Are you still on the fence about adding Artificial Intelligence to your marketing mix? About time you jump over and start experimenting because if you don’t, you’ll be one of ‘those’ people who are still living under the rock in the next five years. Too dramatic? It is because we need to grab your attention right now and tell you that AI is the biggest thing happening to marketing as we write this. It promises to change many facets of marketing that is in practice today. It’ll need you to improve your skill set in behavioral targeting, work with data and in the end, deliver a seamless experience to your customer – all of it without treading on their privacy. AI is no longer a part of sci-fi movies. It is moving into retail stores, e-commerce platforms, and your customer’s mobile phones. Here’s a quick fact Source: Hubspot That, in a way, is the beauty and wonder of AI. It is making human lives easy by intelligently and independently completing tasks for them without making them realize that there was a machine behind their action. Artificial Intelligence covers a huge ground including machine learning, image recognition, speech recognition, search, advertising, security, content and more. But how do marketers really use this on their own journey? Here is how AI is already being used by the best minds in the industry. 1) Website design How about a website that designs and builds itself? Does that sound threatening to the graphic designer and developer in your office? It isn’t yet, but it gives you a quick view of where the future is heading. Meet The Grid whose AI web designer ‘Molly’ who has apparently designed thousands of web pages including their own website. “She’s quirky, but will never ghost you, never charge more, never miss a deadline, never cower to your demands for a bigger logo”. Do those words sound like a summary of the problems you’ve been having with your ‘human’ designer? You may just want to give Gird a try to see if an AI designer can do better. Sacha is another AI web designer by Firedrop with similar functionality. The designs look functional and may be getting more intuitive with time too. Now, one of the biggest names in the design world – Adobe – is using Sensei, their AI and machine learning program to automate several of a designer’s task like cropping photos and designing web pages. The sheer reach of Adobe and its popularity can usher a new era in designing if all goes well. 2) Content Creation There goes another job that could be upended by AI? Almost… but not fully. AI is set to weed out content writers who write template content filled with keywords. While unfortunately, such meandering content may not disappear, it will now be written by AI bots quickly and easily. It won’t be Pulitzer Prize-winning content but it’ll be unique, it’ll make sense and it’ll do the job at almost no cost. NarrativeSicence is a Chicago based company that trains computers to write news stories. Quill is a rabbit they’ve pulled out of their magician’s hat. Powered by Advanced Natural Language Generation (Advanced NLG), Quill is an intent-driven system that automatically transforms data into Intelligent Narratives at scale, in conversational language anyone can understand. In fact, NarrativeScience’s cofounder Kristian Hammond predicts that over 90% stories that you’ll read in the next 15 years will be written by computers with artificial intelligence! Another prediction from Hammond is that it won’t take 20 years for a computer to win the Pulitzer – probably just 5! Does that mean you are about to lose your job? Not yet…. Take an example of NarrativeScience when it started tracking the women’s softball beat to give a detailed account. The software first focused only on the winners which made it write a downgrading account about the loser. When the software engineers were asked to tweak this, they found a way. They also found a way to skip the kids’ errors in the little league game as parents did not want to read about them. The thing with AI and machine learning is that they’ll learn on the go and won’t make the same mistake twice. Today several popular websites, even Forbes, use tools like Wordsmith and Quill to create more content in a timely manner. The future jobs for content writers will be less, and will definitely require more skills to Another disturbing factor came to light when a few scientists used AI and deep learning to churn out fake reviews which were not only good but perceived as written by humans. This created a huge uproar on how AI can falsely alter a brand’s perception in our minds. We wonder where things are headed next. 3) Content Curation Content curation has been using AI for a while now. That’s how you’ve been getting recommendations on YouTube once you finish watching a video. That’s also why you are able to binge watch videos on Amazon and Netflix. The software works to understand your video genre preferences and shows similar videos without any human having to make suggestions. If you eventually choose a different genre, the software learns that you now like both these genres and shows you options from both. Outbrain – a content discovery platform has been doing a great job for advertisers to create content that can generate traffic to your website. Even simple ‘Related articles’ plugin in WordPress is an example of presenting curated content to your readers as per their what they are currently reading. There are other interesting applications for AI in content curation. Take the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art with uses an AI bot called ‘atbot’ that answers requests from people to see specific types of art. Curation with AI has automated the content discovery process to a good extent these days. It is only set to get better. 4) Search
Category: SEO
[Free Case Study] Alliance Fintech – How we used content marketing to spike traffic by 149%
We often have clients asking us what a particular digital or content campaign can actually do for them? Linking a digital marketing activity to goals, execution and then matching the results with a tangible outcome is something we’ve been doing consistently. This digital map has often been created using the client’s long-term vision in mind – on what they want to gain from marketing overall and where digital fits in. In the following case study, you’ll see how we mapped our client’s goal of ‘brand awareness’ into a digital strategy. Words like these often get thrown into the marketing mix without anything tangible attached to it. It translates into ‘views’ for Facebook posts or sometimes even ‘reach’. But do these benefit the client in the end? We had to dig deep to set out metrics that mattered beyond these superficial words. It came down to how many people actually became aware enough of our client’s brand to search for them and their products and services. This is the power of digital laid out for you – it can build a brand and connect the ROI dots right before your eyes. In the duration of a year, we skyrocketed our client’s brand awareness by 149%. Belonging to the highly competitive finance sector, it took multiple strategies and channels to achieve this goal. But in the end, we had a happy client and a story to tell. This case study shares the learnings from the campaign and how you can use similar strategies via your own SEO and Social media campaigns. You are just a click away. Get the case study now! Alliance Fintech Case Study – How we used content marketing to spike traffic by 149% from Justwords Consultants
Should you be using a click bait headline or just a good one?
