Amplify Your Content-Marketing Results by Using These 4 Simple Tips

Content marketing is an important component of every digital-marketing strategy. It serves several purposes, such as:

• Building brand awareness
• Assisting in lead generation
• Providing answers to common questions, giving the prospect the information he or she needs to make a purchase decision
• Pushing “on the fence” prospects to convert
• Attracting inbound links for search-engine optimization purposes
• Expanding your reach via social sharing

While most businesses know they need to do content marketing, many don't gain much traction. In an effort to help you improve your content-marketing efforts, here are some tips that will greatly improve your results.

1. Map out your entire strategy. Be as detailed as possible.

You need a very detailed plan if you want to experience success with your content marketing. Many businesses just throw up blog posts without a plan. There is no research behind them and there aren’t any benchmarks or goals established. The purpose of content marketing is to generate revenue. Yes, there are short-term goals in between, but when it comes down to it your content needs to produce a return.

You need to brainstorm topics based on campaign goals: do you want to generate leads, push prospects directly to a purchase offer or accomplish another conversion goal such as a phone call or location visit? You then need to optimize your content properly, plan a promotion push and set conversion goals. Map out your content-marketing strategy so you can easily answer this question: “Is this working?” 

2. Determine what content assets are currently producing results.

If you have been posting fresh content to your blog for some time, use Google Analytics to see what content your visitors have engaged with the most. What posts have received the most visits? What blog posts kept your visitors on your website the longest? What content did your visitors engage with before they converted? Also take a look at the social shares and comments each post has received.

This gives you a good idea of the topics and content styles that your audience responds the best to. Use this information to plan future topics and continue to monitor your results. Don’t be afraid to test different topics and styles -- just analyze your data and you will take your content marketing in the right direction. 

3. Focus on quality over quantity.

Content assets that truly deliver results aren’t cheap to produce. Not every business can afford a full-time in-house content writer or a freelancer. This isn’t an excuse to sacrifice quality. If you can only afford to publish one high-quality blog post per month in the beginning, do that. 

Some of the most popular forms of content include ebooks, webinars, videos, blog posts, case studies and infographics -- these all cost money to produce. Don’t opt for several lower quality pieces. If your content assets are limited, focus your energy on promotion and increase your publishing schedule as your revenue increases.

4. Use paid outlets to expand your content reach.

You could create the most amazing piece of content, but it’s not going to be effective unless your target audience engages with it. If your website doesn’t receive a lot of organic traffic, then you are going to need to seek additional traffic sources to get eyes on your content. Sending your new blog posts to your email list and sharing them on your social-media profiles are great ways to attract some traffic for free, but if you really want to get the most out of your content you need to utilize some paid channels.

• Paid social-media promotion: Organic social reach is limited, especially on Facebook, so if you want to attract traffic, boost your Facebook posts, promote your tweets on Twitter and run sponsored updates on LinkedIn. Start small, even just $10 a day, and scale up your social promotion as your revenue increases. 
• Content distribution networks: There are two main players, Outbrain and Taboola, that help place your content on major websites in front of an audience that their algorithms determine might be interested in reading your content. You only pay when someone clicks and is brought to your website. Both companies operate on a cost-per-click bidding model. To see an example, scroll to the bottom of this ESPN article and look at the “Sponsored Headlines” -- those are from the Outbrain network

  Source : http://entm.ag/29WRpfk

Fresh Ideas

7 Ways to Measure Marketing Performance

If you want to make sure your company is successful, you need to have knowledge of marketing. One of the biggest challenges that marketers face is having enough patience and prudence to wait on results and determine which methods are fruitful versus those that are a mere waste of time and funds. Unfortunately, it can take weeks or even months for the full effect of your efforts to become apparent, so it is imperative to start tracking any available analytics that might provide insight into your current performance within a campaign.

The best marketers use key performance indicators (KPIs) to track their progress in specific areas, and then use this data to hone in on effective strategies and identify weaknesses that need to be addressed. Now that you know why you need them and what they’re used for, here are the top seven marketing KPIs every entrepreneur should know about.

