Wednesday, 28 November 2018

19 Content Marketing Hacks Every Content Marketer Should Know

Increase your lead generation with these 19 Content Marketing Hacks!

Are you having a tough time attracting visitors to your site despite using the best content marketing tactics? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. There are hundreds of others in the same boat. Luckily, you’ve come to the right place!

In this guest post written by Pradeep Chopra, the CEO of Digital Vidya, we’ll cover 19 of the best content marketing hacks that can more than double your traffic.

So without further ado, let’s get started!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By implementing the following content marketing strategy, you’ll:

  • Attract more clients
  • Build your personal and professional brand
  • Generate valuable comments
  • Increase your email list
  • Build a loyal following

Before discussing our content marketing plan, we shall answer a few fundamental questions. Firstly,

What is Content Marketing?

The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing relevant, valuable, and consistent content for attracting customers and retaining their interests with an ultimate aim to earn a profit for the business.

What are the Advantages of having a content marketing strategy?

Every business should have a robust content marketing strategy.

Here are some of the benefits of formulating an effective content marketing plan:

  • You’ll increase the visibility of your brand
  • It enables you to establish a long-lasting relationship with your audience
  • Establish loyalty and trust with your current and prospective customers
  • Build authority and credibility
  • Gain recognition and improve your brand awareness
  • Generate valuable traffic to your website
  • Help your customer make his purchase decision quickly
  • Provide value to the business by establishing contact with the prospective customer, engaging their attention, and helping to convert leads into deals.

Content Marketing Tips to Help you to Succeed

Here at Digital Vidya, we recommend incorporating the following 19 tips into your content marketing strategy:

  • Having A content calendar is a must

A content calendar gives you a clear picture of what, how, and where you will display your content throughout the year. It can also help your other team members to share resources and use it for content marketing planning.

Sticking to your content calendar will help you to consistently produce content, and ultimately stick to your content marketing goals.  increase the consistency of the flow of content thereby supporting your overall marketing goals.

  • Understand and engage with your audience

The definition of content marketing states that you should establish a rapport with your audience and retain their interest in your products and services. You should know your audience to achieve this objective.

Tip: Segmenting your audience according to their demographics will enable you to connect with them better.

  • Originality is a great virtue

Understanding your audience helps you to develop specific content to suit their needs and interests. Be original with your ideas and focus on building brand awareness. Continually update the content according to the latest trends in the market.

Tip:  Developing separate landing pages for each segment of your audience can help you resonate with your audience thereby helping drive traffic towards your website.

  • Adopt different content marketing tactics

Different audiences have varying preferences. Therefore, you should formulate different content marketing techniques to satisfy the entire spectrum. Specializing in creating one type of content is not going to generate the required response. Use social media to your advantage. Facebook is excellent for your B2C campaigns.

Similarly, YouTube is an excellent channel for promoting video-driven content like tutorials and inspirational stories. LinkedIn and Twitter are more suited for the B2B interactions. Instagram and Snapchat are ideal for reaching out and connecting to the millennials.

  • Be consistent with your content

Customers would love you to be consistent with your content. It increases their engagement levels considerably. Publishing content regularly is one aspect of consistency. Also, you need to maintain a consistent voice, tone, and quality. Having a style sheet can help you curate content. The content calendar can help you with planning a consistent distribution. Maintaining consistency in your marketing efforts can help you gain a sizeable lead over your nearest competitors.

These SEO tactics help define your content marketing plan

  • A compelling SEO strategy holds the key

A content marketing agency can help you formulate an effective SEO strategy. Remember, no one searches for information on the second page of Google. Hence, incorporating accurate SEO is imperative for the success of your content marketing strategy. An effective SEO strategy should envisage tactics like the use of long-tail keywords, compelling Meta descriptions, high-quality images, and descriptive URLs. They can do wonders for your content marketing strategy.

  • Analyze and Optimize

One of the vital SEO tactics is to analyze and optimize. Use different methods of testing such as Split A/B testing and so on to find out what kind of content drives traffic. It will help you determine what content is ideal for your business. On identifying the right content, concentrate on optimizing it. You need to focus on aspects like headlines, CTA options, content length, images, landing pages, site speed, and so on. Streamline your content to achieve your objectives.

  • Have viral ideas, brainstorm them

Viral content is the right way to reach out to the maximum number of clients. If you have viral content, do not hesitate to go ahead and share it. You have to be different from the others to succeed in your marketing efforts. Viral content can be anything from downright funny to one that invites controversy. People love to share controversial content. It can help drive traffic to your website. Standing out from the crowd does help sometimes.

  • Write in-depth articles

Writing in-depth articles is one way of ensuring a good stream of web traffic towards your site. Google loves in-depth articles as well. An in-depth article is one that considers all the details and aspects of a subject. Research shows that articles up to 2000 words long tend to perform better on the search results.

  • A powerful headline helps a lot

Dale Carnegie had said in his world-famous book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” that the best way to draw people’s attention is to create an eager want in the person. You can apply similar tactics to your content marketing. One way to attract people towards your content is to have a great headline. Statistics show that you have only 8 seconds to grab the reader’s attention. A compelling headline will help you do so.

  • CTA buttons increase the interaction

The best way of engaging with the customer is to have a CTA button. The CTA button often proves to be the difference between a ‘bounce’ and a ‘conversion.’ Having a CTA button in your content ensures that the customer need not search for ways to interact with you.

  • Concentrate on the “Above the Fold” area

Remember, we are living in a competitive world. You have to think out of the box to be successful in business. Concentrate on the “Above the Fold” area on your webpage. Studies show that people spend 80% of their time above the fold whenever they scroll down a webpage.

