Human customers mean you should be writing content aimed at humans, not algorithms
Your customers are humans. You’re not trying to sell your products and services to Google’s web-crawler bots. This means you should be writing content aimed at humans, not algorithms.
At the same time, the algorithms control search results and SEO can have huge effects on your bottom line. So as much as you might want to create beautiful content written for a human audience, it can seem that economics favours the robots.
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The truth is that you can - and must - write for both. But it’s easier than you might…
A call to action (CTA) is just a fancy marketing term for a button that entices the user to take a desirable action, taking them further down the conversion funnel
Have you ever signed up for an online subscription service (Netflix, Spotify, you name it) or downloaded a free resource from somewhere?
Well, your "action" was the result of an effective call to action. These seemingly straightforward buttons are an integral part of a marketer’s toolkit. They can make or break your conversion game, and be the difference between converting a lead and losing a potential client.
A well-crafted call to action is a boon for both parties.
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The style and topic of your blog and social media formulate a story that connects customers to your brand
Your marketing content is a reflection of your brand personality. Just as your colour scheme, visual elements and overall aesthetics communicate what your brand is all about, so does your content. The style and topic of your blog and social media formulate a story that connects customers to your brand – both literally through SEO and figuratively through established sentiment.
However, creating top-notch content has always been a challenge for marketers. The demand for great content is extremely high, considering that the average customer views between three to five pieces of content before making the decision to purchase.
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Stories are extremely effective at building trust. This is why businesses are using influencer marketing
Stories are a great way of appealing to and connecting with people. They’re extremely effective at building trust. Think about every time you consider customer reviews before buying a product - the stories of real people and their experiences are what truly encourages you to buy it. This is why businesses are using influencer marketing.
A study by Twitter found that tweets from influencers coupled with tweets from brands can increase purchase intent by 5.2 times. In fact, 40% of the respondents in the study reported having purchased products based directly on an influencer’s recommendation.
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So, the big question is - is storytelling the future of content marketing? In this post, we’ll explore…
The big mistakes that content marketers need to avoid when planning their campaigns
While many are aware of the benefits and importance of content marketing in the interaction-driven online universe, some of us still forget the countless dangers that can cause your campaign to fail before it starts generating meaningful results.
Content marketing works on a premise of building a relationship through value and intellectual or emotional connection. However, relationships need time and commitment which can render content marketing campaigns complex and messy. Tasks start piling up; team members lose sight of the goal and the initial infatuation with the project evaporates.
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To avoid going down the wrong path when planning your content marketing campaign, it’s essential you keep an eye on these risky areas:
1.…
A review of 2 social sharing count tools showing which competitor content types are most popular
Part of the process of defining a content marketing strategy for your business is to evaluate the performance of your competitors’ content marketing and SEO efforts. The insight you can glean from what both direct and indirect competitors are doing will allow you to build a picture of the type of content activity, strategies and tactics that are working for others in your industry and what, as a result, might best work for you. In short, a competitor analysis can tell you:
The content types and ideas getting most traction measured by number of shares or backlinks
Content gaps in your plans compared to competitors, evaluated using the Smart Insights content marketing matrix for examples
Competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats from the wider market - a …
Successful content strategies that stand the test of time have been built from the outside of an organization looking in. In other words, the prime motivation was to help and assist the needs of their audience
In 1889, Andre and Edouard Michelin founded a tyre company, Michelin, which has now become a globally recognized brand. It accelerated the automobile industry in a time when there were fewer than 3,000 cards where it was established, in France.
For the company to grow, it had to win the hearts and minds of this very small target market of motorists and find similar audiences keen to aspire to own their own automobile. It also had to offer some creativity and inspiration as to what owning an automobile would allow you to do.
One such creative idea was to inspire the idea of taking road trips and look at how these trips could be…
When and when not to gate your content
Generating leads and demand is a key function for many B2B organizations. Building a meaningful pipeline of interest in a product or service is an always-on activity and impacts nearly everyone across the organization, both customer and non-customer facing.
As digital has become increasingly prominent within B2B over the last decade, sales and marketing teams have been using content to build awareness and interest. As a result, the use of content marketing more specifically has seen strong growth:
Whilst there is widespread agreement that high quality, valuable content can produce positive results, there are different perspectives on how online content should be used to generate leads and sales.
On the one hand, content marketers with a strong background in SEO believe that if content is made open and available, search engines will reward…
All successful content strategies result from the right content assets that drive engagement, enhance reputation, and increase the visibility of a business
The purpose of content marketing is to use content as leverage to attract visitors to your site or digital assets, engage them, turn them into paying customers and retain them. Seems like a tall ask, doesn’t it?
And it is.
Even the best laid out content marketing strategy fails to find traction. So the question is – as businesses increasingly offer omnichannel experiences to their target audience, how do you ensure your content marketing strategy can be woven seamlessly into this business model and remain effective?
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The answer – don't forget content assets that are central…
A content audit can reveal growth opportunities, clean up low-quality content and help you create better-performing articles
As an agency, you already know that great content is a powerful marketing tool.
But are you really putting all your content to good use?
If you’ve been around for a while, you likely have older articles and blog posts that are neither bringing you traffic nor amplifying your brand.
At the same time, you also probably have some "superstar" content that makes up a chunk of your traffic profile.
And in-between, you have a handful of middling content pieces that never quite reached their full potential.
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Removing, redirecting or improving this content can set you up to win new business in…
