@BasilPuglisi

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Content Marketing

Benefits of Adding a Subscription Component to Your Website

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Advantages for Vendors

Building a subscription website or adding a subscription component to an existing website is a rapidly growing trend, offering vendors a host of benefits, including the opportunity to increase revenues exponentially. Subscription models allow you to establish long-term relationships with customers as opposed to settling for a one-time purchase. They offer predictable monthly or periodic revenue with the ability to add new goods or services to an existing plan. Moreover, online subscription models build brand loyalty, the type of commitment made possible by solid customer relationships.

Advantages for Customers

Online subscriptions offer customers the opportunity to receive ongoing content or promotions from your company and to subscribe to a service rather than buying outright. Typically subscribers have a clear understanding of or interest in the goods, services, or support services you are offering. Accordingly, they often prefer thelow up-front and more manageable costs inherent in monthly or periodic payments (as well as the ability to renew, upgrade, or cancel their subscription).

Any Business Can Profit from a Subscription Model

The recurring revenue stream provided by online subscription models benefits small and large businesses alike. In fact, startups in the software-as-a-service (Saas) segment of the industry are seeing profits increase at an up-to 6x growth rate. As a result, more and more businesses are adding a subscription component to their website or even changing from a single point-of-sale model to a subscription model, with the goal of capitalizing on a sustained and long-term predictable income.

Types of Website Subscription Models

Nowadays, everyone seems to be subscribing to something. The notion of receiving services or content one enjoys (or depends upon) on regular basis is highly appealing. In general, there are two ‘archetypes’ of subscription models – those which are used primarily for monetization and those which drive traffic. If you are thinking of introducing a subscription component ton your website, consider the following types of online subscription models:

  • Freemium Model: Websites offer free content but add a “subscribers-only” link, providing paying subscribers exclusive access to premium features (such as archives or special promotions).
  • Newsletter Model: Access to a digital or print newsletter is provided to subscribers only.
  • Membership Model: A user-driven, content-based model wherein paid members enjoy access to a library of information on topics related to your business. Membershipsubscriptions create an online community of users who share a common interest or passion.
  • Magazine Model: Subscribers gain access to issues of a print or digital magazine related to your website (the magazine should be issued with regular frequency and be easily downloadable as a PDF, viewed in HTML, or stored in a closed document format).
  • Blog Model: Readers who subscribe become part of a community and are welcome to post comments. While originating as ‘personal soapboxes,’ blogs are increasingly being used by businesses as part of their online strategies. Blogs can introduce a new product, announce upcoming events, get news out publicly and quickly, or share company news/information. Many bloggers also use their blog to boost visibility by announcing speaking engagements, books deals, work in other publications, and more.

To capitalize fully on a subscription model for your website, consider investing in subscription management software, designed to help you manage all aspects of the platform – including billing, managing recurring payments, providing multiple credit card payment options, and canceling/upgrading/changing plans.
Businesses are increasingly adding a subscription component to their existing monetization strategies.
Eldad Ben Tora has Over 12 years of experience in the strategy and development of products for social and commercial platforms with strong emphasis on product positioning, strategy and design. Our great eCommerce Service can provide all the subscription services tools you need, allowing you to capitalize on the technology and enjoy the expected increment in revenue.

Is Your Website Deliciously Sticky?

