After spending a decade in the field of content marketing services, we can say one thing for sure – only a few businesses can make this form of marketing work for them. Others fail. Naturally, many complain about how content marketing is not really worth it and the money spent on it doesn’t bear fruit in the form of the desired ROI. So, what you need to first understand is that, content marketing needs time, patience and expertise to show results. And you need to be smart and strategic about it as well. Currently, as per the Content Marketing Institute, 10% B2B marketers think that content marketing is hardly effective, while 54% consider it to be moderately effective. This scenario can only change for the better if you go about content marketing the right way. If you do it just because every other business is, you will not be rewarded. After all, your content marketing strategy should get you more traffic, better leads and greater ROI. So, you need to know what exactly works. So, even if you have a content strategy in place, you might want to know what else will help. But the overdose of information on the internet can leave you puzzled. This is why we have put together an infographic with 7 tips that are easy and actionable. Read on to truly succeed at content marketing. Conclusion Content marketing is a long-term game. The long-term gains can offset short-term losses. So, audit your strategy and amend it repeatedly to become the best in your niche. If you still have doubts about content marketing, schedule a call with us here.
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4 Proven Reasons Why Blogging Is The Holy Grail of Content Marketing
First things first. Why is blogging important for brands? Whether you’re a B2B or B2C marketer, you’ll need to include content marketing services as an integral part of your brand marketing strategy. The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) reports that 91% of marketers use content marketing to promote brand awareness and 76% opt for blogging to drive traffic to their brand website. It’s needless to say that nearly 24% of marketers are not taking blogging seriously but, should they? Here are 4 broad and simple reasons why blogging is the “Holy Grail” of content marketing for brands. 1. Drives Search Traffic Do you want more traffic to your website? Duh, yes of course. Well, that’s your first biggest reason to start blogging. Very Simply Put – Blogs+SEO+Social Media = Traffic and leads. Coming back to blogs, if you are promoting your business through digital marketing, then your business blog is your largest ammunition. HubSpot has already shared facts to prove this. This clearly shows that the more blogs that you post per month, the higher traffic you get. When there is more traffic to the website, there is also naturally a higher chance of getting more leads. You can either post new blogs or re-purpose your existing blogs by adding new content to increase the organic traffic to your website by 106% according to HubSpot. For instance, HubSpot posts 200 new posts every month which results in 54% lead generation while repurposing its existing blogs results in 46% lead generation. Isn’t that enough proof to take your business blog more seriously? This is because your buyers are constantly looking for unbiased, relevant, and insightful content online that can educate and empower them to make the right purchase decisions. On Brand states that building an audience is more valuable than direct sales for over 70% of brand managers. Vlogging and blogging help build a community of audiences for your brand, organically. There is a higher probability of them converting into loyal customers over a certain period of time. Let’s be practical! Most of you would have googled for the latest mobile phones in the market at least once in the past and then, read through a number of buying guides on the CNET website or other websites before buying them. It’s a well-known fact that a buyer will research, analyze, and finally, is more likely to decide on a brand that has well-researched, good quality content in that specific field since it showcases the brand as a pioneer in its field. That’s exactly what a good blog does. It informs and inspires the buyers to zero in on the right brand in the market for their needs and wants. It educates your buyers with how-to guides and narrates your customer success stories to persuade them to buy from your brand rather than from your competitors. Blog also feeds your social media and keeps it going. You are not only increasing your brand’s social reach, you are also earning new traffic through social to your website. Also, here is a quick fact to digest. How many times do you add pages to your website? In most cases, people add pages to their website once in a year. Now think of your blog. Every post you put there is a new page indexed for your website, which basically means it’s a chance for you to get traffic to your website and increase your probability of ranking for that particular topic. Also Read: Types of Content to Get More Traffic to Your Blog Hint: Analyze the list of search queries from your target customers using SEO research tools like SEMRush or Moz to develop the right content for your brand blog. Something to remember: It’s also important to note here that just creating the blogs and publishing them will not do. You will need to optimise the blogs with the right keywords and distribute them properly to get more reach. Here is where SEO services play their part in helping the blog rank for relevant keywords. 2. Builds Domain Authority Domain authority (DA) is a ranking metric that indicates how authoritative your domain or website is based on several factors such as quality of content, social signals, and other SEO best practices. You’ll need to spend a considerable amount of time and effort to create, distribute, and promote exhaustive content that will benefit your potential customers and convert them into loyal clients over the long-term. The DA of a website can range between 1 to 100. The higher your site’s DA, the better chances you have of ranking. You can check the DA of your site with a tool called Open Site Explorer. Ideally, DA score above 60 for a domain reflects an excellent domain authority with a high probability of search ranking for that particular website. Likewise, a DA score below 40 indicates poor domain authority and requires a well-planned content marketing strategy for a higher score. Blogging is one of the major contributors to establishing the domain authority for your brand. There are a number of content types such as podcasts, webinars, and animated videos to promote your brand across the customer journey. Your brand blog will score high among other brand-building content types for the simple reason that it’s more comprehensive and clear in communicating your brand authority. Hint: Explore guest blogging opportunities on trusted websites for your brand.It will improve your domain authority and overall search engine ranking. 