Conversion Rates

If you don’t know about this metric as an entrepreneur, you’re probably not very experienced. The conversion rate is the percentage of leads or site visitors who perform a desired action versus the percentage of leads/visitors who do not.

The “desired action” in question could be anything from buying a product, to signing up for a subscription, to opting into a newsletter, to clicking an ad. Obviously, you want your conversion rates to be as high as possible. In fact, that’s the main goal in marketing, which is why it’s at the top of this list.

Sales Revenue

You might not be tracking every aspect of revenue generation or comparing your data to your marketing efforts to find a correlation between your efforts and increases in revenue. But you should be. That’s what tracking KPIs is all about – using analytics to identify what works.

If you’re not analyzing your sales revenue in relation to marketing efforts on a daily and weekly basis, you’re limiting your businesses. After all, the last thing you want to do is waste time on sales efforts that aren’t yielding results.

Cost Per Lead

It’s also important to calculate how much each lead and customer is costing youin terms of advertising budget. Are you spending more to acquire customers through inbound marketing than you are through outbound marketing? If you are, the sooner you know about it, the better.

Identifying the most cost-effective method of lead generation is just one of the advantages of keeping track of this crucial KPI. Because spending money to make money only works when you spend less than you make.

ROI for Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is the practice of bringing customers to your company or website passively, rather than aggressively going out and seeking new clients/customers. Inbound techniques might include search engine optimization, content development, banner advertisements, and other methods that increase your brand’s visibility and presence.

The greatest businesses reap huge ROIs from inbound marketing, so this is a KPI that should never be ignored. Remember, sometimes playing hard to get actually works out.

Organic Search Traffic

Reiterating the importance of effective inbound marketing, organic search traffic is a KPI that shows how strong your company’s ranking authority is within the search engine result pages (SERPs). Ultimately, most of your online marketing efforts should be put towards ranking higher in major search engines like Google for popular keywords and queries.

Developing and distributing great content related to your brand is by far the best way to increase the amount of traffic gained from organic search results.

Social Media Engagement

Businesses that are firmly rooted in social media have a higher chance of continuing and thriving, so it’s important to keep an eye on the amount of traffic coming from social media as well as the percentage of those visitors who are converted into customers. Tracking KPIs related to social networking will ensure that you’re at least aware of where you’re at and what needs improvement in this pivotal department.

If you’re slacking on your social media game, you might want to try increasing social media engagement and presence and monitoring your KPIs along the way.

Average Customer Value

Finally, while all of the above KPIs are useful in their own regard, they won’t help you manage your budget if you don’t know the average value of your customers. There are several ways to calculate the average customer value metric, either in the short-term or long-term.

Essentially, your average customer value is the average sales revenue generated by each customer minus the cost of lead acquisition, multiplied by the average number of sales per customer. Figure out this number fast so you know how successful you need to be to stay afloat.

  Source: http://bit.ly/297psQR

7 Habits of highly effective people

1. Be proactive

Start small by first being conscious of your thoughts, values, and actions. Every day, see how controlling your responses to situations will affect your circle of influence. Don’t rush, but, be more mindful on how you process your thoughts and feelings in every situation you face.

2. Begin with the end in mind

Focus your energy on your desired outcome. Then, make a plan and as much as you can, stick to it. Yes, there may be times you may need to be flexible and make changes, but never lose sight of what you want to happen. Remember, it’s always about changing your ways to get to your goals, not changing your goals itself.

3. First things first

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, so why do some people seem to get more things done than others? Priorities. Be absolutely critical of how you spend your time and make sure you organize your activities to the goals you want to achieve. Concentrate only on tasks that will bring you closer to achieving them.  

4. Think win-win

The world is full of great opportunities, more than enough for everybody. Always aim to have a win-win approach to your strategy, whereby both or more parties get the best-desired results. That way, the task is motivating and are the definite success for all.

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood

Having great interpersonal and communication skills go a long way. Just think of all successful people — Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Tony Fernandes — they are master communicators. Their strong ability to effectively articulate their vision, engage their consumers, as well as convince their stakeholders and partners, all require some good communication skills. Remember that building good relationships mean being a good listener and being able to read the ‘body language’ as well.

