Less Is More: Time to Cut Content Bloat & Create Content Connections

When it comes to the craft of writing, my favorite luminary is the late William Zinsser. His book, On Writing Well, is — in my opinion — the definitive work covering its stated subject. On Writing Well is an essential read for anyone who wants to elevate their prose. Zinsser’s primary focal area is word economy. “Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly,” he implores. “Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Reexamine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work?” That last question is especially pertinent to B2B marketing writers. The reader should always be our top concern when penning copy, but in this case, the stakes are even higher. Attention is at a premium with business professionals, so wasted words are especially costly. Content bloat leads to audience abandonment. via GIPHY In the spirit of Mr. Zinsser, we’re offering up tips on trimming down your writing to make it more punchy and concise. And to do so, we’ll curate advice from top wordsmiths in the marketing game, with a key emphasis on overcoming the most prevalent pitfalls for today’s content creators.

3 Keys to Concise and Compelling B2B Marketing Copy

Rigid formats, giant blocks of text, and unnecessary filler words are banes of succinct writing. Here are some pointers from the experts on conquering them.

#1 - Nix Stringent Word Counts

So many writers are at the mercy of word counts, and it’s a tragedy. We’re told we need to produce at least 1,500 words, so we inject a bunch of unnecessary filler to get there. Does this serve our audience in any way? Hell no. The conundrum is that numerous studies show higher word counts correlating with higher SERP placements. However, this is misguided thinking. Long-form content is fantastic and it’s certainly part of our mix here at TopRank Marketing, but it needs to be valuable. Don’t take my word for it; here’s what Rand Fishkin — co-founder of Moz, and one of the planet’s top authorities on SEO — has to say: “700 more words will not help you reach your goals any more than 7 more words. Create content that helps people. Do it efficiently. Never write an ultimate guide where a single image could more powerfully convey the same value. Trust me; your audience and your bottom line will thank you.” [bctt tweet="700 more words will not help you reach your goals any more than 7 more words. Create content that helps people. Do it efficiently. @randfish" username="toprank"] According to SEMrush’s hierarchy of ranking factors, content length falls below time on site, pages per session, bounce rate, and backlinks in SEO importance. In other words, if excessive wordiness is turning readers away, the number doesn’t really matter all that much. Delivering a quality experience is vastly more valuable. To see what high-performing short-form content looks like in action, check out these examples from IFL Science, courtesy of BuzzSumo.

#2 - Use Every Bit of Space Intentionally

It might not be a writer’s first instinct, but visualization is a helpful practice. Take a step back and look at your content — how it really appears on the page. Are you making the best use of your digital real estate? Ann Handley suggests we take a page from the lead character in Charlotte’s Web, who she says might be the best content marketer in the world: “Think of how Charlotte was able to save a life with just [a few] words,” Handley said during a session at Content Marketing World a couple years back, as relayed by our own Caitlin Burgess. “How can we use our words more intentionally? How can we make a difference?” [bctt tweet="How can we use our words more intentionally? How can we make a difference? @annhandley @MarketingProfs" username="toprank"] Think of each page on the worldwide web as a finite spider web. You only have so much space, and so much thread, to get your points across. Make it count. You might not be saving the life of a radiant pig, but you will be more likely to delight and connect with your audience.

#3 - Banish Buzzword Banality

To celebrate the NCAA Tournament earlier this year, our friends and clients at LinkedIn Marketing Solutions* put together a lighthearted marketing madness bracket, calling out the most overused jargon in the profession. If you find yourself leaning too heavily on any terms listed there, you might want to rethink. It’s not just marketing buzzwords that drag down our copy, though. Content Marketing Institute (CMI)* recently published a rundown of 25 words and phrases to avoid. “Stuffing your sentences and paragraphs with filler and fluff — words and phrases that add zero meaning to what you’re trying to say — is the opposite of clear writing,” author Julia McCoy writes. Many of the items she includes are extremely common, and the types you’re likely to summon out of sheer habit and routine. For instance:

• In order to
• Really
• That
• Then
• Just

They seem harmless on the surface, barely taking up space. But this is exactly what makes them so insidious. Most often, you can make the exact same point while deleting these words, and you’ll provide a much more crisp and efficient experience for the person on the other end. Here’s an example: In order to write great copy, you’ll really want to avoid using words that you don’t need. If your goal is to be efficient, then it’s just the best choice. We can pare that down to: To write great copy, you’ll want to avoid using words you don’t need. If your goal is to be efficient, it’s the best choice. Six words removed, zero substance lost. Over the long haul, you’ll save readers a lot of time — and keep them more engaged — by adhering to this mindset.

Writing Well (Usually) Means Writing Less

To be clear, long-form writing isn’t always unnecessarily drawn out. In many cases, exploring the full breadth of a subject requires it. Recently I wrote about the example of Backlinko’s Brian Dean, who puts together massive power pages spanning thousands of words. These posts rank and perform so well not because of their word counts, but because of what those words accomplish: they comprehensively break down important topics and provide credibility-building best-answer content for his audience. If you scan through one of these pages, you’ll find the copy is actually quite sparse in its arrangement, divvied into small chunks and broken up by plenty of visuals.

The Final Word

1. Forget word counts — maximum or minimum. Write as much as it takes to deliver a satisfying best answer, and no more.
2. Be mindful of space on the page. Keeping in mind that a majority of users don’t make it very far into online articles, consider leading with your most critical points, or even offering a brief summary atop each new piece of content.
3. And before you hit publish, challenge yourself to delete every single word throughout that isn’t tied to a specific, tangible purpose. You might even consider printing out the jargon lists from LinkedIn and CMI as references for your cleaning.

