Content strategy approval – how to win buy-in for your ideas
So, you’ve completed the research and fully understand the business focuses and audience. You’ve created the personas, organised the brainstorms and come up with a host of creative content to set the web on fire. Now all you have to do is pitch the ideas and get the buy-in of your client or MD.
Easy huh? Well, not always.
Part of the reason this can be harder than necessary is because some people struggle to understand that off-page content, in particular, is not designed to be a sales pitch. (It almost doesn’t matter what you write about, as long as the article is interesting, and the link is relevant and appears naturally.) It is therefore imperative to explain the true purpose of each piece of content from the very beginning and…
Planning a mobile marketing strategy
'The year of mobile’ has been quoted many times over the past 5 or even 10 years as organisations tentatively decide if this will be the year to invest in their mobile proposition. A recent study by comScore suggests the dawn of mobile marketing becoming a mainstream channel is finally upon us with a recent report claiming that mobile usage (combining mobile web browsing and mobile apps) accounts for 60% of time spent consuming digital media compared to 40% via desktop. This suggests the importance of creating a mobile marketing strategy and in this post I will highlight some key components of this and case studies to illustrate where a mobile strategy has been implemented.
The chart below enhances this significant change in media platform usage since May 2013 to June 2014, displaying a fundamental shift to mobile browsing:
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What length of copy is most shareable across social media?
As we all put more effort into content marketing and our competitors do as well, we want to get cut-through, to maximise the chance of sharing. So, it helps to know the length of copy which maximises shares.
We like this research from CoSchedule since it isn't based on opinion, it's based on data analysing the number of shares from social media from 1 million articles, focusing on those with more than 1,000 shares in total... It showed that 'on average, longer content gets more shares’.
Source: OkDork.com
Of course, there will be exceptions to any rule-of-thumb based on a large data set, but this clearly shows that content producers who create more in-depth content will be rewarded by more shares.
Their research reinforces researchers found in the…
An interview with Nick Dutch, Head of Digital at Domino's Pizza UK
Nick Dutch is Head of Digital at Domino's Pizza Group Limited in the UK and ROI. In this interview he shares the approach used to help manage customer experiences for Domino's. He will explain their approach in more detail at the Smart Insights Digital Marketing conference.
Q. Please outline your role and how your team is structured?
My role combines all aspects of the online customer experience from media to conversion, both on the desktop site and in mobile. So, I’m responsible for all online marketing activity that drives people to the site and in determining the customer journey whether on our desktop site, mobile sites and apps or our communities on social media sites which are also part of how the Domino’s brand is presented in the digital space.
From a strategic point-of-view, I’m responsible…
Surprisingly plain text often out performs HTML Emails
When it comes to email marketing, there’s only a few metrics that marketers really focus on: open rates and clickthroughs. Without positive levels of these, marketers often feel like they have wasted time and effort creating an email that no one has seen or interacted with, and that’s a hard pill to swallow.
This is why marketers are constantly trying to find ways to improve on their email marketing campaigns in the hope that something – be it a subject line, content piece, image choice or header wording – will make a difference.
But something that marketers generally don’t seem to change is the format of their email. Comfortable in the flashy world of HTML email design, marketers may be missing one very important point – the plain-text email usually performs better.
Which has better deliverability?
The plain-text vs. HTML debate is one that has been underway…
People still love print – sometimes more than digital – so enabling good printing is essential for online marketing success
Internet marketers live in a digital world, but they should not forget printed documents. In this article you will discover:
Why print is psychologically important
How to ensure your website is printable
What printed documents are worth providing
Back in 1975, Business Week magazine predicted that we would soon have a “paperless office” thanks to all the new technology being introduced at that time. Of course, here we are almost 40 years later and the paperless office is still a distant dream.
Even in this age of instant digital information, where you are not short of things to read, the chances are you also have a pile of print to wade through. The notion that digital would replace print clearly hasn’t happened. Indeed, even though the sales of ebook readers have soared, printed book sales are…
How Wauwaa is creating valuable content to grow a community passionate about its brand
Tell me a story. Use evocative language, inspiring graphics, beautiful imagery and original sound. Tell me a story which draws me in and keeps me with you and prompts me to tell you how I feel about it. Tell me a story which I want to share with the world, and come back to you tomorrow for more of. Tell me a story. This, you see, is how we do things at Wauwaa.
Our business is e-commerce retail, that’s where we make our money. Our income is made from the sale of baby and nursery items online. But our content marketing is an essential facet of our overall marketing activity, and it feeds directly into our digital marketing strategy. As a result, our brand is about more than just…
Which are the most popular content marketing tactics used by UK Marketers?
We are all working to exploit the ''content marketing revolution' and are feeling the pressure of keeping up with fresh, engaging content. The Content Marketing Institute's report reminded us that there is continued growth to increase this year in the UK as 76% of Marketers are using content marketing more than they did last year, regardless of the challenge of resources to produce sufficient, engaging content. Content marketing was used by 88% of respondents, perhaps a misleading figure since the survey was completed by the Content Marketing Institute.
Source: Content Marketing Institute, 2014 Benchmarks, Budget and Trends report
What's behind the growth in content marketing?
Are we realising the ROI as we can measure the impact of content marketing on our…
Avoid the mistakes of video marketing by using animated videos effectively
Traditional video marketing is declining in viewing popularity – this post looks at what can be done to reverse this trend and highlights animated videos as a simple, cost-effective and highly engaging way to get more eyeballs on your video content
Video marketing is becoming increasingly popular with more and more marketers using videos to get their message out there, as well as competing for as many eyeballs as possible! In fact 50% of users watch business related videos On YouTube once a week.
But whilst we’re seeing a rise in brands creating videos we’re also witnessing a slight decline in people actually viewing them. Is it because we’re now being flooded with videos and it’s becoming a saturated marketplace? Or is it because this flood is marked by boring, 'me too',, non-engaging videos
The answer is both. But while the flood…
3 Strategic learnings for real time marketing
Value: [rating=3]
Recommended link: Forrester real-time analytics report - free download
Commissioned by MediaMath, the latest research piece by Forrester is well worth the time it will take you to scan to understand this emerging modern marketing technique. I think most marketers understand the concept of real-time marketing but may struggle to see how that works across the WHOLE customer journey (most people associate real-time with Social media channels, mistake number one! More on that later). It is certainly something I am still learning about especially the practical side of it and excited by the prospect of working with more clients on helping them on the journey.
Looking at the data shared in the report suggests the value that brands can get from real-time marketing.
So, the value is in…