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What is the point of having a website?
It’s to let people know all about your business, your products, your services; it’s to give them the information they need to contact you; and it’s to give them the information they need to choose you over your competitors. It’s also supposed to convince people to browse your site and keep them coming back for more. Essentially, you want people to stick to you like glue and that is why you need a ‘sticky site’.
A sticky site is one that gives visitors want they want immediately and entices them to click internal links so that they can find out more. It also makes them want to share the stickiness with their friends, like delicious fudge.
What makes a site sticky?
There are two main factors that contribute to the stickiness of your site.
1)     Website design
2)     Content
Web design
A lot of businesses, especially small businesses, skimp on site design. One reason is that they think it’s too expensive. But the cost of losing customers through a slap-dash site far outweighs the cost of a decent looking website.
Some businesses mistake flashy for professional. They try to jam-pack their sites with too many features, to many colours and too much information from the get-go. One of the key factors of sticky site design is simplicity. Simple doesn’t have to be bland or stark; it can still be striking and bold.
In addition to being overwhelming, flashy sites can take a long time to load. Sites with a long loading time are likely to die far quicker death.
Think of your site as a map; it should direct people to where they want to go via the most direct route. In web jargon, you want a site that is intuitively navigable and usable.
Content
Content doesn’t consist only of words. Images, polls, competitions, videos – they’re all content. Search engines like words and well-tagged images and videos, so you need to choose your words (keywords) carefully. But searchers like to be engaged, which basically means that you still need to choose your words carefully.
Your content is what sets you apart from your competitors, it’s what attracts and keeps attention. It needs to be especially sticky. Once again, you don’t want to overwhelm your visitors with information. Once again you want to keep it simple. Bear in mind that you want to be clear and succinct and not curt and laconic.
Every page should have a goal and the content must support that goal. Steven Bradley says that you should follow the inverted pyramid style of writing. That’s all the most important information right at the top and the lesser details trailing down.
Search and social
Jordan Kasteler (Search Engine Land) says that you need to consider the different needs of search and social users.
Search users are likely to be looking for something specific – they want certain information and they want it now so they can convert. Social users are likely to be browsers – they’re curious; the kind of people who tell salespeople that they’re ‘just looking’ in a store.
Balancing these needs needn’t be too tricky because there is a fair bit of overlap. They both want information in as simple a format as possible, but search visitors are more likely to want your services/products and purchases pages, while social users are more likely to want your blog and about us pages – but they also want to see your services and products.
Basically, if your website and your content are designed with users in mind, you have a good chance of achieving stickiness.
Sources:
http://searchengineland.com/making-your-site-sticky-for-both-search-and-social-users-134233
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/inverted-pyramid-design/
 
This guest post was written by Sandy Cosser on behalf of Elemental, a specialist web development company that balances your needs with those of your online visitors. Follow Sandy on twitter @SandyCosser

Seth Godin’s “All Marketers Tell Stories” [Internship]

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                Seth Godin made a valuable point when stating, “Marketing is about spreading ideas, and spreading ideas is the single most important output of our civilization.” Godin has made several other valuable points in his book, “All Marketers Tell Stories”. He focuses on a person’s “worldview” which is someone’s own rules, values, beliefs, and biases. Even though it is very tough to change someone’s worldview, it is possible with the correct kind of marketing.
                Worldviews are both beneficial yet tricky at the same time. Worldviews are the reason why our world is a diverse place. However, it is hard for a marketer to target so many people with different points of views. According to Godin, “Worldviews are the reason that two intelligent people can look at the same data and walk away with completely different conclusions.” Marketers have found a way “around” worldviews that allow them to still market their products or services. Marketers tell stories. “Consumers are used to telling stories to themselves and telling stories to each other, and it’s just natural to buy stuff from someone who’s telling us a story. People can’t handle the truth.” Seth Godin was one hundred percent right when he wrote this in his book. People cannot handle the truth, and they will do anything to go around it. In order for a marketer to truly succeed, which doesn’t happen often according to Godin, there are five steps that they need to follow.
                The first step in Godin’s “All Marketers Tell Stories” is “their worldview and frames got there before you did.” He explains that the world is full of all kinds of different people with different worldviews. If everyone was the same, marketing would be a piece of cake. However, that’s not the case. Marketers need to make their advertisements accustom to everyone and their different values, biases, and assumptions. Frames are also part of the big picture. They are elements of a story painted to leverage the worldview a consumer already has. If a marketer frames their story in terms of a person’s worldview, they will be heard and noticed.
                The second step Godin points out is “people notice only the new and then make a guess”.  He makes a great comparison to ideas and viruses. Viruses can spread through a community by jumping host to host. Scientists study how a host interacts with the virus. The same thing goes for an idea; ideas can spread through a community person to person. Instead of seeing how a host and virus interact, we try to understand how our brain responds to the ideas and inputs we encounter.
                The third step is “first impressions start the story”. People make judgments within a fraction of a second. A marketer needs to grab the attention of their audience as soon as they start telling the story or else they will lose the persons attention. A marketer should always start with something exciting and interesting, not boring. First impressions are always key.
                Godin’s fourth step in his book is “great marketers tell stories we believe.” First, you have to believe in your story, or else you will not come off believable. Sounding confident and knowing what you’re talking about will draw in a bigger audience. The story sells the product and pleases the customer.
                Finally, the last step is “marketers with authenticity thrive.” Godin said, “If you commit to a story and live that story, the contradictions will disappear.” No one likes a phony person because then no one will take their time to listen to your advertisement, or even buy your product or service. When a marketer is authentic, it shows, and people will stop and listen. People like hearing stories when it involves a shortcut, money, safety, fun, and belonging. These are all factors of their worldviews, and Godin said persuading someone to switch their worldview is the same as making him admit he was wrong. People hate admitting that they are wrong, and therefore will not listen to your story.  
                In the end, it doesn’t matter whether something is actually better or more efficient, what matters is what the consumer believes. As a marketer, it would be impossible to be noticed without studying your audience’s various worldviews. Products and services have gotten more and more complex, so there is a lot of teaching for marketers to do. Seth Godin’s “All Marketers Tell Stories” is a step in the right direction when you want to succeed as a marketer.
Sources:
http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1591841003/permissionmarket
http://digitalethos.org/a-day-at-google-new-york-opinion/
 
