Showing posts with label content marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label content marketing. Show all posts

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

Marketing lessons from the #IceBucketChallenge

Have you heard the great news today about the #IceBucketChallenge that went viral in 2014?
The campaign raised $115m (£87.7m) from people pouring cold water over themselves and posting the video on social media. This has funded an important scientific gene discovery in the progressive neurodegenerative disease ALS.
Here's a quick look at the lessons marketers can learn from the success of this viral campaign...








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Saturday, 22 August 2015

Why making your readers cry will improve your content marketing

The role of content marketing is to elicit a response from the reader - we want them to behave differently - to switch brands; to try a new service; to talk about us with their family and friends.
The first step in encouraging people to behave differently is to challenge them to start thinking differently - to re-educate; view things in a new way; understand a different perspective - and this in itself can be challenging.
This is where understanding the relationship between emotions and behaviour really comes into play.
Emotion drives action
You share a video with your friends because it makes you laugh; scares you; makes you cry; reminds you of a personal experience. Emotions provide us with feedback that tells us how to react in the present, based on our past experiences.


So whether it’s in personal or professional communication, eliciting an emotional response from people will encourage them to share your content.
Just as importantly, it is also proven to help them remember its key messages more vividly - in the same way that listening to a particular song can instantly transport you to a place and time significant in your past.
This approach, of using emotion to drive action, is illustrated well in the recent shift of approach used by social marketers. Success for a social marketer comes not from selling a product or service, but in proving that they have been able to change people’s behaviour by challenging the way they think.
Out is the content instructing people to stop smoking; drink less; and exercise more - in is the content which encourages people to change by eliciting a ‘what’s in it for me’ emotional response. This advert by Sussex Safer Roads being a powerful example:



Eliciting the right emotional response
Psychologist Robert Plutchik identified eight primary emotions which content marketing professionals can use as a guide when considering the appropriate emotion to elicit from the reader: Joy, Trust, Fear, Surprise, Sadness, Anticipation, Anger, and Disgust.
Image source: www.synchronicitymarketing.com
The appropriate emotion to target will depend heavily on the product or service being promoted, and the demographics of the target audience. Look at this example from our social marketing friends, encouraging smokers to quit, not by tapping into the fear emotion, but the trust a child places in adults to care for their physical and emotional wellbeing:
Emotional responses can be tapped at different points within your content, and to varying degrees, for example in:
  • an emotive email subject line
  • unexpected video content
  • social media conversation starters.
So, at the start of your next marketing campaign, remember to ask yourself how your reader should feel before, during, and after accessing your content.

 About the author
Claire Cresswell-Lane is a UK based, CIM Chartered Marketer specialising in digital marketing strategy and communications. You can contact her via LinkedIn or Twitter.


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Thursday, 20 August 2015

Catering for a range of learning styles with your content marketing

Buyers conduct extensive online research before making large or important purchases, and this is especially true of financial products and services. But understanding financial products and services can be difficult for the lay person.

Financial organisations have role in educating visitors about the range of products and services on offer, and a responsibility to educate as to which is the most likely to suit their personal circumstances.

This post illustrates how financial organisations are starting to present information in formats that cater for a range of learning styles - something that other sectors should sit up and take notice of.
“Don’t create another monotonous, bland and (worst of all) overwhelming financial services product page. Take the time to bring the relevant content above the fold in an innovative way….like videos and iconography.” Maxymiser, 2014

Content marketing that caters for a range of learning styles [Share on Twitter]
Auditory learners enjoy accessing information through listening and like content presented in formats such as checklists. Podcasts are frequently used by reputable publishers such as The Financial Times to cater for this style of learner:


Visual learners, as the name suggests, benefit most from pictures and video. They are likely to want to learn about all the options available before deciding which is right for them. Many financial organisations, such as Skipton Building Society have YouTube channels which they use to educate visitors about a range of topics including help to manage finances; product demonstrations and guides; Corporate Social Responsibility activities, and so on:


Kinaesthetic learners gain understanding by doing, and will prefer interactive online tools such as comparison charts and calculators to help them make purchasing decisions - as seen on the Coventry Building Society website:


Social / emotional learners like to make decisions following discussion with their peers. They will respond well to online communities or live chat facilities. Royal Bank of Scotland have provided a forum where users can share tips and insights with each other regarding the management of finances and investments:


Metacognitive learners like to reflect on a range of information and will seek out knowledge from a range of thought leaders in order to make decisions. These customers are likely to access a number of blogs offering deeper insight into specific issues (for example through white papers and eGuides) before making purchasing decisions.


