Bath SEO Expert: October 2015

Friday, October 30, 2015

Online Marketing News: Google Gets AI, Twitter Hubbub, Facebook Bests YouTube

The 5 Biggest Trends Being Predicted at the End of 2015 [INFOGRAPHIC] – It’s almost the end of the year, which means time to check in and take stock of what has happened and what is to come. This year was a big one for social and publishing, with Facebook’s Instant Articles and immersive mobile ads making it easier for brands to publish original content directly on social. Mobile and video are both considered the future of marketing, but what else can we expect? Given what we know now, what predictions can we make for what’s to come? Social Media Today

Instagram Organic Engagement Continues to Fall (Report) – The good news is that Instagram ads are now open to all brands. The bad news is that those ads may soon be the only effective way for brands to reach users. SocialTimes

Study: 29% Of Sites Face Duplicate Content Issues & 80% Aren’t Using Schema.org Microdata – A new study shows that duplicate content issues still rage on, and while people are talking about Schema markup, 80% of sites haven’t implemented. Search Engine Land

Facebook Video Ads ‘Significantly’ Better Than YouTube’s: Report – While Facebook’s video ad service is still in its infancy — about 18 months old — it’s already prefered by marketers over YouTube, according to a recent study published by RBC Capital Markets in partnership with Ad Age. Ad Age

Pew Survey: Nearly Two-Thirds Of All Americans Use Social Media – At 90%, young Americans still are most likely to use social networks, but growth in use among those 65 and older is surging. Marketing Land

Study: Rich Media In Search Drives Increased Click-Through – Is ranking in the number one position a guaranteed way to earn the lion’s share of clicks from search? Columnist Nathan Safran’s research suggests rich snippets may factor in, too. Search Engine Land

Study: A Subset of Millennials, Called Gen-Narrators, Are the Most Powerful Influencers Yet – Millennials! They’re so difficult to pin down. We think they’re on Snapchat, turns out they’re not on Snapchat. They’re jaded–no, they’re idealistic. Well, this recent study, conducted by The Economist, presented here via AdWeek, says that millennials “aren’t the lazy, narcissistic, entitled, apathetic parental leeches they’re often described as.” Social Media Today

Google Turning Its Lucrative Web Search Over to AI Machines – For the past few months, a “very large fraction” of the millions of queries a second that people type into the company’s search engine have been interpreted by an artificial intelligence system, nicknamed RankBrain, said Greg Corrado, a senior research scientist with the company, outlining for the first time the emerging role of AI in search. Bloomberg Business

Introducing Twitter Brand Hub – Brand Hub helps advertisers quickly understand their brand’s share of conversation, key audiences, and trends about their brand’s conversation. This 360-degree, real-time view gives the brand the opportunity to learn, take action, and see the impact of their initiatives on Twitter. Twitter

Google To Penalize Deceptive & Sneaky Mobile Redirects – Google announced on the webmaster blog that they will now penalize, through manual actions, sneaky and unwanted mobile based redirects. Truth is, Google has always taken action on sneaky, fraudulent and unwanted redirects, but Google is now making it clear – they will do the same on the mobile front. Google

Study: Mobile Apps For Engagement, Mobile Web For Research & Comparisons – Millward Brown study shows that consumers think clearly about the differences between apps and mobile web and use them for specific reasons. Marketing Land

65% of Adults in U.S. Use Social Media (Report) – What percentage of U.S. adults do you believe uses social networking sites? According to Pew Research Center, the answer is 65. Does that seem too high, too low or just right? SocialTimes

From our Online Marketing Community:

In response to How B2B Marketers Can Use Facebook to Drive Engagement & Generate Leads, Rob Bunting said, “Good information for B2B marketers here. While engagement can be harder for B2B firms, I have also seen it can be done and agree carefully targeted Facebook ads are a good bet. Thanks for sharing Andrea’s tips Ashley.”

And Angela Drt shared, “Thanks for sharing these amazing tools, the article was short and efficient and very well organised ! I definitely agree on the fact that people love to be entertained on every social media but especially Facebook, it is becoming harder and harder for brands to share their messages because they have to be smarter each time and create shorter and shorter, funnier and funnier etc… Videos so their audience are aware of them ! I think it’s really important to have a strategy in order to be the more efficient as possible. Also thanks for sharing picmonkey I didn’t know about it so I’ll go check for sure :)”

What were the top online and digital marketing news stories for you this week?

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Infographic: MDG Advertising

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The post Online Marketing News: Google Gets AI, Twitter Hubbub, Facebook Bests YouTube appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Brands Share Their Most Hair-Raising Content Marketing Horror Stories

TopRank_HorrorStories_Banner

If content marketing stories were movies, most of the ones we hear today would be romantic comedies. Brands all over the world are telling stories of how they overcame obstacles and beat the odds to make their customers fall in love with them.

While these stories are inspiring, sometimes content marketing isn’t all flowers and chocolates and happy endings. Sometimes well-intentioned marketers end up in a cabin in the woods, hearing the unmistakable roar of a chainsaw approaching.

