Tag: content marketing

User-Generated Content: Transforming Customer Reviews into Marketing Gold

User-Generated Content: Transforming Customer Reviews into Marketing Gold

Most businesses understand the need for cutting-edge marketing in an increasingly competitive environment. This is where user-generated content can be a veritable game-changer. With evolving consumer behaviour, tried-and-testing marketing playbooks are changing rapidly. Social media usage has increased exponentially, making digital marketing a vital component of the overall strategy for companies. India had around 755 million users of social media in 2022 while Statista has also estimated that this will go up to 1.17 billion users by the year 2027. Another disruptive aspect is performance marketing, giving more freedom in terms of tracking brand reach and coordinating marketing initiatives to sustain bigger campaigns. This focuses majorly on profitability and revenues.  Now in this context, it is worth mentioning that brands have realised how essential it is to scale up their overall visibility, especially in the eyes of modern-day consumers in order to build that coveted connection with them. With user-generated content, brands can offer customers a unique chance to contribute actively towards the growth of the brand without sitting back and watching the action. UGC marketing strategies have become vital in terms of influencing the purchase decisions of consumers while enabling brands to scale up their visibility and market reach while achieving their desired growth objectives.  What is Meant by User-Generated Content?  User-generated content is also called content generated by consumers. This refers to brand-based and original content from customers published throughout multiple channels including social media platforms. UGC marketing strategies encompass various aspects including videos, images, reviews, testimonials and even podcasts.  Customer reviews or user reviews in marketing campaigns contribute immensely at every stage of the buyer journey, spurring higher engagement and driving conversions accordingly. Customer-focused content can be used extensively throughout social media platforms, checkout pages, landing pages, emails and many other strategic locations.  How Does User-Generated Content Help?  User-generated content like customer reviews and videos can help considerably in the following ways.  It can thus be said that UGC is here to stay and how. Most buyers today look for customer reviews before making a final purchase decision. Hence, more brands will look to leverage user reviews in marketing campaigns in order to connect better with their customers. The multifarious types of UGC can be used at every buying stage for enhancing not just conversions and sales, but also engagement levels and the overall ROI (return on investment). Authenticity is the need of the hour for brands along with originality. UGC is what ticks the boxes on both these counts.  It also contributes positively to the overall reputation and progress of the brand, since consumers get directly involved in the brand’s journey. They turn into unofficial brand ambassadors and play vital roles in fostering the growth and development of their favourite brands. This contributes to deeper relationships that have a positive spill-over effect and rub off neatly in terms of attracting newer people to the community. Brands can thus leverage these communities to not only make them feel more involved and a part of their growth stories but also to garner steady traffic and responses to their campaigns and launches.  FAQs What are the benefits of incorporating customer reviews and testimonials into marketing campaigns? There are several advantages of incorporating customer testimonials and reviews into marketing campaigns. People trust reviews provided by actual customers and these contents also work as proof of the brand’s promises and claims regarding the benefits of its product or service. User-generated content is more authentic helps establish brand loyalty and drives higher conversions and traffic.  What strategies can companies use to encourage customers to create and share user-generated content? Companies can harness diverse strategies to encourage customers to create and share user-generated content. These include launching contests, asking for valuable feedback, creating customer engagement programs, creating ambassador programs, offering rewards, and giving customers a launch pad to be more visible across multiple channels.  Are there any ethical or legal considerations when using customer-generated content in marketing materials? Some of the legal and ethical considerations include safeguarding the privacy of the user and his/her personal details. At the same time, brands should obtain legal consent before featuring any user-generated content. All information shared should be accurate and non-misleading in any case.

