Content Marketing Made Simple

Does Your Social Media Content Annoy Or Engage?

Sarita Harbour — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:02:00 GMT

Do your social media posts annoy your readers? If so, you run the risk of a shrinking readership as your audience turns to other social media accounts where they can find useful, entertaining and compelling content.

With the amount of time that people now spend on social media, your business can't afford to post irritating content that could cost you readers. Neilsen's Social Media Report 2012 says that 30 percent of mobile online user time and 20 percent of personal computer time is spent on social media sites.

Identify and avoid social media content that turns readers off. Instead, concentrate on creating engaging social posts, tweets and status updates that will broaden your online audience.

When Social Media Content Becomes Annoying

So what annoys readers? Review your last week of Tweets, Facebook status updates, LinkedIn posts, and Pins. If your social media strategy includes some or all of these mistakes, it's time to revisit it.

Too many posts: A constant stream of social media posts every few minutes, is annoying even if your content is excellent. People are busy, and don't have time to sift through mountains of updates. Instead, choose your updates and time them carefully based on the data generated by your social media analytics.
One-way communication: Are you guilty of only posting hard-sales type social media updates? An occasional post mentioning a new product or sale that may benefit your readers in some way is fine, but readers quickly tire of the in-your-face sales tactics that some businesses use online.
Social media advertisements: Along the same lines, according to Neilsen's Social Media Report 2012, about 33 percent of social media users are irritated by blatant advertisements on social media sites. Remember, they are on the sites to socialize, interact, and communicate.
Useless or fluff content: Have you heard the expression "Content is King?" It applies to your social media accounts as well as website content. Readers don't want to waste their time scrolling through Twitter feeds full of useless, stale, or repetitive updates. Prior to publishing each new post, ask yourself, "Does this provide value to my readers or lead them to content that does? Will it open up a new conversation?" If the answer to both is no, it could fall into the "annoying" category.

How to Engage Readers With Social Media

Replace your annoying social media content with posts that grab your readers' attention in a positive and unique way, using language that inspires readers to take action and participate in your online conversation. Think of your social media strategy as a vehicle to drive a conversation with readers and potential customers, instead of as a platform for broadcasting your sales message. Look for opportunities such as these to create two-way communication and invite your audience to share their thoughts, comments and feedback. This keeps your readers engaged and involved in your social media efforts.

Customer Service: Social media provides a unique channel for site owners and businesspeople to provide customer service and customer care online, a convenient alternative to telephone or face-to-face contact. This is an excellent way to encourage reader communication via Twitter or Facebook.
Contests and Giveaways: Use your social media accounts to run contests and giveaways. Some businesses offer online ballots, discounts, or giveaways through Facebook once participants "Like" a Facebook business page. Engage your readers and use their creativity and input to develop new products, services, or even web content. For example, do you need a name for your new widget? Run a contest through your social media account and award a prize for the winning entry.
Reader Recommendations and Stories: A great way to get readers to participate is to ask them to share stories and recommendations on how they use your products and or services. As Neilsen's Social Media Report states, people are more receptive to reading about the experiences and recommendations of others than viewing ads on their favorite social media sites.

Create an Online Community Around Your Brand

Change your mindset about the role social media plays in your business. Instead of thinking about how you can use it to sell your products or services, consider social media an online tool for creating a community around your brand, and as a virtual meeting place to interact with your followers and customers. Remember to keep your posts short, and position them as conversation starters that compel your readers to respond. Once you change the way you view social media opportunities, it will become easier to think of creative, compelling and engaging social media posts.

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5 Easy Ways to Get Started with Content Marketing

Tracey Sandilands — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:29:00 GMT

Just do it! This well-known Nike tag line has been used countless times as a call to take action – anywhere, anyhow. It’s particularly relevant to content marketing, which so many marketers avoid simply because they don’t know where to start. With all the “advice” available about what/when/why/how and where your content should be, it’s no wonder people are stuck on the launch pad. If this is your problem, here are 5 steps to help you break the chains holding you back - without breaking the bank.

Make a List

One of the biggest challenges in content marketing is finding material to post. It’s practically impossible to just “come up with something” on the fly – even seasoned, professional marketers don’t try that. Start by making a list of the issues facing your industry. Each issue can provide subject matter for a series of articles. Break each one down into cause and effect, considerations, benefits and disadvantages – whatever constitutes bullet points relevant to the topic. Each bullet point represents the title of a different post.

Compile an Editorial Calendar

Decide how often you want to post and create a calendar highlighting the dates. Start with once a month if that’s all you can handle, but build in a planned escalation to bi-monthly or weekly during the year ahead. Insert holidays and dates important to your industry, such as an annual convention or a seasonal shift.

Next, allocate topics pertinent to the important dates. For example, if your business is retail then the holidays are probably a busy time. One issue facing your industry could be inventory management, so this could be relevant a month ahead of the silly season.

Determine when you want to post:

If you target consumers, posting on a weekend is okay. In the B2B space, however, posting Monday to Thursdays before 3 pm is generally the best time to reach users.
If you want to publish the post on Thursday, insert it in the calendar to begin working on it on Monday to give yourself enough time.

Plan at least your first three months ahead, and you’ll feel confident that you have content way ahead of time.

Create a Blog

It’s not as difficult as it sounds, nor does it have to cost you anything. The ideal is a blog on your company website that conforms to the design of the site, which your website designer can probably create easily. Alternatively, register for a free blog with Wordpress or Blogger, upload your company logo and a relevant header image, and link to it from your website.

Try to include frequently-used key terms in your posts, but the main thing is to post information of interest to your customers. Write for the reader, not the search engines, and forget about so-called keyword optimization which is rapidly becoming defunct. And above all, don’t use marketing-speak in your posts. You’re writing an article, not a sales brochure!

Develop Other Content Channels

Content comes in a variety of formats, and you can use many of them simply by curating material published by others. As long as you get the appropriate permissions, give credit to the originators and link their sites so you aren’t “stealing” their traffic, then all the following will benefit your content strategy:

News articles
White papers
Video
Podcasts
eBooks
Case studies

The best way to publish material that isn’t your own is to rewrite it, citing the original as the source of the information. Alternatively, you can re-post the heading, byline and synopsis, with a link to the original for users to read the rest.

Distribute on Social Media Profiles

So it’s great to publish all this content, but how do you get people to read it? Social media profiles are an excellent way to spread news about your material. Create a branded Facebook page and Twitter account, and LinkedIn is also useful in B2B. For businesses that produce great imagery, Pinterest could work well too. If you have some budget, build up your followers with paid social media ads. Each time you upload fresh content, post on your profiles with a link to the information. That keeps your followers informed about the content you post and makes it simple for them to access it to read.

Content marketing isn’t complicated; it doesn’t have to be expensive and you don’t have to be a writer or website buff to get started. Just follow these easy steps and you’ll be producing quality content in no time at all.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

5 Ideas For Creative Visual Content Marketing

Rachel Terry — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:53:00 GMT

Visual marketing is blowing across the Internet like a game-changing storm. You've seen interesting photos on social media, links to infographics on Twitter, and images with QR codes in print media. You may even have seen television commercials with stunning images but no words.

Creative marketers will pay attention to this trend because people are word-exhausted and ready for a change, and visual content is the balm that heals those weary media consumers. Give them what they want. Here are five creative ways to market with visual content.

1. Infographics. The Internet is so saturated with words that it's easy to lose exhausted readers. Infographics are the antidote for word saturation. A cleverly done infographic can condense massive amounts of information and present them in an interesting, memorable way. Expert educators tell us that people remember about 20% of what they read, but 83% of learning occurs visually. Not only will you be able to get your messages across, but those who view it will remember the message better. Their minds will have an image to grasp onto when they think about your product or service. Infographics can be included on websites and blogs, and they're ideal for posting on social media networks, especially on Pinterest and Facebook.

2. Photos on Social Media. Does your product or service seem removed from humanity? Starbucks solved this problem by posting photographs of employees, customers, and community advocates participating in the Starbucks Global Month of Service project. Not only will your Facebook fans see you in a more personal way, but they'll share the photos, especially if they see themselves in them. Does your business participate in local fairs or events? Take photos at the event, and post them as soon as possible--ideally while you're still at the event and can comment: "Enjoying the sunshine at the County Fair with Mayor Cleburne and Girl Scout Troop 2553!" I guarantee that every girl scout in the picture will post the photo on her wall.

3. Images with QR Codes. Producing physical visual content can be a way to move customers from a locale to the Internet. Let's say you set a display sign outside your electronics store with a stunning picture of a brand new gadget. No words, no price, no description--just the image. The only non-image item on the display sign is the QR code in the top corner. Out of sheer curiosity, people will scan the QR code, and you will have moved them from casual passersby to potential customers with an interest in your product. On the website they're directed to, you can include details about the product, videos, links, and store hours.

4. User-generated Content. A local sandwich shop, Which Wich, found a way to get their customers to produce visual content for them. Anyone who climbed a Fourteener (a mountain over 14,000 feet tall) and took a picture of themselves at the top holding a Which Wich sandwich bag would get a free sandwich. In addition, any customer at the shop can draw a picture on a sandwich bag and hang it on one of the cable clotheslines on the restaurant walls. Which Wich employees take pictures of the best sandwich bag artwork and upload them to Flickr. Anytime you get users to generate visual content for you, you have users with vested interests in your products, and you also widen your social networking reach.

5. Go for Bold and Glossy. Whatever visual content marketing images you produce, make them beautiful. That doesn't mean you have to use stock photos of people with unearthly white teeth, but get a decent camera and learn how to use photo editing software. When you're competing with millions of other websites and social media posts, your visual content needs to stand out. If you're posting product images, make your products look stunning. If you're producing infographics, make them look bright, neat, and professional. Humans love beauty. Give them some, and they'll pay attention to you.

Visual content marketing is sweeping the Internet, so don't delay adding this important component to your marketing repertoire. Begin today by posting more photos and infographics to your company's website and social media networks. Then make a plan for more creative and sophisticated visual content marketing campaigns like the one used by Which Wich. Visual content marketing takes more thought than resources, which makes it perfect for new start-ups or companies who are operating their marketing on a shoestring. Catch the vision, and watch your traffic increase.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

5 Cures For Painfully Boring Marketing Content

Flora Richards-Gustafson — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:55:00 GMT

So, you think your marketing content is awesome, but no one seems to be interested. The cold, hard truth may just be that it’s boring. Sorry. However, you’re not alone. Most of the marketing content that you find online is lame. And, if you can’t grab a person’s attention in less than five seconds, you can bid farewell to their business because they’ve probably already clicked the “back” button on their browser.

To make your marketing content succeed, Geoff Livingston shares in a Copyblogger article that your materials have to “rise above the noise.” Here’s a look at how you can make your content interesting, less boring, more captivating and worth sharing:

Stop appearing self-centered. One of the biggest content marketing pitfalls is focusing on the person, site, product or company that you’re pushing instead of the audience. If you take a look at the online marketing content that you find boring, there’s a good chance that it’s about how great a product, service or site is, and reasons why. With all the bad content that’s hijacked the Internet, consumers usually don’t care about what you have to say about a company, product or service. There’s too much “I,” “we,” “us” and “our” type of language. Instead, focus on your listeners, viewers or readers, and offer a solution to their problems or needs. For example, instead of saying, “We’re the number one source of wacky toys online,” try, “Find something unique for everyone on your gift list—even the hardest to please.”
Know your target audience. You can’t please or appeal to everyone, so the trick is to appeal to those who are most likely to want the product or service that you’re marketing. Who are these people? If you don’t know, you can’t offer anything of interest or value very well. When you have a clear picture of your target consumer—age, gender, economic status, hobbies, etc.—you’re marketing will directly appeal to them. It’s better to focus on a group than cast a wide net.
Be helpful. Adding value to your content helps you gain consumer trust and become interesting to the right audience, according to Corey Eridon in an article for HubSpot. Consumers like to educate themselves and learn from their peers, making your content a prime way to facilitate these habits. Being helpful and expecting nothing in return is a great way to attract your target without adding any fancy bells and whistles. When you help your customer solve their pain points, you’ll see higher conversion rates. Ways to be helpful include creating how-to guides, tip sheets, FAQs or best-of lists. For example, if you’re promoting cake decorating accessories, helpful content could include a series of cake recipes.
Keep it simple. Everything that you offer needs to appear user-friendly. Save the jargons and your advanced vocabulary skills for technical items. The best way to instantly turn off your audience and bore them is with overwhelming marketing content (or content that appears overwhelming). This is particularly true for written content. Break up big chunks of text into smaller paragraphs. Make the content simple to scan by using bullet points, lists and bold headings or introductory points. In this article, for example, you see a numbered list and a bolded sentence at the beginning of every tip. This helps you quickly scan and identify the information you seek.
Don’t be afraid to add a dash of humor. Adding humor to your marketing content can make even the most boring topic more interesting and keep your audience’s attention longer. Plus, if you do it right, the content will stand out from the competition. Now and then, don’t be afraid to add relevant colloquial terms, use pop-culture references, crack a joke, be a little sassy, insert a funny story, use popular memes or add a funny picture that drives home the point. When adding humor to your content, it has to seem natural, not faked or like you’re trying too hard to be funny. Don’t know how to be funny? That’s OK. Marketing expert B.L. Ochman shares on her blog, What’s Next?, that if you’re not sure how to add humor to your content, be helpful (tip 3); your audience will appreciate it.

Boring content marketing—it can happen to anyone. The interesting thing about bad content is that the perpetrator is also the victim. Boring content makes consumers waste a bit of time (no biggie), but it ultimately hurts your bottom line (yowch). Fortunately, it’s never too late to convert the snooze-worthy into something your audience will find engaging.

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4 Festive Holiday Content Marketing Strategies

Tracey Sandilands — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:49:00 GMT

The holidays are one of the best shopping times of the year for most retail businesses, whether they sell out of a physical location or from an online store. Even those that don’t sell online do much of their marketing in the digital space, so driving traffic becomes a vital part of their holiday program. From electronics to food, clothing and camping gear, inbound marketers do everything they can to encourage prospective customers to come looking for them, generate desire for their products and choose their company over the competition.

Here are four ways to ramp up your content marketing ahead of the festive season.

Social Media Mania

It’s not a myth! Internet thought leaders at Gartner predict that by 2015, a full 50% of online sales will be generated through social media. It’s already begun; according to a September article in Forbes, IBM reported almost 70% increase in sales from social networks referrals in the back-to-school rush this year.

To showcase your holiday content, use options such as:

Facebook Gifts, which lets customers buy gifts from inside the social network
Pinterest, where you can display images of your products with direct links to buy from your online store
Virtual catalogs, which you can set up yourself using apps and link to from all your social media profiles
Twitter’s Promoted Accounts option, which shows up your profile for users to follow if they have similar interests.

Use your social media profiles to encourage holiday buying through publishing customer reviews, engaging your followers in discussions about your products, contests, special deals and promotions, and responsive customer service right on your page.

Festive Blogging Basics

Blogs remain the pivot on which content marketing hinges and it’s likely to stay that way for some time, so make your blog festive:

Change up the look! If you’ve ever been to Macy’s during the holidays, you know what a difference holiday decorations can make. It’s no different online; zoosh up your website and blog in readiness for the season. Add some bells and whistles, snowflakes and Santas, or whatever is appropriate for your target market. Google does it too, with holiday doodles that users love, share and talk about.
Work “holiday-speak” into your content, with blog posts that generate excitement, count down the days to special events, or remind readers regularly about the gifts they need to buy.

Drive buyers from your blog with deep links that take them directly to specific products. If you sell Christmas gift wrap, for example, link your blog post on the history of wrapping gifts directly to that product. Most users hate nothing more than clicking through to your store and having to search for the item they thought they were getting.

Email Energy

Email marketing is still one of the most powerful ways to reach your existing and prospective customers with news and deals. The secret to success is having your promotional emails opened because of an impossible-to-ignore subject line, and then getting click-throughs to your store using infallible links.

Create an editorial calendar for your email marketing campaign that allocates promotions to specific dates, such as announcing the arrival of your gift catalog or guide, a date before which free shipping applies or a red-hot special offer coupon. Then, for those who leave shopping to the 11^th hour, add a “last chance” option with special delivery to get there in time.

Adopt a Cause

In Western culture, Christmas ‘tis the season of goodwill, charity and sharing. It’s a time to think of those less fortunate than ourselves and to show solidarity with our fellow humans. Adopting a charitable cause is a great way to generate holiday-related content, win over the hearts and minds of your customers (and hopefully their wallets, too!) and do something good for someone deserving.

“Cause marketing” is particularly effective when it’s tied to something your target audience relates strongly to, such as:

A computer literacy cause for retailers of electronics
Learning to read for book retailers
A Toy Drive for toy sellers
Building winter kennels for outside dogs for pet supply companies.

Few things build up loyalty among customers as much as giving to a worthy cause does, and implementing this during the period when customers are actively looking to buy gives them a reason to choose your products over your competitors. It also gives you lots to tweet and Facebook about, a topic for press releases and images to pin.

Building up your festive content is also cost-effective. Chances are good that much of it can be repurposed again next year, saving you money and time in the long term. Happy holidays!

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Content Marketing: Generosity Makes the Sale

Rachael Priest — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 14:04:00 GMT

I grew up as a member of a lower-middle class income family in a tiny community out in the sticks in the South. My dad worked a 12-hour rotating shift job and my mom took care of the home. We didn’t have everything we wanted, but I never remember ever needing anything and not having it.

You see, my family, little as we had, always believed that we were blessed and should give to others less fortunate whenever we could. It certainly never made us millionaires, but I believe this heart of charity is what ensured that we never wanted for anything. There was always a way to fill our needs, whether it was a family member’s harvest that was more than bountiful or a generous gift from a friend.

If you’re wondering just now what my trip down memory lane has to do with the sales of your company, you’re in for a treat. It is the spirit of generosity, and what that spirit can do for your success, that I’d like to explore with you. I remember my mother saying that we were given two hands: one with which to give and the other with which to receive. My family was a part of a community—a community that looked out for each other. We gave and we received in accordance to when the time was right for either.

Giving and Receiving in the Business World

The concept of generosity is such a simple one, and one that I have found applies to virtually any situation you can imagine. In short, generosity works. It’s good for those with whom you are sharing and it’s good for you. Let me elaborate.

Everyone knows that a business is in business to make money. That’s no great shock. When you solicit business from a person, they know that you are ultimately after their money. You have your hand outstretched to receive. There’s nothing wrong with that—it’s the way our economy works.

However, that person wants to know what you are willing to give with your other hand. Is it just a product or service, or do you offer something more? Are you offering something that has intrinsic value or that has more value than the same thing offered by your competitors? In essence, this person wants to know why it is worthwhile to do business with you as opposed to doing business with someone else.

