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A Beginner’s Guide: Convince & Convert’s Favorite SEO Tools

A Beginner’s Guide: Convince & Convert’s Favorite SEO Tools

A beginner’s guide: Convince & Convert’s favorite tools for conducting SEO checkups, reviews, and audits

As part of our content marketing discovery process, the Convince & Convert team always takes a look at the state of our clients’ SEO efforts. That’s because, in order to make the best content marketing strategies and recommendations possible, we have to make sure there’s a foundation for content success established first.

While we use myriad tools, techniques, and approaches to review our clients’ SEO,  there are a few tools we recommend for those who are just starting to dig into their own SEO efforts or aren’t full-on SEO practitioners…yet.

Get a super-quick, high-level snapshot: Hubspot’s Website Grader®

Website: https://website.grader.com/

Cost: Free

Need a good starting point but have 90 million other to-dos on your list today? Or maybe you don’t work with SEO a ton and need some pointers on what to look for? Hubspot’s Website Grader is a great place to start.

This free tool just requires a URL to audit and an email address to ungate the results. In less than one minute, you get a beautifully designed, high-level assessment of your website, which includes critical SEO elements, like:

  • Overall website performance, such as page size, page speed, browser caching and page redirects
  • SEO essentials, such as indexability, meta descriptions, and descriptive link text
  • Mobile readiness, which includes legible font size and responsive design
  • Security features, like SSL certificates and HTTPS

In addition to getting an overall health check on your website, Hubspot’s Website Grader will also give you clear and actionable next steps. Not bad at all for getting your SEO bearings or just making sure you’re covered on the most essential SEO basics.

Hubspot Website Grader

Dive deeper into data: Google Analytics

Website: https://analytics.google.com

Cost: Free, freemium, or paid

Although Google has been shielding more and more of its users’ data (including SEO queries) from advertisers and websites for some time, you can still get a ton of helpful insights and information through Google Analytics, including:

  • Dips or spikes in page and/or website traffic
  • Underperforming pages that may need a boost or update
  • Additional content and optimization opportunities via onsite search results

In fact, Ahref has an in-depth post on how to get SEO insights, information and action items from Google Analytics over on their blog, and it’s well worth a read. Especially since Google Analytics is still one of the most used and popular website analytics tools in the United States.

Ahref SEO insights

Image credit: Google Support

Get the big (content, metadata & site structure) picture: Screaming Frog

Website: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk

Cost: Free (up to 50 URLs crawled) or £149/license

Screaming Frog is, without a doubt, one of Convince & Convert’s absolute favorite auditing tools for content and SEO. This seemingly simply SEO spider tool can help crawl pretty much any website you want and quickly spits out all of the data you need to get the full, big picture view of what exactly your content and SEO looks like today:

  • Gather a complete list of URLs: Instead of hunting through every blog post or pulling URLs from Google Analytics, Screaming Frog gives you every single URL in one beautiful list. It even includes PDFs, so you don’t have to click through every on-page link to find hidden PDF gems. Also, seeing the list of URLs can also help spot duplicate content or odd URL slug paths that you can easily correct or clarify.
  • Review meta data and page titles: Not only does Screaming Frog tell you exactly what the page titles, H1s, and meta description are, it also gives you character counts.
  • Create a “true” sitemap: You might have your navigation set up one way visually on your site, but one-off and rogue URLs can create a much different sitemap to search engines. Screaming Frog helps create the “true” view of what your site really looks like and how the information architecture comes together.

Although Screaming Frog’s output takes a bit of basic- to intermediate-level SEO knowledge to dig through, it’s an invaluable tool that the Convince & Convert team uses all the time.

Go all in on insights: SEMRush

Website: https://www.semrush.com

Cost: $99.95 – 374.95/month (yearly pricing)

Need a robust, all-in-one tool that easily does it all for you? SEMRush it is!

From keyword research to on-page SEO, local SEO, competitive analyses, rank tracking and much, much more, SEMRush is “the only software which enables marketing professionals to build, manage, and measure campaigns across all channels to improve their online visibility.”

In addition to the features noted above, your actual SEMRush dashboard and account can tell you just about everything you need to know about your website’s SEO, including:

  • Overall site audit: SEMRush audits your website with 130+ on-page and technical SEO checks including crawlability, internal linking, hreflang, AMP and HTTPs issues to find any immediate issues or red flags. It also gives you an update on the overall health of your website.
  • Brand monitoring: Track mentions of your and your competitors’ brands online.
  • Backlink audit: Just like the site audit, SEMRush checks your site to see who’s linking to your site and if those referring websites are toxic.

SEMRush is also highly customizable and has plenty of additional social media, paid media, and content features and tracking tools, too. 

Need more SEO auditing info?

While there’s no one right tool or one right way to audit or check up on your SEO, tools (like C&C’s favorites noted above) can make the process easier and smoother. And, if you ever need more help, you can always chat with a member of the Convince & Convert team.

The post A Beginner’s Guide: Convince & Convert’s Favorite SEO Tools appeared first on Convince & Convert.

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Market Got You Down? Why Content Marketing Is Even More Important Now

Marketing during a pandemic? You did it! Your reward? Record inflation and the challenge of marketing in a down economy that feels as uncertain as ever.

If you’re a frustrated marketer or business owner — you’re not alone.

We’ve all felt the squeeze of the past few years. Understandably, companies are looking for ways to be more financially conservative right now as we wait for the economy to get back on track. Marketing, in many cases, is one of the first things on the budgetary chopping block.

But I’m here to tell you that pausing your marketing efforts is not the way to get your business through this tough time.

I recently received an email newsletter from fellow marketer (and CEO of RevBoss — a B2B sales prospecting service provider) Eric Boggs that inspired me to expand on this topic.

Eric shared his thoughts on the Tweet pictured below:

Jason Lemkin tweet re: content marketing in a down economy.

Image Source: RevBoss

He outlined RevBoss’s plans to stay the course with their marketing efforts while taking smart steps in the meantime like cutting travel costs, creating more conservative forecasts, monitoring the pipeline for a slowdown, and expecting longer conversion times.

Why? Because the market won’t stay down forever. Consumers will start spending again. And when they do, you’ll see the ROI of your consistency.

Just like RevBoss has taken their own medicine and stayed the course on both outbound and inbound efforts, here at Marketing Insider Group we’ve kept our content strategy active and our lead generation efforts at the same level (or higher) than before.

In this article, I’ll cover why and how content marketing in a down economy can be your swiss army knife when other factors are out of your control. You can use it even in times of uncertainty to keep your pipeline flowing and earn a huge boost in ROI when markets go back on the upswing.

Quick Takeaways

  • Content marketing is 62% more cost affecting than traditional marketing methods.
  • The companies that bounce back strongest from economic downturns are those that don’t cut marketing costs.
  • Successful content marketing depends on momentum. Pausing your marketing efforts during a downturn leaves you playing catch up once it’s over.
  • Staying focused on your lead gen and nurturing positions you for success when markets go back on the upswing.

Content Marketing in a Down Economy: Why it Matters

Hitting the pause button on marketing looks totally different in 2022 than it did in the past. No marketing used to mean eliminating expensive tactics like billboards, TV and radio commercials, newspaper and magazine ads, and the like.

Today, you can execute an entire marketing strategy online.

If you’ve read our blog before, you probably already know that content marketing is 62% more cost effective (and generates 3X the leads) than traditional marketing methods.

Content marketing costs 62% less and generates 3X the leads of traditional marketing methods.

Image Source: Visme

This is critical in times when companies are trying to be as fiscally responsible as possible. It makes it possible to keep marketing on the books even when you’re trimming costs.

