20 Simple, Useful Content Marketing Tips That Often Go Overlooked (But Shouldn’t)

1) Look for Blog Topics Right in Your Email Inbox

You likely get a hefty stream of questions, comments, and inquiries about your business every day and, chances are, some of them keep popping up again and again. When you find yourself answering the same question from clients or buyers time after time, consider turning it into a blog post for your company’s site. In addition to acting as a one-stop-shop FAQ, this also makes your company more relatable, provides the consumer with valuable information and shows them you are thinking about their needs and concerns.

2) Embed Your Videos

Repeated studies have shown blogs with videos are more likely to get additional hits and shares than those without videos. That said, consider taking all of the promotional or educational videos your company has made over time and integrating them into blog posts.

In addition to providing customers with additional ways to consume your content, videos are also highly linkable, which means there’s a good chance your website will reach more people than just your existing customers.

3) If You Don’t Have Any Videos — Make Some

What does your company do better than any other company out there? What can you teach people? Is there a chance you could take that expertise and excitement and turn it into a video?

A company that sells fly fishing equipment could put out a series of videos on fly tying, whereas a content creation company could put together a few videos on publishing great blogs. There is a huge demand for knowledge in the world and when you share yours, people are likely to pass it around, driving more traffic and additional customers your way.

4) Compile a “Who-to-Follow” List

You’re an expert in your field and people know that, but people always want to learn more. Create a well thought-out “who to follow” list of other people who excel in your field to help them do just that. Doing this offers two distinct benefits: first, consumers will appreciate the fact that you’ve positioned yourself as a trusted source of information and, second, the people you link in the article will appreciate that you’ve directed traffic their way and are highly likely to return the favor.

A good portion of effective content marketing is developing a positive reputation. and there are few better ways to do this than by word-of-mouth and building relationships with other experts in the field.

5) Create a List of Facts that Supports Your Mission

People love learning new things and lists of facts are compelling and easily shared. To create a piece of content that has a high probability of being linked to, compile a list of facts that support your company’s main goal or mission statement and then publish it in a blog or infographic.

In addition to fulfilling the customer’s need for knowledge, this move also goes to show your company is thoughtful and has done its research.

6) Tell a Great Story

Anyone who has ever seen an Apple or a Subaru ad knows the power of those companies lies in their ability to tell a great story that moves their target audience. Take some time to consider what your company cares about and how that intersects with the company’s mission — be that sales or conversions — and then find a way to weave that into your content marketing.

If you’re selling a lifestyle product, tell a story about how the product provides happiness, comfort, or safety. By far the best way to gain customers is by tugging on their heartstrings and telling a compelling story.

7) Consider the Questions Your Customers Ask

When a buyer wants to purchase something, they almost always turn to the internet for advice and research purposes. When a person types a question into Google, they will be met with literally millions of answers and it matter whether or not your company’s answer is among those they see.

In today’s era of content, it is no longer enough to have a great product. People need to see it and rely upon it before they make a purchase and this requires a company to build authority right off the bat.

Consider what types of questions your customers are asking and answer them via your blog or website post. Doing this establishes you as an expert in the field and builds the consumer confidence needed to drive sales and conversions.

8) Make It a Date (Specifically)

While many companies offer ample opportunities for consumers to sign up for an email list or blog subscription, very few offer specific content at specific times. Author and lifestyle coach Tim Ferris often does this with astounding results.

By offering customers an invitation to tune into a podcast, webinar, or video conference in real-time, you build a more tangible connection than can be produced through an email list subscription. In addition to contributing to customer confidence, a move like this also helps build a community around your business or product and may well stem off into additional marketing opportunities, such as podcasts, down the road.

9) Put Promotion First

When a company goes to design a product, the first step is often making sure that there is a market demand for said product. If there is not, manufacturing the product has the potential to result in a huge loss of time and money. The same goes for content, believe it or not.