Remember:

  • Consumers conduct extensive research before making important buying decisions.
  • Content marketing has an important role in educating your audience.
  • People learn in a range of different ways.
  • Content can be re-purposed to cater for a range of learning styles.

About the author
Claire Cresswell-Lane is a UK based, CIM Chartered Marketer specialising in digital marketing strategy and communications. You can contact her via LinkedIn or Twitter.
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Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Establishing trust and credibility in your marketing campaigns [speed read]

‘Credibility and trust’ are the two most important attributes that online marketers must establish in order to gain the confidence of visitors, according to a 2015 study by KO Marketing Associates.

Why content credibility matters


If the credibility of website content is called into question, it has the potential to affect the reputation of not just the online channel, but also that of the wider organisation.
Content that is credible will result in higher levels of visitor engagement. For example, users will stay on your website for longer, interact with a wider range of features, make repeat visits; and are more likely to convert from visitors into customers.

The more visitors engage with your online content, the higher the 'quality score' attributed to it by Google. This will have a direct impact on reducing the cost of any pay per click (PPC) advertising campaigns you are running.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a good online experience for visitors to your website matters in the same way that a good face-to-face experience does. It is a touch point that contributes to achieving the strategic goal of achieving and maintaining high customer satisfaction levels.
However, only 33% of people trust online reviews, and just 8% trust online advertisements - so digital marketers have a lot of work to do to establish levels of trust within their content.


Step 1: Know who you want to establish credibility with
Segment your audience. Understand who the decision making units and influencers of decisions are. [click to Tweet]
This can be achieved in a number of ways, for example by analysing your current customers and stakeholders to understand what brought them to you; what their likes and dislikes are; their demographic profiles; and so on.




Step 2: Understand what your audience(s) needs to know
Now you know who your target audience is, understand the content they are actively seeking out; the challenges they are trying to overcome; and the places where they are active online. You could get this information through:
  • social listening exercises (including sentiment analysis)
  • primary research, such as telephone interviews
  • secondary desk-based research.
Step 3: Mirror your audience’s interests with your content
It sounds obvious to make sure that your content is of interest to your audience. The key to establishing credibility with them however, is to do this without trying to sell them anything!
Trust can be gained by offering genuinely useful information that helps your target audience on their decision making journey. [click to Tweet] This may involve talking about products and services that you don’t offer! Remember, each interaction you have with them is a touch-point with your brand.

Step 4: Nurture your relationship






All relationships need to be nurtured if they are to mature - and this is true of online relationships. The more genuinely useful and transparent your content, the more likely your reader is to regard you as the go-to source of information on their topic of interest.


In order to nurture relations, it is important that your content speaks the language of your target personas - which is often different to the terminology used by internal stakeholders. The right language to use can be identified through techniques such as:
  • analysing the interviews you carried out in step 2
  • studying correspondence into your call centre
  • assessing the terminology in online forums and social networks used by your target audiences.
Step 5: Listen, learn, and react
Creating your marketing materials is the start of your process, not the end. Test content with members of your target audience to:
  • ensure the message received is the one you think has been delivered
  • understand what key messages can be recalled
  • learn about how your content made the reader feel.
Amend your content to reflect what you have learnt. Keep a record of the changes you have made, to inform future content production.

"The greatest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place" -  
George Bernard Shaw
About the author
Claire Cresswell-Lane is a UK based, CIM Chartered Marketer specialising in digital marketing strategy and communications. You can contact her via LinkedIn or Twitter.
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Tuesday, 30 June 2015

11 essential items to include in a content brief

When creating content it is often necessary to employing the skills of a third party writer, for example, to access specific technical expertise or gain specialist insight that you don't possess in-house.

 Providing a detailed and accurate writers brief is essential in ensuring the content returned is as close to the desired end result as possible.

 11 essential items to include in a content brief [Share on Twitter]

 1. Audience profile
Provide details about the intended audience. Give information about their demographic make-up; likes and dislikes; level of existing knowledge regarding the subject areas to be covered, and so on. 