Equally importantly, content shows both current and potential customers that they can trust you to be consistent. It maintains your brand visibility while delivering value to your audience, even when they’re not ready to buy.

Then, when things improve and buyers are ready to spend again, you can be confident they’ll look to your brand as a top choice. Cutting out marketing, on the other hand, will likely result in an empty pipeline and losing customers to competitors once the economy improves.

The Momentum Factor

Content marketing doesn’t yield results overnight. It takes time, frequent publishing, and steady consistency before you start seeing results. It requires marketers to take a long view of success, being willing to put in the effort for a while before the ROI arrives.

This is even truer in a time of economic downturn.

Here’s the thing: consumers may not be buying, but they still have needs. That means they still research, try to learn, and look for potential solution providers to pursue later, when they can make a purchase.

If you stop marketing to save costs, your momentum suffers. You’re no longer earning new keyword rankings, generating new traffic, or creating content to be shared in other places.

As a result, your audience may not be able to find you, even if their needs align with what you can provide. When they do look to buy, you won’t be on their list. To boot, once you are ready to start marketing again, you’re looking at months of building new momentum before you see results again.

On the flip side, consistent content marketing in a down economy can actually shorten the time and depth of any downturn you experience in leads and conversions.

Content marketing in a down economy can shorten the length and depth of any downturn you experience.

Image Source

5 Things to Do Instead of Cutting Your Marketing Budget

Trim costs where you can

Just because you aren’t taking marketing off the budget list doesn’t mean you can’t trim costs elsewhere. Find non mission-critical budget items and reduce costs in those areas instead.

Eric mentioned that RevBoss cut their travel expenses — a smart move in a world where Zoom has become the norm. Reducing supplies or pausing new equipment purchases are other areas you might consider.

Keep an eye on your pipeline

Don’t jump the gun and cut costs before you see an actual dip in business activity. Consumer spending activity and demand varies greatly by industry and customer segment. It’s important not to make any sweeping changes without evidence of a real need to do so.

Monitor your pipeline closely for signs of changing trends. Use data-driven tools like your CRM, email marketing platform, SEO tool, and Google Analytics to track user, lead and customer behavior. Make your decisions objectively based on the data you analyze rather than what you hear in the news.

Adjust your forecasts

Reaching marketing and sales goals is important to keeping your teams feeling positive. Working to hit targets you know are unlikely, on the other hand, will only lead to frustration. Don’t set yourself — and your team — up for disappointment with unrealistic forecasts. If you (like many others) are seeing longer lead conversion times, adjust your forecasts accordingly so you know what to expect.

Focus on lead gen

To earn revenue, you need to convert paying customers. That’s why it’s tempting to double down on conversion efforts in an economic downswing. Paying attention to the leads already in your pipeline is of course important, but so is maintaining a strong lead generation strategy.

Leads you generate right now may not convert at the speed you usually expect, but they will in time. Don’t quit on your inbound or outbound lead gen efforts. Keep your pipeline full and be sure to implement a strong lead nurturing strategy to keep your leads engaged until they’re able to make a purchase.

Refresh and repurpose old content

If you do need to save on content creation costs, your existing content library is one place you can turn. In any economic climate, refreshing and repurposing old content can give your traffic a boost. Here’s what I recommend:

Use Google Analytics and other data tools to identify your best and worst performing content

Refresh your best performing content when needed by adding updated statistics, new visuals, or any new information relevant to the topic since its original publish date

Look through your worst performing content and delete irrelevant pieces. Make necessary changes (like better keyword usage, new visuals, etc.) to the rest so they perform better

Believe it or not, old content can be a huge source of new leads. HubSpot recently researched this very topic internally and found their old content accounts for 76% of their page views and 92% of their new leads.

Internal HubSpot research found that old content accounted for 76% of their page views and 92% of their leads.

Image Source: HubSpot

Playing the Long Game

Content marketing in a down economy really comes down to one critical commitment: taking a longer view when it comes to ROI. The research backs it up — Harvard Business Review reports that the companies that bounce back strongest after economic downturns are those that continue to prioritize marketing throughout.

You may not see results right away. Leads likely won’t convert at the rate you’re accustomed to. But if you’re confident in your brand (and we hope you are), you can trust that those leads will convert in time.

And even when buyers aren’t buying, they still need what your brand has to offer in the form of expertise, resources, and information about your products and services. Staying the course with your marketing strategy keeps your brand visible, present, and available so you can count on a big boost when the markets do go back on the upswing.

Need Help Weathering the Storm?

If you’re ready to earn more traffic to your site with content marketing, check out our SEO Blog Writing Service. Our team of writers and SEO experts can deliver you optimized, read-to-publish content every week for a year (or more).

Schedule a quick consultation with me to get started!

The post Market Got You Down? Why Content Marketing Is Even More Important Now appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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How to Build a Content Calendar (Plus a Free Template)

How to Build a Content Calendar (Plus a Free Template)

Creating a content calendar from scratch is one of those tasks that seems so much more complicated than it actually is. Even just opening a blank Excel spreadsheet can feel overwhelming. Thankfully, sometimes all that’s needed to get on the right track is a quick how-to and a great starter template, which is exactly what we have for you here.

In this post, we provide a guide to building a content calendar, plus a free template for the year.

The Definition of a Content Calendar

Before we jump into calendaring our content, let’s talk about what a content calendar actually is and a few baseline requirements for success.

We define a content calendar as a shareable resource that teams can use to plan all content activity. This allows you to visualize how your content is distributed throughout the year. We prefer a calendar-based format, as opposed to just creating a long list of content to be published, because it comes with several benefits:

  • Gain inter-and cross-department alignment: Inform everyone about what is being published, when and where, so there are no surprises or duplication of efforts.
  • Get a 50,000-foot view of content: Create a clear visual of how your content is distributed throughout the year.
  • Identify content milestones: Plan content around key events or important dates.
  • Spot content gaps: Gain a sense of what content still needs to be planned, with plenty of lead time to line up more content.
  • Inform the content creation workflow: Make sure you have your content ready in time to actually publish when needed.

Consistency is insanely critical to content success. Yes, amazing new ideas and brilliant sparks of creativity help, but we can’t rely on them alone. They’re too inconsistent and unreliable. Instead, everyone needs to be on the same page with what content is being created, plus where and when it’s being published. It has to be done on a regular, ongoing basis. That is precisely where content calendars come into play.

The further ahead you plan, the better positioned you will be to produce a consistent flow of content.

The 4 Keys to Content Calendar Success

Whether you plan content on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis, depending on how quickly your industry or organization moves, there are several universal keys to content calendar success:

  1. Open your calendars to everyone: While not everyone should have the ability to edit a master content calendar, everyone should at least know where the content calendar is located and have viewing access.
  2. Iterate constantly: A content calendar is a living, breathing document, and it should change and grow as your content needs do.
  3. There’s no one right way to calendar your content: There are a million different methods, templates and approaches to take. We’re providing you with a baseline template and a proven process that we use for ourselves and Convince & Convert clients, but you should also play around with the approach and modify elements, as needed. We tinker with it all the time too.
  4. Create a content repository: Don’t get stuck on ideas that you can’t implement immediately and don’t get hung up on the “we’ll never be able to do that” ideas. Instead, create a repository of content ideas that you can tap into whenever needed.

Fantastic! Now that we have all of that out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff: calendaring all of our amazing content.

How to Build Your Content Calendar in 3 Easy Steps

Step 1: Start with Existing Content Assets

There’s a lot of focus on creating new content when we should really be focusing on creating more with less. It’s also usually not necessary to produce all your content from scratch since we often leave heaps of valuable content just lying around.