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Effective marketing strategies for the pharmaceutical industry

Effective Marketing Strategies For The Pharmaceutical Industry To Achieve Growth

Growth marketing for healthcare is an area of focus that often goes neglected. Every pharmaceutical business requires a strategic and dedicated marketing blueprint, one that keeps evolving with the growth of the business as well.  It should have sizable flexibility for staying in sync with market circumstances and other disruptions as well.  The key objectives of healthcare marketing strategies would be scaling up brand engagement and awareness, building a reputation for reliability and trust, communicating information about new treatments and pharmaceutical product launches, and so on.  Of course, the end goal is also higher visibility, revenues and sales, along with ROI.  Here are some best practices for pharmaceutical or medical marketing which may be followed for enhancing growth across diverse channels/verticals:  Have Your Audience In Mind Are you marketing for doctors? Or are you marketing for a retail consumer base? You should first define your audience before embarking on pharma and healthcare digital marketing drives.  Set Your Targets Clearly What are your core objectives? Is it penetrating deeper into the market? Is it the promotion of existing treatments and drugs for a newer market? Is it the introduction of new treatments or drugs? Is it otherwise diversifying, i.e. retailing newer treatments or medicines for a wider audience? Chalk it out before starting off.  Have your USPs Listed Out Once you build your USPs, selling and marketing products will be easier. Create differentiators based on product quality, service, and overall track record, pricing, fulfillment timelines, and other parameters.  Do Some Market Research Ask questions to your target audience. Get their insights to learn more about their needs and preferences. Also do your homework on the communication platforms used by your target audience, the emerging trends in the market, the experience you wish to build for this audience, and differentiators from your rivals.  Have Your KPIs (key performance indicators) Clearly Laid Down These metrics may include average revenues, non-prescription sales, overall profits/revenues/sales, and more. Marketing Activities That May Help You  Update and maintain your website which showcases your company in the best possible manner.  Your site should be mobile friendly.  Make it easier for your target audience to access vital information online.  Have resource sections and guides that might help.  Invest in SEO, blogging, and forum activity.  Connect with doctors through online communities worldwide.  Build your company presence across social media channels.  Use CRM for garnering data about all leads and use it for relationship building. Use this data for send personalized greetings, messages, after-sales support, customized email and other marketing campaigns, free samples, offers, and more.  Build posters and other visual interfaces which can attract a higher number of prospective customers.  Optimize your network-building activities by participating in online discussions, professional events, and more.   Target every audience segment differently.  Always focus on the patient and try to offer solutions to varied needs.  You should have measurable KPIs including the new contract figures, monetary values, number of leads qualified/engaged, net sales figures, revenue growth, operational cash flows, retention figures, and percentage of market share.  Other indicators include traffic to your website, SEO rankings, rates of conversion, and overall engagement on social media.

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Top Reasons why video marketing should be part of your 2018 strategy

