Why a Collaborative Worker is Your Most Valuable Agency Asset Posted on December 15, 2022December 8, 2022 by Tricia O'Donnell Organizations, especially agencies, thrive on strong collaboration between employees. It creates team morale, strong chemistry between individuals, and the synergy teams need to work towards a common goal. Remember: your agency is a creative business, and it takes diverse skill sets and knowledge to deliver projects that exceed clients’ expectations. Beyond the specialty skills that each team member brings to the table, they should each be effective collaborators. If not, it could cause a rift in your internal flow and lead to bigger problems within your organization. Do you have collaborative workers in your team? This guide will define collaborative workers and describe their subtle characteristics and reveal why agencies with collaborative workers continue to thrive. What Defines a Collaborative Worker? To better explain who a collaborative worker is, we’ll first explain more about how we define workplace collaboration. In a nutshell, collaboration is the act of two or more people working together to achieve a common goal, such as the completion of a task or project. This could be a process lasting many days or weeks, with components like setting team goals, delegating tasks based on the skill set of team members, and monitoring progress to complete the job or project in time. Collaboration is one of the most valuable technical skills your agency can ingrain in its culture. Creating a team of specialists around your agency is great, but if they all work independently in siloes, you won’t get the full benefit. Collaboration lets you harness the diverse skills of your teams to enhance team dynamics, productivity, and creativity. In other words, your team members will be stronger when they are working together. A collaborative worker is an employee who excels in this sort of environment. They delight in joining hands with teammates on important projects and remain aligned to help the team achieve its goals. According to a study, some of the highest-performing employees at top U.S. businesses spend an equal amount of time on individual and collaborative work. In other words, they are masters of their own crafts and also great team players who fit in a collaborative environment. So, how do you identify perfect collaborators? Characteristics of a Collaborative Worker We have identified six traits of a collaborative worker: Great Communicators: Communication is the foundation of any relationship in work and life. A collaborative worker communicates in an open, honest, and transparent manner. They know when and how to ask for help, respond succinctly to questions, and report clearly on where their tasks stand. Organized: They know their goals, what they need to do when, and what they can put off to achieve the team’s mutual objective. They have a routine and start their day with a clear plan to complete tasks on time and in a way that meets (or exceeds) your client’s requirements. A positive approach to feedback: The best-performing employees spend 10% of their work time learning and socializing. Part of the learning process involves taking and implementing feedback from more experienced colleagues. Ideal collaborators approach feedback positively and use the advice to improve the quality of their work. Emotional intelligence: Collaborative workers understand their emotions and are also attuned to how different team members may react to different situations. For example, they know which employees are demoralized by criticism and find ways to communicate their points without harming employee morale. Trust: When managers can assign a task to an employee and feel sure they will do it within the set timelines and deliver quality work, that’s a great sign. Working towards an environment that fosters this trust in the ability of colleagues is an important part of working collaboratively. Know their strengths: Agency employees bring specific skills and versatility to the team. They know their strengths (and weaknesses) and understand those of others. As a result, they know when to offer or ask for assistance to get tasks done by the deadline. What Is a Collaborative Working Environment? A collaborative workspace is an inherently positive environment where working together is ingrained into the team culture. As a result, team members are aligned in their mission to achieve a common goal. In addition, each member looks beyond their personal agenda and competition between teams and understands that each person has a unique role to play in meeting the common goal. Why Agencies with Collaborative Environments Thrive When you create a collaborative environment, you’ll be giving your agency the best chance to thrive. Collaboration impacts your business results positively in different ways, including: 1. Improved Innovation Today’s clients are savvy and demanding. Clients narrate their problems, and you devise custom ideas to solve them. And if innovation isn’t inherently in your DNA, you’ll continue losing clients to competitors. Building a collaborative environment is one way to unleash creativity to drive innovation, which in turn helps your agency stand out, win more business, and essentially become indispensable. Collaboration inspires change-makers and improves innovation by 30%. 2. A Better Work Environment Human beings are social, and working in a collaborative environment gives them the space to be in their element. They interact with each other, learn new skills, and become more aware of the team’s strengths. As a result, the team becomes stronger, more knowledgeable, and more skilled. In addition, managers become more aware of the team’s strengths and can assign work within each member’s wheelhouse. This makes it more likely that no one will be overwhelmed by their task, and chances of burnout are minimal. Consequently, the team completes projects on time while delivering quality work that unlocks new value for clients. These positive results convince clients to remain loyal to your agency and market it through word of mouth to their friends, partners, or business associates. This wins you more repeat business and potential clients who warm quickly to your agency because friends or business associates referred them. 3. Improved Quality of Service Many hands make light work. When it’s all hands on deck working on a client’s project, a team delivers quality work faster than one member working independently. Plus, with tools that aid collaborative working, like BenchmarkONE’s CRM, the whole team can contribute to a customer journey that is smooth and frictionless. It consolidates customer communication from all touchpoints, thus enabling the sales and marketing departments to deliver a personalized experience, which is extremely crucial. If these two departments don’t coordinate effectively, it could kill your agency. Clients who rate businesses as having exceptional customer experience spend 140% more and remain loyal for up to six years. Adopt Collaboration to Spur Your Agency to Success The onus is on you to create a collaborative environment for your agency’s success. Set collaborative strategies and encourage employees to sharpen their collaboration skills. Once you do that and implement tactical solutions such as CRM and project management software, the rest will begin to slot into place, and your agency will be on an upward trajectory to collaborative perfection. If you’re in need of a CRM that helps keep your entire team aligned on prospects and customers, take a look at how our tool specifically helps agencies.
The Only Guide You’ll Ever Need For Content Creation Posted on December 14, 2022December 14, 2022 by Natalie Slyman Content is a cornerstone of effective marketing. And when you combine your content marketing efforts with the utility of marketing automation, a lot of good things can happen. But, before you go creating content without any real idea of how it matters or where to use it, think about your customers and your ideal audience. The better you know them, the better you’re able to create the right kinds of content, content that’s personalized and tailored to their needs. I’ll walk you through the only guide you’ll ever need for creating content, including the types of content you should be creating and why. What is Content Creation? The primary goal of content creation is to attract new audiences and engage returning buyers. Content creation spans the following process: Researching what to create Generating content ideas from research results Developing content ideas into valuable content pieces that appeal to the target audience Distributing content pieces to the proper channels Promoting developed content pieces to the right audience Why is Content Important for Your Marketing Strategy? Content is the pillar on which any marketing strategy rests. Without content, there would be nothing you would use to market your business, products, or services to the ideal audience. Below are some reasons why content is essential for your small business marketing strategy. Audience Loyalty Creating valuable and actionable content across different touchpoints for your audience is a great way to build audience loyalty. Once your content remains valuable and actionable to your ideal audience, they will stick around long enough and remain loyal to your brand. Industry Leader and Authority Including content as part of your marketing strategy makes you stand out. High-quality content presents you as the industry leader and authority in your field. With consistency, your target audience will regard your brand as the go-to for all of the questions they need answers to, and ultimately purchase your solutions in the process. Trust and Credibility Besides positioning your business as the industry leader in your field, great content increases your target audience’s trust for your brand, products, and services, which in turn boosts your brand credibility. Improved Social Traffic In marketing, audiences engage with content they find insightful and valuable. Part of engagement is that your target audience likes your posts, comments on them, tags their friends, and shares in their circle. When your target audience engages with your content, the result is improved traffic on your social pages. Qualified Leads Generating leads for your business is good, but qualified leads are great. With content as part of your marketing strategy, you generate leads from prospects interested in your products or service offerings. The Benefits of Content Marketing Businesses today have chosen to adopt a creative marketing strategy that involves creating valuable and informative content