Instead, start by taking note of all of your existing content or resources to see what can be repurposed and remixed. For example:

  • Slide decks: Repurpose these as videos, blog posts or key takeaway slide decks.
  • First-hand data or research: As long as you use that data safely and in ethical ways, leverage your own data or research to create infographics or news stories.
  • Colleagues and coworkers: The expertise of your colleagues can be tapped for video, audio or transcribed interviews.
  • Whitepapers or reports: Break big content pieces into a series of blog posts or social takeaways. We call this content atomization, which we’ll dive into in just a bit.
  • Old blog posts: Make minor adjustments and update with fresh information. If they’re all on the same topic, combine them into an uber-post or whitepaper, which is a process we call reverse atomization.

Repurposing content assets takes away some of the strain of having to come up with a million new content ideas. It also helps you efficiently fill gaps in your content schedule. A single content asset can also often give rise to several pieces of content, which we refer to as content atomization. It’s the process of taking one big piece of content and spinning it out into eight smaller pieces of content. For example, an infographic can support a blog post that analyzes the integrity of the data on which it was based. You could also include a video which explains the wider ramifications of its findings – so on and so forth.

Content atomization will become your best friend when it comes to content calendaring.

If you’re not familiar with our concept of creating content shows, you can read our in-depth post about content shows. If you’re already familiar or just want the highlights, content marketers need to start to think like television networks and create content shows. In short, these content shows become predictable, steady initiatives that our audiences can rely on and recognize. In fact, these shows are something that they actually look forward to.

Content marketers need to start to think like television networks and create content shows.
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There are 3 types of shows you need to identify within your content:

Binge-worthy shows: These shows are big, steady ongoing content initiatives that have the same theme and format. They should target at least two audiences, otherwise they’re not worth the time or effort to produce. These are often podcasts, video series, webinar series, white papers, reports, etc. You should be able to execute this show at least twice per month. These also get plugged into your calendar first.

Binge-worthy show example: I’m a massive fan of Retro Replay, a relatively new weekly YouTube show that pits two of today’s most well-known video game voice actors against some of the most difficult and/or nostalgic video games of the past. It premiers live every Thursday at 4:00 pm PT and includes a live chat with the hosts. Aside from being super fun to watch, this show is also a fantastic case study for what a true binge-worthy show looks like and for how to build and engage with an audience. Seriously, check it out.

One-time shows: These shows are special quarterly or yearly shows that attack a major customer pain point or topic. Although they’re less frequent in cadence than binge-worthy shows, they’re still fairly large content pieces. Think white papers, research papers, contests, user-generated content campaigns, etc. These don’t have to have the same level of consistency, but they should still be in line with your branding, voice and tone.

One-time show example: Who doesn’t love CMI’s annual Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report?! This yearly report is chock-full of goodness. Even though the report varies slightly in design and layout each year, it’s consistent enough that audiences know exactly what to expect.

Regularly scheduled programming: These shows are ongoing content initiatives that round out your calendar, and they don’t have to necessarily connect completely or be 100 percent consistent in theme. Like in the case of blog posts, they may have a different author, topic or format, depending on the content, but they always connect back to the content strategy and have at least one clear audience in mind. Think of them as what a local nightly news show is to any major television network.

Regularly scheduled program example: Convince & Convert’s own blog is our version of regularly scheduled programming. We have our twice-a-month ON newsletter (binge-worthy show) and our big masterclass courses (one-time shows), and then we have our blog to help round out the calendar and provide ongoing information (regularly scheduled programming).

It’s important to note that you most likely already have content shows in your existing content assets, so check your inventory first. It may just be a matter of spinning assets a bit differently, giving them an official show title or connecting them in more consistent ways.

If you don’t have any shows in your existing content assets, or you need more shows to round out your calendar, then you’ll want to focus on creating new content shows.

Step 3: Plan, Schedule, Publish, Promote, Track and Tweak Your Content

Regular editorial planning meetings between all those involved in content creation should be scheduled well before the next publishing period—be it monthly or quarterly. This meeting can be used to schedule the publishing content from your repository with realistic time frames and to support social media activity, email newsletter inclusions, etc.

Your planning meetings can also be used to review the visit, engagement and revenue (if available) stats from previous periods to assess which types of content are most successful (and perhaps need to be replicated) and which are less successful (and perhaps need to be rethought).

Analytics (both web and social) and revenue data can also be used to make tweaks to already published content (e.g. titles, introductions, outbound links, etc.) to optimize visits and engagement.

Your Free Content Calendar Template (Excel or PDF File)

We’ve provided a basic content calendar for you to use. While there are a ton of amazing, wonderful content calendaring platforms and tools, we’ve opted for an Excel spreadsheet. That’s because it’s a great starting place, easy to edit and modify, and almost everyone has the ability to open the file.

Get Access to the Content Calendar Template Now >

To add your content to the calendar and get the most out of your content:

  1. Start with binge-worthy shows: Add these into your calendar first and make sure to pay attention to any key dates or big events.
  2. Add your one-time specials: Pay attention to how they overlap or complement your binge-worthy shows.
  3. Round it out with regularly scheduled programming: Last, but definitely not least, add in your regularly scheduled programming. These should help fill any gaps in your cadence and keep content consistent.
  4. Add content to the content repository: Don’t have a place right now in the calendar for some great ideas? Add it to the repository. Let this be your storage solution for great ideas and check back on it often.

That’s it! Now you can edit and update it, as needed. The actual calendaring part is pretty quick, once you get your shows established. Now, bring this to your editorial meetings and make sure to keep tabs on how content is performing, so you can adjust your publishing flow and content ideation, as necessary. Happy calendaring!

This post was originally written by Jamie Griffiths in 2014, and extensively updated by Anna Hrach, Digital Strategist here at Convince & Convert, in 2019.

The post How to Build a Content Calendar (Plus a Free Template) appeared first on Convince & Convert.

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5 Content Marketing Ideas Inspired by The Rock

Content marketing is the easiest way to boost your business’ organic traffic online. Writing quality content for your clientbase is important in the growth of your business. But let’s face it – sometimes the creative well runs dry.

As a content marketer, it’s important to be following pages bigger than yours to see what works and what doesn’t. More importantly, it’s important for brainstorming and generating ideas for your digital marketing efforts.

So who to look to in times of creative necessity? One of our favorites here at MIG is The jabroni beating… pie eatin’…trail-blazin’, eyebrow raisin’, all around, smack it down People’s Champ, The Rock!

While largely retired from the wrestling ring, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has quickly risen to global fame from his critically acclaimed film success. But I have a secret for you… it wasn’t just the talent that shot him to the moon. It was content marketing!

Before we get into his work, let’s take a quick peek at the finer points of content marketing from Tony Peacock:

Quick Takeaways:

  • If you aren’t using content marketing, it’s time to get with it
  • Building an organic audience over time can be more efficient and better for your bottom dollar than 100% paid advertising
  • Maintaining a consistent and quality content marketing schedule with social media is crucial to your bottom line

Content marketing is a cost-efficient way to get your name in front of prospects most likely to convert.  By creating and publishing your own content using proper SEO practices, you can cut down your advertising costs for good.

Here are 5 ideas for composing content inspired by The Great One himself:

Talk about where you’re from

The Rock often speaks on social media and interviews about his childhood upbringing. He was raised around professional wrestling by his father, Rocky Johnson, and belongs to a large Samoan family.

Speaking on his past allows him to connect with his audience, furthering the connection between the entertainer and the entertainee. By showing that his upbringing wasn’t all too different from ours, he builds trust and credibility.