In light of the recent news about a ‘void’ being discovered inside the Giza pyramid, we’ve just got out of an article that said: “New theory proves that aliens built the pyramids”. We delved right into the rabbit hole of ‘theories’ that fed our imagination about the extraterrestrial and almost convinced us that this could be possible. Would you call the headline a ‘Click bait’? This one border on a thin line. As marketers (and reasonably sane human beings) we know that the alien theory may not be the best representation of facts about the discovery. But we click to read it anyway. In some ways, the article delivered compelling theories on why the pyramids couldn’t be built by humans. So the headline did deliver on its promise. So won’t then call it a click bait. What is a click-bait headline? A clickbait headline is an interesting one promising to deliver content to the reader, which it finally doesn’t. It misleads the user into believing what it can offer and leaves the reader dissatisfied. Persuasive headlines are often viewed as click bait. But the truth is that, if your content delivers what it promises then what you have is a damn good headline and not a click bait. The science behind crafting good headlines When it comes to crafting outstanding headlines, you can’t even begin the conversation without mentioning BuzzFeed. You have to agree that they have absolutely irresistible headlines that make you want to click and read whether it is a story in your Facebook feed or search result. So what makes their headlines so good? TrackMaven conducted an in-depth study in 2014 on what makes Buzzfeed headlines one of the major sources of distraction. Here’s what they found 1. A ‘question’ headline Out of the 1.2 million blog posts we analyzed for the report, 94.89% of blog post titles did not include a question mark, but the 5.01% that did yielded 46.30% of social shares for the data set. The other part that came to light about these question headlines is that they were directly addressing the reader. “Which mythical creature are you?” “Which car should you drive?” “Who should you marry?” “Design a bedroom and we’ll tell you how basic you really are” The inevitable ‘you’ factor in the headlines coupled with the question is a big factor in getting ‘you’ crazy until you find the answer. 2. Listicles There is a way Buzzfeed writes its listicle headlines and it works so well in pumping up our curiosity. Here’s the general format Headline = “number + adjective + noun + descriptive clause For example: “28 shocking pictures that prove The Illuminati is all around us” “33 amazingly useful DIY hacks that you never knew existed” Buzzfeed took out the top 5 and top 10 and introduced odd numbers like 26, 33. 41 and more to satisfy our craving to keep scrolling and keep reading. Besides the taxonomy in the list makes it easier for us to compartmentalize the big read into small chunks. 3. Creating emotionally endearing headlines This Kid’s Pure AF Apology To Her Best Friend Is What You Need When The World Is Garbage https://t.co/oufVT5wCrp pic.twitter.com/mbFklkwVxD — BuzzFeed India (@BuzzFeedIndia) October 30, 2017 When it is not listicles or questions, Buzzfeed headlines work hard to create an emotional connect. “This Kid’s Pure AF Apology To Her Best Friend Is What You Need When The World Is Garbage” “This dad has the most adorable reaction to discovering he is going to be a grandpa” You see, it isn’t just an apology, its pure AF. And you need it when ‘the world is garbage’. It isn’t just dad or just reaction but ‘the most adorable reaction’. The connect pulls you in to see what the fuss is all about. All of these headlines are super viral. Yet, none of these are click baits. Because in the end, the content manages to deliver what the headline promises. While its wholly tempting to write these headlines, here’s what to do if you want to stop it from being called a click bait. How to avoid a click bait a. Don’t use questionable sources Sources form an important part of backing the ‘truth’ behind your content. If the source itself is questionable then people won’t be able to trust your content either. It doesn’t extend to just one part of your content or even to the article but to your entire brand. One mistake these days leads to an online reputation crisis. So pick out sources that you know are well-reputed and well known. If you don’t find a source with such credibility, be sure to mention in your article that you’ll need more sources to verify the fact of the matter. b. Don’t use questionable statistics Having a big and interesting number of your content spins the whole content around, so much so that you make the statistic a hero and your entire content the reason behind an action to be taken. Let’s take a stat that says”18% people who view your business online are likely to become your buying customers” The statistic is interesting for any retailer, in fact, compelling enough to make the re-look on how they are ranking locally. But without mentioning the source, it can’t give credibility to the stat. c. Don’t present fallacies Presenting a fallacy means you misconstrue and present the data with a bias. Consider a headline that reads “Huge spike in moral decline of the country” The first question that comes to mind is how can you measure morality. By whose standard is good morality and bad morality defined? With the basic premise itself being questionable, what can you do with such a statistic? Let’s say the ‘huge spike’ mentioned in the headline is actually going from 20% to 22%. In a graph that plots 0-100%, this spike
