The 5 Core Elements of Online Content Marketing [Infographic]

You can have hundreds of websites on the internet, but if nobody knows about you, you are invisible. A well-planned, creative Online Marketing campaign can put you out there for the world to see and instantly increase your sales. Take a look at this infographic I came across on SocialMediaToday.com with the core elements of Content Marketing.

If you are a marketer or business executive looking for new ways to connect with your audience, you should consider online content marketing. Its 5 core elements work together to deliver your brand message efficiently and cost-effectively. By learning to shift resources from traditional marketing methods to the 5 core elements detailed in the Infographic below, you will be taking that first critical step in shaping your online content marketing strategy.

Core Elements of Online Content Marketing

Infographic by Synecore Technologies 
Submitted by Jacey Gulden

4 Blogging Tips to Double Your Site Traffic

Did you know that you can use yourbusiness blog for branding and it also establishes you as the authority in your niche? Blogging is an interactive method that will allow you to reach your target audience. This can include using the blog for website traffic, reaching new customers, branding, and it can be used as a communication medium. take a look at these tips below from SocialMediaExaminer.com.

Jason Crawford, president of the Parts and Service division of Block Imaging, was upstaged by his six-year-old daughter.

In her ponytailed debut on the Block Blog, Crawford asked her, “Madeleine, do you know how to fix a laser aimer?”, to which she confidently replied, “Yes!”

The pair then demonstrated with charming aplomb a simple troubleshooting tidbit for Block’s medical imaging equipment customers.

The video was one of a slew of ideas that came out of a two-day retreat aimed at kickstarting a company-wide commitment to content marketing through their blog.

Since then, Block has seen an increase of approximately 150% in organic search traffic to their site, which has translated to more and better-qualified leads and shorter sales cycles.

Sales volume has increased significantly enough since September that the company—which had been in a slump—hired 13 employees, including 3 additional salespeople.

Organization: Block Imaging International, Inc.

Social Media Handles & Stats:

• Website — Block Imaging International Inc.
• Blog
• LinkedIn
• YouTube — 12,591 views

Highlights:

• Organic search traffic increased from 4,000 to approximately 10,000 visits per month
• A single post was the impetus for a $70K order
• Three new salespeople hired since the company-wide commitment to blogging
• Over 250 downloads of The C-Arm Buyers Guide in its first 3 months

Block’s search traffic increased significantly after a September 2011 company retreat focused on content marketing.

Block Imaging, a 70-person company in Lansing, Michigan, provides preowned and refurbished medical imaging equipment, including machines for MRI, CT, X-ray, C-Arm and mammography, to a worldwide market.

Their sales growth over the past year is to a great extent directly attributed to theirfocus on content marketing through their blog.

Four factors have contributed most to their blog’s success.

#1: Buy-In From the Top

The atmosphere at Block Imaging in summer 2011 was fearful and distrusting; sales were down and every department had scaled back.

Vice President of Marketing Krista Kotrla articulates that they had two options: “Are we just going to accept this not being a good year and cutting and scaling back on everything, or are we going to go all-in on something to try to grow this business?”

She had experimented with getting a blog going the previous December, but participation and results were spotty. “It was kind of relegated to the marketing department trying to get an article from the company president maybe once or twice a month,” she said.

Kotrla proposed a two-day company-wide retreat with a content marketing specialist to launch what she calls a “culture of content marketing.” Response to the retreat was extremely positive, generating a host of ideas for blog posts and videos such as the one Crawford made with his daughter.

“I had never written a blog before, and I had never done a blog video before, but I figured we’ve got to start somewhere,” Crawford said. “It really came down to being willing to be a little vulnerable and a little real with people.”

Block Imaging employees in a team blog-title brainstorming exercise at their company retreat.

“It was a definite intentional shift from leadership saying that this is the way we are going to go, this is the wave of the future,” said Product Manager Chris Sharrock.