on specific topics relevant to their business field. Often, it’s more than just text but includes images and videos too. But just what are the benefits of content marketing? Controlling the Narrative: Creating a Story That Works for You In today’s business climate, it’s more important than ever to control the narrative around your brand. That means creating a story that works for you and resonates with your audience. A positive narrative can help attract new customers and maintain loyalty among existing ones. A well-crafted story can also help you stand out from the competition. Content marketing is the perfect tool to help you do just that. By creating and distributing high-quality content, you can shape how people see your brand and ensure your message is always front and center. To control the narrative, you need to understand what your customers want and need. What are their pain points? What are their goals? Once you understand your audience well, you can start creating content that addresses their needs and speaks to their interests. It’s also important to be aware of the different channels through which you can reach your audience. Where do they spend most of their time online? What kind of content do they consume? Answering these questions will help you determine where to focus your content marketing efforts for maximum impact. Lead Generation Creating informative and engaging content can attract potential customers to your website or blog, leading to sales or conversions. Content marketing can help you generate leads in a number of ways. First, by providing valuable information that solves your target audience’s problems, you can establish trust and credibility with them. This will make them more likely to do business with you when they’re ready to buy. Another way content marketing helps with lead generation is by driving traffic to your website or blog. The more people see your content, the more likely it is that some of them will become leads. Once you have their attention, you can use effective CTAs to encourage them to take further action, such as signing up for your email list or contacting you for a consultation. You can boost your sales and grow your business by creating quality content and using it to attract and nurture leads. Stand Out in the Crowd: The Industry Expert In a world where businesses are constantly vying for attention, ensuring you stand out from the crowd is more important than ever. One way to do this is by positioning yourself as the industry expert through content creation. By creating quality content that is both engaging and valuable, you can show potential customers that you know what you’re talking about. You also establish that you’re the go-to source for information in your field and attract clients looking for trusted experts to help them make decisions. While it won’t happen overnight, eventually, you will become seen as an industry expert. And, when you become known as an expert in your field, people will be more likely to do business with you. They’ll see that they can rely on you for accurate information and sound advice, leading to increased sales and repeat customers. Increased Conversions and Sales Conversions and sales are the lifeblood of any business, so it’s no surprise that content marketing can have a big impact on these metrics. By creating high-quality, targeted content, you can attract more leads and convert them into customers. With targeted, valuable, and personalized content, you establish a relationship with your leads and target audience, which is essential for driving conversions and sales. Furthermore, informative content can help educate your audience about your product or service, making them more likely to purchase from you. Content marketing can also help you close sales by assisting prospects in understanding why your product or service is the best solution to their problem. By creating compelling case studies, demo videos, and other types of content highlighting the results of using your product or service, you can increase the likelihood that prospects will take the next step and become paying customers. Deep Customer Connection Content marketing is all about creating a relationship with your audience. Creating content relevant to their interests and needs can build rapport and create a deep connection. This connection allows you to build trust and credibility, which are essential for any successful business. When you have a deep connection with your customers, they are more likely to be loyal to your brand and stick with you through thick and thin. They will also be more likely to recommend your business to others, which can help you attract even more customers. So if you’re looking to build a strong relationship with your target audience, content marketing is the way to go. It’s an effective and affordable way to reach out to your customers and create a lasting connection. The Guide to Content Creation Step 1: Set Your Goals Every strategy needs to begin with a goal. Otherwise, how will you track how effective it is? Before you put finger to keyboard, you have to list the goals you’re hoping to achieve with your content. Some goals could include: Provide better material for lead nurturing Have go-to material your sales team can use Spread your brand’s knowledge and thought leadership in your industry Get more brand exposure Generate more quality leads Increase SEO Step 2: Audience Personas You probably have a pretty good idea of who your ideal customer is. But that doesn’t mean you should forgo putting together audience or buyer personas. Personas encourage you to think deeply about who your audience is and what might make them motivated to use your services. When you put together your personas, you should try to answer the following questions: What is my ideal customer’s… biggest struggle? job title? boss or direct support? customer? industry? day-to-day tasks and duties? Also, take into consideration demographics, region, company size, etc. By addressing all these areas, you’ll be able to create a profile of the type of person you’re looking to target your content to, which will, in turn, inform the messaging you put together and the types of content you create. Step 3: Conduct a Content Audit Content audits are great for identifying content gaps – content that can be improved upon or evergreen content that can be converted to other formats or repurposed for other marketing needs. Content audit refers to taking stock of all your business’s content. The audit process involves content analysis to expose strengths, weaknesses, and how they have impacted your content and marketing strategy. To do a content audit, start by, Defining your business goals and the benefits of the audit to your overall marketing strategy. Taking stock of all the content in your content inventory. You can do this by listing all the URLs of all published content and segmenting them into categories for easy organization. Analyzing data associated with each content. You can do this manually or automatically using a content audit tool. Create an action plan based on defined business goals. Your action plan can improve some of the content, keep some as they are, or delete some if they do not align with your business goals. Step 4: Establish Your Internal Subject Matter Experts You’ll want to identify your company’s designated subject matter experts. These are the people who will author your content and be the face and name tied to your brand. Most often, it’s a company’s CEO or president. But it can also include sales reps, your marketing team members, or anyone else who has valuable knowledge to share that delivers your strategy. If you have more than one subject matter expert, make sure you identify the areas they’ll be the experts of. For example, your president or CEO could help push messages centered on the core of your business, but they could also share leadership tips and content on business growth strategies. Step 5: Designate a Content Creation Team Once the internal subject matter experts have been identified, the next step is to put together a content creation team that will oversee the content creation process for your business. Having a designated content creation team ensures that the content creation process is not interrupted by business activities or the availability of subject matter experts. Hence, the team keeps the content creation process running for the business. While no two content creation teams for different businesses are the same, below are the core roles that every content creation team must seek to fulfill. Chief Content Officer – lives and breathes the entire content creation for your business. Takes care of coming up with topic suggestions, aligning content topics with business goals, and content prioritization. Content Manager/Project Manager – takes care of managing and organizing all content and marketing assets. Manages the team and the process so that each piece stays on track. Content Strategist – brainstorms topic ideas and provide research, so topics are on-message Content Writer/Freelancer – Conducts research and crafts valuable content pieces that align with your brand guidelines, outlines, and ensure they speak to your business goals. Content Editor – reviews content for tone, accuracy, flow, and grammatical errors. Designer – creates any visual elements needed for developed content. Content Distributor – shares content out so as many people see it as possible Step 6: Create A Workflow Mapping out exactly how you’ll create your content is crucial, and you need to work from ideation through to distribution. Your editorial process will keep all your team members accountable and ensure you’re on the same page regarding content. A defined workflow will help you move quickly and efficiently from one piece of content to the next. It will also ensure that each piece of content meets your standards before it goes live. So, what does a content creation workflow look like? This is an example of a workflow you can customize to your business: Brainstorm topic ideas: Brainstorming will help you come up with ideas that are both relevant to your niche and interesting to your audience. Refine chosen topics: Refining lets you narrow down the focus and the specific angles you want to take with each topic. When refining, consider the format and prioritize ideas based on the needs of your audience. Develop your outlines: Outlining helps you organize your thoughts and structure your pieces. Write out the key points you want to hit in your article and flesh out each with a few sentences or bullet points. Establish links to include: When selecting links to include in your pieces, be sure to choose high-quality