When developing a mobile strategy there are a few considerations that should be incorporated and addressed to deliver high performing mobile campaigns.

The user’s experience and how they will interact and convert is a key component to making a mobile Adwords strategy work. A visitor is quickly making judgments about a page they visit, and Google is as well, since the Adwords system will evaluate your landing pages used in mobile campaigns by looking at how your pages translate when viewed on an iPhone or other mobile devices with full browsers.  You can set a mobile device preferred landing page for ads and even adjust server settings to show the mobile version of a page when the Adwords User-Agent visits your destination URL.

Ads are also critical to high performing mobile campaigns and the traditional ad creation process and strategies need to be adjusted to better serve a mobile audience. Since ads and search results will be displayed on a smaller screen, there is a stricter limit to the number of ads shown within the results page. Higher Ad position and having the ad show closer to the number 1 or 2 position increases the odd of your ads being shown.

Your ad message on mobile will also need to appeal to the mobile user and to do so; keep your description short, direct and relevant. A not so known trick is that Google will sometimes drop the second line of text and optimize the ad with the most relevant ad extension that is enabled. Ad extensions have been also known to help increase clickthrough rates as well.  Ad extensions are also factored into ad rank, so if two ads are competing and have a similar quality score and clickthrough rate the ad with the most relevant extension will appear higher on the page.

When creating your mobile Adwords strategy, as long as you focusing on the user’s experience, how your ads and messaging appeal to your audience and how your campaign and set up is perceived by Google, your mobile campaign should have no problem out performing others competing on the same keywords.  Most likely they never even gave mobile a second thought when launching their Adwords account.

The Tank showcases entrepreneurs pitching ideas to a group of potential investors. This infographic shows their formula for success, offering sound advice for business startups. It gives valuable tips and advice for upcoming entrepreneurs to either “sink or swim”.

Using examples from some of the best and worst concepts presented, both those that were accepted and rejected, it gives valuable insight for business startups.

It shows a greater failure than success rate, with just one-third of the deals from the series actually closed. This statistic is still far better than the national average of 80% of new businesses failing within the first eighteen months and only one in seventeen of these ventures saw a profit. Although these numbers may appear dismal at best, further examination of these key points will help to ensure your success:

Know The Need for Your Product: Vanity may play an important role in your product’s success or failure. You may believe your item is necessary for a marketplace that may, or may not, actually exist. Instead of being stuck on your product being a solution, it is recommended to look for the problem first, rather than a solution.

Always Be Prepared: Shared with the Boy Scout motto since the turn of the century, awareness and knowledge seem to go hand-in-hand with any successful venture. Often if you expect the worst, you are willing to embrace and accept something better when you are prepared for anything.

Great Ideas Are Made Successful By Great People: Apparently if you can sell ice cubes to Eskimos, then your passion for success is just as important as the product itself. The Sharks point out that in some circumstances, many of them were won over by the salesperson and their pitch, rather than the product itself.

Build Your Successful Network: If you do not listen to other points of view then you are condemned to evaluate only your thoughts and opinions. That may or may not be relevant in these uncharted waters. Investors bring more than pure cash, they offer their own experience, insight and important business connections to the table.

Know Your Negotiating Limits: Having unrealistic expectations can have you drowning in failure before you have even had a chance to swim. A successful negotiation must serve both parties or there will be no valuable outcome without benefit for both the investor and the entrepreneur.

Learn And Listen: Even if a potential client or investor shoots you down, often they can give you valuable advice or even connections to another possible success. Sir Winston Churchill said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

Sink or Swim: Here knowledge is deemed one of the most essential parts of a successful venture but many more attributes are necessary such as flexibility, passion, understanding and communication.

So how can you succeed in these shark-infested waters? Perhaps we can take some more advice from Churchill, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Never give up the ship.

Most marketers today are faced with the challenge of driving more leads that turn into more sales.  If you are not including video in your campaigns and leveraging them for SEO, you are missing a key component for success.  One out of four marketers say they use video in email marketing campaigns, but 43% of marketers cited a  lack of video content as a key  reason for not using video in their marketing programs.

If you can’t think of good ways to use video, here are a few ideas on the types of content that have been successful for our clients.  You can create video about your company, products, services, events, content, news, key employees, client testimonials, and even how to tips. Video can be used to supplement any type of content you  are currently using on your website or with your sales team.

Agile and strategic digital marketers incorporate affordable strategies that include video to drive traffic and increase engagement. Online video is a key component in content marketing that drives traffic, but more importantly it gives marketers the ability to tell a more compelling story that customers can identify with.

One example of a firm that uses video successfully is Dollar Shave Club. They have absolutely crushed it in terms of visitors and views with 8 videos on their YouTube channel and over 15 million views.

Here are six powerful reasons you should be using video in your marketing campaigns.

1. SEO. Videos can show up frequently in search results.
2. Sharing. Over half of 25-54 year olds share video -EMARKETER 2013
3. Popularity. .  90% of consumers watch online video -MEDIAPOST 2013
4. Engagement. Retail site visitors stay 2 minutes longer and are 64% more likely to buy than other visitors -COMSCORE 2010
5. Mobile. More than a quarter of the U.S. population or over 86 million people are expected to watch video on their Smartphones in 2014 -EMARKETER 2013
6. Reach. Youtube is the second largest search engine in the world with over 30 million visits per day.

So some of you may say that you’ve  tried video and didn’t see much growth in traffic or sales..  The secret to a good video strategy lies not only in having a good video with strong  content that someone would watch, but it also includes a good video SEO strategy. This starts with keyword research.  Finding the keywords that are a good fit for your business and have enough traffic to matter, will give you a better likely hood of being found so that your video is viewed and ultimately drive traffic from video viewers to your website.

All successful marketers should be using video to increase the impact of their campaigns and grow traffic through SEO.

Today, there are so many options for creating content for your content marketing program. From articles to white papers to video, there are so many types of content to consider, so how do you choose the best ones?

According to a recent survey by the Content Marketing Institute, B2B and B2C marketers ranked 27 different types of content that they use to find and build relationships with customers.

The top 5 types of content were used over three times more on average than the bottom 5 types. If you are going to plan a marketing program, it’s important to understand how to focus on the best.

Here are the 5 best types of content to use for your campaigns.

1. Social media – other than blogs
Social media should be a powerful part of every campaign and almost 90% of marketers are using it in one form or another. By posting messages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other properties, you can easily promote your content and drive traffic to your website.

Even though social media is used by most organizations, there is a vast difference in the effectiveness of social media marketing programs across organizations. An effective program starts with a content strategy that is aligned with your social media promotions and includes well-designed social media properties, an engaged and growing base of followers and a significant number of fresh postings per day across a number of social media properties. When done right, social media content can result in traffic, engagement and brand credibility as people find and use your social media content. Look to measure the number of followers, amount of engagement and number of shares to gauge success.

2. Articles on your website
The second most used type of content is articles on your own website. These may include articles your company writes and owns or content you purchase that may be reused on your website. Articles are used by over three quarters of marketers and are a very common feature of the resource section of many websites. These articles can bring fresh perspective to any topic. Third party articles that are “reprinted” online from a newspaper or magazine can add credibility to your company, product or service and allow you to build trust with your audience.

Articles written by your company can be used to explain complex topics and educate users in a voice that ordinary web pages do not. Articles can also be fresh content which can build SEO credibility and grow organic search engine traffic. Articles are often short, between 500 and 1000 words, and are easy for people to read and understand. These articles can also be promoted though the social media program mentioned above, which means that they can work twice as hard in your content marketing program.

You can measure the effectiveness of your articles by looking at how many views they get each month, and how high they show up in organic search engine rankings.

3. E-newsletters
E-newsletter are also used by about 75% of marketers. Contrary to popular opinion, email is not dead, and is often rated as the number one marketing tool. By combining good content with email delivery, you can leverage your content through your house email list and drive traffic, engagement, leads and sales.

An e-newsletter can be as simple as a single article sent through your company’s email account, to a professionally produced email template with multiple articles sent through a professional service. Since many people’s attention span is short, the most effective newsletters have well designed templates that draw the users eye to the best content and have three or fewer articles. You can measure the effectiveness of your email program by looking at the open rate, click through rate and conversion rate of the email. A well designed e-newsletter with string articles will produce good results and be an effective campaign.

4. Blogs
Blogs are used by slightly less than three quarters of marketing professionals. Blogs are easy to create, but demand a constant stream of articles to make them credible and effective. While you don’t need to blog every day, try to blog at least 3-4x a month for your blog to gain a following.

An effective blog will have a strong design that leads a user to a relevant call to action. Each blog article should also be tagged with relevant keywords to make the content easy for users and the search engines to find. Blog articles can be short, often less than 750 words, and they can also be less formal than other articles you post on your core website. You can get traffic to your blog by promoting your articles in your e-newsletter, your social media channels and by getting better organic search visibility.

5. Video
Video is the 5th most used type of content with about the same level of usage as blogs. People love videos online if they are short, well produced and clear. You can use videos to talk about your product, explain a complex issue, or even promote your content. Once you have your video, you can link to it from articles, your blog and other social media and leverage this type of cross promotion to build traffic and client engagement.

Conclusion
Once you’ve determined the best content to use, you can create a content calendar that fits your budget. If you build your core content marketing strategy on the top 5 most used types of content, you’ll be well positioned to grow your website traffic, leads and sales.

In a world of competing demands for the marketing budget, why should an organization create a content marketing program? Here are five reasons it’s critical to create and Content Marketing program today.

1)  The buying process has changed and customers are in control.

The Internet has dramatically changed the buying process. At one time, companies that sold goods and services controlled the flow of information to buyers. They provided product information through sales people in stores, at events, over the phone, and through outside sales teams in the form of brochures and other printed documents.  Sellers controlled the buying process through the flow of information and buyers often faced an expensive and time-consuming task to get the information needed to make the best decision.  The most important information such as reviews and real-life experiences from other customers was often the most difficult to get.

Today, buyers can get access to product and service information much faster on a company’s website, and they can also access articles, videos, reviews, white papers, e-books and other information that is provided by the sellers, their competitors, industry experts, amateurs, social media and even other customers.

Content Marketing lets you engage with potential customers by creating and distributing information that is important to your customers whenever they need it.

2)  You need to get potential customers engaged early in today’s complex buying processes.

It’s no secret that the sales cycle for most B2B products is getting longer and that there are more people involved in the process. Since every organization is under pressure to make good decisions and keep costs low, buying committees are created and include people from disciples such as engineering, finance, marketing and IT. These committees develop purchase criteria and evaluate products over long periods of time to make good purchase decisions.   Your sales team may only be engaged by the committee late in the process, but they are all consuming content to better understand your offering. If you wait until the end of the process when they are actually taking to vendors, you will miss the opportunity to influence the team as they set their decision criteria and even select possible solutions. By providing good and valuable content early in the process, you will be able to influence the team weeks or months before they reach out to your sales team.

3)  It’s critical to establish thought leadership and set the purchase criteria schema so that you win.

Good content is more than a nice product brochure or pretty web page. It can influence the buyer to establish decision criteria that positions you to win.  Well-written white papers or e-books that help the buyer understand how to diagnose a problem or understand a technology can help them, can be delivered in a way that features your strengths in the marketplace. These thought leadership documents are not written to promote your product, but designs to help properly frame the question. If you are successful in creating the framework for their buying decision, you’ll be much more successful when you present your solution to the problem.

4)  If you have content, you can leverage social media and search to cost effectively drive engagement, leads and sales.

Social Media and search marketing have become major tools for marketing professionals. By taking advantage of organic search traffic and social media sites, you can generate traffic to your website without paying for advertising, and this in turn makes lead generation much more cost effective. The key to success in social media and search is good content.  Search engines such as Google highly value new, original content on your blog and website when they decide on search engine rankings. In social media, it is the marketers with engaging and relevant posts, articles and videos who are successful in turning likes and followers in to website visitors and sales.

5)  If you don’t provide the content, someone else will control the conversation.

Buyers have many choices when they are searching for information to help them solve a problem. You may feel that if you stay out of the content marketing game, buyers will still engage with you as they did in the past. The reality is that they have too many choices to go back to the past.  If you don’t provide the content that sets the agenda and influences complex buying teams early in the process, you may find that are you left out completely when it’s time for the buyer to actually talk to the sales person.

In recent months, Google has been ramping up the upgrade pressure. Last October it launched a dedicated upgrade center with information and tools to make the process less overwhelming and more understandable.

Finally, in April, Google removed the beta designation from Universal Analytics declaring it ready for prime time. Yes, change is hard. Users can wait and allow Google to automatically port them to the new platform in August, or take the bull by the horns and upgrade on their own free will.

Here are five reasons you should do it now and not wait.

1. Remarketing is now enabled

This was  a favorite excuse for many procrastinators. But with its release from beta, Universal Analytics fully supports all existing Analytics services including remarketing and audience demographics.

2. User IDs: Tracking individual users across all screens

In a multi-device world, this is huge. Imagine one of your customers shopping at a competitor’s store then price checking against your website. Your price is better and she decides to hold off on making the purchase. On her way home she calls her husband to check the colors on their tablet and finally she gets home and orders the item, in just the right color, from her desktop computer.
In the old analytics, Each of those visits would be seen as unique and reported as such. Now, if you track individual users on your site you can share this information with Analytics and see not three individual transactions, but a single customer interaction.

3. Capturing online and offline behavior

Universal Analytics ability to accept external data allows businesses to track offline conversions as well as online. In the example above, if the shopper called to order the product by phone, the existing web traffic could be associated with the offline conversion.

There are limits to data sharing, so please review the policy guidelines.

4. Advanced Segmentation

Universal Analytics expands the variables that can be cooked into custom segments, allowing your data to be more user oriented and less visitor oriented. This is another valuable tool for teasing out specific user behavior and improving optimization.

5. Custom Dimensions

In the old Analytics, you were limited to tabulating the dimensions provided by Google. Now you are able to use whatever data you share with Analytics directly in the reporting interface.

Don’t hesitate, change is good!

As we all know there is plenty and I mean PLENTY of information on Google search results lately. One of the main reasons Google came up with the concept of “Google Authorship” is because it helps connect a piece of content with the Google+ profile of it’s author. The idea is that an author can build rank and trust (called Author Rank) based on the content they write all over the web. By providing “Author Rank,” Google is now able to filter out the duplicate content and now provide credibility to search results that include the author’s name.

Google already has a way to determine your expertise on those subjects and it is getting smarter at how it ranks authors and their content. For instance, if your content is constantly +1’ed and shared, it will be a strong signal that the content you create is of high quality and offers plenty of value. If you’re wondering why you should become Google Authorized — listen up!

Top 3 Benefits of Verifying your Google Authorship:

1. SEO Benefits of Authorship – Develop an “Author Ranking” which results in a ranking boost to all content you write.
2. Name Awareness & Industry Authority – Get your name out there to build your online authority. This will result in a much higher click-through-rate on Google!
3. Increased Connection & Engagement between an Author & Online Audience – Helps facilitate engagement with your audience, as people will now be able to tell right in the search engine which content you’ve authored.

If you think the benefits listed above are important to you and your company then please follow the steps listed below to be on your way of getting Google Authorized!

6 Steps to becoming Google Authorized: 

Step 1: Create a Google/Gmail Account if you don’t already have one, then add a Google Plus account: https://plus.google.com/

Step 2: Add your profile picture to your Google Plus account. (This is what’s used to display your photo in the search results.)

Step 3: Link your Google+ profile to your website: https://plus.google.com/authorship (Be sure to click the confirmation link in the email you receive.)