While they’re not pleasant for any marketer to experience, content marketing horror stories can teach valuable lessons. We can learn as much from failure as we do from success–perhaps even more so.

So in honor of Halloween, we asked marketing superstars from 3M, NewsCred and Content Marketing Institute to share their most harrowing tales of content marketing gone wrong. Prepare to be edified and terrified with these 3 hair-raising content marketing horror stories.

Michael Brenner

Head of Strategy, NewsCred

TopRank_MoviePoster_TerrorFromBeyond

My personal content marketing horror story involved a member of my team covering a competitor’s piece of research in a well-written blog post. The research was actually conducted by an independent firm but sponsored by a competitor. It was hosted on the independent firm’s landing page but heavily promoted visually by the competitive brand.

We published the article. It performed very well and was even tweeted by the VP of Sales for that solution. The VP of Marketing for the same solution saw the tweet, followed the breadcrumbs back to our competitor and suggested to me that I should be fired.

Turns out, the article drove thousands of visitors to our branded content hub. It drove hundreds of people to our solution pages and only a dozen or so to the independent firm’s landing page.

Thanks to the data, I was able to save my job and in the process showed some folks in our company the value of focusing on helping your customers, even if it means covering competitor research or mentioning them.

Carlos Abler

Leader: Content Marketing & Strategy Global eTransformation, 3M

Horror? Or tragedy? We’ll let the scholars debate about this Frankenstein’s monster. This chimera formed of terror and crushed hope, as unnatural as it was grotesque.

It was the late 2000’s; early in my career as a facilitator of enterprise content marketing transformation. It was a high-revenue subsidiary poised for greatness.

This recipe had all of the ingredients for success. I was eager to stir the pot. Enter, a marketing executive driving a three-year content maturity roadmap. Enter, a marketing architect champing at the bit to build a high-conversion editorial empire. Add a group of segment marketers partnered with knowledgeable sales staff who knew their customers well

Together we developed 4 content marketing initiatives calculated to drive $14.5 million dollars in new revenue in year one, while fixing previously broken parts of the relationship funnel. I was already sketching my acceptance speech for a chain of accolades.

And then everything went sideways.

A reorganization hit.

The division slid backward even farther than where they were when we began. And now all of these burdensome expectations regarding “content” suddenly gave content a bad name to the new leadership. They didn’t understand the role of content. Now the remaining content champions had to go underground, couldn’t ask for resources and support, had to find underhanded ways to serve content. As if practicing a crucial new pillar of marketing were something to be ashamed of.

So what’s the lesson? As you move forward in content change management, ensure that your champions are in place and that their position is stable. Anticipate and attempt to route any disruption to their focus, if you can. Otherwise, like I did, you will suffer the dual consequences of horror and tragedy.

Joe Pulizzi

Founder, Content Marketing Institute

TopRank_MoviePoster_LackofFocus

Perhaps the biggest horror story from readers that we continually hear is targeting more than one audience at a time with a content initiative. For example, late last year I was approached by a blog editor that worked for a large technology company. She was frustrated that the blog wasn’t meeting their marketing objectives. I asked her simply, “who is the audience for the blog?” She stated that they target 18 personas. I quickly told her I found the problem.

Even diluting your message through adding just one additional audience group will make it almost impossible for you to be relevant to both. While you are targeting two, three or four audiences, someone out there is becoming the leading informational provider for your core audience target.

Focus is everything.

Share Your Spookiest Content Marketing Story

Okay, it’s safe to peek your head above the overs again. The horror stories are over, and we’re safe until the inevitable sequel.

Now it’s your turn to share! We’d love to hear one of your real-life content horror stories and what you learned when it was all said and done.

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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

The post Brands Share Their Most Hair-Raising Content Marketing Horror Stories appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

TopRank Marketing Top Takeaways & Words of Wisdom from MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum #MPB2B

marketingprofs-b2b-forum-recap

Last week, the amazing Ann Handley and her team at MarketingProfs put on a phenomenal conference for B2B marketers from all over the country. The information, networking, events and even the swag were all top-notch.

On the first day, Ann set the stage and asked everyone in attendance to find their squad of other marketers at the event, and to take their work seriously, but not to take themselves too seriously. I’m so thankful to have gotten to know some familiar faces a little bit better, and to make some new fast friends in a short amount of time.

This great conference inspired me to share what I thought were the top takeaways and words of wisdom from the speakers for those of you that weren’t able to attend.

Top Conference Takeaways

How to Add More Participation to Your Content Marketing Program – Lee Odden

Lee Odden MPB2B

The race to create more content, at a higher quality on a consistent basis is leaving many marketers out of breath. Trying to scale a content program that meets all of these objectives is no easy undertaking. However, did you know that your employees, customers, industry influencers and online community are prime candidates for helping your brand create content that resonates with your audience.

If you want to find a way to tap into the wisdom of others to co-create great content, read: If You Want B2B Content to be Great, Ask Your Community to Participate!

Learn to Focus Your Digital Marketing on User Intent – Avinash Kaushik

Avinash-Kaushik

Thinking about how your company can connect with people and execute process and structure will make you masters of marketing. It’s time that marketers begin re-thinking the traditional marketing funnel and follow a framework that is based on user behavior to determine what is most relevant to your target audience.