Think about the community you serve. Writing pieces or speaking in videos of how your business came to be can show your passion and drive to your prospects in a new way.

Share your “why”

Building a connection with your clients means showing them why you work so hard, why you care so much to deliver a quality product or service.

In this post The Rock shows off his cousin’s reaction to him buying her a house. Now we’re not saying you need to go buy your cousin a house, we’re saying that by showing you his strong connection to family, he’s giving you a look at his why.

By showing off the why, you put emotions and faces to products and services. This makes you more trustworthy and credible than the advertisements on a webpage, and can lead your content marketing efforts to better lead generation.

Give wisdom

Wisdom takes many forms and is often universal. Whether sharing stories of success or defeat, letting your clients in on how you know what you know can build a special connection. Here’s a motivational example to peek at:

You don’t have to be as good of a public speaker as he is (whew, right?) to make an impact on the people viewing your content. What it comes down to is getting on their level and telling them what you know, and how you got this far.

This touches back on the theme of this article. Humanizing your brand provides an emotional connection through your prospects’ screen. No one wants to look at text on a screen, they want to feel and know why you and your business is so special. Use some thought leadership practices to inspire!

Show your laughs

It’s no secret that The Rock and comedian Kevin Hart are good friends. Often creating movie magic together, they often take part in internet challenges together in the name of a good laugh.

Not everything you make has to be groundbreaking and serious. In fact, some of the most credibility you can build with your audience is through humor! Social media gives a great outlet to show behind-the-scenes comradery and laughs with your staff, showing the real people behind the work.

Say you’re running a real-estate company and you’re making content together for social media. Showing bloopers of your agents messing up their lines showcases their humanity, and makes them seem fun and trustworthy to the audience, making them more likely to convert.

Talk to your clients

It’s important to have direct communication with the people who give you business. One of The Rock’s signature moves on Twitter is talking directly to everyday people and fans of his work. Take this tweet for instance:

And honestly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. His Twitter feed is covered with content like this. Why? Because people respond to… well… being responded to! Showing your clients you care is an easy way to retain them and bring on new ones.

Wrap Up

Content marketing, while rewarding, can be difficult to keep up with and regularly maintain. On average, it takes about 3-4 months of consistent, quality content to see larger yield. This means diverse content across different platforms.

You don’t just have to use social media! Content marketing automation has made it easy to send out newsletters across different platforms quickly and easily. Places like Mailchimp and Constant Contact can keep your reader lists organized, not to mention provide excellent metrics for analysis.

By using some inspiration from The Rock, you can get and stay on track to blow past your conversion goals for your content marketing strategies and smell… what The Rock… is cookin’.

Do you want to use some of the content marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation. 

The post 5 Content Marketing Ideas Inspired by The Rock appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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How to Grow Sales With Content Marketing for Your Amazon FBA Business

Congrats, you’ve started an Amazon FBA business and are ready to hit the ground running! It’s a tough road ahead, but you know your market like the back of your hand.

It’s a crowded space with a lot of voices, and it’s easy for your product to fall to the bottom of the charts if you aren’t loud about it.

You need to adopt a solid content marketing strategy to maximize the eyes on your product. It’s easy to forget about in the hussle, but crucial to your short and long term sales goals for your Amazon business.

Here’s a video by Ahrefs.com to freshen up your content marketing knowledge:

Quick Takeaways:

  • Companies spend A LOT (even too much) on advertising
  • Content marketing is a sustainable way to create new traffic to your website
  • Starting off strong can build your organic audience over time can be more efficient and better for your bottom dollar than exclusively using paid advertising

Here’s the rundown on how to get your Amazon FBA business seen with content marketing.

Start publishing original content ASAP

Paid advertising is great for a short term boost, but article publishing and blog creation helps boost long-term organic engagements from prospects and your current customers.  On average, it takes about 3-4 months of consistent, quality content to see larger yield. One article per week is a solid start, but getting into a daily rhythm of publishing will give you the quickest result over a shorter period of time.

Source: Marketing Insider Group

This process is especially beneficial for businesses that expect their prospects to seek education and information before they purchase. Creating context about why they need your item and leading them to the conclusion is key.

For example, let’s say you sell party supplies on Amazon. Writing articles like Best Party Ideas for the Summer, or Party Decoration Tips from a Pro will lead prospects directly to your site, right where you’re selling what they need!

So what does quality content look like? Well if you’re looking for blogging advice, we’ve got you covered with our guide to the perfect blog post. But for good measure, here’s some quick pointers for publishing content on your website.

Keep your word count between 1000 – 1800 words

Google likes articles within this range. Too little or too many might keep your hard work from ranking where it should!

Know your keywords

SEO/SEM is most successful when you know what words are the most important to what you talk about. Back to our party favor example, words like party, favor, event, would likely contribute best to a higher ranking among similar articles.

Have a compelling meta description

Source: Kinsta.com

The hook is everything, right? Having a good description under your article title will be the blurb prospects read. If it’s boring or irrelevant to them, why would they click on your article?

Promote your content at the right place and the right time(s)

How’s your social media presence? If your answer is we have none or not great, chances are your visibility is low. Being plugged into your target communities builds brand recognition and trust with prospects.

While targeted ads are great (and necessary), online presence builds organic interaction on your content. With the open forum nature of social media, your customer base can leave comments on your articles and posts, boosting overall engagement.

How often should you be sharing your content?

Well, there’s a few factors to consider – like how frequently you’re publishing to your site and which platforms you’re posting on. Let’s assume you’re pushing out articles daily.

With Twitter, you can share multiple times a day. Twitter timelines burn through much quicker than other platforms, so oversharing isn’t as easy to do as say, Instagram or Facebook.

On more formal platforms like Facebook and Pinterest, once a day works just fine. Remember: the more time you put into cultivating an online community among your customers, the more views you will get on your articles.

Lastly, who can forget services like MailChimp and Constant Contact?! Creating subscriber lists out of customers and prospects that visit your site creates an easy line of communication. Sending out daily articles straight to their emails is a no-nonsense way of getting your information out there.

CruxFinder.com has a really awesome post about building a content calendar that can help you out too.

Use metrics to drive your strategy

Measuring success is subjective to each content strategy, and key metrics can be extremely different from each other. Do you want to have more overall clicks than last quarter? What about what happens after the viewer clicks your article – are they converting to a new customer? How many are/aren’t?

These are all just examples. Brainstorm what success in a content marketing campaign looks like to YOU. After all, it’s your Amazon FBA!

Here’s a few metrics to look at when measuring the success of your content marketing campaign:

Traffic:

Traffic is about pageviews and users. Services like google analytics can give you an accurate read of this data. It also helps you see exactly where your views are coming from.

Conversions:

Views are great, but what happens after the initial click? Is the reader just leafing through your website? Are they sharing it? Are they actually purchasing your product or scheduling your services?

Conversion rate shows how many prospects are becoming customers. This metric is the real shining gem of your content marketing efforts! Converting prospects should be your number one goal with content marketing.

SEO:

Seeing how your organic search rankings are performing is crucial to a healthy content marketing strategy. Keywords drive your content, because the higher you rank with keywords, the higher you are on Google’s search results. Be honest, when was the last time you clicked “page 2” on Google?

Luckily – there’s some Amazon-specific tools designed to help you analyze your key metrics and strategy.

JungleScout: 

JungleScout is one of the most-used analytics tools for Amazon FBA businesses boasting an impressive 600,000+ membership number. Here you can analyze all the statistics we just talked about and gain access to live Q&A sessions with their industry professionals.