#2: Make it Easy for Everyone to Contribute

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy at Block for coming up with content. Sharrock dove in wholeheartedly, and has no problem consistently cranking out two to three blog posts a month, but some others have needed a little more help and encouragement.

Some people can take a list of keyword phrases that marketing has gleaned from Hub Spot and run with it; others work better with a specific blog post title. Others are more comfortable verbally. “Some salespeople feel much more comfortable standing in front of the backwall we set up in the conference room and filming a short video,” Kotrla said.

And if there is someone who hasn’t sent any submissions in a while, “We pull them aside and in a one-to-one meeting, try to figure out what they need,” she said. “Is it more keywords, specific titles? Sometimes they just need permission to stop the daily grind and sit down and talk it out. Other times, they feel more comfortable if they know it’s being reviewed by an engineer, so we’ll take a salesperson and an engineer out to lunch and flesh out a few outlines.”

Block’s ambitious goal of one post every weekday means managers must keep on top of department quotas, but they find that an atmosphere of inclusiveness and flexibility has far better results than reprimanding people for not participating. To date, over 40 people from the 70-person company have contributed to the blog.

#3: Empower a Content Officer

One strategy that has helped tremendously is to have a single point of contact for all blog drafts, someone they have taken to calling the “Content Officer.”

Jordan Batterbee, originally from engineering support, emerged as a natural writer who can take a draft, outline or even a list of bullet points from another team member and craft it into a well-edited, SEO-keyworded post, injecting some humor and personality along the way.

Jordan Batterbee, Block Imaging’s Content Officer

Having him as the conduit for all posts has been “hugely significant,” said Kotrla, “Because it made it a lot easier for people to contribute very little and turn it into a post that they get recognized for. It makes it easy and comfortable for people to participate.”

Batterbee has increased his contribution to the point that he is about to move over to marketing full time. “I wish we had invested sooner in developing a dedicated person to carry more weight in helping to oversee our blogging machine,” said Kotrla.

#4: Make it Fun and Rewarding

The one factor that ties everything else together is consistently celebrating and rewarding contributions to the company’s content marketing, creating an environment where employees are intrinsically motivated.

“Every two weeks at the staff meeting, we reward two content superheroes who have contributed something significant to the blog. We have a Spiderman mask and a Wolverine mask that they put on and we take a picture that we share in the next all-team PowerPoint presentation,” said Kotrla.

Two of Block’s biweekly Content Superheroes.

“We also have a really cheesy Plinko board with gift cards at the bottom, so they get a gift card, too. But it’s not really the gift cards, it’s the fun of knowing that you contributed. We try to inspire in the team that all of their efforts arecontributing in a significant way to the overall company vision.”

But besides the chance to unleash their inner superhero, the biggest motivator for Block’s employees is success.

Said Crawford, “When we get feedback when someone says, ‘Your answer to a common question helped me make a better decision,’ or when people begin to see that they helped someone get a better result or find an answer to a problem they were having, that’s a great feeling that people want to experience again and again.”

What do you think? Does your company have a blog? What strategies are succeeding or not succeeding in your content marketing? Leave your comments and questions in the box below.

Business blogging for lead generation

Businesses blogging has become the heart and soul for many business Social Media Marketingcampaigns. A business blog marketing strategy can get faster results than traditional online marketing and many businesses online are taking advantage of this opportunity to use this method as their main online marketing strategy.

How business blog marketing works is that it uses blog posts to advertise their services, products, and website to the online world. In plain English: business blogging is simply a way to market your business on the social web using your blog. Many businesses has a website, but not all of them are using a blog for marketing purposes.

Blogging for branding

Did you know that you can use your business blog for branding and it also establishes you as the authority in your niche? Blogging is an interactive method that will allow you to reach your target audience. This can include using the blog for website traffic, reaching new customers, branding, and it can be used as a communication medium.