 Understanding the profile of the target audience will give the writer the best possible insight into the appropriate use of historical and cultural references to use to illustrate their content. It will also affect the tone of voice selected for the piece.



 2. Key messages to be delivered
Consumers of digital content are time poor. If your audience reads one paragraph of your content, which key message needs to be delivered above all others? [click to Tweet]

 Providing such guidance to writers will help to ensure accurate placement of content (above the scroll; in H1, H2 headers; meta descriptions, and so on).

 3. Narrative
It is likely that the content being created forms part of a wider narrative and is one of many touch points that the reader will have with your brand.

 Clearly explain to the writer which materials the target audience is likely to have accessed before, and content that will follow.



 4. Tone of voice
If your brand guidelines don't already contain guidance, consider providing the author with a tone of voice document which details where the content should be positioned along a number of continuum’s: 

  • serious/fun
  • authoritative/insightful
  • contemporary/modern
  • formal/relaxed, and so on.

5. Takeaway messages
Be explicit about what the takeaway messages of the content should be. Describe how the reader should feel after accessing the content, and the key points they should be able to recall. [click to Tweet]

 6. Word count / article length
It sounds obvious, but be clear on the required content length. Too many words may lead to heavy editing which affects the narrative. Too few words and the content may fall short of achieving its objectives.

 If you are asking writers to provide titles, meta descriptions, email subject lines, and so on, remember to be prescriptive with character limits, to help ensure your digital content is fully optimised for the platform used. 



7. Content format 
Be clear about the format the content being produced will take (blog post, slideshare, infographic, email, eGuide and so on). This will have a significant impact on the writing style used. Where possible, provide examples of existing content in the same format.

8. Keywords
Provide the writer with details of the keywords and phrases that the content needs to include. State where these keywords should to be place within the copy, and the density of use. 

9. Trusted sources of background information
Provide links to any sources of information you have that will help them understand the subject area in greater detail.

 This should not be a replacement for the desk research that they conduct themselves, but simply provides examples of trusted sources of credible information.

10. Deadline!
Provide clarity on the deadline for content to be completed. Where necessary, indicate the number of amends cycles that are likely to be required. This will help writers to plan their time effectively in order to deliver on time.


11. Publication date and place
Many copywriters like to provide links to the content they have helped to create on their own websites and blogs. It's a great opportunity to get an all important back link or two!

 What are your must include items?

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Tuesday, 17 February 2015

How to keep your digital estate on-track


Digital Marketing Managers are tasked with looking after an ever increasing number of online assets. 

Here are my tips for the key functions to monitor - keeping performance on track and ensuring a seamless online journey for customers.

Website Content

Content is still king, and runs through the centre of digital marketing planning. Make sure you monitor:

Titles -  optimise titles for the keywords or phrases your target audience is searching for. Remember to carry out competitor analysis as part of your keyword strategy.

H1, H2, H3 - tags should be used for page headings and sub-headings to increase on-page Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts. It's a simple rule that is often overlooked. This rule should also be applied to any PDFs that will end up published to your website. Check out these tips for structuring website content before you start to write.

Font size - should be large enough to comply with accessibility guidance, and avoid the need for pinch and zoom on mobile devices. 

Credibility - frequently updated content will prove to external search engines that your site is actively managed. It will also demonstrate to visitors that content is current and therefore more likely to be credible.


Blogs - what better way is there to maintain a stream of current content that will prove a long-term source of incoming traffic than through blogging? The more engagement your blog posts receive, the better your SEO results!

Lead capture - embedded into your content should be both micro- and macro- conversion opportunities (link follows, form completion, call-to-click, newsletter subscription, purchases, and so on).

Analytics - ensure you establish a baseline for your content before you implement changes, so you can see how effective they have genuinely been.

PDFs - content that doesn't need to be in PDF shouldn't be as it can disadvantage your SEO efforts in a number of ways. I talk more about this in an article I published in June 2014.

User Experience

Conducting both qualitative and quantitative analysis of how users interact with your online estate will provide you with a wealth of insight that can be used to inform continuous improvements to your digital assets. Make sure your plans include some or all of the following (depending on your size and capacity):

  • user experience testing workshops
  • content rating and review software
  • online surveys
  • mouse tracking studies.