To learn how to focus on the think and not the ink, read: Digital Marketing That Focuses on User Intent

Tap Into Employees for Content Amplification – David Honig & David B Thomas

dave and dave

One of the most powerful and underutilized methods for content promotion may be the person sitting next to you. Working with employees to leverage brand content can help employees create a better connection with your brand and even grow their own online audience. For the organization, it provides a way to increase brand awareness, strengthen culture and drive leads and sales.

If you’re curious to know some best practices for including customers in your content promotion strategy, read: How to Tap Into the Social Media Power of Employees for Content Amplification

Create Better Landing Pages That Convert – Oli Gardner

oli gardner unbounce mpb2b 2015

Landing pages can be an incredibly powerful tool for moving prospects through the sales process but they are not all created equal. The most important element of any landing page should be the customer experience. If a customer is bombarded with too many choices or distraction, they’ll quickly bounce to another company that can better serve their needs.

Amp up the quality of your landing pages by reading: 13 Considerations for Creating Successful Landing Pages from Oli Gardner of Unbounce

B2B Marketers Need to Up Their Facebook Game – Andrea Vahl

Andrea-Vahl

While organic reach hasn’t completely disappeared, it is on the decline. That means that B2B marketers now more than ever need to find a way to better serve the followers that are seeing their information.

To win on Facebook, brands must to find a way to entertain and inspire their audience through a variety of different methods including videos, visuals and paid advertising. Are you ready to learn what you brand can do to improve visibility, track leads and improve Facebook ad targeting?

If so, read: How B2B Marketers Can Use Facebook to Drive Engagement & Generated Leads

How Reinventing Your Brand Can Change Perception – Deon Newman

IBM mainframe

IBM is one of the most iconic brands of our time. This year, IBM was celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of their most popular products, the mainframe. Unfortunately, when many people think of a mainframe, their heads are filled with images of big rooms filled with clunky equipment.

The team at IBM found a unique way to include some of their largest customers in a movement to bring the mainframe back to life and into the 21st century.

To find out how IBM accomplished this goal, read: Case Study: How IBM Changed Perception & Increased Revenue by 20% YOY

B2B Marketing Forum Words of Wisdom

“The difference between companies that will be great and those that will die are the ones that understand how to obsess about the THINK.” @avinash

“The secret to the clarity of your value proposition lies in the information hierarchy of your headlines.” @oligardner

“The wisdom of your community is a bank rich with useful marketing content.” @leeodden

“If you don’t teach your children to be alone, they will only learn how to be lonely.” @STurkle

“What would happen if you had your employees become the storytellers for your brand?” @davehonig

“The role of content is to build relationships.” @HanaAbaza

“The key to stories is conflict.” @petersagal

“Don’t wait for someone to tell your story. Own it, tell it yourself and then promote the heck out of it.” @JasonMillerCA

“For every piece of content that targets conversion you need 10 that don’t. Show you have experience & leadership.” @BrennerMichael

“Lead nurturing allows marketers to be the resource buyers turn to for answers.” @ardath421

“Runners gotta run.. Writers gotta write.. Yoga-ers gotta yoga – there is something for everyone at #mpb2b!” @jjulian

“The role of marketing is changing to become the customer advocate within a company.” @KatieMartell

See You Next Year at the 2016 MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum!

Overall, the entire conference was a great experience. We’re already counting down the days to next year’s conference! If you attended or were following along on Twitter, what was the most useful piece of information that you learned?

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The post TopRank Marketing Top Takeaways & Words of Wisdom from MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum #MPB2B appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Monday, October 26, 2015

How B2B Marketers Can Use Facebook to Drive Engagement & Generate Leads

Andrea-Vahl

Time and time again, B2B marketers have heard, “Facebook doesn’t work for B2B”. That statement could not be further from the truth. What B2B marketers should ask themselves is; am I truly engaging my Facebook audience by sharing things they want to see and interact with?

Facebook can be an incredibly powerful tool, if used correctly. In fact SteamFeed found that 60% of all social media traffic to B2B websites comes from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. So, there is proof that Facebook for B2B marketers works, but now it’s time to figure out how to create better engagement and make more meaningful connections.

Last week at MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum, Andrea Vahl took the stage and shared some fantastic insights into how B2B brands can improve visibility, track leads and improve Facebook Ad targeting. Below are some of her best insights.

Is Organic Reach Dead?

While organic reach is not completely gone, it is on the decline. Additionally, your reach and interactions are out there for the entire world to see. So, when something is performing badly, everyone knows.

Before you eliminate Facebook from your strategy, know that B2B marketers can still get organic reach. Andrea ran some experiments by posting a similar message on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. What she found was that the messages on Facebook had a much longer shelf life than those on Twitter and LinkedIn.

What Does Work For Brands?

There is no denying that cats, dogs and babies rule Facebook. People love to be entertained by dogs falling down stairs and feel a connection with a heart-warming image. As a B2B brand, you can post a video of a dog falling down the stairs, as long as your message allows you to relate the content to your audience in some way.