In order to employ great content marketing, think about how you will market your content before you develop it. If you can’t come up with a place to promote a given piece, it might not be worth the time and effort to produce.

10) Embed Yourself in the Community

Nowadays, there are hundreds of online forums and communities (Reddit being the best known) dedicated to discussing specific topics. Find a few of the communities that pertain to your businesses specialty and join in the discussion.

As you participate in the forum, mention that people can find more information back at your blog. In addition to further establishing yourself as an authority in the field, this approach also allows you to learn new things and gain a deeper understanding of your customers.

11) Upload Visual Content to SlideShare

SlideShare is a popular content-sharing platform that accommodates PowerPoint, PDF, KeyNote, and OpenDocument content presentations. Think of it as the YouTube or Instagram of slideshows.

The great thing about SlideShare is that once you’ve uploaded your content, the sky is the limit. Users can share, link and re-share your content to platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, which means more traffic for you.

12) Join & Use Pinterest

Often thought of as the place where mason jar inspired DIY projects go, Pinterest is an often overlooked social media platform that holds great potential to boost your business to the next level, with millions of active users and growing.

Create some great articles, link them with infographics or visuals and then post them to boards related to your niche. Pinterest allows users to share and re-share content, which means anything you create that is interesting and visually pleasing stands a good chance of being plastered over dozens or even hundreds of Pinterest boards, putting you in touch with new customers and expanding your company’s reach.

13) Recycle Content

For most companies, having a large content creation team is out of reach. For this reason, it’s wise to learn to recycle great content for extended use. Ways to do this include putting the relevant statistics from a blog post into an infographic or tweeting a previously published blog post’s important points throughout the course of a week. By learning to recycle great content in new ways, you save yourself from the burden of having to create great new content constantly without sacrificing

14) Aim for Evergreen Content

If you’re familiar with content marketing, you’ve probably heard the term “evergreen content.” Evergreen content is an important marketing tool that remains relevant no matter when it is published. This means that an article published today can be shared in five years without having to be amended.

This obviously does not apply to content that changes often, such as medical data or sales statistics, but can easily apply to how-to guides or informative content. By aiming to create evergreen content, you set yourself up for highly sharable content and backlinks that persist far beyond when the article was written.

15) Optimize Social Media

Nowadays, social media rules the internet and accounts for an estimated 23% of the total time consumers spend online. By optimizing your content marketing pieces for social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, you increase your chances of being shared and passed around the Internet. Create an informative video to share on Facebook or create a killer infographic and send it out in Tweet form. No matter what you do, do not overlook the veritable content marketing gold mine that is social media.

16) Know Your Audience

Content marketing is a world in which you want to make things personal. If you don’t know who your target audience is, it’s nearly impossible to effectively customize content for them and even harder to get them to engage with your business or product. For this reason, it’s wise to spend some time with Google analytics or another similar tool to figure out who’s truly paying attention.

What do those people do? Where do they live? How old are they? What are their buying habits like? Chances are, you’re going to speak differently to an eighteen-year-old hipster than you would a 75-year-old retired nurse, and it’s important to tailor your content to fit the different sectors of your audience. One-size-fits-all content results in poor business performance and minimal customer connection.

17) Optimize Your Blog URL

This is a simple step, but it can be a big one in terms of accessibility. Before publishing a blog post, alter the generic URL to contain a keyword or relevant phrase rather than a string of letters and numbers. Always, always make sure your keyword is in this string. Your rankings will thank you later. In addition to giving new viewers an idea what the URL contains, this format also makes your URL’s easier and more attractive to share.

18) Opt for a 50/50 Split Between Text and Visuals

Content marketing research and the anecdotal evidence of those in the fieldhas repeatedly proven that a combination of text and images is more effective than either text or images alone. This might explain why infographics are so wildly effective.

Instead of being too text- or visual-heavy in your content marketing material, aim to strike a balance between the two. Write a blog post that is broken up by relevant images or create an infographic that overlies a helpful chart or icon with brief text-based interpretations of the data. Doing this provides the most value for your customers and helps you consistently create high-quality content.

