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5 Keys to Creating Valuable Content

February 7th, 2013 :: Monika Jansen

By now you’ve heard that content is king, and indeed, for many reasons it is: search engines reward fresh content on your website, valuable blog posts will generate traffic and interaction on your site – which search engines also like – and, most importantly, content will position you as a thought leader in your industry, which has numerous benefits.

So the question is, What makes content valuable?

Here are the 5 keys to creating valuable content:

1. Valuable content answers questions

What questions do your customers ask of you most often? How do you solve their problems and meet their needs? Answer these questions in-depth with how-to advice so your audience can do it themselves – just like this blog post!

As you answer questions, keep in mind the level of knowledge your audience has on the topic. Tailor your content to those who are beginners, well-versed, or experts, rather than trying to meet everyone’s needs at once.

2. Valuable content is written in plain English

If you want to engage your audience, write all of your content in plain English. It’s also a good idea to write in the first person and address your audience as “you,” so it sound like you are talking to your readers, not at them.

3. Valuable content is written clearly

Just because you are writing something in plain English doesn’t mean you will get your point across quickly and clearly. At the very beginning of your blog post, ebook, or email, explain the point of your message – and then back it up with further information. Finish with a conclusion that ties the information you just shared back to your original point.

4. Valuable content is backed up with data and examples

Add credibility to your statements and information by backing it up with data or examples. You can use data from your own analytics or major research companies like Forrester, or examples from your own experience or the experience of your customers.

5. Valuable content is actionable

While your insights and predictions around a certain topic or trend is useful information, I find that my blog posts that do the best and the ones that I enjoy reading are actionable, that is, they teach me how to do something new or better. How can you help people improve their skills and get better results, or just learn how to do something on their own rather than always relying on a professional?

What other elements make content worthwhile for you to spend time reading?

Image courtesy of Tumblr.com

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Tags: content, content marketing, Marketing, writing
Posted in Marketing | 9 Comments »

5 Content Ideas That Never Grow Old – and 5 That Grow Old Fast

December 28th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

HubSpot published a blog post earlier this year about “evergreen content” – that is, content that never grows old, is highly valuable, and is definitive. Evergreen content can be marketing gold, as it boosts search engine optimization, traffic, and leads.

Of course, you don’t want to publish only one kind of content – that would be boring. To ensure your blog is full of variety, here are 5 kinds of evergreen content, followed by 5 kinds of timely content:

Evergreen content

1. Curated lists: Think about your industry – what are your favorite blogs, productivity tools, books, product sources (like stores and manufacturers), etc.?

2. Your take on an industry topic: List your areas of expertise, and write blog posts about the right ways to do those things – and why.

3. FAQs: As your products and services evolve, you’ll add to your list of frequently asked questions (FAQs), but your answers to each question will not likely change.

4. History: While history can be interpreted differently, basic facts don’t change. A history of your industry or a product or service might sound dry, but it is likely filled with funny stories and colorful characters.

5. Tutorials: Basic guides are evergreen. Instructions on how to boil water, code in HTML5, and knit a hat will never change.

Timely content

1. Seasonal: Blog posts that focus on holidays, seasons, or specific dates have a short shelf life. Who wants to read about top trends for 2012 two years later?

2. News: Whether you’re announcing a new product or service or major industry news, no one will be conducting a search on that topic in a few months’ time.

3. Data: Because so much new data is generated every day, statistics around anything – sports teams, the richest people in the world, most visited websites – change quickly.

4. Opinions: It’s fun to read expert opinions on the news … once … when the news is still new.

5. Event-specific: You’ll generate views for event-specific content (industry conferences, the Super Bowl, the Olympics) immediately before and during the event, but not after.

Which of your blog posts have generated the most traffic for your website?