Marknology:

Marknology is a “brand accelerator”, meant to assist with your advertising metrics specifically. They also offer assistance with advertising campaigns and more for your business.

Helium10:

Helium10 is an all-in-one suite for Amazon sellers with powerful tools and product research methods. They offer assisted maintenance and blogging resources to give you an edge over the competition.

Wrap Up

While running a FBA is hard work, you’re selling it all short without an effective content marketing strategy. This isn’t a quick way to double your numbers, but a slow long-term play to gradually increase your conversions over time.

With consistency and patience, you can write and publish more than enough content to entertain your readers and get them on your team. By using these tips as the groundwork, you can rise to the top of the Amazon bestseller list and maximize your sales. Get to it!

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation. 

The post How to Grow Sales With Content Marketing for Your Amazon FBA Business appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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What Defines a Quality Content Marketing Strategy

quality content marketing

Not all content marketing is created equal. In fact, in a world where every brand is creating content, quality content marketing can feel hard to find.

That’s because it takes a concerted, extended effort. But the ROI on a strategy that works is undeniable — brands that do best at content marketing earn higher visibility, engage more potential customers, and consistently outperform their competitors.

In the sections that follow we will:

  • Cover some content marketing basics to set the foundation
  • Walk through 6 traits of a quality content marketing strategy
  • Explore actionable, realistic ways you can level up content quality right away

Quick Takeaways

  • Quality content marketing earns 3X the leads and 6X the conversions as traditional marketing methods. 
  • Traits of a quality content marketing strategy include customer focus, consistent and frequent publishing, a diverse content library, and a data-driven approach.
  • Ways to level up the quality of your content include using a content calendar, using data analytics tools, and refreshing old content.

What is content marketing and why do you need to be doing it?

Content marketing is the creation of high-value content to attract and engage new potential customers for a business.

In a world where more than 90% of all online experiences start with a search engine, content presents a huge opportunity for brands to build their visibility and audience.  Using search engine optimization (SEO), brands can develop content specifically to make it appear on search engine results pages (SERPs).

This has massively leveled the playing field across the board for companies of all sizes and in every industry. It used to be that big marketing budgets were required to beat out competitors and get noticed by consumers. Today, it just requires a website and a content team to execute your strategy.

The ROI is undeniable. Research shows that content marketing earns 3X the leads and 6X the conversions that traditional marketing methods do — all at a 62% lower cost.

Quality content marketing earns 3X the leads and 6X the conversions that traditional marketing methods do — all at a 62% lower cost.

Image Source: Convince and Convert

Still, content marketing is not a magic cure for marketing ailments. It requires a focused effort, execution on best practices, and a commitment to high quality. Publishing content that doesn’t meet quality standards can actually hurt your business more than help it because it suggests your product and/or service offerings might suffer similar quality issues.

Fortunately, executing a quality content marketing strategy isn’t complicated if you know what you’re doing. The next two sections will outline 6 important traits of quality content marketing and ways you can achieve them in a few actionable steps.

6 Traits of a Quality Content Marketing Strategy

Customer-focused

Quality content marketing is executed with the customer top-of-mind. The goal of every piece of content should be to address a specific customer problem, need, or area of interest. This is the best way to engage users, build connection with your target audience, and show why your brand is relevant to them.

A simple way to think about it is through the lens of features vs. benefits. When you focus on the features, you emphasize your own brand without connecting it to customer needs. When you focus on benefits, you emphasize how your brand can make your customer’s life better, a much surer way to get their attention.

The example below illustrates the concept in simple terms that you can apply to your own offerings:

Example of how to emphasize benefits vs. features.

Image Source: Lightstream Group

Consistent and frequent

Content marketing is a long game — Google rankings don’t happen overnight, and it requires creating and publishing content frequently and consistently over time to see results.

HubSpot found that brands publishing 11-6X per month (3-4X per week) earned more than 3X the traffic than brands publishing less frequently.

Companies that post 11-16 blog articles per month earn 3.5X the organic traffic as those that publish less frequently.

Image Source: HubSpot

There’s no doubt that publishing at this pace requires time, effort, and a solid plan. Creating a content calendar (more on them in the next section) can be a helpful tool for keeping you accountable and on deadline with your publishing schedule.

Creative and original

Have you ever Googled something only to find the first 5-6 articles say pretty much the same thing? It happens all the time, and it can be frustrating when you’re trying to do research and learn about something new.

Don’t be a brand that regurgitates what your competitors already said. Put an original spin on topics that are important to your customers, and let your brand personality shine through in tone, voice, design, and commentary.

Diverse

When people think about content marketing, most think about blogs. It’s true that an active blog is a core part of every content marketing strategy, but it’s not the only contributor. Having a diverse content library helps to expand your brand reach and engage different audience segments across channels.

There are plenty of content types to choose from, including:

  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • Whitepapers
  • Ebooks
  • Social media posts
  • Emails
  • Case studies
  • Guides

Not every content type is right for every brand — and it’s not a good idea to do too much all at once. Choose the content types that align best with your brand and strategy, start with one or two, and build on your success.

Data-Driven

In the past, marketers mostly had to cast the widest net possible and hope for the best. Today, however, data has made marketing all about targeting and personalization to earn results.

Brands have easy access to data about everything from user demographic and behavior to website performance to industry trends and more. Data-driven content marketing strategies harness the power of that data to execute highly informed content marketing strategies and provide high quality user experiences.

Technically Sound

Last but not least, quality content marketing adheres to basic quality standards like correct grammar, formatting, and the like. While these might seem obvious, they’re really impactful when it comes to engaging audiences.

Bounce rates for websites that have spelling and grammar issues were found to be 85% higher than those with well-written content. Similarly, poor website design or formatting can increase bounce rates because it makes it harder for users to get to the content they want.

Ways to Level Up Your Content Marketing Strategy Right Away

Know Your Content Pillars

Content pillars are the foundation on which your content marketing strategy is built. They’re the overarching topics most important to your brand. Content pillars typically have pillar pieces created around them, which are then backlinked by the more niche pieces you create around their subtopics.

Content pillars are important because they keep your content marketing strategy focused and your content library cohesive. Every piece you create should fall under one of your pillars, and the ideal number of pillars to have is 3-5.

Some of Marketing Insider Group’s content pillars, for example, are content marketing and SEO. We have our pillar pieces like “What is Content Marketing?” and “What is an SEO marketing strategy?” Then we have dozens of articles around subtopics that fall under these pillars (like this very article).

Develop a Content Calendar

Your content calendar is your ongoing reference point for article titles, deadlines, writers, and other responsibilities. It should be a central dashboard that can always be referenced to be sure you’re on track.

Even better news: you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to build a content calendar that works for you. There are tons of content calendar templates to give you inspiration and many that you can even download directly and customize to your brand!

Here’s a snapshot of the one we use here at Marketing Insider Group:

Image Source: Marketing Insider Group

Revamp Old Content

Did you know that the content you’ve already created can be a source of renewed traffic to your site? It’s also one of the quickest and easiest ways to improve the quality of your content marketing. HubSpot found that refreshing old content for relevance and quality gave their page a huge boost — today, old content accounts for 76% of their page views and 92% of their leads!

Use Data Analytics Tools

Almost every platform you use to execute your content marketing strategy — CMS systems, email marketing platforms, social media, Google and more — all have data analytics tools built in so that you can analyze performance and gather insights to drive your strategy.

To execute a quality content marketing strategy, my advice is simple: use these tools!

If you’re going to start with one, make it Google Analytics. You can find tons of data in one place — user demographics, page metrics, SEO performance, keyword opportunities and more.