19) Utilize Active Reading

Active reading, or the process of actively picking apart a piece of content to discern things like the narrator’s perspective and unanswered questions allows you to build knowledge and fulfill the gaps in the market, further enhancing authority and content presence in the online world.

Although there is a lot of great content in the digital sphere, much of it fails to meet all of a consumer’s needs and, by actively reading what else is out there, you can learn to identify and then fill in the gaps.

20) Be Original

Ultimately, every company does content marketing a little differently and while there may be some value in taking a hint from the world’s most successful companies, there is no use in trying to imitate them. Dedicate some time to figuring out what makes your company special and unique and build on that. Your customers will appreciate it.

Conclusion

A thread that runs throughout nearly all my points is originality. I cannot stress enough how important it is to be original in all you do. Use storytelling and visual content. Think about who you’re talking to. Then secondarily, think about keywords so you can keep your ranking potential high when you publish your content.

So, in conclusion, find your content marketing style and balance consistency, SEO implementation, and engagement.

Source : http://bit.ly/29fvSO4

Six Trends Shaping Location Marketing In 2016

How will local marketing change this year? 

From apps to beacons to mobile wallets, columnist Adam Dorfman covers six trends local search marketers should pay attention to.

How should businesses think about location marketing in 2016?

With more than 50 percent of all computing currently being done on mobile devices, I believe location marketing is on the cusp of exploding into something new: Becoming the foundation for all marketing.

The increasingly strategic value of location data and the strength of mobile will make local marketing more of a foundation of all of marketing. Here are six key trends shaping the local marketing landscape in 2016:

1. Location Data Will Become The Foundation For Local Marketing

For quite some time, businesses have treated location data — such as their names, addresses and phone numbers — as a passive asset that protects their brands. Keep your location data accurate, and you make it easier for searchers to find you. 

But brands are realizing that data aggregators such as Localeze and publishers such as Apple and Foursquare can be powerful partners to amplify location data across the digital world where customers live, search and shop.

As a result, businesses have a new imperative: to make their data more accessible by unleashing it through relationships with major publishers and aggregators, as well as carefully curated vertical market platforms. 

According to SIM Partners proprietary research, enterprises that improved the accuracy and reach of their location data by just 20 percent saw traffic to their location pages increase up to 450 percent and on-page action conversion rates increase by 216 percent.

2. Google Will Invest More In Local Search

Google adding local searches to their recently released Search Quality Ratings Guidelines, releasing a Google My Business API and saying that local knowledge graph results will soon be editable, all point to the fact that local search is getting a lot of attention at Google HQ at the moment. 

I suspect that the drop of local business information from Google+ is the first of many large disruptions from Google in the local search space. 

3. Apps Will Flex Their Location Marketing Muscle

Businesses are discovering how apps such as Periscope and Snapchat can support advertising and direct response at a national level. Dunkin’ Donuts recently included Snapchat as part of a promotion to celebrate National Coffee Day. Taco Bell used Periscope to promote a biscuit taco giveaway across its locations.

National enterprises have the muscle to measure the results of these campaigns and adapt them for even more targeted audiences, which is where local marketing becomes more relevant. We’ll see the emergence of more sophisticated local marketing to capitalize on regional differences in demographics, seasons and local events.

To take advantage of the value of micro-platforms, businesses need to syndicate their location data more aggressively to the aforementioned data amplifiers that share their data with these apps.

4. Beacon Mania Will Grow In The First Part Of The Year, Before It Inevitably Ebbs

In 2015, beacons were the darling of location marketing, with big brands such as Target announcing national implementations designed to share more meaningful content with shoppers through their mobile devices. Business Insider predicted that beacons would directly influence $4 billion in in-store sales in the United States in 2015, a figure that would increase by tenfold in 2016.