Content marketing stories that caught our attention
Come October, we found some interesting stories doing the rounds that can just about shape up your digital marketing strategy for 2018. With just 2 months to go for a new year and new beginnings, it is a good time to think about what’s coming your way. Have a look 1. Keyword Rankings are meaningless: Learn how to grade your SEO For the past few years, clients came to us with one goal – Page 1 ranking for select keywords. Like all SEO done at the time, we too managed to get our clients to their happy spot. But things have been seeing a small shuffle. Search intent has begun to matter. Local SEO has become super important. And to top it all, Google’s tests are showing that it is trying to individualize search results based on search location and history. Which means the results you are seeing for a keyword will be different from the results your friend is seeing a few kilometers away. This will definitely bring about a change in client goals and agency metrics. We have to wait and watch this one out closely. The article on Forbes also suggests a keen eye for long tail keywords and their search results. The long tail is now an important part of good SEO strategy and it may just get stronger in the coming years. 2. Should you outsource your digital marketing strategy? We often have clients coming to us in a state of a conundrum. They’ve felt that they can do their digital strategy internally but somehow need a third party expert to get in and help out. If you specialize in selling trekking equipment, that’s your domain. We would tell you to relax and leave the complex world of digital marketing to us because that’s our domain. Just like we wouldn’t know when to pick out Nitrile gloves over regular mittens, it’ll be difficult for you to pick out the right bids for keyword optimization. So you do what you do best – provide trekking equipment and leave the rest to us. This article articulates the fine points well on why a digital marketing agency is a must for your online marketing. Looking for a content marketing agency? We have explained what you should keep in mind before hiring the best content writing agency in India in this blog. 11 things you should know before hiring a content agency 3. How to create local content for local SEO There’s a lot of talk about how effective local SEO is for small businesses. It goes well beyond stuffing the location name everywhere in your content. Small businesses have a tough task of competing with their online and offline local competitors but in addition to this, they also have to compete with national competitors online who have the same product/service. To get an edge on this competition, they can optimize themselves well locally to get better conversion rates. One of the key points this article highlights is increasing your reputation, reach and reviews by improving your local relevance. You’ll need to create local citations around the web and also double up on your local reviews on third party websites. Read up to know the details of how these strategies can help. 4. 10 important digital marketing stats we’ve seen this month Stats are like a lifeline for us digital marketers. We use them lavishly in the content we write and the conversations we have with our clients and the pitch presentations we make. So a stats update is a must in our monthly round up. This month, there are 10 stats that Econsultancy laid out neatly. Did you know that ad spend on videos overtook banners! A lot of stats here are relevant to the UK but there are some that you can easily extrapolate to your location. The fact that 60% specialty retailers are offering loyalty programs is a good indicator of how the marketing strategy seems to be effective and how it can be replicated for your location too. 5. Will blockchain upend Digital? The threat is real Even as we get a hang of blockchain being shoehorned into industries where it may not be relevant, blockchain can have a far-reaching impact on digital. Did you know that ad fraud will grow into the world’s second-biggest black market by the middle of the next decade amounting to US $44B by 2022! The fact that blockchain is open and transparent can then to disrupt the industry as we know it. Though speed is a big challenge as of today, it could just change in the coming years making blockchain an irreversible part of our digital lives. 6. What the Science of Binge Watching Can Teach Content Marketers Have you started watching an episode of Friends on YouTube and couldn’t stop even after a few hours. So much so that you go back to watch the bloopers and viewer interpretations and spin-offs! We all have our weak points. With Netflix and Amazon giving us perfect access to our favourite shows, we can easily fall into a rabbit hole of binge watching. The catch is not everyone feels bad about this guilty pleasure. Have access, will use is the motto. So what does this habit tell us content marketers and how can we get our users to binge on our content? That’s the interesting question answered by this article. 7. 10 amazingly creative Instagramming brands We all want that Instagram account with a million follows. But not all of us get the strategy right. You post high quality, ultra filtered photos with the exact relevant hashtag and yet you don’t the amount of engagement you were expecting. Meanwhile, some other brands are growing like a wildfire setting all of Instagram ablaze with each post. What are you and they doing differently? Read on to find the gaps in your Instagramming strategies and how you can pick a few pointers that can help you ramp up your performance. 8.There