  • Guest blogging is an old but effective tactic

Thinking out of the box is a great way to generate web traffic. However, do not ignore the traditional tactics like ‘Guest Blogging.’ It is an excellent way to connect with your audience. You can supplement your guest blogging efforts by reaching out to influencers that can promote your content.

Psychology can help with your content marketing

Adopt the AIDA strategy

Adopting the AIDA strategy can help you get valuable comments that can motivate your prospective clients to contact you. AIDA stands for

  • A = Capture the Attention of your clients
  • I = Build Interest
  • D = Create a strong Desire in your client to engage with you
  • A = Seal the deal with a Call to Action
  • Multimedia can work to your advantage

Pictures can say it better than words. Use this maxim to your advantage. Make multimedia one of the pillars of your content marketing strategy. Today, people use their mobiles more than their computers and laptops. Create mobile-friendly websites and content to resonate with your customers’ interests. Use blog posts, videos, podcasts, and speaking gigs and other similar tactics to connect with your audience.

  • Share valuable information on your resource pages

The resource pages of your website are the best places to capture leads. You can use these pages to give away valuable e-books and short reports that can benefit your customers. It is a novel and effective idea.

  • Employ the 7-rule email marketing technique

Does this sound like an old tactic? Yes, but it is very effective when you apply this tactic to your email marketing campaigns. Whenever you wish to introduce a new product, engage with your prospective customers seven days in advance. Give value to them over this seven-day period before pitching in with your product. It is an excellent way of putting your customer before your product. This tactic rarely fails.

  • Be in the present and capitalize on the current trends

Engage with people by talking about the current trends. Providing them outdated information is not going to serve your interests in any way. Being in the present and capitalizing on the current trends will help you interact with your customers better. You have to update your content regularly to provide value to your customer.

  • Link to webinars directly within the content

Webinars are a great way of interacting with your current and prospective customers. You can provide internal links in your content to your webinars. These interactions can also help you to gauge the customer’s reactions to your content marketing strategy. It also helps you to analyze and optimize your content.

Takeaways

An effective content marketing plan is necessary to connect and engage with your existing and prospective clients. These 19 tips can help you do better than content marketing agency can. We shall see these tips in a nutshell.

  • Establish a content calendar
  • Understand your audience
  • Be original with your content
  • Do not out all your eggs in the same basket
  • Be consistent
  • SEO strategies help you reach the top
  • Analyze and Optimize content
  • Go viral
  • In-depth articles are the need of the hour
  • A compelling headline helps you get customer attention
  • CTA buttons help have more interaction with your customers
  • Concentrate on the Above the fold area
  • Guest blogging is an effective tactic
  • The AIDA strategy is a psychological one
  • Use multimedia to your advantage
  • Your resources page can prove to be your biggest asset
  • Your customer always comes first
  • Be updated with your content
  • Webinars are the way to go forward

The post 19 Content Marketing Hacks Every Content Marketer Should Know appeared first on Pearl Lemon.



source https://pearllemon.com/19-content-marketing-hacks-every-content-marketer-should-know/

Saturday, 3 November 2018

4 Top Tips For Sending Cold Emails That Get Responses Every Time

It’s a common problem in the business world: You want to reach out to someone, but you’ve never met him or her before—and you have no connections in common who can introduce you. So, you’re left with two options. One, giving up. Or two, sending a cold email and hoping it works.

Cold emails can leave people feeling, well, cold. But that’s because most people don’t know the tricks to getting them read and responded to.

Want in on some of those tricks? Ok, you asked, we delivered.

Show Your Value

You know what does work? Providing value that is related to what you do and making your ask as specific as possible. The worst cold emails ask for a great deal without an explanation of what is being offered in return. Think about it: Would you help a stranger out who messaged you out of the blue saying, “Hey, give me a job?”

Instead, ensure your email explains what you do and how it’s related to what the recipient does. It helps if you fill in this blank before crafting your message: “In exchange for [X], I can offer you [Y].” While you don’t want to write it so robotically, you do want to make sure there is a Y.

Make Your Request Small

You should be upfront and honest about why you have sent the email, and make your request a small one, or something that would take very little effort for the recipient to comply with. No matter what some marketing gurus might say, very few strangers will be prepared to meet you for lunch or take time out of their busy day to book a long meeting with you just because you would like them to. I mean, would you?

So, instead of heading into a cold pitch with the biggest ask you can think of, start small. What’s the bare minimum you need from this person? A short phone call to ask two or three very specific questions is almost always a better place to start than a one-hour coffee meeting.

Create a Great Subject Line

Remember that 80% of the success of a cold email is in the subject line. Yes, you may not know the person, but if the subject line is enticing enough, then you have a chance.

You can usually judge an email by its subject line. While a good one gets you excited to open that message, a bad one makes it easy to send it straight to the trash without a second thought.

When it comes to cold emails, go one of three ways with your subject line:

  • Be flattering (“Inspired by Your Speech at Conference X”)
    Leverage connections (“Friend of Tom Brown’s Interested in Talking to You About Y”)
    Be specific (“Fellow Small Business Owner With a Quick Question About Z”)
    Whatever you do, though, don’t make subject lines an afterthought. Take the time to craft yours and make it good.

Keep it Short and Enthusiastic

Be direct, quick, and enthusiastic. Nobody wants their time wasted. Everyone wants as much info as possible. Nobody will respond to you if you don’t excite them. If you can keep it under six sentences, that’s good.

Want to learn more about the power of cold email for lead generation and more? Check out our founder Deepak’s great new course here.

The post 4 Top Tips For Sending Cold Emails That Get Responses Every Time appeared first on Pearl Lemon.



source https://pearllemon.com/4-top-tips-for-sending-cold-emails-that-get-responses-every-time/