There are also tons of SEO-specific analytics tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs where, for a monthly fee, you can get insightful data about site and strategy performance.

Measure Your Progress

Looking at available data is a great first step, but you also need a plan for measuring and analyzing it over time. It helps to maintain a data dashboard (similar to your content calendar) where you record and track metrics that are most important to you. Put processes in place to ensure your team meets periodically to analyze key KPIs and take appropriate response actions as needed.

Over to You

If you’re ready to jumpstart your content marketing but need support with content creation, you’re not alone! More than 70% of businesses outsource content creation so they can execute a high-quality strategy while staying focused on their core business.

The team of writers and SEO experts at Marketing Insider Group can deliver you optimized, ready-to-publish content every week for one year or more. To learn more, read about our SEO Blog Writing Service or schedule a quick consultation with me!

The post What Defines a Quality Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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How Content Marketing Reinforces Customer Retention Strategy

Having a balanced business model is the end all be all for every company. A strong sales team doesn’t do any good if your business can’t retain its customers. Customer retention doesn’t do any good if the cost to retain customers outweighs the revenue they generate back to your business.

What is customer retention? Customer Retention is the measure of the percentage of customers who continue to use your product over time. Some companies measure the opposite of retention: churn rate. Or the percentage of customers who leave in a given time period.

Customer success is a complex challenge to solve. The required investment of time, energy and resources to set up a successful customer can drain a business while it figures out what it takes to make them stick. Ultimately, the only way a company can be successful is if the cost to acquire and retain a customer is largely outweighed by the monetization that customer will return to your business (about 3-5x that cost). You can improve the odds of customer retention through content marketing with some of the tips below!

But first, here’s a video from Shopfiy talking about the how tos of customer retention through content marketing:

Quick Takeaways:

  • Content marketing is crucial to amplifying your general digital marketing strategy
  • Providing consistent and quality content across your different channels can increase customer retention
  • Customer retention efforts can be focused directly on your website, on your social media, and in your email marketing

Set a Healthy business model

In general, we want to find a way to decrease our costs to acquire customers, and for the customers that we do acquire, we want to make sure they stick around and aren’t too expensive to keep.

So how do we do this? The best way to cut down costs of a process that requires employee time is to identify where you can replace that time with content and tools. Doing this allows your teams to operate more efficiently and lets your customers learn and engage at their own pace.

To understand this further, we’ll break down each step of the customer success journey and identify where we can swap employee resources for content.

1. Customer Development

This is ultimately the foundation for building your customer success strategy, so as you can imagine, it’s pretty important. Create buyer personas to understand who your buyers are. Are they a c-level executive? A director? Are they someone who forges their own path?

Depending on your business size, you’ll have a varying number of these personas. The main point of this exercise is to draw out similarities of buyers and group them together. This will help you segment your marketing efforts to them later on. The important thing is that all these personas should be a perfect fit with your product, service support and even company culture.

While content shouldn’t directly impact this exercise or replace the employee time spent, you should take a look at the engagement your typical buyers have with your content and if that has any affect on their relationship with your brand. For example, we found that customers who engaged with our content had a 41% higher renewal rate, were 33% more likely to be upsold and had a 24% higher monthly recurring revenue rate.

2. Customer Acquisition

Most buyer journeys start with a simple Google search. What better way for a prospect to find your brand by being the top answer for their search? The way to do this cost effectively isn’t by buying AdWords. The way to do this is by creating great content that earns the top search result position.

The second part of this step is to focus on acquiring the right customers. If you don’t acquire customers that fit your offering, not only will you have a harder time retaining them, but they’ll have a harder time using your products and services.

Source: Rev Chat

Do both parties a favor and focus on the customers who fit your use case. This is where a lot of companies take a wrong turn. They want to close the deal so they’ll promise things the company doesn’t deliver or future sell features that don’t exist. The way content can get you out of this predicament is when you do create bottom-funnel content, such as whitepapers and case studies, stay true to your company’s offering.

3. Customer Onboarding

The onboarding stage is the first time post-sale when a customer starts using your product. This stage is probably the biggest opportunity for content to do some heavy lifting. After a few onboarding experiences, you should be able to anticipate the needs and questions of your customers. Create a destination that makes finding these answers easy for your customers.

Helpscout.com says:

Customer onboarding has a significant impact on whether a customer keeps using your product long term or churns after just a few months. Done well, it sets your customers up for success and clearly demonstrates the value of your product. Done poorly, it leaves customers questioning why they signed up in the first place.

And they’re right! Getting off the ground running is important to getting the initial attention of your customers.

4. Initial Engagement + Functional Support

This is perhaps the most critical phase for a customer’s success. It’s first time the customer takes the training wheels off and should have sufficient knowledge to use the product. The key to this stage is the seamless handoff from implementation to account management. Since the seeds of churn are usually planted early, this is where any false-selling will likely surface.

While heavy attention is required for clients at this stage, content should still be leveraged as much as possible. Monitor the client’s usage and success and proactively reach out with helpful information.

5. Ongoing Engagement + Retention

Once a customer is up and running and finding success, it’s important to let them know they’re not forgotten. Keep them engaged with a mix of content for different stages of the buyer funnel.

Just because someone is a customer, doesn’t mean the only things they want to read are whitepapers and case studies. Hopefully your customers at this stage will be engaged with your content enough to be subscribed to your newsletter, which should reflect this mix of content. This can be enhanced through targeted efforts on different social media platforms.

Source: Marketing Charts

Wrap Up

Customer retention is crucial to the longevity of your business. By utilizing effective content marketing practices you can maximize the business lifespan of your customers and build brand loyalty. Now that you have the big picture, go put your plan into action!

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? What luck! Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation. 

The post How Content Marketing Reinforces Customer Retention Strategy appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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10 Content Marketing Tips for Brands

Content marketing is the driving factor in your website’s traffic. The crown jewel. The keystone. By writing quality content and publishing consistently, you can slash your ad spending numbers and raise conversions.

If you aren’t effectively using content marketing – check out this graphic from Codefuel.com. Some studies suggest digital ad spending will soar to $242.80 billion by 2024.

Source: eMarketer

If you aren’t using content marketing, you’re behind the times and this is your sign to catch up!

If you are using content marketing already let’s get a little honesty going…

No one is perfect – and there are things to keep in mind when improving the content you’re putting out on your website.

Here’s a quick brush up on the basics from Ahrefs.com:

Quick Takeaways:

  • If you aren’t using content marketing, it’s time to get with it
  • Building an organic audience over time can be more efficient and better for your bottom dollar than 100% paid advertising
  • Maintaining a consistent and quality content marketing schedule is crucial to your bottom line

We’ve thrown a list together of helpful tips for your brand to maximize the value of your content marketing efforts:

10 Content Marketing Tips for Brands

1. Know your audience

Any great piece of content starts with a firm understanding of what your audience needs from an article. Naturally, you’re trying to get them to your site to buy into your product or service, but the key part of that is getting them to your site.

This guiding star is especially beneficial for businesses that expect their prospects to seek education and information before they purchase. Creating context about why they need your item and leading them to the conclusion is key.

Imagine for example, you’re looking to sell grill aprons. Creating content focused around keywords like recipes or grills will bring your target demo (grillers) to your site. Things like “Top 10 Summer BBQ Recipes” or “Best Grills on the Market” will draw them into your site.

As they read, they’ll realize “wow, I DO need a grilling apron for all this meat I’m slinging.”

2. Use Good Sources

Good sources are important. Being able to show legitimacy in what you’re saying improves trust with the reader, making them more likely to convert. Think about it this way – using someone else’s credibility to prove your point is not just okay to do, it’s the smart thing to do.

