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What is content marketing and how does it benefit lead generation?

A formal definition of content marketing might go something like this – a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing catchy, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a defined target audience and help generate profitable leads. Put simply, it is creating and distributing fun, engaging, powerful and moving content that captures your audience’s attention and compels them to do something. Content marketing should be an ongoing process within your overall marketing strategy; however in the B2B market, very few businesses are executing it to its full potential and are missing a cost-effective marketing trick!

 

What is the ‘content’ in content marketing?

Content marketing revolves around the production of original or curated mixed-media, then distributing it through your different marketing channels, such as website, email or social media. Some typical examples of the type of content you could produce are:

• Blogs
• Case studies
• Video
• Social media posts
• Podcasts
• Webinars
• Infographics
• GIFs
• Quizzes/Surveys
• Competitions
• White Papers
• Resources, for example glossary of terms, calculators, price lists, generators etc
• Apps

 

Content marketing benefits for lead generation
Other than SEO, PPC and other online advertising methods, blogging is considered the most effective tool for B2C and B2B marketers for generating leads through online channels. Did you know that according to statistics by WebDAM, B2B marketers who blog consistently generate 67% more leads than marketers who don’t? So if you don’t have a blog or news page, you might want to consider getting one! However, the content you are putting out needs to be relevant and engaging for your specific audience in order to see results. Different types of content will generate different outcomes based on their purpose. You might create content to increase brand exposure or your social media following. Perhaps you are looking to inform your audience or existing customers about new projects or industry insights. Your choice of content should be specific to your goals and distributed through carefully selected channels tailored towards your audience.

 

Create a content plan
In order to produce consistent and good quality content, we suggest creating a content plan as part of your marketing strategy. A content plan will highlight any activities in relation to your content and give you a schedule to work towards to help keep on top of things! We’ve got some helpful tips to create your plan.

1. Whether you’re new to content marketing, or are looking to improve your existing content, firstly we’d recommend looking at your competitors to see what types of content they are producing, if any, and if it is effective or not, to get some ideas for your own. Useful things to look out for are use of links to their website or to external articles, use of hash-tags, and the engagement they receive including likes, comments and shares. Just remember that whilst It is helpful to get inspiration from your competitors, it can be difficult to come up with original ideas that have never been done before, so make sure you avoid copying content and that yours is unique, your own and reflective of your business.

2. Firstly, you need to choose the types of content you wish to create and your goals, for example, social media posts can be great for brand exposure and increasing your audience reach, whereas case studies and white papers can be used to target industry or solution-specific prospects through a lead-gen email campaign.

3. Establish how much content you can create and how often, given your resources and time. A social media post can be created in several minutes, whereas a white paper can take hours to produce.

4. Lastly, you will need to decide how you will be distributing the content. The majority of content will be hosted on your website, but you can then decide if you will share it on social media, include a feature and a link in your e-newsletter or create a targeted email campaign to prospects or for existing clients.

5. Implement all of the above into a content calendar and schedule posts where applicable using social media managing software such as Hootsuite or Sprout, so that you remain consistent, avoid duplication and can plan weekly or monthly themes and topics that fall in-line with your business model.

 

Content marketing benefits for SEO
The more up-to-date your website is, the more beneficial it is for your user and SEO; therefore, adding new content to your website, such as regular blogs, video, resources, graphics, case studies or white papers can help improve your search engine rankings. Video is increasingly relevant and in demand by users; therefore, having embedded video on your site is a big plus. Content is also a good medium through which to target new keywords, expanding your presence in the search engines, so your audience can find you more readily.

 

How can we help?
At TLC Business, we can take care of all of your content marketing requirements. Need help with social media management, creating engaging blogs and white papers or producing infographics or resources for your audience? Get in touch today by emailing us on info@tlc-business.co.uk or calling 01962 600 147.

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#MarketingTitbits – content writing, Halifax, learning to code

content-heartbeats-code-smaller1. 17 fantastically useful tools for content writers and bloggers
For content writers and bloggers, writing can often be a stressful and difficult set of skills to master. But with the help of Econsultancy, we can show you some of the best tools to help you along the way.

If you’re someone who struggles with content generation, not to worry, you can check out Portent’sor HubSpot’s topic generators. With these tools you can avoid the hassle of wracking your brain for one or two ideas – you’ll get hundreds! But if you’re looking to improve the quality of your writing, you can use Grammarly, which highlights any fault in grammar, punctuation and spelling, while Unsuck-itwill help you to breakdown business jargon that can often confuse readers.

There are many more useful tools available, so click here to see how your content can get a refresh.