The three guiding principles above might sound simple, but they don’t come naturally to even the most seasoned writers. And overthinking word economy during the drafting process can badly hamper creativity and productivity. Focus first on getting your thoughts on the page, clearly and coherently. Later, you can go back and — as Zinsser puts it — prune ruthlessly. “Writing is hard work,” says Zinsser. “A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.” Indeed it is. But in the immortal words of Jeff Bezos, “You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” You also earn trust, authority, and — ultimately — business. So, grab your shears and let’s get to work. Pruning and optimizing your content can happen post-launch, too. Check out our piece on why refreshing existing content is great for your audience and results. * Disclosure: LinkedIn and CMI are TopRank Marketing clients.

The post Less Is More: Time to Cut Content Bloat & Create Content Connections appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

How to Promote Your B2B Podcast

Over 1/4th of the entire population of the United States listens to podcasts at least monthly. That's over 81 million people. What's more, the most avid listeners log six and a half hours a week of listening time. Eighty percent finish every episode in its entirety. There's enormous potential here for engaging an audience. Think about how long someone might stick with a 1,000 word blog post (like this one). Five minutes? Ten? But they might listen to a 25-30 minute podcast on the same topic. Podcasting holds a lot of promise for marketers, especially in the B2B space. Our agency has helped multiple B2B Fortune 500 companies produce and find an audience for their podcasts. It takes strategy and coordination, but the barrier to entry is relatively low. Of course, "making" the podcast is the easy part. As with any content, the challenge is successfully getting it to your target audience. Here are a few things we've learned about B2B podcasting promotion through our production and amplification work.

How to Promote Your B2B Podcast

Some of the tactics you will use to amplify your podcast are familiar, but the channel does have unique properties that require new approaches. We’ll start with adapting traditional tactics, then we’ll finish with the podcast-specific ones.

Adapting Traditional Promotional Tactics for B2B Podcasts

#1: Start with Audience Demand As with any content, your podcast should begin with research. See what questions your audience has, what they need to know, and what they want to hear. Aim to generate a topic list that highlights your brand’s expertise and your subject matter experts’ insights to create something of value to your audience. Once your research is complete, it's also well-worth documenting your findings, goals, and promotional plans in a creative brief. This will serve as a guide as you go forth and create. For Podcasts: Stay closer to top-of-funnel with your podcast ideas. It’s far better to educate, inspire, and entertain your audience than to try and sell them something. A 25-minute-long advertisement for your solution is likely to drive people away. #2: Add Influencers for Amplification We’re big believers in influencer marketing, and we have plenty of results to back that up. When you co-create content with influencers you get higher-quality, dynamic content that has built-in amplification. Here's an example from 3M's* Science Champions podcast, featuring the brand's own amplification of a recent episode as well as the influencer interviewee's amplification. For Podcasts: We've often found that many industry influencers and experts would rather do an audio interview than a written one. So it should be easy to get experts whom you have a solid relationship with to commit to a 30-minute interview, which can be recorded and processed into a podcast. If you're looking to work with new folks in the field, we recommend taking the time to nurture the relationship (e.g. like and share their social content, engage them in conversation on social or their blogs, or reach out via email to introduce yourself and let them know you're a fan of their work) before reaching out cold. Another way to incorporate an influential voice and extend the potential reach of your podcast is to tap industry influencers to host or co-host the podcast. The Dell Luminaries* podcast is a great example of this, featuring two thought leaders as hosts: Seasoned marketer and author Mark Schaefer and marketing and technology strategist Douglas Karr. When it comes to conducting the interview, use a tool like Zencastr to make sure you get high-quality audio. Unsurprisingly, audio quality is absolutely critical for a podcast endeavor. #3: Use Internal Promotion to Boost Awareness If you’re at an enterprise-level organization, you have a built-in audience. Encourage your employees to listen to each episode and share it with their social networks. For Podcasts: The first 2-3 weeks after publication are a crucial time to get your podcast seen. In addition to listening and sharing, encourage employees to write a review on iTunes and other podcast platforms. Reviews, especially on iTunes, play a big part in determining which podcasts the platform recommends to its existing users. #4: Optimize for Search As with written content, you’ll want to make sure you’re including keywords, a compelling visual, and a descriptive title on each episode. Use keyword research tools, existing analytics data, and other appropriate tools and resources to determine a list of target words. Then, test them out on podcast platform search engines to make sure you’re hitting the right intent. For Podcasts: Since search engines can’t crawl your audio, it’s doubly important to make every word count on your podcast description and title, episode descriptions and titles, and what categories you choose in podcast directories.