6. Synergise

I’m sure you’ve heard of the paradox of 1+1=3, but how’s that possible? Simple, the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. Great talents with different strengths coming together with a shared vision can achieve remarkable results, compared to even the most efficient person alone.

7. Sharpen the saw

This involves forming a habit of reflecting and evaluating yourself. This should cover four aspects of your life: physical, spiritual, mental and social/emotional. Be equally honest and critical about yourself and take daily steps to make the changes needed to achieve what you want.  

  Source : http://bit.ly/1T3AYOK

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10 things that make you an Adarsh Indian entrepreneur!

Wherever you go, you’ll find at least one person who claims to be an entrepreneur and who has a belief to change the world. Thanks to the ‘Startup India’ program of Narendra Modi, that number is increasing immensely. Here are 10 things that make an Adarsh Indian entrepreneur.

1. Million Dollar Idea

Whenever you attend any startup event or meetup, you’ll find at least ten people who have the secret million dollar idea, which they cannot disclose. (And which BTW already exists in the market.)

2. Funding is a must

Before working on a business model of the idea, they plan about the funding they’ll be needing. “Pillowkart raised 1 million dollars, Tomezo is about to raise second round of investments”, all they talk about is funding.

3. In(waste) time in events

Admit it, there are some people, who you will find in every damn event happening in your city. Forget your city, they can travel to anywhere in the world, just to attend events on entrepreneurship.

Attending events is not a bad thing. But you’ve got to be selective about events. As most of the events are the waste of time.

4. Read a lot of books

Ok. Reading is a good thing. But more than reading, Adarsh Indian entrepreneur likes to brag about it on social media. They have all books on entrepreneurship in their cupboards (most of which are never touched after getting featured on Facebook).

Reading books is a good thing. But you’ve got to be selective in choosing the books as well. There are plenty of books on entrepreneurship which contradict views of each others. Which in the end will confuse you more than giving you knowledge. Be choosy when it comes to reading.

5. Steve Jobs, the god!

Enough said. If entrepreneurship is the religion, Steve Jobs is the god.

6. Startup sirf 3 cheezo se chalta hai. Idea, idea, idea.

If you believe the above-written sentence, you’re an Adarsh Indian entrepreneur.

You’ve heard about Google and Facebook, but have you heard about Archie or SixDegrees.com? Well, Archie was world’s first search engine and SixDegrees.com was world’s first social networking website. It’s not always about the idea. It’s mostly about the execution.

Facebook has adopted (stolen) almost all major features from competitors and combined it. For example, hashtags & follow from Twitter, check-in and place reviews from Foursquare, photo tagging from Orkut and so on. But still, Facebook is the king of social network.

7. I’m my own boss.

If you chose entrepreneurship just to become your own boss, you’re no different than the girl who works at “I don’t need to work. I’m mah dad’s princess.” And of course, you are an Adarsh Indian entrepreneur.

8. You know everything.

You’re no less than Annu aunty. You know everything about other’s startups. Fund-raising, sales, pitching to VCs, b-plans, innovation, etc., you know everything. You are the Google of startups. You can join and contribute to every single debate on entrepreneurship. The only thing you don’t know about is your own startup.

9. Failure is the key to success.

If you believe this, you’re an Adarsh Indian entrepreneur. Failure is never the key to success. What you learn from failure is the key to success. Some entrepreneurs brag about their failures like a boss. And some aims to fail, just to sound cool.

Failure is not something you should be proud of unless you learnt something from it. Failure is not cool. Unless you’re an Adarsh Indian entrepreneur, failure will only break you.

10. Getting featured on YourStory

Forget the rest. This is the main aim of an Adarsh Indian entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs getting featured on YourStory is similar to actors getting featured on Filmfare.

Real entrepreneurs don’t waste their time attending events and talking about others. They mind their own business. Literally. Do you agree with me? Add your views in comments.