Domain management

Effective domain management still pulls a lot of punches with search engines. It is also an important part of your branding, so deserves special consideration:

 Age - domain authority demonstrates to external search engines that your website belongs to a credible organisation with longevity. Secure domain names as soon as possible, and retain them after retirement as part of brand guardianship.


 Sub-domains - an effective way to maximise marketing efforts across a number of channels is via the use of sub-domains: http://subdomain.domain.com. This way, traffic generating activity benefits one central digital space, and both can benefit from the SEO advantages this brings.

 File structure - remember that the file structure following your domain extension provides search engines with important information about your websites content. The closer your keywords are to the root of your domain name, the better - for example:

 ...com/ladies-shoes.html

 is much stronger than

...com/our products/shoes/ladies-shoes.html

 All too often file structures focus on generic functional keywords (about us, contact us) instead of product and service offering (ladies shoes, ladies sandals, and so on).

Social media

Social signals are very important off-site search engine optimisation factors. The more engaging your content (that is, the more it is shared, bookmarked, liked, and commented upon), the more credibility it gains. Greater levels of engagement also contribute to a high landing-page quality score which will lower your Google pay-per-click costs!

 Brand guardianship - not every social media platform will suit your requirements - this depends very much on your product, service, and industry. But even if you don't plan on using a particular social media you should claim the vanity URL (before somebody does it for you). If you do this, it is a good idea to populate at least the landing-page with basic information which points back to your website.

 Integration - be sure to automate posts where it is sensible to do so. For example, you can configure Blogger to automatically post content to Google+, or post tweets to your Facebook Page. The important factor to monitor here is that you post content in a format appropriate to the platform - you will need to re-tweak your content in order to do this effectively.

 Cross-refer - most people use more than one social media platform, so remember to provide clear links to other ways that people can follow you, such as Twitter and Facebook.

 Conversation calendar - creating a conversation calendar will help to keep your content flowing and will ensure that you don't miss opportunities to capitalise on the buzz around planned events in your industry.

 Remember, there are a host of free tools out there that allow you to schedule your posts in advance (such as Hootsuite and SocialOomph).


Hootsuite - Social Relationship Platform

Compliance

Meeting statutory and best practice guidelines demonstrates to search engines, as well as your target audience that you mean business, and are safe to do business with!

 Schedule in time to review your governance policies to make sure they remain up-to-date.

 In the UK and Europe, you may want to include compliance with:
About the author
Claire Cresswell-Lane is a UK based, CIM Chartered Marketer specialising in digital marketing strategy and communications. You can contact her via LinkedIn or Twitter.
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Friday, 26 September 2014

5 Facebook Tactics to Increase Engagement

I recently attended a Facebook Master Class, run by Social Media Advance. Here, I share the top 5 tactics I took away from the course.

1. A (cover) picture is worth a thousand words

When the average user logs on to Facebook there are 1,500 potential updates could feature in their newsfeed. Facebook therefore serves what it judges to be the posts that will be of most value and interest. These are posts from individuals, pages, and groups that the user interacts with most frequently. If you are at the stage of trying to building an audience this can pose a particular challenge – only 5% of your posts are likely to appear in followers newsfeeds organically.

One tactic to overcome this is to update your cover photo regularly - as notification that you have done so always appears in news feeds of your followers. This provides a touch point between your brand and your audience, reminding them of your presence and increasing the likelihood of engagement.

Beware not to use cover photos in place of posts. No more than 20% of your cover photograph can be text - Facebook have a text overlay detection tool to help you stay compliant.

Updating your cover photo too frequently could also prove a turn-off for your followers, so use this tactic sparingly.

2. Pinned posts

If there is a message that you want to remain at the top of your Facebook page, you can pin it by hovering over the drop-down arrow in the top, left-hand corner of the post. Pinned posts automatically stay at the top of your page for 7 days – increasing exposure for important messages.

3. Less is more

Posts of up to 80 characters get 27% more engagement so keep them brief to encourage comments, likes, and shares.


4. Full length URLs

Posts with links detailing a full length URL generate 3 times more engagement as users trust the destination site as a trusted source. Keep  shortened URLs for platforms with character limits - such as Twitter.

5. Ask and you shall receive

Posts asking for likes, comments, and shares gets 30% more engagement, so design your messages in a way that encourages interaction.

On that note, if you have found these tips useful, please 'say thank you' with a share, follow (Twitter), or like (Facebook).
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