digital Archives - Page 8 of 10

February 3, 2017

Take Complete Charge of Your Content

< All Articles    In 2016, content was in supreme power expected to be delivered in the form of compelling, personalized and interactive stuff that can be rated well and ranked high in all search engines. Overall, the strategy of content marketing saw a significant shift in 2016 compared to a year ago. The year 2017 is predictable. Brands, big or small are slowly preparing themselves to deliver value added real-time contextual content with videos, images, GIFs and infographics. Content creators and marketers get a chance to enrich their customers with a more personalized content, those that can add value to the brands and those that can stand out. The key point here is to keep appearing with different sets of quality content. But, the majority of the marketers are still lacking the confidence to take complete control of their contents. Campaigning such content is no doubt […]

Enough Already About the Value of Content

There’s a simple way to fix all the bad content brands publish: spend time with your audience I am sick of reading everyone’s trends for 2017 about content value: “For 2017 it’s not quantity, it’s quality.” “Marketers will be producing for value, not volume.” “You’ll see better content out there, not more content out there.” Right. Because marketers are always looking to produce content with no value. Makes a lot of sense. Let’s publish a lot of nonsense and see if we can do our jobs with it. As long as we check that box off on the editorial calendar (that no one is looking at, ever), we will be “getting it done.” Stop, Stop, Stop You know what the real problem is? Someone (a lot of people) had to write about what was going to happen in 2017. And this ‘everyone’ knows we’re producing way too much content […]

3 Website Hacks to Radically Improve Your Conversion Rates

Is your website getting good traffic but not converting the way you want? Effectively guiding visitors down the conversion funnel is no easy task and there is no magic formula to success. Ecommerce is a trillion-dollar industry. In the United States alone, online sales are expected to reach $523 billion by 2020 . This could mean a number of things for consumers. For ecommerce business owners, it means that optimizing their online platform needs to be a top priority, if it isn’t already. The problem, however, is that competition is tougher than ever. There is no shortage of online shopping outlets and consumers have no problem bouncing from platform to platform to find the best options. With an infinite number of choices literally at their fingertips, it is essential to go above and beyond to meet the wants and needs of visitors in as many ways as possible. Let […]

5 Things You’ve Been Told About Social Marketing That Just Aren’t True

Social media is ever-changing, evolving, and taking on new roles in the world we live in. That means it’s also changing the way we do business. Although it’s definitely picked up in the last few years, the idea of social media marketing for your business has been around long enough to have spurred a few misconceptions. We’re here to debunk a couple of these myths. 5 common social media marketing myths 1. You need a lot of followers to be successful on social media Followings are great—it means people like your brand enough to subscribe to your feed and get regular updates. As a marketer, it’s tempting to measure your social media strategy by the size of your audience But keep in mind that just because someone is following you, it doesn’t mean they’re reading everything you post. Followers are a good metric, but an even better one is […]

Turmoil Ahead: The Future of Net Neutrality, Publishing, and Digital Marketing

In 2017, marketers will be at the mercy of politics. Net Neutrality, a pillar of Cloud-based content, apps, and services, faces extinction under the Trump administration. If the Web becomes a pay-for-performance utility, Cloud strategies could become prohibitively expensive for small and midsize businesses. So, where might marketing dollars go instead? Cloud strategies are enticing because they enable marketers to own an audience rather than rent one. Most social networks, newspapers, and magazines are in the rental business, and therefore poor substitutes. Thus, an end to Net Neutrality may push marketers toward open publishing platforms, which combine traits of paid, owned, and earned media. LinkedIn, Quora, Medium, podcasting, and their kin could rise meteorically on an un-neutral Web. RIP, Net Neutrality On February 26, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted Net Neutrality rules designed to protect free expression on the Internet. The FCC banned Internet service providers (ISPs) […]

Creative Frameworks that Build Content Marketing Success

There are two ways to go about business. The first is to have an idea and then frantically do a lot of stuff hoping some of it works. It helps to only focus on tasks you’re already comfortable with, ensuring that critically important things will fall right through the cracks. This approach is closely related to the frequently made-up statistic that a billion percent of new businesses fail. Luckily, we have option two: Find solid frameworks and adapt them to your own unique circumstances. This way has the advantage of not burning through all of your money, leaving you heartbroken and living in a van by the river. On Monday, Brian Clark kicked off the week (He’s still on the blog! We’re very excited!) and walked us through a detailed framework for mapping a customer’s journey experience . That’s everything your customer is thinking, seeing, doing, and feeling as […]

Marketing Automation: Batteries Not Included

The sales pitch for investing in marketing-automation software is hard to resist. It goes something like this: “Our software will help you generate leads and then automatically nurture them along their journeys until they become your customers.” It sounds wonderful – a happy prospect skipping along a path paved by magical software. Every business is looking for more effective ways to acquire new customers, and the promise of marketing automation presents a compelling solution. As a result, marketing automation is exploding as the tool of choice for marketers. As of this writing, the 10 most popular marketing-automation platforms are Infusionsoft, HubSpot, Eloqua, iContact, IBM Marketing Cloud, Marketo, Pardot, Teradata, ActOn, and SimplyCast. Over 83,000 companies are using these platforms alone. Marketers need to remember, though, that all marketing-automation solutions – no matter how popular or compelling – present challenges. Challenges related to data quality and integration. Challenges related to […]

8 Proven Ways to Skyrocket Your Website’s Conversion Rate

Nothing is worse than having a great product or service, but not being able to get anybody on board. You know you’ve got something special, yet you’re having an impossible time convincing anyone else to buy in. You thought that if you just built it, they would come, right? Well, you built it, but the rest didn’t really work out too well. So now what? Good news. You don’t have to remain stuck with a terrible conversion rate. With just a few tweaks, you can start seeing immediate improvements. Suddenly you’ll go from being a door-to-door evangelist, with no conversions, to being a cult leader (of sorts), where you can’t keep people away. Here are 8 ways to increase the conversion rate on your website. 1. A/B test the heck out of everything A/B testing is simply creating an “A version” of a page and a “B version” of […]

How to Make Your Content Marketing Impossible for Competitors to Copy

The more advancements in digital marketing we make and the more information on how to spy on competitors we share, the more those things are being adopted in various industries around the world. That means you’re more likely to be the target of a spying competitor. It’s all fun and games until they start using the same tactics to replicate the work you’ve been doing. Sometimes, competitors will piggyback on your hard work to steal market share and customers. When you’ve got a direct competitor shadowing your content marketing strategy, social engagement, and audience outreach, it’s enough to inspire vengeance and make you lose focus! I speak from experience. This has happened to me several times. It makes you question whether it’s something that should be promoted. Where’s the line between spying to replicate a competitor and just monitoring for awareness? It’s enough to make you question the ethics […]

How to Write a Case Study: The Ultimate Guide & Template

To help you arm your prospects with information they can trust, we’ve put together a step-by-step guide on how to create effective case studies for your business — as well as free case study templates for creating your own. How to Write a Business Case Study: The Ultimate Guide 1) Find the Right Case Study Candidate Writing about your previous projects requires more than picking a client and telling a story. You need permission, quotes, and a plan. To start, here are a few things to look for in potential candidates. Product Knowledge It helps to select a customer who’s well-versed in the logistics of your product or service. That way, he or she can better speak to the value of what you offer in a way that makes sense for future customers. Remarkable Results Clients that have seen the best results are going to make the strongest case […]