What to say? - Improve your Content Marketing in 2012

We have seen the Social Media revolution explode in 2011.  More and more businesses are embracing Social Media finding it to be an affordable and effect way of marketing their business.  My bite-size Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and Blogging Social Media workshops have been incredibly successful and are now running monthly.  One of the biggest questions to come out from these workshops is "What do I say?", its all well and good setting up Social Media platforms but unless you have good content this whole area of marketing can seem difficult.

So I have put together 10 useful steps to help you  improve your content marketing in 2012, increase your brand awareness and kick-start your Social Media Marketing

1. What are your business goals for 2012 and how is your marketing plan going to deliver on these goals.  i.e. increase on-line sales by 25% may require a 50% increase in webtraffic.  Make sure each goal is measurable so you can see how your marketing is performing.
2. Who is your target audience?
   
   Research your audience, ask them questions, research website traffic data, who are they? What are they reading? What are they talking about? What are their likes and dislikes? Think about the information they may be looking for.
3. What will be your messages?
   
   What messages will you be aiming to put over with your content? Try and come up with one to three main messages each with one to five sub-messages.  i.e. You as an expert but in three key business areas or Specialist producers with knowledge on unique products.
4. There are three different types of content marketing: Long-form - blog posts, articles and press releases — basically, anything longer than a couple of sentences. Short-form includes tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn status updates and graphics. Conversations and sharing includes participating in and driving conversations through blog commenting, link sharing and comments on videos.
   
   You can stick to one of these forms of content marketing, or you can use all three. They are each effective on their own, but they are also powerful when used together.
5. Have an Editorial Calendar
   
   An Editorial Calendar can help you plan what content you need, when it is required, deadlines and responsibilities.  This is a fairly major undertaking, but you’ll be thankful for your hard work once it’s complete — and you’ll save time in the long-run. Not sure where to begin?  Download my Content Marketing Editorial template.
6. Create a Content Bank.
   
   You need to develop the content you are going to use.  It needs to be unique and different. Go back to your key messages and subtly incorporate them into the content without overtly selling your product. Content marketing is about creating trust through education and information, not using traditional sales tactics.  Look back on content you have created in the past can it be re-used?  If you have difficulty producing content then look for some help from freelance copywriters.
7. Writing for the Web
   
   Ensure you have a good place to put your content on the web i.e. your website or a blog (Wordpress or E-Blogger).  When writing your content ensure it contains your relevant keywords. SEO plays a huge role so make sure you add tags and links to your posts.  Research your keywords to ensure they will generate traffic for you.
8. Social Media - Spread the Word
   
   As part of your editorial calendar, schedule in how you are going to publicise your content:  Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, e-newsletters, guest blogs and associate sites. Remember to pick the platform that is right for the message.  Think of your audience - who are you talking to and tailor the message to them.  If you are unsure how to use any of the platforms then attend one of my Social Media Workshop
   
   Don't forget off-line too - you content maybe of interest to newspapers, journals and magazines.
   
   Eloqua came out with a free ebook, The Grande Guide to B2B Content Marketing, a helpful read when it comes to content marketing. Plus, it’s useful for deciding which platforms you should employ and how to effectively use them.
9. Measuring your results
   
   Always measure the effectiveness of your content, you can determine whether or not your plan needs to be altered, or whether it’s working in the first place. Keep an eye on pageviews, retweets, Likes, shares and so on. Anything your audience can take action on is something, you need to pay attention to. Figure out how well everything is working — or why it’s not working at all.
10. Have an evolving plan
    
    If something isn’t working, change it up. Be sure to pay attention to results, and then use them to your advantage.

Finally, quality content is better than quantity.  Always plan what you are going to say and who you are going to say it to - it will therefore always be well received by your clients and prospects. If you need help then Contact Me

When is the best time to email blast?