Chris Anderson in his igneous TED Talk said, “What Gutenberg’s printing press did for writing, online video did for face-to-face communication. That primal medium has now gone global; it’s like reinventing an ancient art form.” The audio-visual medium helps shed a bright light on potent ideas, thus creating an intense desire for learning and response. It is perhaps the most powerful way to communicate your brand story, explain your value proposition, and build relationships with your customers and prospects today. Digital Video Marketing has slowly become a larger piece of the content marketing pie. Tech giants and venture capitalists around the world have predicted that video marketing is the future of online content marketing and 2017 has truly been the year of video marketing. According to Forbes, “An insatiable appetite for video among users, paired with better technology for making, posting and targeting social updates, sees companies now spending more money on social and digital ads than on TV advertising.”       Looking back at the year that’s been: 43% of prospective customers want to see more video content from marketers 9% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI 85% of businesses now have in-house production teams and internal resources to shoot promotional videos 35% of businesses are using intermediate or advanced analytics to measure video performance Personalized videos retain more viewers till the very second than non personalized ones People spend on average 6x more time on pages with video than without People have always been drawn towards moving images. Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% while reading the text. Even until a few years ago, we could send and receive only text messages on our mobile devices. But today, we send and receive animated GIFs and short videos on WhatsApp. Videos are; undoubtedly, much more effective than text and it is no wonder that video digital marketing has taken the world by storm. The advent and popularity of YouTube have changed the way how we watched videos. Today, with almost all the social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) having video hosting platforms and live features, video consumption has increased astronomically and has become a large share of internet traffic. A new way of looking By 2018, Cisco predicts that 82% of all consumer Internet traffic will be video. It also forecasts that Consumer Video-on-Demand (VoD) traffic will nearly double by 2021. Here are some of the evolving trends with respect to video marketing to make a splash in 2018: Live Video and Stories on Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat are set to occupy a major fraction of online video content. Trends show that video consumption is at least two times more when it comes to videos recorded live as compared to those pre-recorded. Facebook today is giving YouTube a run for its money with its new and more accessible video recording and uploading features such as Live Video and Lifestage. Video stories enable entrepreneurs to add a personal touch to their value proposition; the stories have a daylong lifespan which can also be capitalized because it helps enterprises showcase their dynamic and evolving nature, driving them to spin new stories out of their products or services every day which again affects engagement. Video can now be consumed on mute and in square aspect ratios, making video sharing, hosting and watching more flexible and novel than ever before. Around half the videos on Facebook are streamed without sound. Just like in films, messing with aspect ratios in promotional content on social media too garners special attention from the mass. 360-degree videos and Virtual Reality (VR) projects are being increasingly used by business enterprises, especially the B2C sector, to present their products in a more attractive fashion. Video mapping is also creating a visible impact when combined successfully and unobtrusively with online marketing strategies. Last October, Facebook unveiled Oculus Go, a new VR headset that is reputed to be very user-friendly and an easy option for developers to be introduced to VR. Forbes expects you to see AI and related tools play an ever more important behind-the-scenes role in sharing audio-visual messages. Advancement in technology will soon enable proprietors and entrepreneurs to test social media Ad variations in huge numbers at the same time. Analytics becomes an important part of online marketing, in determining which images and text will get the most clicks. In the near future, users will soon be able to “automate campaigns so that the best-performing posts are instantly boosted to the biggest audience”. Integrating video marketing into your business plan is no longer a luxury but a necessity to keep up with the global revolution that has been brought about by the emergence of the online video. Today, videos generate global recognition which drives huge amounts of effort and attention either indirectly through comments, ratings, word of mouth or directly by the number of views. Bandwidth has exploded a hundredfold and the intricate network of innovators, commenters, mavericks, skeptics, superspreaders, and trendspotters catalyze the process of making a video viral. Brian Halligan from Hubspot recommends that at least 50% of your content mix be video. Video platforms within apps and embedded videos within the website have managed to engage more users today. HubSpot says, 96% of B2B organizations use video in some capacity in their marketing campaigns of which 73% report positive results to their ROI. Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. If you’re worried about a massive hit to your budget, remember that your video content doesn’t have to be highly-produced. Live video is quickly becoming a tool that gives brands a high level of reach and engagement on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, so take full advantage. Here are four reasons why you should include video marketing in your marketing plan and how videos can be effective for your business. Videos build trust Videos encourage social sharing Videos boost search engine

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Haven’t Included Video In Your Digital Marketing Mix? Wait No Further, We Say

