Business 2 Community3 Tips For Explaining Inbound Marketing to a CEOBusiness 2 CommunityIf you have an opportunity to discuss or explain inbound marketing to a CEO, that's probably a good thing.
Marty Note Inbound marketing and content marketing are essentially the same concept. No matter what you call it inbound marketing takes courage and commitment. You don't see return the day after you start a content marketing campaign. You might not see much obvious ROI for months, so you have to build commitment and resolve by being clear, concise and money focused. Here are three tips for how to accomplish what may prove to be the most important sale you ever make.
Marty Note Not sure why we are so determined to make social media a zero sum game. Each tool provides unique ideas. I think of social media marketing as weaving a marketing tapestry. The sections we weave with Pinterest are different than those we weave with Facebook.
I understand the need to zero sum the game. The belief is that time is NOT elastic so something has to go. Problem is this feels like a comparison between an apple and an orange. Facebook is about community and then content. Pinterest is about content and then community. Instead of one wiping the other out they are likely to meet in the middle.
If I had to choose one to win it would be Facebook. The larger installed base creates an expanding return. Pinterest takes no expertise to begin and a lot to continue. Facebook takes some expertise to begin and less to continue.
The winner will be decided by who uses their tool the best, what developers us their APIs to "app-up" our world. Again I would give Facebook the advantage. Pinterest wins on the it looks cool metric and that isn't nothing in a time when visuals are crushing textuals. Also, Pinterest makes Facebook feel like WORK. Pinterest feels like fun. That single advantage could, with some very smart moves and a few more Facebook missteps like mobile, win the race.
"If you’re only developing content with consumption in mind, you’re missing a huge opportunity to keep momentum going as prospective buyers move through the buying cycle."
How often have you repeated a "good story" you heard? Now compare this to how often you forward something you read as "content about a product or service". Content is over rated in the marketing world, however, if you wrap solid information about how to "use your products and services within the power of story to satisfy the customers needs", the odds go up it will resonate and be shared.
Read on for Karen Dietz's ideas around this article.
I've said this before -- biz storytelling is about engagement, not simply broadcasting messages. This is the first article I've found that actually tries to break down the different types of conversations you want your biz stories to spark or serve.
I disagree with the distinction between dialogue and conversation. I think a better distinction to make is between messaging and conversation. And stories are often shared within a conversation. Conversations are not necessarily storytelling. So that is my nit-pick for today.
I really wish the author, Stephanie Tilton, would have included examples for each type of conversation mentioned. She tries to explain the different conversations but I need examples this morning in order to get ideas for how to apply her advice. Or maybe I'm just too tired this morning!
So there are 2 lessons here -- 1) target your storytelling to the conversations you want to promote and help along; and 2) make sure when you write content you give examples so you don't make it so hard for your readers to apply your insights.
I also really like the point the author makes about shifting from talking to listening, and shifting to serial storytelling in your business. OK -- I'm heading into the kitchen for some more coffee!
At the center is the core content strategy, the central idea for using content to achieve an organization's business goals. To achieve that strategy most effectively, we look at four closely related components (the four areas of the quad):
Marty Note I like graphics that make complex ideas easy to understand and share with others. Great scoop here by Digital Asset Man.
Experience the world of Red Bull like you have never seen it before. With the best action sports clips on the web and YouTube exclusive series, prepare for your "stoke factor" to be at an all time high.
Marty Note While it is true that all brands are publishers now it is also true that we are all about to be TV stations too. Red Bull, fresh off the triumph of the space drop, shows how to do a YouTuble channel the right way. I wish they were less stingy, but I can understand why they aren't sharing their CGI version of the space drop. IT IS AMAZING. Red Bull gets it and they are showing what YouTube can be with imagination, a few million bucks and a cool idea or two or three. Well done.
Marty Note Last week I scooped a post about Spotify being a social network. Such an easy and important truth wasn't hard to miss. Several friends told me they thought of Spotify as where they listened to their music with little thought to its Internet marketing potential. That would be a mistake as Amanda Gagnon points out. Her post is linked off of my riff on top of her idea.
The other realization reading Amanda's article and writing this piece helped bring up is EVERYTHING IS A SOCIAL NET NOW. If you are even trying to have one sided conversations somewhere still good luck with that. Everything, every tool and piece of content, forms or doesn't form a social net. Social is the name of the game. Social is everything.
What about money? Sure money transfer happens, but only if you are doing other things well. Do you give money to websites you don't know or trust? Neither do I or anyone else. It is too easy to form an informed opinion. It is too easy to give everything and everyone the "like me" test.
Dangers of the echo-chamber we may be creating we can discuss at another time. Today is dedicated to the glory of the social nets that are all around you at all times influencing everything.
Download @HubSpot's 100 Ideas That Changed Marketing and discover the biggest concepts that have shaped this industry. (RT @Evgeny_Chernykh: 100 идей, кот.
Marty Note Not sure I agree with A/B testing being the #1 thing that has changed marketing, but it is helpful to look across a list like this to see the sweep, the pure scope, of the changes we've taken in, are processing and hope to understand some day (lol). For many years nothing changed and then everything did and that is the way it goes sometimes :).