Along with humor and entertainment, eye-catching images work really well for brands. Below is an example that Andrea shared of a B2B company grabbing the attention of their audience with bold images and succinct messages.

Image via Andrea Vahl

Native Facebook videos can also be very powerful. If you have a video, you need to be uploading it directly to Facebook to get more views, reach and engagement. YouTube typically doesn’t get the reach and exposure of native Facebook videos. Also, the ideal length for a video is 30 seconds, keep it under two minutes. You’ll see a drop off in the length that people complete for. General Electric is an example of a company that uploads some unique videos that are entertaining and bring people in.

Image via Andrea Vahl

Remember that you can also include a call-to-action at the end of your video to drive your audience directly to your website.

Tools for Facebook Marketing

There were a few different tools that Andrea recommended for creating visuals and producing quality videos to share with your Facebook audience. These include:

Visual Tools

Video Resources

3 Recommendations for Facebook Advertising

#1 – Transfer Fans to Your Email List

Don’t build your company on the rented castle that is Facebook. Move them to your email list so that you can continue to nurture the relationship on a more 1:1 basis off of Facebook.

#2 – Plan on Ad Spend

Facebook has very much become a pay-to-play model that does require some sort of investment. Within Facebook, you can use highly targeted ads to convert your target audience. Where you should spend your focus (and funds) is on email conversions, website clicks and website conversions that only target your warm leads (those that have already liked your page).

#3 – Measure What Matters

Beyond reach and engagement, you’re going to want to measure the actual number of conversions from Facebook. In order to do that, you’re going to need to put a Facebook conversion pixel on your website. That way, you can see which ad sent that conversion to your website.

In order to utilize the conversion pixel, you must have:

A website where you can install the conversion pixel
A thank you page that indicates the desired action is completed

Facebook is still flush with opportunities for B2B marketers, but it may require that current strategies be adapted to meet the needs of the audience. What tactics on Facebook have worked best for your organization, or what are some great examples that you’ve seen out in the wild?

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The post How B2B Marketers Can Use Facebook to Drive Engagement & Generate Leads appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

How To Tap Into the Power of Employees for Content Amplification

dave and dave

Social media has evolved significantly in the past six years. At the beginning, businesses focused solely on just having a presence on social media. Then, brands beginning honing in on social listening and figuring out the “science” of a good social media campaign.

Marketers then realized that social media was a great tool not only to engage their audience, but a prime opportunity to amplify their content and draw even more people in to consume, engage with and share that content. Recent studies have found that social networking accounts for 30% of all time spent online.

Last week at MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum, David Honig and David Thomas (otherwise known as Dave Squared) focused on another very important element of social media that most businesses are not taking full advantage of, the power of employees. While employee’s are often the most loyal supporters of the brand, they may be intimidated or scared to promote content on behalf of the company. Below are some ways that employers can encourage and help employees amplify brand content using social media.

Create Clear Instructions

Fear many times is a result of not having all of the information about a particular topic. The last thing you want to do is create or enable fear when it comes to encouraging employees to amplify brand content on social media.

No matter what you say, if you have a workforce it will be important to remind employees that you want them to share and that it is valuable. And you have to show them how to do it.

If you put a series of guidelines that tells people what to say and how to do it, you take away that fear factor.

Understand The Workforce

Employee’s personal and professional lives are intertwined more now than ever before and are constantly connected to devices which creates a remarkable opportunity. There are estimates that nearly 75% of the global workforce will be made up of Millennial’s by 2025.

These employees’s were raised with cell phones and the Internet which requires an approach beyond email to reach them.

Turn Employee’s Into Storytellers

What do you think would happen if employees become the storytellers for your brand? Research says that around 15% of consumers actually trust a brand while 85% trust their peers. With the average employee having around 1,500 connections on social networks, think of the possibilities.

Brands have the opportunity to empower employees as storytellers by informing them, engaging them with the content and inspiring them to create and share.

These stories aren’t just about selling your brand; it’s about what the company believes in. It’s about sending the right content at the right time to the right employee.

Identify Early Adopters

As with any new program, it’s important to have beta testers before rolling out a program to the entire population. This will provide a chance to find out what they are doing currently, gauge their level of interest in supporting the brand online and getting them involved in the process.

Finding an executive champion can also help spread your initiative like wildfire. When there is support shown from the top, it will be easier to get other employees on board.

Add Gamification

We live in a gaming world. From gaming systems to mobile applications, they’re everywhere. If you add gamification to your employee social program, you can create some healthy competition and even offer incentives to encourage participation.

Make Consuming & Sharing Easy

The number of tools that we have at our fingertips today can help create efficiencies and offer new opportunities in all aspects of business. Social media is no different. Employee’s can be trained to use tools like Buffer and Hootsuite to share brand content on social media. Better yet, tools like Dynamic Signal offer a mobile application and admins can push notifications to employee’s that allow them to read and share brand content with the click of a button.

