The Final day of our Successful Content Marketing Series
Successful content marketing is an "always-on campaign" – to do it right, you need to keep up an ongoing flow of content, so you’re always there when a prospect wants to join the conversation or asks a question that you have the answer for.
Here are three easy ways to keep the content momentum going:
1. Explode your assets: When you create a big piece of content such as an industry report or an in-depth white paper, plan and structure it so that lots of little bits can be broken off and used independently in other channels to promote and amplify – tweets, blog posts, Google+ updates and so on.
2. Brainstorm series of ideas: Don’t just look for one-off ideas…
Evolution, not revolution is the pragmatic approach to Digital Transformation
Businesses of any scale can generate huge quantities of data from their analytics – most of it with the potential to improve performance. But to realize that potential, to action the actionable takes time, focus and budget.
This research from the Smart Insights Managing Digital Marketing report shows that many businesses are conscious that they are not spending sufficient time on planning and optimization.
In organisations who have yet to embrace data as a vital marketing tool, getting buy-in for the resources to make it happen can be challenging to say the least.
As a digital transformation specialist, I often work with people at the start of their journey to a digital direct-sell business model. For them it represents a…
Understanding the pros and cons of Retina screens in email design
Children of the (higher) resolution - Every time I see an article or advert about Apple’s Retina Display, I have to force myself not to dismiss it as marketing guff and consider the relevancy. Let me explain.
As an email designer, devices with a Retina display are a pain. When I open an email I have lovingly crafted they make my pin-sharp graphics look a touch blurry, and that’s guaranteed to upset any designer.
In this article I look specifically at email design for retina displays, register for the free webinar with my colleague Darren for more insight on mobile design for Email.
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Day 4 of our 5 days of Successful Content Marketing Series with Sticky Content
Today’s the day you start generating ideas and populating your calendar.
Hold a brainstorm. Sit round as a team, look at what the competition are doing, look at what you’ve done before, look at who you’re trying to reach. Start jotting things down on Post-its: literally anything that comes to mind.
[Editor's note: Readers who don't know it, check out the Smart Insights Content Marketing Matrix which was designed for sessions to brainstorm content marketing].
At this point, no idea is a bad idea, but make sure you’re generating solid concepts and not simply coming up with themes. A good idea is specific, with a clear angle that can be summarised in a neat elevator pitch. A theme is an area you want to write about, perhaps many times. So…
Will Digits displace other email address-based user sign-in and authentication methods?
Importance: [rating=5]
Recommended link: Twitter Blog Digits announcement
This is another interesting piece of new jargon and associated tech that marketers need to ‘get their heads around’. Here’s a summary of my understanding. I’ve also gone a bit beyond the ‘copy and paste’ summaries of other announcements by digging out a couple of case study examples of brands already using Digits which show how important this could be as part of the overall digital marketing ecosystem. This is why I have unusually rated its importance as 5/5!
1. Digits is a new method of signing on to mobile apps and websites developed by Twitter. Twitter says it will reduce ‘friction’, enabling users to sign in to apps more readily.
2. Digits works by signing in with mobile numbers and confirming using an SMS . It’s similar to two-step…
My top 10 tips to help you secure your digital marketing graduate job
There’s something nostalgic about looking back at your time at University – especially when looking to offer advice.
Like that one time you were stranded in the library preparing for your last exam. Or the time you were rushing to print your coursework and realised you had run out of print credits. Frustrating at the time, but when you look back, there’s always a lesson learnt.
University offers so much, yet it’s often under utilised by students. This is sometimes only realised by graduating students when it’s too late to seize those opportunities.
So this is me, who has been there, done that, passing the baton of advice on to any Under-grad or Post-grad students who may be considering their future in digital marketing. The following tips are lessons I…
How to avoid those typical PR blunders
PR, like many parts of digital marketing, can be a numbers game. You try different pitches to different publications and hope that something works. Along the way, you make mistakes and you learn from them.
Below, we’ve spelled-out five of the most standard mistakes of PR outreach so you can avoid making them.
Mistake #1: Thinking news will come to you
It can be exhausting, but in order to get coverage, you need to seek it out. And today, there are more tools available than ever for low-budget, reduced-effort PR outreach campaigns.
'Info' and 'tip' lines are freely available online and more effective than you probably think, too and social platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn or software-as-service like MuckRack provide an opportunity to get in touch directly with people you might otherwise never have had access…
An interactive map for your new digital marketing job role
Do you know where your digital skills and passions lie, but aren't sure which digital marketing role to target? NeoMam Studios have produced a fun infographic to help you map out your skills with suggested roles. Although it references apprenticeships it also prompts thoughts about the right type of role for more experienced digital marketers
This will be a useful tool to use in conjunction with our recently updated Digital Marketing Job Descriptions and Roles Template to guide you through the digital jobs maze to find what is right for you or to build up a role specification for a new digital specialist in your team.
As you clickthrough you will have the chance to click onto the 4 skills at the end of your mapping and be…
Day 3 in our 5 days to Successful Content Marketing series
In previous days in our series we have defined a vision and strategy for Content Marketing. Now, today’s the day to start thinking about who’s actually going to put all of this together. You’ll need to work out who does what in your content team, and how much time and effort you can realistically muster.
At its simplest, your content team needs to look something like this:
All of the above roles could be resourced in different ways, depending on the scale and ambition of your operation. In some cases, several roles may be filled by one person wearing several hats; in other cases, one role may be taken by a whole team or an outsourced agency.…
Examples and tips to improve your conversion funnel for your persona?
Visualizing your conversion funnels, personalizing them for your buyer personas, optimizing their CTAs, landing pages, and other elements requires knowing things you may not know and testing new concepts.
Conversion funnels are the freeway systems of website infrastructure, with landing pages as on-ramps and exit pages as off-ramps; but also with a variety of bridges, underpasses, toll booths, and traffic cameras throughout.
MarketingSherpa shocks us with the statistic that only 68% of B2B marketers have identified their funnel. And, naturally, in order to optimize your funnel and explore the things that you do not yet know about funnels, you first need to define what your funnel is.
The Basics: What is your conversion funnel?
Theoretically, your funnel is the series of steps prospects take on their journey to becoming your customers. Graphically,…