10 amazingly creative Instagram brands
Instagram has soon risen in popularity in the last couple of years. While some brands are yet to track their customer journey from a delicious photo to the ROI table, most brands know that this is a valuable medium to grab customer attention. Being visually engaging is more important than ever. This engagement is a valuable currency in the online world where there are millions of brands vying for attention. Some brands do know their game well in this field. Here are the 10 creative Instagram brands that we found were so that we could follow them anywhere. 1. Humour: Buzzfeed like if you know what this is A post shared by BuzzFeed (@buzzfeed) on Oct 19, 2017 at 7:18am PDT If you aren’t following Buzzfeed on Instagram you are missing out on your daily dose of humour. As always, Buzzfeed takes the best of the web and sums it up just right. A lot of user-generated content is reposted which goes well with the brand perception of fuelling content that is somehow a part of our daily lives and yet no one else expresses it better. The memes are the best. At times, we feel its Buzzfeed who teaches the rest of the internet on how to get their memes right. 2. Food: Oreo Golden #OreoThins: Perfect with an icy brew. A post shared by OREO (@oreo) on Feb 26, 2016 at 7:17am PST Oreo is by far one brand that most other brands can learn from on social. Their campaigns across media have been loved and many have gone viral instantly. Their Instagram account is no less. Perfectly showcasing the ‘wonderfilled’ cookies, Oreo’s Instagram plays with words and images to create a cohesive brand image. One thing to note about Oreo is that almost all posts are about them and feature the product and packaging well. From the desserts you can make with Oreo to featuring it in different settings, there’s a bit of our world that’s featured in there which is happy to revolve around an Oreo. 3. Travel Photography: Murad Osmann #followmeto Taj Mahal with @natalyosmann. Finding a new angle was a challenge for us… I will be honest with you – I like this picture more than the previous one from Taj. Which one is your favourite? Thanks to our dear friend @mohitrai for coming to hotel at 5:30 a.m. and helping us with the dresses. #следуйзамной в Тадж Махал. Признаюсь вам – найти новый ракурс и переплюнуть предыдущую фото было для нас сложной задачей, но эта фотография мне нравится больше :). А какая вам? On Nataly: @abujanisandeepkhosla, @amrapalijewels, @raabrabyrahul. #IndiaInstaMeet @beautifuldestinations @theluxurycollection @itchotels A post shared by Murad Osmann (@muradosmann) on Oct 30, 2016 at 10:52am PDT There is so much of wanderlust and travel photography out there that it is hard to pick one to feature here. Even then, we are featuring Murad Osmann here because his photography is in the perfect position to set a new trend with his creativity. Murad’s photographs mostly feature his girlfriend leading him by hand to different places. It covers the emotion behind the travel experience and the fun in exploring new places together. A new couple goal we hear? 4. Sports: UsainBolt “I’m clear about why I’m here how about yuh” #4:44 A post shared by Usain St.Leo Bolt (@usainbolt) on Jul 4, 2017 at 9:35am PDT The one place you can see the fastest man on earth unravel in slo-mo is on Instagram. Posting absolutely wonderful pics from his training, Usain lets us see the man behind the tagline. If that’s not enough, his casual posts showing him having fun with friends, posing with celebrities and politician and simply being himself is an awesome treat for fans. He’s the fastest man on earth… isn’t it a given that we can only follow him. Don’t miss the Usain Bolt v/s Kevin Hart skirmish with the #GameOn challenge to see who is the most maverick of them all. 5. Nature / Wildlife: stevewinterphoto @stevewinterphoto @natgeo Leopards are the world’s most widely distributed big cat, but did you know that they’ve disappeared from an estimated 63-75% of their former range globally. The biggest threats facing leopards in Africa include the illegal skin trade, wire snare poaching and human-leopard conflict. National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative is working towards the conservation of African lions, leopards and cheetahs across Africa. Increasing anti-poaching efforts, installing protective bomas to stop lion-cattle conflict and monitoring big cats numbers with camera traps. Visit https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/big-cats-initiative/ to find out how you can help save big cats today, and remember by saving apex predators like lions, leopards and tigers we keep ecosystems balanced and healthy! Follow me @stevewinterphoto to see more images of our natural world and Thanks! @www.causeanuproar.org #follow me @stevewinterphoto to see other images, thanks! #instawild #instashooters #wildlife #wildlifephotojournalism @ngwild #natgeowild @thephotosociety #NatGeoCreative #onassignment #wildlifeconservation #inthefield #wildlifephotojournalism #BCI #bigcatsintiative #photooftheday #beauty #lion @africanparksnetwork A post shared by Steve Winter (@stevewinterphoto) on Sep 1, 2017 at 8:29am PDT Start looking at nature/wildlife accounts and there are so many thoughts that cross our minds. The endless transcendence of nature, the beauty of life in all its form, and the people who have the privilege of taking that photograph. There is simply too much beauty in the moment out there that it is super difficult to play favourites. 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 stayed in freezing -40 degrees – all to get that shot he really wants. 6. Celebrity: Rihanna #FENTYxPUMA A post shared by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Oct 8, 2017 at 7:53pm PDT Our pick these days for the best celebrity Instagram account goes to riri. Rihanna who goes by the name of