Image courtesy of dreamtimes.com

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Tags: content, content marketing, evergreen content, Marketing
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

5 Steps to Keep Your Sales Funnel Full

December 10th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

No matter how long they’ve been in business, a lot of small business owners are not very good at keeping the sales funnel full. You’ll do a marketing blitz, get super busy and focus on work. Because you’re so slammed, you will then ignore marketing and sales. Then your projects wrap up, and you’re back to square one – you need to do another marketing blitz.

The better, less frantic approach is to always be marketing – it’s the best way to keep your sales funnel full, especially if you tend to have a long sales cycle. Here’s a 5-step process to ensure those marketing blitzes become a thing of the past:

Step One: Create valuable information

Your goal is to first get people onto your website. Devote time each week to creating valuable content, like blog posts, white papers, eBooks, infographics and videos, that are full of keywords. Potential customers will find your site when they go searching for information on a specific topic.

Step Two: Pump up the SEO

Your goal remains the same: get people onto your website. Make sure your website is fully optimized for all the keywords you want to be found for, including location if that’s relevant. Even though it’s not technically SEO, use hashtags on Twitter to make it easy for people to find you.

Step Three: Convert Web visitors

Now that they’re on your site, your goal is to convert visitors into leads. There are two ways to do this: 1) If you’re offering an eBook or free demo, direct them to a landing page and ask for basic information before they can access the item. 2) Use compelling calls-to-action that direct visitors to do something – contact you, sign up for your e-newsletter, like you on Facebook, etc.

Step Four: Nurture and qualify leads

At this stage, your goals is to stay n touch with potential customers and build the relationship through social media and email marketing. Because you’ll stay top-of-mind, when they’re ready to buy, they’ll think of you first. You can also offer specials or coupons, to speed up the decision-making (on a personal level, this always works for me).

Step Five: Analyze your efforts

Your final goal is to simply look at your process and see if people are getting caught up somewhere in the process. Is a piece of content not attracting website visitors? Are people leaving your site when they reach a certain page? What offers are converting more leads into customers? Adjust, and continue.

What do you do to keep your sales funnel full?

Image courtesy of outsideinview.com

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Tags: content marketing, lead nurturing, lead qualification, Marketing, sales funnel, Search Marketing, seo
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing | 2 Comments »

What Influences Customers to Click, Read and Buy? The Answers Might Surprise You

December 5th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Do you use content marketing for your small business? Do you rely on the content on your business website to promote your expertise, attract customers who are searching for your type of product or service, or inform your audience? If so, you’ll be interested in Behavior Shift: Getting Content in Front of Consumers, a new nRelate study by Harris Interactive that explores how consumers find and use content online. The results might surprise you—and change how you design your website.

First, consumers are actively engaged in a search for content, spending an average of seven-plus hours per week looking for content. (Younger consumers spent more time.) A whopping 92 percent of adults read online content.

As you might expect, search is the number-one way consumers look for content—but what you might not expect is that “related links” at the bottom of articles were the second-most popular way consumers find content. Used by three-fourths (76 percent) of online content consumers, these related links were more important than social media or recommendations from friends in finding content.

While we’re hearing a lot about the importance of images in online content and social media today, some 62 percent of respondents say they’re more likely to click on a related link to a traditional article, as opposed to images or videos. However, 39 percent say they’re more likely to click on an article if it has an associated image.

The biggest determinant in what consumers click on after reading one article is quality. How do users define quality content?

60 percent say it’s from a source already known in the offline world
24 percent say it includes images
23 percent say it Includes author image and byline
11 percent say it includes embedded video

Purchasing decisions are most influenced by trust, and despite the prevalence of social media, nearly half (44 percent) of consumers say the information they trust most is content from a brand or company’s website. Content found via search engine was trusted by 31 percent, expert content by 28 percent, mainstream news sites by 20 percent and social media content from friends by just 10 percent.

While these results shouldn’t cause you to abandon or decrease your social media efforts, they do show that consumers are still influenced by traditional sources of expertise—articles, experts, and brands—far more than by social media.