Everyone Benefits When Employees Get Involved

Data supports the importance of sharing content with employees. There is an opportunity to make employees better at what they do, by providing them with relevant content on a consistent basis. Building an employee advocacy program benefits both employees and the company in many ways including:

Employee Benefits:

Better connection with the brand
Feeling more “in the know” with company news
They may become viewed as a thought leader
An opportunity to establish their personal brand
Easy ways to grow their online audience

Company Benefits:

Increase brand awareness
Deepen customer loyalty
Strengthen company culture
Drive leads and sales

For a successful program, it’s important that your employees don’t feel like you’re exploiting them to promote your marketing message. This fear can be alleviated by introducing the information clearly and transparently with the whole team. Of course, you always want to encourage employees to share what is relevant for their audience.

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The post How To Tap Into the Power of Employees for Content Amplification appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Friday, October 23, 2015

If you want B2B Content to be Great, Ask Your Community to Participate! #MPB2B

Lee Odden MPB2B

The bar for great B2B content marketing is being raised since brands have become publishers and no longer need to rely on traditional media sources for exposure. Unfortunately, budgets and resources don’t always match the required output.

Not many B2B marketers realistically have the budget to hire journalists to compete with industry publications. Even those that do, are still struggling to create engaging content on a consistent basis, improve content effectiveness and provide a variety of content.

The wisdom of your community is a bank rich with useful marketing content and can help scale a B2B content marketing program. In his session at MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum, TopRank CEO Lee Odden made the case for why adding participation to your content can help solve the problems above, and three examples of content co-creation in action.

6 Advantages of B2B Content Co-Creation

Lee describes participation marketing as the democratization of content creation and promotion by co-creating content with subject matter experts, influencers and your community. Content co-creation has many benefits such as:

Authenticity: A content program that includes advice from multiple sources can provide inspiration and advice from real people that understand what your audience is going through.
Quality: By tapping into subject matter expertise, the quality is often above and beyond what copywriters on your staff are able to produce, as they may not have the deep expertise of other experts.
Variety: Again, internal resources may be proficient in creating certain types of content, while enlisting co-creators can create additional opportunities for variety in content type and information.
Engagement: When you collaborate with other people you are actually creating a relationship with them. Additionally, there are the marketing benefits of creating engaging content for your audience to consume and share.
Reach: The participation can inspire amplification and action. If you create a good experience for your co-creators then they will be inspired to share on their personal and professional networks.
Scale: Increase in the quantity of quality content by breaking content creation out of the silo of marketing and including other departments and groups inside and outside your business.

How to Approach Participation Marketing

Create A Project Brief

As with any content program, the essential first step is to create a brief that describes:

What is it?
How does it solve a problem for customers?
What do they do next?
How will you measure success

Picking Your Co-Creators

Customers, internal and external subject matter experts, industry influencers and your online community are all prime candidates for content co-creation.

Always strive to understand what makes your contributors tick and find a way to create mutual value. Make it easy and exciting for people to participate and even consider creating some incentives for participation.

Sample B2B Content Co-Creation Ideas

Case Studies
Contests
Surveys
Testimonials
White Papers
eBooks
Guides
Blog Posts
Events
Expert Resources
Social Content

Examples of Co-Created Content in the Wild

Community Sourced FAQs

Dell’s IT Ninja – This is a community created website that includes over 7,000 software tips, 350,000 software titles and commonly asked questions. This website has approximately 500,000 visitors each month.

Dell IT Ninja

Co-Creation to Drive In-Store Purchases

Kraft Foods – Kraft Foods wanted to find a way to sell more of their products in Target stores specifically. They recruited 180 food bloggers to create and promote branded that included Kraft products and included a coupon that was only redeemable at Target. Their ROI on the program was 3,100% and their per recipe cost dropped from $500 to $200.

B2B Partner Content Library

RingLead – This company partners with other companies that have credibility and offer complimentary solutions to create a content library. They treat contributions from other companies as ingredients. The information is categorized and used in more of a modular approach.

RingLead

Small Business, Big Game

Intuit – Another great example is Intuit’s Small Business Big Game. Small business owners are asked to enter videos explaining why they want to win a commercial for their business during the Super Bowl. The people that submit are then invited to get lots of shares on their submission. Part of the program includes giving tasks to the businesses to answer questions about their small business. So, they are essentially micro-blogging information that can be useful to other small businesses that could use Intuit’s products. This program had thousands of entrants and millions of votes casted for the entries.

Intuit Small Business

B2B Influences Co-Create Wonderland

Content Marketing In Wonderland – For the past few years, TopRank Marketing has partnered with Content Marketing Institute to promote their conference, Content Marketing World. This event is ripe with influencers that can easily become contributors to a co-creation asset. We created a series of eBooks that functioned as the hub and were supported by other content assets. Other people, who were experts in the topic that they contributed to, created 80% of the content.

Content Marketing Wonderland

Keep Your Participation Marketing Accountable

If you focus on an attract, engage, convert model, it provides a simple way to keep your content accountable to business objectives. The best content marketing is the kind that informs people and leads them to the logical conclusion that you are the best answer for their needs.

In his session, Lee also provided access to a brand new B2B Participation Marketing Toolkit for anyone that wants to learn more.