7 YouTube ads that teach you us how to create brilliant visual content
Ads are sometimes a notorious hindrance in videos. Given how they are being programmed these days, it is difficult to skip some without watching at least for a few seconds. Thankfully, not all ads are bad or useless or boring. Some are made so extraordinarily well that you’ll forget about the video you were going to watch and want to see the ad again. Some send a poignant message. Others are sprinkled with a good sense of humor. While we picked out the ads that had impressed us over time, we started noticing a trend. There were a few things that popped out as common factors that go behind ‘good’ successful videos. The best videos on YouTube are generally under 3 minutes: Ads, especially can’t run for more than that so it works best to have a short video. Make the first five seconds count: The user gets the option to use the ‘Skip’ button after five seconds. You’ll have to make those 5 seconds so effective that the user is compelled to watch further The Catch 22 about a brand recall: There’s been a long-standing debate on where you should place the brand logo or do a brand mention in a video for best recall. In a research on TrueView ads by Google done across 16 countries and 11 verticals analysing 170 creative attributes showed that if you put the logo/mention first, the engagement rates drop. If you put it in the end, there is higher engagement rate but the ‘Skip’ rate increases. So what do you do? If you are going to show your logo first, make sure it is tied to your product, not appearing elsewhere on the screen. Tune in to your viewers: The tone you establish in the first five seconds also plays a huge role in deciding if the viewer will continue to watch you after 5 seconds. Google’s classified 10 categories of style and tone like humorous, emotional, and calming. It turned out that humour was by far the best way to ensure that people continued to watch your brand. Bring in a recognizable face: If the viewer sees a recognizable face including a general celebrity or even a YouTube celebrity, the chances of them remaining glued to your ad are much higher Now, here come the 7 ads that seem to have taken these advice points seriously and done a great job at keeping viewer attention. 1. Volvo Trucks – The Epic Split There’s a celebrity in focus, no brand mention until the very end and a very neatly done ad in just over a minute. The ad more than drives the point across and does so in a way you’ll simply not forget. The video is so good that there are parody videos created on the same ad which has gathered over 1M views! 2. Dove – Real Beauty Sketches The ad starts with an element of mystery. What is a forensic artist doing in a Dove ad? You’ll spend the rest of the video finding it out for sure. The emotional element in this video is high. It makes the viewer want to introspect their own thoughts and what they think about themselves. As a result, there is a strong connect established with the brand that tells them that they are so much more beautiful than they think. 3. Always #LikeAGirl Don’t cry like a girl. Don’t throw like a girl. Without even realizing, the term ‘like a girl’ turned into an insult – one that was used on both boys and girls. A simple insight transformed this ad into sharing such a poignant message. We love the way the ad has been shot. 4. Knorr #LoveAtFirstTaste Love – the four-letter world that makes the world go round. And gets you a lot of views on YouTube. This ad is shot with a certain degree of staged realism. Even then, it makes you watch until the end if food can really connect you to love. Somewhere, you begin to wonder if that would be a good way for you to find the love of your life too? 5. Vatika – Brave and beautiful Imagine a hair oil brand saying that you don’t need hair! There’s no sign of the brand throughout this ad but the connect established in the end is quite strong. 6. Choose a different ending There are quite a few interactive video ads that we really like but this one really drives home a point. This video contains violence and may not be suitable to watch at the workplace or for all ages. But it does a great job at combining video and interaction to show the consequence of action and power of choice 7. Nike Just do it We all love the line from Nike that gets us going. Forget our weakness. Forget circumstance. Forget what is impossible and Just Do It. And this commercial – it does it! So which one is your favorite ad and what makes you watch it. We would love to know in the comments below. Here are some more interesting reads from the world of online marketing that you might be interested in. From the (Advertising) week that was What did these 6 blogs do to make us love them? A fresh n fabulous list of websites that offer free stock images If you want to know or discuss anything more about content marketing strategies for your business, feel free to write to us at sales@justwords.in or leave us comments below.
