ROCKING IT WITH CONTENT MARKETING

Telling stories has been around for thousands of years, but if you look at Content Marketing in Google Trends, you can see that this term has gained impressive popularity over the last decade. Although the term has been in the industry for a decade, it is still challenging to explain exactly what Content Marketing is.

Michelle Lin can help us answer this question.

Content Marketing is marketing based on creating quality. This can include educational content.

The important principle that needs to be emphasized is that Content Marketing is not about creating content that revolves around products, services, or even your brand.

Rather, it means creating interesting and useful content on topics that interest the brand's target audience, thereby strengthening the relationship between the business and its customers over time.

As marketers, it's important to know the benefits of this marketing strategy. Investing in content brings us the right people and makes them potential customers. In addition, creating good content will help us build an interested and involved audience and even engage new customers.

How do you do this in practice? If our target audience is young mothers for example - we need to think what they want to read, what is important to them? From there, we should start producing content accordingly.

Content-based marketing can include professional articles, digital books, video content, webinars or any other content that provides new and up-to-date information, tools, or meets the needs of the target audience.

In this way, the brand becomes a real source of information.

REI, an outdoor retailer, is a great example. REI has a YouTube channel that contains interesting information for travelers, with explanations like how to tune a compass or how to fix a bicycle chain. In this way, it has positioned itself as a source of information for travelers on the Internet. The responses to their content by people online has helped the company identify the areas of interest from where they can create additional relevant content.

When a brand builds such a reliable platform and establishes itself as an authority on issues that are important to potential customers, it succeeds in gaining their trust and time. As a loyal, active and involved subscriber base is established, this will have a direct effect on profits.

Content Marketing also affects existing customers. Consider the cooking magazine Sainsbury, one of the UK's leading companies. In a survey conducted by the company, they found about an amazing fact - eight out of ten readers bought a product from Sainsbury after they read about it in a magazine. As you can see, if you do it right there is a lot of potential to create a magazine around a brand.

Additionally, Content Marketing has the potential to increase profits from existing customers. After all, when we have a loyal customer base, we have the option to Upsell and Cross Sell. In addition, when our content is particularly good, you can even generate revenue from the content itself.

Lynn also mentions the even though Content Marketing sounds great and wonderful, it does not mean it fits everyone. It's a strategy that requires investment, consistency and patience because its real results are seen only over time. This is a process rather than a specific campaign.

Lynn also gives many more examples of using a content-based marketing strategy and how different brands are implementing their content strategy. We encourage you to check out the full article and perhaps get some inspiration for your own marketing strategy.

Now that we have reached a point where we are flooded with a plethora of good content, we can not only consider the content’s quality when trying to get people’s attention.

In an article on Marketing Land, Peter Minnium explains why to stay relevant, creators from the media industry should also consider the context in which consumers choose to consume the content. The article refers to the consumption of content on television; however, it can also be applied to other mediums as well.

High quality content is the main player in the war for people’s attention online. Games of Thrones, Breaking Bad, and The handmaid’s tale are good examples of this.

Even though we are surrounded by a plethora of good content, viewers still only have 24 hours in a day. Therefore, it's a good idea to understand in depth the considerations that viewers must make when choosing which content to consume.

To understand the context, Peter asks four questions:

Who are you watching with?
The content we watch with friends is different from the content we see with coworkers or kids.

What type of access do you have?
Which device do you watch with? Do you prefer cinema or home viewing? Do you use a cable package or do you have a smart TV and stream Netflix? Or do you even watch directly through your smartphone?

How does it fit into your day?
Are you one of those who only watch in the evening at home? Maybe you prefer to watch on your smartphone on the train on your way home from work.

How many program options are available to you?
Were you interested in the new film because of a launch campaign or did a friend convince you to see the newest comedy? Most of us have a watch list that we keep from all the advertisements we have seen, colleague recommendations, etc. The more times we encounter content on different platforms, the more likely we are to watch it.

Good stories and quality will always interest us. We like to watch good content. Therefore, the title of King still belongs to content. However, you cannot ignore the context in which the content is provided to us. If we want to be on the winning side in the war for the viewer’s attention, we need to understand in depth what affects their viewing choices.

SEO expert Brian Dean and his team wanted to better understand Content Marketing as it is today. To accomplish this mission, they analyzed 912 million blog-posts and survived to tell the tale.

In the article, Dean and his staff interpreted the data and came up with simple and feasible insights.

One of the most intriguing questions is what the optimal length of content is. The length of the content has a huge impact in terms of receiving links and also sharing in social media.

It's not yet clear why Google likes longer content. However, the data shows that content that is longer than 3,000 words receive 77.2 percent more links than content less than 1,000 words. In other words - if you want your content to be promoted in the search results – write more.

