Content Strategy/Generating Content

How To Emotionally Support Your Customers Through Content

Content Building Tools, Content Marketing, Content Strategy/Generating Content, Emoji/Emotional Triggers, Emotional Science, Marketing Strategy

Your customers make 35,000 decisions each day, and emotions play a role in a staggering 90% of their day. This means there’s major overlap, and the bulk of those decisions are made when your customers are emotional.If you’re not prioritizing your customers’ emotions in all of your content creation, you’re potentially making most of their decisions (say, 31,500 of them) harder than they have to be — including the one where they choose, or don’t choose, your brand.

Here’s why emotionally supporting your customers through content isn’t just good practice; it’s vital for impacting your target audience’s buying decisions, and, ultimately, your bottom line. More importantly, how to do it the right way.If you think emotions are a casual afterthought in your audience’s buying decisions, think again.

When used proactively, you can use emotional marketing to steer both your prospective and current customers to become loyal, lifetime fans of your brand.

Why are emotions so powerful? Simply put, they impact your decisions — big and small.As for how decisions are influenced, here’s a quick synopsis of what happens in your brain.You have three brains: the lizard brain, the emotional brain, and the rational brain.

Your emotional brain is responsible for your limbic system and wins more arguments than your rational brain.
Your lizard brain, the brain way under and older than the emotional brain, triggers fight-or-flight mode and wins even more.
Your rational brain is there to justify the decisions of the other two — like a wingman, but it’s not really responsible for making them.

What does this all mean for your business?

While it’s not practical to appeal to your audience’s lizard brain in your marketing messages — no need to thrust anyone into fight-or-flight mode — it’s definitely worth appealing to their emotional brain. This engages your limbic system and draws them toward your brand.On the frontend of your marketing strategy, you can use emotional marketing to help connect with your target audience’s emotional brain and persuade them to make a purchase.

In fact, one study of 1,400 ad campaigns found that ads with purely emotional content performed twice as well ( i.e. 31% vs. 16% ) as ads with only rational content.After they convert, you can tap into your customer’s emotions and support them during their user experience (UX).After all, there’s a lot riding on a good customer experience, given that 32% of customers would leave a brand they love after just one bad customer experience.

How’s that for brand loyalty?

To keep your customers happy, make sure you create a UX that matches the rational brain with the emotional brain.Why? All forms of competition between the rational brain and emotional brain will be a bad experience for users.The point here is you can make a strong emotional connection with anyone who comes in touch with your brand — whether prospective, new, or repeat customers — so it’s worth hitting on the right ones, which will ultimately contribute to your bottom line.

As for making an emotional connection with your target audience the right way, here’s how to do it.

Your content shouldn’t just be about getting your point across and promoting your business, products, or services. You should be able to connect with your customers on a personal level and make them feel heard and understood. Here are some ideas on how to do so.Whether it’s new visitors to your site or returning loyal customers, you can support your audience through the content in your live chat conversations.

To make an emotional connection, first and foremost, provide a space for your contacts to be heard. In other words, allow them to vent and don’t forget to really listen. Let your target audience know their point of view matters.Sadly, this isn’t the norm. In fact, people dedicate only about 55% of their time to listening. This makes sense, considering the average person hears between 20,000 and 30,000 words within a 24-hour period. Needless to say, we indulge in the daily bad habit of not truly listening.

Sure, it’s not realistic to solve the world’s problems through a live chat, but you can make an emotional connection with your target audience by letting them express their emotions.Even if it’s a simple chatbot prompt, like this chat message that asks how their site visitors feel.Emojis and all, it immediately puts the conversation into an emotional context, which opens the door for people to trust you with their problem.

To make the right emotional connection with your live chat visitors, use positivity and supportive phrasing as you engage in chats.REVE Chat, for instance, recommends using affirmative words to help create a positive customer experience, like:

Great
Wonderful
Excellent
Absolutely
Awesome
Amazing
Certainly
Definitely
Fantastic

You can also ask follow-up questions, clarify an agreement, and make sure you’ve done everything you can to understand how to help your target audience.Provide Support Live Chat recommends using these phrases to verify you understand your target audience properly:

“Let me check that I have this right…”
“Let me see if I have this correct, you want me to…” or “You would like for me to…?”
“If I understand you correctly…”
“You are saying that… correct?”

That way, you can share content and the right supportive resources at the right time — instead of sending a frustrated or curious user something irrelevant to their unique situation. Do this and watch the positive emotions shine through your conversations.The same concept of listening first, and then validating and offering an emotional response that supports their perspective, applies to your interactions in any online community, too.

From Facebook Groups and online forums to designated comment logs and social media, respond to every comment and let every contact know they’re being heard and taken seriously. After learning about a target audience member’s problem accessing Amy’s podcast episode, Joshua sent over a helpful piece of content in the form of a resource link.

The main takeaway is, regardless of the channel, provide a space for your target audience to be heard and use that to inform your content creation. After all, your target audience (including their emotions) should be at the heart of your business. If you use our next tip correctly, it’s a big indicator that you’re listening to your target audience.