Why design of content is as important as quality
Until now, we’ve shared a lot of tips on how to put together great content for your website, blogs and social platforms. The one part that all of us tend to conveniently skip is the design around the content. Here’s some food for thought: Content is UX. The purpose of good content is to deliver a smooth experience to the user. For this, it is not only the quality of the content that matters but the way you present it too. If you use the wrong colours and font, it may drive the user away despite you offering some valuable insights via your text content. Quality content packaged well then becomes important for your overall user experience. Here’s the problem: Content strategists and UX designers work in separate worlds. UX designers and content strategists are given briefs separately. As a result, UX designers tend to deliver some great designs that are filled with Lorem Ipsum Dolor. Content writers now work hard to ‘fit’ the content into the design. Enter multi-lingual content websites and you have a just ordered the best headache available in the shop. Another scenario emerges if you use a content management system like WordPress which comes with many ‘themes’ that will promise to make your life easy. When you start reviewing themes, you visualize to fit your content into the available design and then select one that offers the best fit. This is a problem if you are doing content writing to fit rather than solve a user problem or meet a website goal. So how do we rectify this? In some ways, the problem lies in the inherent way we have been working with content and design as two separate units. This method may have worked in the past but the user today needs a more cohesive experience. To do this, the design and content team need to come together right in the beginning to chart out the user experience. In this blog, we will take you through the points that we generally use as a team when designing important pages of a client website. We will also share an example case study below that shows how design and content can work together to get a great UX that solves a user problem. Don’t design with Lorem Ipsum Dolor Did you know that Lorem Ipsum – the dummy text used in the printing and typesetting industry has been used for five centuries! That’s right! It was invented in the 1500s by an unknown printer. Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t random text. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. Imagine that we continue to design with that text as a base! Lorem Ipsum is used to plug gaps quickly to get you a feel of the design. It forces you to work backward on plugging content into the design space available. It also diverts you from your content goals – on making design and content work together to solve a user problem or even improve the user experience. Most content marketers do a lot of re-writes until they get to perfection and then plug it into the design, only to realize that they now need to edit it to fit the available space. This mindset of adding content to the site only when it is ‘final’ is a problem area. What if you could add your first draft to the site? Designing with a reference to the actual content will give give UX designers a holistic understanding of the context of their design. They’ll be able to make room for targeted CTAs and estimate the length of content which the design needs to embody. Obviously, this need not be perfect. A professional content strategist will work on improving it later. Use existing content as a first draft Getting your hands on the first prototype of new content can be time-consuming or a bit tedious. Instead, you can take real content from the existing website and use it in the design. While you can factor in the re-writes, it’ll allow you to understand the context around the design better. Putting real content in placeholders will allow the content team to ideate better on how to improve the content to make it more relevant. Use competitor content If you neither have an existing website or time for proto content then you can steal a little content from your competitors to be used as dummy content. This method has a pro and con. The pro is that you’ll get to directly improvise on your competitors content, automatically making it better. The con is that you’ll have to ensure you change all the content fully and accurately to avoid copyright and plagiarism claims. Let’s take an example of why real proto content will work better than lorem ipsum during the draft design and content phase of a website. This example by GatherContent demonstrates the point effectively. During the design phase, the designer uses the Lorem Ipsum format to design a sample box depicting a note on the upcoming event. When the same box is filled with real content, you’ll notice that the event title is much longer. The design will have to factor titles of different lengths with a max count defined realistically. Similarly, the time, date and venue format changes dramatically in the actual version. If you pre-design this keeping actual/proto content, it’ll save a design iteration in the future. Design with content insights Though it almost sounds like a broken record now, we are still quite hung up on defining our goals before anything else and then making sure everyone including the designer and content strategist is working towards achieving the same goal. For any re-design work, we do a thorough content audit to first understand the reasons behind the process. What is it that the client really wants to achieve
From the (Advertising) week that was
The Advertising Week in New York concluded last week. It was a week where the best brains in advertising, marketing, and media industries met, shared best practices and engaged in conversations that can shape the future of the industry. This year, there were many data-backed insights that were highlighted during the Think With Google sessions that we particularly loved. Filled with some great examples of marketing, the sessions brought to light how brands can increase engagement with customers by simply knowing how to connect better. Here are some of the highlights Show them you know them Google’s VP of Agency & Media Solutions Tara Walpert Levy and Wendy Clark, CEO of DDB North America spearheaded an interesting discussion on what drives consumer attention for video ads and how new innovations in the video can help advertisers. As digital marketers, we’ve been constantly vying for consumer attention. We sometimes call it a click, sometimes a goal and even a conversion. But when it comes to video marketing, advertising has long been looked upon as an intruding filler. Over the years, the video industry has studied data to improvise how the ads are presented to consumers. You are forced to watch some for 5 secs before you can skip. Others come right in between the video you are watching, just like a TV commercial, and you are forced to sit through. Even then, some ads work better than others and are more willingly consumed. Is creativity the only key to increasing attention span? Levy begs to differ. Here are a few myths she busted during her session a) People DO pay attention, even