In addition, if we take a moment to look at Social Media, we find that the ideal length for a post is between 1,000 and 2,000 words. Content in this word range produce more shares on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other networks.

Another interesting statistic is that longer headlines give better results than shorter headlines. More precisely, titles should be between 14 to 17 words. Content with long titles is more widely shared across the Social Networks.

Maybe it's the next generation of clickbait, but Dean has two theories about this. He claims that long headlines give the internet surfer the additional information needed in order to understand why they should read the content. The second theory is that longer headlines give more opportunities to insert popular keywords for searches.

In addition, the three types of content that were good at getting links are:

- Articles of "why" – such as "Why do you have to sleep eight hours a night?"

- Articles of "what" – such as "What to take with you on a deserted island?"

- Infographics

On the other hand, “Why” and list posts have historically been the most successful types of content for Social Media.

One of the most amazing pieces of data in this article is the number of external links that articles receive on the web. In fact, it turns out that 94% of the articles in the world receive zero external links! In addition, only a little more than 2% of articles receive links from more than one source.

This research on Content Marketing has managed to find out a lot of interesting things such as it is really good to make the title of an article in the form of a question and that there is no such thing as a "good day" for publishing content. Rather than believe theories about the changing algorithms of Google and its friends, they decided to look into the meat of the data and draw their own new conclusions that had not been previously thought about.

The article offers some great conclusions from the research and accompanies it with great infographics, graphs, and additional aids in order to help you understand the data clearly.

When the digital marketing guru Neil Patel started using Content Marketing, there were fewer than 30 million existing blogs. Today there are more than a billion. And now, in a competitive market, there is a need for constant monitoring of updates.

To shed light on what really works and what is less - Patel has collected information from 183 companies from various industries that have been doing Content Marketing for at least eight years. Patel’s article is accompanied by 17 graphs that present the data, and it is worth a peek and use them as a reference if you want to present the trends in your presentations.

Here are the main insights that can be drawn from the charts:

• Social media traffic is decreasing from year to year. The reason for this is simple - social network algorithms have become super smart. Facebook, for example, operates algorithms that significantly limit the possibility of promoting your content through links from Facebook. She wants to leave the users inside Facebook and click on sponsored ads. Our organic content is not worth money and therefore they have no interest in helping us promote it. Do not expect significant social traffic if you do not pay them.

• According to the information collected, 51% of all blogging traffic came from organic promotion (SEO). If you are engaged in content-based marketing, you should take care of guest articles or PR articles to get as many links as possible to your site. Such links will produce stable and consistent traffic that is not affected by algorithm updates.

• If already SEO - Google moved from pushing web pages to push quality content. Blogs make 60-62 percent of the traffic that comes with searching the site. Although blogs pop up like mushrooms after rain and people make tons of content - there's really no choice but to do the same if we want to be loved by Google. Promote content instead of promoting the site itself.

• Another interesting figure that came up is that we need to take Content Marketing very seriously. If we talk a minute numbers - we recommend publishing 5.7 pieces of content on average per week if we want to grow over time. The more pieces of information we have, the more likely to attract more visitors. Challenging.

• In addition, one chart shows that the chances of someone reading the blog become a paying customer are 74% greater than someone who has never read the blog. While advertising is increasing, it's fun to know that a good blog can increase conversion rates.

• It's important to emphasize that blog visitors do not immediately become paying customers. According to Patel, a surfer will become a paying customer only after he has entered an average of 3.15 times a blog, in a process lasting at least two weeks. For that to happen, your blog should contain valuable content.

• Patel also expects to see a significant increase in the production of video and audio content. A trend that is already gaining momentum as we speak. YouTube, Facebook and the entourage are promoting content that leaves users with them, and for as long as possible. So even though most of the content on the web is written right now, you should now invest in more content-generating formats.

In conclusion, instead of relying on theories and slogans, Patel did the work for us all and investigated the subject on the ground. In the other graphs, you can find statistics on the number of staff handling the blog, the average number of sub-providers, the average number of posts posted on blogs each month, the average length of a post, and more.

The question of how long does an article need to be in order to be successful continues to produce vague answers which keep it popular in the marketing arena. In an article published in Broughton's magazine, Molly Ploe attempts to answer this question.

The bottom line is that there isn’t a single answer. However, we should note that the article is 2,150 words. It manages to shed some light on the question we all have - how long should a blog post be?

To know how many words you should write in each blog post, you first have to decide what the content’s purpose is. The content we write is not always intended to serve only those who read it. Therefore, what is the purpose for which the content was written? Are we trying to get a high ranking on Google? Do we want to establish our status as experts in the field? Perhaps the goal is for the content to be shared as much as possible?

If the goal is for it to be shared a lot, we should focus on long content.

