100 Content Marketing Ideas

A few months ago I mentioned pulling together 100 Content Marketing Ideas – here’s the previous post where I mention it  7 Steps to Feeding the Sales Funnel

Well I’ve been jotting down ideas as I’ve read various articles & other posts & I’m glad to report the eBook is now finished!

You can request a copy of this free 23 page eBook by simply filling out  this request form on our website.

We will then send you;

• a PDF of the eBook
• an offer of a free 1 hour sales & marketing consultation
• a follow up framework marketing plan
• an outline proposal to help you implement the marketing plan

You might want to also take a look at these other content marketing posts for more ideas, suggestions & tips;

Top 5 types of content marketing

Social media is free but social marketing isn’t

 

Top 5 types of content marketing

Knowing exactly what content your customers consume online is often a dilemma for the growing business. What content type should you target to gain maximum exposure? Where should you focus your valuable time, particularly as content creation & marketing is known to be very time consuming?

Here are the top 5 types of content, according to The Wall, you will need to increase;

• traffic to your site
• customer engagement &
• social network shares.

All seem sensible inclusions to me for any digital inbound marketing plan.

1. Blogs

There are many  benefits in running a blog – here’s my previous post on the Magnificent 7 Benefits of Blogging but blogs are often ignored due to time. What do you write about? How often & when do you allocate some time in your hectic schedule?

Here are three ways to implement a blog without having to invest too much of your own time;

1.1   Hire someone to write 3-5 posts for you per week

1.2   Invite people to write a guest post

1.3   Use your blog to share images, videos, or simply curate posts from other websites.

2. Images

A picture paints ….. just look at Flickr, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram. We all love information that is presented through images e.g. infographics.

Here are 3 types of images to share;

2.1   High definition product/service images

2.2   Your sector relevant infographics

2.3   Team event, office space,  you/your team  doing business tasks

3. Infographics

A great, fresh way to present large amounts of information visually, they are also easy to share and much easier to  view than long paragraphs of text.

Try curating  infographics in your business sector first before starting to design your own or briefing someone to design them for you.

4. Videos

The affordability of video cameras & Smartphone’s  with a hi res camera, makes it very easy to capture videos e.g. an interview at a conference, a demonstration or a successful event.

5. Text

Can’t beat text & really nothing exists without it e.g.  newsletters, flyers, direct mail, white papers, eBooks, and presentations.

Content is king as they say. Make sure your business is creating some in at least a couple of the above channels.

If you would like some help in content creation & content marketing please get in touch.

Top 10 website redesign check list

You’ve added a blog & maybe some social feeds. You’ve ensured the search engines can easily find your site, however there will inevitably come a time when you will need a redesign.

There is little doubt that the redesign cycle is shortening, so when that time comes around don’t just focus on how it will look.

This is a great opportunity to place your website at the very centre of your business, right next to your customers. An opportunity to design how will it support your marketing activities such as email, social media, lead generation, brand awareness & sales conversion?

A quick search for website development check list or similar will return plenty of tactical advice e.g. this great list has over 400 specific items! 

Our list is a more manageable 10 points & has been designed specifically by inbound marketing specialists, Hubspot so your new site integrates with other key marketing functions;

1. Audit

Create a record of what your site currently delivers e.g. number of visits/visitors/unique visitors, bounce rate, time on site, current SEO rankings for important keywords, number of new leads/form submissions, total amount of sales generate.

2. Set Goals based on the Audit

‘Our site is looking a bit old’ or ‘it’s been a while since the last design’ or ‘such & such has a new site so we need one now’ are less valid reasons. Yes there is merit in how your site looks & answers your customers needs but if you are going to invest both time & money in a new site, make sure you have specific & measurable targets for 6 months, 12 months & 24 months.

3. Don’t throw away the good stuff!

Your existing site will have some content & links that perform well, so make sure your review the whole site inventory & brief the design team thoroughly on those you wish to keep.

4. Know the competition

A day or two researching your key competitors & noting likes & dislikes will identify where you can improve & offer your customers a better service.

5. State your Unique Value Proposition

This is vital. Immediately answer in plain, simple language if what you do is right for your site visitors, and why they should buy/convert/stay on your website. See my previous post on  What is it you actually do?

6. Know your visitors & build your site around them

Segment the your key targets in personas & understand all you can about each e.g.

• demographics including job title, role, company information & industry
• needs such as what information they are searching for or what trends are influencing their business decisions
• online behaviour e.g. are they active on Twitter, Facebook, or other social networks? what search terms do they use? what kind of online information do they tend to consume? which of your products or services do they spend the most time researching?

7. SEO

Ask the experts as this is tricky, time consuming & requires constant attention. Start by taking our quick 7 point SEO health check developed in partnership with the springboard to see where your SEO can be improved.

8. Calls to action

Once you have a visitor, your site must prompt practical further engagement . Think about;

eBooks, whitepapers, contests, promotions, product purchases, email newsletter subscription, free trial, contact us,  consultations & demonstrations.

9. Create a content strategy

There is no getting away from the fact that in general more relevant content generates more visitors. Build a plan to continue adding content to your site. Some suggestions to follow in a future post.

10. Consider the extras

Blog, Landing Pages, RSS subscription, shareability & analytics are all well worth including within your redesign brief.

So next time you are considering a website redesign, prepare a list similar to the above (& check off the 400+ tactical list!) or ask us, we would love to help.

Landing pages – 4 top tips to manage conflict

We’ve all seen both good & bad landing or sign up pages on our digital travels.

However how often have you taken the time to consider what makes a good experience v a bad one?

Take a look at this chart;

There is often a very fine balance between capturing as much information as the business requires compared to what the user is willing to divulge to receive the benefit the business is offering.

As a business here are 4 tips to help get the balance right;

1. Set defaults to your preferences – generally people are lazy & will leave tick boxes alone if they are pre-ticked.

2. Don’t be pushy – only ask for the information you actually need & bracket answers eg age 35 – 44

3. Following the group is reassuring – show how many people have signed up already or if you are just starting include a few customer testimonials

4. Don’t strangle the impulse – keep users informed eg step 2 or 3

Above all put yourself in the shoes of your customer & reassure them that what they are giving you will be worth what you are about to give them.

In fact apply this to all your digital marketing & you won’t go far wrong!

 

2012 Marketing plan – themes to consider

They say only change is constent & when it comes to marketing even what you thought was the right blend of channels & propositions last year will be very different in 2012.

New opportunities pop up all the time but only those that start to gain some customer momentum become worth considering – having critical mass or ‘having more than half doing the same thing’ is what we used to say when stealing theories from quantum physics was the trend.

Here are a few marketing electrons that are starting to vibrate together & heading towards that critical 51%;

Blogging

Not a new channel but the change has been in how businesses approach the content.

The ‘sales’ blog is starting to be overtaken by the ‘connection’ blog i.e. the thoughts & views of a business rather than a product list.

Generating followers, word- of- mouth & referrals are still the objectives but the method is much more focussed on advice, tips & personal but expert thoughts.

Brand Clans, Tribes & Troupes

I find the newer definitions always seem to evoke scenes from great war films – ‘Zulus to the south west. Thousands of them’, ‘but they’ll never take our freedom!’ that sort of thing!

I prefer the idea of creating loyal brand ambassadors or advocates. This again isn’t a new theme but the ease of which followers can discuss & share a brand with friends as ‘someone who thinks the way you do’ is increasingly easy.

Stay clear of corporate & sales speak but much like the ‘connection’ blog, express your opinions, views & even how your business has handled problems or issues.

Consider involving your ambassadors in research & ask for feedback.

Above all be genuine

Smartphones

Gartner et al have been predicting the magic 50% penetration for Smartphones for years & it looks as if we are nearly there. New, cheaper Smartphones from the likes of Nokia will only boost this figure & data from PayPal last year showed a big jump in online transactions from mobiles.

The solution is simple – make sure you can be found, easily read & if appropriate bought on a Smartphone.

Public relations

This is an extension of the blogging theme. PR is a great cost effective marketing solution but make sure the focus is on the benefits to your brand ambassadors.

A well known FMCG giant summarizes this under 5 headings;

• Understand
• Easy
• Desirable
• Rewarding
• Habit

DIY Social

The issue with having a Facebook page or running a Twitter site has always been that to do it well required external investment in web developers.

New, off the shelf applications are making this much easier to handle in-house.

The watch out is have a plan & commit resources to regular updates. Nothing worse than a social strategy that isn’t being social!

Collaboration

Sounds obvious but all too often we shy away from sharing ‘our business’ with anyone else.

However forming a partnership with a complimentary business can help broaden your appeal & is a cost effective solution as you can pool resource & experience.

There is safety in numbers in today’s economy!

ROI

Talking of the economy proving marketing value just got a lot more important – again!

Budgets will be cut & your brand ambassadors will spend less, so make sure those slightly more intangible channels that I’ve just highlighted such as PR or social are well measured

Set out your targets & be clear what you are expecting – today’s marketing channels have never been easier to measure!

In bound marketing = great content

This is the key theme for me.

Virtually all of the above are worthless if you haven’t created something of quality, relevant to your brand ambassadors that is worth sharing.

All the share this, forward to, re-tweet, +1 buttons in the world won’t help unless you have something of value to say & some expertise to share.

Remember when you would walk into a shop & get talking to the owner about the latest thing or ask for advice on how to do something.

That in my view is what businesses need to create online.

Be predictable in your marketing!

Sounds strange but there is some logic to making sure you sell  in a predictable & consistent fashion. However that doesn’t mean under delivering on service or not meeting customer expectations. Let me explain.

That all important customer satisfaction that leads to a marketer’s dream of customers selling for you comes directly from what they expect, rather than what a business might provide. In selling we have to ensure that the two are as closely matched as possible.

The only way to achieve this is through deep understanding of how these customer expectations are set. If you’ve read any of my previous posts you will see this theme crops up time & again – understand you customer.

Today’s customers are coming to a purchase decision armed with a set of expectations that have been developed through reading blogs, articles, opinions from family & friends, work colleagues, competitive sites & reviews. If the business hasn’t grasped the concept of inbound marketing then it can have little effect on these expectations.

What’s inbound marketing? In my book it’s any activity that leads a warm customer to your business because of something they have found compelling, interesting & engaging. The direct opposite of this is more traditional  push activity that tries to force a message on an increasingly sales message adverse audience.

The old adage was ‘exceed your customer expectations’ or ‘under sell & over deliver’. However in today’s online world if you oversell for one customer it is quickly shared to becomes the norm that all other customers expect. Beware if you only provide your previous normal service to the next customer!

Aim for consistency & predictability that you can deliver & that your customers can share & understand when they repurchase.

A great example is the Dutch company, Brabantia. Their reputation has been built on high quality products but they had an issue with an early model where the bin lid failed. Recognising the expectation equation they will today replace for free any genuine faulty lid under their guarantee. Email customer service & your free, new lid will be dispatched the next day. Customers now expect this level of service from Brabantia. You can bet the newer models don’t have a lid issue, however it’s much more expensive to try & ‘buy’ the level of positive feedback that this has achieved.

Try Googling ‘Brabantia bin lid’ & read a few of the great comments shared on sites such as Mumsnet.

Great expectations when buying a new bin that Brabantia have shown they can consistently meet.

My new lid should arrive next week!