Pitching itself as the first trade alliance to represent the concerns of the online economy, the Internet Association lobbying group was formed on Wednesday.
Marty Note When do you know your industry is well past its tipping point? When collectives form. When lobbying starts. Granted this is the way the game is played, but a sad state of affairs anyway. Soon we will sit on the ground and discuss the death of kings. Soon the wild days when you and a friend could lock yourselves in a basement and WIN BIG will be all but gone. The high ground will be patrolled and controlled by the big hugs. Traffic will be hard to come by except for one revolutionary idea....
Nooks, Kindles, iPads…oh my! Whatever happened to paperback and hardbacks?! According to one source, people who own e-readers are reading more than they might otherwise, as reflected in rising e-book sales. As a result, e-reader sales continue to increase. Could e-books eventually make good old fashioned books obsolete? Probably not. One reason? For now, only 20% of e-reader owners say that the e-content they want is always available. But the number of people using e-readers is growing. Learn more about the habits of those who feel the need to e-read.
Marty Note I think we can count on books going the way of newspapers. The cost of putting print to paper is so much greater than digital creation that it is inevitable eBooks will win larger and larger shares because the price will be right for both consumers and producers.
I've noticed that anything in my life that requires physical curation such as my music collection, my book collection or my painting collection I am less interested in these days. The problem with curating physical things instead of bits and bytes is physical things take up spaces, are hard to move and create clutter.
Moving my books and music online frees up that place in my brain that was dedicated to consumption for the sake of building a collection. The old hunter / gatherer dies hard, but that psyche is dying.
Each year, Advertising Week in New York becomes more fundamentally about the role of digital, mobile and social media in selling goods and services.
Marty Note Agencies get involved when THERE IS NO CHOICE to maintain the old good days when "media buying" tossed mounds of cash their way. Welcome to the rodeo Madison Ave. We will know they have really gotten the idea shen Advertising Week is a thing of the past.
Marty Note Not going to spoil this very good read From Chris DeLine except to say his concerns about his generation are shared across many generations. My generation knew a different way, so perhaps we are less likely to become the kind of zombies Chris describes (maybe :).
Americans do a good deal of reading on mobile devices these days, so it’s no surprise that 75% of smartphone users prefer mobile-friendly sites.
Marty Note This is a great post and love the examples. I'm a big fan of the hardest design thing to do, make things simple. Ironic that is the hardest thing, but we suffer from a curse of knowledge. When I was a Director of Ecommerce and looked at something and thought it was simple I peered through rose colored glasses, glasses that spent almost every waking hour looking at our website (lol).
Mobile and simplicity MUST go together because there isn't the room to be complex. Actually there is NEVER the room to be complex :).
Globe and MailTurn content into marketing that pays offGlobe and MailThis past month, I was meeting with a client who asked about content marketing.
Marty Note Content marketing is all the rage as it should be. Content is the new SEO, branding and advertising so you need to have a content generation engine. This article explains how to get started with strategy and end with a consistent and valuable approach. Basic for many of my Scoopit it friends, but valuable to newbies starting out in content marketing.
The single most important component of your web-based business is your website's conversion rate. What is a conversion?
Marty Note This is an important list of common ways to increase conversion. I might move cart work up to #2 or #3, but I can understand why the author has it lower down. Shopping carts are painful to change. Touch your shopping cart now and you are NUTS since the biggest deadline we all have is around the corner (12.25).
Here are some quick fix conversion additions I would make after $30M in online sales over seven years:
* Free Shipping All Orders, All Shipments (don't fight it). * Better Email Marketing (see http://www.bronto.com tips). * Better email tool (Bronto is best). * FASTER website (Offload images/video to Akami or similar).
* More SOCIAL (Facebook LIKES, G+ and Twitter everywhere).
* More SOCIAL (bring my friends into my shopping experience). * REVIEWS - (critical for ecomm and must have some bad).
* Review the Reviewer - (makes reviews trusted). * Coordinate social, email, catalog and website (always friction). * Keywords In Navigation, Titles and H1 (can always be better).
* Breadcrumbs (great spider food).
* Merchandise and simplify internal search (big bucks here).
Pick any 3 from the list above and your website's sales will increase before this Christmas. Do them all before Christmas and I owe you lunch for a week (lol).
Good luck. Try to get some sleep between now and Valentine's Day :).
Writing content is all about deadlines, whether you're a reporter, a blogger, or a marketer.
Marty Note Deadlines are magical online. Deadlines get people to move and deadlines WORK, but being on the other side of deadlines sucks (lol). The key to not jumping off the roof is having a plan and a solid way to keep track of what goes where by when and who is writing it (or mashing it up). I suck at this frankly. I need a keeper, someone more gifted at this kind of detail work than me, so I keep an eye out for cool tools and ways to overcome a weakness. Will give this content calendar a try.
Ayantek, a full-service digital marketing firm offering innovative web, mobile, search, and social media solutions to some of New England\'s largest companies, has a vision that probably sounds pretty familiar to most marketing agencies.