Source:  http://bit.ly/1Wo5HFV

8 Valuable Tips for Women Entrepreneurs

The feminist in me (which is pretty much all of me) bristles a bit when we talk about women entrepreneurs as a separate group that requires preferential advice. But unfortunately, we still live in a patriarchal society and as much as I wish I could deny it, women are still treated differently in many areas, including entrepreneurship.

There are also a lot of double-standards out there when it come to how female and male entrepreneurs are treated. Yet, starting in a lower position than our male counterparts, female entrepreneurs are forced to work harder and often outperform men.

All of that being said, I have to admit that it is still somewhat helpful to see advice out there that is specifically tailored towards women and how we interpret and are interpreted by, the world.

Here are some of the best pieces of advice I’ve seen for women entrepreneurs recently. I should add that, if we were to put this advice into a Venn Diagram, while all of it would be useful for women entrepreneurs, a lot of it would also be useful for all entrepreneurs whether male or female, and a lot of it would also be useful for women in general.

1. Find your passion. If you’re going to be spending most of your waking hours working towards something, try your damndest to make it something you’re truly passionate about.
2. Keep your home and work life separate. This can be a huge challenge for those who work from home, and if you’re diving into a startup venture full-time and can’t afford an office space, you’ll almost definitely be working from home. If you keep your schedule too flexible, customers and clients will take advantage of it, causing unnecessary stress.
3. Form real connections with other women. I’m not saying join a twelve step program for women entrepreneurs (does such a thing exist? That could be a genius startup idea in itself!) but get out there and meet other women who are in the same boat. Get yourself a kickass mentor, or create a group if one doesn’t already exist in your area.
4. Network your face off. Even if you’re far from a social butterfly, you can still network with the best of them. Being a successful networker is a learned skill. Knowing the right people, or even just knowing the people who know the right people can be incredibly beneficial when you’re trying to build and grow your business. It can also help you become part of a community of likeminded folk.
5. Don’t start a business just for the money. Sure there are a lot of serial entrepreneurs who jump from one venture to the next and chase trends and money rather than what really interests them. This works, but not often, and it can take a long time before you start actually making money, so it’s best to make sure you enjoy what you’re doing so you don’t burn out before the money even comes.
6. Be brutally honest with yourself. If you can’t be honest with yourself, how can you be expected to be honest with anyone else. It’s challenging at first, but you need to be able to see your own strengths and weaknesses with a critical eye, and assess shortcomings or needs for additional support with unbiased judgement.
7. Ask for help when you need it. This goes along with the previous tip. Don’t try to conquer the world single-handedly. The most successful entrepreneurs know when to ask for help. Be strategic about it and know that it’s not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of good judgement and awareness.
8. Take risks. Almost every aspect of entrepreneurship involves taking risks, and while some might end in failure, the ones that don’t can be very rewarding. Just remember to enter these risks with the confidence that you will succeed.

 Source: http://bit.ly/1pN1NJO

7 Eye Opening Video Marketing Stats

When it comes to video marketing, we know that it’s the coolest kid on the block. Sure blog posts like this one are super useful, but countless studies show that people prefer to view videos than read text because it’s visually engaging and really easy to consume.

But as with everything else in content marketing, the world of video is changing. 

#1. 77% of consumers have been convinced to buy a product after watching a video

Product videos are the very best way to educate your customers on what your product can do for them, which will ultimately increase your ROI.

And the great thing about a product video is that you can create any kind that you like.

For example, you could hold a webinar and educate people about your product in-depth, create an animated video to show the benefits of a service in a fun and engaging way, or produce a screen-recorded walk through instructing a user on how to use your product. The choices are endless!

#2. 70% of consumers say that they have shared a brand’s video

So the good news is, those videos that you create for social don’t go to waste! You’ve probably already noticed more and more videos popping up on your social feeds, and most of them are from brands.

But the key to a shareable video somewhat differs to that of a product video. You should aim to see this as a brand awareness goal, rather than trying to hit your conversion goals. That’s not to say that you won’t increase your conversions, but it’s important to understand that videos on social should be more focused towards the initial attraction stage of the buyer’s journey.

So what does it take to get a person to share your video on social…?

