3 rules to inform your content marketing strategy
Many B2B companies are still adapting to the new opportunities of content marketing, and too many are still playing by the old rules. This involves with massively wordy, downloadable eBooks and content designed for the Desktop Era. Content marketing has changed along with the larger trends in technology and with shifting consumer preferences for how people access information and engage with content online, and your B2B content marketing strategies need to change along with it!
Here are some new rules of content marketing that any B2B firm can benefit from:
Make it "mobile first."
Mobile devices now represent a majority of internet usage, and many people are using smartphones as their primary device for accessing the Internet. But mobile devices aren’t just for teenagers or millennials, and they’re not just for consumers – more and more B2B buyers are using mobile devices to conduct research about…
In-app purchasing functionality and new 'web view' feature transforms Messenger into a powerful tool for making mobile sales.
Importance: [rating=5] (For ecommerce businesses)
Recommended source: Facebook Developers Blog
Yesterday Facebook introduced changes to its Facebook Messenger app, the most important of which for marketers is the introduction of a 'buy' button which will let users buy products via bots that exist within Messenger. There will be no need for the customer to leave the Messenger APP, the bot will be able the handle the whole transaction without having to re-direct to external pages.
To see how it'll work, just take a quick look at the short clip below:
Users can give Messenger their card details so it can handle payments for them (something many have already done for sending money to friends via the app), this reduces friction and saves having to fill in fiddly forms on mobile devices. Businesses will then…
The current state of the digital marketing skills landscape.
The results from our survey of over 700 marketing professionals are in! The responses have allowed us to develop a picture of the current state of digital marketing skills. They come from across the UK and US, but were predominantly from UK marketers, so help us to accurately understand the digital skills landscape of the UK marketing industry in 2016.
Marketers tend to fancy themselves as fairly skilled in strategy, content marketing and social media marketing. Although interestingly no one area had over 50% ranking themselves as skilled or highly skilled, and a considerable 38% also said they wanted to improve their strategy and planning skills. This was the skill marketers were most likely to say they wanted to improve.
At the other end of the spectrum, there is a real shortage of more technical expertise like coding, mobile marketing and graphic design. A…
Top digital marketing talent will be even more highly sought after in 2020
The World Economic forum has just published a new report into the future of jobs, looking at what the job market will be like in 2025. Spoiler alert: It's going to change massively. So, do you want the good news, or the bad news?
Bad news- over the next few years 5 million jobs will be lost to automation.
But the good news is pretty exciting for marketing professionals. The skills for which demand will most increase are skills which digital marketers have been working on for years, and marketing jobs are set to increase considerably.
Marketing specialist jobs are set to grow by around a fifth between now and 2024, as is demand for software developers, market researchers and computer systems analysts.
Sales related jobs are also in the top 5 most rapidly growing areas of employment. The report specifically mentions…
The key things to remember when developing a mobile app
In a world where 80% of Internet users choose their smartphone as their primary means of connection, there’s a need for creative and innovative app ideas.
The best news about this rising number comes when you break it apart. Smartphone use is breaking the age barriers as well. In fact, 27% of the 65+ population has begun using smartphones as a means of staying connected.
What that means to you as a creative entrepreneur is that there is no limit in the type of app you can create. So, if you have an innovative idea that can service the needs and solve the problems of any generation, there’s no limit.
You just need to commit the steps of getting your app from your mind to the shelves. Here are 12 easy steps to follow in order to do so.
1. Set an Attainable…
Over 40% of all ecommerce orders are driven via search (Organic+Paid)
While the US economy continued to grow at a snail pace of 1% in Q2 of 2016, one sector that is bucking the trend is ecommerce. Research from Custora shows us that online revenue from the ecommerce industry was up 8.9% compared to the previous year.
Breaking this growth down by marketing channel is where things get interesting.
It should come as no great surprise that search dominates the marketing mix. But what is surprising is the decline in revenue driven by Organic Search coupled with the 2.3% increased share for Paid Search. Why could this be? Are ecommerce brands experiencing a negative effect from any recent Google algorithm changes or just combining their search strategy by using SEO for reach and PPC to drive the conversion? I'd love to hear your theories in the comments below.
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3rd party sites can give your content marketing a boost
The industry buzz that greets Content Marketing continues at pace as the tactic that can help brands redefine their proposition and differentiate their position from the competition. Indeed it’s very definition has changed, been re-purposed and continues to be re-interpreted but it’s safe to say Content Marketing provides a foundation for your digital marketing tactics to be used in a more joined up, strategic way to help drive the company objectives and in turn it’s digital strategy.
But what about maximising the reach and engagement of your content and how do you continue to justify budget spent on your content marketing through analytics measures? Distribution of your content efforts is crucial and your branded digital marketing communications channels will be the natural route for engagement to customers and prospects. However, if your own branded channels lack the digital footprint to drive incremental…
Tricks are useful only if they actually work
As such, there are dozens of tips and trick out there on how to use social network platforms effectively.
Many of these tips just don’t work. Some of these tactics might have worked a few years ago. But as users change over time, so does social media. And some of these tricks never worked in the first place, even though they made sense. As new data starts coming in, we’re likely going to have to readjust the ways in which we use social media as a marketing tool.
1. More Hashtags Don’t Help
Most social media experts point out that using hashtags in your posts is going to drive your share rate up. And while that may be true, often times they leave out one very important fact. While one or two hashtags can have a positive impact, overusing them can actually drive followers away.…
Overcoming natural shyness on social media to encourage action
Today, inbound marketing is seen as THE approach to generate sales, particularly in B2B marketing. Directory listings, newspaper and magazine advertising, cold calling, all the 'in your face' marketing methods are dying a death - apparently. Content-based, relationship marketing is what we should all be doing now.
I agree with the benefits of the inbound marketing approach, but we should ask what happens if we move too far the other way? I have a real concern that salesmanship (or salespersonship if you prefer), in the B2B sector is a dying art and social media is becoming a crutch, for those less confident in their ability to sell. I want to make a stand right here and now and suggest that we mustn't lose this important skill and that social media can be used to support it.
Many articles advising on social media will suggest that social…
The latest GRIT report reveals that marketers and market researchers are embracing social media analytics more than ever.
Greenbook Research Industry Trends Report (GRIT) is conducted with market research buyers (clients) as well as market research consultants and agencies (researchers); it aims to track the research methods being used and how those methods are changing over time.
They found that whilst mobile surveys and insight communities are now mainstream, there is a wide range of techniques that are gaining widespread adoption, highlighted in the chart below.
A few years ago insight communities were new and exciting, they were threatening the use of research panels but now they really are mainstream. Brands are turning to their own research communities to conduct surveys, online/offline qualitative research, mobile surveys and qualitative projects. Social media analytics and text analytics are gaining widespread use whilst mobile for qualitative research is…