Business blogs are the newspapers of the future and has become quite an important medium on the web. In my experience, blogging is also one of the best ways you can use to publish new news that can be spread like a virus online. More and more people are reading blogs everyday to find out information and if they are looking for an answer to their problems. This shows that blog readers are early influencers and adopters. People who read blogs are more likely to take an action when they have found what they are looking for.

Using business blogging for lead generation is a very similar to marketing with an enewsletter. With both you can build relationships with your customers and credibility. Do you have any success stories with blogging?

Evaluate & Energize Your Social Content Marketing Strategy

 Social Media Marketing (SMM) is almost the same as like having a conversation with your friends at a coffee shop.  It is also like getting that unexpected phone call from an old friend and just talking to each other.  It is conversational and laid back.  There are hundreds of companies jumping in on the social media band wagon that really just don’t get it and they are usually trying to hard. Take a look at whatToprankblog.com has to say.

 As marketers, social strategist and business owners we have the ability to create, consume, publish, interact and transact online. With 88% of brand and agency marketers using social media for social content distribution, how can social be leveraged in a way that’s meaningful enough to attract and engage customers? Below are five questions that can help evaluate and energize your current social content marketing strategy.

1) Why Invest in Social?

It’s important to first define the correlation between what you want to achieve as an organization, and how you want your audience to feel about you. Is what you’re putting out into the social sphere optimized for the best possible performance? Do you know what your customer’s goals are and how they align with the business goals your company is trying to achieve? This dialogue has to go beyond features and benefits, tell a story and make that a part of your content strategy. If from there it can be determined how best to integrate through social media marketing, that’s the win.

2) Who is Your Audience?

Do you understand the consumer? Who is your target audience? Are they new or existing customers, and are you optimized for those audiences? If we understand our audience we have an opportunity to appeal to them based on what they want and what’s important to them, and in turn create content that speaks to them throughout the sales process. By empathizing with customer’s wants and needs and knowing why they care about you as a company, you can leverage that through content marketing and deliver it to those customers in a way that speaks to them.

If we examine a hub and spoke model, assuming we know our primary goal or objective, we can do more than just release a piece of content on Facebook or YouTube. We can utilize our existing networks to exponentially increase the reach of that content. It’s not about just putting something up on Slideshare, its segmenting that content and posting it to Facebook and Twitter, publishing a blog or a white paper and truly leveraging what audience you have and motivating them to take action. If you’re going to take advantage of a model like this it’s imperative you continually grow those networks.

3) Are You Optimized for Consumption?

The notion of content optimization isn’t just about SEO; optimization is a continuous effort to make something better over time. SEO itself can be very limited to just search engines; optimization is relevant to all content and objectives. If we understand who we are trying to do business with we need to understand three things:

• How do they discover information?
• What are their preferences when it comes to topics and in what format do they prefer? What does your target audience appreciate that would motivate them to take action?
• How do we retain and evolve that customer?

Creating a better user experience requires that you know what your customers are talking about, and then blend that information into a content marketing and social media marketing plan. Be focused and you will stand out.

4) What’s The Customer Journey?

Traditional sales funnel would suggest we bring most consumers to the top of the funnel. But if we look at what might be more relevant to customers throughout the entire buying cycle we can create awareness. From a 360 degree perspective we look at the lifecycle as Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Purchase, Retention and finally Advocacy. It’s important to be optimized in every phase of that customer journey and map content to throughout each phase.

People tend to make decisions based on emotions, so think about how you want people to feel when they consume your content. Instead of publishing an infographic, determine where that infographic fits within the customer journey. Remember it’s not the media format that’s most important it’s the information. Don’t fall into the trap of creating content for SEO, content should be created for people and THEN you bring in SEO.

5) How Do You Measure Value? 

If the key performance indicators or KPI’s have been defined, the next step is measuring the progress being made to achieve those goals. What’s our share of voice how many times are people talking about us vs. our competition? Are we improving the customer experience? Are we increasing orders?
Social media is about meaningful relationships with people who will take action when asked. It makes more sense to produce a smaller quantity of content that has a higher level of engagement than it does to produce a large quantity of content that elicits little to no engagement. Knowing the level of engagement customers expect can determine what they are going to deem quality. Once you know that you can then optimize for it.

Optimization whether it be search or social is an approach, so set goals, test, revise, scale and repeat. There are the talking heads out there that might provide insight from time to time, but those who have experienced high levels of success have done so because they have learned to test and adapt based on their experiences. For more information on how to optimize your content strategy check out this blog on Content Marketing 101.

Speaking of your own experiences, what questions have you posed or tested to inform your social strategy? Demonstrate your social genius with a comment below.

Marketing Your Blog: 10 Essential Tips You Should Know

With so many blogs being created every day, it’s a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blog stand out. There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them.Some companies choose to hire a blog consultant, but others like to try things internally. Blog marketing is a must if you are a blogger. Take a look at these tips from Hongkiat.comabout marketing your blog.

Everything from contacts and invoicing to project management

Well, a new year is upon us, it’s also the start of a new decade within the blogosphere. More and more people are building blogs, and that means there are lots of blogs competing for the same eyeballs and your blog is just one of many. Try finding accurate figures on how many blogs there are and you will know it’s impossible to find a verifiable number because bloggers and their blogs come and go. Look around. It’s certainly a disheartened moment when you see blogs with quality articles that have been abandoned by their creators.

With all of these blogs out there, and all those information available at no cost, how do you make your blog stand out? No problem, just follow these tips and your blog will blossom in this new era when you stay ahead of the rest of your competitors.

1. Target Your Content To A Specific Readership

Image: via Dat Le

Unless you want to throw all of your marketing budget and precious time on people who could care less about your blog, then you must pay attention to determine the preferred audiences to whom you would like to target. Before posting any piece, determine if it hits the sweet spot of your demographic.

2. Be Original, Be Honest

Don’t follow the herd within your sphere of interest. Followers aren’t innovators and innovation keeps readers reading. So, don’t simply spin the same old post. Take an original slant on a common topic.

Be honest. Verify your facts and provide links to additional verification. Readers trust you to be a good reporter, instructor, mentor or inspiration so keep it honest at all times.

3. Don’t Be Afraid Of A Little Controversy.

Controversy sells. You and I know that. If it is a part of your business model, be prepared to engage others with differing opinions because, guaranteed, lots of readers will disagree, and you may even encounter a few trolls and haters who frequent blogs for no other purpose than to post inflammatory garbage.

4. Post As A Guest Blogger

Image: via AjDreams

Don’t post to just any blog within your realm. Submit your best pieces to the prestigious blogs – the ones that already have a substantial following. For example, Hongkiat.com is considered by industry insiders to be one of the best blogs for designers, marketers and freelancers. Getting one of your posts published on a top of the line blog is a great way to drive traffic to your blog where readers can find tons of content – all your archives – just waiting for a bookmark.

Of course, getting published on a well-established blog requires insight and something new to be added to the discussion. A rehash of conventional wisdom, regardless of the field of endeavor, won’t make the cut with top tier blogs within any industry or area of interest.

5. Simplify Subscriptions

Don’t hide your RSS button down the page together with your WordPress theme credit links, make them visible & clear for your reader’s eyeballs by taking the following approaches:

• Add an RSS chicklet at the top of your sidebar so visitors can easily load your posts into their RSS readers.
• Offer email subscriptions.
• Provide links to mobi feeds so readers can access new content from their cells or iPhones.
• Provide one click subscriptions using reader links to PageFlakes, Google Reader and other remote site readers. You can build a big following fast if you make it easy to find your blog again. And again, and again.

6. Social Media Marketing

The expansion of social media and the evolution of multi-generational media apps are only going to pick up steam. Social media sites have taken off, providing bloggers with an arsenal of tools based on the guerrilla-marketing axiom: Use the resources of others to your advantage.

A few years back, Twitter didn’t exist. Today, not only is it ubiquitous, it spawned a whole new level of web innovation and interactivity.

Follow the rules & open accounts at Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter. Every time you make a new post to your blog, let your readers know about it by posting to these popular sites. Update your status with interesting & latest news that fascinates your readers.

7. Create Different Profiles For Each Social Media Site

On LinkedIn, you want to be all about business. On Facebook, show a little of your personality – the carbon-based life form behind the blog. On Twitter, shine the spotlight on your blog. Each profile should be designed to show a different facet of you and your expertise.

8. Don’t Oversell. Teach, Too

If you post to social media sites all day long, flogging your latest blog post, it won’t be long before your Facebook friends hit the hide button next to your name. It can’t be all selling and no sizzle. Instead, post information on a new blog piece, but also post news from other sites that you think will benefit your readers. Know when to stop pushing for a larger readership and when to start giving away information to drive more readers to your blog.

9. Long Tail Keywords Get You Found

Image: via Wiki

If you maintain a book review blog, a broad keyword like books will keep you buried in the backwash of Google’s SERPs. Instead, narrow the focus of a search engine search through the use of terms and phrases, broadly referred to as long tail keywords.

So, instead of using “books” as a primary keyword, use a long-tail keyword like “independent book reviews” or “book reviews of current bestsellers.” Sure, not as many people will use these long tails when conducting a search but those who do will discover your blog at the top of page 1. And that’s just where you want to be.

10. Optimize Your Blog – Both For Readers & Bots

Cut the clutter of 23 affiliate banners, animated adverts and other distractions. Remember, your site should be attractive to human sensibilities.

Indeed, it’s important to look good to readers who follow you. It’s just as important to look good to search engine spiders. Conduct keyword research using tools like Google’s keyword generator that provides keywords used by actual Google users over the past 30 days. Place those keywords in headlines, sub heads and a few of them in your blog posts.

If you don’t know much about SEO, grab yourself a cup of coffee & start reading the comprehensive list of search engine ranking factor provided by Seomoz.

The pace of innovation is only going to increase in this new decade so, if you’re standing still you’re losing ground to competitor bloggers. Stay current, use all the new tools and follow all the new rules.

Your blog space is your real estate. It has value. Make the most of it.

25 Tips for Marketing Your Blog

Online content that you publish is one of your most valuable assets on the web. By sharing your content online you can enhance your company’s brand, broadcast your message across the web and demonstrate your expertise to name but a few benefits. Did you know that you can allow the visitors of your website or blog to share your content with others?Internet Marketing is a definite must for any business. Have a look at the below article I found ontoprankblog.com with tips for marketing your blog.

With so many blogs being created every day, it’s a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blog stand out. There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them.Some companies choose to hire a blog consultant, but others like to try things internally. For those “DIY” companies and individuals interested in practical tips for marketing and optimizing a business blog, try out the following list of blog marketing and optimization tips:

