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venice waterway to show content promotion channel

Content marketing is a powerful tool for driving brand awareness, leads, and sales.

However, creating high quality content is only half the battle. In order to see real results, you need to effectively promote that content to your target audience.

There are countless channels available for promoting your content, from social media and email marketing to paid advertising and influencer partnerships. But with so many options, it can be difficult to know where to focus your efforts.

In this post, we’ll explore some of the most effective ways to promote your content and provide actionable tips for optimizing each channel.

Quick Takeaways:

  • Integrating your efforts across paid, owned and earned channels is the most effective approach to optimizing content promotion
  • Testing and picking the best content to promote is significantly more effective than pushing content manually chosen
  • Search and email provide the best reach and conversion for most brands
  • But testing what works for you is the most important takeaway from our research

Integrated (or Converged) Marketing Channels

We’ve been talking about the term integrated marketing for a very long time. But what dies it really mean?

For many brands integrated marketing has meant making someone or some team responsible for the distribution of content vs creation. In some organizations, this included campaign content. In others, it really just refers to paid media.

So the execution and promise of the promise of integrated marketing often falls short because of this lack of clarity. So let’s set the record straight:

Integrated marketing means looking across the various elements of paid, owned and earned media, to ensure the most efficient and effective creation and distribution of content to achieve reach, engagement and conversion of new customers.

In more simple terms, I have said that integrated marketing should allow you to:

  • Get found
  • Get shared
  • Get leads

Converged media, then is really just another name for an effective content marketing strategy that leverages all paid, earned and owned media to achieve the best results across the buyer journey or marketing funnel.

What is Content Marketing? - Instapage Marketing Guide

Methods For Optimizing Content for Promotion

Before we look at the best channels for content promotion, we need to consider the best practices in content promotion:

1. Identify your best performing content: Before you begin promoting your content, take some time to analyze which pieces are already performing well. Look at metrics such as website traffic, engagement, and conversions to determine which content is resonating with your audience. Once you have a sense of what is working, you can focus your promotion efforts on those pieces.

2. Pick the right time to promote: Timing is everything when it comes to content promotion. Consider the best time to post on social media, send out emails, or run paid advertising campaigns based on when your audience is most active and engaged. Use tools such as Google Analytics to understand your audience’s behavior, and schedule your promotion accordingly.

The Best Times to Post on <a href=Social Media in 2022 | Sprout Social” width=”600″ height=”420″ />

3. Repurpose and republish content: Don’t let your older content go to waste. Repurpose and republish your best-performing content on different platforms to reach new audiences. You can also update old content with new information, images, or videos to give it a fresh look and make it relevant again.

4. Use visuals: Visuals can help your content stand out on social media and other platforms. Use images, GIFs, and videos to make your content more engaging and shareable.

5. Create a content calendar: To ensure that your content promotion efforts are consistent and effective, create a content promotion calendar. This will help you plan and schedule your content promotion in advance, so you can stay organized and on track.

6. Use paid promotion selectively: While paid promotion can be a great way to boost visibility, it’s important to use it selectively. Not all content will perform well with paid promotion, so be sure to test different pieces to see which ones are most effective.

7. Track and measure your results: Finally, it’s important to track and measure your results to understand what is working and what isn’t. Use tools such as Google Analytics, social media analytics, and email marketing software to measure the success of your content promotion efforts.

By following these tips, you can effectively promote your content and reach your target audience. Remember to be consistent, test and measure your results, and optimize your content over time for maximum reach and engagement.

Which Content Promotion Channels Are Most Effective?

So which channels are most effective at promoting your content. Well of course the answer is “it depends” on many factors. For the majority of companies, focusing on your own website seems to be a good first place to start, followed by email.

Survey: 46% Of Marketers Have Content Marketing Strategy, Only 25% Track Social Media Results
Source: MarketingCharts

Let’s take a look at some of these channels in a bit more depth:

1. Your Website: In my definition of content marketing, it doesn’t count if you don’t publish it on your website. The main reason is because this is where you want to attract new prospects through organic search and SEO. It is also more measurable than most channels. (It’s also why we exist!) So don’t forget to optimize your content for search engines. Use keywords in your content, meta tags and descriptions, and internal and external links to boost your content’s visibility on search engine results pages.

2. Email Marketing: Email marketing is a highly effective way to reach your existing audience and promote your content. Personalize your subject lines to increase open rates and segment your email list to ensure that your content is reaching the right people. Use A/B testing to determine the most effective subject lines, calls to action and sending time for your audience.

3. Social Media: Social media is a great way to reach a large, engaged audience. However, it’s important to choose the right platforms for your brand and target audience. For example, if your target audience is primarily B2B, LinkedIn may be a better choice than Instagram. Once you’ve identified the right platforms, make sure to optimize your content for each channel by using the appropriate format and hashtags.

4. Paid Advertising: Paid advertising can be a great way to quickly boost visibility for your content. Consider using platforms like Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, and LinkedIn Ads to reach your target audience. Be sure to set clear goals and track your results to optimize your campaigns over time.

5. Influencer Marketing: Influencer marketing can be a great way to reach a new audience and boost credibility for your brand by tapping into the influence of others. Identify influencers in your industry who have a following that aligns with your target audience (we use Buzzsumo), and work with them to create sponsored content that features your brand and products.

6. Employee Advocacy: Ok so this is my secret weapon tip and it’s the main reason why we were so successful at building success at SAP. We built an army of writers and employees willing to promote our content on their own social platforms. Our first 100 or so email subscribers were sales people who used our content to sell on LinkedIn.

Which Sources Actually Deliver The Most Impact?

I have looked for this data for hours! Turns out no matter which source you find (Hubspot, Alexa, etc) the answer is pretty clear:

80-90% of website traffic comes from organic search and people finding their way to your website directly.

Social only accounts for 4-6% on average and less than 5% in most B2B Companies. And paid traffic accounts for less than 0.5% of traffic!

All the more reason to focus on content marketing to generate the most traffic and leads!

Chart comparing traffic sources by niche

Some Other Promotion Channels

While the aforementioned channels are the main staples of your promotion strategy, there are some different, more niche places for you to post your content. Try them out and note which ones work and which don’t:

  • Post a thread on www.inbound.org
  • Find a relevant Reddit thread
  • Look for a Slack community about your topic or industry
  • Post your product/tool on Product Hunt
  • Create a Snapchat story with tips about your content, then include a link for viewers to screenshot (we recommend a bit.ly!)
  • Post on Instagram with a link to your content in your bio

Once you get your engine up and running, you can optimize for conversion and increase leads without creating any new content!

In conclusion, promoting your content is just as important as creating it. By using a variety of channels, you can reach your target audience and drive engagement. Remember to track your results and optimize your campaigns over time for maximum reach and engagement.

Need Engaging Content To Promote on Your Channels?

If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content that’s consistently published, check out our Content Builder Service. Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

The post Optimizing Content Promotion Channels To Increase Conversion Rates appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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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.