Marty Note Cool example of how Scoop.it can organize, present and "hub" digital assets to increase authority and thought leadership.
"So, how do you tell a story in the digital age that stands out, captures people’s attention and gets them to act, engage with your institution? My favourite story for quite some time now and one I’ve been showing in workshops around the world is the story of the Troy public library."
Ok -- the author here isn't writing anything revolutionary. So you can skim the text. But watch the 2.5 minute video! It's the reason I selected this piece.
The video is brilliant -- and a perfect example of how story triggers can make a difference in social causes and social cause marketing.
The video is about a library. It is controversial. Now I am a big fan of libraries so I was rooting for it (my personal bias). And the video itself is a really good example of a digital story.
I say 'story triggers' because the library used story elements and metaphors that sparked stories within the viewer's/reader's brains. The library did not actually tell a full-blown story yet the public reaction was immediate and powerful.
Go watch the video! Then share what you think.
This review was written by Karen Dietz for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it ;
Marty Note I am writing about how, starting now, my most important audit of an e-commerce site is not SEO but the answer to a simple question. What is the story? The story is where engagement lives. Stories are where community thrives. The story is the thing.
This blog by James Gurd (Digital Juggler) looks at how voice-of-customer programs can support SEO by helping answer why customers take certain actions.
This Week's mid-week ScentTrail summary features a couple of power scoopers (@LizWilson2 and @maxOz), an inspirational Raleigh entrepreneur banding together to save the world and the coolest pink trash can I've ever seen (and will own soon) asking that we kick cancer to the curb (where it belongs :).
Together we cure cancer, save the world and rock the house.
Why in the world would you spend time writing content if it's not going to help you sell anything and make money? The answer is, in order to make a sale, you must create content that doesn't make a sale.
Convert Doesn’t Have to Mean Sell
That probably sounds like Internet marketing blasphemy. Why in the world would you spend time writing content if it’s not going to help you sell anything and make money?
The answer is, in order to make a sale, you must create content that doesn’t make a sale.
Marty Note Great point by Level343. "Conversion" can mean a host of things from increased engagement expressed in better website heuristic measures such as time on site or joining a mailing list or picking up a follow on social nets. Making a sale is the LAST thing that happens.
No one buys from people they don't know or trust. Developing any relationship takes time and many "mini-conversions" before the macros conversion of trust and confidence exchanged in the form of money.
Money is a meaningful scorecard, a report card on how well you and your company are doing all the other things necessary to creat relationships.
Jack Dorsey, Square co-founder & CEO, and Twitter creator, discusses Twitter reaction to last night's presidential debate, and the impact of mobile payments going mainstream.
Marty Note This is an important interview. Watch past the gushing over Twitter for the insightful mission Dorsey has created for Square. Square is a revolution in POS (Point of Sale) bringing POS to the masses. I keep wondering why some large bank isn't matching Square.
This interview answers why banks aren't coming in because you have to think like an Internet marketer to see the POS opportunity. Dorsey discusses the death of money and how that sea change means every service provider must be able to accept credit cards.
When we started Found Objects and FoundObjects.com in 1999 no bank wanted to help us accept credit cards. Banks don't think like Internet marketers. Once an IMer like Dorsey sees a vastly greater over, what is to be gained, against a much smaller under, what could be lost, he moves. More than moving rapidly against an opening opportunity, Dorsey shows the MISSION motivation that drives a soon to be billionaire.
Dorsey could care less that Square is already valued at $3.2B or that they've done 8B in transactions. He cares about the mission. Banks take note. It ain't about the money all the time. Sometimes you do things because it is the right thing to do. In an Internet enabled economy doing the right thing is the right thing to do and being in it for the money all the time just makes you look greedy, out of step and stupid.
Marty Note Banner ads don't matter. Consumers have learned to ignore the top and side banner placements. The rectangular placement inside the content does better, but only slightly. comScore has been a champion of banner ads for brand reach for some time. USA Today just redesigned their site and are trying to make ads count.
The first step to making ads count is valid impression counts. This press release discusses how they plan to know exactly how many impressions an ad received. The next step is more sophisticated ad serving. Ads can be programmed to be highly dynamic. Visitors who've already seen and NOT RESPONDED to Ad A see Ad B.
Ad serving can help tune the ad zones toward conversion. No matter how sophisticated the ad serving tool great campaigns are the fuel of conversion, the missing link to make banner ads matter. Interesting to wonder what implications social has (read Laurens ten Hagen's Is Content Marketing the New Advertising on Curation Revolution http://www.scoop.it/t/curation-revolution/p/2865517443/q-is-content-marketing-the-new-advertising-a-yes-infographic ) for banner ads. Could you increase conversions with smart social sharing of ads? X number of your friends clicked on this ad?
This "social advertising" seems to be the real Facebook promise. When we know what our pack of friends thinks about anything online immediatlely soical media markreting won't have a ROI debate. I applaud USA Today and comScore's partnership and test. If they are successful at making banner ads mean something it will be good for Internet marketing. I suspect banner ads will only be a part of an emerging "market making" solution that includes social, content marketing and video to name just a few of the trends we are seeing.
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