This is not necessarily because someone will read it to the end, but rather because the statistics show that long articles get a lot more shares. BuzzSumo found that articles between 3,000 to 10,000 words were shared more often. In fact, the average for articles that received the most shares is actually 8,859 words!

Digging deeper, even more interesting is that 59% of people do not click on an article before they share it. Even those who do click on the article only read a quarter of it at best.

This means that in general people share articles on social media according to perceived value. That is they share it based on how much they think the article is of quality and relevant.

So how do we produce high perceived value?

We do this by using subheadings, images, prominent lists and other similar easy to digest elements in the body of our text. That way, we can increase the perceived value and achieve our goal of more shares.

Neil Patel says that the recommended number of words depends on the industry. For example, articles about gadgets show good performance when they're between 300 to 500 words long. On the other hand, marketing articles produce better results when they are between 2,500 to 3,000 words.

Ploe recommends using SEMRush or MarketMuse to check the length of your competitors' articles in order to determine the recommended number of words in your particular field.

In addition, Ploe has some great tips for writing long, good articles.

Do this by writing content that answers your audience's questions, referring them to additional sources to help them to deepen their understand, talking to them at eye level, and using data to back up what you say. This article is a great example of this.

In addition, you should make navigating the article simple and easy by using subtitled headers (H2 and H3), images, and anything else that will help your readers easily find the important parts of your article.

Also just as importantly, you should focus on using action sentences in the first third of the article. You can also place it in the rest of the article. However, only 20% of people actually read articles to the end. Therefore, if you only put your action sentence in the end, most people won’t even have a chance to read it.

In conclusion, the question of recommended length for a blog post does not have just one answer. Ploe makes it clear that we should rely less on the word length recommendations online and rather base the length of our articles on through tracking our target audience and adjusting the length based on our specific goals.

If you read this entire thing, we invite you to check out the full article to find out some additional interesting tips and data that Chloe gives regarding the recommended article length.

The US is very quickly turning into a podcast listening country. In fact, in 2017, a survey showed that around 25% of Americans (68 million people) listened to some sort of podcast. In addition, 42% of those people were also willing to pay for the podcasts.Needless to say, there are a lot of people listening. However, what is something that is of greater interest is what they are listening to. While, things such as tech, news, and sports are popular, the most popular is actually educational podcasts! Listeners want to be challenged. With around 43% of podcast listeners not even having a college degree and with studies showing that auditory learning can result in better retention of info than reading, this means that the landscape of education could be changing in a profound way. Rather than higher education, political establishments, or even the conventional media shaping the content of what the public talks about, podcasters are taking this role on more and more.One of the most important things that educational podcasts can do is help strengthen the civic, political, social, and economic life of people through education. Before, this was the stated goal of higher education. But in reality, it has not worked out as well as hoped. In fact, 1/3 of adults even go to college. Another 1/3 take their intellectual learning from things such as religious fundamentalism. This opens up the opportunity for podcasts to be the best medium in order to educate the masses. In fact, you can do it while you are driving to work or working out. A famous example of this is the a secular religious podcast headed by Zachary Davis who is a philosophy student of religion at Harvard Divinity School. He tackles many themes including moral luck, blame, apocalyptic thought, and cannibalism. However, he doesn't dumb down the material. Rather, he usually starts with a popular and current news item and then delves deeper into the spiritual issues that underscore it.

Content marketing is a very important part of a total marketing strategy online. In fact, with more and more people using software to block ads, it is becoming even more important to put your marketing in content. In the end it usually costs less, gets better conversion rates, and has better engagement. The following are 9 content marketing strategies that you should use to get the greatest benefits. 1. Make sure your content is user friendly. This is especially important as Google's search algorithms get better and better at determining what is good content and what is not good content. 2. Focus on getting micro influencers. Influencers have always been important. However, now with the advent of social media, people are starting to trust influencers rather than celebrities or advertising. Therefore, try to focus on your brand authenticity by finding people who use your products to help endorse them. 3. Make your content personal. Many social networks allow you to be hyper-focused on who you are marketing to. 4. Focus on video content marketing. While this has always existed. Now with improved video compression software and the increased penetration of Internet access, it is becoming an even more valuable marketing tool. One of the new ways to help interact with your customers is through virtual reality. 5. Use live videos. This helps give a more personal and intimate touch to your marketing efforts. 6. Use social media to promote news. In fact, a report for 2016 states that as many as 50 percent of people use social media for news. 7. Use the I.O.T. or Internet of Thing(s). This can include things such as Google Home, Siri, and Alexa. 8. Focus on super niche marketing. With more and more content on the interent, the only ways to get noticed are by either going viral or focusing on smaller niches. For example, instead of writing an article about marketing tips, write an article about marketing tips for beginners. 9. Use ephemeral marketing and people's F.O.M.O. (fear of missing out) to your advantage.