The content in this article is part of Digital Ethos’s Digital Media Education in the Higher Education Internship Program, the content was created by @KaylaMarzo, a Student at Suffolk County Community college, intern at Digital Ethos.

Real-Time Monitoring for Facebook Analytics

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With new updates kicking off on Facebook left and right hopefully you haven’t missed the opportunity they have presented to take advantage of real-time monitoring of your webpage statistics and demographics. One of their newest tools is in fact, the Real-Time Monitor for Facebook analytics. Whereas before the updates seemed to arrive on an irregular basis, they have built new post level analytics that give user’s the answers they are looking for, updated, around every 5 minutes.

This has phenomenal impact for those who wanted to more closely monitor how specific posts fared, or even gauge how fans reacted to content, contest, questions and more social communication options in real-time and ask they occur. Although the new tool is currently in beta and free for Pro users, it is worth keeping an eye on for when it makes its to public release.  Currently, the beta tool requires users to remain within that tool in order for them to collect the metrics and share the data in real-time, but they have plans to expand further on this functionality, hopefully with more flexibility, in the future.

What Can You Monitor with the Real-Time Tool?

You will be able to filter by a variety of metrics including, but not limited to:

  • Unique Impressions
  • Paid Impressions
  • Total Impressions
  • Organic Impressions
  • Viral Impressions
  • Total Engagement
  • Shares, Likes, Comments, Clicks and Virality

Users will be able to monitor all of the active posts on the pages they administrate. The filter options are flexible and can be viewed as Change in Values or Total Values. This will offer marketers a unique perspective on how their content is trending in real-time.

c/o EdgeRank

Negative Feedback Posts

If you notice a trend that indicates an individual post is beginning to accrue more than average negative feedback, you may want to consider remove the post to help reduce damage to your average EdgeRank. This can also help your page to maintain the strongest possibility for a high-end EdgeRank.

“Virality”

Everyone knows that your content or media has a chance at going viral on a social media network. They are famous for this on a daily basis. You will now be able to view previously unseen real-time analysis of the viral lift to each piece of content you release. Users can then study how viral, organic, and paid impressions begin to interact with the content to create even further viral marketing opportunities.