2. Halifax is replacing passwords with your heartbeat

With technology growing and developing at a rapid rate, it’s no surprise that the security of bank accounts is now top of the agenda. Cybersecurity has always been important to the population and now Halifax is looking to develop wristbands that will identify your own unique heartbeat in order to access your account, replacing the humble password.

The trial follows a new service that was launched by the Royal Bank of Scotland in February, which uses fingerprint recognition as a log in method, while Google and Yahoo are developing their ideas for using facial or voice recognition as an alternative.

For a demonstration on the new tech, click here.

3. BBC is giving away 1 million Raspberry Pi computers so kids can learn to code

The BBC has recently revealed its intentions to highlight how learning to code should become a critical component of a child’s education in today’s digital age. Next year, they plan to give away 1 million microcomputers to year 7 pupils.

The Micro Bit is currently being developed and will be a small piece of wearable hardware that will aid in learning coding and programming. Due to the shortage in skills surrounding coding, it’s no surprise that organisations such as Microsoft, Google, Samsung and Code Club are all getting involved.

To find out more on the BBC’s latest initiative, click here.

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SEO: Content is key!

SE0-Content-Final3-1Over the past few years, there have been several changes to Google’s SEO algorithms. It feels as if as soon as companies start to master search engine optimisation, Google decides to move the goal posts. This can be frustrating for businesses; however, quite rightly in our opinion, each evolution of search is driven by improving the experience for the end-user, so it is important for companies to get their SEO strategy right, in order to make the most of their website.
With the SEO goal posts constantly moving, knowing how to improve the page rankings and performance of your website is often easier said than done. With this in mind, over the next few months, we will provide you with a series of blogs to help you demystify SEO and improve the visibility of your website.

 Creating content for your website isn’t about embedding as many key terms and phrases on your site as possible.  Google can distinguish between content that adds real value and content that has been posted solely for SEO purposes.

 

Use keywords, headers and page titles to support your text:

Quality content is the key! Most end-users aren’t looking to read long, academic papers; instead, they’re skimming the text, looking for what they need. Search engines do a similar job when indexing your site. Include keywords in the page title, headers and toward the top of the content. By doing this you are giving your website the best opportunity to be placed higher in search engines for those terms. Don’t be tempted to bombard your readers with links or bury the answers to their questions underneath vast swathes of ‘fluffy’ text that adds nothing to the reader’s experience or knowledge.

 

Write for your audience, not the search engines:

It is important to include good content that has been written for your end-user and not for a search engine. Before you can create great content for your website, you have to understand who your target audience is. Who are you talking to? Who is most likely to buy your product or service or religiously read your blog? If your target audience is a group of engineers, the content you create and the tone you use is going to be different than if you were targeting the over 50s looking for information on pensions and investments.

 

The frequency of your content matters:

Uploading one blog every few months isn’t going to generate the results you desire, but producing content with value on a regular basis is! Being a marketing company ourselves, it is extremely important for us to practice what we preach. During the busy Christmas period, we didn’t upload as many blogs and top tips on to our website as we would usually. This had a knock on effect on our search engine rankings. By increasing the frequency and quality of our content, we have experienced firsthand the positive impact on search engine rankings afforded by regular quality content updates.

 

Schedule and plan your content:

In order to help your online marketing stay on track and make the most of what good quality content can do for your website, we would recommend creating an editorial calendar to help support your marketing plan. Strategically plan out the order, topic and timing for each blog or news piece.  Don’t feel like you have to be the sole source of content for your website. Introduce different voices within the organisation and get employees involved in providing fresh content. You might be surprised by how much good quality content is available right at your fingertips.

 

Don’t forget to measure your website analytics:

Once you have started the process of making your content more search-engine friendly, it is important that you measure your results. Tools like Google Analytics will allow you to review traffic levels and identify any particular trends associated with the content on your site.

 

Stay tuned for more top tips to help you improve the visibility of your website.

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What SMEs need to know to market effectively in 2014 – seminar summary

Image3-2Last week, TLC Business hosted our annual marketing seminar at Southampton Science Centre. This year we focused on ‘Marketing for SMEs in 2014’. The guests were treated to a working lunch, tackling a range of hot topics on marketing for SMEs. As promised, we have created a blog outlining some of the main themes we explored on the day, so you don’t miss out!
Digital vs. traditional marketing

15 years ago the term ‘digital marketing’ did not even exist showing just how fast technology is moving and how important it is for marketers to keep up. The debate of which type of marketing is more important has been around for just as long and every marketing professional will have their own opinion.

The statistics around digital marketing channels are compelling. B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those that don’t. So if you’re not already blogging, perhaps you should be thinking about it. Regarding social media, 52% of marketers said they have found a customer on Facebook and 43% on LinkedIn.  In terms of influence, surveys have found 63% of readers are more likely to be influenced by blogs over magazines. These are just 3 examples from a plethora of impressive statistics as to the effectiveness of ‘digital marketing’.