Reflect Your Customer’s Exact Language Back to Them

Another way to emotionally support your customers through content is to use your target audience’s exact language and phrasing in your content. What’s the best source for gathering their verbiage? Your target audience, of course. Whether it’s in first-hand conversations or through secondary research methods, doing remarkable customer research can make all the difference in your business. It’s a way to gather a key list of repeat words, phrases, and issues that come up often from your target audience.

If you’re going the secondary research route — as in, social listening or combing through conversations in relevant online forums, like Reddit or Facebook Groups — you can find a ton of comments by looking up your threads and groups based on your niche topic. Let’s say you’re in the personal development niche, for example. A quick query for “personal development” in Amazon Books turns up over 80,000 results for reviews and verbiage from yourtarget audience.

By: Cyn Meyer

Read more at: https://coschedule.com/

Hallmark Business Connections

Differentiated customer experiences can’t be created without an emotionally intelligent approach on the part of the business. Rhonda Basler, Customer Engagement Director for Hallmark Business Connections, shares practical tips to foster empathy in frontline employees. To learn more, visit https://www.hallmarkbusinessconnectio….

The Key Benefits of Video Content

Content Marketing, Content Strategy/Generating Content, Content/Visual, Video Marketing App, Video Marketing Courses, Viral Content/Posting, Visual Content/Marketing

In the digital age, getting attention is anything but a given. An abundance of publishers, gadgets and apps are competing for mind share, and data overload causes audiences to block distractions and instead focus on what’s urgent.

Five years back, a Microsoft study found that humans now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish, which lasts about eight seconds — only two decades ago, we were at 12 seconds. That’s proof positive why content must be compelling, truly entertaining and/or informative; otherwise it’s just mindless noise.

When marketing online, it also helps to have the right format. Entrepreneurs, startups and small- to medium-sized businesses can all use videos to hook audiences with engaging multimedia content. Here are the four key benefits.

1. Multimedia works well with device screens

Attention-grabbing content often requires the use of multimedia formats like videos and images. Think of how memes and Instagram exploded in popularity in the past decade just as mobile usage significantly increased.

Multimedia works well with small electronic screens where users often squint their eyes and impatiently scroll until something compelling captures their attention. In contrast, eyes have a harder time processing written text, especially if an author utilizes complex, multisyllabic words.

“Video publishers succeed when they show audiences relevant and engaging contents,” said Eyal Betzalel, cofounder and CEO of video-discovery platform Primis, in a recent interview with Entrepreneur. “Because of the overwhelming amount of video content available on the web, that should increasingly be based on individual tastes and viewing patterns in order to gain a competitive viewing advantage. With videos, you serve spectators well by showing relevant, timely and excellent content that they are most likely to interact with.”

2. Video makes learning convenient

If a picture is worth a thousand words, that goes twofold for footage and clips.

As mentioned, text has a hard time competing with multimedia when using digital screens. According to research firm Nielsen Norman, site visitors will only read 20 percent of text on a page containing an average of 593 words. Why promote a personal brand, product or service in a format that doesn’t produce enough quality click-throughs?

Digital audiences prefer to consume videos, and a big reason why is because they’re easy, convenient and painless. According to marketing agency 99Firms, users consume 500 million hours of video on YouTube every day and 100 million hours of video on Facebook.

It’s no surprise that Hollywood filmmakers and TV execs continue adapting popular books. Movies and shows communicate information more efficiently via easy-to-process demonstrations or visual aids. Try reading about baking a cake — it’s painful compared to just live-streaming a chef who teaches you how to do it.

A 2018 study by intelligence firm Sandvine found that videos account for 60 percent of all internet traffic, with Netflix leading the way at 12 percent. And 27 percent of U.S. adults haven’t read a book in the past year, according to a 2019 Pew survey. Like it or not, viewers find it more convenient to learn about history (and even classical literature) on television and in movie theaters than having to go through the trouble of reading about it.

3. Video familiarizes audiences with your personality

It’s tough for audiences to become familiar with an author unless they’ve read a ton of their articles or books. Video, however, enables viewers to get acquainted with your unique personality; therefore, it rapidly increases familiarity and credibility. And if you’ve got a standout personality or impactful voice, such charm will be emblazoned in their memory, inviting a purchase, subscription, repeat clicks and social shares.

That bears out in a 2018 study by creative firm Animoto, which found that the vast majority of digital consumers prefer consuming video content on social media. The same study found that 88 percent of marketers are satisfied with the ROI of their video marketing efforts on social media, as well.

4. Clips and footage increase conversion rates

An observer is more likely to cry watching an audiovisual narrative than by reading it. Visual and auditory stimuli even affect taste buds when watching a cooking show. Videos create a lasting impression because they stimulate human senses.

On the flip side of things, writers largely remain invisible or anonymous, given what’s written on paper always stays silent. When using a smartphone or computer, silent content remains in the background as soon as audio or visual messages inevitably interrupt.

It’s tougher to boost click-throughs via text when most people are skimming it. Putting a video on a landing page increases conversions by 80 percent, according to HubSpot. Furthermore, data from Precision Marketing Group shows that the mere placing of a video in an email leads to a 200 to 300 percent increase in click-through rate.

Entrepreneurs, startups and small- to medium-sized businesses should leverage the power of videos and audiovisual presentations. Simply put, they’ve proven more effective than pursuing a text-only marketing strategy.