sources that will add value for your readers. Write: Write out a rough draft of your article. Don’t worry too much about perfection at this stage; just get your thoughts on paper (or screen). Edit: Before you start editing, it can be helpful to map out what changes you need to make. Spend some time away from your draft before you begin. This helps you approach with fresh eyes and catch errors you may have missed before. If editors are on your team, an editorial guide will provide them with what to look for in each piece. Review: Reviewing helps you identify ways to improve the overall quality of your writing. Make sure the piece is free from error, flows from one idea to another, and is easy to understand. Approve: This final step ensures that the content meets the standards set by your organization. To approve, first read through it to check for any errors. Then, send it to someone else on your team for their review. If the piece ticks all the boxes, you can approve it. Add to the editorial calendar: After approval, the next step is to add the completed piece to your editorial calendar and schedule it for publishing. The calendar helps you keep track of all your completed pieces and when they’ll be published. Publish: It’s time to put the content in front of your audience. Decide on where you’ll be publishing your content and format it appropriately. Distribute: Distribution helps you get your content in front of the right people. Identify your target audience and use the appropriate channels to get your content to them. If you want your content to be seen by anyone other than yourself and a few close friends, then you need to ensure you optimize for search engines. Your content must be well-written and relevant to your target audience and needs to include keywords that people are likely to search for when looking for information on your topic. SEO should be an integral part of your content creation workflow because it will ensure that your content is seen by as many people as possible. It can also help you attract new readers and followers who may not have found your site otherwise. The easiest way to go about your content workflow is to designate someone from your marketing team to oversee the entire process. You’ll also want to determine what tools and roles you’ll need and if you’ll be using freelance writers. Keep in mind that your subject matter experts might not have a ton of room on their plate for writing and creating content. Step 7: Review the Buyer’s Journey At each stage of the buyer’s journey, there are opportunities to use content to inch prospects further along and get them closer to a sale. This is why comprehending the three stages helps you identify the type of content you can use at each. And, the more you can tailor your content to a particular stage, the more you can nurture the prospects at that stage. Awareness Leads at this stage have established a problem that needs to be solved, and in their search for a solution, have just become aware of your brand. Since leads at this stage don’t know a ton about you, you’ll want to provide them with content that explains what you do and why you’re a solution. Types of Content: Social Media Press Mentions Guest-Contributed Articles Webinars Blog Posts eBooks Some of these pieces will be published on your site, while others should be published on other sites and publications that your audience reads. This will help deepen your lead pool and build awareness through multiple channels at once. Consideration When a lead has made it to this point, they are considering using your company but are weighing you against competitors. Content at this stage will be primarily housed on your site and shared through various other marketing channels, including email and social media. Your content then needs to be geared toward deepening trust and proving that you’re the right solution for their particular needs. Types of Content: Blog Posts Case Studies Webinars Service and/or Product Pages Demos Customer Testimonials Email Newsletters and Drip Campaigns Guides and Whitepapers Build on your previous efforts by using posts from the awareness stage to link to this content, which will help create pathways that guide your prospects in the direction you want them to go. Guides, resources, and other pieces of gated content will help you convert these individuals from website visitors to leads, and will also help you enroll them in your email nurture campaigns. Decision Leads at this stage are ready to make a decision and, hopefully, partner with you. By now, they’re already enrolled in your email campaign and have received content personalized to their needs. Your content here needs to be focused on making a purchase decision. Keep in mind that just because a lead has made it this far doesn’t mean they’re going to convert. Put just as high of a priority on content at the decision stage as you do at the awareness and consideration stages, and be sure to analyze your leads’ behaviors to see if there’s anything you can learn about how to tailor your content more. Types of Content: Newsletters and Email Drip Campaigns Case Studies Demos Customer Testimonials Pricing and Package Information Step 8: Create Your Editorial Calendar Your editorial calendar is your go-to resource for scheduling and planning your entire content strategy. It helps you keep track of each piece’s progress so you can maintain deadlines and adjust things as-needed. I recommend planning this for at least a month out, but do what works best for your team. What it should include: Specific days you’ll be publishing your blog content Your guest-contributed content and when you plan to pitch it to online publications Tags or categories each scheduled piece is tied to The current status of the content Your editorial calendar can also include your monthly newsletters and any one-off or specialty content you’re creating, like whitepapers, case studies, webinars, and guides. Step 9: Distribution This step often doesn’t get as much love as it should. After you spend all that time putting together a creation process, an editorial calendar, brainstorming, writing, and tweaking, you need to make sure the right people see all your hard work. Create a distribution plan that includes sharing your content on social media, in your email nurture, and with sales prospects. Below are important channels you should consider for content distribution and promotion. Social Media and Social Media Groups Over 3.6 billion people use social media worldwide, making it one of the best content promotion and distribution channels. While it’s primarily a tool for interpersonal communication and building intimate relationships, it is also an excellent tool for getting your content in front of its ideal audience. The key is to find a balance between creating posts that are entertaining, valuable, and salesy. Email Newsletters Sharing new content with your email subscribers as part of your email marketing efforts is a great way to promote and distribute your content. Your email subscribers decided to hear from you, and you are sure that the newsletter you send across will get to them. Create segments in your email lists and send relevant content to them for better results. Paid Promotion Paid promotion involves paying other channels or platforms to promote and distribute your content to their audiences. Paid content promotions include Pay-per-click (PPC) adverts, sponsored content, influencer marketing, paid social media ads, amongst others. Content Syndication Content syndication is publishing the same content on other websites or platforms. The content piece can be a video, blog post, or infographic that you know other audiences will find valuable. Content syndication does not only help you distribute new content and get them in front of fresh eyes, but it also helps boost your backlinks which impacts your SEO positively. How Marketing Automation Ensures You Put Content to Use If you’re like most businesses, you create a lot of content. But what good is all that content if you don’t put it to use? By automating your content distribution and promotion, you can ensure that your content reaches the right people at the right time. Additionally, a good marketing automation tool will allow you to track and analyze your results so that you can constantly improve your content strategy. The following are ways marketing automation can help make the most of the content you create: Follow-ups and Drip Campaigns To keep your customers coming back, you need to nurture them continuously. You can do this by providing them with relevant and targeted content that is of interest to them and by following up on your leads with valuable content that aids their progression through the funnel. With marketing automation, you can segment your list into different groups based on interests, behavior, or other criteria and deliver content tailored to their needs. You can also track the engagement of each customer and prospect, so you can see what content is resonating and adjust your strategy accordingly. Gated Content to Increase Leads/Email List Most marketing automation tools also help you generate leads with landing pages and online forms. You can use your content to attract new leads, customers, and subscribers by gating it, then directing traffic to the gated content’s landing page. You can also create pop-ups that entice site visitors to download certain high-priority content pieces, allowing you to capture leads and add them to your CRM. Once they’re in the system, you can use your automated emails and workflows to nurture them until they’re ready to buy. Targeted and Personalized Content As your leads move through the buyer’s journey, they will be tagged in your CRM according to their interactions with your brand using different data points and signals. This helps you match them with the right content to keep them moving forward. As a result, the content you deliver to them is personalized and relevant to where they are in the buyer’s journey. By matching the right content to each lead, you can keep them engaged throughout the entire process and increase the likelihood of conversion. Content Analytics With a CRM and marketing automation tool, you can see which types of content are performing the best so you can create more of what works. Most marketing automation tools come with robust analytics capabilities that help you focus your efforts on creating more content your audience loves and less of the stuff they don’t. Be smart with your content creation. Make sure that you focus on the right kinds of content based on where your prospects are in the buyer’s journey and that you’re using that content in the right way.
