These productivity and copywriting tools can help you take your content marketing to the next level

In a year in which content will reign supreme, it’s very important to differentiate yourself from tons of the material that is getting uploaded on the Internet every single hour. It’s important, but it is also very difficult. Your content has to shine, it has to entice, and it has to be beautiful. Now, when we say beautiful we don’t mean it as an invite to go out there and b-dazzle pieces of paper, charts and diagrams. One example of 'beautiful content' is well-researched and organized content that has a structure and a flow. Another example is richly illustrated content that speaks to visual learners; every writer who’s worked on content for an infographic knows that visuals can do wonders in getting the material to really shine. A page of content completely devoid of grammatical and…

Optimise your customer journey to turn leads into sales

If your online B2B marketing is well tuned, a potential B2B customer that has conducted a Google search for a product, clicked on an ad, or read your newsletter and/or social media page, arrives at your B2B e-commerce site. As we all know however, simply reaching a landing page doesn’t mean the individual will stay there for long. In fact, according a recent Hubspot article, 55% of browsers will leave a site within just 15 seconds. Obviously, those numbers aren’t great. To improve them, you need to focus on what drew users to your B2B e-commerce site initially and where your site went wrong in meeting their expectations. After you take the time to analyze this, you can optimize the user journey to convert a visitor from a prospect to…

These trends will shape the ecommerce industry this year

Ecommerce business is on the rise, as online shopping is predicted to increase by 45% in 2016 in the U.S - see the latest ecommerce growth statistics. To stay ahead of the game or to grow your online business, you need to benchmark against the latest growth rates, both for overall business in a category for specific devices and then implement marketing strategies and tactics that work to achieve business goals. For example, year-on-year e-retail sales continue to grow with online sales up to 10% in January 2016 according to the United States Custora Pulse Ecommerce benchmark. So your online trading volumes could be 5% up YoY, but you are actually going backwards compared to the competition. We thought this infographic was a nice summary list of the top trends that will enable any e-Commerce business to grow in 2016 and beyond. Beacons, big data…

Involve Your Pets - A Strategy For Successful Content And Social Media Fundraising

Clever fundraising ideas for charity giving are a must these days, when people are rather jaded from years of the same old coffee mornings and bake sales. If you’re after inspiration for something a little different, that might attract new fundraisers to your event, why not lead with the new trend – pet participation. Content is key for any campaign and fundraising event, and a strong marketing strategy should contain priority content areas to promote. Cancer Research UK’s fundraising Best Paw Forward campaign in 2013 is a great example of this and could give you the inspiration you need to run a pet-focused fundraiser of your own and help charities with donations. Why is having a key content marketing strategy important to fundraising events? It makes sure you socially target the right…

Ensure your email isn't unloved, underestimated or untapped

I feel that often, charities are missing a trick or two with email. Due to its ubiquity and apparent cheapness, it is often not given the credit it is due. There are clear merits for charities using email, it is cost effective, it can be well-targeted and can enhance both real life and online experiences.

Barriers for lack of email marketing with charities

Looking at this in more detail, what are the barriers to success for charities running successful email programmes? Some of the reasons for this are: Email is not perceived as a valuable asset, particularly at senior level, so it is not given the staff and budget required to work successfully. Lack of joined-up thinking – often the email programme is run by the communications team but the valuable understanding of the audiences is not well understood (as this knowledge lies usually with the services and…

Enhancing the customer journey for your business by integrating SMS marketing

Understanding the journey your customers take is crucial to making sure you're providing the best possible experience. By mapping out potential journeys, you can better understand which customer touchpoints are letting you down and where there's potential for you to improve; allowing you to develop a comprehensive strategy for success. Mobile devices have had a significant impact on the customer's journey, with many relying on their smartphone to visit your website, compare prices, or read customer reviews prior to purchase. Add to this all the other mobile uses, like capturing an appointment with your business in their calendar or Instagramming a photo of their new purchase and sharing their experience on social media, and it's easy to see how crucial mobile communications have become. Customer journeys will always be different for individual businesses and customers, but to give you an idea of…

Apple gets in on the rush to open up publishing on mobile optimised pages

Importance: [rating=4] (For content publishers) Recommended Source: Apple Developer blog The Internet was built for desktop computers. Then, some smart folks made the internet available on all sorts of devices small enough for us to carry about with us. After a few years of explosive growth, mobile web browsing rose to become the majority of web traffic last year. Yet we were left with an internet comprised of sites largely designed for viewing on desktop devices. Plenty of sites were quick to realise the issue and implement responsive sites so they're sites weren't impossibly hard to navigate for their legions of mobile visitors. Whilst there are still some laggards, the transition to responsive sites is now mostly complete for larger sites. Whilst responsive design removed one obstacle for mobile users, it doesn't completely solve their pain points. Another big issue…

Overcoming objections to use of social media in not-for-profit organisations

Social media can be beguiling, stimulating, addictive, confusing and at times downright frustrating. In my experience, Not for Profits, like commercial organisations, are still grappling with how much valuable staff time and resource should be deployed to this burgeoning and proliferating media. In order to fully embrace and capitalise on social media often objections, real or perceived, need to be overcome to win over internal stakeholders. Common concerns include: Suppose people post negative comments about us? How can we control it? Do we need 24/7 resourcing? How can we prove that it works? Isn’t this distracting us from the important work we’re doing? Do we have enough content to be able to have a credible presence? Although charities face the same challenges of many other professional organisations, they do have some distinct advantages: Source of truth and integrity: Trust as we all know is very important online and, like all…

7 success factors for managing charity websites

Balancing the interests of diverse audiences of a charity site is a real challenge, magnified by the diverse communications needs of different teams within a charity. Given these diverse needs, it's no surprise that many charity websites struggle to communicate effectively and encourage interaction with different audiences. I have seen some truly compelling charity websites which we feature in the new Smart Insights guide to website best practice for Not-for-Profits and charities, but there are many more that don't, some with lack of focus shown by a confusing carousel or slider on the home page. In this post, I take a look at some of the common challenges that charities need to recognise before embarking on redesigns to improve effectiveness.

Management barriers for effective charity websites

Some of the key barriers to success that I have seen when working in NfP organisations are: 1. Lack of clear aims. Gaining a…

Google upgrades Google Analytics Premium into a capable Marketing Data Management and Analysis Platform

Importance: [rating=4] (For businesses who can potentially pay for Google's Analytics Premium features and service) Recommended Source: Google Adwords blog announcement Here we give you the lowdown on Google's new 360 suite and get some in-depth analysis from Google Analytics expert Matt Trimmer. As users of Google Analytic's Premium product will already know, Google has long provided a great range of analytical data to help you discover insights into your customers wants and needs. However until now there was no way of unifying this with other platforms in an easy to use way. That is what this new offering from Google, named its '360 suite' after the '360 degree view of the consumer', aims to provide. It gives you the ability look at a number of different data sets and offers new functionality all in one place, and integrates with other Google products like…