Recent Posts

Users can monitor the individual performance and status of the most recent post by viewing impressions, clicks, engagement, and even negative feedback in real-time. Brand management can easily use this vital information to identify and cultivate the performance of each post to the fullest or manage damage control by pulling those negatives out quickly when needed.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

Sources:

How to Budget for Marketing

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Whatever it is, the budget you put in place for your marketing for the year ahead will shape the results you achieve. Now is the ideal time to define your marketing approach and the budget that will support it. In a recent Toluna survey of businesses, 40% of businesses surveyed stated that they did not feel that their marketing budget met all their marketing needs.
In tougher times, the marketing budget is often the first thing that is cut. Yet it is commonly known that companies which consistently market themselves in a recession perform better than those that don’t. So:

  • How can companies budget better to create the results they want?
  • What can companies do to budget effectively for the year ahead?

Fit your strategy around your target market

Strategy is everything in marketing.  But a separate strategy for your marketing and your sales approach will not deliver the best Return On Investment (ROI). Now is the best time to review your marketing approach in 2011 and identify what worked – and what didn’t. Then, apply this important data to your overall sales and marketing strategy. Which markets are you trying to reach? Which audiences do you want to grow in the coming year? Match this with your marketing approach and plan your marketing spends in careful stages, so that each part of the plan flows from one stage to another. Use inbound marketing technology to track the behaviour of your target markets and ensure that you are using the most appropriate marketing channels to reach them.  This will help you get more from your budget in 2012.

Track your ROI on marketing spend

Your marketing data from the past year will provide a valuable insight into what will work over the next 12 months. So carefully track the ROI you’ve gained this year and identify the activities that have created the best results.

Be ruthless in assessing what is paying you back and what is proving to be a drain on your resources

Would these areas work better with a different approach, perhaps using inbound marketing to accelerate results and make them more profitable? You can also use inbound marketing technology to closely assess and analyse the exact payback from each area of your marketing plan – and feed this knowledge into the year ahead. Put a plan in place for tracking your ROI. Inbound marketing allows you to do this continuously and consistently, letting you to adapt and refresh your marketing activities accordingly.

Create a cross-channel marketing budget

Are you currently using all the appropriate marketing channels? Did your approaches in 2011 feed across the different channels to maximise results – or did you only focus on a couple of areas?
Recent research suggests that companies using social media or “collaborative Web 2.0 technologies” are achieving higher profits. (Source: McKinsey)
Are you one of the companies missing out on a better marketing ROI by neglecting or misusing social media and other technologies?
By using inbound marketing you can connect up all your marketing channels much more effectively, making it easier to retain any potential customers – whatever stage of buying cycle they are at. You can create a cross-channel presence that reduces the cost of building a receptive and responsive brand profile. This approach also makes it much easier to budget for the year ahead. It gives you a core strategy which then feeds out across all the channels – bringing you a better ROI for 2012.

Adapt and update

While it is important to develop a clear strategy to get the best from your marketing budget, it is also important to continuously review and analyse your results. More conventional marketing approaches have traditionally made it quite hard to view the results as you go along. But new inbound marketing technology allows you to view the impact of every single aspect of your marketing approach – as it’s happening. Use this invaluable and on-going insight to adapt your strategy and ensure you make the most of your budget throughout 2012.

What is the secret to budgeting right for marketing in the year ahead?

Everybody wants to make their marketing budget work harder. So how can you ensure you do this in the months to come? Focus on your target market and what they’re doing. By using inbound marketing technology you can get closer to buyer behaviour and demand. You can use this insight to create more meaningful connections by building relationships across all the different marketing channels. This enables you to accelerate the relationships you build with your prospects. Instead of waiting for months to view the results, you can see who’s responding – and adapt your strategy to meet the demand there and then.  This ensures that your marketing spend is continuously matched with where it is most effective and that it feeds right back into your company’s sales and marketing strategy. Create your strategy, use advanced inbound marketing approaches to maximise your marketing impact and assess its impact while it’s live. Keep it consistent and targeted and you can look forward to a better ROI on your marketing budget in 2012.
Author: Sookie Shuen is the community manager at Tomorrow People, a leading UK inbound marketing consultancy. You can read more of Sookie’s content on inbound marketing by subscribing to the Zoober Inbound Marketing blog here. You can also find her on Google+ and Twitter.
Sources:

The Two Things Every Piece of Web Content Should Lead With

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When you’re crafting Web content, it can often feel like there are so many factors to consider, so many things to get caught up with, that it’s hard to ever prioritize what really matters most. You think about the style of your writing, specific conversion goals you’re working towards, promotional strategies for helping you to bring more eyes to your content—and yet one of the simplest parts of writing good Web content is often one of the most overlooked: do you know what your Web content should always begin with?
The secret about good Web copy is that it should always begin by stating who should read it and why they should read it. It’s that simple.
Why You Want to Say Who Should Read It
Whatever you’re writing, start by saying whom it’s for—Bloggers? Copywriters? Business owners? Stay-at-home moms? Whatever audience you’re targeting, let them know. Here’s why:

  • Shows That You Know:  Addressing your audience builds credibility. When readers see you’ve put the planning and thought into creating content to meet their needs—and that it does—they begin to trust that you’re a worthy source of information.
  • Addresses the Right Audience: While of course you want people to be reading your content, the fact is that not everyone will find it helpful or interesting. But by stating your audience upfront, you automatically target those individuals who are most likely to find value in what you’re saying.
  • Increases Effectiveness: Here’s the biggest reason to state your audience: it makes your content more effective. You’ve got to know your audience in order to reach them, and this is true in any industry, whether construction or travel, transportation or fashion.

Why You Want to Say Why They Should Read It

The very next question in a reader’s mind after knowing Web content is for them is this: what’s in it for me? Here are the benefits of answering that question:

  • Engages Your Audience: Writing to a specific audience is only half the battle—it’s just as important that you engage with them. And in terms of Web content, when readers know what’s in it for them, they are much more interested and willing to respond.
  • Communicates Value: Saying why someone should read your content is basically the same thing as sharing the benefits it offers. Maybe your content is going to answer a question or explain a topic thoroughly; maybe it will show how to do something or provide life-enriching stories that touch readers’ hearts. Whatever the case, make the benefits clear to communicate value.
  • Sets up Expectations You Will Meet: Giving readers a reason to read your content and then delivering on that reason gives them satisfaction, as well as the sense that you are someone who meets expectations. Likewise, it helps them track with you as they’re reading, staying interested throughout your writing.

Tips & Examples for Putting This into Practice

Maybe you’re reading the above tips and wondering what this looks like in actual Web content. Should every webpage start with the same, “This page is for X and you should read it Y”? Not exactly. Here are some tips for putting the two most important parts of content leads into practice.

  • Address the Reader Early: Begin your post by talking to the audience you’re addressing, kind of like this post does by starting with “when you’re crafting Web content.”  As soon as you see that, you know this post is for Web writers and by the end of the first paragraph, you know what it’s going to give them—the two key elements to starting any piece of content.
  • Use Your Title: Sometimes you might use the title to state your audience and why they should be reading, like Jacqui MacKenzie does in “How to Write Great Web Content If You’re Not a Writer.” In it, she says whom she’s writing to and why they should care all in that initial title phrase: non-writers, to learn how to write great Web content.
  • Through an Interesting Intro: Some webpages and online articles are most powerful not through a super-direct title but through a more vague or nuanced one, used to build interest and anticipation. In Craig E. Yaris’s post, “The Need to Blog,” for example, the title alone doesn’t give his specific audience or intention away. Will this be about why people should blog? Why they need to blog? What to do about it? He opens with a story that leads into a more clear audience and purpose statement in the fourth paragraph, phrased as a question, “But, where does the average small business owner find that good information to write about?”

What other strategies have you used or can you think of for implementing these two important keys to beginning Web content? Or if these ideas are new to you, how could they impact the effectiveness of your Web writing?
Author:
Shanna Mallon is a writer for Straight North, a leading Chicago SEO firm. She writes for clients in various B2B industries, from broadcasting equipment suppliers to flame resistant apparel. Check out the Straight North blog! @straightnorth
 Sources:

BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2012 NY [Event]

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The BlogWorld Social Media Conference and Expo returns to New York again this year from June 5th through 7th as a must-attend social media networking and educational event. They are expecting thousands of attendees from over 50 countries with more than 200 speakers for the event. With a great trade-show planned this may be the only industry-encompassing event that will help bring together those in the content creation and publishing businesses together.