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The post If you want B2B Content to be Great, Ask Your Community to Participate! #MPB2B appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Online Marketing News: YouTube Sees Red, Mobile Leads The Search, Twitter Gets New Tools

The Anatomy of the Perfect Blog Post from Headline to CTA

How to Write a Perfect Blog Post [INFOGRAPHIC] – Once upon a time, not too long ago, I wanted to write the perfect blog post. I wanted to write the most shareable, clickable, readable, memorable post that I could. But how? The first stop in my quest? An infographic from Salesforce Canada. Salesforce

Twitter Introduces Conversion Lift Metrics to Improve Ad Effectiveness Tracking – Twitter is providing their own conversion lift metrics to improve the accuracy of their data tracking and highlight the effectiveness of Twitter ads on the bottom line. Twitter

Study: Mobile App Ads Don’t Lead to High User Retention — Organic Does – The main goal for app developers today isn’t simply the install — it’s retention. According to Nielsen, the average device has 42 apps, while the iOS app store has a 1.5 million app catalogue (and Google Play gives 1.4 million choices). SocialTimes

Report: What Consumers Want From Digital Content – Content is the engine that powers the Internet. However, tastes andattitudes continually change, and marketers need to keep up with consumer attitudes to keep their content relevant. A study from Adobe examines how consumers feel about content from different sources, and how technical challenges can reduce engagement. SocialTimes

Google: Mobile Search Volume Surpasses Desktop Searches Worldwide – Last week, news broke that Google’s search volume is now dominated by mobile searches. Over 50% of all of Google’s queries worldwide is now done on mobile devices. Search Engine Roundtable

Twitter Rolling Out New Feature to Let Users Create Customized Polls – Twitter announced that a feature it has tested with a few users on a small scale — the ability to add customized polls to a tweet — will officially be coming to everyone over the next few days. The company hopes that the new add-on will further expand its users’ interaction with their followers, by streamlining a function that would have previously taken extensive measures of reading replies and re-tweets to successfully follow. Twitter

YouTube Announces YouTube Red – Google announced YouTube Red, a new subscription service that provides unlimited ad-free access to YouTube videos for $9.99 per month on Android, desktop and the mobile web, and $12.99 per month on iOS due to Apple’s in-app purchase tax (via TechCrunch). The membership also includes several other benefits. YouTube

Twitter Pushes App Installs With “App Spotlight” For Profiles & “Install Actions” For Timelines – Twitter unveiled a new way that people can pin apps on their Twitter profile pages called App Spotlight. This appears to be in addition to pinning tweets to the top of a profile page. Marketing Land

Yahoo & Google Together Again In New Search Deal – Three-year deal to put Google’s results and ads into some of Yahoo’s search results needs US Department of Justice approval and still might get vetoed by India or EU action. Search Engine Land

LinkedIn Introduces The Next Generation Of Recruiter, And LinkedIn Referrals – Linkedin is releasing new tools, including an update to Recruiter and Referrals, to facilitate the acquisition of quality candidates based on social connections. LinkedIn

Facebook Rolls Out Search FYI – Welcome to Search FYI. With over 1.5 billion searches per day and over 2 trillion posts in our index, search is an important, long-term effort at Facebook. The team’s goal with Search FYI is to share our progress more frequently. Facebook

Twitter Publish: Twitter’s New Tool For Embedding Tweets – Twitter opens access to some of the publishing tools it’s using internally for Moments, including an immersive display for Web embeds. Twitter

What were the top online and digital marketing news stories for you this week?

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Infographic: Salesforce

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Thursday, October 22, 2015

13 Considerations for Creating Successful Landing Pages from Oli Gardner of Unbounce #MPB2B

oli gardner unbounce mpb2b 2015

While B2B marketing KPIs such as views, shares and impressions are important in helping to determine your digital marketing strategy, conversions will always be more important. You have to provide enough value to encourage people to click on your content, and then once they reach your destination, you have to convince them again that it is worth providing their contact information.

Landing pages can be an incredibly powerful tool for moving prospects through the sales process but they are not all created equal. Oli Gardner of Unbounce provided an incredibly amount of information on the four corners of conversion for landing pages in his presentation at MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum.

Oli’s presentation helped highlight the most important element of a landing page, the customer. Your customers should never be confused, angry or annoyed when they’re trying to work with our marketing campaigns. Unfortunately, that’s sometimes the case if the copy doesn’t resonate, the design isn’t right or it’s difficult for them to interact with the campaign. Here are 13 lessons on landing page copy, design, interaction and psychology.

#1 – Distraction Is The Enemy

There is no reason you shouldn’t have a dedicated landing page for each marketing campaign. This will enable you to better hold the attention of your customer, get you closer to a 1:1 attention ratio and increase conversion rates.

#2 – Flip Your Headlines

Ask yourself, what does your headline and subhead say about what you do? Sometimes, the content for the headline and subheading may both be correct and well written, but they’re in the wrong order, which can dramatically decrease your conversion rates.

Oli recommended using a tool like UsabilityHub to run some quick tests on your landing page content. This tool compiles data from real users to see if your content resonates.