14 Ways Your Small Business Can Attract B2B Clients Posted on December 8, 2022December 15, 2022 by Jessica Lunk Do you ever feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle to make a sale? You’re not alone. A top marketing goal for small business owners is to gain and keep customers, which is a constant challenge due to time and budget constraints. Even if your client list is in good shape, you must keep your sales pipeline full for the coming months, or risk running into serious cash flow issues. Make 2023 the year of increased sales! Here are 14 small business marketing ideas that will have customers lining up to do business with you. 1. Launch A New Product or Service If your current offerings satisfy your clients but you want to expand, it may be time to try something new. Pay close attention to your customers’ feedback and look for new ways to help them. People are willing to pay more to solve bigger problems, so think about what complex client problems you might be able to solve by launching a new solution. The reason you need a new product is that many B2B businesses are constantly looking for new ways to be creative and innovative in response to changing market demands, which leads to the launch of new products and services. But first, determine what you are solving for, and spend some time to make sure that you understand every flaw, benefit, and nuance of the new product before marketing it. 2. Promote Your Expertise It is important to sell yourself and what you do. People should know you are good at it! They need to know why they should do business with you instead of your competitors who offer similar services, so be sure to tell them what makes your business unique and outstanding. Invest in building brand awareness with webinars and guest-contributed content. These two efforts are great at showcasing your knowledge and expertise so you can more easily stand out against competing brands. 3. Use Social Media to Build Relationships Social media, when used properly, can be a very powerful tool. It can drive traffic back to your website and it gives a personality to your brand, which will help you strengthen a connection with your audience. Using social media to engage with your customers and respond to their questions and comments is one way to use this channel effectively. However, you also want to be incorporating different strategies so you can keep your social media calendar robust and diverse. Share and discuss your business with videos of your employees at work, in team-building activities, or at conferences. Create visuals that share industry knowledge and stats to educate your social followers. Keep your social media presence consistent with regular posts and make sure you have someone ready to respond to questions or to comment with followers. 4. Ask Your Current Clients for Referrals Create a simple referral template you can share with your best clients. If you catch them in a positive state of mind when they are happy with everything that you are doing for them, they won’t mind going the extra mile to send more business your way. You can ask your clients to refer you to family and friends and give them a discount for the referral when they next buy from you. 5. Max Out the Potential of Your CRM CRM and sales pipeline software are loaded with automation and customizations that can take the drudgery out of your marketing processes, so take advantage! One of the benefits of a CRM is that it improves your ability to connect with and sell to your prospects and customers. However, in order to see all the benefits your CRM can offer, you need to utilize the software fully. A CRM works properly with the right data. And with BenchmarkONE, contact data like social profiles, company, email, and name are all pulled for you. Our CRM tool also helps your small business tap into customer behaviors, like how they interact with content on your website, so you can send them the right emails at the right time. Also, when new leads are added to your CRM, BenchmarkONE’s marketing automation allows you to automate follow-up emails and promotions. 6. Use Facebook and SEO for Local Businesses While Facebook advertising and SEO for the mass market can be tricky business, even for seasoned pros, it’s an incredibly lucrative and cost-effective technique for local businesses. If you’re hoping to land local B2B clients, create a Google Business profile and start optimizing your website for local search terms. Use local language in your Facebook ads (“Hey, Chicagoland business owners!”) to attract attention. The following are some of the benefits of using Facebook and SEO together: It greatly enhances your online presence It aids in traffic generation It helps in ad cost reduction It aids in increasing sales rates It aids in the creation of brand awareness It allows you to target specific demographics based on location, age, gender, and interest 7. Use Direct Mail to Stand Out You may be wondering if direct mail is still a marketing strategy that businesses use. The answer is, of course, yes. Sure, digital marketing is more popular, and perhaps more provably effective, but direct mail is a great method if you’re looking to wow a specific lead. If you sell a high-ticket product or service, what better way to stand out than to send personalized mailers or offers to your top prospects? While your competitors may be remarketing to potential clients with impersonal emails, you’ll leave a stronger impression by sending a sleek brochure, postcard, or gift. 8. Get a Booth at a Trade Show Trade shows are the “meat and potatoes” of B2B marketing. Why? These events are full of decision-makers in your target audience who are ready to buy. But if you go, go prepared. Find out who will be attending and tailor your marketing message to their industry. Most importantly, have a pre-show and post-show plan. Entice potential customers to your booth with an email campaign beforehand, and be sure to nurture your visitors after the event. 9. Study Your Competitors If you’re not sure which marketing avenue to pursue, use your competitors as a guide. Which search terms do they rank for? Are they running digital billboards around town, sending out local mailers, doing YouTube video ads, or attending trade shows? Tap into your industry’s trends to get new ideas for approaching your own marketing strategy. 10. Network With Other B2B Small Business Owners It is important for a small business owner to link up with other small business owners. Get to know what they do and how they do it, and also tell them about your business. Try to go to a business summit where you can meet up with these owners and talk about your business with them. Whenever they have a client in their network that is in need of your services, they will definitely reach out to you. 11. Offer Discounts and Promotions One of the ways to attract new customers to your business is by offering discount prices. Depending on what is viable for your profit margins, consider offering a 5% or 10% discount. You could run it as a time-limited promotion or holiday special to instill urgency, and potentially could attract some brand new clients! 12. Actively Listen to Client Feedback It is important to listen to client feedback if you want to grow. If the same feedback comes up time and again, you should definitely consider implementing a change that addresses it. Your customers will feel heard and will be more likely to stay loyal to your business. Also, you’ll be able to avoid issues with future clients by correcting any wrongs ahead of time. 13. Digital Marketing/Advertising If you do not advertise what you do, nobody will know about it, and if they don’t know about it, you can’t make sales. A Google display ad, PPC, or Instagram ad may only cost a few hundred dollars but can reach a highly qualified, ready-to-buy audience with minimal hassle. One of the best parts about digital marketing is its flexibility: if an ad isn’t working, it only takes minutes to make adjustments. 14. Integrate a Content Marketing Strategy How can you attract B2B customers to buy from you online? You must develop strong content to drive your digital marketing strategy. This means you need to actively create and publish content with the intention of capturing interest, raising brand awareness, increasing traffic to your website, and continuously generating leads. Content and digital marketing go hand-in-hand, so integrating content with your marketing strategy isn’t a difficult endeavor. Just make sure your marketing strategy includes different forms of content, such as: Blog posts Infographics SEO optimized content Podcasts Email marketing Online advertising Social media marketing All these digital marketing tactics are essentially different forms of content. They all play their part in capturing the interest of your audience, bringing them back to your website, and converting them into leads. If you’re looking for ways to refresh your B2B marketing strategy, simply follow these tips. With a little extra effort, you’ll soon be attracting brand-new B2B clients and growing your small business!
The 5 Best Online Marketing Tactics for 2023 Posted on December 7, 2022December 7, 2022 by Natalie Slyman 2022 is quickly coming to an end, and 2023 is just around the corner. Typical to the industry, a lot has happened in the marketing sphere in the last year, with new trends emerging and shaping the way brands reach their audiences. If being a marketer has taught us anything, it’s that the way to succeed is to stay agile and prepare for anything. We know that can be close to impossible, especially when you have a small team. So, in an effort to help set you up for an excellent and successful 2023, we’re sharing the top online marketing tactics that will define 2023. It’s time to be prepared so you can stay one step ahead of the curve. Finally. Let’s jump in! 1. Influencer Marketing Growing steadily from $9.7 billion in 2020 to $13.8 billion in 2021 and projected to reach $16.4 billion this year, what started as a social media fad has now become a sought-after marketing strategy for numerous brands and businesses. Influencers are individuals on social media platforms with large, engaged, loyal audiences and followers. Due to the effort they have put into growing their presence by engaging users; they can affect the purchase decision of their audiences. Influencers build their following by engaging actively in a specific niche to develop: Authority Knowledge Position Audience relationship You should include influencer marketing as part of your marketing mix for 2023. Below are some ways you can easily incorporate it into your overall marketing strategy: Research the top influencers in your niche and identify the ones that are a good fit for your business. Catch their attention by mentioning them in some of your posts. You can then invite them formally for discussions on possible partnerships or learn more about their processes. Ask for an interview. Ask to do it live on your social media pages, where their followers can watch. Or, request to publish the interview in your email newsletter, which they can share with their followers. Invite industry-specific influencers to speak at your events and webinars. Pay for a sponsored post if you have a product to promote and the influencer has the right audience for it. Influencer marketing, when done right, can get your business massive visibility and allow you to grow your audience and conversions. 