By: Lucas Miller Entrepreneur Leadership Network VIP

THE CREATIVE TOOLKIT FOR MARKETERS

Are you trying to decide if adding video to your marketing strategy is worth the time and money? Spoiler alert: it is! This video dives into the main 5 benefits of a professional video which includes improved brand recognition and increased search engine optimization (SEO). You can read our in-depth article on the topic here: https://blog.vmgstudios.com/benefits-… Be sure to subscribe to this channel for more educational content. You can also find more resources on marketing, video, animation, audio, graphic design, interactive video, social media, and more on The Creative Toolkit for Marketers: https://vmgstudios.com/creative-toolkit/#videomarketing #videoproduction #marketing

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Is Your Social Media Content Attracting Leads? 4 Ways to Bolster Your Strategy

Content Marketing, Content Strategy/Generating Content, Social Media Marketing

Digital marketers often identify social media as one of the best forms of content marketing, but it can often feel like we’re just going through the motions. If the social media content isn’t attracting leads, what good is it? It’s likely you just need a quick boost in strategy to make sure your content is appealing to your target audience and getting inbound requests and messages.

In fact, 90 percent of social media users have used the platform to communicate directly with a business before. So if none of your customers or followers are reaching out to you, it’s a telltale sign that something should be changed. Ideally, you’ll post a picture or video with a robust caption that offers value and the floodgates will open: direct messages, likes, comments and queries should start coming (or even just trickling at first) in, proving that your content struck a chord and inspired action. Not there yet? Here are four ways to bolster your strategy to attract those leads.

1. Focus your content on interesting stories

How much does your content dive into stories? They don’t have to be your personal stories. Stories of past clients, stories of other inspiring entrepreneurs or even folklore stories can be used to establish your point. Stories of other people who just went for it and found massive success are powerful too. It helps readers or viewers imagine themselves in the shoes of the story’s protagonist. These stories can be shared in captions or in the post itself through videos.

Lenney Leong is the founder of Get Customers. He’s had success creating video content around stories, with over 7.2 million views and counting. He advised me to make sure you engage from the start. A long, roundabout story will do little to draw viewers in. “Set the stage for the story from the first sentence, or by the title of the video,” Leong noted. “Be straightforward so people know they should stay engaged throughout the storytelling and know what to expect.” Leong has garnered many inbound conversations as a result of this storytelling. And it’s worth noting that videos perform best on Instagram, seeing 49 percent higher interactions.

2. Do a poll asking what type of content people want most

Instagram has many interactive features in its Story functionality. Use them! If you feel like you’re unsure what your followers really care about, utilize the poll to see for sure. It’s possible you’ve been creating content for something they’re peripherally interested in, but they are really curious about how you created your product’s landing page or how you scaled your company one year in. Instagram influencers and bloggers swear by the functionality, especially because it can have surprising results. You may think your followers want one type of content when really they want another.

Be open to what you haven’t yet considered. In addition to the polls (where followers can choose one of two options), also use the “Question and Answer” functionality so people can submit, in their own words, what they most want you to talk about.

3. Host a Q & A on Facebook or Instagram Live

While using the story functionalities is a great way to glean some initial insights, it also depends on what your viewers are doing when they flip through your story and if they currently have the time, interest, or energy to engage. “Another great way to bolster your content strategy is to host a Q&A on Facebook or Instagram live,” says Sarah Lefebvre, CEO of Localiz. “Followers may be more likely to submit questions if you’re going to answer in real-time, and you can tell by the questions or engagement that you’re getting as you navigate different topics what is resonating the most.”

Even better — since only a fraction of your audience will tune in for the live, you can use the answers you gave and strategies you talked about in future posts. Save the video, take notes, and convert into posts of their own. Now that you know for sure it’s something people are interested in!

4. Make sure you have a call to action in every post

Finally, it sounds so simple but is often overlooked. Make sure there’s a call to action in every single post! It doesn’t have to be the same every time, but use something like, “Message me if you’re interested,” or “Follow me for more content like this.” Even asking viewers to comment with a watermelon emoji if they are also looking forward to summer drives engagement and lets you know who is paying attention to your posts.

Without a call to action, people simply don’t know how to engage. Be clear, state what you’re looking for, and give plenty of direction to viewers and followers — all of which leads to a direct message conversation or whichever KPI matters most to your business.

By: Jennifer Spencer / Entrepreneur Leadership Network VIP

8 Social Media Engagement Hacks // Social Media Engagement Ideas // Social Media Engagement Strategy. Wondering how to boost your engagement on social media without ads? Struggling with low engagement on social media and low reach after the new Facebook algorithm? Looking for social media hacks and social media engagement hacks to boost your business? Want MORE people to see your social media posts?