Image by Flickr user Iwan Gabovitch (Creative Commons)

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Tags: content marketing, Marketing, small business, social media
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media | No Comments »

Visual Content Today and Tomorrow: What the Experts Have to Say

November 5th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

Marketo recenty published a blog post that included a video with the insights of 8 thought leaders on visual content – along with where they think it’s going. Here’s what they had to say:

Tim Ash, CEO at SiteTuners

Visual content is like what synthesizer music was in the early 1970s – everyone does it. Don’t autoplay videos or put sliders on your page with rotating ads that distract from your calls-to-action. If you do, our reptilian brains will take over and we will flee from information overload.

Matt Heinz, President at Heinz Marketing

Right now, you’ve got memes and great infographics. We’ll continue to evolve and visuals will get richer in content. We are lazy – we want something short. Infographics work well for that reason – they’re short and easy to digest. I think infographics will get shorter and even become series.

Jason Keath, CEO at SocialFresh

Memes are based on images, Facebook timeline is based on images, Pinterest is huge, and so is Instagram. Words are less important, so search is harder and monitoring who is talking about you is harder.

Nichole Kelly, President at Social Media Explorer

It is engaging, people like it, they share it. But does visual content drive revenue? That is what we’re trying to figure out.

Marcus Nelson, CEO and Founder of Addvocate

Content is king; it always has been. You need to decide where it is going to live and then direct everyone to one place so you have a central depository of content. Good content creates thought leadership and positive first impressions, and you can control it.

Jeremiah Owyang, Partner and Industry Analyst at Altimeter Group

Visual content is a response to the amount of data out there. Visual is an easy way to share information, but it doesn’t tell the whole story – so don’t take everything at face value.

Craig Rosenberg, Funnelholic

Visual content is going to be huge. Right now, in B2B, it’s terrible. We are still just getting used to writing thought leadership content. Most videos are awful and boring right now. What is interesting is taking those same core content marketing ideas and putting them in a new medium. Using video for demos or product training has done great.

Jeff Widman, Cofounder at PageLever

Visual content tells a story better than static text. Facebook uses an algorithm that promotes photos, so photos perform much better in the news feed. MTV found that their photo posts reached 6x more fans than text and generated 13x more clicks.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to start adding as many photos as I can to my Facebook posts! What is your favorite takeaway from these thought leaders?

Image courtesy of fightitoutlblog.com

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Tags: content marketing, Craig Rosenberg, Jason Keath, Jeff Widman, Jeremiah Owyang, Marcus Nelson, Marketing, Matt Heinz, Nichole Kelly, Thought Leadership, Tim Ash, visual content
Posted in Marketing, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

Content Marketing 101: The What, Why and How of Using Content to Generate Leads

October 26th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

Content marketing has become quite the trend this year. If you’re not familiar with the term, it refers to creating digital and print marketing pieces specifically to market your business to your customers.

The benefits of content marketing include:

Creating trust
Building thought leadership and expertise
Building and solidifing relationships
Improving search results
Increasing Web traffic and leads

There are many pieces of content you can create, repurpose and share via social media and on your website. In my opinion, the top 7 by popularity and effectiveness (but in no particular order) are:

1. Articles

Seek out opportunities to write for trade or general interest publications, both digital and print, on your area of expertise. Reach out to editors and propose topics that would be of interest to their readers.

2. Blog posts

Writing blog posts for your company’s own blog is great for search results – search engines reward websites that are frequently updated with new content. You can also seek out opportunities to guest blog for a partner company’s blog or an industry blog.

3. Case studies

Turn your projects into stories that explain a client’s challenge, your solution and the results. Case studies need not be long and technical – 3 paragraphs of 2-3 sentences each should suffice.

4. Enewsletters

A short, monthly newsletter is a great way to not only stay top-of-mind with your audience of potential, current and past customers, but also share your expertise and industry news.

5. Ebooks

Repurpose content from articles, blog posts, case studies, and presentations by creating an ebook in which you share tips, tricks and how-to’s.