How to Give to Your Customers

Did you know that it is possible to be exceedingly generous with your customers without investing any money at all? The easiest, and most obvious, is simply to offer outstanding customer service. However, when you are operating a business online, it’s easy to become detached from what this means or even how you can use this concept to stand out from your competitors.

With that in mind, the easiest, and most effective strategy is offering information. We’re not just talking about your sales copy either—we’re talking about lots and lots of valuable information that addresses the needs, concerns, and curiosities of your consumer base. So how do you give information out generously?

To start, you’ll want to seriously consider running a blog. This is where you can offer a wealth of valuable insights that will be available on tap for anyone who is interested. It also helps when you move on to the next step, which is seeking out ways to give your expertise and knowledge to others.

Read other blogs and the comments there. Answer questions and, if you have a blog post or article that addresses the subject, provide a link. Join social networking groups and do the same. Become active on relevant forums and give away your knowledge freely. You can even frequent popular Internet question-answer sites, such as Yahoo! answers, and offer up your wisdom there.

Volunteer your time to local news publications or other media outlets by offering to do an interview. Be as thorough and forthcoming during your interview as possible. You may also be able to do this with online media outlets.

Why All of This is Good for Your Bottom Line

Your most immediate benefit from being so generous is the fact that your name and the link to your site is being circulated and becoming more well known. More than that, however, is the fact that people will see that you are interested in more than money; you are interested in their needs. And that is something quite powerful for your sales.

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From Likes To Leads: The Power Of A Social Media Content Strategy

Jody Pellerin — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 14:24:00 GMT

They like you; they really, really like you. But have they become leads and customers? Have they gone beyond hitting that “like” button on your blog post, article, or other piece of content to giving you some of their information in return, telling you that they are receptive to more content on the same topic? Or to a sales call?

If not, then you do not have engagement, response, or conversion. You just have a pat on the back that says, “Thanks, you made a good point.” There is nothing that causes the individuals clicking “like” to go any further down your sales funnel. Social Media Today calls this the endpoint of the first generation of social. It doesn’t build a relationship; it is simply another form of outbound marketing. Nothing about a “like” tells you whether that person wants more information or is even in the market for your product or service.

You need to create confidence in your potential lead, according to Make Social Media Sell. Your content in the social media sphere must not only engage but must have a call to action to spur response. Each piece of information you give them must nudge them toward taking a specific step in the sales process by making them “crave” more and deeper information. This, in turn, makes them feel more knowledgeable about what they need to solve their problem and more secure that you are the one who can help the most.

This advice is not new. It just bears repeating often: social media marketing is more than building awareness by broadcasting the brand, offering sage advice, or sending an automatic thanks to someone’s response. Your content strategy needs to address more than just showing thought leadership or asking for permission to market. It must guide the reader or viewer through your funnel using content in exchange for information that will help you understand the needs of a prospect so well that your next pieces of targeted content will lead him through the tunnel toward customer acquisition.

Great content has been likened to honey for bees but it is more like breadcrumbs that keep the prospect engaged with you. Each breadcrumb should be the answer to a question, or provide a “tease” if you will, that the solution to his problem is available ahead. The better your answers, the more confident the prospect is that you have the knowledge to not only solve the problem but help him define it. You are providing proof that you are, indeed, an industry expert who can get him exactly what he needs and can also give him the tools to persuade any other decision makers, influencers, or other involved parties that he has found the right solution.

This is what content marketing is. Your social media content strategy must provide solid support for the content by promoting it in the right place at the right time. Find the places where people in your industry gather to exchange information, ask questions, and discuss mutual problems. Those are the social media hotspots to promote your content and start conversations. Don’t feel limited to Linked In, Twitter, and Facebook. Set up a Google Alert for certain keywords to guide you (also a good way to find your competitors). Create content that answers questions often posed to your customer service team or sales reps. Listen and then listen some more.

A good social media content strategy should keep your bottom line in mind. The whole reason behind it is to find customers who buy, not just lurkers who “like.”

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5 Surprisingly Simple Ways To Tell Your Brand's Story

Willie Pena — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 13:05:00 GMT

In movie-making, it is often said that all of the special effects magic and big name actors in the world cannot save a film with a bad story. Examining some pricey duds from the past shows this to be true. The story is the basis of the entire experience, and is arguably the main reason we remember great films.

The same can be said for any brand as well. Huge marketing spends do not necessarily translate into huge sales successes, but brands with great stories to tell tend to do very well. Apple Inc.’s story, for example, is that a visionary was kicked out of the company he founded, but then came back to save it from the brink of ruin by producing revolutionary products that changed the technology landscape forever. This story has been covered thousands of times in the media and helped establish Apple as a maverick, brilliant enterprise.

Another successful brand which uses storytelling is Splenda. They have a web page dedicated to their story, in an interactive, pleasing-to-the-eye format to boot, which takes away a lot of the mystery of the product and makes it seem more wholesome than other sugar substitutes.

So from where do you draw the inspiration for creating your brand’s story? Here are a few simple sources to consider:

1. Real-world problems and solutions. Stories which narrate how your product helped a client solve a real-life problem make for compelling content, especially when backed up with pictures of the customer, their place of work or home, or something else to prove the legitimacy of the story. Testimonials are a form of this, as are case studies.

2. The story of the company. Here is a chance to humanize your company or its founder, just like Apple did with Steve Jobs. Honesty counts, as stories should be a tool to build trust. This doesn’t mean airing all of your dirty laundry, which no one really cares about anyway. But revealing some of the challenges faced in launching the company, getting around unfair regulatory burdens for a product, or even surviving a product recall and improving quality control as a result can all make for compelling stories that get audiences to sympathize with you.

3. Highlight an employee. Find someone real, and relatable, who works for you, and let them tell their story. I personally enjoy reading about employees at firms that I respect who let loose and go skydiving, or spend time helping out community organizations just for the love, not the photo op. It helps bring home the fact that the company is made of humans that are experiencing the joys and travails of life like everyone else, not just a bunch of titles, hierarchies and profit/loss statements.

4. Neighborhood stories. Share a story about the community where you do business and how your company plays a part in it. As an example, banks could do a better job at generating a favorable public image by sharing the stories of local citizens whom they have helped with their loans, or how their employees donate time with charities, such as renovating dilapidated structures to make them habitable. Social media are excellent outlets for distributing this sort of content, as human interest stories tend to get shared more than press releases or straight news by regular people.

5. Industry news and content curation. One way to get prospects to repeatedly visit you is to establish a reputation as a trusted source of cutting-edge information. Citing third-party data and research and using that to tell a story around the facts will bolster your own brand. This data-driven brand storytelling includes content curation by embedding or simply sharing articles, pictures, infographics and video to which you can add your own opinions and story (just make sure you cite or link back to your sources).

The caveat to storytelling in marketing is that it must be genuine rather than patronizing. Going back to our show business model: don’t simply tell a story just to fill up empty space, or worse, to covertly try to sell something. That is what some inexpert networks and movie studios do, and then wonder why no one goes to see their megaflops or tunes into their shows with the plots that have been rehashed ad nauseum.

Instead, be creative and genuine and watch your audience — and sales — grow.

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Creating Content For Different Learning Styles

Jody Pellerin — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:07:00 GMT

You have probably heard of education trending towards recognizing differing learning styles. Well, this same idea can apply to marketing as well. And with a tool like the Internet, there is a growing range of sensory based content that can be created to appeal to a single target with varying presentation needs. With everything from text-based articles to streaming video, there is something for everyone.

This isn’t about immersive online experiences; this is more about leveraging various types of content toward a customer base that is made up of at least 4 different sensory types, each of whom is most strongly affected according to how they are biologically wired. You will need to make sure each type of content carries the same message yet present it in different ways to appeal to a variety of people.

Your target audience is made up of the following 4 sensory types or learners:

1. Visual/Written aka Visual Learners

2. Visual/Image (also visual learners)

3. Tactile/Kinesthetic aka Kinesthetic Learners

4. Auditory (auditory learners)

Let’s say you have a customer support software company. You want to create content that results in conversions and fills the top of your sales funnel. You decide to build thought leadership in this industry and offer information about the best way to run a call center. You have plenty of resources to use to create some very deep content that would appeal to anyone running a customer service organization.

What pieces of content could you create for each sensory type?

Visual/Written

A great deal of the content online is textual content; a perfect fit for the visual/written sensory type. Any type of written content will be appropriate:

White Paper
Case Study
Article
Blog Post

All of this content is textually based and a visual/written sensory type will get the most out of any of these documents. To make them even more effective, a storytelling narrative that uses language in an appealing way can be created.

Sarah knew her call center staffing was not effective because she could see that part of the staff often had a lot of down-time with no work available while their team-mates were overwhelmed with calls every day at 4 PM.

This narrative can continue to describe what Sarah eventually decided to do to balance the workload. The content can still be made skimmable using bulleted lists and short paragraphs while maintaining a story-like flow.

Visual/Image

Another type of visual learners, these individuals react best to images rather than text. They do well with:

Pictures
Infographics
Videos
Animations

Pay attention to screen design and layout as well as color schemes in order to keep the attention of a visual/image sensory type. Use image-rich depictions of people performing the activities described by your text.

Videos, infographics, and graphical representations are excellent ways to make your narrative more image-based. An infographics showing the before and after workflow of Sarah’s call center with brief descriptions at each point in the process accompanied by a visual representation is a very strong piece of content for this group.

Tactile/Kinesthetic

This group is your biggest challenge since the Internet is an entirely audio-visual medium. But there are ways to make your content appealing to them as well.

Tests or quizzes
Interactive videos
Surveys
Tasks to perform to practice what is written or shown

You could offer a worksheet used by Sarah as a printout. The tactile learner can take Sarah’s place and attempt to use this new skill.

Auditory

These are people who did well in lecture-based classes throughout school. Similar to the visual/image sensory type, there are many available types of online content that are more inexpensive and easy to use than ever:

Podcasts
Streaming video
Sound effects

The use of music and other sounds in a video can keep the content fresh and exciting while adding a little extra impact to auditory learners.

A script created from the text for the visual/written learners can be used as the basis for a recorded podcast or video illustrating the steps Sarah must take to convince her management that the changes she proposes are needed.

Now you have a set of content based on the same topic and same message that will appeal to a broad range of people no matter what sensory type they are. This can be done for any industry from high tech to health food.

Now if they could just come up with smell-o-vision.

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Why Geo-Targeted Content Is Important To Your Business

Rachel Terry — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:01:00 GMT

Many Internet-based businesses have taken advantage of the fact that their customers don't have to live in their geographical area. EBay is a perfect example of this. If you're trying to sell an item that can be shipped through the mail, your potential customers can live anywhere.

Not all businesses sell items that can be shipped, however. Perhaps you have a basement remodeling company, a hair salon, or an ethnic grocery store. These businesses depend on local patronage, so Internet marketing has to make adjustments. When marketing for a locale-specific business, it's imperative that you use geo-targeted content.

Geo-targeted content refers to a specific location, and it's key to local search success. In fact, according to Google, 73% of online activity is related to local content. So, geo-targeted content should be a big part of your content marketing strategy.

Keywords, including long-tail geo-specific keywords, are critical to an effective local search strategy. Here are some examples:

Vinyl Siding Kansas City, MO

Chinese Buffet Pasadena CA

SAT Prep Miami Florida

You may recognize geo-targeted keyword tactics because you've used them as a consumer. It's Friday night, you're in the mood for pizza, and you're in an unfamiliar city. You turn to your phone and type in "pizza Denver," and before you know it, you're sitting in a red vinyl booth eating breadsticks and waiting for your Canadian bacon pizza. Surely, there are pizza places in Denver that have not taken advantage of geo-targeted keywords, and just as surely, those business owners are missing out.

Why are they missing out? Because adding geo-targeted keywords lowers your local search competition and raises your converting traffic. Let's see how it works.

Lower Your Search Competition

If your LASIK surgery practice has developed a website, you'll show up in the search engine web rankings. A potential customer would type in "LASIK surgery," and roughly 4.3 million hits will show up. If your website is relatively new, you could show up close to the bottom of the rankings, and no one will ever organically happen upon it.

When you use geo-targeted keywords, however, you significantly narrow your competition. A Google search for "LASIK surgery mesa az" yields less than 93,000 results. It will be much easier to rise in the rankings when you narrow the playing field with geo-targeted keywords.

But that's not the only benefit.

Raise Your Converting Traffic

When people search for generic terms like "LASIK surgery," they get hits from all over the world, most of which are completely useless as far as the actual surgery is concerned. This is okay when someone is doing preliminary research. In the case of LASIK surgery, maybe they want to know how much it will cost, what the risks are, and how long it takes to recover. This is all useful information, but it doesn't necessarily convert into business for the website owners.

However, when potential customers use geo-targeted keywords like "LASIK surgery mesa az," they're much more likely to find local practitioners who can help them. These searches convert into phone calls, appointments, and paying customers. This kind of traffic flow leads people from the distance-based contact provided by the internet to an interpersonal-based relationship, which is the core of locale-specific businesses.

As you experiment with geo-targeted keywords, keep a close eye on your website's analytics. Your analytics will tell you if your geo-targeted keywords are increasing traffic, and if they are, where that traffic is coming from. Pay attention to details like this because you can home in on which keywords work best for driving traffic to your website and focus more pages and more blog post content on those keywords.

Don't miss out on local business that you could easily reach through geo-targeted content. Someone may be just blocks from you right now, looking for a service that you provide, typing your keywords into a search engine. If you're buried at the pile of a global search, they won't find you. But if you show up in their neighborhood search, Bingo! Your bottom line looks better today.

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Hyperlocal Content: The Future Of Online Marketing?

Rachael Priest — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:39:00 GMT

The Market is Ripe for the Harvest

People are hungry for local, highly personalized content that is easy to access and friendly to use. This has resulted in a need for hyperlocal content. Hyperlocal content is that which speaks to a very narrow group of people; those in specific cities, towns, or even small communities or streets. It is content that is geo-targeted and highly specific.

Does your business serve customers in its town or city? Do you want to capture local markets in your satellite locations? Even if your customer base is global, you don't want to neglect the local market. Some examples of good hyperlocal content might include:

Upcoming local events
Promotions exclusive to the area
Local industry news
Information about new local policies that could affect consumers and small businesses in the area

So, how does this strategy help your globally targeted business?

Feeding Your Multiple Markets

Many web-based businesses get so focused on the fact that they have a global reach that they fail to recognize the importance of the local communities they serve. Just because you target and do most of your business with a global market does not mean that you cannot also be a local presence.

Hyperlocal content marketing allows customers to see you as an authority in matters that they deal with every day. Whether or not you have a bricks-and-mortar presence in their community, if your customers know that you understand the area and are invested in the things happening there, if they can look to you for information about their concerns, if they can get answers to their questions, then you will be the one they turn to. Hyperlocal content--posted on a regular basis--is one of the best ways to make this happen.

Real estate companies do this all the time. Real estate is area-specific, of course, so it lends itself to hyperlocal content. And who are the most successful agents and agencies? The ones who provide the best information about each area, including items of interest to potential buyers. This could include insight into schools, local entertainment and events, businesses, proximity to shopping, work and other amenities.

Hyperlocal content that is keyword-rich, targeted and up-to-date scores big with your local market. And, they will pass it on to others.

How to Use Hyperlocal Content to Your Advantage

With all of this said, the large conundrum that makes many businesses hesitant to try hyperlocal content is the fear of limiting their reach. Indeed, if you make hyperlocal content too much of a focus, you could lose part of your global edge. It’s important that you learn how to balance the two in order to serve every market that you have.

One strategy that you can try is to schedule one day as “Just for Locals” day. While the majority of your content will be wide-reaching, one post per week will focus on the local community and its happenings. Think of it as a weekly digest of sorts.

Another method that you can try, if you have the time and resources available, is to double your content. So, if you are posting globally-focused content daily, you’ll want to also publish hyperlocal content daily. Have your regular post and then have your “City Spotlight” post. Or, if you post every other day, fill in the off days with local information.

Either of these techniques gives you the opportunity to tap into the narrow market of the local community while also staying relevant to your global readers and customers. It is not your goal to become a local news site, only to reach out to the people you share your community with and offer valuable insights about the same.

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Is Your Content Helping Your Brand, Or Hurting It?

Marianne Pratt — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 14:14:00 GMT

Your business is your brand, and vice versa. It's the composite of everything your company represents to others. Marketers talk on and on the importance of “branding” because the content of your marketing efforts directly affects your brand. In fact, FrankStrong goes so far as to say that “content marketing is the new branding.”

Content can build your business.

Content marketing is multi-faceted. Because it spans so many different platforms, it requires thought than using traditional advertising media, which are essentially all alike – words and pictures depicting some sales message.

With content, you’re not just selling, you’re (hopefully) providing valuable information that establishes you as an authority in the eyes of your audience. You’re building a bridge of trust with existing and potential customers, by providing more than just something to buy. Frank offers some tips and a great infographic on choosing platforms that make the most sense for you.

Content can also bite you in the backside.

Content has to be thoughtfully produced. Traditional advertising can fail to produce sales, but even when it’s pointless or tacky it’s not likely to overtly harm your business. Poorly executed online content, however, can actually back-fire, destroying years of previous work to build your reputation and your clientele.

And as we all know, once you drive them away, they’re probably gone for good. They’ll tell their friends as well as people they’ve never even met, perhaps thousands of them. The results can be devastating and permanent.

How can content go wrong?

Let’s say you’re running a fine dining restaurant but randomly serve pancakes or sandwiches. Your patrons are going to get confused. They’ll stop coming around because your menu isn’t reliable. It’s not consistent. Your content marketing menu has to be consistent or your brand will suffer.

So how do you make sure your content is actually helping support and build your brand?

Planning.

Lewis Carroll’s famous feline, the Cheshire Cat, astutely observed that if you don’t care where you’re going any road will do. Today, he might have noted that if you don’t care about maintaining your brand, any content will do. The Cheshire Cat was a strategic thinker. He knew that planning ahead is essential for meaningful results, because it gives you a map to follow. It keeps you on track.

A strategically conceived and consistently executed content plan keeps your marketing on track.

Content marketing offers varied ways to tell your story – your website, blog, social media, etc., although the details and format differ with each platform. But it’s essential to present yourself in a consistent manner that’s also consistent with the brand image you want to project. Every time you confuse your audience with mixed messages about who you are or what you have to offer, you’re pushing them away.

Planning lets you create a content calendar, so you can coordinate your various articles and posts with one another and with other key marketing efforts – seasonal promotions, a new product launch, your annual parking lot sale or your latest series of webinars. Intersperse your calendar-specific content with informative or just-for-fun (but not irrelevant) non-salesy material.

Paying attention to your audience.

The customer-supplier relationship has shifted dramatically and people expect more from you – real personalized customer service, not just lip service, and information to help them learn more about your industry, your business, yourself. If they don’t believe your products or services will help them, they won’t buy from you.

So pay attention to what people are saying. Answer their questions. Ask them what they need, whether that’s “just the facts” or tips and guidance, such as selecting the right product. Listen extra-carefully if someone has a suggestion or negative comment. Above all else you don’t want to appear “above” criticism, and almost every negative has a kernel of truth hidden inside.

Creating content, posting it and checking in regularly to respond take precious time. It’s all-too-easy to blow it off, especially the follow-up. But if you make the time to listen, what you hear will help improve your business and it will help you create content that’s well-targeted and well-received.

Good content has the power to boost your brand, elevate your standing in your field and build trust with shoppers, all of which ultimately strengthen customer loyalty. Marketing can’t get any better than that.

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5 Clever Strategies For Creating Stellar Marketing Content

Flora Richards-Gustafson — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:46:00 GMT

The trick to a great content marketing strategy is finding a way to communicate information about your products or services without actually selling. Instead of pitching, in an article for Forbes, Michael Brenner recommends that you deliver valuable information that helps your consumers. In a world where you can fast-forward through commercials and tune-out ads, you need to create content that’s better than great—it has to be stellar.

Unlike traditional advertisements, content marketing is not about interrupting your target with “Act now!” messages; it’s about making a connection with your customers. When your marketing content is exceptional, your target customers reward you with their business and faithfulness.

How to Make the Inner Workings of Your Content Marketing Strategy Stellar

Have a focus. Just as in real life, you can’t please everyone. The same is true for content. In lieu of trying to appeal to the masses, use your marketing research to create content that appeal to your target consumer. For example, if you create a blog your general musings and observations, your readership will most likely consist of individuals who stumbled upon it by accident. This blog setup is OK if you’re writing for fun and don’t care about unique page views, conversion rates, increasing sales and building a loyal fan base. On the other hand, if you do care about establishing loyal followers, your content marketing strategy needs a focus. If, for example, you sell cosmetics, your blog might highlight the latest makeup trends, including celebrity styles and the best in-season colors to wear. When you have a focus, your followers are individuals who are most likely to purchase what you offer.
Solve a problem with high-quality content. By nature, people like rewards. High-quality content with valuable information is like a reward for your consumers. As you create content, give it perceived value by addressing a problem that you target may face. A natural laundry detergent company, for example, may find that tough stains as a common consumer problem. As you address a problem, offer the readers a solution that’s valuable, accurate and smart. Using the previous example, a natural laundry detergent company may create content that teaches consumers how to battle different stains, offer stain-prevention tips or provide tips about how to have a natural, earth-friendly lifestyle. The content doesn’t necessarily push the use of a company’s product or service. Instead, it sets the company up as a thought leader and offers solutions that the consumers perceive as important. According to the website CopyBlogger, quality content will train your consumers to regularly follow your messages because it rewards them for doing what you want—like a trained puppy.
Set yourself up as a trustworthy industry expert. The last thing that you want to hear (or read) is that you don’t know what you’re talking about. In order to achieve your content marketing strategy goals, your followers must know who you are, like you and trust you before they’ll spend time and money on you. When your content is exceptional, it will buy you the time it takes to build the trust that your consumers seek. Ways that you can set yourself up as an expert is by writing an industry-related report on a buzzing topic (interview industry leaders for your report), create consumer guides, offer how-to articles, participate in forums (for example, if you’re a wedding photographer, offer advice in wedding forums), write guest posts for other blogs and so on.
Don’t be afraid to be quirky. Pique the interest of your target audience by using a funny or unusual article from another source to create analogies and metaphors for your own content. As an example, if you own a gym, use a silly tabloid story about a predicted zombie apocalypse as a way to encourage your readers to get into shape so they can outrun the monsters. Or, use the story as analogy for the need to take control over one’s health to prevent a worst-case-scenario. Alternatively, compare your company, product or service to a hot or strange celebrity story. After all, there must be some things that your company has in common with LOL Cats or Vin Diesel’s love of Dungeons and Dragons.
Create a powerful call-to-action. As one of the most vital elements of your content, the Content Marketing Institute states that a call-to-action is the trigger that leads your target to the next step (e.g. clicking on a link, making a purchase, leaving a comment, etc.). Your call-to-action must be clear, nurture your visitors and offer an immediate benefit.

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4 Executive Roadblocks To Blogging (And Why You Need To Knock Them Down)

Marianne Pratt — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:15:00 GMT

Heidi Cohen takes exception with bosses who think blogs are a total waste of time and effort. Even ones who think blogs are no more than a necessary evil.

I think she’s right. Is your boss still on the wrong side of the blog equation? Management excuses for avoiding a blog run the spectrum, but they tend to fall into a few distinct categories.

There’s no point.

Creating blog content can serve several purposes, exponentially increasing its value. For instance with just a few tweaks a company press release can become a blog article.

In addition, as Cohen notes studies clearly show that having a blog can significantly increase a company’s website, inbound links and overall traffic. It’s certainly an easy way to create more links to internal website pages and to your company’s social media networks. Oh. Your boss probably doesn’t approve of using social media for business purposes either, right?

Studies also show that the vast majority of shoppers now research products and services – and companies – online prior to making a purchase. A blog can provide a steady stream of very useful information that nicely supports your company’s more overt promotions and advertising, especially is it’s deliberately timed to do so. Hmmmm . . . increased product interest and sales? No, there’s no point in that.

It could be detrimental.

Sure, there are plenty of bloggers out there whose goal in life is to rant about nearly anything. But we’re talking about business blogs here. Your company undoubtedly has policies and rules about all kinds of employee behaviors, and that certainly should include blogging. Not to mention there should be control over who writes the blog in the first place.

There’s never an excuse for blog content to disclose confidential information or otherwise embarrass the company, it’s employees, customers or clients or anyone else associated with it. This is essentially a non-issue for any well-managed firm.

But here’s something more on-point: a blog is a perfect podium from which to address comments and reviews about your company, especially to overcome negatives. You can address them head-on or by simply focusing on the facts of the matter that refute negative comments or impressions. You can change people’s minds doing this. And the mere fact that you bother to respond to anything negative tells people your company actually listens. That’s a big positive.

Nobody else is doing it.

Your boss’s mom always said “everyone’s doing it” was not a good reason. But that doesn’t mean the opposite is true. And how does your boss know what the competition is doing anyway? Oh, wait. Is he/she searching online?

Besides, who wants to be the last dog in line? Most companies today are striving for leadership – thought leadership, industry leadership, perceived leadership in innovative products or services or customer service. All of which are expressly supported by a blog, by the way.

We don’t have anything to talk about.

Really? That’s a shame. Your sales and marketing department must be really bored.

Let’s be honest here. A blog can be one of the smartest, most effective marketing tools for any size or type of business. Regardless of what your boss thinks is important or what the company’s official goals are, a blog can specifically and efficiently speak to those things, and ultimately that supports something every boss can get behind: better profitability.

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5 Tips for Link Building with Content

Beth Hrusch — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:13:00 GMT

Building links to a lot of other, highly-regarded sites is a big priority for any site. For now (and for the foreseeable future), link building is, arguably, the most effective way to promote content and increase search engine rankings. Since it takes time and effort to do, many site owners would like to short cut the whole process and honestly, I don't blame them.

However, the fact remains that links are still the basic form of communication between websites, and the easiest way for search engine algorithms to judge the value of a site. So, link building remains an important part of any online marketing strategy.

Of course, as any veteran link builder will tell you, linking to other sites is the easy part. Getting trusted sites to link to you-- not so much so. Why? Well, the big boys and girls in your industry, i.e. the trusted authorities, have been around the block a few times. They know when it's worth their while to link to a site and when it's not. Much like in "real life", the football star isn't going to give the average plain-Jane the time of day.

So, your site is likely to be ruthlessly snubbed for awhile. Be prepared for this, because it happens to everyone- at first. What will it take to get noticed? Neither time nor even large amounts of fresh content will necessarily get people to link to you. These are helpful, but for you to really start seeing results with your link building strategy, you must back up and reevaluate the quality of your content.

Lee Odden at TopRank once asked, "How can you attract links if you don't have content worth linking to?" This statement seems painfully obvious, but it's been proven time and again that people tend to gloss over the content portion of their marketing strategy in order to focus on marketing tactics that they believe will get them quick results. As if these tactics are individual and apart from each other.

The truth is, they are always part of a larger plan-or at least they should be. Start with original, thought-provoking content. If you're just starting out, or developing a blog, or getting involved with social media for marketing purposes, the same principles apply. Don't worry about link building until you've established your ability to produce worthwhile content on a regular basis. Here are some ideas for creating better content, so you can get the big boys and girls to notice you:

       1. Target your audience- Identifying your market gives direction to your content. Before you start writing about topics that may or may not interest your potential customers, find out who's likely to read your stuff. What would they like to know? What are their concerns?

        2. Choose good keywords- With all of the keyword research tools out there now, there's no excuse for missing the mark. Despite the fact that content marketing is no longer focusing on keyword density, and the "rules" for placing keywords in your content have loosened up considerably, you still need to be indexed properly. The proper keywords (and related terms) in your content give the search engines a way to know who you are.

        3. Offer value- There's content, and then there's useful content. Offering value means that you take the time to research your topics, provide answers and helpful tips, share timely news and try to be a solution for your readers. Once you establish the fact that a) you know what you're talking about and b) you are committed to helping them, you're on your way to becoming a trusted source.

       4. Don't sell- Unless your content is on your squeeze page or product pages, please do not use it to sell products and services to your readers. It's not nice. Enough said.

        5. Update your content- Building your reputation takes about as much time and effort as it sounds. It doesn't happen overnight. You need to create fresh content on a regular basis in order to keep people interested in you. Try starting a blog and posting a new one at least twice a week. You can do it every day if you'd like. Useful content is one thing that you can't have too much of, and people will learn to check for it each day. Let people subscribe to your blog and bookmark your content (another effective way to get links).

Great content, maintained over time, will not go unnoticed for long. Link building with quality content is the best, most authentic method for establishing yourself with your audience, and achieving higher rankings naturally. Should you stop linking to the authoritative sites? No! One day, those guys are going to become curious about you, check out your link, and see what you've got to offer.

Just make sure that what they see is worth their while.

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Tight Marketing Budget? Why Spending On Content Is A Smart Move

Tracey Sandilands — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:20:00 GMT

With limited funds to spend on marketing, many businesses are unsure as to how they should best use their budgets. Research proves that spending on content is a smart move, for a number of reasons.

First off, you won’t be alone! A survey conducted by Forrester Research shows that U.S. advertisers will spend $77 billion on interactive, digital content by 2016. With those kind of numbers, it’s clear that businesses are all trying to hop on the content bandwagon. If you don’t follow suit, you’ll be left behind. This isn’t a dying trend, people; it’s up and coming, and it appears we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg so far.

Strapped for Cash

But what happens to small and medium-sized businesses that don’t have the kind of marketing budget needed to compete on this level? That’s when content becomes even more critical! It’s not only much, much cheaper than traditional marketing methods, it’s also cost-effective. Most importantly, it reaches the consumer. Whether your company is in the B2B or B2C space, your best bet for reaching your customers is online. And to play online, you must have content, otherwise don’t waste your time and money.

Building Trust

Spending on content is a great way to build trust and credibility in your company and products, with statistics showing that:

61% of users believed companies that provided online content such as advice, blogs, reviews and other information free of charge were more trustworthy than those that didn’t. This made them more likely to buy from those companies, which immediately qualified them as prospective customers.
78% of users do online research before buying, and are more likely to spend their money if they can read objective, non-marketing information such as a blog post.
90% of consumers surveyed stated that they found content to be very useful

With this kind of evidence, it makes sense that if you have limited funds to spend on marketing, the one place you should be spending them is on content.

Capturing Search Traffic

In these days of search engine domination, 80% of new website traffic typically comes via Google, Yahoo, Bing and the other major aggregators. And unless the user is actually searching on your company name, you’re unlikely to come up in organic search without publishing fresh content on a regular basis.

This is the primary reason why spending on content is a smart move: the search engines index and rank those sites that they consider to be most “deserving” of attention, based on the originality, quality and keyword optimization of their content. It’s not enough to publish a website and hope it brings you business. In order to be found, your site needs constant updates to satisfy the ravenous search engines.

Without content, you make it really difficult for customers to find you, which could push them in the direction of your competitors.

Quality Counts

If you’re using content to market your business and products, make sure it’s quality content. Pinching the pennies when it comes to copywriting services is likely to turn around and bite you where it hurts. No matter how tight your marketing budget is, use the very best content production services you can afford:

Avoid the “penny a word” copywriters from non-English speaking countries hoping to earn a buck or two in hard currency.
Skip the videos that are filmed and produced on a mobile phone, and photos taken with a “happy snappy,” point-and-shoot camera.

Spend your marketing money wisely by buying quality content, and it’ll pay off in the long term.

Variety Offers Options

If you’re spending money on content, make sure it’s the right type of content. Jakob Nielsen, considered the world expert in Web usability, found that 79% of online readers “skim-read” text, and that users preferred to read copy that was broken up with subheads and bullet points.

And what about video? With YouTube officially now ranked the number 2 search engine on the Web, there’s a very strong argument for including video as a content options. Pinterest and Instagram have opened the door for the curation of visual content, and podcasts are popular with smart phone users.

With 81% of companies confirming that the use of content has given them a competitive edge, spending money on quality content simply has to be one of the smartest business moves you can make.

5 Common Blogging Mistakes That Limit Your Success

Rachel Terry — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:27:00 GMT

Since business blogging is a relatively new marketing strategy, its rules for success are not very well known to a lot of people. That doesn't mean the rules for success are don't exist, however. In fact, the components of successful business blogging are straightforward and simple. Some business bloggers are having great success by capturing an audience's attention, developing a brand, strengthening customer loyalty, and generating leads.

That's the ideal. But many business bloggers don't reach that ideal because they're making some simple mistakes. The following five mistakes are very common. Fortunately, they're easy to correct

1. Posting the Wrong Content. People read web content that fills their needs. Those needs may include finding information, being entertained, or learning how to do something. With so much content at their fingertips, people don't have the patience to wade through content that doesn't help them. So don't make the mistake of writing the first thoughts that come to your mind. If your targeted audience includes mothers of elementary school children, don't think you'll attract their attention by posting pictures and play-by-play accounts of your latest trade show. Get inside your customers' heads, and post the content that will appeal to them.

2. Posting Sporadically. If you want to come across as dependable (and what business doesn't?), post regularly. You don't have to post every single day, but you should post consistently. Posting three times in September and then ignoring your blog until December doesn't give a good impression. To stay on track, develop an editorial calendar, which tells you what to post and when to post it. Editorial calendars are also very helpful when you have several different people writing for your blog because you can delegate assignments without worrying about oversight and duplication.

3. Addressing the Wrong Audience. If you intend to use your business blog for marketing purposes, make sure you're addressing the right audience. You may inadvertently be producing a blog for your competitors instead of for your customers if you're not careful. Let's say you're a recycling company, and you spend most of your blog space writing about the technicalities of running your business. Your competitors will love the tips, but the blog won't attract your potential customers. Instead of blogging about running the business, write about all the benefits your company offers customers: curb-side pickup, customer appreciation incentives, helpful household tips.

4. Expecting Results Immediately. Everyone likes immediate results, but blogging doesn't work like that. Unfortunately, blogging is one of those marketing methods that takes a while to build up a critical mass. Once you've consistently blogged for an extended period of time, however, the benefits begin rolling in. Each time you post to your business blog, your website contains more keywords, more information, and more chances for search engine's to point customers to you. Don't be discouraged by meager results in the beginning. Continue to post high-quality content to your blog, knowing that steady, continued efforts bring success.

5. Ignoring SEO. Like it or not, websites that follow SEO guidelines pop up closer to the top of search engine results lists. And although the rules of SEO change slightly as search engines change their algorithms, it's fairly simple to learn and follow the guidelines. If you're uncomfortable mastering SEO on your own, you can hire professionals to help you out. You can also use online tools like Live Keyword Analysis to help you with keyword density. Blogging without SEO is like mowing your lawn without sharp blades. You'll be going through the motions, but you won't get results.

By sitting down and making a plan, you can easily avoid these 5 common blogging mistakes. Make a plan to incorporate SEO in your blogging, and think about who you're writing for and what they want to know. Finalize your editorial calendar, and then stick to it. Soon you'll find that visitors come to your blog to learn from your wisdom. You'll be a thought leader in your industry, and your business will benefit from your efforts.

5 Content Marketing Tips For B2B Marketers

Sylvia Arce — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:56:00 GMT

There’s a lot of power in content if, and only if, seen in the right perspective by the right audience in a timely fashion. The B2B online marketing landscape is becoming more crowded and noisier each day. You need to be not just visible but to stand out by offering content that creates an impact even to the most indifferent reader and thus build relationships that last.

Creating content is not the end of the marketing funnel. Content needs to be optimized and promoted, leads analyzed and nurtured until you win the hearts and wallets of your customers. In a maturing social marketing environment, B2B marketers must be on their toes everyday to define and redefine unique marketing formulas that stick to people’s minds. The following tips can have rewarding results if done the proper way:

1. Flex your social muscles. Social media has become an integral part of doing business and content is the bond that connects people. If you’re not sure how social forums and platforms will promote your brand, you can look up to big names in business like Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola. Figures don’t lie and theirs run in the billions. Engaging tweets, likes and posts on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for instance, help maintain a powerful social visibility.

2. Provide an interactive component to your content. – Feedback, whether positive or negative, animates discussions. It is a good beginning to connect with followers and fans while sharing new ideas and alternative solutions. Aside from fresh and useful information, provocative, intriguing or argumentative material presented in the proper context can elicit positive reactions and enlivened dialogues.

3. Never underestimate your good old email. – After creating the connections, make sure to stay in touch in a more private venue, your email. You are at a point where you are beginning to establish your target’s profile and the persona that he represents. This can help you get an insight into how he thinks and his buying patterns so that you will be able to strike a marketing strategy best suited for him. At the same time, you are introducing your company and it may be helpful to provide informative content like sharing your brochure and leaflets.

4. Plan and carry out a follow-through strategy. At this point, your B2B prospect is weighing his options. Taking your cue from here, there are three stages that you need to hurdle. First, create brand awareness by providing thought leadership content and best company practices while getting your prospect to think. Second, send your customer a meaty list of resources on industry information in the form of guides and templates as he is now exploring the possibility of considering your offer. Third, if you feel that your prospective buyer is leaning toward your product, send him content that highlights your company to reaffirm his decision.

5. Share your opinion and provide solutions. – Be wary of accelerating the marketing process unless you observe a clear and relevant sign that warrants stepping it up. In the meantime, take your time in following your prospect in social media groups like LinkedIn or Twitter. Share your knowledge, opinion and experience to show that you are well-informed of your business and industry. Provide doable solutions to strengthen your credibility in the marketplace and sway your audience to your brand.

It is important to remember that content marketing should not be centered on the product but on the prospective customers and the benefits they get. When marketers give a sales pitch for the purpose of getting a sale, they are more likely to antagonize the social community and end up with a blemished credibility. A good tip is the 80/20 Rule of Focus with 20% allotted for product description and functions and 80% for credibility, image and thought leadership building.

Creating value in content is itself a valuable investment that pays off and pays off well. If you deliver valuable information and observe how audiences respond, you can make adjustments and craft a better marketing plan, one that drives customers to the points of sale. After all, any good marketing strategy should be able to propel sales, sales and more sales.

4 Secrets To Truly Sharable Content

Sandy Mitchell — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:21:00 GMT

According to Phil Mershon on Social Media Examiner, more than 30 billion pieces of content are shared with social media friends just on Facebook each month. Getting your readers to share your content with their friends on Facebook or other social media site is one of the fastest and most effective ways to build traffic.

Just one person sharing your article can snowball as their friends share it with their virtual friends who share it with their friends, and so on. However, how do you get that first person to re-post your article on a social media site (without begging)? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Make it easy. Add a "share this article" button to your posts and you'll automatically increase the number of times the post gets re-posted around the social media world. Even when readers find your content witty, useful, shocking and/or funny, they aren't going to spend a lot of time cutting and pasting content. That's just human nature.

2. Make it useful. All of the "bells and whistles" in the Internet world will not make up for bad content. The all adage, "content is king" cannot be stressed often enough. Write a blog post or article that answers a reader's question and that they find useful and they are likely to pass the information along to their virtual friends.

3. Appeal to Five Motivations of Sharing. According to blogging pundit, Jeff Bulas, there are five prime motivations for content sharing--to bring useful and/or entertaining content to others, to define ourselves to others, to nurture our relationships, to feel good about ourselves and to spread the word about products and causes we like. Appeal to one or more of these motivations to increase the content sharing on your site.

4. Relax. Like any Internet marketing effort, you can't expect results overnight. Resist the urge to obsess about your stats, checking them hourly. Forge a plan of writing good quality content and stick with it. An increase in content sharing will almost certainly follow.

So, what's the secret to content sharing and having your content go viral? Start with good content that answers a need, make it easy to share, and stop obsessing about your stats. Over time, the numbers will take care of themselves.

7 Must-Dos For Effective Local Search Marketing

Shannon Murphy — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:05:00 GMT

With any business, growth often means staying ahead of your competitors. Whether through exemplary customer service, product innovation or lower costs, when customers have a choice to make, you want them to choose you.

With 70% of online searchers using local search to find brick and mortar businesses (Source: Kelsey Group), it’s important you be found online. Following these few steps, learn how you can rule local search and jump off the map!

1. Dive into Research

Take to the search engines and perform a few queries. Are you listed in the major search engine directories, such as: Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Local? Create a spreadsheet. Note which page is linked (home page versus interior pages) and any additional information.

2. Craft Your Business Summary

After research mode, brainstorm how you would ideally describe your business. Business categories may differ depending on the listing site. Keep in mind, if you own multiple domains, use only one. (You can easily set up redirects for the others.) It is vital to be consistent. Your handy dandy spreadsheet will keep you organized.

3. Submit to Directories

Being listed in multiple local directories gives your site a much needed SEO boost. You can first list with Yahoo Local, Bing Local but don’t forget about Yelp!. Entrepreneur.com lists several local search directories for small business owners. It might seem like there is an elephant in the room. What about Google Places?? Well, since Google often aggregates information for Places from other sites, delay submitting for about a week. Give Google time to “scrape” from those other sites, creating a more robust Google Places listing.

It is also very important to submit to the DMOZ Open Directory. DMOZ is a free directory established in 1998. Run by volunteers who vet the submission of business websites, DMOZ is harder to be listed on. Acting as “net librarians,” these volunteers are assessing if your website is a truly valuable resource. As such, it is not an overnight process and ecommerce or advertising sites are not likely to make the cut. Try submitting your site to DMOZ every 6 months as you build the site’s SEO and knowledge base. Once your site is listed this will improve your ranking with Google. (Learn more about submitting to DMOZ )

Don’t forget! If you have more than one physical location you will want to create a new listing for each location.

4. Build Links & Create Community

Building links and using appropriate anchor text is essential SEO. Perhaps you are linking to leaders in your industry across the nation, but what about complimentary services in your area? Consider creating a sidebar on your blog or about section listing “favorites” of your business. Or ask for a guest blog post! If you’re still befuddled by anchor text, remember in this case it would take a local slant: Pilgrim Woodworks Boston, MA.

5. Develop Geo-Specific On-Page SEO

While link building is part of your “off-page” SEO, “on-page” SEO is associated with page title, URL, header tags, image alt text, and page content. When possible, all should contain local terms. Consider the geographic scope you service, including suburbs or nearby towns. If creating additional geo-specific pages beware duplicating content which Google penalizes.

6. Blog, and Blog Often

Content Marketing means publishing online to build business authority in a chosen field. Google rewards a high frequency of publishing. If you cannot think of any geography based blog posts consider highlighting customer or project successes and relevant local news.

7. Utilize Social Ambassadors

Social media business pages act as brand ambassadors to a specific audience at any given moment. Some segments check Facebook more often than their email! You can use these mini pages to drive traffic to your blog or share company news but also consider how you can utilize the platform the audience is already on. For example, Reward those who “LIKE” your page by offering a specials. Google+ is similar to Facebook but allows you to follow your fans back, add them to circles, comment on their posts and interact! (How to set up a Google+ Page for Your Business)

3 Secrets To Getting Inside Your Customers' Heads

Tracey Sandilands — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 08:21:00 GMT

Marketing would be really simple if you only knew exactly what would work for all your customers, wouldn’t it? To do that, though, you’d have to be a mind reader, and that’s impossible. Or is it?

Developments in the field of scientific neuromarketing show that the discipline, created in 1990 by a team of Harvard psychologists, can help marketers predict the likelihood of a customer buying a product. A far cry from the traditional methods of tracking how purchases increase in response to promotional campaigns, neuromarketing is really starting to take hold in consumer-focused industries.

The Science of Neuromarketing

Born out of a combination of neuroscience and marketing, neuromarketing studies the human brain’s responses to advertisements, branding, and other communication messages. Companies use the data they record to customize their marketing messages, along with website analytics and demographic information. The data gleaned from the science makes it possible to build your content around what the customer wants to hear, and turn the writer into a storyteller – one with a bestseller up his sleeve. And as a storyteller, the most successful methods of getting into your customer head are really simple and easy to follow. Roger Dooley, the writer of the neuromarketing book Brainfluence, has techniques that can help you to do this, and we’ve included three of them.

Secret # 1: Tell Your Story

Storytelling is an ancient art, but it’s one that has a very secure place in modern marketing. Content marketers understand that telling the story of their brand, their products and services and anything else that’s relevant gives them a valuable message delivery vehicle in the age of neuromarketing. To tell a story successfully, however, it’s essential to follow a few tested rules:

Zero in. Focus on a specific issue for each story, identified from your neuroscience and market research data. Don’t try to cover too many points in each story, or you’ll lose your reader’s attention.
Make it aspirational. Everyone loves a success story, or one in which good (read: success) triumphs over evil (read: failure). Tell your story in such a way that you speak directly to your customer’s inborn desire to succeed. Make him (or her) WANT to experience the benefits of your product or service.
Use customers’ own success stories. Nothing works as well as the truth does, so tell real stories from real people about what your company, product or service has done for them. Don’t call them testimonials, call them real-life success stories.

Secret # 2: Build Up Trust

You can “buy” your customers’ loyalty by building trust. By providing valuable information and resources to your existing and potential customers over time, you generate goodwill that is repaid by the customer knowing who to turn to when they are ready to purchase. Get inside your customer’s head with your weekly blog posts, telling the stories of your company, team and products. Make it a point to always provide information that’s useful, without including a marketing message. You want your customer to feel comfortable, to believe that you are the expert, and be convinced that you are not trying to sell to them. When the time comes to buy, Dooley says, your customer will trust you to supply the best solution to his needs, and not just the one that nets you the most cash.

Secret # 3: Align Against a Common Enemy

Us and them. It’s powerful positioning, and it has been used since the beginning of time to divide societies and forge alliances. The secret is that it still works. Establish a common enemy and align your company or products with the consumer against it. It doesn’t need to be competitor-focused; you could be fighting alongside your potential customers against high prices, lack of availability, or the problem itself. For example: offering a new environmentally-friendly insecticide for bed bugs ranges you on the same side as your customers, opposite the bugs and the problems they cause.

Getting inside your customers’ heads has never been easy, but it’s now at least possible. With a road map to guide you, customize your content marketing to appeal to the areas of the brain that respond to your products. Daimler-Chrysler found through studies that sportier cars activate the same reward center of the male brain that drugs and alcohol do. Find out what is likely to motivate your customers to want your product or service, and then tell them the story you know they want to hear.

Your Content: Good Enough Is No Longer Good Enough

Jody Pellerin — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 12:54:00 GMT

Why isn’t your content, which used to be good enough, no longer good enough? Because the audience for content is maturing and its expectations are rising. Because the number and types of devices used to consume content is growing exponentially, demanding more content than before. And because more content than ever before is already out there, so breaking through the static demands content that is much better than good enough. It must be Tony the Tiger great.

So now you need a lot of content and it must be fabulous. How are you going to get it?

Look Locally

If you haven’t done so yet, you need to look around your own organization to identify people who can help you. Not just your marketing team, but everyone who works with you can bring something to the party. Maybe there is someone who enjoys using Twitter or someone who likes taking pictures or making videos. Let everyone know the topics you would like to highlight and invite submissions.

In each case, you have found someone passionate about something that can help you with your content marketing strategy without overburdening any one person.

Find Sites That Fit

Learn about the various social sites and identify those that fit into your strategy. Be sure to include the rest of your organization by asking your staff to report on those sites they favor and whether they think that site would be an appropriate place for you to be.

Of course, you also want to make sure your customers, existing or potential, are there, too.

Court Your Fans

There have been many examples of people on the street creating quality content that advertises your product better than you ever could because they are passionate about it. You are as well, but in a different way. From these evangelists you get content that speaks directly to how best to use and enjoy your products or services. That is what is most relevant to anyone who searches.

Make Sharing Easy

Those buttons you see on all the websites these days? The ones that invite you to “like” the page, email the page, tweet a link to the page? You need those, too. And it isn’t difficult to place a set of buttons on each page of your site and for each piece of content. If a piece of content resonates with someone, you want them to be able to give it to all their friends. In the process, you will find out what content is relevant and what isn’t.

Mobilize

Don’t forget that your content will probably be viewed on devices other than a computer screen. Make sure the content, whatever it may be, is formatted to work on a mobile device. If you decide to create anything interactive, it must also be compatible with mobile technology.

Now you know some places to go to get all that content created or curated. And you know where to put it and what your consumers would like to be able to do with it. Since you have passionate people in charge of content, that content should be much more than good enough.

It should be G-R-E-A-T!

4 Fabulous Off-Site Content Marketing Solutions

Anita Oye — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:48:00 GMT

Do you have an eBook, white paper, tutorial, or video that’s proven itself successful for gaining customers or generating leads? Creating off-site content that links to it can drive even more traffic to your site.

A successful content marketing strategy uses a website with frequently updated content combined with social media sites, blogs, directories, and review sites. While your website is important, creating off-site content that drives new traffic to your website is crucial. Your off-site content will get your brand noticed and talked about, help you establish or gain more recognition for your brand, help you develop important relationships, and boost your site's SEO power.

The following off-site content marketing solutions are fabulous ways to drive new visitors to your site:

Social Media: Boost SEO and Develop Important Relationships

Social media sites offer places to join communities, post content, develop relationships, and drive new traffic to your site. When your links are shared, your content ranks higher in search engines. Using this principle, you can increase the value of your website content. Every time your links are shared, your SEO gets a free boost.

Use a short bio, a strong headline to gain people's attention, and well planned links to your site. You may want to design a different bio and headline for different networking sites. Networking on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and Google+ also allows you to establish important relationships.

For customer relationships in the social media space, develop a plan that includes links to specific landing pages and forms that target specific customers in your market. A successful landing page effortlessly guides customers to take action, like making a purchase. Whenever possible, make your landing pages smartphone-friendly.

Another successful use of social media is to establish relationships with those who influence others in the social media space. These are the prominent bloggers, social media gurus, and web journalists within your business niche, or a community within the same marketplace. Once you’ve established these relationships, you’ll need to nurture them with a steady flow of concise and substantive content. Once you gain their attention, offer informative content that benefits them, this reflects well on you.

Blogging: Keep the Conversation Going

Blogs provide an easy way to publish content. If you've just begun to develop your content marketing strategy, focusing on the right topics now will allow you to keep cross-referencing your content and link to it in the future. Links to your website will bring you visitors, and more links will boost your site’s SEO.

Create your own blog and post new content frequently. Write content on blogs within your business niche or community as a guest. Every time you post as a quest, you have an opportunity to leave your bio with a link to your website.

Your writing should directly relate to the topic being discussed. Find ways to mention your content within the context of your post and provide a link to your relevant content. You can also use your writing to lead readers to a closely related topic and provide links to your other content.

Directories: Highlight Your Website

Directories provide an excellent way to highlight your product or service. Although search engines have de-listed many of them, DMOZ, Yahoo! and other review sites remain valuable directories for listing your website. The strategy is very similar to posting on blogs as a guest. For best results, submit fresh content that doesn’t appear anywhere on your website, but is similar enough to provide consistent user experiences.

Review Sites: Gain Recognition and Identify Customer Needs

Amazon and Yelp offer effective ways to get customers to communicate. Every discussion provides an opportunity for your brand to gain recognition in the marketplace. These discussions also provide you the opportunity to find out what’s important to customers. This can lead to product improvements and allow you resolve issues promptly to reduce risk. Dialogue on review sites can also help you develop promotional offers specifically tailored to consumer needs. Relevant content plus promotion equals links, and another way to boost your SEO.

When creating off-site content, link to content that’s successfully helped you gain new customers or leads in the past. If you’re a start up company, determine your most successful content. Then use it strategically.

Do you have any questions about developing successful off-site content or suggestions to help others? Please post them below!

4 Ideas To Fuel Your Content Marketing Machine

Anita Oye — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 11:04:00 GMT

How many times have you sat staring at a blank page at a loss for ideas, with a deadline approaching?

Using ideas from daily conversations and the sources listed below, quality content can be created for your target audience. Ideas for great content are all around us, we just need to start looking and listening and in new ways.

Here are a few simple ways to generate ideas to fuel your content marketing machine:

1. Introducing Yourself

The way you introduce yourself to someone new as you network, socialize at a party, or at an informal business meeting can give you ideas for your writing. What questions do you get in response to your introduction? Your answers to questions on these occasions and the conversations that result can give you ideas for topics to write about.

2. Notes From Phone Calls

Whenever you or the members of your sales or support team are on the phone, you probably cover subjects that can give you ideas for creating content. Many times, when your customer service team sorts out a problem during a courtesy call, a content ideas exists, and a simple guide to solving a problem could be created.

Answering questions about high prices might lead to a discussion of the value of quality content. You could easily develop a blog post, a guide for your customers, or even a whitepaper for prospects about why quality content is important to the industry. Having a notebook or whiteboard dedicated to questions will help you keep these ideas organized and accessible.

3. Check Your Email

Chances are, if you respond to questions about content marketing using email, you’ve probably got some great material to use for blog articles or a guide for your customers stored safely away in your outbox. Remember, if one person has a question, there’s a good chance several others have the same one. Your email responses just might help you dislodge a severe case of writer’s block.

4. Your Company’s Training Materials

Most companies have internal training programs that cover the most important topics of the industry. These topics can be easily adapted into ideas for writing content. They’re already organized into concise text you can turn into valuable information to share with both prospects and clients. You might even get ideas to start a new blog on insider secrets. The next time you facilitate a training session, the instructions and material you present can help you realize the potential for relevant content.

Inspiration for great content is all around us -- keep your eyes and ears open!

Have unusual sources of inspiration? We'd love to hear from you!

Is Ebook Marketing Right For Your Business?

Tamara Erickson — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 13:41:00 GMT

So you still think ebooks are the domain of self appointed relationship gurus and dodgy tips about online business? Think again.

Ebooks, contrary to their lingering association with long sales letters and squeeze pages, have overtaken traditional print books on sites like Barnes and Noble and Amazon. They've spawned million-dollar self-publishers like Amanda Hocking, and they've become the clever business person's greatest marketing asset.

Big Business - and Good for Your Business

When you consider facts like those about the ebook phenomenon, it's easy to see that the once dubious ebook has shrugged off its image of the printed word's poor cousin. Ebooks are hip, they're trendy, and they're in demand.

It's clear that ebooks are big business - but how are they good for your business?

It all comes down to image - and the instant expert status you can achieve with a well-written book.

Think about the word 'author.' It conjure up images of respected, learned, knowledgeable people. Anyone who has their name on a book must know something about something, right? That's the widely held belief, of course.
It stands to reason, therefore, that if you, as a business owner, publish a book about your field of expertise, a little bit of that sheen will rub off on you, and by association, your business.

But getting published is hard, right?

Nowadays, not so much. Thanks to online self-publishing, anyone can now write and publish any book they choose to, on platforms that include the wildly popular Kindle, the Nook, i devices and in PDF format. They're instantly accessible around the world, and they can incorporate things that print books can't - like links to your website.

Best of all, if you have a well-written ebook that relates to your industry or business, you have a marketing tool that you can really leverage. You can link to it on advice forums. You can give away copies as a list-building exercise. You can post excerpts on industry websites.

The options are endless, and that's why it's becoming one of the hottest business marketing tools out there - when it's done correctly.

So How Do You Do It Correctly?

If you've got this far into this article, chances are you're feeling excited, and ready to rush out there, churn out an ebook, and start cashing in on that marketing potential. Whoa nelly! There are a few things you need to know first.

Ebooks can be great marketing tools - there's no denying that. But you need to think about it as carefully - if not more so - as you would any other kind of marketing.

First, you need to realize that the purpose of a business marketing ebook is not to write a very long sales pitch - it's about sharing information with your customers and potential customers. Find something that you can teach people about your industry, and use that as the basis of your ebook.

Next, realize that when you put your name on an ebook, you're telling the world that this is the very best you can do. If it's badly written, poorly formatted, or not very interesting at all, it's going to be counterproductive.

The format for ebooks is flexible. The platforms are growing all the time. But when you use an ebook to market any business, you need to be absolutely, 100% proud to put your name on it, and if that means hiring a ghost writer to polish it so it shines, then that's what you should do.

Is Ebook Marketing for Your Business?

There are very few businesses that can't benefit from ebook marketing. Catering companies could publish a cookbook to whet their customer's appetites. Roofing companies could publish a guide to roof materials. Business consultants could publish business building tips in an ebook.

The options are endless, and if you do it correctly, the return on your time and money investment can be too.