However, despite all the focus on digital marketing, in 2013 digital budgets are forecast to account for just 20% of overall marketing spends and TV, press and outdoor advertising was up 3.4% in the third quarter of 2013.

So what did we conclude? Two main points:

1. If you’re not at least planning on how to use ‘digital marketing’ in your business you should be, because your competitors are likely to already be reaping the rewards.

2. We would argue that the term ‘digital marketing’ has become extinct in any case. So intrinsic are digital channels in one’s overall marketing mix that to imply it is somehow distinct from ‘marketing’ in general is outdated. Digital is so important that it cannot be left out!

The rules of SEO

Over the last few years Google have released a number of different algorithms that enable you or I to find what we are searching for on Google. Famously coy about what companies need to do to enhance their search engine rankings, Google has worked hard with its algorithm updates to eradicate the contrived methods of SEO practitioners to artificially inflate a website’s search engine rankings.

First came Panda. Panda dealt with dubious content pages and demoted websites that attempted to dupe Google about the relevance of pages. Next came Penguin. Penguin came down hard on iffy link building, resulting in a number of big names plummeting down the rankings . And now to Hummingbird. Released towards the end of the summer this year, Hummingbird (birds famed for being precise and quick) moved the goal posts (albeit slightly) once again. Hummingbird has responded to the change in the way that Google’s users now search. It seems we are asking questions more rather than searching for terms that might link to information they want to find. Put simply, Hummingbird ‘thinks’ and ‘acts’ more like a human and recognises the intent (semantic meaning) behind the search phrase.

The best way we have heard the subtle shift in intent from Google described is the following; currently we have ‘search’ engines – Google wants to become an ‘Answer ‘engine.

It is helpful to keep this in mind when creating your content. Consider creating tutorials, ‘how-to’ guides, explanations and general content that provides solutions to challenges in your industry or that your target audience might be experiencing.

How to make your marketing work more effectively

The first rule for making your marketing work more effectively is to know your market. Do you know what competitors are out there and what they are doing.

What about your target audience? Have you established they actually want and value what your business provides? Have you reviewed the demographics; where are they located, what segments exist, what type of marketing is most influential to them. For instance, a 20 year old might find social media marketing a lot more influential than a 70 year old.

The future is never clear and forecasts, even from experts, might never come true. Despite this, it is still important to look to the future when thinking about your marketing. What changes are taking place in the marketplace? How are consumer purchasing habits changing? What technology is becoming available to utilise in your business or your marketing? A lot of the time the information you are looking for is already out there, it is just a question of finding it!

Moving with the times

The pace of change in the marketing sector can feel daunting at times, leaving some to cling to old familiar channels and ignore potentially effective ones in the process. Making an effort to ensure you move with the times is very important. It might not always be appropriate for your sector or audience but the very nature of establishing that is a useful process in itself to better understand your audience.

The annual B2B Buyersphere Report was reviewed and illustrated the different types of social media that are being used by B2B buyers currently. Somewhat surprisingly, Google + came out on top, indicating that perhaps Google’s social media offering is beginning to gain traction.

The presentation looked at the rise of ‘Moment Marketing’, where marketers respond to real life events, in real time. Nestle, Nandos and Paddy Power demonstrated great examples of mastering this. Most importantly, SMEs, through leveraging their social media networks, can compete on an equal footing with corporate giants in the ‘Moment Marketing’ arena.

Mobile marketing was a hot topic; with staggering statistics about the adoption of smartphone – by the end of 2013 there will be more smartphones on the planet than people.

The significance of this for marketers is that more and more interactions between companies and their target audience are taking place on mobiles.

The knock on effect of this is that it is imperative that businesses design their website and content (such as emails) to be mobile friendly.

Equally significant is the rise of ‘People Power’. Mirroring the rise of social media, the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter now give the average Joe in the street a platform to reach a global audience. Marketers need to accept and embrace this rather than fear it. Businesses might not be able to exert the same control that they are used to in more traditional marketing channels but they are able to reach a far wider audience and engage in ways previously unheard of. Social media represents a massive opportunity for businesses and can no longer be ignored.

Top tips all SMEs should know

The event was rounded off with a few key tips that all marketers or those running a business should take away with them. These encompassed:

1. Knowing your audience and the market research tools you can use to do this

2. If you read two books, we recommend ‘The Psychology of Persuasion’ and ‘The E Myth Revisited’

3. Embrace email – the stats all show it works

4. Make sure your content is up to scratch

5. Get yourself on social media – whether you’re there or not we guarantee your competitors and customers will or soon will be

6. Go mobile

 

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