#3. 76% of consumers would share a brand’s video if it was entertaining

When it comes to social media, the aim of the game is to get people to hit that share button. But if you’re struggling to see many shares then it could be to do with the type of content you’re trying to promote.

Does it keep your audience entertained? Getting weighed down in trying to push your product onto your viewers is why most people will switch off. Think about what you can do to make it fun, interesting and entertaining.

#4. 61% of consumers were put off buying a product after watching a bad explainer video

Yikes! This is an important statistic to take note of. If you’re going to create a video to explain what your product or service does then you need to make sure that it’s done right. And by right, we mean quality scriptwriting, illustrations and animation — the whole package.

Interestingly many respondents told us that they were put off buying a product because the messaging was so unclear. Rather than trying to squeeze in every single feature that your product does, think about using the video as the hook rather than the manual.

The very best explainer videos follow a very similar formula in that they connect with the problems of the viewer, they then go on to show how that business solves those problems by highlighting the product benefits, and they close with a killer CTA.

#5. 72% of businesses say video has improved their conversion rate

Do you have a video on your website? If you don’t then you could be losing out on a huge opportunity to increase your conversion rates.

The Crazy Egg video is the perfect example of this. The reason they wanted to create an explainer video was because they discovered that their customers found it difficult to justify paying so much for their service. By creating an animated explainer video and featuring it on their homepage, they grew their conversions by 363%.

The reason it worked so well is because not only does it use a fun character to keep it super engaging, it drills right down to the core and shows viewers the benefits of how they can actually use their product to increase their own web conversions.

#6. 53% of businesses struggle to promote their video content

Promoting any content can be tricky, let alone a video. But if you want it to be a success then you need to ensure that you have a promotion strategy in place.

So where do you start?

Once you’ve created your video and sourced a hosting platform, first step is to put it on your website — so that could be your blog, your product pages, or your homepage. Next, share it on social and pay to promote it so that you can attract your target audience. Once you’ve got that covered, email your database, leverage influencers and set up an ad campaign so that you can drive plenty of viewers to your video.

#7. 91% of businesses say they plan to increase or maintain their spending on video in 2016

If there’s one thing we can say for certain it’s that video isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. We learnt that in 2015 on average, marketers intended to spend up to $5,000 on video, and this looks set to increase for 2016.

After looking at the stats it’s clear to see that the future is bright for video marketing. With more and more businesses using it to educate their audience, raise their brand awareness, and increase their ROI, isn’t it about time you jumped on the video bandwagon?

  Source : http://bit.ly/1Ym64je

Top 6 B2B digital marketing predictions for 2016

As we stepped in 2016, we looked back at the digital marketing landscape, which is evolving at astronomical rate in comparison at any other industry; that’s because the web, itself, is changing faster than ever.

With heaps of data pouring out of new devices, products and social platforms every minute, it is of utmost importance for marketers to understand how this data will impact their content & community marketing strategies in 2016.

Therefore, in this article, we try to boil down what changes are requiredfor tomorrow, what traditional strategies are no longer relevant, and what marketing trends will carry us forward in the coming year, especially for the B2B Businesses.

Here our 6 digital marketing trends to watch out for in 2016:

1. Be Mobile Ready –

This includes responsive websites, landing pages, mobile marketing, and mobile-specific content. With the number of smartphone users worldwide predicted to surpass 2 billion in 2016, this could turn out to be the game changer of marketing trends. In 2015, we saw brands allocating almost half of their digital advertising budgets to mobile, a 50% increase over 2014 spending.

In 2016, we expect location-driven mobile marketing to gain momentum through wearable technology, augmented reality, and the Internet of Things.

2. Be the veritable social butterfly –

It’s true, the importance of social media, social engagement, social networks and social sites can no longer be denied. The world has gone social, and marketing is the veritable social butterfly. In 2015, social media marketing was rooted in personalization. Brands can use platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter, to deliver targeted messages to their customers.

In 2016, in a bid to grab their share of marketplace attention, brands will need to connect with their customers in real time. Live social sites likeSnapchat will dominate the social media marketingdomain as Virtual Reality (VR) technology goes mainstream.