Podcast-Specific Promotion Tactics

#1: Publish Transcripts as Blog Posts As I said above, search engines can’t crawl audio. And competition is fierce for visibility on podcast platforms like iTunes and Google Play. You can use your blog to help drive subscriptions, which will help your podcast gain traction. Make a post for each episode with a summary, key takeaways, and full transcription. Embed the podcast stream on the post, and make the CTA to subscribe to the podcast. #2: Commit to a Cadence Podcast promotion is all about building a habit for your audience. You want them to subscribe, stay subscribed, and listen to every episode. To make that happen, you need to publish consistently. It’s better to post an episode every two weeks for a year than to publish weekly and take a 6-month hiatus at the end. It’s best to start with at least three episodes available for download (required to make Apple’s New and Notable list) and several more to act as a buffer. Then you can determine the cadence that will enable you to publish without pausing. #3: Submit to Podcast Directories Much of your initial subscriber base will likely come from your existing audience, through your blog posts. But the goal is to build a subscriber base wherever people listen to podcasts, so you can capture a net new audience. To that end, it’s important to register your podcast with Apple Podcasts, Google Play Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Stitcher, and Podbean. These platforms together account for the vast majority of podcast listeners. Registration on each of these services is free, and it makes finding your podcast a seamless experience for every user. #4: Look for Cross-Promotional Opportunities The majority of people who listen to podcasts don’t just listen to one. In fact, it seems the more podcasts someone listens to, the more likely they are to try out a new one. So you’re not trying to lure people away from someone else’s podcast to listen to yours — it’s not a zero sum game. Podcasting is therefore less competitive than other media might be. It’s worth checking with established podcasts to see if there are opportunities for cross-promotion. Subject matter experts in your company could appear on their podcast, or you could interview another host in a relevant industry for yours. Either way, both of your podcasts gain exposure to a new audience.

Rise of the Pod People

Podcasting is one of the biggest marketing opportunities for B2B businesses right now. Even as saturated as the B2C market is, there’s still room for new breakout stars. By comparison, the B2B space has even more room to grow. It’s a channel that has yet to suffer from fatigue or content shock. As a content marketer, much of what you already know about content applies to promoting podcasts: Be relevant, be valuable, work with influencers, promote on social media, etc. With a few new tactics combined with the old standbys, you can make sure your podcast has everything it needs to find a long-term sustainable audience. Want to find out more about B2B podcasting and whether it's a fit for your B2B brand? Learn the what, why, and how of B2B podcasting by checking out my post on the subject. *Disclosure: Dell and 3M are TopRank Marketing clients.

The post How to Promote Your B2B Podcast appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

6 Ways to Bring More Boom! & Less Boring to Your B2B

Is your B2B marketing on the boring side? Here’s how you can ignite a powder-keg of inspiration and burst forth with new content marketing energy to bring more boom and less boring to future B2B marketing efforts. We have six boom-including content marketing antidotes to replace the status quo with inspiration, joy, laughter, energy, enchantment and other powerful marketing elixirs that can help you create relevant, informative, and — above all — memorable content.

#1 — Get An Inspiration Infusion From Experts

via GIPHY

• Oftentimes you don’t have far to go to find inspiration for your B2B content marketing.
• Inspiration abounds if you look to your heroes, past mentors, and the industry influencers and business associates whose work you admire the most.
• We occasionally research and publish lists of top experts in several areas of marketing, which are great starting points for finding examples of marketers who inspire. Here are a few of our most recent compendiums:

This robust recent list, “Our 2019 List: The Top 50 Social Media Marketing Influencers,” includes 50 top social media marketing influencers, researched and ranked using influencer relationship marketing platform Traackr and numerous other social signal metrics. Recently LinkedIn* published its new edition of The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn, a list of 24 B2B marketing experts, who all represent great examples of how to incorporate inspiration into you marketing, and we took a look at this group in “LinkedIn’s List of 24 B2B Marketers You Need to Know.” For the past nine years we’ve also put out a helpful list of some of the most influential women in digital marketing, “25 Influential Women in Digital Marketing Who Rocked and Inspired in 2018,” also an excellent source for finding experts who are highly skilled at using inspiration in content marketing.

#2 — Find Your Joy Elixir

via GIPHY

• Try looking at your content marketing practices in new ways, with fresh eyes, and with an open heart.
• As you tell your marketing stories, make a conscious effort to incorporate joy’s inherent happiness and exuberance in your efforts where appropriate.
• Joy is a powerful emotion that can have a home in many B2B marketing campaigns — as you’re creating, look for opportunities to use it.
• Are your own content marketing efforts sparking joy for your audience, à la Marie Kondo? Our own Anne Leuman examines how joy can help deliver amazing personalized B2B experiences, in “B2B Marketers, Are Your Content Marketing Efforts Sparking Joy for Your Audience?”
• Share joy with your target audience and you’ll both benefit, as Mark Twain once suggested when he wrote:

[bctt tweet="“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” — Mark Twain" username="toprank"] Research has shown that happiness is the top factor among U.S. mobile users when it comes to being receptive to advertisements, as the following chart from eMarketer demonstrates:

#3 — Create a Contagious Laughter Tonic

via GIPHY

• Recognize the difference between joy and laughter, and realize that although separate, the two play off of one another, as Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has said.

[bctt tweet="“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.” — Thich Nhat Hanh @thichnhathanh" username="toprank"]

• Look for areas in your B2B marketing where it would be appropriate to incorporate content that will — with skill and just a little bit of luck — make people laugh.
• Don’t be afraid to tap into the lighthearted, the childlike, and the playful when looking to make people laugh — sometimes the simplest things can bring out the purest forms of laughter, or at least a wide smile.

For a number of years our own Joshua Nite has written an annual take on the latest marketing humor, with the most recent being “20 More Dumb Jokes for Smart Marketers” and “20 Jokes Only a B2B Marketer Will Get,” good sources for finding the role of wit and comedy in marketing. [bctt tweet="“I made a joke about organic reach on Facebook… nobody got it.” — Joshua Nite @NiteWrites" username="toprank"]

• Statistics on the types of marketing most likely to attract attention have consistently shown that humor sells. SproutSocial recently published a look at “The importance of social media sentiment analysis (and how to conduct it),” looking at how emotions of all sorts play a significant factor in purchasing decisions.