3. Generates Leads Can your blog influence your customers to make a purchase decision? Do your blog visitors make a product/service inquiry online/offline? The objective of publishing ‘n’ number of blog posts in your brand blog is to build brand relevance and brand authority. But, the goal of each blog post content is to initiate conversion for your brand from leads from customers through Call To Action (CTA). Yes, blogging is but a piece to the lead generation puzzle for brands in the digital marketplace. You’ll have to capture leads
13 Digital Marketing Trends and Innovations For 2020
If someone would have told me in 2015 or 2016 that Voice Search, AI and data-driven marketing were going to be the future of the digital marketing industry, I would have probably thought “fine, ya, let’s forget it for now and think of it when that happens; we have more important things to do now man”. And suddenly that time has come now. It’s 2020 and all these are now part of innovative digital marketing trends that businesses are adopting to remain competitive in the online landscape. If there is one thing we know by now is that consumer behaviour has become hard to predict and marketing technology is moving ahead at a fast pace. If you are a digital marketer who is still applying the old methods and taking educated guesses, it’s time to move on. So, here is a list of the top 13 top digital marketing trends that your business/brand needs to consider in order to stand out in the cut-throat world of online marketing: 1. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning With such a large chunk of data harvested from ecommerce and online consumer behavior, it’s necessary to adopt a system that can compile and analyze all necessary information as quickly as possible. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are perfect for doing just that. Not only can the combination of these technologies analyze data without step-by-step instructions, but they can also work to develop more accurate ways to execute digital marketing goals. For example, AI and ML have driven product recommendations for companies as big as Amazon and been able to accurately generate content without human direction. To implement some of these strategies in your own digital marketing campaign, you can create AI-powered digital ads, or smart posters. Essentially, with this technology, you can customize content based on physical or virtual consumer interaction data. The system can understand what features are interacted with the least and automatically drive out that feature to only showcase those that are creating the maximum consumer interaction. 2. Blockchain While converting the bulk of your business’s marketing strategies to the digital world can create a vast amount of opportunities and efficiencies, it also opens the door to a number of security threats. Luckily, in recent years, many businesses have begun to implement blockchain technology. The technology can protect your general business functions and transactions from fraud and theft. For marketing, specifically, blockchain technology has helped businesses to earn more profit from their marketing data. Previously, when a business invested in Google’s search engine marketing ads for their site, Google ultimately handled the ad transactions to ensure that each site was charged fairly for the number of clicks generated from the ad. However, with blockchain digital marketing, this middleman, which is Google, is removed from the equation. Businesses now have complete ownership of the data and information they receive. They no longer have to go through Google to ensure that the data is valid and authorized by the user, because the users are able to authorize their data themselves. This allows businesses to retain 100% of the profits. 3. Personalization In order to ensure success for your business’s digital marketing campaigns, you must adopt personalization as one of your strategies. Not only will it help to build a relationship with each of your customers, but it has also proven to be successful at converting potential buyers into dedicated customers. In fact, 79% of consumers say they are likely to interact with a campaign only if it has been personalized. Similarly, about 63% say they become “highly annoyed” by a brand’s continued use of generic mass marketing campaigns. These two statistics alone give plenty of reason as to why personalization is required in today’s digital marketing. Also Read: Best Crucial Things To Keep In Mind While Building Your Digital Marketing Agency To integrate personalization with email marketing, many companies send out abandoned cart notifications. Every time a consumer shops on your site and leaves without purchasing any of the items that they added to their cart, you can send out an abandoned cart email. In doing so, you are remarketing the products that a specific consumer added to their cart. This email will be very different from the email another customer receives about their abandoned cart, which is what makes it personalized. However, this is not the only way to personalize a digital marketing campaign. So, be creative, and eventually you will appeal to those 79% of consumers. 4. Chatbots Chatbots and instant messenger are expected to grow and power about 80% of customer service this year. Given that we now know the powerful benefits of personalization in digital marketing, you may understand why the conversational component of chatbots is equally as powerful. Businesses that use instant messaging or chatbots have the opportunity to connect with customers in real time and cater to their specific needs. With the advanced intelligence that AI has introduced in chatbots, the technology is able to simulate an in-person conversation, which is typically preferred by a customer. A chatbot’s AI capabilities also give it the “brainpower” to market relevant products throughout the conversation. 5. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) Given that about 60% of Google search engine queries come from mobile devices, one might assume that both the mobile device and mobile view are much more user-friendly and accessible than a desktop. While you can’t convert a desktop to a mobile device, you can most certainly add elements that make the desktop view similar to its counterpart. This is essentially the idea behind progressive web apps. They act as a middle ground between desktop and mobile views, allowing businesses to implement successful elements of mobile or app views at a fraction of the development cost. Small changes to a desktop page, like faster loading speeds, offline working, and push notifications can help improve the user experience and the digital marketing and sales process for businesses. 6. Internet of Things (IoT) When it
10 Super Creative Instagram Accounts that Are Really Kicking It
Be it a brand like Old Spice or Haldiram’s, or a celebrity like Priyanka Chopra or Cristiano Ronaldo, everything (and everyone) is on Instagram these days. And, why not? With about a billion active monthly users to boast of, Instagram is the perfect social media channel for businesses and people to connect with the target audience, inspire them to follow and buy, and tell others. But which are the ones that are really kicking it out there on Insta? Which are the grams which are a must-follow? Which are the accounts which really publish amazing content? We know how everyone loves a quick list and so we spent some time researching and putting out this list of 10 super-creative Instagram accounts that are really inspiring. This should also get you loads of ideas for your own (or your brand’s) Instagram page. So, let’s get going. 1. Personal Care: Old Spice Known globally for its amazing range of men’s grooming products, Old Spice has upped its Instagram game by using humor, environment, diversity and retro vibes for engagement and promotion. They have managed to loop in celebrities like Kevin Hart recently to take their strategy up a notch. This post on how their Sweat Defense keeps men as dry as the desert has caught attention with the great visual and creative text. 2. Food: Haldiram’s A giant in the Indian sweets and snacks industry, Haldiram’swas founded in 1937, but it has kept up with the times brilliantly. Its Instagram account is progressive, witty, colorful and yummy too. This post for instance says how your gender shouldn’t dictate the work you do. You will also come across enticing images of roadside snacks like paanipuri, packaged nuts with a pistachio saying “Crack me up” and even the funny use of mathematical symbols like the pi. 3. Travel Photography: Navaneeth Unnikrishnan For those who are bitten by the travel bug, Navaneeth Unnikrishnan’s Instagram account will brighten up your mood instantly. From the tropical lushness of Malaysia and Borneo to the chilly landscapes of Iceland to the spiritual beauty of Spiti Valley, Navaneeth has travelled far and wide and captured stunning images that inspire you to hit the road. Beautiful historical places, open roads, stark winters, marine life and even automotives are the subjects of his photographic pursuit. The above post, captured in Italy, celebrates the glory of sunrises. 4. Sports: Cristiano Ronaldo Unless you have been living under a rock, there is no way you have missed this world-famous Portuguese footballer’s shots, his Golden Ball wins (5 times), his dedication towards fitness and his good looks of course! And he is a winner when it comes to Instagram too, with 227 million followers and inspiring images from his workout sessions and matches. His social media activities proclaim his love for his family and beautiful places too. The above post is a clever branding in partnership with CLEAR hair care brand, as Ronaldo emphasizes how a “clear head” is necessary to make a strong comeback. 5. Nature / Wildlife: stevewinterphoto If you start looking at nature or wildlife accounts, many thoughts will cross your mind -the endless transcendence of nature, the beauty of life in all forms, and the people who have the privilege of photographing the same. There is simply too much beauty in the moment out there to pick favorites. Even then, our pick for wildlife photography goes to @stevewinterphoto who is a conservation photojournalist. Steve’s photos are not just about the imagery but about his experience and sheer love for the art. He has been chased by rhinos, stalked by Jaguars, trapped in quicksand and survived at freezing temperatures – all to get that shot he really wanted. And he actually cares about nature and its creatures, spreading awareness about unkind practices, as this post reveals. 6. Celebrity: Priyanka Chopra Beauty with brains, PeeCee has not only made it big in Bollywood, but has also shattered any glass ceiling that was ever there in Hollywood. Be it her movies, her songs, her Padma Shri win, or her marriage to Nick Jonas, Priyanka Chopra has always been in the news! Her funky and stylish Instagram account speaks volumes about her passions, loved ones, confidence, progressive views, and whatever she endorses. The above post is a citrusy and refreshing one that not only promotes her partnership with Bon & Viv Spiked Seltzer, but also her love for everything healthy. 7. NGO / Cause: Wildlife SOS This non-profit organization enjoys presence in USA and UK too, besides India, and is popularly known for bringing the cruel practice of “dancing bears” to an end. While rehabilitating such bears was their initial objective, today, they have extended a helping hand to many other animals in distress. Their Instagram account is flooded with heartening pictures of elephants, tigers, monkeys, crocodiles and common and rare birds, to inspire thoughtfulness and kindness. Their recent Father’s Day post featuring a caregiver with a baby monkey has beautifully highlighted the pure and selfless connection between the two. 8. Fashion: House of Masaba Instagram is the perfect platform for fashion brands and bloggers to flaunt their creations, ideas and exclusivity. And House of Masabaunderstands that really well. This Indian label is the brainchild of Masaba Gupta, and thanks to her Caribbean connection, she has done a wonderful job of featuring quirky prints, bold hues and trendy designs on her account. From ethnic and contemporary to fusion, this Instagram account brims with life and innovation. A video depicting the perfect COVID-ready combo of a chic shirt and matching mask has already created a buzz online. 9. Shopping: Sugarbox_india As a social media platform, Instagram is a shopper’s delight indeed. That’s because you can buy what you see. If it catches your eye for good, you can get it for a price. With close to 99k followers, @Sugarbox_india will send you a box
7 Excellent Content Marketing Examples To Learn From
If you are reading this, you already know how content marketing has emerged as the long-term success mantra for both small and big businesses. But creating and marketing exceptional content needs a bit of inspiration now and then. So, here are some wonderful content marketing examples from leading brands like Coca-Cola, Heineken, GoPro, Honda and more. Get ready to be motivated! 1. GoPro UGC GoPro believes that it is better to show viewers how good their products are, instead of just talking about them. And what better way to build brand loyalty then get customers to generate content – otherwise known as user generated content. It, of course, helps that the product itself lends excellently to UGC, making it super simple for users to record videos and share. To gather the best user generated content, GoPro has multiple programs in place, complete with incentives. Users who capture amazing photos or videos can try their luck at winning GoPro Awards. Their Million Dollar Challenge is especially a huge hit, as every user whose entry becomes a part of the brand’s highlight reel at the end of the year, gets a chance to win an equal share of the million dollars. Only shots captured on the latest cameras are accepted and the GoPro app allows users to edit videos and photos, before uploading on Instagram, YouTube or Facebook. Also Read: Top 5 Ways to Use Instagram Marketing to Boost Your Business Results And Insights As of 2017, GoPro’s revenue was $1.18 billion. With 10832296 followers on Facebook and similarly impressive numbers on other social channels, GoPro has hacked content marketing indeed. Their strategy is perfect for boosting both awareness and loyalty across geographies and among all kinds of adventure enthusiasts. Source Url: https://youtu.be/Prt-G4cPIn4 Your Takeaways UGC is a great way to build one of the most authentic relationship you, as a brand, can hope to build with your audience. Building a fan base brings in actual results. GoPro’s growth numbers will prove that. So, go ahead and create a structure that can inspire or encourage your audience to share their content. Think about who can you collaborate with to create content that shows the value of your product/services. Think about what incentives you can give them to create that sort of content. The effect can be long-lasting and tremendously satisfying for your brand. 2. AMEX Open Forum Often cited as the poster child for content marketing, the Open Forum campaign is effectively what all content marketing campaigns aspire to be. Since its start in 2007, it has single-handedly proven the business value of brands by providing useful content to its customers. So much so that it continues to remain the #1 source of leads for new AMEX cardholders. So what’s the secret sauce for their success? It isn’t too complex – it is ensuring that your customer comes first, doing the right thing for them and doing it well. AMEX started by putting itself in the shoes of its customers. What are your customers reading most often? What is resonating with them? They used the answers to these questions to map their content strategy. They then created content stories around impactful small businesses like a cafe whose husband-wife owners are active civic leaders or a hip men’s apparel brand that has a bulldog as a mascot. By weaving a beautiful story around their lives and the lives they impact, they created an engaging audience who were drawn in with top notch imagery and videos. The stories allowed the audience to relate themselves as AMEX customers as the brand did not sell itself but actually sought out to help them. The forum moved on to create a platform where the small business owners could share advice, post questions,and even rate each other’s helpfulness – all of which is now extended to social connectivity. Results And Insights This campaign is considered one of the best content marketing strategies by a brand. While visits and even repeat visits increased manifold, each visitor spent almost double the time on the site. It eventually became one of the top sources of leads for AMEX. Your Takeaways Business owners are consumers too. Your job is to step in their shoes and solve a problem for them. Make yourself useful and they’ll come back to you. 3. Coca-Cola Journey In late 2012, Coca-Cola launched a digital magazine called Coca-Cola Journey. The key differentiator in this case was that a lot of content was branded and only some third party content was used. Its latest campaign is JxJ which is JourneyxJourney. Two Coca-Cola Journey storytellers and a full production team recently hit the road to find and tell Coca-Cola stories across America. The JxJ crew used their behemoth 2017 Ford Escape (as a part of their brand tie-up with Ford) as a ‘Mobile Brand Publishing HQ’ and fans followed their content live when they were on the road. It was a lot of hard work to drive 4000+ miles while filming, editing, actively posting on all social channels, managing schedules and ensuring the team ate breakfast. Even as the journey ended, the Coca-Cola journey continued as they asked fans to submit their own road trip memories. The site also uses infographics services to showcase their quarterly results, some interesting nutrition facts and what its sourcing map means for the global sustainable agriculture industry. Results And Key Insights In the first year, the site published 1200 articles and attracted 13.1M visitors who averaged an impressive 4:40 time spent per article. The site currently features hundreds of photos from loyal fans sharing their ‘Moments of happiness’. Coca-Cola also makes stories easily shareable on social media and reports in real-time. Your Takeaways Even if you are publishing your own content, it is important to include your customers as a part of your journey. The aim of the content is the same – it has to be useful for its readers and not just for you.