3. Watch out for content marketing as it continues to dominate –

As mobile and social media marketing takes over the more traditional forms of advertising, the demand for platform-centric content is going to get bigger than ever.According to CMI, 51% of B2B firms plan to increase spending on content marketing in 2016.

The biggest advantage of content marketing is that it helps prospective customers move through their Buyer Journey much faster because the brand is providing answers to questions that are being asked before the prospect is reaching out to the sales person.

In 2016, B2B firms will need to adjust their marketing budgets, increasing investment in content marketing– from people to vendors, to tech solutions, which manage, measure, and optimize content.

4. Be ready as search indexing evolves yet again-

Every year, Google comes up with almost 500 changes to their algorithms, so organic search is on a continuous cycle of evolution. Currently, we’re at the precipice of two major shifts in how people will be searching on the web, both of which will have a significant impact for B2B marketers to take notice this year.

The first major change will be in terms of how Google and other search engines index mobile apps. And the second significant change will be in the way that search engines incorporate virtual assistant app data, like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Facebook’s M.

In addition to the traditional keyword-based, social signal-based, and link-based SEO, B2B firms will also need to re-examine how their content is being crawled and indexed for the always on-the-go user leveraging one of these assistant apps.

5. Be ready to embrace video content –

While 2015 was a significant year for online video, according to a report the medium will become an even more essential part of the digital marketing mix in the coming years. With many teenagers preferring YouTube to traditional TV, online video is particularly key to engaging those under 18, or Generation Z.

Where user behavior goes, so must your digital marketing strategies, and B2B marketers who start video early will gain the first-mover advantages with their prospects as well as with the media.

6. Ride the marketing automation wave –

Over the last year, we have realised that a business with any number of customers needs to have a CRM system to manage customer information, send those customers time-based or trigger-based email communications, and recognize when a customer might be ready to buy again. This will not only ensure customer retention, will also facilitate repeat purchase from those loyal customers along with positive word of mouth.

While most of us spent a majority of our time looking for the ‘Next Big Thing,’ B2B firms need to ensure that their strategies are adaptable to the changes happening in the industry, while still positioning their brandfor success by staying ahead of the most important digital trends.

In 2016, B2B firms should focus on creating a refined, almost personalized digital journey that is consumable on all devices, at all touch point, and can be attributed back to the marketing efforts of the brand.

Source : http://bit.ly/1TOTfhT

Quote of the day

4 Web Design Trends for Ecommerce in 2016

Web design  is constantly evolving, especially in the ecommerce arena where most retail companies heavily rely on online sales as their major revenue source.

The need to constantly innovate, adapt and stay on top of the most recent web design and online marketing trends is what makes the ecommerce space so fierce and competitive. The top preforming ecommerce sites for 2016 will be the ones that take advantage of the latest online trends, including the rapidly growing mobile sales market (mCommerce).

Here are a 4 emerging web design trends that will become more and more popular among eCommerce websites for the 2016 year.

1. Simple & Standard Site Designs

When it comes to ecommerce web design, simpler is always better. Just take a look at some of the most successful online retail giants Amazon and Walmart. Both retail sites are nearly identical in design. A simple site frame with a basic header, search bar, featured web banner, and popular product listing is all that’s really needed in a homepage.

The reason for this isn’t a lack of creativity, but rather a strong focus onconversion rate optimization (CRO). Successful ecommerce sites know what works and doesn’t when it comes to generating more sales online, and will most likely continue to stick with their same winning formula with a few design tweaks here and there.

2. A Focus on Mobile Commerce

With mobile commerce (mcommerce) sales continually on the rise, more online retailers will continue to come up with new innovative ways to create more mobile friendly sales experiences online.

With mobile sales conversions still relatively low, there exists a huge potential to tap into this still young and growing mobile commerce market. Expect to see many innovative web design trends focusing on improving and further integrating mobile friendliness and user phone experience.

3. More Pop-ups

Although pop-up ads are extremely annoying for many online users (myself included), they are still highly effective in converting sales. Otherwise, why would so many eCommerce companies still be using it?