But early adopters are already discovering the drawbacks of beacons, which include limited range and high maintenance, especially for brands with hundreds and thousands of locations. 

In 2016, brands will take a more measured approach toward beacon adoption as they weigh other options to generate in-store traffic and sales, including GPS and emerging technologies such as the IndoorAtlas indoor positioning system (IPS), which relies on a building’s “magnetic signature” to help shoppers locate products and other people inside large buildings such as shopping malls.

Beacons will not go away, but businesses will begin to target their use more selectively to offer targeted content to shoppers in-store.

5. Mobile Wallets Will Explode In Popularity

Just as businesses are getting savvier about the limitations of beacons, they’re also beginning to wake up to the power of mobile wallet offers to create customers at the local level. 

According to mobile marketing provider Vibes, more than half of consumers would like to receive mobile wallet content on a weekly basis, and 70 percent of consumers will save an offer to a mobile wallet when presented with the option.

Consumer acceptance of mobile wallets, coupled with the widespread uptake of Apple Pay, has already inspired businesses such as Pep Boys to create compelling mobile wallet offers that increase foot traffic and sales.

With 80 percent of “near me” searches occurring on mobile devices, businesses are finding more creative ways to create contextual content that turns searchers into shoppers. 

But what will help mobile wallets take off in 2016 is their increasingly diverse applications, ranging from coupons to loyalty programs to mass transit.

6. Disruptors Will Continue To Edge Their Way Into What Has Traditionally Been Google’s Turf

Google will continue to be the 800-pound gorilla of search, but we’ll also see Apple and Facebook continue to encroach upon Google.

Consider how Apple is making search more predictive and smart through iOS 9. In an iOS 9 world, Apple Search has become a far more powerful search tool by drawing up a number of local data sources, including native app content. 

By proactively serving up suggestions for nearby things to do and buy before you even conduct a search, Apple Search is fast becoming an intriguing pathway for location marketing.

In the meantime, Facebook continues to strengthen itself as a local search platform. The day is fast arriving when Facebook will serve up suggested local enterprise content next to personal conversations and queries about where to go and what to buy. I see opportunities for Facebook to monetize its business directory and make use of personal recommendations that people make to each other.

Brands need to pay closer attention to how consumers are using alternatives to Google and build relationships with these publishing alternatives.

Final Thoughts

To flourish with local marketing in 2016, enterprises should broaden their local search ecosystem to include apps such as Snapchat, treat their location data as a scalable asset and pivot to the needs of mobile consumers. Adaptable brands will win with local marketing in 2016.

Source : http://selnd.com/1VJVQrw

13 Social Media Resolutions to Try in 2016

  





1) Refresh your friends and followings. Give your newsfeeds a fresh start by letting go of your unnecessary or unhealthy online connections, and only follow the people you really care to get updates from.

2) Limit your Snapchat stories to 1 minute or less. Just because they removed the numbers in the timer, doesn't mean we won't realize your story is ridiculously long. Unless you're DJ Khaled.

3) Slow down with your posts during Fashion Week. Front row snapshots, show invitations, celebrity spottings—keeping up with your social media during Fashion Week is a job in itself. Post less, we all have enough blurry runway pics to scroll through on our Instagram feed.

4) Show some love to your LinkedIn. LinkedIn—the poor neglected child of your social media sites. Update your profile, accept those invitations that have been sitting in your inbox for months and add your latest work to your page—take advantage of the resource, you never know what kind of career connections you can make.

5) Try taking advantage of the "see less" Facebook feature if you're going through a breakup. Not ready to see your ex on social media? Hide their activity from your feed if it'll help heal those wounds. (Or better yet, just delete them).

6) If you're still in a relationship, keep it on the DL. We know you treasure the special moments you have with your significant other, but don't rub it in everyone's faces. Which, similarly, leads us to #7...

7) Your child is cute. We get it.

