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Now we all know that content is pretty key when it comes to inbound marketing. Content is what drives traffic to our sites, converts visitors into leads, closes your leads into sales, and keeps customers coming back for more. Content doesn’t just have to be written blog posts, though. There are a plethora of different forms of content you can use in your content marketing, like infographics, podcasts, webinars, and video.
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The best websites appeal to the major senses – sight (photos, text) and sound (music, dialogue) – while telling a story that can erase the constraints of time and space. Unlike other forms of content, video incorporates all of these elements into an artistic statement that attracts even the most hard to reach Internet user. As a business, you have the ability to increase sales and customer retention on a global scale. Video is not merely another form of content, it is a culmination of image, text, and music intended to function together for a common goal. Keep in mind that video isn’t always the best format for every story your business wants to tell. But, if used properly, video can both entertain and inform the audience.
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Measuring the success of your search engine optimization efforts is important to ascertain whether your time, money and efforts are allocated effectively. SEO is one of the more common methods of driving relevant visitors to your website that convert into paying customers, since they are most likely interested in purchasing your products or services. To measure the return on investment – or ROI – of your SEO campaigns, utilise the information aggregated from Positionly and Google Analytics to pull through the data and analyse patterns in traffic, increases in links, sustainable traffic and above all, increases in revenue.
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Businesses big and small use social media. Whether you’re a local hardware store Instagramming different home improvement projects or a major national retailer conducting a Twitter giveaway, the businesses that use social media effectively are building bigger brand followings and driving up their sales. For those businesses that don’t have a social media strategy in place, you’re falling behind. And even for those that do, it might be time to reexamine your strategies and adopt some new practices to stay fresh and current. Feel like your business is a bit behind in the social media sphere? Shake up your strategy with these different ideas.
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The emergence of new social media platforms has opened up a world of options for marketers. But many are yet to take that exploratory plunge beyond Facebook and Twitter. This post decodes the world of 'other' social media. A long established fact is that social media is important for branding. Of the top 10 factors that correlate with strong Google organic search, seven are social media dependent, according to a recent study by L2 Think Tank. This means, if brands aren't active on social media, they tend to show up less on Google Search.
Gary Hitching's insight:
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The entire SEO industry experienced a major transformation over the past two years. As a result, many online marketers have dramatically changed their strategies. Ranking high in Google for competitive keywords is not as easy as it was three years ago. Because black hat SEO is harder and harder to execute, and less and less likely to deliver results, a new type of SEO has emerged called “negative SEO.” This is a guide that will help you understand what negative SEO is and how you can protect your business from becoming a victim. If you are serious about building your brand online and keeping it safe, this is something you should not ignore.
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Small businesses that use social media to increase their brands’ fan base and connect with their customers need to make their pages discreet and exciting, according to Des Walsh, a social media specialist and business coach. Walsh says that for people to trust you and endorse your products and services, you have to “participate in conversations on social media – share information and ideas without constantly saying ‘buy my stuff’.” He adds that social media is more than just a “kind of bigger megaphone” for businesses. Social media has ushered in a new era of doing business and customers are in on this new development, so that anything less to adapting this new method of doing business means losing customers in the long run.
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Americans can’t get enough of their smartphones. Most likely, wherever you go, your phone goes too. Almost 85% of Americans admitted that they couldn’t go a single day without their phone in hand. Taking a trip to the bathroom? You probably take your phone along — and you’re not alone since 75% of Americans also bring their phone to the bathroom. It’s the perfect time knock out a level or two of Candy Crush, after all. But, the American smartphone obsession is good for more than just gaming and creating albums full of bathroom mirror selfies.
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But by far, the acronym most people ask about is SEO, or search engine optimization. This aspect of online marketing seems to defy explanation for lots of folks. In this post, we’re going to break it down in the complete beginner’s guide to SEO: what SEO is, how it works, what factors affect search and what sorts of changes you can make today to improve your search optimization.
Gary Hitching's insight:
This is an excellent article covering everything you need to know about SEO as a newbie.
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Q: If I have to choose between Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which one is the most effective for mobile marketing? A: The social ecosystem is steadily growing, which means marketers must be more strategic than ever when engaging with consumers across social networks and devices. As consumers traverse from Facebook to Twitter to Pinterest and Instagram, content is digested differently. Ultimately, the network that will be most effective for your mobile marketing efforts depends largely on your audience, their interests and the type of content at your disposal.
Gary Hitching's insight:
Determining where your audience is has to be key but also it's important to make sure you don't spread yourself too thin. It's better to be on fewer networks but remain active.
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There’s no denying that mobile is the new digital benchmark and trendsetter for brands across the board. Global corporations and small to medium businesses alike are incorporating mobile apps into their business strategy. But prior to diving into a mobile development project, businesses should ask these five questions:
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If you were reading a magazine, how will you decide whether you should read an article or not? Undoubtedly, headline and images are two of the most important factors that catch the attention of the audience when it comes to content. However, once your readers are past the headline, it’s the quality on your content that is going to keep them from navigating away. Here are 10 easy-to-follow ideas that can immediately make your content more readable, getting you results right away:
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Those who love to drink coffee often have favorite places to do so. They frequent a chosen venue because it’s a great place to hang out. Perhaps they know the owners or the other customers who, like them, regularly drop in to socialise. Without the rich aromas and great-tasting coffee, though, would they show up? Would they go there if there was nothing to drink? For the most successful companies operating in the realms of social media, this is a governing consideration. They’ve got the fresh content and they’ve brought the crowd, so, as long as they keep serving up this gourmet content, they’ve got a winning virtual hangout.