#3 – Voice of Customer

If you are having trouble creating clarity with your headlines, reach out to some of your customers and ask if they can help. Customers have nuggets of information and a perspective that you may never have thought of. In the end, it’s about what they think, not how you describe yourself.

#4 – Use Language That Builds Trust

You have limited space and time to convey to your visitors that they can trust you and should feel comfortable providing their information. As children we were taught to trust words like “because” which was typically followed by sound reasoning. Research has found that using the word “because” 19 times on your landing page can create a conversion rate of over 25%. Additionally, there are different levels of trust based on who is featured in either copy or visuals on the page. Experts win out over CEOs almost all of the time.

#5 – Guide Focus

There are ways you can get people to focus on what you want them to focus on. Understanding A.D.D. principles makes design more fun and more effective by creating a common design vocabulary. Make the one thing that you want to stand out – stand out. By making it different.

#6 – Be Careful When Following Design Trends

Many design trends seem like a great idea at first, until you understand how they truly impact your visitors. Be wary of jumping headfirst into a new design until there is enough data to show that it improves the user experience. There is a term called “Scroll Jacking” which means that when a customer is trying to look at individual elements on your page the design makes it impossible for them to stop scrolling and land on their area of interest. This issue can easily create a bad customer experience if they can’t stop the scrolling.

#7 – Caption Visual Elements

According to Oli, the captions included under images or videos are read an average of 300% more than the actual body copy. If you’re going to include either of these elements on your landing page, make sure that you create a compelling caption that makes your audience want more.

#8 – Keep Ideal Customers Top of Mind

Avoid designing landing pages for the masses and instead focus on your ideal customers. This affects all elements of your page including design and copy.

#9 – Follow Affordance In Design

The visual design of your landing page should easily convey to your audience how it can be used. The example below is of different button types that are typically used in design. You want it to be undeniably clear that a button is clickable.

landing page buttons

#10 – Proximity of Page Elements

Page elements that are in close proximity to one another are perceived to have a relationship. Putting items close to the page call to action can be a threat to your conversion rates and must be tested.

#11- Approach Carousel’s Wisely

A carousel element allows you to have more information on the landing page, without cluttering the page. The downside is that often time’s carousels can cause confusion and decrease your conversion rate due to autoplay functions, mobile incompatibility and more. If you do want to include a carousel, consider having labeled tabs that are easy for customers to click on. If certain tabs don’t convert, remove them.

#12 – Video Position & Size

Videos on landing pages perform best at the top of the page and should follow consistency in sizing to work well for both desktop and mobile users. Many marketers wonder if landing page videos should be set to autoplay once someone hits the page. If you have a thumbnail that someone clicks on in an email the video should start playing as soon as they hit the page, otherwise no.

#13 – Call To Action Language

Having the right verbiage on your call to action can dramatically impact conversion rates. While many people may think that including the word “free” on a button will increase the conversion rate, the opposite is actually true. Incorporate action words such as “click” to reiterate to your audience what you would like them to do. Create urgency with words like “now” to encourage immediate action.

Start Creating High Performing Landing Pages Now

The tips above only scratch the surface of the wealth of information that was shared during this presentation. Fortunately, they are all things that you can begin implementing now for new and existing landing pages. If you’ve created landing pages in the past, what did you find impacted your conversions the most?

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Case Study: How IBM Changed Perception & Increased Revenue by 20% YOY #MPB2B

IBM mainframe

“Why note let every client who sets foot in the door know that this agency has entered the future?” – Don Draper

If you ask most people what they think a mainframe is, most will likely get visions of black and white photos of antiquated computers housed in an IBM backroom. As the Vice President of Z Systems Marketing for IBM, it’s Deon Newman’s job to change that perception.

Believe it or not, all of us are connected to a mainframe multiple times each day. The stats might actually surprise you. For example:

80% of all corporate data resides or originates on mainframes.
55% of all enterprise applications need a mainframe to complete transactions.
30 billion business transactions are processed on mainframes every day.

It’s staggering to consider how much we touch this technology when most of us don’t think of this as relevant technology.

In his presentation, Deon shared a great case study of how IBM created a series of marketing campaigns to bring relevance to their mainframe product and create a more contemporary approach for the way the product is used. Below is a case study of how IBM took on a challenge of changing industry perception head on.

Case Study: How IBM Changed Perception of Their Product & Increased Revenue by 20% YOY

The Challenge

The whole industry is abuzz with moving all information to the cloud, which can quickly make a product like IBM’s mainframe, seem irrelevant. As the 50 year anniversary of one of their most popular products was quickly approaching, they knew it was time to transform the brand and reposition their offering.

The Journey of Brand Transformation & Repositioning

IBM had a new technology coming out in January of 2015 and the 50^th anniversary of the launch of the mainframe 50 in April of 2014. Many people wanted to run away from the term “mainframe” because it was associated with a legacy concept (which in the IT world is a dirty word). The company used this milestone as an opportunity to project and flip the perception.

Instead, they focused on hitting some of the milestones and focus on what the product enabled, including helping put a man on the moon and ticketing systems for airline companies.

The team at IBM developed a client led communication program called “The Engines of Progress”. They went into some of their biggest clients, and enabled them to tell their own stories about how they have changed their industries and the world.

The Engines of Progress clients included Walmart, Visa and First National Bank. Each in their own right have had an impact, and here are their stories in their words:

Walmart:

Visa:

First National Bank:

Part of what you’ll notice is that IBM leverages modern themes throughout this entire campaign and that they aren’t pushing their product. Within this series, they focused on brands that are leaders and seen as market movers. The other great thing about this client-focused campaign is that leadership within these companies wanted to be involved in the campaign. These videos helped tell IBM’s story digitally and the clients saw this as an association with something very iconic to be proud of.

In addition to celebrating what IBM had accomplished with current clients, they also wanted to start focusing on cultivating Generation Z. They created an academic initiative that included 180,000 students around the world, in 1,400 schools in 70 countries. They created a contest called “Master the Mainframe” which was a three round gaming contest designed to introduce mainframe gaming to the new generation.

The five finalists of the contest were brought on stage were highlighted as part of the 50^th anniversary celebration. IBM was able to bring the next generation of skills into the fold to celebrate the anniversary of one of their first products.

Results

Beyond the feel-good vibes that the campaign created, it’s important to determine if IBM was successful in changing the minds of their customers, potential customers, and their community at large. The results, speak for themselves. The campaign had:

More than 100 million social impressions
There were over 150 articles written about the campaign
More than 75 events supporting the campaign were hosted around the world
Additionally, 20-30 of IBM’s clients ran their own events to support the campaign.
This was incredibly inspiring and worked to reactivate IBM’s 400,000 employees who learned a lot more about the platform throughout the process.
Overall, revenue has increased 20% year over year

The lesson of this experience wasn’t that IBM sold a lot of mainframes (which they did) but that they found something contemporary with a credible story and linked these two things to help market and sell their platform.

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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Digital Marketing That Focuses on User Intent – Avinash Kaushik #MPB2B

Avinash-Kaushik

“It’s not the ink, it’s the think.”

This quote was the basis for Avinash Kaushik’s opening keynote at MarketingProf’s B2B Marketing Forum. For those of you that don’t know, Avinash is a Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google and best-selling author.

According to Avinash, the difference between companies that will be great and those that will die (either quickly or slowly) are the ones that understand how to obsess about the think. Thinking about how your company can connect with people and execute process and structure will make you masters of marketing. Below are some of the many highlights from his entertaining, informational and inspiring keynote.

The Growth of Digital

In 2015, digital consumption has far surpassed all other forms of media including TV, print and radio. The main reason that digital has come to dominate consumption is that everyone is constantly connected to their mobile devices. If you understand the implication you should be joyous as marketers.

Mobile devices are incredibly powerful in that they allow you to be closer to your prospects, customers and colleagues all of the time. That is a phenomenal gift to each of us as marketers because we are in the business of influence. At the end of the day, that is all we do.

Rethinking the Marketing Funnel

“Imagine yourself as a regular human being and not a marketing robot.”

Image via the Marketoonist

The framework that we all learned was the traditional marketing funnel that includes some variations of awareness, consideration, conversion and advocacy. As a consumer, ask yourself; when was the last time that you purchased something and went down that path?

Instead, we should be considering a framework that solves business problems and is not selfishly trying to move prospects down the path of our choosing. A common mistake made by B2B marketers is to use information like job title to define a prospect without including any information about their intentions.

Alternatively, consider making decisions based on user behavior as a means to determine what is relevant for your target audience.

A New Business Framework: The 4 Clusters of Intent

In the interest of better serving customers, Avinash recommends building a new frame work for marketing that focuses on the following four categories of intent:

See: Figure our who is your largest addressable qualified audience:
Think: Largest addressable qualified audience, with weak commercial intent.
Do: Largest addressable qualified audience, with strong commercial intent
Care: Current customers, with two, or more, commercial transactions.

The goal should not be to move people through the marketing funnel, but to understand their intent.

How to Put This Framework Into Action
Normally, a company’s strategy involves driving a bunch of people to their website in the hopes that a small number of people will convert by completing a lead form. But what happens to the rest of your visitors? Perhaps you have a large number of visitors that aren’t ready to make a purchasing decision, but are still very qualified to make a purchase in the future.

Website user intent

Avinash used the example of XTRAC Solutions’ approach to providing value for visitors that want to make a decision now, and those that may not be ready.

Someone can obviously sign up for a demo or complete a contact form but there are other options available such as using their workflow calculator, downloading an eBook, sign up for their email list, watch videos or follow them on social networks. There is virtually something for everyone.

Xtrac Solutions

Xtrac Solutions solves for near term intent , but they also have a content strategy that covers all intents. Instead of solving for 2% of people that engage with them. They’re solving for everyone that is a part of their qualified audience.

I look forward to seeing what you think about Avinash’s recommendation for changing our approach to digital marketing from a funnel, to focusing on user intent. If you’re attending the MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum I encourage you to attend TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden’s session, Participation Marketing: If You Want B2B Content to Be Great, Ask Your Community to Participate today at 4pm.

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