[bctt tweet="Comedy is the most powerful way to humanize a brand because it demonstrates empathy. @timwasher #B2BContentMarketing" username="toprank"]

#4 — Blast an Energizing Content Path

via GIPHY

• Opening doors, removing obstacles, and solving problems can all be great ways to invigorate B2B marketing campaigns, and can bring out tangible energy when done well.
• By actively creating marketing that will guide the way and show a path to something that has seemed unattainable to your target audience, you’ll instill a new sense of energy with those you’ve inspired.

Statistics show that creating compelling content for digital experiences is among the top opportunities for companies in 2019, as the following chart from MarketingCharts shows:

• Seek out examples of B2B marketing done by people who are filled to the brim with energy for the work they do and the impact they make through their campaigns. In addition, look to yourself. Not long ago, our team members shared how their personal passions fuel their work in Nick Nelson's post: "Becoming a Better Marketer by Embracing Your Passions Outside the Office."

#5 — Present Enchanting Possibilities

via GIPHY

• In the storytelling you use in your marketing, be open to incorporating your own unique touch and style to truly enchant your target audiences, as enchantment opens up a world of connection possibilities.
• Author and marketer extraordinaire Guy Kawasaki has made a living and written books specifically about enchantment, and it’s easy to see why this emotion is such a powerful method for connecting with people, both in person and in our marketing efforts.

We look more closely at some of the ways Guy likes to bring out enchantment in marketing in “Spicy Twists and Tactics For Unique Content Promotion.” [bctt tweet="“When you enchant people, your goal is not to make money from them or to get them to do what you want, but to fill them with great delight.” @GuyKawasaki" username="toprank"]

#6 — Make It Share-Worthy & Bookmarkable with Best-Answer Content

via GIPHY

• Sometimes being definitive is the key to crafting marketing gold — the kind of best-answer content that makes you take the extra step of bookmarking a website or social media post URL for coming back to again and again, and for sharing.

Providing the best answer for your customers is a great way to boost brand credibility, and recently we’ve explored just what best-answer content is and some of the ways you can strive to achieve it in your own B2B marketing, including our CEO Lee Odden’s insightful “How A Best Answer Content Strategy Drives B2B Marketing Results.” [bctt tweet="“If buyers don’t see consistent, credible and engaging best-answer content across channels from your brand, they’ll begin to trust competitors who are.” — Lee Odden @LeeOdden" username="toprank"]

Say Fare Three Well to Boring B2B Marketing

Using the six marketing ideas and tactics we’ve looked at here, the time may have finally come to say goodbye once and for all to many of the most boring elements of traditional B2B marketing. Inspiration, joy, laughter, energy, and enchantment may not be the right fit for every initiative, but I hope you’ll keep your eyes open for the places that will be ideal to utilize these powerful storytelling elements. Finally, to bring even more inspiration to your B2B marketing toolkit, check out our recent list of the top social media marketing blogs, in Lee’s “BIGLIST of Top Social Media Marketing Blogs for 2019 and Beyond,” or lend and ear and tune in to our list of “20 Podcasts To Elevate Your B2B Marketing.” *Disclosure: LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.

The post 6 Ways to Bring More Boom! & Less Boring to Your B2B appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Content Marketing Fitness: Are You Ready to Integrate, Optimize and Activate?

I’ve always thought of content marketing as a fast paced, agile and high energy approach to engaging the modern, empowered buyer. So why does so much of the content marketing that’s out there feel feel sluggish, low energy and bloated? Research from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs has shown that marketers are challenged to create a variety of engaging content on a consistent basis. eMarketer recently reported that B2B decision makers’ top issues with marketing content reveal that content marketers are clearly “out of shape" when it comes to a focus on what’s most important. The top issues found were that content is too fluffy, not relevant, not personalized, misleading, behind a form or hard to find. For the marketers behind these issues, a quick look in the mirror makes it easy to see why: Bad habit strategy, low metabolism execution, overly processed tactics and sugar high shiny object software that doesn't get used properly if at all. I am sure you can see where I’m going with this metaphor. What’s the solution? I can’t think of a better way to get back on track when your marketing is out of shape than with some good old marketing fitness. This is a situation I can relate to literally, as a little over a year ago I was 70 pounds overweight and not in the best of health. I underwent a physical transformation reducing my pant size from 40 to 33 and breathing heavy walking to the fridge to regularly running 10k for fun. From that transformation experience I learned two very important lessons:

1. Marketing, like fitness, is a journey not a destination. I optimized myself with a better diet and regular exercise, not as a goal, but as change to my overall way of life.
2. A physical transformation and a marketing transformation have numerous parallels.

When you break it down, the similarities to making a physical transformation and transforming organic content marketing are very similar:

• Recognize there’s a challenge (understand your data)
• Set goals (Map your KPIs)
• Get help / learn how (hire, consult)
• Make a plan: diet/exercise (tactical mix)
• Get the right gear (software/process)
• Consistent effort (operationalize best practices)
• Be accountable, adaptable & optimize (same!)

To that end, here is a list of 10 core marketing exercises that are literally part of my current exercise effort, to get you focused on the marketing fundamentals so that you can better integrate, optimize and activate your content for success.

1. Jumping Jacks - Warm up with Customer Data

How many marketers just jump to it with their content marketing without any concrete data to support their approach? In the gym that's a quick way to get injured and marketers not warming up with data are injuring the customer experience and ROI of their marketing.