Singing up for email newsletters is a great way to learn from both individuals and companies that have gathered their best material to send out. One part of this process that is very important is the welcome email. To see if there were trends, the author signed up for 30 different newsletters across six different verticals. These verticals included brands in: publishing/news, home goods, restaurants, online courses/membership communities, non-profit and software as a service (SaaS). The most notable feature was that most were text based, in fact 18 out of 30 were either plain text or extremely lightweight (meaning there were only minimal design elements like a logo or single image). Welcome emails have an average of 58% open rate and 14% click through rate where are promotional emails only have a 14% open rate and 3% click through rate. One type of welcome email style that is on the rise the journalistic style, which takes a deeper dive into specific interest areas. Another reason that plain text emails are trending is that they have better deliverability since Gmail filters emails to the promotion tab. On top of that, plain text emails are open 25% more than H.T.M.L. emails. Another noticeable trend is leveraging the writer’s name, photo or signature to make add a human element. Asking subscribers to whitelist them was also prevalent as was onboarding and introductions.

We as humans tend to be very self critical, especially when it comes to the important choices in life. If we make a mistake, or think we're wrong, what do we do? We beat ourselves up about it, right? However, making mistakes is ok, its to be expected. Believe it or not, it's a sign that we're headed down the right path and it can be seen in the first choices we make versus the best choices we make. We often tend to think that our first choice is the best choice. But rarely is that the case. For example, although it does happen, rarely is the first person we ever date the best person to marry. Another is a recent college grad thinking he or she knows what the optimal career path is. The difference between being 20 versus being 30 versus 40 is HUGE. At age 20, one cant possibly KNOW where life will ultimately take you. Say youre an entrepreneur. Theres a slim chance that your first idea will be a successfull one.  If it's not, the things you will have learned from taking that chance and having that experience will be some of life's most valuable lessons. Lessons that you will take with you and use on your next endeavor. Being wrong and making mistakes is something every human being on the Planet has done, and will continue to do. Its part of the process of being human. Its those instances that you will reap the most benefits from because, in life, learning is a never-ending process and there is a lot to be learned.  Lets take a quick look at 5 things you can learn fromm your own mistakes.  1. Previous decisions that you made that might seem poor to you now are not an indication of failure, but one of personal growth;  2. The likelihood that your first major decisions will wind up being wrong are quite high.  Only by practice do we get better;  3. Nobody is a master of everything. Instead, focus on being really good at many smaller things. It makes you more well-rounded;  4. Trust your decisions if you maintain the knowledge youve gained from your mistakes. With regard to areas that you're not familiar with, experiment intelligently;  5. When you fail at something, NEVER give up. Remember, it is only by failing that you're able to learn.

You may be wondering if the digital audio market is right for you. The resounding answer is yes! With more than ¾ of all U.S. internet users listening, it is an untapped gold mine of opportunity. This can be seen in the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) report that shows U.S. ad spending increased by 22.9% from 2017 to 2018 with mobile ad spending increasing twice as much as that of desktops.

One of the biggest advantages of digital audio marketing is that it is very mobile. With an increasing number of people spending more and more time on mobile phones, audio is an obvious fit for the on-the-go person. 65% of podcast users use mobile devices rather than desktops according to the 2019 The Infinite Deal report. Also, US adults spend 53 minutes a day on their phones using audio apps. According to eMarketer’s 2019 Digital Audio Advertising report, for the first time, digital audio listening time was 4.4 minutes greater than radio listening time.

However, people aren’t just listening more to digital audio, they are also buying more due to it. In fact, according to a Midroll Media survey, 60% of surveyed podcasters said they bought something after hearing about it on a podcast. Also, they were 4.4 times more likely to remember an ad compared to other digital platforms.

This builds into the idea that relevance is key and guaranteed. In other words, by placing your ads on a brand-aligned audio channel, you are guaranteed to get results. The top 5 biggest genres are comedy (36%), news (23%), society/culture (22%), sports (15%), and true crime (12%). Also, there are many popular streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Soundcloud, etc… However, this doesn’t mean just placing your ads on the biggest channels out there.

What is most important is targeting your niche audience.
Another great advantage of audio is that it is exclusive to a moment and your attention. Yes, you can multitask by vacuuming and listening to a podcast at the same time, but you aren’t being bombarded with competing ads at the same time. In other words, when looking at a website like Facebook, you can see many ads at the same time. All of these are competing for your attention. However, when listening to digital audio, you can’t listen to two things at the same time. Fortunately, there are many ways to get into this audio advertising sphere including ad formats such as recorded spots, native ads, branded channels/playlists, and branded/sponsored podcasts.

Needless to say, the digital audio market is only getting louder and if you want to be part of it, you need to tune in now.