8) Take a break from the Facetune and other face-editing apps. Often when you use them, you get so sucked in that you forget what looks natural. Unless you've mastered a way to flawlessly cover your blemishes and add a light tan without it looking completely obvious—as it usually does—you're better off with #nofilter.

9) Think before you comment and argue. As we enter upon an election year, opinions will fire up more often and conversations will be all the more volatile. This doesn't mean you should stop sharing your beliefs, but just be wary of (and prepared for) what reactions the articles or statements you post will incite. Not everything has to be a political rant or a comment showdown—as entertaining as it is for your followers.

10) Chill with the online tests. Do you really need to know who secretly wants to marry you, or which characters from the cast of "Friends" you and your buddies are? (You're Rachel anyways, duh.) These are funny once or twice, but it's not something your followers want to see every day. In fact, each time you sign up for one of these tests, you give that website access to your friends list and personal info. That might not be something you want going around.

11) Put the "act" in activism. Changing your profile picture or cover photo is a great way to spread awareness about a cause. But this year, try challenging yourself to offer more than post. Maybe make a small donation to an associated charity or sign a related petition. That'll give a lot more meaning to the causes on your page.

12) Live in the moment. The new year has a lot in store for you—you won't want to miss out by being too glued to your screen.

13) If you're still using a selfie stick: it will only go downhill from here.

Source : http://bit.ly/1TznvKv

6 content marketing trends to watch in 2016

It's that time of year again. Columnists, bloggers, prognosticators all publish their digital marketing "predictions" for the New Year.

Personally, no can do. I'm an analyst, not a clairvoyant. And I don't possess a crystal ball. But as someone who continually keeps a finger on the pulse of content marketing and content strategy, and who conducts multiple research projects on the topics (as well as updates earlier reports), I'm trained in pattern recognition. That's what analysts do, and while not infallible, research-based analysis is a better predictor of what's to come than crystal-ball gazing, tea leaves, or reading entrails.

That qualifier out of the way, here are the content trends I'll be watching in 2016:

The content stack (again)

The content stack will continue to evolve. Rather than hundreds of point solutions, marketers will soon be able to look to one-stop solutions for their content marketing needs that incorporate most (if not all) of the eight content workflow scenarios. This will simplify processes and enable tighter integration with earned and paid media.

Senior roles focused on content

Enterprises will begin to hire more senior executives to oversee content initiatives. If 2015 was the year of the content manager or director, 2016 will usher in VP and higher roles. Content is not a channel; it's related to every aspect of advertising, marketing, and communications initiatives. As such, it requires senior, strategic oversight -- something companies are coming to recognize.

A continued need for strategy 

Content strategy will accelerate, but not enough. My research findings correlate with other studies. Overall, we're finding that some 75 percent of enterprises regularly commit to content marketing while paying no heed whatsoever to developing and documenting a governing content strategy. Objectives, goals, systems of measurement, processes, and people -- all are secondary to the burning "we need more content, and we need it now" issue. I've been speaking with my peers who, like me, help enterprises develop content strategies. More and more often, they complain that prospective clients try to engage them to keep the blog bursting with content, but not to solve the "why" or "how" of that (and similar) initiatives. Mark my words, content marketers: without the strategy in place, you'll soon be spinning your wheels, not to mention creating excess costs in money, resources, and efficiencies.

Content measurement becomes more robust and meaningful

For too long, sales has been the alpha and omega of content measurement. Don't get me wrong, sales is the lifeblood of any organization. But it's not the only measure of success, not in content nor in any other marketing initiative. I've been researching how forward-thinking companies are measuring other crucial aspects of content initiatives. These aren't meaningless volume metrics such as "likes" and "follows," but ROI-related analysis you can take to the bank (or to the CFO). Companies wise enough to build content strategies have a huge advantage here -- they'll know what they can measure, as well as how to measure it.