today Did you know that according to Ipsos, 81% of video-viewing occasions get all or most of people’s attention. But attention is given with a certain caveat. Your ad will get attention only if is really interesting to the viewer. You may look at that sentence with two highlight words – ‘interesting’ and ‘viewer’. Universal creativity, generating awe or shock or even humour gets covered under interesting. But what eludes most ads is the attention they choose to give their viewer. How much do you understand the viewer? Do you think they’ll be able to relate the product or service directly within the first five seconds? That is a key question when you are demanding their attention.humour gets covered under interesting. But what eludes most ads is the attention they choose to give their viewer. How much do you understand the viewer? Do you think they’ll be able to relate the product or service directly within the first five seconds? That is a key question when you are demanding their attention. b) Attention-worthiness of video ads depends just as much on how the ads are served as what’s in them Consider the restaurant analogy. If you go to a high-end restaurant that has exotic ingredients listed for its recipes but doesn’t match it’s ambience with great service, would you recommend them? Good service comes from a deep understanding of your customer. Same goes for video ads. It matters ‘how’ you serve them. As both Levy and Clark emphasized, “People will give you their attention if you can show them you know them” c) Intent-based targeting can get you 20% higher ad recall and 50% higher brand awareness compared to only demographics targeting What is intent-based targeting? It involves collecting data about your actions, things you like, stores you visit, apps you install, search history and the likes and then show you an advertisement based on what is likely to resonate best with you. This is definitely better than plain old demographic targeting. For example, if you are a beverage company launching a new flavour of coffee, you could target your ad to 18-50-year-olds and expect some level of engagement. But if you could choose people who already like popular coffee shops and have had recent conversations about coffee, their chances of consuming your advertisement are high. So you see, it’s not just about the coffee but how and when you serve it. Use data to put customer first How well do you understand your customer? From the first time, they visited your website to the time they saw your ad on YouTube, read a review on a third party site, saw a blog about your product, then walked into your store and made a purchase. From awareness to action – can you trace your customer’s journey and see how you did at each touch point? Marketers today have access to Big Data that can slice and dice to present numerous facets of your customer and help you know them better. From their general shopping habits to the shows they like to watch to their average family size, you can know both demographics and psychographics from data that’ll allow you to market your products better. But are you doing it? Google partnered with Econsultancy to conduct a research among leading marketers (defined for the study as those that significantly exceeded their top 2016 business goals) to see how they use data to understand their consumer. Here’s what they found: 1. Successful businesses are investing in technology that allows them to gather and act on consumer data quickly The study showed that “leading marketers are 72% more likely than the mainstream to strongly agree that they’re investing in improving the quality and/or volume of the first-party data they capture“. Collecting data across websites, on-ground sales channels, teams, and even kiosks allow marketers to get a holistic view of the relationship they share with the customer. This allows them to personalize their offering to an extent and improve engagement and loyalty. 2. Use that data to find more customers like yours The data collected from current customers are not only helpful to keep them happy and engaged but is also useful in finding more customers. Applying the statistical probability to a larger set of audience allows marketers to discover new and
Our round up of interesting stories from September
Let’s get right down to business, shall we? After all, the ten minutes of your coffee break should be worthwhile. So instead of reading some meandering preamble, we present our pick of top 10 stories from the world of digital and content marketing that can do you a load of good. Show me the ROI of your content marketing If you’ve heard that from your boss and are looking to put your thoughts to paper, this article is for you. Katie Dufficy, Communications Director for Salesforce, Asia Pacific, shares how her company measures the effectiveness of content marketing. From having an effective elevator pitch like “Content marketing drove 20% leads for our business last year” or keeping relevant statistics handy like “72% of marketers think that branded content is more effective than magazine advertisements” are points that’ll not only convince your boss but your team to join the content marketing team. Visual Content Marketing: 10 Brilliant Examples Images play a big role in content marketing. People are not only attracted to a good visual instantly but are able to comprehend and respond to them better too. You’ll see these days that the visuals are getting bigger and better on social too. If you are looking to make your campaign more memorable and powerful, take inspiration from these 10 campaigns that have done it right. We especially like the “Liking isn’t helping” campaign by Crisis Relief Singapore where the image says it all. It makes people stop in their tracks and reflect their activity on social media and urges them to be more proactively involved offline rather than giving an easy thumbs up. What Will Google Stamp Mean for Content Marketing? Have you heard of Google Stamp yet? If not, now is a good time to take notice. After Google’s failed bid to buy Snapchat, the search giant is said to have worked double time to replicate the Discover feature from Snapchat and named the product Google Stamp. ‘Stamp’ stands for Story and AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages. From views rife on the internet, most people say that Stamp will allow mobile users to easily swipe between different types of content and a possible differentiator will be the addition of search intent to these actions. Though there is a lot of speculation, a product like Stamp can blur the lines between search, advertising, and content creation. 