6. Presentations and Webinars

If you hold or participate in events like seminars, workshops or webinars, consider your presentation part of your content marketing strategy, either by repurposing it whole or in parts.

7. Videos

Marketing videos can be entertaining, educational or a hybrid of both. When done well, a video will not only engage your audience, but also drive leads to your website.

What kind of content marketing has worked well for you? What would you like to try if time and money were no option?

Image courtesy of adrants.com

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Tags: articles, blogs, case studies, content marketing, e-books, e-newsletters, Marketing, presentations, seo, social media, Videos, webinars, writing
Posted in Marketing | 1 Comment »

3 Steps to Results-Oriented Content Marketing Programs

April 27th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

Those of us who call ourselves “wordsmiths” may be tempted to ignore or shy away from numbers. We believe in the power of the word and see the potential of well-written copy to get results in our marketing and communications efforts.

But, according to Chris Sietsema, even content marketing has a numeric formula for writing copy that is sure to get powerful results. In this article, I will share his formula for producing winning content marketing programs, based on lessons learned from the movie Moneyball.

Just as Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane used statistical analysis to put together a winning team on a limited budget, marketers can put together a winning editorial schedule based on three primary numbers:

1. Revenue

When brainstorming content ideas for your editorial schedule, the first step is to determine the concepts that relate to your company’s money makers – the products and services that actually bring in the bucks. Which topics offer the most potential for generating revenue? Focus on the questions customers and clients ask you about your products and services, as well as on how you provide them with value and enhance their lives. Create a robust list to refine in the next steps.

2. Search

Once you have created a list of revenue-generating content ideas, determine their search potential. Using a tool like Google’s Keyword Tool, validate which content elements will be searched for by your target customers or clients. As you use the tool, watch for additional content ideas you may not have thought of initially. What you are evaluating are the search volume numbers, broken down into daily, weekly and monthly metrics.

3. Social

Finally, you’ll want to hone in on the social potential of your content ideas because great content encourages interaction on your blog and social networking communities. Using social monitoring tools, such as Sysomos and SM2, will help you discover what content elements are generating conversations online. Metrics like tweets, blog post hits, and Likes, will help you track these conversations around your keywords. To get an overview of your social potential, add up the metrics from each media channel you are tracking.

Now let’s put these numbers to work. To help analyze your data, create a scale of varying degrees of revenue, search and social volume. A simple scale, such as 1=low and 5=high, will work just fine. This scale system will help you find the content that has the best chance of performing according to the three variables above. For example, a content idea may have a revenue rating of 5, but a search rating of 2. How might you tweak this idea so that it is search-worthy? Or, do you have other ideas that yield high ratings across the board?

After assigning ratings to all of your content ideas, it’s time to determine which ones made the cut and which ones to toss. The goal is to find content that is 1) relatable to a revenue-generating product or service you offer, 2) highly searched for by your target audience, and 3) discussed and commented on in the blogosphere and on social networks. The content gems will have all three elements, and some of your other content ideas may just need some tweaking to live up to their marketing potential. Fill your editorial schedule with only the best content ideas that are proven to give you a winning content marketing program.

How about you? Do you have a numeric system for finding the best ideas for your content marketing strategy?

Image courtesy of watch-moneyball-movie.blogpost.com

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Tags: analytics, content marketing, editorial schedule, Google Keyword Tool, keywords, Marketing, search, social media
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

10 Marketing Insights From Today’s Top Thought Leaders

April 24th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

I often find it helpful to glean insight from other marketers on current trends and new developments in our field. Recently, HubSpot gathered marketing observations, ideas and analysis from some of today’s best-known thought leaders. As I read through the collection, I was inspired by what they had to say. Here are my favorites:

Social Media Now

Social media changes at warp speed, as new technologies and best practices emerge almost daily. Here are a couple of observations that stood out:

Our ideas about privacy are changing. As noted by Seth Godin, a minority of people are concerned about what is known about them online, while the majority of us are redefining what is normal, as it relates to privacy.
Kyle Lacy observed that split seconds are becoming more important than ever. In fact, the split second capturing of a memory is often more important than the time it takes to write a post.