The big sites to avoid? The same ones that your high school teachers used to yell at you for (We’re looking at you Wikipedia).

This also includes citing data.

ConvinceandConvert.com says:

Ground your content in facts: Data, research, and numbers are the foundation for any story. Your ideas and opinions and spin might be part of that story—or they might not be, depending on what you are trying to convey.

They’re right! Data drives your legitimacy and your points home to the reader.

3. Hire Great Writers

If your operation is expanding or you’re running out of time to properly handle your content marketing efforts, it might be time to hire some help!

There’s two options for this that yield similar results. You can either hire experienced content writers that have experience in SEO writing, or – hire a content marketing agency to do the research, writing, and publishing.

There’s benefits to both, but with a consultancy you often gain access to resources and experience you can’t always get with individual writers. Doing your research on both is important to finding what’s best for your business.

4. Optimize for SEO

Seeing how your organic search rankings are performing is crucial to a healthy content marketing strategy. Keywords drive your content, because the higher you rank with keywords, the higher you are on Google’s search results. Be honest, when was the last time you clicked the seventh link down?

Source: FinancesOnline

There’re tons of automated SEO tools that can make your life much easier when optimizing your content.

5. Publish Consistently

This should be a no-brainer, but sometimes things slip through the cracks. But the reality of content marketing is that for your efforts to be successful you need quality content as close to daily as possible.

On average, it takes about 3-4 months of consistent, quality content to see larger yield. One article per week is a solid start, but getting into a daily rhythm of publishing will give you the quickest result over a shorter period of time.

6. Distribute on Social Media

Source: Invade Digital Media

How’s your social media presence? If your answer is we have none or not great, chances are your visibility is low. Being plugged into your target communities builds brand recognition and trust with prospects.

If you haven’t been already, you should be publishing your content across all of your social media channels in your brand voice to give your traffic that extra boost.

7. Distribute to Mail Lists

Who can forget services like MailChimp and Constant Contact? Creating subscriber lists out of customers and prospects that visit your site creates an easy line of communication. Sending out daily articles straight to their emails is a no-nonsense way of getting your information out there.

These sites also have built-in analytics pages to give you the best overview of your distribution efforts. Things like open rate, best time of day to send, and percentage of links being clicked.

8. Use Analytics

Analytics should drive your content. Using Google Analytics and other internal analytics tools from the resources you already use will give you insight into where your content does best.

Additionally, analytics tell you where your content could use some work. If certain pieces aren’t drawing many eyes or have the lowest conversion rates, it might be time to experiment with other types of content.

9. Optimize For Mobile

This seems like an obvious one, but when was the last time you opened your website on your phone? Mobile viewability is not only necessary but a must have when publishing content. More than half of all content is viewed on a phone.

If your website isn’t optimized for it, you’re only making yourself look bad! This is one of those things that is perfectly acceptable to hire contractors or consultancies for.

10. Repurpose Your Content

We didn’t forget about all that hard work you’ve already put in! Your best performing articles don’t need to sit on your website rotting to the webpages of time.

Articles that once brought in great traffic eventually fall out of touch with the ever changing world of search engine optimization. Not to mention, the actual content can become irrelevant to today’s world.

SocialMediaToday.com says:

Marketers can turn an article into a video, or an infographic – or the opposite in each case as well. They can reuse tips in an article by breaking them down into a series of posts or Stories frames, or they might post soundbites from a podcast direct to their social channels.

Having your writers restructure your content into different forms can be the gift that keeps on giving. Even a quick freshening up of an old article from a few years ago with modern information can be the makeover your content needs to be back on top of the page!

Wrap Up

Content marketing, while rewarding, can be difficult to keep up with and regularly maintain. By using some of the tips we’ve provided, you can get and stay on track to blow past your conversion goals for your content marketing efforts!

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation. 

The post 10 Content Marketing Tips for Brands appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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How to Use Psychology to Convert More Leads

MIG Feature Image Templat

As a marketer, your job is to get your target audience on your team. Competition is tough, and you need any edge you can get to turn prospects into better leads.

Marketing is a mind game, and you can (and should) use tenets of basic psychology in your content marketing to get ahead of the curve.

Here’s a video from London Real talking about the hows and whys of psychology in marketing:

Quick Takeaways:

  • Advertising effort and resources is proof of your product or service’s authenticity
  • The rules of marketing can be bent to your advantage
  • Sell whatever your version of a product or service is, define yourself by your own niche – not your competitor’s

In mind games, you need to be a mind reader. You need to understand why and how people think. Well, maybe not everyone, but you at least need to know your target audience.

It’s not enough that you know who they are and where you can find them—you need to know what makes them tick, what motivates them, what inspires them, and more. You need to understand them like the back of your hand.

By understanding the psychology of your ideal customer (customer persona), you become more capable of creating high-impact marketing initiatives in generating qualified leads with the highest potential for conversion.

How to Use Psychology in Lead Generation Efforts

Visualize an Outcome Your Customers Want

People have different reactions to offers, and this depends on whether they see the offer as something that will improve their way of life – or something that has no value. Say you have a product or service, instead of simply listing its amazing features, you can focus on how it adds value to people’s lives.

In other words, you need people to see what you see and help them visualize how your product or service can address their pain points and make their lives better. Walk them through an everyday story that applies to them – get personal.

Tap Their Egos

Everyone wants to feel like they’re special, and marketers have gone to great lengths to show just how valuable their customers are to them. Take it up a notch by focusing on exclusivity.

Asking a prospect to do something is a request, whereas providing them with an opportunity to become a part of an exclusive community is a gift – a privilege.

This can be achieved by offering an emotional experience to your customers through the use of your products or services, focusing on aspirations like success, love, family and relationships.

No one does this better than Apple. They’re not just selling tech gadgets; they’re offering customers the chance to be part of a certain lifestyle. When people get their hands on an Apple product, the ego is nursed, a great customer experience is delivered, and loyalty is secured.

Introduce Scarcity and Urgency

Source: Parallax Kaushish

This psychological marketing trick is so evident that many people, if not all, have experienced it at one point in their lives. We’ve seen brands lure their customers by adding taglines like “Limited Time Offer Only!” or “Only 3 Days Left For 50% Discount!”

Smith.ai offers this suggestion for your strategy:

A great tool to prompt this is a countdown timer. For example, on an email or landing page, you can set a timer to the exact second an offer will expire, pushing customers to buy. You can also limit an offer to a short period of time, even a single day, to drive customers to commit to the purchase.

We’ve seen them in retail stores and websites, and the reason companies do this is because scarcity is powerful. By introducing the concept of scarcity, people automatically associate your product or service with a higher value simply because of low supply.

This also explains why the last cookie in the cookie jar is the tastiest. This trick is simple, but effective.

Make Reciprocity Work for You

Source: Upland Software

It goes back to basic goodwill. If someone does you a favor, be it big or small, you feel inclined to return the good deed. In marketing campaigns, reciprocity can be in the form of free gated content, product samples or demos, exclusive gifts to loyal customers and more.

If you give something to customers for free, they feel inclined to give something back, and it can be in the form of word of mouth, good reviews, or spending more money on your brand. This is quite common in gyms where sales reps often offer you free training for a week or even a month in exchange for your friends’ contact numbers and eventually, your membership.

It’s great for lead generation tactics. Just make sure the freebies come first before you ask them to do something for you.

The Propinquity Effect

Source: Proximity Marketing

In class, your seatmate often becomes your new best friend. In the office, the ones who sit next to each other often become a close-knit group. Proximity has a huge effect on people, and you can use this in marketing too.