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According to a new article by CRMproductReview that aggregated a lot of industry data, adoption of Marketing Automation Platforms (MAPs) worldwide is projected to grow by a whopping 50% per year. In its State of the Marketing Technology Industry, big data analytics company Mintigo shows market leader HubSpot used mainly in SMEs with 78% of its customers counting 100 or fewer employees, while most competitors find higher user percentages in larger firms. In the leading US market, the highest adoption rate is found in the technology industry followed by healthcare and business & financial services.
Gary Hitching's insight:
If you're serious about inbound or content marketing, you need to invest in a marketing automation system. There are many solutions out there ranging in price and complexity, so you need to do your homework. This is a very good article that demonstrates statistically how beneficial a marketing automation system can be.
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Are You Making Any of These Simple Mistakes? Many first time bloggers are so overwhelmed with the idea of producing content on a regular basis that they forget to fine tune what they produce. It’s easy to see why, from the research that goes into finding a topic and formulating a catchy headline to figuring out a way to tie the whole thing together into an actual, readable (and hopefully interesting) blog. Some of the more technical aspects of writing, especially when your writing must be correctly formatted in a word document, simply go by the wayside. You don’t have to stay in the habit of making these formatting issues, however; becoming familiar with the issue is the first step to correcting it. Here are a few of the more common blog formatting issues and how you can fix them.
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Publishing a blog post and sitting around waiting for people to find it is not an effective method to build your blog audience. You need to actively promote your posts and engage new readers if you want the exposure your blog deserves. Just one of these 31 steps resulted in a 342% increase in traffic to NicheHacks overnight (more information below). What do you think all 31 ways can do for your blog? Here are 31 way to promote blog posts and get more blog traffic….
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Imagine if you were one of those students in attendance back in April 2011 when Evan Spiegel presented his idea for his final project: a mobile app where photos could be shared, but only for a matter of seconds before permanently disappearing. At the time, his classmates at Stanford thought this wasn’t exactly a great idea. Who could have guessed that they had ridiculed what would become Snapchat?
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Email marketing is a powerful sales driver – one reason why 66% of in-house marketers rate it as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ Return on Investment in Econsultancy’s 2013 Email Marketing Industry Census. Yet when it comes to rating their own performance it’s a different story. Almost two-thirds (61%) of respondents describe their company’s email marketing performance as ‘average’ or ‘poor’. The message is clear: marketers must work harder to maximise the full potential of email marketing. So consider the following tips before the next time you hit ‘send’.
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Are your sales lackluster? Your click-through rates uninspiring? Chances are it’s not your product that’s the issue – it’s the way you’re selling it! Copywriting is both an art and a science that’s difficult to learn, but important to implement. If you don’t have the years of study needed to master this discipline yourself, check out the following seven techniques. Applying them to your own ad copy – whether you’re dealing with short PPC ads or long-form website sales letters – will go a long way towards improving your sales conversions.
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There is a big ugly secret in the inbound marketing agency world; many (if not most) companies that start with inbound marketing fail. They try to sort out all their digital marketing internally and don’t have the necessary time and expertise to get it right. This is fairly predictable. There is an even bigger secret in the inbound marketing agency world, though; many (if not most) companies that hire an inbound marketing agency fail. This fact is demoralizing. Shouldn’t an agency with inbound marketing expertise be able to turn a company’s marketing around 100% of the time?The inbound marketing process can be derailed even in the most experienced of hands. Here’s a four step process to make sure it will fail:
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Do you still think social is a waste of time? Well, perhaps it is if you are only using it to broadcast whatever is the latest and greatest from your company. Remember that we’re aiming to help our audiences to buy, rather than selling to them. If you are, quote “throwing out some shit and hoping some will stick,” through your social channels, that’s the equivalent of broadcasting a generic email to your entire database and getting low quality ‘leads’ from the few people who bothered to open and click. Likewise, if you’re expecting to get immediate leads from social interaction, you’re kind of missing the point. The value of social goes way beyond turning it on for inbound and you can’t measure this side by side against paid inbound media.
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Wondering why that pretty new website isn't getting any leads? Could it be that your beautiful, brand consistent website is overflowing with information about you BUT doesn't even acknowledge your prospects' real questions? [Tip-off: your site is filled with page after page showing all your fancy equipment and all the reasons why your company is amazing.] The truth is, your customer does not care how many awards you won for "Best Employer" or "XXX of the Year". Sure it is nice to work with a company that is so highly admired but, in the begining stages of research, what they truly care about is how to solve their problems. At this stage, they aren't even asking what you can do for them or thinking about meeting you.
Gary Hitching's insight:
It's very easy to slip into 'we', 'us' and 'our', which comes across as non-customer centric. It's essential to communicate how you can solve their problems, challenges or issues or how you can add value to their lives or business. This is the key area that will resonate with someone and pull them in.
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Ask anyone in event management how they promote their events and in 90% cases email marketing is going to be near the top of their list. Despite being one of the most effective and reliable marketing channels for the promotion of events; email marketing is often neglected.
Gary Hitching's insight:
Having worked with various businesses in the events industry, it's essential to have an email strategy before, during and after the event. The following tips will give you a good basic foundation to build your strategy on.
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In the United States today there are more than 327 million mobile devices being used on a daily basis. According to the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project, an astounding 91 percent of Americans currently own cellphones, and nearly two-thirds of consumers utilize their mobile devices to access the Internet.
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When you’re facing a blank page with no idea what to write, it’s hard to imagine how you’ll ever get to the other side of a finished piece.
Gary Hitching's insight:
I'm sure we've all experienced that feeling of utter helplessness when we don't know what to write. Words simply dry up. I can't think of many more skills in business as important as good writing. Perhaps you need to write an email, a report, a proposal or a blog entry. You may not feel you're a natural but you can learn the basics and if you practice enough, get to a competent level. This article will give you some good basic advice to help you on your way.
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