As there are so many blogs and websites out there, if your writing is sloppy you will appear unprofessional, and quickly lose your reader. There are several resources that can help ensure that your writing is as good as it can be – guides are available with Australian Help that can remind you of grammar, and help you create the perfect format and tone for your audience. If you’re going to be blogging or writing full time, then a real course could be a solution, such as those offered by Academized.
3. Don’t Conflate Content and Text
Never assume that great marketing content has to be in the form of written texts. In fact, paragraph after paragraph of writing is entirely unappealing to most online readers. In the era of short attention spans, mixing up the types of content can be beneficial – so use pictures, infographics, and videos wherever you can.
4. Size Matters
As most people prefer google as a search engine, it’s worth considering what you can do to please the robots who sort your ranking with google. Content consisting of over 2000 words undeniably tends to do better with this search engine – so keep an eye on your word count with Easy Word Count.
5. Continuity Is Key
Online marketing is not something you can stop and start whenever you feel like it. Instead, it is most effective when continuous, frequent, and regular content is posted. Studies show that blogs or websites that only sporadically update can lose up to a fifth of their traffic, compared to businesses that post consistently.
6. Write As You Speak
Marketing is about selling – and very few successful sales pitches stem from stuffy and impersonal content. Write as if you are talking to your audience – you should be clear and friendly. If you aren’t sure if you’ve been successful in writing like this, then reading your work aloud can be a massive help.
7. Find A Winning Headline
With so much content available on the internet, you really need a great headline and opening sentence to hook your reader. Without that, you’ll be too easily to pass by in favour of more engaging content. Title generators like Awesome Titles or Minecraftcommand are available online, as well as headline formulas that can help you produce catchy introductions.
8. Remember Your Keywords
Keywords are massively important for analytics and SEO, and are one of the best ways to ensure people are directed to your website. Using keywords efficiently, to amount to roughly 1-3% of your content, particularly in your introduction and subheadings, can vastly improve your ranking and help drive relevant traffic to your site.
9. Be Original
It’s great to interact with other blogs and businesses online, and linking out to them can actually boost your image. However duplicating content can be a business disaster. You can look, fraudulent, amateurish, and unprofessional. You can lose contacts and networking can become a nightmare. Be yourself, and be authentic in order to market yourself well.
10. Don’t Limit Yourself
If you’re generating great content and promoting it well, then make sure people can read it. It shouldn’t only be available on laptops or computers – but on tablets and mobiles too. Don’t make yourself inaccessible to people reading on their commute or in a coffee shop – you should be available to anyone online.
11. Post Content that Your Readers Want
Once you know who your audience is, you should keep them in mind the whole time you are producing your content. What they’re interested in reading and the appropriate language level should be considered. Questions from your readers or your customers are the great source of inspiration for blog posts.
There’s no key to automatic success – and anyone looking to use web content for marketing needs to have patience. Even with amazing content and the best marketing advice, it can take up to a year to really reap the rewards of online marketing. Patience and determination are essential qualities for success.
By Sharon Conwell
Sharon Conwell has been a content manager and ghost writer at over 20 online projects, now she is a part-time educator and an editor at Big Assignments. She’s specializing at content creation and optimization. She loves coffee, tulips and her Shih Tzu named Bobby.