Smart Planning for Mobile

The emergence of mobile has caught many marketers off guard, so what do the experts have to say about preparing for it now?

Roland Smart suggests learning HTML5 as soon as possible to capture opportunities to integrate mobile into your marketing strategy on Facebook.
Scott Fox recommends getting away from your desk and stepping out into the real world to really see how mobile is being used by a growing number of people who are not desk-bound.

Online Content and Social Media

Social media has taken online content off the static webpage and infused it with the goal to generate conversation and to engage audiences more than ever.

Michael Lazerow says that content has the added duty of being sharable as well as interesting. It’s not enough to create excellent content; marketers must ask themselves if audiences will share it before they can publish it.
Cameron Chapman emphasizes the importance of verifying everything you write about, since content is being shared more than ever before. Misinformation can spread like wildfire on social media, so be sure you get your message right.

Divvying Up Resources for Social Media

Just when marketers thought they had enough social networks to balance, Google+ and Pinterest emerged, showing us there is still room for more online communities. How do we divide limited resources among all the social media channels?

Maria Ogneva suggests letting your customers be your guide. Wherever your clients, prospects, existing customers, and partners are, those are the networks you should concentrate on most.
Tom Pick takes it a step further by testing to find the platform yielding the best results. Study your analytics to find out which networks are driving the most traffic to your website, and make those networks your top priority.

Building an Online Community

Some of the best advice offered by the experts is to understand that social media is here to stay and is a powerful component of your marketing strategy.

Linda Bustos encourages marketers to think of social media as a marathon and not a sprint. Building a vibrant online community is hard work, and results might not come right away.
Priit Kallas believes that building for the long-term can help businesses stand out from the competition. He suggests focusing on creating customer relationships that can stand the test of time.

To read the entire list of marketing ideas, suggestions and insights, check out Hubspot’s 54 Pearls of Marketing Wisdom. What other ideas have inspired you recently, as it relates to mobile, social or content marketing?

Image courtesy of theorangeinkblog.wordpress.com

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Tags: Cameron Chapman, content marketing, Hubspot, Kyle Lacy, Linda Bustos, Maria Ogneva, Marketing, Michael Lazerow, mobile marketing, online community, Priit Kallas, Roland Smart, Scott Fox, Seth Godin, social media, Thought Leadership, Tom Pick
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5 Ways to Find Leads via Facebook

March 22nd, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

According to Entrepreneur’s Ann Handley, 70% of B2B marketers used Facebook in their content marketing strategy in 2011. While Facebook can help businesses generate leads, the process can be a delicate balance of sharing useful content and turning your community into customers.

Businesses should think of Facebook as a way to interact with real people on an individual level. Even if you’re a B2B, there are actual people behind the purchases your business customers make. To build your lead generation efforts, Handley suggests thinking of the individual people you do business with when you interact on Facebook, along with the tips below:

1. Start with like, then work your way up to love.

Before you can engage with your fans on Facebook, you have to get the like. That may sound obvious, but companies often focus too much attention on engagement without putting more effort on increasing likes. Few people will ever engage directly with your Facebook page after the initial like because they will engage with your content in their news feeds. Your page lays the groundwork for communicating with you and builds trust so fans will know you’ll provide them with interesting and useful content.

Once you’ve gotten the like, you can get fans to love you by offering special deals, promoting special content, and offering exclusive information on your products and services, all of which can help you generate leads. So lock down the like by including elements on your page such as video overviews, an invitation to test out new products, or a link to sign up for a free account – for liking your page. Once you get the like, the real engagement begins.