2. The Sit-up: Strengthen Your Core with Strategy

A strong core is essential for just about any physical activity and yet, many people focus their attention on other specific areas. Strategy is obviously just as essential for content marketing but a surprising number of marketers do not have a documented content marketing strategy that includes a minimum of challenge/situation, audience insights, approach and goals.

3. The Plank: Optimize Your Core with KPIs

It's not enough to work your code with sit-ups and a documented content marketing strategy. The goals need to be quantified and benchmarked with key performance indicator metrics.

4. Lunges: Create a Powerful Story

Lower body power is key and so is a powerful story behind your content marketing message. Customer insights are essential for identifying what story the brand needs to tell in order to deliver a relevant and inspiring content experience that serves customer information needs in a way that drives revenue goals.

5. Air Squats: Power Up the Content Mix

A great complement to the lunge are air squats, but quality not quantity is the key. The marketing mix is no different. Many marketers are trying to win the information overload game by creating as much content as possible. Customer insights and industry awareness should drive the right content type and format with the most effective channels for publishing and distribution.

6. Burpees - Boost Quality & Reach with Influencers

Few all around exercises elevate the heart rate as effectively as burpees. Activating relevant influencers and collaborators on your content can add expertise, credibility and additional distribution firepower when shared by experts who audiences trust.

7. The Pushup: Create & Publish Your Content

As a foundational upper body exercise, a well executed push-up delivers great return on effort. The same is true with content creation and publishing. Attention to detail and execution is everything, especially when complemented by the appropriate variety: incline push ups, close hands, wide hands, clap push up and so on. There are a variety of options for content publishing and brands do not need to be limited to the corporate website.

8. The Pull Up: Promotion That Won’t Quit

Starting out, pull ups were my kryptonite because I never really did them. However, a stronger back and biceps were some of my goals and pull ups are great for that. I've found that promotion is content marketing kryptonite for a lot of marketers for the same reason - they don't really do it beyond social and ads. Content promotion is essential for connecting your investment in quality content with an audience that is interested and ready to act.

9. Chin Up - Build Biceps by Measuring & Optimizing

One of the best exercises for your biceps is the chin up. Not everyone can do them right away, so it takes practice. The same is true with content marketing measurement and performance optimization. Ongoing analysis and refinement is essential for continued upward and to the right results progression.

10. The Run: Repurposed Content Goes the Distance

If you really want the most out of a fitness transformation effort, some kind of cardio should be in your plan. My favorite is a solid run because it burns calories efficiently, builds endurance and just feels amazing (afterward). Funny enough, I feel the same way about content repurposing. Planned reuse of content is definitely efficient, it extends the value of your initial content investment and seeing the added impact from the effort just feels great! Of course you could throw in more or different steps, but for those marketers looking beyond some kind of “magic pill” solution, these are core content marketing “fitness” exercises that can get you back on track and build a strong foundation for more advanced efforts. Who knows, if you stick with it, maybe you can begin to transform your content marketing operation into a lean, mean ROI generating machine. Summer is upon us but for those you doing some Fall marketing conference planning, I will be talking about this topic at Content Marketing World: Content Marketing Fitness - 10 Exercises to Build Your Marketing Beach Body and I hope to see you there!

The post Content Marketing Fitness: Are You Ready to Integrate, Optimize and Activate? appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Digital Marketing News: Brand Trust, B2B Content, LinkedIn’s Rising Engagement, Digital Video Ad Spend Growth, & More

The post Digital Marketing News: Brand Trust, B2B Content, LinkedIn’s Rising Engagement, Digital Video Ad Spend Growth, & More appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

The B2B Content Marketing Derby: When & Where to Place Strategic Bets

The Kentucky Derby has long been referred to as the fastest and most exciting two minutes in sports. And when it comes to your B2B content marketing efforts, getting your audience to sit on the edge of their seats, glued to your content for two whole minutes can be a major feat. To generate Kentucky-Derby-like attention for your B2B brand, your content marketing strategy needs to leverage the right tactical mix for your audience, industry, product mix, and objectives. However, over the last decade, the content marketing field has become crowded and even convoluted with hopeful tactical and strategic champions. The field has evolved from traditional winners like blogging and eBooks to include a new breed of favorites like influencer marketing, interactive content, and more. So, when and where should you place your B2B content marketing bets? Read on to learn about the latest content marketing tactics and their odds of putting your brand in the winner’s circle.

The B2B Content Marketing Derby Contenders

1. Old Reliable

What: Blogging Racing record: Blogging is the trusty content marketing steed: It’s Old Reliable, with origins dating back some 25 years. With the right audience focus and SEO insight, blogging allows B2B marketers to consistently create relevant, quality, best-answer content for every stage of the buyer’s journey. But having been the reliable favorite for so many years, the blogging field has become crowded and fiercely competitive. Anyone and everyone can have a blog—and topical and target keyword overlap with your direct (and indirect) competitors is inevitable. In fact, the number of bloggers in the United States alone is expected to reach 31.7 million by 2020. via GIPHY Odds: Old Reliable is a smart bet for your content strategy if you have dreams of creating a consistent content drumbeat to educate your audience at multiple stages of the funnel. For the best odds, SEO—another favorite content marketing stud—needs to be part of your blog ideation, creation, and ongoing optimization. This helps ensure you’re creating data-informed blog content around keywords and topic clusters that can boost search visibility and capitalize on white space. Read: Nearly 3 Years Later, Antea Group USA Still Seeing Triple-Digit Growth Thanks to SEO-Driven B2B Content Marketing Strategy

2. Hollywood Heartthrob

What: Video Marketing Racing record: Over the last few years, video has become a top consumption channel for audiences. Now that bingeing TV shows and movies on streaming services like YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime have become the norm, so too has bingeing video content on social media networks, Vimeo, TikTok, and others. Research supports this trend with 57% of consumers saying they want to see video content from brands. Plus:

• Tweets with video see 10 times more engagement than those without.
• LinkedIn users are 20 times more likely to share a post with video.
• The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video.

However, professionally produced video can be time, budget, and resource intensive. In addition, live video featuring more unscripted commentary and scenarios in the B2B space can be hard to get buy-in on. Odds: If you’re looking to bring your brand to life and infotain your audience, strategic use of video content, who we like to call Hollywood Heartthrob, is a horse to add to your betting roster. The key of course is choosing the right video content type and style to engage and nurture your audience, and align with and support your marketing goals. Generally speaking there are four video content marketing types:

• Teasers
• Trailers and Previews
• Explainers
• Video Essays and Companion Videos

As far as keeping production costs down, there are plenty of free apps that can turn your phone into a studio any director would love. Vidyard is tool that can help you produce, publish, and track high quality videos without expensive equipment. As a more general rule for creating great video, you need to be able to tell a story—a story that doesn’t focus on hitting all your product talking points, according to seasoned B2B marketer and comedian, Tim Washer. “For example, we did a mini documentary for Cisco that showed how smaller service providers are serving third-world countries,” he mentioned in an interview. “It focused on how our customers are making a difference, and of course inferred that our technologies are helping them make that difference.” [bctt tweet="As a general rule for creating great video, you need to be able to tell a story—a story that doesn’t focus on hitting all your product talking points. @timwasher #B2BContentMarketing" username="toprank"]

3. Fact Not Fiction

What: Infographics Racing record: Infographics are loaded with information. But so is an encyclopedia. One of the best benefits of infographics is that they provide valuable information in an easy to read, easy to understand way. It pairs text-based information with data visualization, graphs, and pictures to help educate audiences. And it is for this reason that 40% of marketers listed infographics as their top performer for driving engagement. Odds: When it comes to educating your audience in a simple, easy to understand way, infographics are second to none. Plus, they’re extremely shareable, extending your reach to a larger audience. Fact Not Fiction is a smart bet for your content strategy when awareness and education are top of mind, or if you’re attempting to simplify a complex topic.

4. The Proof Is in the Pudding

What: Case Studies Racing record: Evidence is some of the most compelling content you can create. Testimonials, case studies, and reviews show audiences that your products and services actually work. It also allows them to envision themselves as a customer and see how they could benefit from similar services. According to the 2018 Demand Generation Benchmark Survey Report, 73% of marketers found case studies to be the most successful tactic for converting and accelerating leads in the middle and late stages of the funnel. Image credit: 2018 Demand Generation Benchmark Survey Report Odds: When prospects are in the consideration or conversion stage of the buyer journey, proof and evidence can help guide them towards a purchasing decision. If moving more buyers through the funnel means winning for your brand, relevant and insightful case studies are a great bet.

5. One for the Record Books

What: eBooks Racing record: According to the 2017 Demand Generation Content Preferences Survey Report, 63% of buyers are willing to share information about themselves (e.g. email addresses) in exchange for eBooks. By creating longer, more visual content through eBooks, studies show that eBooks are a great lead generation tactic. In addition, eBooks rank in the top five most effective content marketing tactics for both the top and middle of the funnel. Odds: One for the Record Books is able to last for miles, diving deep into a niche topic to further educate audiences and provide valuable information in great detail. This is helpful for both the top and middle of the funnel when education is key. When gated, eBooks are also great lead generation tools that open up new paths for audience nurturing—as long as the content delivers the kind of robust insight and value that warrants an exchange of information. Read: To Gate, or Not to Gate? Answers to an Age-Old Digital Marketing Question

6. Social Butterfly

What: Social Media Marketing Racing record: The number of active social media users is expected to reach 3.02 billion by 2021, according to Statista. And the average person spends nearly 2.5 hours on social media each day. If you want to meet your audience on their turf, social media marketing needs to be a part of your content marketing betting strategy. Because social media allows you to share content on a channel where your audience spends a great deal of time each day, there are opportunities for growing a following, building a community, delivering customer service, and boosting engagement. However, the social media ticket is evolving thanks to a few scandals, abuse concerns, and platform changes to aimed at enhancing the user experience. So, if you’re getting ready to double-down on your bet, go in with eyes wide open. Odds: Savvy B2B marketers said goodbye to organic-only social strategies built on “post it and they will come” a long time ago. But still, Social Butterfly can be a great community building tool for B2B brands if you’re providing relevant, thoughtful, and valuable content and insights. via GIPHY Take the time to research your audience’s content consumption preferences (e.g. leverage your website and social analytics, survey your existing customer base, etc.) to uncover patterns and top content types, as well as gauge which platforms deserve your care and attention.

7. Dapper Don Draper

What: Digital Advertising Racing record: Organic visibility and reach are anything but guaranteed on today’s content marketing track. But digital advertising can give you a competitive edge, supplementing your organic efforts at every stage of the buyer’s journey. Studies have shown digital ads to be an effective method of top of funnel lead generation and awareness with findings like:

• Mobile search ads can increase brand awareness by 46%.
• Businesses see an average ROI of 100% with Google Ads.

However, it’s important to note that a quarter of U.S. internet users blocking ads. The good news is that the real beauty of Dapper Don Draper is it’s versatility, with options including native text and video advertising, paid social, search, and display. Odds: With clearly defined objectives and the right content, Dapper Don Draper is a well-placed wager. Whether you’re breaking into a new market and need some quick brand awareness wins or you’re promoting a new interactive influencer asset, Triple D can help your other efforts win, place, and show. For the highest probability of generating results with your digital advertising, it’s important to use all of the audience targeting features available to you. In addition, native advertising units are very effective as they appear similar to the other content on the page.

8. Black, White & Gray All Over

What: SEO Racing record: SEO, which we’ve affectionately named Black, White & Gray All Over, has one of the longest and wide-ranging B2B content marketing records. She’s won some and certainly lost some, but her place in the B2B Content Strategy Derby Hall of Fame is confirmed. Why? Because as TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden has often said: “Content is the reason search began in the first place.” And according to Internet Live Stats, there’s currently an average of 40,000 Google searches every second. That’s the equivalent of 3.5 billion searches per day on Google alone. But search is growing more crowded by the second, with trillions of website pages already indexed and counting, and algorithms growing more sophisticated. [bctt tweet="Content is the reason search began in the first place. - @leeodden #B2BContentMarketing #SEO" username="toprank"] Odds: SEO is a fickle filly, with her training regime and environment evolving at the speed of machine learning. But she’s built for the long haul if the content jockey builds good rapport at all stages of the funnel. Increase your odds by regularly reviewing results and identifying opportunities to attention to optimize existing and future content to better match search intent, volume, competition, and more. In addition, look for white space that you can fill with relevant, best answer, SEO-informed content.

9. On Good Authority

What: Influencer Marketing Racing record: Influencer marketing, aka On Good Authority, burst on the content marketing scene a few years ago and has proven to be a rising star. In fact, Instagram influencer marketing is expected to hit $8 billion in spend by 2020. But that growth trajectory is not limited to consumer brands. B2B companies are also realizing the value of collaborating with influential thought leaders for marketing purposes and count the practice as one of the top 4 tactics planned for 2019. On Good Authority’s efficacy and worth have been questioned, but the results speak for themselves. (Checkout our cheat sheet of inspiring B2B influencer marketing examples.) Odds: Fast out of the gate with a strong finish, On Good Authority has great odds when it comes to increasing brand awareness, thought leadership, and even lead gen. But place your bets wisely. Topical relevance, for one thing, is absolutely critical. So, for the best chance of success with your influencer marketing programs, make sure you’re working with the right influencers that have the appropriate levels of expertise, relevance, and reach.

10. All That and a Bag of Chips

What: Interactive content Racing record: All That and a Bag of Chips is perhaps the prettiest horse in the race. It grabs attention. It encourages interaction. It improves the user experience. And it’s been known to work well with all of the other horses listed above. But just because this horse is a team player, doesn’t mean it’s not here to win. In fact, 87% of marketers agree that interactive content is more effective at grabbing attention than static content. Plus, one of our interactive campaigns drove three times the average share rate and a 500% increase in pageviews. Odds: If you’re looking to go bold at every stage of the funnel, All That and a Bag of Chips is as good as gold. To ensure that this horse is crossing the finish line first, consider pairing it with another horse in the race to slingshot it to victory. For example, create an interactive infographic, eBook, or influencer-driven landing page. You might just see your results compounded.

Place Your B2B Content Marketing Bets

To win big at the B2B Content Marketing Derby, the “watch and win” approach isn’t advised. You need to place smart bets on multiple horses, pairing them together and investing in different heats to hit your marketing goals. Depending on variables like budget, objectives, or time, any combination of the above contenders could win their way into your content strategy—there’s a time and a place for each of them. So, step on up and place your bets … wisely to win. via GIPHY Need a little help selecting your strategic bets? Follow this three-point checklist for documenting your B2B content strategy.

The post The B2B Content Marketing Derby: When & Where to Place Strategic Bets appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

The Impact of Twitter’s Proposed Shakeup on Marketers and Influencers

Twitter needs to change. This truth is acknowledged by everyone affiliated with the social media network, including its co-founder and CEO. Jack Dorsey sat with Chris Anderson and Whitney Pennington Rodgers of TED last month for a roundtable discussion about the state of his company, and the path ahead. Specifically, their chat centered on Twitter’s conversation health, and how to improve it. During the talk, Dorsey laid out some interesting ideas. Today we’ll touch on several of them — including one proposed shift that could fundamentally alter the platform’s very fabric — with an eye on the potential impact for B2B marketers and influencers.

The Continuing Mission to Combat Twitter Abuse

This issue isn’t new. I wrote last year on this blog about Twitter’s efforts to tame the trolls and restore civility to its discourse. At the time, the network had recently enacted a massive purge of fake and suspicious accounts, and was also launching a pair of academic projects regarding diversity of viewpoints. But eight months later, the underlying problems haven’t much improved. In the most striking moment of TED’s roundtable, Anderson confronts Dorsey directly about the widespread perception of an “all talk, no action” approach from Twitter. To signal the urgency, Anderson draws up a Titanic metaphor (a man after my own heart), with Twitter’s CEO as the captain. In this scenario, Dorsey listens reflectively as shiphands express their concerns about the iceberg ahead. “And you go to the bridge, and we're waiting, and we look, and then you're showing this extraordinary calm, but we're all standing outside, saying, ‘Jack, turn the [F-ing] wheel!’” Are Dorsey and Twitter finally ready to take control and change course? One idea he offered, in particular, suggests that a major transformation could be on the horizon.