Testing is really the only way to know for sure. For example, it used to be the general consensus that Monday was the WORST day to send emails, so as a result the volume of Monday emails went way down.but then someone got the bright idea to send their emails on Monday and suddenly Monday became the BEST day to send theirs.

There are benchmarks out there but its hard to find one that mirrors your product, your offer, your demographic, your timing, etc.

I have used this list of pros and cons in sending email for each day of the week, which originally appeared on the 60-Second Marketer, written by Jenn Abecassis, as a general guide.

Monday -

Pros: Office work has not filled inboxes yet.

Cons: People are in “work mode” and won’t be focused on non-work tasks.

Best Practice: Send emails late Monday morning, after people have cleaned the weekend spam from their inboxes.

Tuesday -

Pros: People have organized their week, and can find personal time for emails.

Cons: Emails poised for a weekend response may be too early.

Best Practice: Use Tuesday for emails that request action during the workweek.

Wednesday/Thursday -

Prose: People are planning their weekends and gearing up for personal time.

Cons: Time during the workweek is running short, and requested action may be pushed back to the following week, or even forgotten about.

Best Practice: Focus leisure and weekend notifications during these key weekend planning days.

Friday -

Pros: Studies indicate fewer total emails sent compared to the rest of the week, increasing visibility among the myriad of other messages.

Cons: People hurry to leave the office early, and may not take time to view non-work related emails.

Best Practice: Send emails early in the day to give consumers more time to take action. An unopened email from Friday will sort to the bottom of an inbox on Monday, and is often discarded.

Weekends -

Pros: People check emails on weekends, too, so weekends may have untapped potential.

Cons: A B2B weekend email may seem overly-intrusive to some people.

Best Practice: By all means test. People tend to be less stressed and tolerant on weekends. Plus with mobile devices outselling laptops, emails are opened and read at all hours after work.

So, The BEST way to move forward is to:

1. Use the guidelines above in making an initial educated guess
2. Test to see whether your guess was right or not
3. Once you've got the best day nailed down, try experimenting with what time of day works best
4. Make sure you maintain accurate reports so you can benchmark your results moving forward.
5. Be careful about general company metrics. We have seen completely different test results within the same company for different business units.

Thinking outside the Inbox

Ten Tips for “Outside of the Inbox” Email Marketing

1. Forget the “batch and blast” technique and consider your email campaigns as part of a conversation. Begin to think of each email campaign you send out as part of an ongoing dialogue with each prospect. The way to keep the conversation going is to listen (how are recipients responding to the campaign), be relevant (what are their projects and interests), and engage them in meaningful ways (if they visit your product page, your next communication should focus on products, not your blog).
   
2. Move beyond open and click-through rates – what else are your prospects and customers doing? The standard email success metrics are great, but explore all the valuable information available to you. After each email campaign, see where prospects went on your Web site, how often they visit, and whether there are new ways to think about how to segment your prospects based on the behaviours they exhibit.
    
3. While we’re on the topic of segmentation… Combine the “standard” segmentation approaches (lead source, industry, etc.) with behavioural data (e.g. who opened up an email, downloaded or, spent more than 30 minutes on your site and visited more than 3 pages) to create more complex segmentation strategies. 
    
4. An email message is called a “message” for a reason. A great way to test what messages about your product or service resonate with your audience is through email. Use campaigns to tailor your messages according to your prospects interests and actions and see what really strikes a chord with certain segments.
    
5. Automate what you can and leave more time for creativity and strategy. Use a marketing automation solution as the extra marketing resource you never had. Set up automated campaigns based on event and behavioural triggers and rest assured that you’re building up relationships with prospects every time. 
    
6. Mix up your campaign styles and methods. Experiment with a variety of email campaign types, some from marketing (HTML), some from sales (Outlook), and even some from you! You’d be surprised how receptive people can be when they know the message is coming from a real person—even a “marketer.”
    