In this video, I’ll show you 8 Social Media Engagement Hacks to help you boost your social media engagement, get more people to see your social media posts, and get more organic engagement on social media for your business. Here’s What You’ll Learn In This Video: How to use Social Media Engagement Hacks to boost your visibility How to Get More Comments On Your Social Media Posts How to Get More Likes on your social media posts How to use Facebook Group How to Get more followers on social media Other Videos You Might Like: How to Create Custom Audiences in Pinterest Promoted Pins https://youtu.be/-lOPemBgQco =====Want more Marketing insights and strategies? Connect with us for more free content, resources, and training==== http://MarketingSolved.com http://facebook.com/mrktgsolved http://facebook.com/groups/marketings… http://pinterest.com/katherinesulli http://twitter.com/mrktgsolved http://twitter.com/mrskatsulli http://instagram.com/marketingsolved

3 Keys to a Highly-Effective Content Marketing Strategy

Content Building Tools, Content Marketing, Content Strategy/Generating Content, Content Targeting, Marketing Strategy

Covid-19 has significantly changed business-to-business marketing plans. As Forrester noted recently, “It’s more than a combination of discrete trends such as rising bounce rates, declining open rates, or increasing churn; it’s that buyers now expect a fundamentally different relationship with your company.” Consequently, creating compelling, relevant and consistent content is a highly effective way to attract and retain your audience’s attention, gain their trust, and, ultimately, to convert them to customers.

In a world full of false advertising and eroding trust, content marketing should be at the heart of any digital marketing strategy. It’s the foundation of all digital marketing channels, including SEO, public relations, social media and traffic generation. According to Hubspot, 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing in 2020. Rather than trying to directly sell  your products or services, you are offering useful, relevant content to your prospects and customers to help them overcome their challenges. So then, the focus is on content – be it in the form of infographics, YouTube videos, whitepapers, webpages or information in other formats.

Effective content marketing sends a message to potential customers that you are passionate about what you do and that you want to share your expertise with them — for free. To achieve this goal, it’s important to focus on three prongs: business goals, personas, and your sales funnel.

Three Essential Factors to Build Your Content Marketing Strategy

In order for your content marketing efforts to be successful, you need to create a strategy based on these three factors.

1. Business Goals

Step One in beginning an effective content marketing strategy is to be certain it lines up with your business goals. Understanding what business goal you want to achieve or support gives you the needed clarity to set the appropriate marketing objectives. Are you aiming to strengthen customer loyalty and reduce churn? Maybe the goal is to attract new prospects or overcome objections. Once you have defined your marketing goals, you can develop your content marketing campaign. 

2. Personas

Developing buyer personas is a necessary part of your strategy, but you have to take it a step further. Find the individuals within your audience that have the influence and enthusiasm that will help grow your company. If your audience is split into several types of buyers, refine your buyer personas to focus on those most likely to convert.

Start by identifying some of your most loyal customers. From there, find the primary decision-makers who championed the decision to purchase from or hire you. There are probably sales or service team members in your company who have close relationships with these people. Find those employees, and use sales data to create a persona – data points like goals/motivations, challenges, background, demographics, common objections, biggest fears and hobbies.

3. Your sales funnel

Vendor research happens online, and what will move the buyer down the pipeline is valuable content being published on your web, email, search and social channels. In order to drive success with B2B content marketing, you need to understand how the content you create fits into the different stages of your sales funnel.

Be aware that your funnel may vary from the norm depending on elements such as your sector, solution, business model, pricing structure and target market. In fact, experts report that “today’s B2B buyer might be anywhere from two-thirds to 90% of the way through their journey before they reach out to a vendor.” Confer with the sales team about the particulars of your sales funnel, then use that intelligence to create a marketing strategy that addresses leads at the top, middle and bottom of that funnel.

What Can Be Gained from Content Marketing?

There are many benefits of content marketing, including:

Addressing pain points leads to sales: When prospects look online for ways to solve their issues, your content is there to help over and over. As an example, marketers who use blogs as a primary communications tactic are 13x more likely to see return on investment.
Creating a community: As you establish thought leadership through content marketing, you gain credibility and encourage stronger relationships with existing and future customers.
Long-run savings: Good content has legs. It continues to work for you long after you’ve created it, continually bringing in qualified leads. That lessens paid marketing expenses. Demand Metric found that not only does content marketing cost 62% less than traditional marketing efforts, but it generates three times the number of leads.

HubSpot’s content marketing efforts showcase the powerful results that can be produced from a comprehensive strategy. The company is well-known because they produce massive amounts of content. HubSpot sells inbound market, sales and service software, but its claim to fame among marketers is the quantity and quality of its marketing resources, much of which is free. Their repertoire includes case studies, guides, ebooks, blog posts, courses, reports and more. Their content drives free traffic to their site, with the end goal of converting those leads into customers without spending a dime on advertising.

Gaining Leads, Gaining Trust

Compelling and relevant content is the cornerstone of demand generation and lead nurturing strategy. Marketers depend on content to connect with prospects and existing customers in the current communications landscape, but to be successful, it must inform, excite and be worthy of sharing. It should arm audiences to address obstacles and accomplish their goals. If you’re able to accomplish this, prospects will come to trust your brand. This involves prioritizing original content creation to promote that message so it can add value to the lives of your customers. Use the best practices discussed above to begin or refine your content marketing strategy.