BlogWorld Speakers

There will be many notable speakers attending the BlogWorld Social Media Conference and Expo in 2012.

Greg Cargill –  VP of Client Services for Social & Media, Blitz

Greg’s professional career is focused on helping celebrities, brands, and products develop awareness through strategic and internet partnerships. Greg and his team at bigMethod have worked with some of the world’s largest brands such as City of Hope, Harley-Davidson, and Honda. They have successfully brought these organizations to the online social media marketing landscape. bigMethod was recently aquired by Blitz agency.

Greg will host a session called What Makes Big Brands Spend Money on Your Blog. He will share key points such as:

  • What makes brands decide to spend money on a blog
  • How much do they spend?

Linus Chou –  Product Manager, Google

Product manager for Google Analytics, Linus Chou focuses on social attribution as well as real time analytics products. Before arriving at Google, he was an engineer for display advertising at Amazon.com.

Linus will host a session called Measuring Social Media Using Google Analytics. His key points will be.

  • Always measure ROI
  • Understanding  how social channels are generating conversions for your business
  • Learn the difference between upper and lower funnel social channels and what that can mean for your social media marketing campaigns.

Katie Richman – Director of Social Media Strategy , ESPN / espnW

Director of Social Media Strategy for ESPN Digital Media, Katie Richman is part of the startup team that is building ESPN’s women’s sports business. Katie began her career in 2001 with MTV Networks Brand Creative and moved onto Oxygen Media in their startup days as well.

Katie will be hosting a session titled Creation, Curation and Collection: Getting to know Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr with key points focused on providing a good understanding of tastes, metrics and segmentation options as well as information on cutting edge platforms.

Who Should Attend?

Anyone who publishes online can benefit from the knowledge shared at this event. Content creators, publishers, bloggers, podcasters, radio and WebTV broadcasters will benefit from new understanding on topics such as trending strategies, best practices, and trusted techniques to improve content creation and monetization.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

Sources:

Turning Downloads into Leads

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A download symbol.
A download symbol. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Do you have an eBook, whitepaper, or newsletter available as a download online? If so, you may want to consider that many business owners have been able to turn those downloads into direct leads and even clients. Downloads can be a great source of lead generation for several reasons.

  • At any given moment, tons of people from virtually every industry are on the hunt for educational material for themselves, their businesses, their employees.
  • Providing free material can help to build your business’s brand and reach by getting your name, and your link, in various places around the net.
  • Often those who use your material will credit you on their site, generating an even wider coverage for your business, possibly in areas even you may have not considered relevant previously.

What are You Offering?

Make sure before you begin trying to generate leads that you have a strategic foundation in place. Will you be sharing a Whitepaper, eBook, Newsletter as a download? All of those are great ideas, but implementing the plan requires great thought combined with aggressive action.

  • Choose the industry in which you plan to focus your marketing efforts.
  • Develop your marketing message that includes the answer to the problem you are solving with your offered content.
  • Get visible.

Whether you plan to offer your material on your own site or to branch out and have it added on any accepting format online you can find, may determine the speed at which your content can spread across the web. There are just as many reasons to promote content aggregation regardless of the content as long as viewers will be brought to a landing page where they can sign up for your free download and grab it via instant download, or even in an auto-email attachment.

Gather an Email List for Future Efforts

These days you can always combine your offered download strategy with your own need to generate a customer list for email campaigns, newsletters, and more. To do so you simply need to require users, whether on a website, a social network page, or even a blog, to enter their email to proceed to the download.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

Sources:

Optimizing Content Creation for Conversions

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Content can mean everything to a small business that is based online. While having a high search ranking may bring in more traffic, it doesn’t always equal more sales. However, marketers who make a focused effort on creating only the highest quality content can not only improve their positions on search engine rankings, but also obtain more conversions than those who go with more mass produced, lesser quality content.