2. Use content to get leads.

Much of your content will center around providing useful and interesting information to your Facebook community. However, you should sprinkle in lead generating content every few posts to build your lead list. Offer an exclusive e-book for contact information, or promote your e-newsletter sign up to your Facebook fans. This process involves a well-balanced give-and-take, so you have to give as much (or more) than you ask for. The key to this balance is to provide plenty of free content such as white papers and videos, in addition to the content created specifically for lead generation.

3. Attract fans with a sweepstakes or contest.

Everyone loves winning, but B2B companies can have a difficult time finding contests or sweepstakes that work with their niche industry. If your product or service doesn’t lend itself to prizes, you may consider partnering with another company to provide you with valuable prizes that entice people to like your Facebook page. Your contest partner will also benefit from the added exposure and will likely attract many of its own new fans.

Just be careful to understand Facebook’s promotion guidelines before launching a sweepstakes or contest. Facebook requires that promotions be run on a separate page, such as a canvas page or as an app on a page tab, and does not allow certain communications to take place on your wall. Check out the guidelines here.

4. Make friends with EdgeRank.

EdgeRank is Facebook’s algorithm for finding the best content to include in users’ news feeds. Understanding this algorithm is crucial for staying on your fans’ feeds, and therefore, continuing to share lead generating content. EdgeRank loves content that ignites interaction and is relevant to the community. This type of content includes compelling and creative posts, with the occasional personal post thrown in. For engaging content, try:

Creating posts that offer value, rather than sales pitches
Posting at different times of the day and on weekends
Asking open-ended questions and inviting comments
Limiting posts to no more than one or two per day

EdgeRank also loves posts that include photos and videos, so be sure to mix up your text-only posts with these visually engaging ones.

5. Go beyond Facebook.

Take the lead generating engagement beyond Facebook by embedding plug-ins and widgets into your business’s website. Include Facebook sharing buttons in your emails and landing pages so people can easily share your offers with their own networks. An effective Facebook marketing strategy is one that is integrated with the other marketing tactics your company uses. Whenever you create a new marketing initiative or communications piece, ask yourself, “How can I integrate this with Facebook?”

***

Have you found an effective way to generate leads through your Facebook page? Share your B2B Facebook success story in the comments section below.

Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae

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Tags: content marketing, Facebook, lead generation, Marketing, social media
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 2 Comments »

How to Use Content Marketing on LinkedIn

July 22nd, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Using content to market with social media

In the final installment of this four-part series on using content to market and generate leads via social media, we’ll take a look at LinkedIn, which is, unfortunately, the most underutilized social media platform of the Big Three (Twitter and Facebook are the other two).

Sharing useful, interesting content on LinkedIn is just as important as elsewhere, but few people actually do so. Too bad, because LinkedIn is one of the best ways to generate leads, especially if you’re in B2B or B2G.

The reason: It’s so easy to find out who your target audience is, as they (hopefully) filled out detailed profiles when they joined. You know where they work, where they used to work, if you have any shared connections, and so on.

Plus, the people you are connected with on LinkedIn are people you have met personally via work, trade shows, conferences or networking events. They expressed interest in keeping in touch with you because they like you, think you could work together down the road, think you can refer business to each other, or just want access to your connections.

Some of your connections are potential customers, but everyone is a potential referral source if you are active enough. Share anything that positions you as a thought leader (company news is OK to share every once in a while).

What to share:

Blog posts
White papers
Articles
Press releases
Ebooks
Guides

Two more things to do:

Answer Questions

If you click on More in the top navigation bar on LinkeIn, the drop-down menu includes Answers. Answer questions about your industry on a regular basis, and you’ll develop a reputation as an expert and great source of information.

Get Recommendations

It is so easy to forget to do this, but routinely ask for recommendations, which lend credibility and authority. It’s a great way for everyone to see (in their weekly LinkedIn update) how awesome your clients think you are.

Image Courtesy: Flickr user crazyoctopus (Creative Commons)

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Tags: content, content marketing, LinkedIn, Marketing, social media, writing
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »