'Net Features : Content Equals Money

3 Ways to Kick-Start Conversions

Administrator — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:15:00 GMT

:: By Amie Marse, Content Equals Money ::

Conversions are one of the top priorities of companies engaging in online business. Without a strong rate of conversions, companies are simply sinking money into a profitless division. With the right strategy, however, a company’s online presence can trigger substantial growth.

Mobile optimization is the key to getting conversions in 2013. Everywhere you look, someone is checking their smartphone for recommendations about which product to buy or which restaurant to try. Developing a strategy that targets mobile consumers allows your company to draw in a whole new demographic. Mobile-first businesses generally place an emphasis on acquiring new customers, a focus that many mainstream organizations lack, according to David Needle.

If you are unsure of how to improve your online marketing tactics, try integrating at least one of the following three strategies. In 2013, optimizing your mobile landing pages, updating your email marketing, and mastering the balance between short- and long-form content are three of the surest ways to gain conversions.

Creating an Optimized Landing Page

A landing page is the online form of a first impression. Your landing page needs to give viewers an immediate idea of what to expect from your products or services. Furthermore, an optimized landing page will engage consumers in a way that encourages conversions. Without careful optimization, your landing page may drive consumers away, especially in regard to mobile.

The top priority of a landing page optimized for mobile is accessibility. Every aspect of the landing page must be easily navigable by fingers on a touch screen, or the visitor will quickly return to the search engine to choose a different result. Avoid the use of elements that include flash or plug-ins, since they slow down mobile users.

Mastering the art of engaging headlines is a persuasive way to interest consumers and bring in conversions. Strong, informative headlines decrease the need for wordy descriptions underneath, which is beneficial for the necessity of speed. Mobile users want to visit pages that load immediately and present brief, to-the-point information.

In order to increase conversions, more and more businesses are utilizing variable sites that can rearrange themselves to target the viewer’s needs. Based on the visitor’s search criteria, your optimized landing page should present relevant information that makes it easy for the consumer to convert.

Innovative Email Marketing

Although many marketers seems to believe that email marketing has run its course and lost its relevance in the age of mobile, there is a strong contingency of experts that still encourage the use of email marketing. In fact, email marketing can be improved for mobile by incorporating many of the same strategies that apply to landing pages.

Mobile users usually check their email even more frequently than those using a computer, so be sure to send out emails that are optimized for mobile views. Like mobile landing pages, email marketing should be simple, accessible, and relevant. Remove graphics and images so that the text is prominent. Pare the content down to the most important information and include formatting techniques like bullet points and bolding to make your message easy to scan.

When developing the content for your email marketing, drop the sales pitch. We’ve all seen an endless stream of sales pitch emails piled into our inboxes. If consumers feel like you have nothing to offer besides a sales pitch, they will take their business to a more engaged company. Instead of a sales pitch, use your email to offer valuable content that sparks interest and encourages interaction. One way to optimize your content is to make use of targeted marketing.

In order to turn your emails into conversions, don’t forget to include plenty of clear links. Once you have claimed the reader’s attention, show them a way to respond through visiting your website or social media profile. Since you are avoiding an obvious sales pitch in your email, you have to find a creative way to build conversions. Giving the reader incentive to follow a link is the most dependable way to get him or her to a page that will present a sales pitch.

The Strengths of Short- and Long-Form Content

The most obvious reason for the popularity of short-form content is the growth of Twitter. As modern individuals try to condense every thought into 140 characters, long-form content has declined. Even blog posts have generally become shorter and more succinct to accommodate the desire for quick sources of information.

Long-form content hasn’t become irrelevant, however. Experts like Ev Williams are predicting a return to long-form content as we react to the overdose of short-form content. Long-form content provides a space for more meaningful and insightful commentary that develops and share ideas in a way that can’t be achieved in short-form content.

So how should your company use short- and long-form content to get conversions in 2013? The most effective strategy is to use both forms to complement each other. Use short-form content to create initial contact with consumers, whether through tweets, blogs, or Facebook posts. Once that contact is established, present long-form content that deepens the connection between your company and the consumer by instigating conversation that will generate conversions. A combination of short- and long-form content strategies will produce a more comprehensive marketing campaign that permeates your customers’ online lives.

About the Author

Amie Marse, is the founder and managing partner of Content Equals Money, a content writing service for agencies and Web-based clients.

With Smart Marketing, Nothing is Boring

Administrator — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:25:00 GMT

:: By Amie Marse, Content Equals Money ::

For certain businesses, developing a dynamic marketing campaign is extra challenging due to products that are quite boring to the average consumer. However, these products don’t have to be boring. A creative, exciting marketing campaign can make any product seem interesting, even remote servers and email hosting.

Fashioning an engaging marketing campaign requires an awareness of the needs of the consumer. A recent survey conducted by Lightspeed Research and the Internet Advertising Bureau found that the top three components wanted in advertisements are relevance, usefulness, and a discount. Younger adults were more focused on the inclusion of entertainment, while older adults were insistent that advertisements should concentrate on presenting significant information.

Examples of Smart Marketing

With these points in mind, the marketing strategy for your “boring” product must first consider the desires of your target consumer. One example of a company that has capitalized on the needs of the consumer is Dropbox. Using an innovative referral marketing strategy, Dropbox has generated an impressive consumer base that continues to grow. By offering customers incentives for referrals, Dropbox relied primarily on word-of-mouth promotion to gain popularity in the “boring” but competitive industry of cloud storage.

The primary lesson to learn from the example of the Dropbox marketing campaign is to play to your strengths by developing an understanding of what does and doesn’t work for your campaign. When Dropbox first launched, traditional marketing didn’t do the company a whole lot of good. However, analysis of the company’s growth showed the marketing team that word-of-mouth marketing was the most effective component of their campaign. Once the marketing campaign shifted towards a focus on word-of-mouth and referral marketing, the company really took off.

A second recent example of a company creating an exciting marketing campaign for “boring” products is General Electric, which realized that their marketing department was ineffective in making decisions about the company’s promotional strategies, so the business came up with an entirely new approach to marketing. The new marketing strategy was concerned with eight disciplines that the company found to be significant in developing a marketing campaign. In addition, the marketing department identified four important roles that marketers had to play in creating an effective campaign. With this well-defined new approach General Electric entered a new era of intentional promotion for its products instead of relying on the high quality of the products to speak for themselves.

How To Develop Brilliant Marketing

The first step in producing a dynamic marketing campaign for your “boring” product is to ask the right questions about the industry that will allow you to understand what customers want in a product. Competitive analysis might help in this part of the process. Most importantly, learn to empathize with your customers so that you can present content that will be useful and relevant to their needs. As you determine who will be your target audience, generate a conceptual customer persona to whom you will address your content.

Successful content will be helpful and educational to your audience. Even if the product seems boring, informational content that addresses any questions or problems the customers might face will be valuable to your audience. In order to create this kind of beneficial content, avoid generic content and instead generate content specific to the customers’ concerns. Your understanding of the industry will assist you in coming up with particular topics that uniquely appeal to your target audience.

Your interesting marketing campaign doesn’t have to be silly. You may see viral videos and memes that promote a product and think that you have to create something goofy to grab attention, but depending on your industry, dignified content may be more productive. Try incorporating different types of attention grabbing content, such as an interview with an authority in your field, a helpful infographic, or a shocking statistic. Don’t shy away from humor, but incorporate humor that appeals specifically to your target audience.

Don’t forget to build a space where your customers can engage with your brand. Have a place to answer questions, offer a forum, or produce a podcast that takes customer calls. If your customers see your company as a source of information, they will keep coming back.

Building Great Content

As you create your content, remember that quality content requires the investment of your time. Find a tone for your content that is relatable and not over-bearing. Take time to make sure that any written content is high quality and easily readable – try adding bold font or bullet points to make the content look more appealing. Don’t be afraid to present static content – if the information is useful to your audience, it will remain relevant and continue generating interest in your brand.

Once you have implemented these strategies in your campaign for your “boring” product, take time to analyze the results of your marketing tactics. Follow the example of Dropbox and identify your greatest strengths so that you can capitalize on them and continue to produce a dynamic campaign that makes your product seem vital and exciting.

About the Author

Amie Marse, is the founder and managing partner of Content Equals Money, a content writing service for agencies and Web-based clients.

4 Creative Ways to Use Tumblr for Business

Administrator — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:15:00 GMT

By Amie Marse, Content Equals Money

Tumblr is becoming an increasingly important space for getting your brand noticed. Although you may have built a social media presence on influential sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, Tumblr is still a valuable addition to your social media strategy. Particularly for small businesses, Tumblr offers an inexpensive way to build a custom domain.

Why is Tumblr different from other social sites? While Facebook may act as a place to keep up with friends and LinkedIn connects you to colleagues, Tumblr is completely focused on public self-expression. Tumblr pages include an amalgam of photographs, videos, songs, cartoons, jokes, quotes and questions. Businesses can use these tools to express the ideas that drive the brand on a deeper level.

Making your brand stand out on Tumblr is a tough marketing issue. With more than 86 million pages, visitors to Tumblr are bombarded with a never-ending stream of possibilities, so making your page immediately memorable is crucial. Attitude and edginess are key qualities on the Tumblr pages that enjoy raging success. In order to achieve popularity on Tumblr, your company must develop a strategic plan that is entirely focused on reaching your Tumblr goals.

As a part of this plan, you must consider what kind of site you wish to present. Choosing a niche as well as a creative philosophy is an enormous part of developing your company’s reputation on Tumblr. Businesses employ a number of fascinating strategies to make their Tumblr pages stand out. Four of the creative blog styles that seem to be favored by businesses are offering instruction, focusing on multimedia, engaging visually and presenting customer discounts.

Instructional Posts

Although much of Tumblr is devoted to visual imagery, many businesses have developed ways to engage the intellect of viewers. Tumblr creates a space where businesses can blend images and text to present helpful information.

One example of a company that effectively incorporates instructional posts into their Tumblr page is Dark Rye, which is the online magazine run by Whole Foods Market. Although a grocery store seems like a strange business to have a presence on Tumblr, Dark Rye proves that Tumblr is a highly efficient way to communicate with consumers and offer practical tips on how to use the goods they purchase at Whole Foods. Dark Rye’s Tumblr is a blend of recipes, posts about organic foods, inspirational photos, and instructions on practical skills like starting a campfire.

Multimedia Blogs

Many businesses expand on the visual focus of Tumblr by incorporating elements of audio and video. These components form an extra level of engagement with viewers. One company that is especially successful in converting its brand to Tumblr-form through multimedia is Fresh Air, one of NPR’s popular radio shows. Since Tumblr is such a visual medium, it seems counter-intuitive that a purely audio form of communication could transform into a Tumblr page, but Fresh Air delivers a refreshingly intellectual form of Tumblr. Fresh Air offers visitors a collection of images, videos, and short text to illustrate recent shows, as well as short teaser audio clips.

Visually Oriented Pages

Since images are the prime currency of Tumblr, fashion brands tend to do particularly well in Tumblr format. However, simply posting photos is not enough to get attention on Tumblr. Fashion companies that present a creative twist along with their images are remarkably popular. For instance, ModCloth utilizes a Tumblr theme that allows visitors to customize the page they are viewing. Another example comes from Elle Magazine. Elle uses stunning photos and insightful captions to present the latest trends and fashion moments. A notably unusual page is that of the Oscar PR Girl, which features the behind-the-scenes musings and inspiration of a young woman working in the PR department of the famous fashion house.

Discount Sites

Certain companies have begun to utilize the potential of Tumblr as a source for spreading the news of their discounts and coupons. The most successful example of this tactic is Kmart. Its Tumblr page is solely devoted to sharing current coupons and discounts, allowing visitors to the site a quick way to assess the current offerings.

Whatever strategy you choose for your company, the most important aspect is to develop a plan that demonstrates why your brand is unique.

About the Author

Amie Marse, is the founder and managing partner of Content Equals Money, a content writing service for agencies and Web-based clients.

Is Your Blog an Information Powerhouse?

Administrator — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:45:00 GMT

By Amie Marse, Content Equals Money

If there’s one thing your customers want to see in your blog, I can almost guarantee you it’s this: valuable information. We’re not talking about Wikipedia-style information. We’re talking exclusive, you won’t find this in Google’s 1.2 million search results kind of information.

I’ve been writing for the Web since 2005, and over the last 8 years I’ve learned a few things about creating content that matters. If you want to give your blog an edge over your competition, grab these five strategies by the horns, and put them to work for you.

Showcase Your Personal Knowledge

Here’s the thing about valuable content: In order to have something valuable to say, you don’t have to be the very best at what you do. You don’t have to have the most experience, the biggest clientele or the most expensive website design. Simply by being a part of your industry, you have a unique perspective that outsiders don’t have. Share your unique perspective, your personal experiences and your hard-earned knowledge on your company’s blog.

One of my favorite blogging tips of all time comes from The Sales Lion, Marcus Sheridan who recommends that bloggers, who are at a complete loss with what to write about next, should take out a sheet of paper and write down every question they’ve ever been asked about their business. Then, take those questions, and turn them into blog posts.

You might think you have nothing new to share, but I guarantee you that when you sit down to write out these questions, you’ll find that you have several topics that nobody could cover but you.

Stop Regurgitating Content

When you showcase your personal knowledge, you shouldn’t have this problem (the regurgitation issue). Unfortunately, most blogs read like old TV re-runs, sharing the same old things we’ve all seen before. On the surface, this is a creativity issue, but at base, I believe it really has to do with laziness and organization.

If you set aside time at the beginning of each month to create an editorial calendar, I can almost guarantee you that you’ll largely sidestep the regurgitation issue. Most bloggers slip into the trap of regurgitation when they feel pressured to throw a post up on their site. If you know in advance when you’re posting and what you’re posting about, you can take the time to create a post that uniquely showcases your personal knowledge.

For help with developing your own editorial calendar, I highly recommend this post from Copyblogger.

Use a Bounty of Resources & Links

As smart as you are, it’s still important to incorporate a variety of resources into your blog posts. On the one hand, resources give your readers easy access to extra information. On the other hand, they make you look more credible. Resources are a way of demonstrating that you do, in fact, keep up on your industry and market trends.

Types of resources you should include? That’s a long list, but a few of my favorites include peer bloggers, news articles pertaining to your industry, other writers’ how-to guides, and your earlier blog posts and resource pages. Find out why Ellie Mirman of HubSpot believes you should link to your competitors (a smart strategy for building thought leadership).

Create a Mission Statement (For Yourself)

The point of this post is to make your blog an information powerhouse. However, that doesn’t mean that all information – even good information – should appear on your blog. You might know a lot about SEO and a lot about banana plantations, but you wouldn’t make a blog that highlights both subjects. Your readers like to know what they can expect from your blog.

In order to avoid topical derailing, create a mission statement for your blog. This doesn’t have to be on the header of every page; just write it down for yourself. Keep it simple. For example, “The purpose of my blog is to help small businesses with no SEO knowledge or skills rank their websites on the first page of Google.” If a blog post doesn’t line up with that mission statement, toss it! (If you use an editorial calendar and a mission statement, you won’t even have to write a misfit blog post in the first place.)

Segmented Leads & Clear CTAs

While your blog needs an overarching mission statement, each post should have its own “mini-mission statement.” Of course, I’m talking about your call-to-action. Your reader should never get to the end of a blog post, and ask, What now? Each one of your posts should have a clear CTA that directs the reader to do something specific. Not only is this reassuring to the reader, but it also builds your blog’s reputation as a source of valuable information.

Think about all of your different leads (and what stage of your sales cycle they’re in), and create blog posts with CTAs that target each one. It could take a week or a month of blogging to create posts that target each lead, but when you use an editorial calendar, the process becomes much less intimidating!

So, remember…showcase your knowledge (without regurgitating) and use an editorial calendar and plenty of resources. Write according to a mission statement, and create content for all of your different leads with clear CTAs. Easy? Hardly. Doable? Absolutely! My challenge to you is to dedicate yourself to this style of blogging for one month, and then note the differences in traffic and engagement. I’d love to hear how it works out for you!

About the Author

Amie Marse, is the founder and managing partner of Content Equals Money, a content writing service for agencies and Web-based clients.

4 Deadly Content Marketing Sins

Administrator — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:30:00 GMT

By Amie Marse, Content Equals Money

Content marketing: a popular catchphrase that gets tossed around as if it holds the answer to all of your problems. Well, since you're still reading articles about content marketing (and since I'm still writing them), it's obvious that it's not a magic fix-all solution. In fact, if you want to do content marketing really well, you might have to go through some months of working fervently and fruitlessly. (Trust me, the results aren't immediate, and the troubleshooting process can be frustrating.)

If you feel like your company's content marketing efforts are on the road to nowhere, then I'm willing to bet that you might be facing one of these four deadly content marketing sins.

You're Too Sales Oriented

This "deadly content marketing sin" is first on the list for a reason. I can't tell you how many company blogs I've seen that only focus on the product and the hard sell. I'm sure you've seen these blogs, too - you probably just don't remember them because you left the site never to return after about twenty seconds.
The truth is, sales copy is a turn off unless it's really well done, and the reader is hungry for it.

Your blog is generally not the place for sales copy, and unless you have a sales copy master cranking it out, then it's probably not translating well to your blog readers. A little bit of the "soft sell" is OK from time to time in your company blog, but for the most part you should focus on offering value-oriented content and strong thought leadership.

You're Having a One-Way Conversation

OK, so maybe the "sales talk sin" isn't your issue. I ask you to consider this question: are you having a one-way conversation, or are you creating dialogue with your blog-readers? It really grinds on me to read blog posts that talk to the reader, not with the reader. Remember, this is "inbound marketing," (or "permission marketing," to use a phrase Seth Godin made popular). You should be engaging in dialogue with your readers. If you aren't doing this, here are a few tips to help you get started:

Open up the comments section on your blog. There's no point in blogging if you aren't going to let your readers reply publicly.

Share your blog posts on your Twitter and Facebook pages. When you share the posts, formulate the tagline in a way that encourages dialogue.

Review every paragraph of your blog, asking yourself, "Is this valuable to my reader? What could she respond to in this paragraph?"

"Me, Mine, My, I, Myself, Me, My..."

This content marketing issue ties in with the last point, but it extends well past the parameters of the blogging world. We've all seen these blogs and Twitter pages. It's the ones that only share the author's own content. Remember, social media is "social," not just "media." Make sure your content marketing efforts don't just focus on your own products, services and content. People who only talk about themselves are boors; if your content marketing strategy is totally self-focused, then your business will be boorish, too.

Personality: Flatline

Speaking of personality, does your blog have one? Really, think about it. Are you doing all you can just to bang out 400 words and put up a post every other day, or are you taking the time to infuse your blog posts with your personality?

Readers know the difference between a blog with a human voice behind it and a blog that's written by lifeless robots. Want to see a company blog that's steeped in personality? Check out the Scoutmob Tumblr. Your blog doesn't have to be over-the-top personable to have personality. Just make sure that you have a clear voice - a voice that's unmistakable.
If you haven't seen an upward ticking trend in sales after months of content marketing, step back from your blog, review these four deadly content marketing sins, and give it a try again. I think you'll notice the difference.

About the Author
Amie Marse, is the founder and managing partner of Content Equals Money, a content writing service for agencies and Web-based clients.

Content Marketing Without a Blog

Administrator — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 21:00:00 GMT

It’s no secret that content marketing has a phenomenal ROI (the statistics only seem to get better with each passing year). In fact, Kapost and Eloqua recently produced an eBook on the ROI of content marketing in which they stated that per dollar content marketing produces three times the number of leads as compared to traditional marketing.

Unfortunately, many businesses have shied away from content marketing, mistaking the term for a synonym of “blogging,” which is not the end-all-be-all of content marketing. In fact, I can think of seven ways you can do content marketing without a blog…

Vlog

Not much for writing, but love talking? Share your experience and knowledge through a vlog series on YouTube, and promote it through your Twitter and Facebook page. Trust me, this works. If you need any evidence, allow me to point you to the wildly successful "Will It Blend?" campaign by Blendetc.

Podcast

You aren’t much for appearing on camera either. That’s fine – go the route of the podcast. Interview experts in your industry, or just take 10 minutes to address your customers’ frequently asked questions. The podcast is still a viable form of content marketing. Plus, it’s the only non-visual form on this list.

Facebook & Twitter

It almost goes without saying that Facebook and Twitter are great ways to drive a content marketing strategy, but don’t take my word for it. 76 percent of businesses are using social networking for business objectives.

Infographics

Are you in an industry that loves statistics and facts? (Hint – the answer is a resolute ‘yes’.) Put the right amount of creativity and effort into it, and you can have an infographic that goes viral. Seriously, any business can leverage an infographic to their advantage. As an example, take Brilliance, a jeweler whose “Kardashian Wedding vs. Average Wedding” infographic went viral in 2011. The infographic brought in thousands of visitors to the company’s website because it was well done and interesting.

Whitepapers

So, I said I have seven strategies that avoid blogging, but not writing. If you’re a B2B company, then a white paper could be just the thing you need to widen your reach and generate hundreds of new leads. If there’s no one in your company capable of writing a rock-solid white paper, then it’s worth budgeting some cash to pay a professional to do the job. A half-baked white paper receives the same critical acclaim that a half-baked research paper earned you in high school. Back then, it was a C+. Today, it’s money down the drain.

Knowledge Bank

You can approach the Knowledge Bank strategy in one of these two ways (or both): your bank could be an organized index to all of the resources on your website, and/or it could serve as a roundup of the web’s “Best of the Best.” Either way, the point is to make valuable information organized and easy to find.

Pinterest & Instagram

At the end of Aug. 2012, the Los Angeles Times described Pinterest and Instagram’s growth as “meteoric,” citing a 2,183 percent growth over the course of one year for Pinterest. Instagram has performed remarkably well, too. From July 2011 to July 2012, monthly traffic increased from 56,360 to 12 million. On Thanksgiving Day 2012, Instagram users shared a jaw-dropping 10 million photos. If your product or service has a visual draw, then sign up with these sites today.

The Bonus

There are many benefits of doing content marketing with a blog. According to the 2012 Digital Content Marketing Survey, blogging is the second-most utilized form of Web content (75 percent), right behind social media (90 percent). Also, the best results come from social media content, e-newsletters and blogs.

Though we’re still waiting on the 2013 Survey, I’d be surprised if the blog isn’t holding steady.

About the Author

Amie Marse, is the founder and managing partner of Content Equals Money, a content writing service for agencies and Web-based clients.