1. Decide on a stand alone domain name www.myblog.com or directory of existing site www.mysite.com/blog. Sub domain is also an option blog.mysite.com. Avoid hosted services that do not allow you to use your own domain name!
2. Obtain and install customizable blog software – WordPress and Moveable Type are my favorites.
3. Customize blog look and feel templates – aka design.
4. Research keywords and develop a glossary – Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, SitePoint, SEOBook Keyword Research.
5. Optimize the blog:
   • Template optimization – RSS subscription options, social bookmark links, HTML code, Unique title tags, URLs, Sitemap
   • Add helper plugins specific to WordPress or MT
   • Create keyword rich categories (reference your keyword glossary)
6. Enable automatic trackback and ping functionality.
7. Create Feedburner Pro account and enable feed tracking.
8. Setup a Google account for Sitemap, validate and prep for future submission.
9. Identify authoritative blogs, web sites and hubs for outbound resource links and blogroll.
10. Format archived posts, related posts.
11. Enable statistics for tracking – Google Analytics, ClickTracks.
12. Submit RSS feed and Blog URL to prominent RSS and Blog directories / search engines.
13. Engage in an ongoing link building campaign.
14. If podcast or video content are available, submit to Podcast and Vlog directories.
15. Submit blog url to paid directories with categories for blogs – Yahoo, BOTW, bCentral, WOW, JoeAnt.
16. Optimize and distribute a press release announcing blog.
17. Request feedback or reviews of your blog in relevant forums, discussion threads. If you have a resourceful post that will help others, point to it.
18. Research and comment on relevant industry related blogs and blogs with significant centers of influence.
19. Post regularly. If it’s a news oriented blog, 3-5 times per day. If it’s an authoritative blog, 3-5 times per week, but each post must be unique and high value.
20. Monitor inbound links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog – Google Alerts, Technorati, Blogpulse, Yahoo News, Ask Blogs and Feeds.
21. Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.
22. Make contact with related bloggers on AND offline if possible.
23. When making blog posts always cite the source with a link and don’t be afraid to mention popular bloggers by name. Use keywords in the blog post title, in the body of the post and use anchor text when you link to previous posts you’ve made.
24. Use social networking services, forums and discussion threads to connect with other bloggers. If they like your stuff, they will link to you.
25. Remember when web sites were a new concept and the sage advice to print your web address everywhere you print your phone number? The same advice applies for your blog.
    =============
26. If your blog’s goal is to promote you as an authority, interview other prominent bloggers in your industry. Your own credibility will improve by association.
27. Build out your online networks through services such as MyBlogLog, Twitter and Facebook and leverage them to promote particularly useful content on your blog.
28. Once your blog has 1000 or more subscribers, show your Feedburner badge
29. Host images with Flickr making sure to include an anchor text link in the image description back to the post where the image is used.
30. Use your blog to gain press/media credentials at relevant industry conferences and use the event to create content, connections and increase your knowledge.

What would you add to this list?

Quality content marketing to get results

Content marketing is all the buzz online, and many people see it as a new trend. Content marketing is not a new strategy in the internet marketing world, but it plays a vital part with any internet marketing campaign. Content marketing should not just be seen as placing random articles of text on your website and blog with the hopes of getting attention. If you can create quality content for your target audience that catches the attention of interested people, and they decide to share the content with their own community and network, you have succeeded in creating good content that will work for you.

The content you create doesn’t have to be plain “text” and the content can also be in the form of videos, images, or an infographic. Quality content is the content you create in your internet marketing and social media campaign to grab the attention of the people you are interested to reach. Creating quality content that will draw in interested readers is not an easy task, and it should always be created to support your traditional and digital marketing strategy.

How are you going to start with a content marketing strategy? Find below a couple of tips that can help you with content marketing.

Content marketing is not free

Content marketing is usually not free, and it is very important that you find the best sources for your content marketing strategy. Even though you can write the content yourself, it takes time and effort. I for one, like to write the content myself, but it does make it easier if you can find a good copywriter with experience in your industry to provide you with content. Content marketing shouldn’t be seen as a standalone campaign because it will support your SEO (search engine optimization), and social media marketing strategy. See it a a way to enhance and broaden your digital footprint. It is a way for people to interact with your brand, and that is why it is so important to focus on creating “quality content” that your audience will engage with. In simpler terms; take your content marketing strategy seriously.

Integrate content marketing with your other marketing strategies

To create quality content, provide valuable information that your customer needs, wants, and searches for. It is helpful to create buyer personas with a detailed editorial calendar that will help your quality marketing creation process. The content can then be used with your traditional marketing as well as your SEO, and social media marketing campaigns. Your quality content must have relevant call to actions and must be tracked/measured so that you can measure the results of your content marketing campaign. Ensure that your content will be easily find able, this means, it should be view able on a variety of devices. Not everyone uses desktop computers to connect with the internet, and many people uses smartphones, tablets, and even their TV.

Once you have started with your content marketing strategy, you must measure how well your campaign is doing with your goals. If you are not getting any positive results, reassess your strategy and adjust your strategy.