2. Helpful, Purposeful Content Content marketing is an invaluable tool and component of your strategy. There’s virtually no type of marketing that doesn’t require content in some way, plus it’s extremely effective when it comes to generating leads and fueling your inbound funnel. It’s popular, too. Over 79% of companies use content marketing to generate leads. However, gone are the days when cookie-cutter content was enough. Now that audiences are inundated with content just about everywhere, you need to focus on helpful, engaging, and unique content to make your business stand out from the crowd. Long-form content has its place and use. But people are constantly searching for quick information and may not be patient enough to read thousands of words you’ve just published on your blog. Don’t get me wrong, long-form content should still be part of your strategy. However, rather than solely creating long and thorough posts, focus also on creating succinct content filled with actionable tips and solutions your audience can start implementing almost instantly. This means exploring different forms of content as well. For example, the success of TikTok demonstrates just how popular simple and easy-to-follow video content can be with your audience. When shifting your focus to helpful, purposeful content, consider the following formats: Video – Simple how-tos, tutorials, or demos of your products. Infographics – Visuals showing a process or breaking down steps of a confusing concept. Guides – Content that outlines how to do or understand something. Blog posts – Articles will always be crucial to your content strategy, especially ones that discuss ideas your audience is interested in. Guest-written articles – Consider bulking up your content strategy by adding guest content to it if you haven’t already. 3. Responsiveness and Real-Time Messaging Brands that are excellent at making their customers happy bring in 5.7 times more revenue than businesses that don’t. With the boom in social media use, how responsive your business is to instant messages plays a vital role in how your customers feel about your brand. Customers want to be able to reach out to brands and businesses and get responses almost immediately, so how you prioritize improving your business’s responsiveness to inquiries and customer complaints is crucial. Now, we’re not saying that you need a team working around the clock, ready to answer any questions or needs of site visitors and customers. Instead, all you have to do is invest in tools that make your business as responsive and available as possible. Chatbots, for example, are a great tool worth investing in that will ensure you’re as available as possible for your customers. With chatbots, you can set predefined questions and answers based on frequently asked questions from previous customers, prospects, and your website inquiries. The goal is to provide information customers need whenever they need it, even if your team isn’t readily available. Doing so can help increase conversions and keep customers happy so they’ll remain loyal. 4. Analytics Growth and AI With all the AI-powered analytics tools available to us, businesses are able to make more objective, data-driven decisions. And these decisions are more informed, leading to better results. Companies that adopt AI have competitive leads over other businesses in the same industry and improve their revenue. AI has several uses in business marketing. If you want to access the competitive edge associated with using AI-powered tools, you should consider the following: Using marketing automation to automate repetitive marketing tasks, freeing up time and implementing effective strategies at scale. Tagging your contacts based on identifiers so you can easily segment your email list and send personalized content to each customer and prospect. Create optimized customer profiles from your data by analyzing your ideal personas, key customers, and past customer interactions that enable you to deliver targeted content and ads. Analyze previous marketing campaigns to identify the most successful approaches so you can improve future marketing campaigns and enhance customer experience. 5. Email Marketing (Still) Email marketing has been around for a while. Which is why some businesses may look at it as an old-school marketing method. However, remember when Meta (previously Facebook) experienced a seven-hour outage that affected all its connected services, including WhatsApp and Instagram? Its three billion users suddenly lost reliable communication and engagement platforms, which can be pretty upsetting. What does that mean, and why does it matter? In a time when social media appears to reign supreme, the simple fact is that email marketing is the only marketing channel that is not affected by changes in algorithms. It’s reliable and consistent, and it offers businesses the opportunity to market at scale. Investing in building your email list will be one of the most valuable marketing efforts you do. Your email list is essentially a list of people that want to hear from you and that want your marketing. And with email marketing, you’re able to reach them directly with your messaging. Once you have your list, you can focus on how to write emails that motivate your subscribers to take action. Maybe you want them to download a whitepaper, sign up for your webinar, or purchase your products. Whatever it is, email marketing gives you the chance to send personalized messages that will resonate with an engaged audience. Make sure you use a marketing automation tool like BenchmarkONE. Our tool comes with a CRM (customer relationship management), allowing you to keep track of each important contact and send them automated campaigns for effective email marketing. 2023 will be an exciting year, not just for your business but for marketing in general. Give your business a head start at hitting your marketing goals, and keep these five trends at the forefront of your strategy.
6 Underutilized Instagram Features for Small Businesses Posted on December 1, 2022November 23, 2022 by Amilcar Cruz With 1.38 billion users that spend an average of 53 minutes daily on the platform, Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms out there. What makes it so engaging and entertaining is not just the way content is presented to users but that the platform has evolved over time to fit the needs its users have. Instagram offers tons of opportunities for your small business to not only build brand awareness but also to drive sales. However, to expand visibility and reach your audience with Instagram, you must leverage every feature available to you. It’s highly likely that you’re making the most of the common Instagram features. You’re creating stories, reels, and posts, but are you truly getting the most out of this powerful marketing tool? In this guide, we’ll discuss six Instagram features that are underutilized. We’ll tell you what these features are and the benefits of using them. Let’s dive straight in! 1. Link in Stories Previously, the option to link to a specific webpage was only available for verified accounts or those with more than 10,000 followers. In October 2021, Instagram abolished those requirements and expanded the ability to add links to stories to all accounts. The Meta-owned social media giant made the new feature even better. The link sticker is now more conspicuous, and you can add it anywhere on your story. In addition, the sticker shows story viewers the domain of the destination link, allowing for more transparency. This is a must-use feature if you want to boost organic engagement, increase conversions, and make it easy for your followers to access your content. To achieve the best results, add a clear call-to-action and customize your link sticker to marry your brand and design. 2. Sell on Instagram Instagram is a huge marketplace and an effective channel for boosting sales. More than 200 million Instagram users visit more than one business account daily. Out of this number, 44% use Instagram to shop. This brings us to the next underutilized Instagram feature: shopping tags. Instagram shopping tags enable you to tag your products in the photos and videos you share. They contain the product’s details like price, product description, characteristics, and link to purchase on your website. Viewers simply tap on the shopping tags to purchase or learn more about the product. If you use Instagram to attract new customers and drive direct sales, the shopping tags are a must-use feature for your business. They help followers discover and even buy your products with ease. 3. Collab with Partners The Instagram Collab is a relatively new feature that’s catching on in social media. If you haven’t been using this feature, you aren’t giving your post the impetus to trend and earn high engagement. Before the introduction of the Collab feature, there were a lot of duplicate posts on Instagram, especially if you needed to use collaborators to widen your reach. You had to post to your account; then the collaborator would repost the same content to their own account. This created a scenario where you were competing with yourself for likes and views, leading to low engagement rates for both of you. Secondly, when you used to tag someone on a Feed, it added an extra step for the users. They had to click the photo to see the tags and tap again to get to the tagged user’s profile. This unnecessary step is one reason why customers drop out of the funnel. Instagram Collab remedies both issues. When you create a post, you invite the collaborator. Once the collaborator accepts, the post is shared with both sets of followers. The most interesting and crucial part is that Collab posts live in both Profile Grids with a shared view count and comment thread, enhancing engagement and discoverability for both accounts. According to Vishal Shah, VP of Metaverse, Collab posts are currently in beta, and you’re limited to one collaborator per post. 4. Geotag Your Location Instagram enables you to reach people from all corners of the world. An Instagram post or video can potentially be seen by buyers from Brazil to Australia and everywhere in between. While that reach is great, sometimes all your business needs is a more granular, local reach. For example, you’re a renowned cowboy bootmaker in New York. Your latest design is highly acclaimed for style and durability and is giving the Lucchese boots a run for the money. While you’re based in New York, your largest customer base is in Texas, and you want to reach that clientele more than anywhere else. Your caption on an Instagram photo or video won’t help you in that regard. What’s important in this case is the Instagram geolocation tag. As the name suggests, the geolocation tag lets you tag a specific location in your posts and stories (in this case Texas). This way, your post will be visible not only to your followers but on location pages in Texas. This helps your target audience discover your latest custom cowboy design. The geolocation tag is an effective way for local businesses to reach nearby customers or for global brands that want to engage users in specific regions. 5. Send Push Notifications Push notifications are another feature that many businesses deem to be of no real value. While you don’t necessarily have to turn them on for your business account, you should ask your followers to accept push notifications from your business. Here’s why: According to one study, users who have enabled push notifications to engage with respective brands three times more than those who haven’t. When users turn push notifications on, they’re notified every time you post, and that could be the key to boosting your engagement levels. 6. Use Alt Text on Instagram Alternative text, or alt text, is the description that appears in place of an image if the image fails to load. It’s useful in search engine optimization (SEO) as it tells search engines like Google what’s happening in the image. When it comes to Instagram, alt text is such a vital element that shouldn’t be overlooked for your images. Alt text improves the searchability of your Instagram posts and increases the probability of your content reaching a wider audience. Moreover, adding alt text to images helps you reach visually impaired followers who don’t use Instagram the way other people do. This group of followers has to use assistive technologies like screen readers to get your message. Screen readers don’t translate images. Instead, they read out the alt text of on-screen images. If the images don’t have alt texts, the screen readers will have nothing to read aloud — so your message won’t reach these specific audiences. Use These Instagram Features to Boost Performance Social media is constantly evolving and changing to make the experience more engaging for users. It’s important to become familiar with all the different tools and releases that Instagram has to offer. Create unique, engaging content that performs well. Using these features will improve your reach, enhance your engagement, and boost your conversion.
What is a Value Proposition and How Your Small Business Can Put One Together Posted on November 30, 2022November 30, 2022 by Jonathan Herrick Skip the fluff and get straight to the point. Put your marketing tactics in order by clarifying your offer and why you differ from your competition. Think of your value proposition as the foundation of your small business marketing efforts. By clearly stating what you do and what value you provide, you can easily connect with your target market and position your small business for success. While your business may not have a defined value proposition from the start, at some point, you’ll need to create one to differentiate yourself from others in your industry. In this piece, we will expand on what a value proposition is and provide tips that will help you develop your value proposition. Let’s get started! What Is a Value Proposition? A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered. It’s a concise statement that articulates what you do and how it benefits your customer, and it is necessary to market your business’s attitude, intention, and position. In simple language, a value proposition is a statement that outlines the specific benefits that your business can provide to its customers. A strong value proposition clearly states the unique benefits of your products or services, how it fulfills the needs of customers, and why it’s better than others in your industry. What Is The Purpose Of a Value Proposition? A solid value proposition is an essential part of any small business’s marketing strategy, as it helps you identify and communicate the value of your products or services to your target audience. Without a strong value proposition, your business will struggle to attract and retain customers. Also, a strong value proposition helps you stand out from your competitors and gives potential customers a reason to choose you over them. That’s why your value proposition should be relevant to your target audience and address their specific needs. Apart from defining your value proposition to speak to your target audience, it also serves as a watchword for your team, helping them stay focused on what is most important. When everyone on your team knows what your business does and why it matters, they can effectively share that message with others. The Value Proposition Canvas The Value Proposition Canvas (VPC) is a template designed by Peter J Thompson, a Digital Strategist based in Auckland, New Zealand, to help businesses get clarity with their value propositions. The template helps businesses develop their value propositions by expressing clearly how their products fit their customers’ desires. Using the VPC, you’ll need to provide answers to the following key questions to get the clarity you seek about your value proposition. First, think about your customers: What are the emotional drivers that push customers to purchase your products? What are the hidden needs of your customers and target audience? What are the logical drivers that push customers to choose you? What risks do customers face when they choose you? Are there any substitutes for your products or services? What is your target audience currently using to cope without you? Now, turn your attention to your products: How does your product or service work? (Features) What does your product or service do? (Benefits) What does it feel like for your customers using your product or service? (Experience) Where Does Value Chain Analysis Come In? Value chain analysis is a process businesses use to identify the activities they perform that add the most value. This can be helpful when coming up with your value proposition, as it can help you focus on what unique capabilities you have that create the most value for your customers. The value chain analysis identifies the competitive advantage, which you can tie to your business’s unique value proposition, with the goal of improving business profit, increasing efficiency, and cutting down on business expenses. With this, businesses can identify the activities that bring the most value and how to make them better. While the value proposition focuses on the business in relation to its customers, the value chain analysis focuses on the business with regard to its internal operations as a profit driver. How To Write a Value Proposition Creating your value proposition can be challenging, but you can make it easier with the following methods. 1. Harvard Business School’s Three-Question Approach This method breaks down your value proposition into the answers you give to the questions below. Which customer segment will your products serve? Which customer needs will your products fill? What product price will afford your business profitability while providing value to your customers? 2. The Steve Blank Formula Steve Blank, founder of The Lean Startup Circle, came up with a simple formula for coming up with your business’s value proposition. The formula, “We help (X) do (Y) by doing (Z),” helps you cut quickly to the value you offer and the audience you offer it to. When using this formula, be instinctive with the answers you give. If you have multiple ones, examine them with your team to choose which best defines what you do. Tips for Defining Your Value Proposition Analyze Your Product or Service Consider what problems or challenges your customers have and how you are addressing those pain points. Think about both the practical and the psychological needs you are addressing. For instance, if you’re a stock advisor, you aren’t just buying stocks and bonds for your clients. Hopefully, you also provide specific financial advice that makes them feel like their money is secure and well-invested. Zeroing in on exactly how you make customers’ lives easier and more enjoyable will help you define your value proposition clearly. Go Straight to the Source Not sure exactly what customers really value about your business? No one knows better than they do why they like to buy from you, so don’t be afraid to ask them! Ask them to fill out a quick survey to identify why they have chosen to do business with you in exchange for entering them into a contest where they can win a small prize. In your survey, ask what inspired them to make a purchase. Is it great quality? A unique selection? A convenient location? Friendly staff? Low prices? Their answers may surprise you. If you have a robust email marketing list, you can send out a simple survey to ask your customers what made them buy from you. The data can be a treasure trove of information. Ask Your Employees Whether you employ cashiers or accountants with graduate degrees, team members who do customer-facing work can lend valuable insight into what your customers value most—if you ask them. Customers aren’t always fully aware of why they buy things—or aren’t always willing to admit it. Your employees who spend time with clients daily can help you understand what customers aren’t telling you. Do Some Test Marketing Once you have narrowed down your potential value proposition to two or three contenders, it is time to refine your value proposition even further. If you have an email newsletter, try testing email subject lines that emphasize the individual value propositions you are considering. Track their open rates (and CTRs) to see which ones resonate the most. Don’t just use words to test your value proposition. Try posting images that emphasize your value proposition on social media, too, and see how your customers respond. Let’s say your value proposition is that your small business employs the friendliest customer service, team. Try posting pictures of your team to put faces to the names. Are people liking those photos and posting positive comments—or just ignoring them? How does the engagement on these types of photos compare to that of articles you’re sharing or news you’re posting? The metrics from your social media pages may tell an interesting story. Narrow the List Once you’ve gathered the evidence, it’s time to choose a value proposition. Commit to it for at least three months by baking it into your marketing and highlighting it in your customer service. See how customers react. Within three to six months, you’ll get a sense of whether you’re focusing on the right value proposition. If not, try one of the other strong contenders. It’s not always easy to pinpoint your value proposition, but it’ll be worth the effort once you get it right. Keep it Simple Your value proposition should be simple and easy to understand. Trying to cram too much information into a single sentence or phrase can often make things more confusing than they need to be. Instead, focus on communicating the essential aspects of what you have to offer clearly and concisely. This will make it much easier for your target audience to understand what you’re all about and why they should care. It should be clear and concise, free of jargon and buzzwords. Be Customer-Centric Your value proposition should be all about your customer or client, not about you or your business. This means understanding what your target customers want and need, then tailoring your value proposition to reflect that. It should clearly state how your products or service will solve their problems or meet their needs. Differentiate Yourself When crafting your value proposition, focus on what makes you unique and how that can benefit your customers. What makes your business stand out? Why should customers choose you over your competitors? Make sure your value proposition reflects what sets you apart from the competition. Be Realistic Don’t make claims you can’t deliver on. Be honest about what you can provide, and do not overpromise or make false claims. Take a close look at your offering and ensure that your value proposition accurately reflects its benefits. Customers will appreciate your honesty, and this will help build trust between you and them. Examples of Great Value Propositions Slack Slack’s value proposition, “Great Teamwork starts with a Digital HQ,” is all about simplifying communication and collaboration for teams. Users love this messaging platform for its rich features and integrations, and it’s easy to use and helps teams stay organized and connected, whether working in the office or remotely. Apple Few tech companies have created such a strong and loyal following as Apple. Part of this is because they produce unique products that people love. Another big part of their success is their marketing, which is always on point. A huge part of their marketing strategy is their value proposition which focuses on the user experience. CrazyEgg CrazyEgg is a prime example of an effective value proposition. Their home page immediately grabs visitors’ attention with their claim that you can “Make your website better. Instantly.” This is followed by a brief explanation of how their heatmap and scroll map tools can help you understand what users want and need from your website. Crafting a strong value proposition is an essential part of any small business marketing strategy. By clearly articulating what your business does and why it’s worth customers’ time and money, you can set yourself apart from the competition and attract more prospects. So, take the time to put one together. You can use it as a guide for business operations and feature it on your website and all of your marketing communications.
Google Helpful Content Update: What it Means and What to Know Posted on November 24, 2022November 17, 2022 by Natalie Slyman Google dominates the search engine market with more than 90% of the market share as of June 2022. Every core update from Google sends shockwaves across the content marketing world. The latest Google Helpful Content update is tipped to cause seismic shifts in the way we create content. When the Helpful Content update first rolled out, it had content marketers running for cover. If the reactions on social media are anything to go by, there’s no doubt the update scared creators and SEO specialists. Many lamented the drop in YOY traffic and couldn’t resist the panic over the future of their content marketing strategy. If the update has you concerned about your traffic growth, don’t worry. In this guide, we’ll discuss what this update means for SEO and how to adjust your content marketing strategies to stay on the right path. What is Google’s Helpful Content Update? If you look at Google’s updates over the past years, one thing will come out clearly: the search engine giant has always focused majorly on user experience. Google has been rolling updates aimed at sunsetting manipulative tactics such as keyword stuffing in favor of value-driven content. The Helpful Content update is a huge step towards compelling websites to publish helpful, educational content. The update was rolled out between August 25 and September 9 of 2022, and it seeks to reward helpful content – or content that gives users a satisfying experience. According to Chris Nelson, Google’s Senior Staff Analyst, the update seeks to ensure users find “more original, more helpful content written by people and for the people.” The update impacts English searches globally at the moment but will be rolled out to other languages in the future. Google claims the system will scan your site, pinpointing content that its classifiers deem to have “little value, low-value-added, or is otherwise not particularly helpful.” Since this is a site-wide algorithm, it doesn’t just impact the low-value, individual URLs. Instead, if a higher number of published articles are deemed unhelpful, the entire domain is less likely to rank low. How You Can Prepare for Helpful Content Update If the content you’ve been creating is thoughtful and helpful, there’s no cause for alarm. The Google Helpful Content update is only going to eliminate unhealthy competition — or sites that have been using unscrupulous means to outrank you. However, when announcing the new update, Google raised some pertinent questions. We’ll look at these questions and discuss how you should adapt your content strategy to check the right boxes. 1. Defining Your Target Audience Google question: “Do you have an existing or intended audience for your business or site that would find the content useful if they came directly to you?” Defining your target audience ought to be a standard SEO practice. If you haven’t been creating content with a target audience in mind, Google has put you on notice. Remember: Google wants you to create helpful content. For your content to be helpful, it must resonate with your target audience. That means to create helpful content, the type that Google sees fit for a place atop the SERPs, you must first define your target audience. Know who your target audience is, what their needs are, and the problems they face. What questions are they likely to type into Google when looking for a solution? From that, you can now devise a content strategy to solve the problems the cohort face. 2. Knowing Your Value Proposition Google question: “Does your site have a primary purpose or focus?” Hundreds to even thousands of websites have the same target audience in mind as yours. So, what makes your website stand out from the crowd? What could make a user consume content on your site without ever turning to other sources? Google wants you to clearly define your value proposition. Your website can’t be all things to all users. You have to build it around one subject area and focus on developing content that addresses users’ intent in that niche. 3. Leveraging the Concept of Information to Gain Scores Google question: “After reading your content, will someone leave feeling they’ve learned enough about a topic to help achieve their goal?” This is inarguably the crux of the Helpful Content update. Google wants every website to give users a satisfying experience. In other words, each article you put out should demonstrate a high information gain score. According to Bill Slawski, an information gain score depicts the value attached to an article for providing additional information not present in other articles on the same topic. With Google’s Helpful Content update, there’s no doubt that pages with a higher information gain score will rank higher than those with a lower score. There’s no place for copycat content. To snag a spot atop the Google SERPs, you have to give readers fresh perspectives and ideas in each article or page. Pull unique data and add never-before-seen expert quotes to back your ideas. In addition, create custom screenshots and images that no other page has published. 4. Demonstrating First-Hand Expertise Google question: “Does your content clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge (for example, expertise that comes from having actually used a product/service or visiting a place)?” It’s important to understand the meaning of “helpful content.” According to Google, helpful content is unique and original. It’s written by people with real subject matter expertise. For example, let’s say you’re writing about a hotel guide in the Maldives. You could gather details about hotels in the Maldives and whip up a lengthy piece with loyalty-free images. However, Google isn’t in favor of this approach because, even though your content might be original and unique, it doesn’t showcase first-hand experience. To showcase first-hand expertise, it will benefit you if you’ve toured these hotels physically. You should have an authoritative understanding of the hotel landscape in the Maldives from the first-person point of view. Google doesn’t want you to write about something you haven’t personally experienced. If you’re reviewing software, you ought to have used the software to have a depth of knowledge about it. 5. Optimizing Content for SEO While Google is advising content creators to avoid creating content for search engines, it doesn’t seek to invalidate SEO best practices. Google advises that “SEO is vitally helpful when it’s applied to people-first content.” Your content can be satisfying, but if your target audience can’t find it, then it will be of no benefit. This means even as you create content that ticks all the Helpful Content Update boxes, you must adhere to SEO best practices. Navigate the Helpful Content Update With Ease If your website has taken a swift hit in the wake of the Google Helpful Content update, don’t panic. This update is “helpful,” and if you adhere to the guidelines we offered above, your website will rise again and claim back its position on Google SERPs. How long it will take for the site to do better is still an open question. According to Google, your site could spend months languishing on lower pages. However, once you prune all the unhelpful content and add new value-packed content, it won’t be long before Google rewards you for the effort.
4 Shifts Your Small Business Needs to Prepare for This Holiday Season Posted on November 23, 2022November 23, 2022 by Jonathan Herrick We’re quickly approaching the most wonderful time of the year – the holiday season. While typically this time of year has been busy with increased consumer engagement and sales for many small businesses, this year may look a little different. With talks of a recession and the market continuously taking a hit, a lot of small businesses aren’t exactly sure what to expect this holiday season. Many are simply planning as they have in the past, and prepping their businesses for an influx of foot and website traffic. While I don’t advise against doing that, there are things small business owners need to be doing differently to make sure they’re prepared, and that includes planning for less-than-ideal situations in the next couple of months. To ensure you’re as prepared as possible, below are four of the most crucial shifts currently happening that will ultimately shape holiday business. But don’t fret, I’ve also included how your company can prepare for these shifts to ensure you end the year as successful as possible. 1. Inflation Will Affect Consumer Spending Everything seems to cost more, from the cost of living to gas prices and grocery bills. Modern-day necessities just aren’t as cheap as they were last year, so consumers will be curbing their spending in other places to ensure they’re managing their budgets. This means that the sales numbers you hit last holiday season may not be as predictable this year. You need to prepare for how inflation may impact your sales, or even impact your typical buyer. You might attract a different type of consumer based on your price point as consumers rethink their holiday budget. You may also want to engage in some price testing. Increasing prices may be able to help make up for a decrease in demand. On the flip side, offering discounts might help to drive more buyers. The flexibility to test pricing now can help drive results as you wrap up the year. For retail businesses, balancing inventory will be key to a successful season. For instance, if your numbers are showing a decrease in demand, you may not want to bulk up your inventory. Instead, you might start the season off with enough supplies and see where that gets you. If you need to order later, you can, or you can offer other products that you have in stock, which will help balance your inventory and showcase other items. Taking inventory of your employees is crucial as well. If you’re accustomed to a seasonal hiring spree, you’ll want to be extra prudent about hiring the right talent. You don’t want to overwork your staff, but you also don’t want extra people on the payroll if they aren’t contributing to activities that drive revenue. Automating processes in your business can help you to run lean during the holiday season and beyond. 2. Social Media Will Play a Big Role in Influencing Buying Decisions While you may be tempted to scale back your marketing in anticipation of fewer sales this holiday, that would be one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Your competitors will still be advertising, and if you scale back you won’t even be considered an option by consumers. In times of economic uncertainty, people turn to distractions, and one of the biggest distractions today is social media. Your audience is active on social media sites, scrolling through content, which makes it a perfect avenue to showcase your products and holiday promos. If you’re going to make some room in your budget by not ordering as much inventory or hiring as many people as you would have in the past, it’s not a bad idea to put that spend towards social media advertising. It’s a great way to get your product and brand in front of the right people as well as expand your reach beyond the expected foot traffic (if you have a storefront). A more cost-efficient way to utilize social media is to build out a social media calendar and fill it with a strategic holiday promotion push. Make sure your existing network is aware of the great deals you’re offering and direct them to purchase pages or lead magnets with each post. Or, you can double down on your social ads by filling your profile with additional resources and information, which can help encourage on-the-fence buyers to seal the deal. 3. Labor Shortages Will Mean Relying on Marketing Automation As previously mentioned, you may be scaling back on hiring additional holiday staff this year. Now, that may be a choice, or finding reliable staff may simply be difficult right now. Ever since The Great Resignation, there’s been an uptick in unemployment despite there being an increase in available positions. Either way, if you need some additional help this year, utilizing marketing automation is a great way to keep your team lean while still adding a few extra sets of working “hands.” You can use your marketing automation tool to send out your holiday campaigns to prospects, which can increase conversions and sales while you’re busy prepping for in-person customers or other holiday sales-related tasks. 4. Delivery May Take Time, Yet Again Labor shortages are nationwide and span almost every industry, so it’s safe to say that delivery and shipping times may be extended due to low staff. What’s more, online shopping has increased exponentially due to the pandemic, and the online buying trend will only continue for the holidays. Typically with online purchases, people can be a bit flexible with turnaround times, however, if they’re buying gifts for the holidays, that flexibility goes out the window. If you’re in the eCommerce industry, make sure you’re prepared for delayed shipping times, otherwise, you’ll have some angry customers on your hands. You may be wondering what you can do since you’re at the mercy of logistics companies. A solution could be to offer in-store pick-ups and curbside orders. Or, you can take a note from Target, which is promising curbside pick-ups that will be ready same-day, as well as utilizing Shipt for fast delivery to their customers. This holiday season may not look like it did in years past, but that doesn’t mean you should panic. There are things you can do to prepare in advance for impressive sales and happy customers no matter what economic challenges pop up as we round out the year. Good luck this holiday season!