With marketing propinquity, strategically weaving contextually relevant communications into your customers’ lives increases their awareness of your brand. Think about a brand like HubSpot. Imagine how many customers they’ve attracted by producing content that’s relevant to their target market.

In essence, propinquity lies at the heart of all content marketing and lead nurturing activities.

Wrap Up

Through social media and content marketing, you can be part of your customers’ lives by engaging them in online conversations, delivering exceptional customer service, and inviting them to events.

Technology has provided us with more ways to be constantly connected to people (through social media especially), which is perfect for both generating and nurturing leads.

Understanding how your customers operate gives you a steady advantage in the marketing mind game. It’s all about telling and giving them what they want, exactly how and when they need it.

You have to be a constant voice in their ear, which in turn makes them feel that you are part of their lives. Psychology and marketing often intertwine, and when fused properly can give you a great advantage when it comes to building awareness, trust, and authority with your clients.

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation. 

The post How to Use Psychology to Convert More Leads appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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Content Marketing for Startups: How to Get Traffic Out the Gate

Building a startup from scratch is difficult. Creating the foundation is difficult and time consuming – and what would all of that hard work amount to without people knowing about your business?

Honestly, a waste.

Enter – content marketing.

Content marketing is the sustainable and cost effective tool to get your product or service in front of your top prospects. Creating blog pieces on your website and distributing them across your social channels can cut your marketing strategy spending down drastically.

Heck, Codefuel.com says that some studies suggest digital ad spending will soar to $242.80 billion by 2024.

Source: eMarketer

While spending money on advertisements will always be necessary, you can definitely drop that cost down and help your overall budget with content marketing.

Need a quick intro to content marketing? Here’s a video from Ahrefs.com with the rundown:

Quick Takeaways:

  • Companies spend A LOT (even too much) on advertising
  • Content marketing is a sustainable way to create new traffic to your website
  • Starting off strong can build your organic audience over time can be more efficient and better for your bottom dollar than exclusively using paid advertising

By repeating these processes over time you can increase your long-term organic engagements to your website. While ads provide short-term results, content marketing is in it for the long haul for your startup.

And let’s be honest, this is crucial to your overall conversion numbers. SearchengineJournal.com says:

“In many categories, we are seeing a winner-takes-all environment where high-quality content pieces win the vast majority of eyes—and clicks. In fact, a study by Ahrefs showed that 90.63% of all content gets zero traffic at all from Google.”

All that to say, it’s important to get a strong start right out the gate with your content marketing strategy. Here’s what to think about and how to do it:

How to get traffic out the gate for your startup

What’s the hardest part of doing anything? Starting! Much like your startup, we have to start with a strong foundation.

While you may be intimidated at first, you don’t have to go into content marketing blind. There are some tried and true methods to getting off the ground with content marketing.

Here’s the rundown on the most important pieces of the content marketing puzzle:

  1. Blog Writing 

This is our personal favorite at Marketing Insider Group. Blog writing is the easiest way to get organic hits on your website by creating quality pieces that those who fall into your customer profile are already searching for.

This process is especially beneficial for top of the funnel prospects seeking information before they purchase. Creating context about why they need your item and leading them to the conclusion is key.

For example, let’s say your startup sells grilling aprons. Creating content focused around keywords like recipes or grills will bring your target prospects (grillers) to your site. As they read your blog, they’ll realize “wow, I DO need a grilling apron for all this brisket I’m cooking!”

Some articles you’d write using this example would be:

The 15 Best Tools for your Grill

Top BBQ Recipes for the Summer

What Sauces are best for Grilling?

This isn’t just for selling products – the same idea applies to selling services too! If you’re trying to gain clients for say, your real estate business, some article ideas include:

What to Look For When Buying a House

10 Things First-Time Homeowners Get Wrong

Best Places to Live In (Your Area Here)

By producing the answers to questions your prospective clients already have, you are creating a direct connection to your site and services though your blog writing.

The more you get into a rhythm with content creation the quicker you’ll get a read on how often to post. Ideally, you want to be pumping out this new content daily. The effectiveness of your blogging increases exponentially when you go from publishing 1x per week to 4x.

Source: Marketing Insider Group

If you’re struggling to find inspiration or just don’t have the time, consider hiring a guest writer! Guest writers can provide legitimacy to your brain with their expertise and even bring over their audiences to your site. Not to mention, they probably already  know how to write the perfect blog post.

       2. Following SEO/SEM Practices

Source: Status Labs

Remember, it’s not just the content itself, but how you write it out. Good SEO/SEM practices are everything. They are how you make sure your articles rank above your competitors when prospects are searching for information.

Some quick steps to improving your SEO rankings are:

  • Modifying your URLs
  • Utilizing keywords and keyword research in your content
  • Designing your page for the most user-friendly experience
  • Using different tools and software to make the process easier

An added bonus of using SEO tools is the ability to measure your progress through content marketing automation. We’ll come back to this concept later, but by utilizing distribution software you can ensure your content is performing optimally.

If SEO intimidates you, you can always hire writers that already have the know-how to do it for you. This practice can elevate your content overall, not just with search engine optimization.

By seeking the best writers for your staff or as a consultant, you can take all the guesswork out of proper content marketing.

        3. Internal Distribution

Creating content that will naturally rank higher is the most important step to an effective content marketing campaign. But, you can give that content a little boost by sending it out to as many pairs of eyes as possible.

This is done in a couple different ways.

The first is by utilizing your social media platforms. If you aren’t using your brand as a means to have a voice in whatever community you’re targeting, you’re behind the curve.

Social media gives you a chance to establish a brand voice and lend a level of authenticity to your business. By knowing where the people are and interacting with them, you’re already ahead of the competition that isn’t in the know.

Creating content highlighting your specialists is an easy way for clients to see your expertise in action – building rapport between you and the community.

Different platforms have different etiquette. For example, LinkedIn is more professional, and frequency of posting is usually best at one article per day. Twitter feeds cycle through so rapidly that you can share your content multiple times a day to your followers.

Remember, this distribution strategy is most effective when you already regularly maintain your social media accounts. Using your content calendar to space out your content is key. If you aren’t already putting the work in, get to it!

There are also sites like Constant Contact and Mailchimp that can use your email lists to your advantage, sending your content directly to your customers. This adds another little boost to your overall traffic and SEO rankings.

        4. Set Your Goals and Meet Them

Measuring success is subjective to each startup, and key metrics can be extremely different from each other. Do you want to have more overall clicks than last quarter? What about what happens after the viewer clicks your article – are they converting to a new customer? How many are/aren’t?

These are all just examples. Brainstorm what success in a content marketing campaign looks like to YOU. After all, it’s your startup!

Here’s a few metrics to look at when measuring the success of your content marketing campaign:

Traffic:

Traffic is about pageviews and users. Services like google analytics can give you an accurate read of this data. It also helps you see exactly where your views are coming from.

Conversions:

Views are great, but what happens after the initial click? Is the reader just leafing through your website? Are they sharing it? Are they actually purchasing your product or scheduling your services?

Conversion rate shows how many prospects are becoming customers. This metric is the real shining gem of your content marketing efforts! Converting prospects should be your number one goal with content marketing.

SEO:

Seeing how your organic search rankings are performing is crucial to a healthy content marketing strategy. Keywords drive your content, because the higher you rank with keywords, the higher you are on Google’s search results. Be honest, when was the last time you clicked the seventh link down?

Get After It!

Now that you have the basics down, it’s time to pull it all together. By putting these pieces together you can create an effective content marketing plan for your Startup.

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation. 

The post Content Marketing for Startups: How to Get Traffic Out the Gate appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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