Global content becomes a thing

My clients are working to figure out how to manage content on a global level. What should teams look like? What tools work for international cooperation? How much central authority should exist versus local and/or regional input? What channels, audiences, creative, and messaging can be the same, and what needs differentiation on different continents, or in different countries? As content rises in importance (and display advertising correspondingly diminishes), global content strategy will be a growing concern.

Content around new things

This is 2016's most emerging and nascent trend, but one that will be huge in subsequent years. As we move from mobile content into the Internet of Things, and into a world full of beacons and sensors, content will decouple from screens in many cases, yet be associated with a growing universe of objects and things. Content will permeate the customer experience -- the "who," "what," "when," and "where" of all interactions. Your car, printer, TV, refrigerator, fitness tracker, phone -- all these devices and more will interface, talk to each other, and share content. I'm fascinated by what kinds of content will develop in the next wave of technology, and will be keeping a close eye on the horizon of content disruption next year, and in the years to follow.

Source : http://bit.ly/1Rrspev

3 Types of Apps That Will Dominate Consumer Attention in 2016

According to data shared by Flurry Analytics, the average US mobile users spend 86% of the Smartphone time on apps. Apps continue to dominate the mobile web.

In fact, a year earlier in May 2014, it was noted that 60% of the total media time was consumed by mobiles and among them 51% was eaten by app surfing, says comScore.

The app ecosystem is only growing year-on-year as more industries and business categories are being brought not only online, but onto the mobile device.

Let's look at the trends that are slated to dominate in 2016--the year of apps, as this industry matures.

Mobile Commerce

Mobile commerce transactions are expected to top $115 billion by the end of this year and climb to $142 billion in 2016, according to a report from Forrester Research. In fact, mobile commerce now accounts for nearly one-third of all U.S. e-commerce sales, according to an analysis of data from Internet Retailer's newly published 2016 Mobile 500.

The same numbers for mobile commerce are growing at a much rapid pace in Asia as compared to the US.

Mobile commerce is slated to dominate online shopping trends in 2016 as more and more existing online retailers create specific strategies for capturing the attention of the mobile audience and those that aren't online yet, are going mobile first.

Video Streaming

According to comScore, 100 million internet users watch online video each day. The average user spends over 16 minutes watching online video ads every month and 64% of website visitors are more likely to buy a product if they've seen a video about it first.

According to Cisco, by 2017, video will have accounted for 69% of all consumer Internet traffic. Video-on-demand traffic alone will have almost trebled. For smaller businesses or startups, video is far more cost effective in today's times when the production costs have reduced considerably.

"Here's a real life example, I just finished creating a series of educational videos (45 videos in total) using only my iPhone 6+, tripod, a $300 lighting and backdrop kit and a video editor from Upwork. In total, costing me ~$1500 to produce quality videos such as my guide on publishing on Linkedin," Sujan Patel, co-founder of Content Marketer tells me.

YouTube alone receives more than 1 billion unique visitors every month and this number is slated to grow as apps such as Periscope and Meerkat gain popularity and brands start to accept video (live streaming and recorded) as one of their content marketing channels.

Ever since we've adopted video as a content marketing channel at Arkenea, we've seen a considerable spike in traffic and engagement.

Connected Apps

According to these statistics, the global Internet of Things (IoT) market is slated to grow at CAGR of 31.72 % by 2019. IoT product and service suppliers are expected to generate incremental revenue exceeding $300 billion in 2020. By the time we step foot in 2020, more than 5 billion people and 50 billion things will be connected to each other.

The fitness and health industry is spreading the much-needed awareness in a category where the technology exists, but not as much of consumer adoption due to lack of awareness.

But that's just one category - wearables. The entire spectrum of connected apps is touted to grow in 2016 as vehicle manufacturers start to integrate connected devices within the cars.

The other area is a better connected home as Apple's HomeKit evolves and more manufacturers adopt to bring intelligent products to market.

Are you leveraging any of these trends? If so, would love to hear your plans for the coming year in comments below.

Site : http://bit.ly/1UAtrUn