The Forgotten Content Distribution Tactic: Content Syndication Posted on November 17, 2022November 10, 2022 by Natalie Slyman Ross Simmonds, CEO at Foundation Inc, narrated how a well-thought distribution strategy led to 26,282 pageviews in the first seven days after publishing. The results sound unbelievable, but brands that espouse proper content distribution are hitting tremendous numbers in terms of organic traffic. Simmonds advises brands to create content once but distribute it forever. He advocates for the most common distribution channels like the ones discussed in our content distribution checklist. However, while some strategies are pretty common, some of these distribution tactics may have fallen through the cracks. One such strategy is content syndication. In this guide, we’ll get in the weeds about content syndication and discuss what it is, its pros and drawbacks, and how you can use it to benefit your brand. What is Content Syndication? Content syndication is the process of republishing the same piece of content on a different website, preferably a more popular one. In content syndication, you don’t create new content. Instead, you take existing content and publish it word-for-word on a different website. If you’ve ever opened an article and found a note like “This article originally appeared in [link to the original publication]” or “This article appeared in [original publication] and has been published here with permission,” that’s syndicated content. Check out these examples of syndicated content: Pay attention to me: how marketers can avoid losing the younger generation by Katy Keim Liquid expectations by Baiju Shah Web Monetization with Angular by Radoslaw Fabisiak Why Not(e)? By Slite How Does Content Syndication Strategy Work? Content syndication has come a long way, and its methodologies have evolved over the years. Today, you can syndicate any type of content, including blogs, articles, infographics, white papers, ebooks, videos, and podcasts. The process itself can happen in many ways. You can choose to syndicate an entire piece of content and use canonical tags to ensure the syndicated piece doesn’t compete with the original content. Alternatively, you can republish a condensed version or an excerpt of the original piece. Given the specifics of content syndication, most marketers are skeptical about it because, as you probably know, Google frowns upon duplicate content. Does syndicating content amount to duplication? The answer is no. Google rubber stamps syndicated content and won’t penalize you provided you follow the fundamental content syndication guidelines. Google requires you to make it obvious to the reader, and the search engine, that what they’re reading is a syndicated post. You can do that by adding the note “This article originally appeared in [original publication and link],” linking back to the original piece. From there, the publication you’re publishing the syndicated content to should add a canonical link. What Are the Benefits of Content Syndication? Like other content distribution tactics, content syndication can benefit your content marketing strategy. Some of the notable benefits include: 1. Increase in Organic Traffic When starting out, it can be difficult to reach your target audience. Syndication lets you stand on the shoulders of a reputable site to gather momentum. A short article on an authoritative website can get hundreds and even thousands of more eyeballs on the article than just publishing it on your website alone. When readers deem your content helpful, they may decide to check out the original source, which can result in a steady flow of organic traffic to your site or social media pages. Readers could turn into leads and eventually customers. It’s important that you optimize your site so you can capitalize on any increased traffic. For example, if you’re struggling to grow your email list, add newsletter sign-ups to your homepage or pages of content that is getting syndicated to help grow your list. Such is the impact of content syndication. The results you get could vary depending on where the content is syndicated. 2. More High-Quality Backlinks As mentioned earlier, Google requires that you add a link to the original source when you syndicate content. This counts as a backlink, and if it’s from an authoritative site, it will improve SEO performance for your site. High-quality backlinks give your site more credibility than your competitors. When your site’s trust and authority grow, your search engine ranking will improve. 3. Increase Website Authority Google’s search engine views backlinks as a seal of approval from reputable sources vouching that your website prioritizes helpful content. Getting high-quality backlinks can improve your domain authority (DA), which is a vital piece of the puzzle when it comes to growing organic traffic. Founder of The Parent Portfolio, Jonathan Sanchez, says he scales up his backlinks with just one or two syndicated blogs. He claims one syndicated article earned his site 83 backlinks, and after persistent syndication efforts, the website DA went from 9 to 54. 4. Cost Effectiveness Content syndication isn’t guest blogging or content curation, and that means you don’t need to create fresh content. You’re taking an old piece of content and publishing it on a reputable third-party website. This saves you the cost of having to create new content. In addition, syndicating a simple infographic on authoritative websites can result in hundreds of backlinks for free as opposed to paying for backlinks. 5. Increase in Revenue When you do content syndication in a way that increases website authority and organic traffic, there’s no doubt it will boost lead generation. It’s even better if the content is published where your audience already is, resulting in qualified leads heading to your site. With an uptick in site traffic from leads that fit your ideal audience profile, you’re able to more easily appeal to their interests and needs, and be seen as a viable solution. This means you can not only introduce them into your marketing funnel, but given their qualified status, it’s more likely they’ll become customers and increase your revenue. What Are The Drawbacks of Content Syndication? Content syndication has its benefits when done well. However, if you miss a step, it could derail your content marketing strategy. Here are some of the drawbacks of content syndication when done wrong: Spammy links could ruin your reputation. As mentioned earlier, quality backlinks signal to Google that your website is trustworthy and helpful. The opposite is also true. If your content is syndicated on “spammy” websites, it ruins your online reputation and waters down your content marketing effort. It doesn’t always result in quality leads. The readers seeing your content in a third-party article may not have experienced much of your brand. In some cases, it might be harder to convert these readers into customers. You have to come up with a proper nurturing strategy driven by a higher-level offer to continue engaging them. Syndicated content could negatively impact SEO. If the syndicated content doesn’t feature a canonical link, it competes with the original content. If the content is published on an authoritative website, it could outrank the original piece in the SERPs and negatively impact traffic. How to Get Your Content Syndicated There are two ways to get your content syndicated: free or paid. 1. Free Content Syndication In this case, your content is syndicated for free. All you have to do is reach out to websites that accept content syndication and prove to the owners/editors why they should publish your content on their platform. It’s a time-consuming process but if you find the right platforms, the effort will be well worth it. When looking for ideal partners, go for websites with a larger audience than yours and ensure they target the same audience as you do. Some of the best ways to find partners include: Directly approaching publications, influencers, and bloggers Looking for potential partners in social media groups If you don’t want to rely on a third-party, you can also self-syndicate your content on platforms such as Medium and LinkedIn. 2. Paid Content Syndication If you dread the back-and-forth with editors and bloggers to negotiate the rules of engagement, you can use paid content syndication. Certain paid platforms can handle the content syndication process on your behalf. These sites charge you per click, but we advise you to tread this path with caution. Some unscrupulous syndication sites rely on clickbait content and could end up earning you spammy backlinks. Reap the Benefits of Content Syndication Content syndication is a cost-effective distribution strategy that can help your business. However, to reap its benefits and sidestep the negatives, you have to come up with a solid plan. Vet the available partners and only pick those that you deem fit. In addition, produce high-quality content focusing on relevance, authority, and depth.