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What Content Marketing is NOT

Content Marketing, Content Strategy/Generating Content, Content Targeting, Marketing Regulations/Legislations, Marketing Strategy

Before we delve a little deeper into what content marketing is not, we will first answer the question of what content marketing is.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is, “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience”. This is quite different to the usual marketing techniques of pitching services or products – rather, you are producing relevant and useful content for your audience and customers in order solve their problems and answer their questions.Any forward thinking marketer – and businessperson – can see that content is the future of marketing. The difference between content marketing and the other “informational” pieces you see from some companies (read spam!) is that content marketing is useful and targeted – and valuable!Regardless of what marketing tactics you use, content marketing should be an integral part of your process, not a separate element. Content marketing is used in social media marketing, SEO strategies, PPC campaigns, and inbound marketing.

Content Marketing is not (only) storytelling

The common idea about content marketing is that it is “storytelling” – if you reread the definition mentioned above, you will see that storytelling is not mentioned once, and for good reason! The point of a content marketing strategy is to demonstrate the value of your service or product, not just to tell a story effectively. Visitors to your site are drawn to your content not because it tells your brand’s story, but because it builds on theirs. Content is not about sales, but rather it is about perpetuating an idea, and the brand behind that idea. When you build an audience, the idea should inform and intrigue the audience, rather than being a tired and overused sales pitch. However, aspects of storytelling should not be eliminated from your content – using emotions such as happiness, anger or sadness in your content can influence a customer’s actions or drive them to an action, such as purchasing your product or using your service.

What Content Marketing is NOT – Myths Busted!

Although content marketing is not a new concept, there are still a huge number of myths regarding it, from what it is to how easy it is to do (side note – not just anyone can create top tier content), but many of these myths are not true, and below are some of the most common explained and disproved.

It only works for certain businesses

Content marketing is not industry specific – any business can produce content that is relevant, valuable and useful for their audience, once they understand what that means. The most important thing to remember is that content marketing is not about sales, but about promoting the value of your product or service with articles, media and visuals that are relevant and valuable.

It’s just writing, it can’t be that hard!

There is a common belief that content marketing is easy, and that anyone can do it. The reality is that, while the basics of content marketing are easy to handle alone, when you start reaching the more complex issues, it is best to hire a professional. Aside from creating compelling and valuable stories – which is a skill in itself – you will have to deal with the constant creation of content, and there is the fact that the content has to be done well.

Our customers probably aren’t online, and don’t use social media

This is highly unlikely, regardless of your industry. Studies have shown that in South Africa alone, there are 13 million Facebook users, 7.4 million Twitter users and 2.68 million Instagram users – which means that there is a huge pool of people who are online, including your customers!

All content should focus on my business

This is from the older school of marketing, where traditional marketing campaigns spoke at people, rather than with them, like content marketing campaigns. It is vital to avoid content that is too promotional, or reads too much like a sales brochure as this is will reduce the traffic to your site and negatively affect your customer’s experience. The purpose of content marketing is to engage with your audience, so aim to provide valuable content rather than speaking exclusively about your business and products.

Text-based content is enough!

This belief is most common among first time content marketers, and is understandable, as when most people hear the words “content marketing”, they are liable to think of blog posts or articles. However, the industry is changing! While the copy is vital, there is the visual component to consider, (this means more than just a cover image) which can be images or a video. Humans are visual creatures, so including creative and relevant images or videos with your copy can work wonders for your rankings and site traffic.

Text-based content pieces need to be long

While it is true that longer content pieces perform highly, with better rankings and more engagement, is it not always necessary to create long pieces of content – and it could be counterproductive. Shorter content can still rank very well, and it is important to think about a vital aspect before creating that impressive 2000+ word article: your customers. Longer pages work well when you are trying to encourage customers to buy a “big ticket item”, but can overwhelm customers. Rather try out different styles to optimise conversion rates.

Simply creating content means people will find it

It is a common thought process that simply creating the content and putting it onto your business’s site or blog will allow people to find it, but one of the most important steps in your content marketing strategy is to devise a distribution plan of your content. This could (and should) involve syndicating the content onto your social media platforms, which is an effective plan to implement, as it can contribute to higher volumes of site traffic.

We’re too late to the content marketing game!

Never has a statement been more untrue! The world has yet to hit the peak of content marketing, and it remains one of the most effective marketing tools in the industry. If your brand, business or company has yet to use content marketing as part of its strategy, it is not too late to start, and you are sure to find experts who are chomping at the bit to help you implement an effective content marketing strategy.

Why content marketing works

In today’s information age, customers are highly likely to research a product or service before making a purchase or signing up for something, which is why it is vital for businesses to have content that is valuable, relevant and consistent for their customers. This hunger for valuable information is why content marketing works! By using content marketing as part of your business’s marketing strategy, you are building trust between yourself and your customers. One of the major aspects of successful marketing is establish a sense of trust with their consumers, and content marketing is an effective way to do so.

According to a recent study, owned media (which is the website of a business, the social media profiles and emails) and earned media (reviews and recommendations) are two of the most trusted forms of advertising.One of the major reasons why content marketing works is because it solves problems. People are not searching online for content so that they stumble on an advert or learn something new about a brand – they are looking for content that answers a question or solves a problem. When creating content, be it a blog post, a video or an infographic, try to place yourself in the mind of your consumer, thinking about what they are searching for and what they want to find.