7. Take deliverability seriously. Your creative strategies are no good if your emails can’t even get through to your prospect’s inbox. Use a tool such as Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua to proof how your campaign will look in di¬fferent email readers and identify if the HTML or content will cause trouble with spam filters before you hit “send.”
    
8. If you’re not testing, you’re guessing. Email testing shouldn’t be difficult to execute or understand the results. Testing subject lines should be a standard process to optimize open rates, but try to incorporate A/B testing into your campaigns whenever you can. All you need is two versions of an image, a piece of copy, or a promotion, and you’ll be on your way.
    
9. Dive deeper into your email reports without touching Excel. Use reports and dashboards that are built with the marketing user in mind, letting you publish detailed reports without needing to jump into Excel or creating the much dreaded pivot table. Use all of the details given in the reports to understand each prospect interaction and use this to inform your next campaign and prove marketing ROI!
    
10. Use “check in” emails to continuously build your relationship with each and every prospect over time and gain useful feedback. Prospects and customers will appreciate a “check-in” email from you or a sales rep every once in a while. These are great opportunities for you to ask how you’re doing as a marketer and ensure that your email communications are useful and informative. Ask what they found most useful about your spefic programs and what they’d like to see in the future.

Taken from http://www.marketo.com/library/marketo-email-marketing.pdf

Good Content Sells

Sending a relevant message about your product or service at the right time directly improves results and drives demand. By creating great content, you can create more sales leads, drive website traffic, promote brand, and educate customers and prospects. To ensure you get the most out of your content marketing efforts, follow these six rules:

1. Make sure it is not promotional – promotional materials will neither excite nor inspire, both critical components of content marketing.
2. It is relevant – generic materials that are not highly relevant to a reader will not result in increased success. When writing content you must make sure it will be useful to the reader, regardless of whether it supports your company message.
3. It closes a gap – content marketing should answer a business question or problem. An added benefit of this useful information is its ability to be used in lead nurturing.
4. It is written well – poorly written thought leadership may not only provide poor results, but may also hurt the company’s reputation. Take time to ensure content is presented in a thoughtful manner and is free of errors.
5. It is relevant to your company – if the content you create does not support business objectives in any way, it is a waste of resources to produce. Keep business goals in mind when creating content.
6. It gives proof – since you write to support a business goal, your content may seem biased. Make sure that content you create gives proof either through quotes and testimonials or through actual metrics and statistics.

If in doubt - get some help.  If you would like to know more about content marketing and lead nuturing give me a call 02081 446 222

Building your digital marketing jigsaw

Here are some practical steps you should take when building your digital marketing jigsaw:

1. Get your “Home” in order before you invite visitors in. Make sure your website reflects you and speaks to your target audience. How can you solve their problems? No website is better than a bad one.
   
   
2. Make sure you can be found by Google and its friends – ensure your website has simple, good optimisation – your web developer should talk to you about this. Check out Google Maps – gets you right to the top of the Googles.
   
   
3. To blog or not to blog? Can you provide your clients and prospects with valuable changing content? This is easier for service industries than with products. If you can then a blog can be a good platform – if not don’t create one and leave it empty
   
   
4. Be a content radar. Start to make a list of topics, articles, themes, current market trends that you can talk to you clients and prospects about. How can you grab their attention and see you as a source of help? What campaigns are you planning? Events, workshops, special offers
   
   
5. Choose your on-line soap boxes – which social media sites are best for you and your business?
   Linkedin – BtoB
   Facebook – BtoC – main users 15 – 35 yr olds but 35 – 55 growing users
   Twitter – cross section but mainly service industries
   Youtube – great if you have a visual business
   
   
6. Get a good photo and profile for each of the sites, either as yourself or your business.
   
   
7. Start following and listening to others. Join in the conversation. Start your own conversation – start spreading the word from your website, blog via social media and email.
   
   
8. Integrate with your existing Off-Line Marketing
   
   
9. When in doubt get some advice or help …..  or attend one of our Social Media workshops: