This year has been a rollercoaster ride for most brands and businesses. 2020 has taught many of us new concepts like being in quarantine, working remotely, and most importantly, marketing digitally. Although digital marketing has been the heart of branding for some years now, most businesses have started becoming aware of this term or its gravity only recently. And they often confuse it with content marketing Services, which might seem similar but is quite distinct in reality. So, if you are someone who doesn’t know which side to pick in a digital vs. content marketing scenario, this blog post is for you. After all, not every business needs the same marketing strategy or wants to invest in the same plan. Hence, understanding the difference between digital and content marketing and where each might come in useful is important. So, let’s start by defining each of these terms before we go ahead with some detailed insights. What is Content Marketing? As the Content Marketing Institute has beautifully defined, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” In short, content marketing is a process that: Involves producing and publishing content that speaks to your target audience. Creates engagement and attraction towards your brand. Educates and entertains your customers with valuable and relatable content. The next question is, how does this strategy help you? Content marketing helps a business by creating a reputation in the market. It is mostly related to making potential customers aware of your brand and your expertise in the field. It also helps to establish your authority in a certain industry. For example, if customers find useful and interesting information on your website, they will keep coming back for more. Gradually, you will be able to convince and convert them, or even encourage them to share a good word about your brand. So, with content marketing, you can make people aware of your brand, help them decide to make a purchase, and let them share their experience with others. What is Digital Marketing? Digital marketing refers to any and all marketing efforts that involve the internet and digital devices. So, think of any ad that you see on the internet, content piece, or even a tweet from a brand – it’s all part of digital marketing. In fact, digital marketing is like an umbrella term that covers content marketing. Now, if you ask, how will digital marketing help you? The answer is simple. It is the same as traditional marketing, just executed on a digital platform. And so, even the goals are usually the same for both the marketing techniques i.e. conversions and sales. What is the Difference between Content Marketing and Digital Marketing? To put it in a straight forward manner, while content marketing focuses on establishing relations and engagement with the audience, digital marketing is more about conversions and sales. But then, why should one waste time on content marketing and not directly jump to getting more sales? It is because you need to follow a certain process to lead potential customers to your website and convert them into paying customers. It’s like cooking, where you need to follow a proper recipe to get a delicious outcome. Let’s take the example of Biryani to make things easy here– You need to let the meat marinate first for hours, then add some spices, let the meat sizzle, add rice, and finally let the flavours set in (I should try my hand at food blogging next!). In the same way, you need to guide prospects along a marketing funnel to get conversions. Ideally, a sales funnel goes like this: Step 1: Make people aware of your brand. Step 2: Create interest regarding your product or service. Step 3: Help them decide what they want or need. Step 4: Navigate them to take action. Step 5: Retain the customers or upsell them or let them review your products or services. And this where content marketing plays an important role to initiate the process, so that you can reach the sales phase (where digital marketing plays a big role) in a structured manner. So, if you ask me, content marketing and digital marketing are interdependent. Content marketing helps build awareness, generate interest, influence decision, and ensure retention, while digital marketing actually gives you sales. Now, let’s take a look at the various types of content and digital marketing. Types of Content Marketing If you are taking baby steps in the world of content marketing, you might be wondering what comes under it. Well…. Content marketing covers all kinds of content, be it in words, videos, images, infographics, or any other style. Even memes, GIFs and presentations are a part of this form of marketing. So, let’s check out some of the common trending styles (that will definitely help you). Blogs The reason why blogging ranks number one on the list is because it comes with multiple perks. Blogs can help you in building trust, establish domain authority, rank better on search engines, and finally drive traffic to your website. In short, it hardly has any drawbacks if your content is unique, relatable, and produced consistently. Videos Videos are among the most popular content styles these days. Since people have a very short attention span when they go online, videos do a better job of interacting with the target audience than long blogs. The human brain tends to recall visuals better than plain text, even after a long time. Plus, videos offer a more immersive experience and especially come in handy when you want to showcase how a product is made or how it works. Images When it comes to visuals, images or photos are widely used by different kinds of businesses to convey messages more meaningfully. Just make sure that they are well-shot, crisp and have a decent resolution. Most importantly, you can share these
Category: Content Marketing
The Art of Creating a Content Marketing Plan in Just a Week
Content Is King – this was the title of an article that Bill Gates wrote in 1996. And what he advocated back then continues to be absolutely true in 2020 as well. However, just developing content will get you nowhere. You also need to have a content marketing plan handy. Whether you are new to this or have been using content marketing strategy for a while, revisiting the plan is never a bad idea. So, in this fast-paced world, here’s how to create a content marketing plan in just 7 days. These steps are easy to understand and implement and will help you achieve your business goals with more ease than ever before. Day 1: Set Your Goals and Objectives Let’s start with the basic stuff. Without an end goal, you may get confused and lost during the journey. And so, before you start, set a content marketing goal. To set a goal, you need to simply answer ‘What is your purpose with this plan?’ If your answer sounds similar to “content development is the trend”, then think again. You do not need to brainlessly follow what others are doing, but find a meaning behind your actions instead. Setting your goal is important to: Know what you want to achieve Understand the value you will offer Determine the voice of the content across all platforms Facilitate the direction of the content Some of the most common goals I have experienced for content marketing strategy are discoverability, industry authority, and building community. So, decide what is it that you want to achieve. Additional Tip: While defining content goals, always try opting for ‘SMART’ Goals. SMART Goals stands for: S – Specific M – Measurable A – Attainable R – Relevant T – Time-bound Here’s an example of a SMART goal: Instead of setting your goal as ‘increase blog revenue’, you can employ the SMART Goal rule and define the goal as ‘Increase blog revenue by 30% by the third quarter of 2021’. Day 2: Understand Your Target Audience Once you have a goal set, the next step in the content creation plan is to zero in on the strategy. You cannot directly jump to producing content. You need a bit of planning to start with. So, start with understanding your target audience and defining them. How are you going to do that? Step 1: Who are they? Start with defining your target audience. Get a pen and paper, and start writing about what you know about your audience. For example, if you are selling designer clothes, your audience would be ‘people looking for clothes’, right? Wrong. Here’s the problem, loud and clear. You cannot go on targeting each and everyone on this planet, just because everyone needs clothes and buys them. You need to be specific about the audience. Define if you are selling clothes for: Kids/Women/Men Casuals/Formals/Party Wear Low-range/Mid-range/High-range And so on… After all, a person whose monthly salary is around 20K won’t be interested in high-range party wear clothes that cost them 5-7K for a piece. This is why, it is important to understand, define, and target your audience. Step 2: What are their struggles? The next step for defining your audience is to understand their struggles. Only then you can offer a solution to them. Let’s go with our example of the clothing line. The struggles of your audience may include: Keeping up-to-date with current trends Colors and patterns as per seasonal change Combining accessories with their outfit styles And so on… Now, once you know your audience’s problems, you can start with content creation that offers the solutions. And this is why defining the audience is very important in content marketing planning. Day 3: Competitor Analysis By now, you should have a clear idea of what objectives you are going to achieve and brief information about your ideal customer. Before you jump in and start to create the content, make sure you do a brief competitor analysis too. Why is it important? The answer is simple – to know what is your competitor up to and what your audience likes to perceive. How you will do the competitor analysis? Analyse your competitor’s blog Check their social media profile Perform SWOT analysis SWOT Analysis Can help you understand your competitor better and prepare a smarter content plan. S – Know their Strengths and check if your quality matches that. W – Know their Weaknesses and use your content to target those. O – Check if there are any Opportunities like markets or alliances they do not serve currently. T – Understand Threats like negative brand sentiments or changes in customers’ attitudes. Day 4: Generating Content Ideas and Keyword Research Now comes the main part of getting started with the content. However, don’t just produce it yet. You know your goals, and the preferences of your audience, and have analysed your competitors. Combine all these results, and get into a brainstorming session with your team. To generate content ideas: Identify topics your audience will be interested in Conduct hot keyword searches related to your industry Explore Quora and Reddit to check what people are asking Check Hashtags and Google Trends for ideas And so on… You can use certain tools to help you generate content ideas too. Some of them are: Buzzsumo Ahrefs https://ahrefs.com/ Google Alerts UberSuggest SimilarWeb Feedly Portent’s Content Idea Generator Once you have several content ideas to work on, make sure that you do your keyword research too. This simplifies the process and gives you a breather time while producing content. And I hope that you know how important the role of keywords is in the content marketing industry till now. So, start with your research. Day 5: Make a Content Schedule Once you are done with generating ideas and researching for keywords, the next step is to make a content calendar. This is an important step that can help you churn out valuable content consistently and at the right frequency. Your content schedule will play
Infographics: Why Should You Invest in Content Marketing and How?
Do you know why Seth Godin says that “Content marketing is all the marketing that’s left”? That’s because pushing your products into people’s faces doesn’t work anymore, to get a sale. Customers today are smarter than ever before and they know exactly what they want and why. And that is where the importance of content marketing lies. That’s because good content educates your potential buyers about your products, offers them value, and helps them to solve problems, without hard selling. Gradually, you end up establishing a bond of trust with your target audience through your content, which “makes” them buy from you. However, content marketing needs to be done the right way if you want it to actually work. And if someone tells you that churning out a couple of blog posts every week or just creating posts for your social media channels without a proper strategy will do the trick, take it with a pinch of salt. Moreover, content marketing takes time to show results. So, if you hear someone express doubts like “Does content marketing really pay off?” or “Content marketing doesn’t work unless you are ready to spend a lot”, remember that this form of marketing takes constant effort to reap profits. But those profits are exceptional. Don’t believe us? Read on to find out why the smartest brands and marketers swear by content marketing, why it works so well, and what you can do for the best results. So, you now have a fair idea of how content marketing works, right? Remember that it is nothing like a one-night stand (the analogy is too perfect to ignore)! Rather, content marketing is your best bet to forge a long term relationship with your target customers, convince them to buy from you, and stay loyal. When you follow the right strategy, it can give you amazing results, be it in terms of more awareness, better leads, or higher conversions. All you have to do is invest in it for the lifetime of your brand.
How to Rank Ahead of your Competition with Exhaustive Content?
Every day, businesses publish articles, blogs, videos and podcasts to connect with their target audience, but don’t get the expected customer traction. That is because they often end up producing lackluster content that goes unnoticed. For instance, we have always wondered why our competitors ranked higher, even if the quality of the content wasn’t that different. So, a lot of research, along with testing of our content, helped us in deriving strategies to perform better than other players in the industry. Using those strategies, we have created a step-by-step guide that you can follow to create exhaustive, in-depth content that will rank ahead of your competitors. Read on. Understand the intent behind a search query Before starting to churn out content, understand what your target audience actually needs. That means, understand the intention behind a searcher’s query. Usually it can be informational, navigational, transactional or commercial in nature. A query broadly depends on the searcher’s purpose and background. For example, if the query is “best practices for job application”, some of the searchers might be candidates and some might be employers. Hence, you might have to craft your content in different ways to suit the needs of different segments of your audience. Also Read: Google Search Quality Raters Say About High-Quality Pages and Content Study the competitors Visit Uber suggest by Neil Patel to track the SEO strategies that your competitors are using. Enter the URL on the homepage to get details on SEO keywords and top SEO pages. By clicking on the “Backlinks” link on the left sidebar, get the information of the sites that are linking to your competition’s URL. Use this information to list down the sites for back linking. Increase your domain authority Create multiple content pieces that are well-researched and unique–with a length of 1,000 words or more. Once in a while, you can add extremely lengthy pieces that are longer than 2,500 words. Another way to increase your domain authority is by linking the web pages and blogs of your website to each other. The search engine prefers a strongly interlinked website. Embed videos and images in your content Did you know that 90% of any information that is understood by the brain is visual in nature? So, instead of restricting yourself to written content, embed infographics, videos or SlideShare presentations in your blog posts. You can also include screenshots to explain a particular point in your post. The readers tend to share the content more when they find it more interactive. Moreover, brand awareness and recall is always greater in case of visual content. Also Read: Why Great Brand Stories Need to Add Videos? Write catchy and unique headlines To write headlines that captivate users, perform a Google search using your keyword. Note down the first five results that appear on the search page. Tweak each headline by giving a new twist to it. For example, if you Google the phrase “Content Writing Tips,” the first result will be “9 Tips to Become the Best Content Creator in Your Industry.” Make it unique and catchy by writing something like “11 Surefire tips to Amp up Your Content Creation.” Another method is to search keyword phrases on BuzzSumo. Modify the headlines that appear on the result page to make them unique. Write your content conversationally When presenting information in your blog post, back it up with your opinion. Record yourself while talking about your topic and listen to the recording. If you feel that it sounds unnatural, start the writing and recording process again. While writing, pretend that you are explaining your topic to a friend or a family member. Read a lot of materials related to your topic using online articles, books, magazines, and online guides. Doing so will allow you to get more ideas and help you to go through different writing styles. Include a call-to-action A call-to-action is an invitation you give to your readers to take action. If you are creating a series of blogs, you can provide a link to the next or previous blog. If you finish your post with a question, ask the readers to share answers or suggestions in the comments section. You can also ask your readers to learn more by subscribing to your newsletters. If you are selling a product/service, ask them to click the buy button. Make your site faster Compress the file size of your images to speed up your site. Take the help of sites like Compressor.io to compress images without any technical support. Streamline your code by removing unnecessary and redundant elements. Visit codebeautify.org to use tools that minify codes of HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and other programming languages. The plugins like Better WordPress Minify also streamline your code if you have developed a site using WordPress. Also Read: 10 Things you must know Before Building a Website To conclude Using this guide, you will not only perform better than your competitors, but can also establish yourself as a thought leader in your field. With time, the above tips will help you get more traffic and conversions with smart content.
8 Agency Secrets for Hiring the Best Content Agency
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If you have not been living under the rock, you definitely know that content is one of the key things you need to drive your marketing process. Be it SEO, be it social, be it content marketing, you need content. Information-rich, engaging and well-written content is your best bet to grab Google’s attention and rank high on the search results page. After all, 90% organizations market themselves with content today, 80% people tend to learn about a company through customized content and 70% consumers connect with a company through content marketing. But wait. How do get all that content written and drive your content marketing process? Exactly, that is where most businesses start looking for a content marketing partner. Picking the right content marketing partner from a million (ok yes that is almost reality) is the real task. You will see business/brands changing their content marketing agencies every year, citing reasons like mismatch in goals, lapse in delivery deadlines, quality issues etc. And then there are brands who happily continue with their digital partners for years (well we are talking of 3-4 years at a stretch). For real magic to happen, you need to find the right partner who know exactly how to deliver what your brand needs and what your customers want. We decided to make things easier and create a list of things you can measure them up against, basically questions you can ask and assess whether they are the right agency for you. Here are 8 ways to ensure that you are hiring the right content partner. Read on. 1. Are they really content guys for real? These days, there are many web development agencies, SEO company and digital marketing agency that claim to be content players. However, in reality, they often offer content services on the side and don’t have a dedicated team to understand your needs and deliver accordingly. Like, in the past 10 years, we were often approached by clients who wanted their website content to be improved. And the reason usually is that their content was developed by an agency that is chiefly into website designing. Naturally, the quality won’t work, especially in the long run. So, avoid content services that are offered as a part of a different package. So, to find out if an agency actually has content-related experience, knowledge and skills, you can give them a small assignment or sample to work on. This way, you will know if their work can measure up to your expectations and if you can trust them. Even if you give them an old content piece to work on, they should be able to analyze it thoroughly and come up with ideas for improvement. Also remember that not all content agencies are adept at all forms of content. So, take a look at their past projects or portfolio or ask them what kind of content they have developed in the past. For instance, if you want to create whitepapers or product descriptions, hiring an agency that excels at SEO articles might not be ideal. 2. Are they capable of offering 360-degree content? Content doesn’t just refer to website content or articles. The various content formats used today include infographics, videos, case studies, e-books, whitepapers, presentations, blog posts, memes, checklists, podcasts, emails, and so on. And brands often use a mix of different content formats to get their message conveyed more effectively. So, before you pick a content creation partner, find out if they can handle 360-degree content, which will cover multiple content formats. In the long run, sticking with an agency that only creates SEO articles will not be enough to beat competition. Also, the agency should be able to advise you on which formats will work best for your business and on which channels they should be distributed. 3. Do they understand how content marketing exactly works? Always go for a content marketing partner that proactively asks you about your goals, before suggesting a plan. No marketing campaign can work well unless they are aligned with what you want, be it boosting brand awareness, building your domain authority or thought leadership, getting more traffic or generating more leads. So, if an agency simply offers to churn out say 20 SEO articles per month based on the topics you provide, be wary. The right content agency will also satisfy these criteria: They will know how SEO and high-quality content can work together to drive traffic and sales. While information-rich, engaging and well-written content is necessary to appeal to human readers, optimizing the same for search engine crawlers can get you the high rank you desire. Also find out if their SEO team can do the right backlinking to promote your blog posts. Pick an agency that can help you choose the topics that will perform the best. They should be aware of the trending topics and what your competitors are working on, so that you can gain an edge. The agency should also research and come up with the top keywords you can use to make your content more valuable and aligned with search engine ranking criteria. Find out if they use the latest tools like SEMrush, Google Keyword Planner, BuzzSumo, Uberflip, Ubersuggestand Quora to get fresh and original content ideas and strategies. Ask what will be the agency’s content strategy to help you achieve your goals. Are they capable of identifying your target audience or creating the buyer personas?How do they pick writers, what content formats do they think will be right for you, and how do they intend to distribute your content and on which channels. Will they distribute on your owned media, paid media or both? The right content agency will also have an editorial calendar in place, so that they can easily track what to create and when to publish. This is especially essential if you want weekly articles, blog posts or daily social media posts etc. And remember to ask how they plan to
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
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.
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
How to Write More than 10,000 Words a Week?
I love writing. That’s what I do almost the whole day, every working day of the week and month and year. Well, you guessed it – I am a writer and I love being one. I usually write about 3000-4000 words a day, depending on what I am writing. If it’s heavy stuff like writing a blog that needs loads of research, I write about 2000-2500 a day. When it’s less heavy stuff, I can crank out more. So the point of this blog is to answer a question – how to write more than 10,000 words in a 5-day week? From my experience of working with a content agency, I have seen interns starting with 500-1000 words a day. Some writers even struggle to reach 2000 in a day. The point is you don’t have to write 4000 words a day, but if you are trying to reach a goal of more than 10,000 words in a week, there has to be a plan. It does not always mean you need to be a fast writer. It means you need to organise yourself better, and stick to a process. Writing isn’t the same as any other task. It requires considerable planning, research and writing. There is no magic pill or quick mantra that can make you churn out 5000 words a day or help you finish writing that book that you’ve been putting off for weeks. However, there are certain tips and techniques which can help you write more. Let’s explore more of that. Be S.M.A.R.T About Setting Writing Goals If you want to maximise your output as a writer, you have to be realistic about it. There are no benchmarks. The effort, the thinking and planning that goes into each piece is different. For instance writing 4 blogs posts of 500 word each is different from writing a long article of 3000 words. Keep this mind when you set targets for yourself. S – Specific Be specific about your goal. Do you mean to write 4 blog posts of 500 words each or a 2000-word-long product guide. The word count is the same but goals are different and will require a different approach. M – Measurable Create goals that you can measure. Don’t give yourself vague goals like “ Learning to write brilliantly” etc. Set goals that you can measure your performance against and check off as you progress each day. Say for instance, getting done with two chapters of the book each day or writing 2 blogs of 700 words each. You can then measure your performance at the end of the day or track your performance at the end of the week. And before you know it you’ll have completed a manuscript by the end of the month. A – Achievable Set goals that are attainable. Don’t set out to complete a book in one day because that isn’t possible. R – Realistic You should set realistic and relevant goals for yourself as a writer. This will help boost your productivity and mould you into a better writer with time. T – Time bound Set a time-frame for achieving your daily goal. Are you planning to get the tasks done in a day, two days or a week? This will help you stay inspired and motivated. Take Notes Keep a pen and paper handy at all times because great ideas or thoughts often strike at the most unexpected times- while driving, while taking a shower, while watching TV etc. Note it down. Not because it’s ready to read or it will complete your piece but simply because writing it down is the only way to give your ideas a tangible shape. Take down notes as and when they strike. Come back to it when you’re actually ready to write. Believe it or not, it will make your writings go a lot faster. These random scribbling go a long way into giving your ideas a concrete shape. It’s a lot easier than starting with a blank paper. You can’t build a house without the necessary materials. That’s what these writings are-materials to help you write building of a piece. Focus on One Type of Writing Ever been in the situation when you’re writing a comprehensive blog and suddenly you’re asked by your boss to come up with some tweets for a client’s Twitter handle? Annoying but real. Being a copywriter simply means everything writing-related falls in your plate. Writing long-form content requires concentration and unbroken rhythm. You can’t accelerate when there is heavy traffic. If you want to know your speed limit, you need to drive on a clear lane. Similarly, in writing you need to focus on one style of writing at least initially until you have had some experience. Once you have picked up speed in a particular type of writing, you can accommodate other tasks as well. Outline This is the key to writing long-form content that makes sense to the reader. Give your blog, article or e-book a structure. Make this a part of the research process. Outline is what gives your thought a direction when you’re writing; else it becomes easy to lose track of the subject as you move along. Deciding on the outline takes time but saves a lot of time eventually when you actually sit down to write. Writing without an outline is like going grocery shopping without a list, you end up buying a lot of things you don’t need. Read Other Good Writers Finally, if you want to produce great work while at the same achieve your writing goals; you have to read some of the great works produced by other great writers. Reading will give you ideas and enhance your thought process. Spend time reading and your writing will gradually get better. Love Writing Lastly, there is simply no other way to get better and faster at writing than by loving what you do.