Google’s Search Quality Raters: Here is What They Say About High-Quality Pages and Content
Google’s search engine algorithm is notoriously secretive. In fact, the entire SEO industry is built on trying to figure out exactly what helps a website rank higher in the search results. So, when Google released its “Search Quality Evaluator” guidelines back in 2015, marketers across the world were pleasantly surprised. Since then, Google has kept updating these guidelines. Today, they’re one of the most comprehensive and authoritative resources on SEO out there. It’s not like these guidelines tell you exactly what’s in Google’s search algorithm — of course not. But they provide very important insights into what Google sees as a “high-quality” webpage. And in the midst of so much speculation and conjecture, these guidelines are the most authentic and accurate source of information. So in this post, we thought we’d break down Google’s Search Quality Raters to tell you how to create a high-quality website that ranks up there. What makes a high-quality page? The first question is “What does Google see as a high-quality page?” For starters, there’s a basic definition: The webpage has a “beneficial purpose” — in other words, it’s designed to benefit users It achieves that purpose well Apart from this fundamental definition, there are some main characteristics of a high-quality page: A satisfying amount of high-quality main content What does this really mean? High-quality main content is one into which either time, effort, skill, or expertise has gone in. But the definition of high-quality main content depends on the nature and purpose of the webpage. So for instance: A news webpage should have information that’s engaging, factually accurate, and comprehensive. There should also be a fair bit of expert consensus around it. For a satire webpage, factual accuracy isn’t important. The content needs to be hilarious — that’s the biggest determinator of its quality. A functional website — for instance, an e-commerce page — needs to be high on functionality. So a big indicator of quality would be how easy it is to actually purchase an item off the page. Also Read: How to Check Website Content Quality? Naturally, webpages which are more broad-based in their purpose would have to have more content than those that are narrower to be classified as high-quality. For instance, this page about a Siberian Husky may not have a lot of content but would still be classified as high-quality main content because the topic itself is quite narrow. Similarly, this e-Commerce page is another example of high-quality main content because it has everything you need to know to make an informed purchase decision — user reviews, shipping and returns information, item details, product specifications etc. Clear and Satisfying Website Information Building trustworthiness is a big part of creating a high-quality webpage, and clear information is a big part of that. How much information is required depends on the nature of the webpage. YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) pages These are webpages that tend to have a direct impact on either your financial situation, your health or your safety. So these pages naturally require a lot of details — who is the owner of the website, detailed customer service information, and so on. Non-YMYL pages These pages usually need less information — an email address may be sufficient in some cases. So based on the purpose of your website, make sure you’re giving users all the possible information they need to be able to trust you and make a more informed decision. Positive Reputation Online reputation management is a big part of SEO. The guidelines say that a positive reputation definitely helps when it comes to classifying page quality as “high”. Having said that, the reputation is not as important as factors like quality of main content. Which means that a page which doesn’t have a positive reputation can also be marked as a high-quality page. Also Read: Know About the Future of SEO Having said that, a negative reputation is a big no-no. Having a negative reputation will automatically disqualify a webpage from having a high-quality ranking. That’s why a large part of online reputation management will involve mitigating negative reputation. Here are some of the most common ways your webpage can acquire a negative reputation: Negative Press: This is especially tricky if the content is long-form as opposed to a small paragraph or mention somewhere. The severity of the damage also depends on the Domain Authority of the news site. Government Notices: Government sites are considered trustworthy and tend to rank high — so a Government notice can be bad news. Bad Reviews on Neutral Sites: These can really damage your reputation, especially when they start to gain traction, and people post one after another. Bad Reviews on the Website: These are easier to manage but should still be few and far between. Litigation, Criminal Records, Tax Default: These usually appear on reputed government sites. They also contain a lot of text which leads to a higher ranking. Negative Mentions on Social Media: Reddit threads and Facebook groups tend to rank high since they fulfil the purpose they are created for. Negative reviews here means your reputation is likely to take a hit. Both news articles and opinion articles tend to rank very high riding on the reputation of the site on which they are published. However, reputation for different sites is measured differently. For instance, an article on a humour website could also rank highly because of the website’s reputation for creating humorous content. In other words, your reputation is built in the context of your website’s overall purpose. If you’re an entertainment website, you won’t be measured against stringent factual accuracy, whereas a news website would. The E-A-T Level Finally, a website will only have a high-quality rating if it has a high level of E-A-T (Expertise- Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness). Again, building expertise for a website depends entirely on the purpose of its creation.
Justwords Turns 10: Here Are 10 Lessons We Learnt
Justwords sprang to life in 2010. It’s sort of hard to believe that a decade has passed by since the first website went up. It felt good to launch the website, all yellow and bright (so wrong in terms of SEO today), carrying a pretty image of a piece of paper with punched holes as the background. It felt revolutionary to start a business that was going to be about content – about reimagining content for the digital world. The world felt right and things just seemed to fall together. When entrepreneurs start a company, they do not think of the troubles and problems that lay ahead. They think of victories, and wins, and how they are about to change something in the world – irrespective of whether they can or will ever do. It’s probably this courage, passion, and enthusiasm that led us to win our first big client – Nokia. They were looking for a young company that did good content and could help them execute an ambitious project. A friend had told a friend, who told another friend and that’s how the word got around that there was this startup in the market called Justwords – it did really good content. And that’s how it all started. It was kind of being swept up by a big wave into the sea when you have just learnt to swim. But that’s the beauty of it all. You gasp for breath, you come up for air, you remember what you are supposed to do and then just know what you have to do. And that was it. We were a small team, all sitting in our homes, and burning the midnight oil. We finished the whole project by 2011. It was a success. We had hit the ball right out of the park and got one happy client. Word got around and projects started trickling in. In 2012, we added a new product line, moved to a coworking space, added a tiny sales team. We focussed all our efforts in making that work. In doing so, we ignored what we were already doing well – content. In 2013, we almost failed and shut down. It was a dark phase but we survived. It taught us a lesson – focus on what you are good at. We returned to content and that saved us. Soon we found ourselves fascinated with content marketing. We focussed more and more on the combination of content and SEO and how it could drive up page views and traffic and change a company’s online presence and pull up its bottom line. Our whole business was getting built on one marketing strategy – Content Marketing. Over the years, we have kept growing. We were fortunate to work with some really good brands, who kept their faith in us and allowed us the opportunity to show some solid results. We feel incredibly indebted to all our patrons, especially the early ones who trusted us when we were not even a name. Without that trust, it would not have been possible for us to reach where we are today. So Thank You. Also Read: Why Content Marketing is important for any business? As we turn 10, we feel happy, excited, and humbled by all the love, support, and honour we received over the years. We also feel fortunate since 90% of all startups fail, despite the hard work, passion, right product, and everything else. That has also given us the confidence to say that we are really good at what we do. As a celebration of this decade-long journey, we thought of putting down a list of things we learnt in these 10 incredible years. So here you go. 1. Focus on the thing that you do best – If you play to your strengths, you increase your chances of winning the game. Be committed to what you believe in and make that work. Work on improving the strength of your brand;test it again and again, and make it stronger with knowledge and the right resources. We knew how to make content work and that saved us.Content marketing drove in leads, clients, and revenue. Even to this day, almost all our conversions come from inbound marketing. We offer what we know really well. And that is why we have been able to make it work. We built on that strength and almost closed when we ignored it. 2. Work hard to ensure customer satisfaction- It’s amazing what a happy client can do for your brand. If your customer is not happy, you are doing something wrong – well most of the times that is. Work hard on fixing that. If you have signed up a client, you need to work as a team and deliver on the results. A lot of business comes to Justwords through referrals from other clients. Also, we have a great track record of clients coming back to us for more and more. So work on your clients, and you wouldn’t have to worry about revenue. 3. Turn your failures into learnings- No one likes a failure. But when you fail it’s important to get back on your feet and get ready to start again. If you risk, failure is just something that can happen. Yes it sucks, yes it can be devastating but you simply cannot take failure as the end. Failure, almost inevitably, teaches you something. It tells you that you are going wrong. So you need to tweak that and start again. When we almost failed in 2013, it taught us that we should change our business strategy. If we would have shut shop then, we would never have reached this point. Here is a nice quote that I found recently that drives this point home. It’s from the founder of a company called Stella and Dot. She says “You have to see failure as the
AskNestle Wins Bronze at the Global WARC Awards: How We Helped Build Nestle’s Strongest Digital Asset