Putting Your Content to Work for You

Creating content isn’t just a simple matter of tossing up blog post about your products or services and hoping it promotes or sells itself. In a time where businesses of any size are swiftly becoming media outlets in their own right by publishing their own original insights related to their industries, companies should not ignore the opportunity to be a part of the conversation on their own with high-quality and original content marketing.

However, it is important to remember that just publishing high-quality content is still not enough. It is important to focus on how you can put that content to work to help you attain your personal business goals online, covering everything from attracting relevant site traffic to helping direct your visitors to your most valuable conversion or ecommerce pages. The right content marketing campaign will involve strategic planning and a constant and consistent execution if a business intends to increase online conversions. Optimizing your content

How to Accelerate Lead Quality and Conversion

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZzF4qzP7vo]

What is Content?

By now you likely know that content can be any number of things. Everything from eBooks, blog posts, webinars, podcasts, case studies and more can be very educational, relevant, high-quality content that brings audiences back to your site and with each return, closer to your valuable conversion pages or links. Make sure that your content supports your own business goals and the educational needs or wants of your target audience.

Content Marketing Strategies

There are a few optimal thoughts to keep in mind and keep your websites content focused on.

  • Content should speak to the content audience
  • Identify the goals you expect your content to achieve
  • Create your audience profile
  • Do your keyword research

As with any type of content, anytime, it is incredibly vital to have a content writer who can engage your readers effectively. We have covered some of the best ways to fit a content writer to your specific needs on DBMEi with several of our professional freelance authors and guest contributors content. Take the time to check them out.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

Sources:

Snaptag Versus QR Codes

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QR codes have been a new and unique source of executing mobile marketing campaigns in recent times. Many seem to not only enjoy participating by using them, but have actually begun to look for offers from those with QR codes and may even have begun to ignore those that do not have them at all.

What is a QR Code?

QR is short for quick response and that is exactly the purpose of the QR code. These codes take an element of data from transitory media and sends it to your mobile device. The code will give you details about that business, item, or even discount information on products and services.

QR Codes are more useful than a standard barcode in that they can store a more data and a wider variety of it. QR codes commonly include URL links, text, coordinates and more.

How Does This Benefit Businesses?

Most marketers are well aware that mobile marketing is becoming increasingly more important, almost by the day. No method of advertising could be easier than one that consumers reach out for, instead of being asked to look. QR codes allows those consumers who prefer not to be barraged with overt marketing tactics to choose where they will show interest in a product or service.

There is really no limit to the options that can be embedded in a QR code.

  • Running a restaurant? – Embed a great recipe, a buy a meal get one free discount, a special on this evenings dessert.
  • Authors – Add a QR code to the back of your book that enables a consumer to get extra features or hidden endings to your script.
  • Good health practices – Doctors, or other medically related practices can add good tips and tricks for healthy living to their QR codes, update them every month for innovative creativity in the medical field.

Vital Aesthetics Arrive to QR Coding

Traditionally, QR codes have retained a Rorschach look to them, leaving the responsibility on the advertiser to make sure consumers know whose QR code they are scanning. However, with Snaptags, QR codes and increasing brand awareness have meshed nicely. Snaptags have traded out that whole inkblot look for a code ring that serves the same functional purpose.

Who is Using Snaptags?

Because of the applied branding ability on Snaptags not previously available on QR’s, we can now see who is actively using them.

Picture c/o http://www.socialsnaptags.com/

Snaptags Cons?

Although Snaptags no doubt win out in the aesthetic element, there are other issues that can make Snaptags less beneficial than they appear. Many venture because of the supporting copy, Snaptags are not as easily accessible as QR codes. Snaptag stands by the fact that all advertisers would need to do is determine the required supporting copy, but this does lend itself to the inaccessible accusation.

Many current QR code advertisers agree that if a mobile marketing campaign is managed correctly, the aesthetic element of the Snaptags versus traditional QR’s is hardly advantageous.

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