Pop-ups are a highly underrated web marketing and design tool for converting customers in all steps of the online sales process. Adding in a quick coupon pop-up might entice a potential online customer to buy your product or at the very least sign up to your newsletter and return to your website at a later time.

4. Images Sell, Not Text

Ever heard of the saying “A picture speaks a thousand words”? Well it couldn’t be truer for eCommerce, and online in general. Think of Instagram. In a social media-dominated Internet, images rule – and ecommerce is definitely no expectation.

By incorporating high quality images that promote your product effectively, you can quickly grab a customer’s attention, and hopefully their checkout too.

Source : http://bit.ly/1S5zz9j

Quote of the day.

FIVE RULES FOR CONTENT MARKETERS IN 2016

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: 2016 planning. With the New Year around the corner, we know content marketers are looking for insights and trends that will shape the year ahead and help their content stand out.

This morning, we released findings from one of the industry’s largest and broadest global surveys of consumer views on digital content. We surveyed more than 12,000 consumers across six countries to get a deeper understanding of evolving consumer expectations and how they are fueling marketers’ challenge. The report, titled “State of Content: Rules of Engagement for 2016” sheds light on five rules for content marketers to follow in optimizing engagement with their target audiences.

Design for the Multiscreen Reality

Consumers report using five different devices and, on average, 83 percent use 2.23 devices at the same time. While the majority of consumers report feeling good about it (81 percent entertained, 80 percent connected, 76 percent productive), nearly half (47 percent) say they are distracted. As attention spans shrink, good design and optimization are paramount. Consumers ranked display (65 percent) as the most important aspect when it comes to content experience in their personal life, and 54 percent listed overall good design, such as appealing layout and photography as important. Content marketers can’t attempt to “get away with” a one-size-fits all approach to content distribution: content must be well-designed and optimized for each viewing device.

Don’t Fall Victim to #TLDR  

Consumers report lower patience for sub-par content experiences – with length a key factor. Nearly 9 out of 10 digital device users would switch devices or stop viewing content altogether if it fails to meet their quality, length and formatting expectations. Sixty seven percent of consumers would stop engaging if content is too long, and 79 percent would do the same if the content doesn’t display well on their device. Marketers need to deliver content in the right format, get to the point and optimize or consumers might say #unsubscribe.

Humor Makes Brands More Relatable

Seventy percent of global consumers agree that humor makes companies more relatable, but just 14 percent rate company-created content as entertaining. Globally, “making people laugh” was identified as the top personal motivator for sharing content. Content marketers should work to create authentic activations that entertain to help drive brand engagement.

In Our Relationships We Trust

In an era of high skepticism, authenticity and trust are critical. Consumers are more likely to engage with content they trust, but many are highly skeptical of most content they view online: 50 percent of consumers question whether negative comments or reviews have been removed, 49 percent wonder if an author was paid or incented to write a positive review, and 48 percent question whether a news article is biased. However, consumer trust in content increases as their relationship with the source grows stronger. Only 23 percent of consumers trust content from companies whose products they don’t buy, but if the source is a company from whom they do purchase products and have a relationship, that number nearly doubles to 43 percent. Brands need to work on building trusted relationships with their audience, which includes disclosing any endorsements, sponsorships and affiliations.

Don’t Show Up Uninvited

The majority of consumers understand the value of predictive recommendations, with 73 percent noting they are willing to share at least one piece of information about themselves and 71 percent reporting they are open to predictive recommendations from brands based on past behavior. Among consumers not willing to share their information, 40 percent believe companies could do something to ease their concern and 25 percent suggested “asking permission to access data” would make them more comfortable. This maps back to trust; consumers are most comfortable sharing information with brands they trust.

In addition to these insights shaping content marketing in 2016, the study also unveiled interesting findings about online engagement and behavior. For instance, there’s a rising fear of digital footprints. Twenty-six percent of U.S. consumers have cleared their browser history to hide content they viewed from a friend or loved one, and 17 percent have hid or embellished the truth about the content they regularly consume.

Source : http://adobe.ly/1m9EXdz