Content marketing is successful because it is backed by data. This data allows you to see what content was popular, which was unsuccessful and what could use a bit of tweaking. You are also able to customise the metrics you use to track your content marketing campaigns, allowing you to see more clearly what needs to be done to achieve your goals or where your brand may need help.The value of content marketing is high, and while it is often said that “content is king”, the customer is the real one in charge when it comes to content marketing. If your brand isn’t implementing a content marketing strategy, it’s not too late to start!

By: Craig Hoggins

Source:https://onlinemarketingguys.co.za

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UBIQUITII – MULTIPLE Social Media Platform Reposter

Content Curation, Content Strategy/Generating Content, Social Media Marketing, Viral Content/Posting

UBIQUITII is a cloud-based app that allows you to post your content or post on multiple social media platforms with just a one click. Here, the best part about the UBIQUITII is that you can connect unlimited social media accounts. In short, this tool can help you to get more leads and sales with your social media profiles.

Honestly speaking, I have never seen such an amazing tool like UBIQUITII in this industry.The vendors behind the product Danny & Kimberly Vries are known for amazing products and they have very high reputation in this industry. With UBIQUITII you can connect your YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn accounts.

What you get inside UBIQUITII

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Facebook Group (Admin) & Page Posting
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How to Effectively Ask Someone to Share Your Content With Their Audience

Content Building Tools, Content Marketing, Content Strategy/Generating Content, Content Targeting

Let’s just get this out of the way before we jump in. Asking someone else to promote your content is the equivalent of saying “You spent years building your audience by providing them with valuable content. Mind if I hitch a ride on your success instead of putting in the time to build my own audience?”

Asking someone else to do your work for you is looking for shortcuts and cutting corners. It is not a good idea and there are very few exceptions to that rule.

Having said that, if your situation is that exception and you feel it is appropriate to ask someone to share your content with their audience, then at least do it right.

Here are some good tips to follow:

Take a look at their last 20 posts and see if your request is relevant.

I am going to be very honest with you, this entire article came together this morning on the way to work. I got a random message from an acquaintance with a link. The link was to a service and she followed it with a request that read, and I quote, “Please share.”

I was tempted to respond “No”, but instead I tried to explain to her that this service is not even remotely relevant to my interests, the interests of my audience, or the kind of things I like to share. I explained to her that if I promoted every service people send me, my audience would lose interest, I would become irrelevant, and everyone would lose. She didn’t get it.

If you have a new ballet school, I am happy for you, I truly am, but perhaps asking me to share it with tech-oriented readers isn’t the best idea? Even if somehow, me sharing it would not cause me damage, would it even do anything for your ballet dance registrations? Did you think this through or are you just looking for some exposure that won’t even move the needle?

If people follow me for tech updates, with a sprinkle of food photos, super car fantasies, and occasional family cuteness, would my post about your ballet school even draw engagement? That is a rhetorical question, but I will answer it anyway. No, it would do nothing and you’d get zero engagement and I would have done damage to my brand.

Not what you were going for, right?

Don’t just share your link, include some context and explain why you think it is relevant.

These are the best. You send me a link without any accompanying text so I have to click through, see the content, read it, and then try to figure out why you are sending it. How about this approach? “Hey Hillel, I see you share the occasional car photo. I know this is no super car, but I am launching a new car business and I would be honored if you deemed it relevant enough to let your followers know about it.”

By sending such a message, you accomplish a few things. First of all, you are being polite and considerate of my time, instead of putting me to work and expecting me to figure out what you need from me. Second of all, you answer the question “Why?” before I even get a chance to ask it. Always a good idea. Finally, you framed it in a way that you would appreciate the help as opposed to expecting me to do your work for you. It is all about the way you frame the request.

Before you reach out, take a look at their posts and make sure now is a good time.

Here is the thing with social media; people share things. So if I just shared a picture of me on a family outing, perhaps now is not the time to ask me to share your article about cloud infrastructure.

“You expect me to go into a person’s social media and stalk them before emailing them?” Well, “Stalk” is a strong word but yes, if you are asking someone for help, it is your job to do research on their interests, their preferences, and yes, their activities. If you got lucky and the person posted recently that they’re in a day of meetings or taking the day off, then you just saved yourself a negative response or no response at all.

If you are going to cut corners by asking others to promote your work, you better make sure you take their needs and behavior into account.

By Hillel Fuld Tech marketer and startup adviser

@hilzfuld

Source: How to Effectively Ask Someone to Share Your Content With Their Audience

Kimberly Ann Jimenez

38.9K subscribers

Ever wondered how to create a content marketing plan? Today, I’m sharing my step-by-step process + a nifty template. 🔥 FREE Social Media Planner Template: https://goo.gl/EcKkCA 💻Get My Best Work In One Place (And 30+ Business & Marketing Courses) Inside The Business Lounge: https://jointheblounge.com Get even more marketing tips on via my free social media content class: https://kimberlyannjimenez.com/zilch-… 📺 WATCH MARKETING TUTORIALS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDlEb… ▼ GRAB THESE FREE RESOURCES FROM THE BLOG Learn How To Sell More On Your Blog Via My Brand New, Free Masterclass: https://kimberlyannjimenez.com/blog-c… The Online Success Path, a step-by-step guide to launching, growing and scaling the profitable online business you’ve always dreamed about: https://kimberlyannjimenez.com/succes… How To Start A Blog Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAgJg… Learn Content Marketing Playlist:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5gui… ▼ NEW AROUND HERE? START HERE. Run Facebook Ads On A Budget: http://bit.ly/mystrategyforfbads 5 Steps To Start An Email List From Scratch: http://bit.ly/2wgV8hT 6 Stages Of A Successful Online Business: http://bit.ly/2x5CTsR ▼ MORE RESOURCES Don’t forget to subscribe to our Podcast! : https://kimberlyannjimenez.com/podcast/ Come on over and join The Business Lounge’s FREE Mastermind Group: https://kimberlyannjimenez.com/master… Learn to launch, grow or scale a profitable online business without spending thousands on a business coach. It’s my best work in one place. http://jointheblounge.com ▼GEAR I USE: Camera: http://amzn.to/2xKmzOh Camera Lens: http://amzn.to/2i8ZXAX Microphone: http://amzn.to/2hcrmlW / http://amzn.to/2xvZVgE Ring Light: http://amzn.to/2xwliOR Tripod: http://amzn.to/2x0Leku ▼ FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KimAnnJimenez/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/kimannjimenez Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/kimannjimenez Instagram: http://instagram.com/kimannjimenez Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase using these links.

Find The Content That Works & The Influencers Who Matter

Campaign Marketing, Content Building Tools, Content Marketing, Content Strategy/Generating Content

Of all the goals you have for your content, the most important is engagement. Sure, traffic is great, but if your content doesn’t engage that traffic, you won’t see the results you were after.

While many options exist, interactive content is designed with the sole purpose of grabbing your visitors’ attention and keeping it until they are satisfied. Fortunately, with the help of an interactive content marketing platform, it’s never been easier to produce this kind of valuable content.

4 Examples Interactive Content Marketing Platform

Furthermore, there are only four main types of interactive content you need to consider for your website. Better still,
with the right interactive content marketing platform, just about anyone can
create an engaging example quickly and, often times, for free.

1. Quizzes

Maybe the most popular form of interactive content is the basic quiz. They’re simple to create and take. Yet, quizzes can produce absolutely incredible results. In fact, Women.com owns well over half the engagement for quizzes, dominating even Buzzfeed, which is probably better known for this kind of interactive content.

Their quizzes aren’t overly complicated, either. Check out their most successful one, “Quiz: Only 1 In 50 People Can Identify These 16 Grammar Mistakes. Can You?”

SurveyMonkey
is an extremely popular interactive content marketing platform and is also completely free to use. Otherwise, Quiz Maker offers three different options.

2. Calculator and Tools

Online calculators do more than just help readers add and subtract. They help readers by making convoluted calculations much easier. For example, if you wanted to know what the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017” would mean for you, the NY Times’ tax calculator requires you to only answer four questions.

Another extremely popular tool is a mortgage calculator. Just about every major mortgage originator and real-estate advice site offers one. That’s because those in the market for a new home absolutely need this information, but would rather not conduct complex calculations in order to receive it (or find out for the first time when they’re in a lender’s office).

Take a look at this mortgage calculator from NerdWallet for an excellent example of how you can use an interactive content marketing platform to create a winning webpage that will bring you traffic for years to come. If you’re looking for a free interactive content marketing platform to build your site a calculator, try uCalc or Calculoid. For those who may need more from their calculators, ContentTools is an excellent choice.

3. Interactive Visuals

Interactive visuals make it easier for people to understand complicated concepts by illustrating them with visuals. As opposed to an infographic, though, these visuals allow the viewer to adjust the input for specific outcomes. One really fun example that showed up in recent years was “Winds and Words”:

“Using data collected
from script dialogue and other sources, this experiment analyzes and visualizes
characters’ words and interactions from the first six seasons of HBO’s Game of
Thrones.”

If you watched the show, you know how daunting it could be at times to remember the dozens of characters’ interactions with one another, year-after-year. The fun tool shows users whom every character spoke to – and how often – broken down by season. This type of marketing asset is possible with an interactive content marketing platform like R Shiny. It’s too involved for any sort of free software, but the results are clearly
worth it.

4. Timelines, Sliders, and More

Finally, another fantastic way to use an interactive content marketing platform is to create a timeline or slider that shows the progression of a product, service, or event. For example, check out this cool timeline that documents the evolution of the iPhone. With just one click-at-a-time, you can watch as the model in front of you changes. That’s a lot more interesting than simply seeing them all laid out in one static visual because it gives you a much better sense of how the device’s dimensions changed over time.

Another interesting example shows how diversity in tech grew between 2014 and 2017. Once again, a simple side-by-side comparison of each year would have sufficed, but it’s far more engaging when you can look at each metric and see exactly how it changed with just a simple click. If your site needs a timeline, Preceden offers a free trial, yet it’s trusted by brands like Netflix and Slack. Otherwise, R Shiny is also great for this kind of content.

The Most Important Rule When Creating Interactive Content

Now that you understand what interactive content is and what your four main options are, the next step is deciding which would make the most sense for your business. As you research the different types of interactive content that is successful in your market, you’ll see that even in a single category – say quizzes – there’s no limit to what you can do. In terms of the questions you ask, the interface of the quiz, how results are provided, etc., the sky’s the limit.

However, remember this quote from the founder of “Convince and Convert,” Jay Baer, about content creation: “One of the best ways to succeed with modern marketing is not to try to be amazing, but just be useful.” Bells and whistles are great, but if your interactive content doesn’t actually provide the answers your market wants, don’t expect it to attract much attention for very long.

Keep in mind, too, that those answers don’t necessarily have to be life-changing. Finding out how much of a mortgage you can afford is great, but clearly, many of Women.com’s readers were interested in discovering if they could name “All 15 of These 80s Hits by One Line.” Different markets. Different interactive content.

It’s Never Been Easier to Create Interactive Content

Depending on the kind you want to create, an interactive content marketing platform could produce your next post by the end-of-the-day and for absolutely free.

By: Susan Moeller

Source: BuzzSumo: Find the content that works and the influencers who matter

Learning Bites

1.58K subscribers

An introduction to the h5p framework, with examples.

15 Content Marketing Statistics that Prove the Value of Your Efforts

Content Building Tools, Content Marketing, Content Strategy/Generating Content, Content Targeting

Let’s take a pause. You’ve been running on the content hamster wheel, hopefully executing on an informed and actionable content marketing strategy. But what’s it all for? Why are we doing it in the first place?

Let these 15 content marketing statistics remind you that, yes, you are on the right path.

For starters, in 2019, roughly 25.8% of internet users were blocking advertising on their connected devices. Ad targeting is going to get increasing more complex with new privacy regulations being introduced and the implementation of cookie-blocking technology being led by Apple and Firefox.

Advertising will continue to become increasingly more expensive and complex. And not to mention, consumers prefer content to advertising. In fact, 70 percent of people would rather get information about a company or learn something from an article or blog post rather than from a traditional advertisement. (Demand Metric)

70% of people would rather get information about a company or learn something from an article or blog post rather than from a traditional advertisement. Click To Tweet

Throughout the funnel, good content is becoming increasingly important. Whether creating your own, aggregating content from experts or facilitating UGC, content can bring exponential value to your marketing efforts.

Let’s take a look at the impact of content throughout the marketing funnel with these 15 content marketing statistics:

1. Knowing your audience and understanding their preferences is essential. For instance, only 22% of millennials want to see email from a brand they support, while 57% of 45 – 54-year-olds do. (HubSpot)

2. Conversely, 52% of millennials want to see video from brands they support while only 25% of those 45-54 do. (HubSpot)

3. 71% of a B2B respondent pool stated they reviewed a blog while on their buying journey. (Demand Gen Report)

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B2B content statistic

4. 32% of consumers check out a brand’s social media presence before checking out their website. (Animoto)

5. Podcasts were cited by 64% of B2B respondents as a valuable content format in the early stage of the buying journey — only falling short of infographics (76%) (Demand Gen Report)

6. People today have 2X more interactions with brands on mobile than anywhere else. (Think with Google)

7. Cisco projected that more than 80% of all Internet traffic will be video by 2021—which means brands definitely need a video content strategy. (Cisco)

8. 87% of consumers want more video from brands. (Hubspot)

9. Instagram is the fastest-growing platform for driving purchases with video. (Animoto)

While You’re here

How To Launch Your Fully Fledged, 100% Unique Online Business With InstantContent

Content Blogger, Content Building Tools, Content Curation, Content Marketing, Content Strategy/Generating Content, Content Targeting, Content/Visual, Viral Content/Posting, Visual Content/Marketing

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Source: InstantContent — VIDIOLOC

Reflect Your Customer’s Exact Language Back to Them

Recent Content

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1. Multimedia works well with device screens

2. Video makes learning convenient

3. Video familiarizes audiences with your personality

4. Clips and footage increase conversion rates

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1. Focus your content on interesting stories

2. Do a poll asking what type of content people want most

3. Host a Q & A on Facebook or Instagram Live

4. Make sure you have a call to action in every post

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Three Essential Factors to Build Your Content Marketing Strategy

1. Business Goals

2. Personas

3. Your sales funnel

What Can Be Gained from Content Marketing?

Gaining Leads, Gaining Trust

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What is Content Marketing?

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It only works for certain businesses

It’s just writing, it can’t be that hard!

Our customers probably aren’t online, and don’t use social media

All content should focus on my business

Text-based content is enough!

Text-based content pieces need to be long

Simply creating content means people will find it

We’re too late to the content marketing game!

Why content marketing works

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Take a look at their last 20 posts and see if your request is relevant.

Don’t just share your link, include some context and explain why you think it is relevant.

Before you reach out, take a look at their posts and make sure now is a good time.

Category

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Like this:

4 Examples Interactive Content Marketing Platform

1. Quizzes

2. Calculator and Tools

3. Interactive Visuals

4. Timelines, Sliders, and More

The Most Important Rule When Creating Interactive Content

It’s Never Been Easier to Create Interactive Content

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Let these 15 content marketing statistics remind you that, yes, you are on the right path.

We publish lots of new articles, videos and podcasts each month

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