Shifting Tides: From Following Accounts to Following Topics

Some of the possible changes hinted by Dorsey are relatively minor and uncontroversial. He wants users to be able to hide their replies. He wants to deemphasize follower counts and ‘likes’ on tweets. His team plans to analyze conversation health across four parameters (shared attention, shared reality, receptivity, variety of perspective), and… well, I find myself in agreement with Bill Murphy Jr.: “I don't understand exactly what Twitter hopes to do with this analysis.” But the bombshell of the interview came with Dorsey’s allusion to an entirely new structural underpinning for Twitter. Here’s the full answer he gave when asked about how he feels he can meaningfully shift behavior on the platform:

Well, one of the things — we started the service with this concept of following an account, as an example, and I don't believe that's why people actually come to Twitter. I believe Twitter is best as an interest-based network. People come with a particular interest. They have to do a ton of work to find and follow the related accounts around those interests. What we could do instead is allow you to follow an interest, follow a hashtag, follow a trend, follow a community, which gives us the opportunity to show all of the accounts, all the topics, all the moments, all the hashtags that are associated with that particular topic and interest, which really opens up the perspective that you see. But that is a huge fundamental shift to bias the entire network away from just an account bias towards a topics and interest bias.

As with his conversation health analysis piece, it’s not entirely clear to me what Dorsey is advancing here. Is the idea that we will no longer be able to choose who we follow, and our feeds will instead be based entirely on topical areas of interest? (For me personally, this would be annoying, because there are certain people within my areas of interest that I actively choose to follow, and some I actively choose not to. I don’t think I’m alone.) Or maybe it’s more about how Twitter’s algorithm serves us content outside of the people we follow. Right now, this does seem to be mostly account-driven. For example, you’ll see a tweet on your timeline from someone you’re unfamiliar with, and a message above will explain it was selected due to other users (i.e., “@NickNelsonMN and @CaitlinMBurgess follow this person”). Shifting this to more of a topical basis wouldn’t deter the ability to customize one’s own feed, and could actually be quite beneficial if done right. In either case, the marketing implications are worth considering.

What Could All This Mean for Marketers?

Without having an exact idea of what Twitter is planning (or whether it will actually implement anything at all, given its history), we can’t draw any definitive conclusions. But given our continual tracking of the ever-changing social media marketing universe, as well as emerging influencer marketing trends, a few thoughts do initially cross through my mind, and mostly they are positive.

Removal of Rancor and Vitriol Are Good for Business

One area where Twitter has shown demonstrable progress is in scalably reducing abuse. Dorsey notes that “about 38% of abusive tweets are now proactively identified by machine learning algorithms so that people don't actually have to report them,” adding that this is up from zero percent a year ago. It’s part of an effort to “take the burden off the victim.” Setting aside the snark, let’s acknowledge that this is an important step in the right direction. Twitter’s reputation as a cesspool of negativity and hatred can make it an uninviting destination for any brand. Legitimate progress on this front is undoubtedly a plus.

Topic-based Visibility Could Be Great News for Influencers & Marketers

Large or small following, more established and rising influencers are often dedicated to growing their profiles within areas of specialization. If indeed Twitter moves to start serving people more topical content, it could be a great way for these individuals to get in front of users who are interested in the subjects they cover but may not yet be familiar with them, or immersed in their extended networks. This would also make leveraging Twitter as part of influencer marketing efforts more appealing to B2B brands. Imagine if tapping an authoritative voice in, say, fintech not only gave you credible access to their direct following, but also to a much larger audience of users engaged with that topic? Topical relevance is of the utmost importance, ranking as a top B2B influencer marketing focus. Brands need to be speaking the language of their customers and reaching them in the right context. This development might present an opportunity to better align marketing messaging, expertise, and audience on Twitter.

Impacts for Those Who’ve Built Large Audiences Are Ambiguous

If Twitter were to follow the more extreme version of Dorsey’s vision — pushing aside the traditional format of following accounts in favor of following topics — what would that mean for the people who’ve worked hard to build their own personal brands on the platform? Or, for that matter, the companies that have accrued thousands of quality followers through relevant, quality content? I don’t think that’s necessarily what Dorsey was getting at. He might just be positioning this as a new method of discovery, rather than consumption. But again, he wasn’t especially clear and that leaves plenty of room for uncertainty.

What’s Ahead for Twitter and Marketers?

As always, we’ll have to wait and see whether Dorsey and Twitter back up their ambitious visions of upheaval, and to what extent. It bears noting that the platform has a history of launching capabilities and features that aren’t aligned with what users want (the new desktop layout being the most recent example). They’ll need to tread carefully with something so essential as how our feeds are curated. But with the company taking some undeniable steps toward curbing abuse and improving user experiences, while showing strong business performance and impressing advertisers in the process, Twitter seems to be sailing in the right direction. Fewer trolls and more substantive, expert content organized around topics would make the platform a stronger piece in any B2B digital marketing strategy. Stay tuned to the TopRank Marketing Blog for more coverage of Twitter and the social media marketing space at large. In the meantime, I invite you to check out some of these past entries on the topic:

• Will Twitter Succeed in Defeating Trolls? The Stakes for Marketers
• Twitter Has Renewed its Live Video Push & Here’s What You Need to Know

The post The Impact of Twitter’s Proposed Shakeup on Marketers and Influencers appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.