Step 4: Add the Google Authorship language to your WordPress website using a Google Author related plug-in (there are plenty out there, we currently use Google Author Link by HelpForWP).

Step 5: Send your web person your GooglePlus URL – So they can add it to your blog user name on the WordPress Blog.

Step 6: Verify that you set everything up correctly by using the Structured Data Testing Tool:

Happy Authoring!

“Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.” – Matt Cutts January 20, 2014

Guest blogging at one time was a great way to gain links, promote content and your brand. As more and more SEO marketers were hungry for places to post content, blog and site owners saw an opportunity to capitalize. They started accepting payments for content placement. This content in most cases had keyword seeded anchor text and links pointing to pages to help increase page authority, which would then increase rank.

Websites like Search Engine Leaks – have been outing services that engage in the tactics of content placement for payment. So how do you promote content now?

Guest blogging when done correctly is still appropriate to use. If the guest blogger is trusted and known in the eyes of Google then the likelihood of being penalized is greatly decreased. Google’s authorship is one way to gain that trust. The other way is to not have your guest post links pass along page rank. If you “no follow” your links when citing and referencing from your post you are still within Google’s guidelines.

In 2014 let your content speak for itself, if worthy and valuable, others will naturally promote it and share.

Why should I pay for social traffic though?  Isn’t the advantage that social is free?
It all depends on your goals.  If you’re looking to grow your follower base fast or get a burst of buzz for a big announcement, social advertising can help you achieve those goals for the right budget.

Can’t I just do this for free by pushing my social content on my own?
Sure you can, but there is no guarantee that you will reach everyone.  Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are vast networks with millions of users.  Their advertising platforms have grown much more sophisticated and give you options to reach a targeted audience on their networks that you might miss otherwise.  Remember: advertising on search was thought of as “free” too but businesses currently run extrememly profitable paid search campaigns while also optimizing for free organic traffic.  You’ll reach more people if you use both methods.

Why Would you Pay for Social Media Followers?
Think of your social media followers as leads that need to be nurtured.  They may arrive at the very early stages of the process but, like many other online leads, they can be guided and sold on your services.  Wouldn’t you be willing to pay a few dollars for a lead if you knew it was well targeted?  Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn offer advertising options designed to promote your account where you pay only for new followers or likes.  You set the bids, so you can assign the value that makes sense to your business to each new follower or like.

How do I know what social content to promote?
Once again it depends on your goals.  Both Facebook and Twitter have options to suggest content to promote based on existing engagements.  Or you may want to promote important content that has a limited reach on its own.  You can even use LinkedIn and Facebook ads to send traffic directly to your site.  If you have a relevant offer to promote you can use their ad networks to reach targeted audiences on Facebook and LinkedIn that you would miss otherwise.

I heard LinkedIn ads don’t get much traffic.  Should I just stick with Facebook and Twitter?
For sure Facebook and Twitter will get you more activity overall.  Recent updates to LinkedIn are helping businesses get more targeted traffic from their network.  Promoted Updates allows you to promote your content in prime real estate on the LinkedIn feed as opposed to the regular LinkedIn ads which are buried on LinkedIn pages.  LinkedIn is also offering the option now to promote your page and get new followers that way.

Social Media advertising is here to stay.  It’s likely that the social networks will continue to assign prime real estate to their advertising, so it’s best to get started in exploring the world of social advertising.  If nothing else get more familiar with the options available to you.  You may find an opportunity to reach your audience that you’ve been missing out on.

REGISTER HERE

Agenda:
6:00 – 6:45 PM: Complimentary Beer/Wine & Appetizers
7:00 – 7:45 PM: Keynote Speaker David Reske
7:45 – 8:00 PM: Q&A
8:00 – 9:00 PM: Networking   

Event Location:
Marriott Residence
370 Congress Street
Boston, MA 02210

Parking is available at the Stillings Street Garage for $10.
13 Stillings Street, Boston, MA.

We hope you can make it! Register today!