A review of the latest digital marketing approaches for charities and not-for-profits
Digital marketing is now a core communications method for Charities and Not-for-Profit organisations (NfPs). Charity websites give a great platform as a vital communications channel to inspire and engage people, raise funds, provoke discussion and explain the benefits and use of services provided through fundraising.
Trends in digital marketing for charities?
The future direction of Digital Marketing for charities was discussed by Dave Chaffey of Smart Insights at a recent keynote delivered to the Comms Rewired conference organized by The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) - the membership organisation for Scotland’s charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises.
[slideshare id=39786189&doc=digital-marketing-trends-for-nfp-davechaffey-scvo-141002024327-phpapp01]
You can see in the Slideshare that Dave reviewed examples of how charities are using digital communications across the Smart Insights RACE planning framework. Dave recommended that content marketing should be a the heart of charity marketing. As our Inbound marketing blueprint suggests, this requires these 6 key actions Dave…
Should we give our content more personality - the most common feature of the most shareable content?
We talk about targeted and relevant content for our audience, though can we cross the line with humour and show our personal side, or does it have to be ‘corporate’? Some companies play it safe and keep it less personal where others show more personality with humour, if it aligns with their brand and tone of voice. Once we share content then we know that we can’t remove it, so is there any research to help us?
Which are the top 3 emotions we invoke in our social media content?
Over 10,000 top most shareable articles were analysed by Buzzsumo and the topic and tone matched to an emotion as shown in the chart. Interestingly, ‘the top 3 invoked emotions are awe, laughter and amusement.'
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Content strategy approval – how to win buy-in for your ideas
So, you’ve completed the research and fully understand the business focuses and audience. You’ve created the personas, organised the brainstorms and come up with a host of creative content to set the web on fire. Now all you have to do is pitch the ideas and get the buy-in of your client or MD.
Easy huh? Well, not always.
Part of the reason this can be harder than necessary is because some people struggle to understand that off-page content, in particular, is not designed to be a sales pitch. (It almost doesn’t matter what you write about, as long as the article is interesting, and the link is relevant and appears naturally.) It is therefore imperative to explain the true purpose of each piece of content from the very beginning and…
What length of copy is most shareable across social media?
As we all put more effort into content marketing and our competitors do as well, we want to get cut-through, to maximise the chance of sharing. So, it helps to know the length of copy which maximises shares.
We like this research from CoSchedule since it isn't based on opinion, it's based on data analysing the number of shares from social media from 1 million articles, focusing on those with more than 1,000 shares in total... It showed that 'on average, longer content gets more shares’.
Source: OkDork.com
Of course, there will be exceptions to any rule-of-thumb based on a large data set, but this clearly shows that content producers who create more in-depth content will be rewarded by more shares.
Their research reinforces researchers found in the…
How Wauwaa is creating valuable content to grow a community passionate about its brand
Tell me a story. Use evocative language, inspiring graphics, beautiful imagery and original sound. Tell me a story which draws me in and keeps me with you and prompts me to tell you how I feel about it. Tell me a story which I want to share with the world, and come back to you tomorrow for more of. Tell me a story. This, you see, is how we do things at Wauwaa.
Our business is e-commerce retail, that’s where we make our money. Our income is made from the sale of baby and nursery items online. But our content marketing is an essential facet of our overall marketing activity, and it feeds directly into our digital marketing strategy. As a result, our brand is about more than just…
Which are the most popular content marketing tactics used by UK Marketers?
We are all working to exploit the ''content marketing revolution' and are feeling the pressure of keeping up with fresh, engaging content. The Content Marketing Institute's report reminded us that there is continued growth to increase this year in the UK as 76% of Marketers are using content marketing more than they did last year, regardless of the challenge of resources to produce sufficient, engaging content. Content marketing was used by 88% of respondents, perhaps a misleading figure since the survey was completed by the Content Marketing Institute.
Source: Content Marketing Institute, 2014 Benchmarks, Budget and Trends report
What's behind the growth in content marketing?
Are we realising the ROI as we can measure the impact of content marketing on our…
Examples of rich, long-form, long-haul, brand-led content that don’t add to the noise
Let’s face it, success in marketing generally is difficult. In digital channels we can only see this getting harder and harder. In fact research this week by EMC showed evidence that there’ll be 32 Billion connected devices on the Internet by 2020. How brands get cut-through in the volume of traffic and data on that scale is therefore huge. Of course, with all the potential, it also reveals vast opportunity for those that can get it right.
What works in this emerging reality? There’s no "one size fits all answer", and yet rich, visual and long-form content marketing - complimenting real-time, social media and micro content - uses much higher levels of consideration and quality, it’s already demonstrating where brands can steal a march on their noisier, less considered competitors. We’ve seen long form content work wonders…
A 4 Step guide to maximising your own resources for your content strategy
When it comes to building a strong digital campaign, many businesses underestimate the value of the information and resources they already have – particularly if they are specialists such as negligence lawyers and recruiters who have a wealth of statistics at their fingertips.
The key to creating engaging content is to assess how you can transform the information you already have into a resource that portrays user-friendly and valuable facts about your industry. This will automatically increase the chance of someone who requires your services finding your business organically online.
4 ways to create shareable and unique content using your own resources
1. Define your end goal?
As with all marketing strategies, identify your goal before devising a plan to achieve it. This will give you the information required to assess the customer you are looking to attract and the type of…
Examples and research showing why content marketing is now key for driving Ecommerce customer journeys
Ecommerce is constantly evolving alongside the development of new digital media and technologies, yet one aspect has not changed. That is, the importance of search intent in the buyer journey. Consumers continue to use search to find, research and buy the products that they want.
However, though this basic fact may not be changing, the way search works is. Search algorithms and in particular those by Google are regularly updated to focus more on quality and relevance of content. So now ecommerce businesses have to think differently about content's position in the buyer journey.
Long gone are the days of keyword density, link farms and ghost pages. Want your products to rank well for search? You need quality content.
The intersection of content marketing and ecommerce
How are ecommerce businesses using content marketing? New research from Econsultancy…
Getting noticed with 'Three S Timing' for content marketing campaigns
In my previous article covering the core tenets of the Watertight Marketing Framework, I looked at earning the right to a person's time. This can be achieved by developing a range of time-chunked materials will help you to steadily increase the amount of a person’s time they are willing to give you. Today, I'm moving on to deciding exactly when you put that material out there. That is, what month of the year, what day of the week, and what time of the day?
Once you have your range of materials mapped to a buying decision in place, you'll need to prepare a content marketing timing plan for its release. You can do this simply and powerfully with Three S Timing:
Selectivity
Scheduling
Seasonality
Selectivity – showing up when they’re in a buying mood
You’ll…