2018 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends Source: 2018 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: A First Look at Brand-New Research The new benchmark report for Content Marketing is out! Put together by MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute (CMI) and sponsored by Brightcove, it’s time you get your hands on the 8th annual content marketing survey. There are some trend figures in there that can be useful during your next content strategy presentation to your boss or client. A strange metric that caught our attention – the spend on content marketing has definitely increased buy lesser number of marketers are able to align metrics to content marketing goals. This seems like a common struggle in the industry and if you have trouble doing this too, we suggest you go back to the first story in this blog. Do you do the right mix of gated and ungated content? Find out here Content marketers seem to be a bit divided on the topic of gated v/s ungated content. Some believe that content should never be gated. Others think premium content shouldn’t be given out for free and should always be gated. While there is no absolute answer, the trick lies in mixing both gated and ungated content as a part of your strategy. Would you prospect every girl you date for marriage? Not likely. The fact that you want all their background info during the first date will scare them away. Similarly, if you ask all your first-time visitors to fill out a scary form, they are likely to bounce off sooner than you can say hello. Putting out the gating form at the right time for a piece of content that is unique makes sense. All marketers should use gated content to move people down the lead funnel. Is your brand romancing a scandal with a wrong content placement? Remember the YouTube ad and content scandal that broke out earlier this year? The incident showed that even a company can like Google can land in a soup if it doesn’t give enough importance to handling content right. Several top-tier advertisers in UK including Toyota, Marks and Spencer and Tesco and French media group Havas pulled out of advertising on YouTube after it was unearthed that their ads were appearing next to extremist content. 62% marketers believe that adjacency could undermine a brand’s qualities and values. As a content marketer, you may be responsible for where your client’s content may appear. So better pay heed to what the industry is saying. 80% of Instagram Users Voluntarily Connect With a Brand on the Platform And that’s happy news coming our way! Instagram’s COO Marne Levine recently revealed that 80 percent of the 800 million monthly users on Instagram connect with brands voluntarily. This makes it your best friend for visual content marketing. It seems to be one of the most successful among social platforms that are allowing people to view brands in a visual flourish and engage with them happily. Even though it is a seven-year-old brand, Instagram has been trying out innovations to connect the dots between customers, brands, and actual ROI. Looks like a solution may soon be around the corner. How to build a fashion brand Leila Fataar became global director of social media and public relations for Adidas Originals in 2012. The company hoped that her ‘Green and White Takeover’ campaign would sell 30,000 pairs of shoes. It ended up selling over a million. Fataar has gone on to craft many more success stories. When asked about what it takes to really
What did these 6 blogs do to make us love them?
Our team at Justwords is a group of individuals from diverse backgrounds but we all share a common love for reading. Books and blog recommendations are an active part of conversations during lunch and tea time breaks. We recently decided to pick favourites in each sector that we thought everyone on the team can universally agree on. Our parameters included the blog design, text content, follower base, visual content (pics, videos and other forms of content) and a little bit of x-factor that allowed us to connect better with the blog. It was a difficult task but we managed to get a list out (finally!) without any team members biting each other. In the process, we all ended up discovering so many interesting blogs. Considering 571 new websites are created every minute on the internet, we’ll be having plenty of such debates in the future. On that note, here are the top 5 we picked from different industries – all having one thing in common – they are all made in India! FOOD A food blog should do the work of an appetizer. It should leave you hungry and wanting for more. While there are hundreds of thousands of food blogs in India The Culinary Commentator There are plenty of recipe sites out there but what got us unanimous about The Culinary Commentator was that it allowed us to discover interesting news places to try out and did not burden us with the thought of spending hours in the kitchen trying out a dish – just good food that can be ordered or had at nice restaurants with friends and family. Now, that’s refreshing. The blog is the 2016 winner of Best Restaurant Review blog by IFBA. The author Rukshana Kapadia has over 5000 followers on Zomato and 23k+ fans on Facebook. TECH Turned out, this category had a tie. We ourselves have a few tech junkies in the team and with a digital and content background, we constantly crave to know new things and industry happenings. These two blogs covered it well Labnol Founded by Amit Agarwal, an engineer in Computer Science from IIT, Labnol is our go-to blogs for how-tos on general consumer software and mobile applications. Labnol first caught our attention years back when it demonstrated the use of Mail Merge for Gmail – a super neat trick for marketers who wanted to bypass Google’s promotional inbox restrictions. While new tech like Gmass has taken over in the same space, Labnol continues to provide some good how-tos. Here’s the latest one that’s got us all excited and experimenting: How to write a twitter bot in 5 mins NextBigWhat The second tech site where we go to stay updated on the latest tech happenings that really matter is this site founded by Ashish Sinha. A product of IIM Roorkee and IIM Bangalore, Sinha has now extended the site to a full-fledged community which sees great participation from people in the industry. TRAVEL Travel With Lakshmi Lakshmi Sharath has most of us wishing to take our dream holiday right away. In fact, too much reading of the blog is highly injurious to your mental health at work and can cause excessive daydreaming! In addition to all the wanderlust blogs, she also provides honest guidance to newbie bloggers who aspire to live her life someday. Here’s a good one on barter deals offered to bloggers and how to tackle them Lakshmi’s About page is a wonderful list of how she brings together her passion and profession. SPORTS AND MORE Doosra / Gonewiththewindies Doosra is a great place to go if you want to smile while you read a blog. It’s sense of humour on sports and a bunch of other topics is full of topical wit. What the blog lacks in design, it makes up for in brilliant content execution that keeps the reader engaged. Expect a mini package of a blog to explode and make you an instant fan. FASHION FashionOomph Welcome to a world where travel meets fashion and creates magnificent pictures and great fashion goals. Founded by Delhi based blogger Tanya, the site shares some interesting tips on both fashion and travel that gives you the latest trends in clothes, accessories and all things fashion. The cool part is that she believes that anyone can look like a celebrity if you follow some simple fashion tips. Cheers to that! Do you have a list of blogs that you actively follow? Do let us know. Our team will be happy to check it out.