It’s not everyday that you get to be a part of a product that promises to be change worthy, and then also goes ahead and wins one of the most prestigious international awards – the Global WARC awards. In the middle of all the gloomy news, we received this one-hell-of-a-good-news email last week. It was from the head of communications, Nestle India, RashiGoel. She was informing us that AskNestle- a cutting-edge food tech product by Nestle – had won the Bronze at the Global WARC Awards 2020 in the “Effective Innovation” category.It was the only entry from India. “I cannot help but express heartfelt gratitude from the AskNestle Team at Nestlé… This success would not have been possible without the support, encouragement and many many nights of effort that has been put in by you. The AskNestle product has been created by a community of people, each one contributing ideas, analysis, technology, content and most of all positive intent,” read the email. It was addressed to the whole team that had built the product – designers, developers, technology partners, marketers, and content creators (that’s where we came into the picture). So now that you know why are have been up and excited about this whole episode, let me explain how content plays a part in AskNestle and how we played a (small yet significant) part in the whole process. AskNestle – Helping Mothers Understand Nutrition The whole thing that drives AskNestle is content and technology. It was developed to be a one-stop platform for complete child nutrition and help mothers of children (0-12) explore, learn and understand the best of nutrition knowledge. Also Read: Recipe of a Successful Food Blog That is what makes the product so compelling. To break it down, AskNestle offers these 4 things – A GROWTH TRACKER – This allows parents to track their child’s growth against other kids of the same age and height and weight. CUSTOM MEAL PLANS– These are designed on the basis of a growth tracker, taking into account regional preferences, food choices and allergies. A REPOSITORY OF RECIPES FOR CHILDREN – These are supposed to help mothers find to give proper nourishment. A KNOWLEDGE CENTRE OF EXPERT ARTICLES – This was designed as a resource hub where parents could find easy to understand and reliable nutritional knowledge. This was also supposed to equip mothers with the right knowledge about nutrition, banish myths, clear doubts about food and nutrition and health, and finally help them use that information in building healthier childhoods for their little ones. It was to create this knowledge hub that Justwords was taken aboard. Here is a CASE STUDY on how we did it. Creating Content that was Interesting, Engaging and Reliable: We started by understanding the objectives closely and then shared our plan to achieve the same. The biggest challenge here was to create content that was not only appealing to the average Indian mother, but also to create content that was factually right from the nutrition standpoint. Also Read: 10 Perfect Taglines That You Just Can’t Forget Hence, our first job was to put together a team of nutritionist writers as well a nutrition expert who could guide us on getting the content right. With that in place, we made sure that everyone else on the team, meaning the editors and the designers were all on the same page. The second challenge was a very strict deadline. How could we manage to put together this vast project on such a stringent deadline? We knew if this had to work, every team had to work like clockwork. The process had to be super smooth. After consulting the client, we zeroed in on popular nutrition and health categories for content development, like Immunity, Balanced Diet, Nutrients, Eating Habits, Deficiencies, Concerns, Digestive Health and Breastfeeding. Growth and Development, Complementary Feeding, Fussy Eating in Kids and Recipes were some other categories covered to address the usual pain points of expecting women and mothers. The content was further subdivided into different styles, like listicles, e-books, FAQs and guides and visually rich infographics. Once this was ready, the nutrition team created briefs for each topic, the writers wrote, the editors and nutrition experts checked for quality, and the design team added visuals. While the content team made sure that the everything was factually correct and relevant for the Indian audience, the design team focused on creating rich and attractive infographics, which could easily be read and understood my busy moms. Timely delivery and rigorous quality checks for all the content areas were ensured. Taking our content journey to the next level and attempting to reach a larger group of parents across India, the content was further translated in Hindi. Throughout the process of content development, we constantly updated the client about our progress and incorporated their suggestions and ideas to ensure that the perfect content hub was created. Also Read: Start and Build a Digital Marketing Agency Like with any successful tech product, we were also building this entire content library in an incredibly short span of time. In an incredible collaborative effort, the product went live in April 2020. Here are a Few Lessons we Learned in the Process: It’s important to chalk out a broad-level plan of how the project is going to flow. Set dates at every stage, assign the teams and have a workshop so that everyone is on the same page with the project delivery deadlines. Create an editorial calender for the content hub. Use tools like AHREFS and Buzzsumo to get select topics which are trending and have keywords likely to drive traffic. Start planning early since experts have other engagements too. Use experts who have in depth knowledge of the subject and can write well. Have a strong editorial team that can ensure quality output. A knowledge of SEO will make
9 Crucial Things To Keep In Mind While Building Your Digital Marketing Agency
We’ve all dreamt of being our own boss. Having a swanky office, a gifted team, innovative work and big clients, maybe your name on the masthead. But for most marketers, these castles in the air don’t anchor to firm ground. Why? It’s not because they lack talent, or that they don’t know where to start. There’s just too much competition before you make it as the cream of the crop. As brands set aside bigger budgets for digital advertising, it’s natural for everyone to want a piece of the client cake. There’s not much investment you need to start an agency. If you know your stuff, it’s actually quite simple. Working from home is easier than ever, and there’s little overhead costs. It’s landing—and holding onto—your first clients, that becomes difficult. But when has the road to success ever been a straight line? Little orange traffic cones can show up in the form of late nights, endless meetings, and countless rejections. But don’t dwell too long on these issues. If you have the drive, the passion, and the will to succeed, anyone can make it. Here’s our no-frills guide to get you started:- 1. Identify your niche, and build on it It sounds like a good idea to offer different services to clients. More options equals more projects, right? Wrong. This is not the best approach when you’ve just started out. Reputed agencies will already be offering integrated digital marketing solutions—as the fresh young thing, you have to find ways to stand out. Draw on experience and domain expertise. Identify your core competencies and build a market reputation in that segment. Advertisers starting an agency could focus more on creatives and design, while SEO experts might push forward based on their ability to reel in traffic. If you’ve worked in hospitality, your new digital marketing agency could offer custom solutions in food, travel and hotels. This narrows down your audience, weeds out competitors, and shows clients you know what you’re doing. Once you’ve built up enough testimonials and have a stable cash flow, you can gradually expand your niche. Always pick quality over quantity—remember, Amazon started with just books! Don’t waste precious earnings on renting offices or hiring too many people. Instead, set up a talented network of freelancers with only a few core staff on the payroll. Scale up as needed, but don’t skimp out on essentials like SEO experts or web developers. That’s the beauty of digital—all you need is talent, computers and good Internet to get started. 2. Your first client gets the ball rolling From cold calling prospects, to attending seminars and conferences to build your network, to generating leads through SEM, go all out when it comes to bagging your first few brands. Don’t go for big names—they probably have a long-term agency partner—and be open-minded about the businesses you want to bring in. Focus on startups who need help getting their operations off the ground. Give a solid sales pitch to break the ice, and maybe throw in a freebie or two. As you spread the word, it’s the unforeseen meet-ups that give you your first client. Don’t forget to tap into social Media channels. You’re just starting out, so people won’t come to you. Get ready to draw attention instead! 3. Know what you’re doing At the end of the day, it’s the business leader who pulls in the big bucks. Their knowledge of sales, combined with soft skills, will determine a company’s path—no matter how good the supporting staff are. As the face of the company, people’s opinion of you will affect agency perception. Your corporate communication—or even informal chats—must be crisp, clear and convincing. Brush up on latest trends and competitors. Don’t talk fluff. Your clients are probably testing out multiple agencies, and you must win their trust. Nobody will buy your services without the assurance that the CEO knows what they’re doing. Also Read: Incredible Blogging Stats to Inspire You to Blog 4. Have a system in place Creativity runs wild, but it needs policies and procedures to keep things in check. Your agency must have a uniform process while tackling any project. Right from converting leads into customers, to handing over the last deliverable, a clear-cut workflow must be in place. Who handles sales calls? What is the turnover period? Who manages client accounts and daily reports? How many revisions can brands ask for? Equip your team with all company guidelines, so that they don’t have to consult you for every step. 5. Mix marketing chops with technology If you want to grow as a digital marketing firm, you need the right tools to get work done. Project management software, team communication apps, keyword research platforms or social media know-how—get tech that streamlines your tasks and helps you work smart. Project management tools like Asana, Trello and Basecamp organise all work communications in a single place. Teams can report their progress as you assign and track tasks, as well as chat and share documents from a single window. This works wonders if you don’t have a physical office yet. Similarly, social media tools like Hootsuite and Buffer let you manage and analyse multiple channels from one place. The automation helps prevent confusion and mistakes if you’re handling many clients at the same time. 6. Be involved in the system Try to know every inch of your daily operations. Branding yourself as an expert digital marketer? You should be able to show that when clients start asking questions. Don’t micromanage your team, but be involved in their projects. Monitor their approach, suggest changes, and step in where necessary. Communicate regularly with clients and make sure to incorporate feedback. Over time, it gives your team a better idea of what to do for each account. 7. Focus on customer experience Business isn’t just about sales. The customer’s journey and overall experience is what builds the bottom line. Treat customers with value and respect, and strive to offer