Not Happy With Your Business Blog Performance? Try These 5 Tips:
For many companies, blogging is akin to content marketing. Of course there are many other content marketing tactics besides blogging, but because of the ease of publishing, promotion and optimization, it’s one of the more popular ways to connect with customers through content. And yet there are challenges for many of the businesses that rely on blogging as an essential part of their content marketing mix. If you’re not happy with the performance of your business blog, here are 5 basic, yet often overlooked steps for making your blogging more effective. 1. Revisit Your Blogging Goals Of course…
Content Marketing Tools A to Z That You Can Use in 2015 and Beyond
Tools are only as effective as the skills of the person using them. In a world of digital marketing that’s 24/7 with ubiquitous connectivity from anywhere, anytime, marketers’ need for tools is greater than ever. Content Marketing in particular offers a competitive landscape where the effectiveness and efficiency offered by the right mix of tools can make the difference between feast or famine. There are many categories for content marketing tools since content and consumer pursuit of information are the backbone of the web experience. Here are some of the content marketing tool categories that come to mind (not too different than a high level …
A Dangerous Threat to Your Small Business: Mediocrity.
I think it’s safe to say that no one starts a new venture or a business simply to be average. There’s a drive, a passion and a vision of possibilities. There’s also confidence that great things can be achieved. People who start new companies often risk a great deal with substantial investments in time and money to make their ideas a reality. Having some skin in the game also drives many entrepreneurs to succeed because it’s all they have. Seasoned employees who join a small business also take some risks. But at the same time, they can have a substantial …
Content vs. Advertising – Is There Really A Debate?
Recording last night’s BeanCast, Altruism or Consumerism, hosted by the talented Bob Knorpp brought up the topic of Content Marketing and whether paid placement of content is just advertising – among many other topics from Dove to Amazon Dash. This content vs. ad question was inspired by commentary from Mitch Joel in his post, Your Content Is Kidding No One where he states, “if you have to pay to have it placed, it’s not content. It’s an ad.” While I agree with what Mitch says in the post in terms of brands failing to create engaging, share-worthy and conversation-starting content, I’m not on board with the pay to play statement. Whether you call it content or…
Four Ways CMOs Can Differentiate & Optimize Their Content Marketing Strategy
Content isn’t King, it’s the Kingdom Taking inventory of the content we’ve produced over the past 10+ years, I realized we’ve collectively written 1.6 million words on this blog. There’s also numerous guides, articles, social messages and emails as well as a book and numerous contributions to industry publications. Looking to the future of our own content marketing strategy and the need for more visually creative, data-informed and cross platform content that’s highly specialized for our audience, it’s clear that simply …
An Authoritative Interview with Podcast Master Jerod Morris, VP of Rainmaker.FM
Who is Jerod Morris? I think that’s an important question and one deserving of a public answer because if you’re in the online marketing and especially, the podcasting world, you need to know Jerod. So let’s get started. Jerod (@JerodMorris) is part of a small team that plans, produces, and markets the content for Rainmaker.FM, Copyblogger’s digital marketing podcast network. He hosts two shows on the network: The Lede and The Showrunner and also develops new shows. Jerod speaks regularly at industry conferences and produces Rainmaker Platform webinars. Simply put, Jerod is an Authority on podcasting and Rainmaker…
eBook: Winning with Authority Rainmaker – Integrated Content, Search & Social Media
When faced with the seemingly insurmountable odds of information overload, 63GB per person per day in the USA, how can brands, let alone enterprising individuals stand out? Be the best answer wherever customers are looking. And how do you do that? By creating authority across channels and media from search to social to wherever content can be discovered, consumed or acted on. To provide you with a clear roadmap on creating authority through integrated marketing, our latest conference eBook project launches today for Copyblogger’s Authority Rainmaker conference. Featuring top experts including: Dan …
2015 Enterprise B2B Content Marketing Report: More Isn’t Better
Companies in the B2B space from IBM to HubSpot have been actively and effectively engaging prospects with longer sales cycle content for years. Like many competitive environments, a lot of emphasis for marketers has been about creating “more” content. More blog posts, videos, infographics, social messages, emails, and so on. But here’s the thing about “more content” when it comes to enterprise-sized organizations. There’s a nearly unmanageable degree of added complexity when you start involving a matrix of customer segments and buying journeys across different product offerings, company divisions and geographies. How are large, enterprise B2B marketers responding to this challenge? There’s a new report…
6 Essential Questions & Answers About Content Marketing for 2013
For every social media, SEO or content marketing “expert” there are hundreds, if not thousands of smart business people that do not possess advanced knowledge in those areas. That’s not unreasonable, since running a business involves more than keeping up with the latest internet marketing best practices. On this blog we often include the basics of search, social and content marketing because that’s where a lot of people need confidence and affirmation that they’re on the right track. To support that approach, here are a series of questions my co-worker Miranda Miller shared with me as prep for an online radio show. Hopefully, if you’re responsible for attracting, …
Scaling Social Media Selling – 7 Steps to Building Trust & Credibility
Interest in scaling social media sales has increased significantly over the past year and in 2013 it be even more so. Organizations of all types and sizes are coming to terms with the need to better monetize their investments and one of the most compelling opportunities to do so is through helping sales leadership develop their personal brands online. It’s understandable why: A recent study reported on by eMarketer indicates that 67{0e584ec94eaa64d073763ee1dc286a1f4d0f941424b1448bbfd01af7d90f9475} of BtoC marketers and 44{0e584ec94eaa64d073763ee1dc286a1f4d0f941424b1448bbfd01af7d90f9475} of B2B…
Top UK Online Marketing Influencers & Bloggers in 2013
For the past 2 years we’ve been publishing a list of the top UK focused internet marketing blogs in advance of speaking at events. This year I’ll be presenting on Creative Content Marketing at SES London February 19th. Since bloggers do more than just write posts, I’ve shifted the focus of this list from blogs to individuals. With the increasing importance of authorship and personal brands, I think it’s important to consider individual bloggers and the content they share whether its tweets, status updates, or other useful information…
Digital Marketing Growth Opportunity is Knocking: Are You Answering?
Since 2001 our “practice what we preach”, digital marketing and PR agency at TopRank has experienced growth every year. Like many frugal and efficiency focused businesses, we’ve been conservative about business operations, taking on zero debt and running pretty lean. All of our marketing (and most PR) is inbound. We do not employ dedicated sales people or spend on advertising. This approach has kept us small but extremely efficient with exceptional project management, account management and consulting capabilities that exceed those of agencies many times our size. Staying healthy during lean economic times is smart, but growth is in our future. …
The Incredibly Useful Value of Links Beyond SEO by Dixon Jones
Whether it was at SES London or one of the many other search marketing conferences in the U.S., I’ve always been able to count on Dixon Jones for great advice on link building. Dixon was recently recognized for his content contributions to the online marketing world in our Top UK Online Marketing Influencers and Bloggers list. Working with Majestic SEO as their Director of Marketing, (TopRank has used Majestic for years) Dixon has been a fountain of smarts when it comes to the value of of links for SEO, but also for many other purposes. Links are the connective tissue of the web. Before Google and …