A picture is worth a thousand words. But today, we can also say a video is worth a thousand words. Videos are, undoubtedly, much more effective than text and presently, video marketing has taken the world by storm. The advent and popularity of YouTube have changed the way how we watched videos. Today, with almost all the social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) having video platforms, video consumption has increased astronomically and has become a large share of internet traffic. Snapchat generates nearly 10 billion daily video views. According to Cisco, IP video traffic will be 82 % of all consumer Internet traffic by 2021. It also predicted that Consumer Video-on-Demand (VoD) traffic will nearly double by 2021. Now, if you have already integrated video marketing in your business plan, then you and your business are on the right track. And if not, then it’s high time you do so. Did you know an average one minute of video is equal to 1.8 million words? People have always been drawn towards moving images. Just imagine even a few years ago, we used to mostly receive text messages on WhatsApp. But today, we send and receive animated GIFs and short videos on WhatsApp. According to eMarketer, today an average American spends nearly nine hours a week watching videos online.  Do you know that 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week? Now, videos with less than 30 seconds duration have 88.3% completion rate. Also, the in-app video advertising platforms and embedded videos within the website have managed to engage more users in today’s time. So, if you want your business to be smart, then you should be smart enough to include video marketing in your digital marketing mix. The tech giants and venture capitalists around the world have predicted that video marketing is the future of online content marketing and 2017 is the year of video marketing.  Also, HubSpot says, 96 % of B2B organizations use video in some capacity in their marketing campaigns of which 73% report positive results to their ROI. Now, if you are still in two minds whether to take the advantage of this video marketing boom, then this is the year to take the plunge. We will provide you with top 4 reasons why you should include video marketing in your marketing plan and how videos can be effective for your business. Videos build trust Videos encourage social sharing Videos boost search engine rankings  Videos help in getting better email marketing click-through rate   Videos build trust Scottish author George MacDonald had said, “To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.” If you are in the business, then your most important priority should be to “establish trust and win the confidence of your clients and customers.” And if you can retain the faith of your consumers, your job on the hand becomes easier. But gaining trust isn’t an easy job either. However, in this case, videos can come to the rescue and the level of engagement of the consumers and clients can increase manifold if your videos are beguiling and interactive. According to HubSpot, 64 % of users are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video. Also, 80% of users recall a video ad they have watched in the past one month. There are four types of videos you can make to increase the level of trust with the consumers. These videos create an emotional connection with the consumers and clients, which is paramount to keep the business running strong. Testimonial videos Explainer videos Product videos Company story videos According to Digital Information World, 33 % of tablet owners watch about an hour of video on their devices every day. YouTube has already become one of the most powerful and watched video platforms. Even a few years ago, video marketing was thought to be practiced only by established firms, but today, the scenario has undergone a sea change. From a startup to SME, everyone tries to include video marketing in their marketing plan. Santanu Mukherjee, head of Digital Marketing, Indus Net Technologies, informs that explaining a product or service in the form of lengthy content to a customer is actually putting a pressure on them. Also, as a marketer, he informs, he never tries to sell a product. Rather, he tries to establish a relationship with the consumer and videos enable marketers to build trust. “A customer or a client will prefer to watch an explainer video of one minute than reading a three-page brochure,” he says. He also mentions that if the video has the presence of a personality, which represents the brand, then it enhances trust and builds a connection with the virtual audience. Santanu also mentions that edutainment video, which means proving education through entertainment, is on the rise. “These videos have a greater chance of winning the trust of the consumers,” he says. However, he also cautions that the success of video marketing depends on effective and innovative planning, proper implementation and promotion. Credit: Replay Science Videos encourage social sharing The more your video is shared, the more audience you reach and higher are the chances of conversion. And as we all know, the more conversions, the more chances of getting sales. Just imagine how many of the auto-play videos on Facebook do you share on a daily basis?  Though we might not always like these “auto-play videos” but it can’t be denied that these videos have managed to up the engagement level. Also, with the increasing usage of smart devices, video sharing on social networks has taken a huge leap. 92% of mobile video consumers share videos with others, says HubSpot. Facebook today is giving YouTube a run for its money through its various video features such as Live Video and Lifestage.  TechCrunch reported in 2016 that over 100 million hours of videos are watched on Facebook every day. As a brand, you should not miss out

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Why Brand Activation that Fosters Engagement Is Important and How to Do It?

Every brand needs to have a compelling story behind it to support itself. Without a narrative, a brand is all but marketing noise to the target audience. If you want your target audience to take you seriously, you will need to support your brand with a story that touches the hearts and souls of your target audience. When you combine this narrative in a visual manner with personal interaction, the brand comes to life. This process is known as brand activation. What is brand activation? Brand activation integrates different media, communication platforms and creative tools to stimulate interest, trial and loyalty. So far, we have only focused on advertising, which communicates the existence of a product or a service to the audience. It may also persuade the buyer to purchase or to be informed. However, brand activation stimulates the act of buying. It encourages, pushes, cajoles and inspires the buying process. It is for this reason that brands need to have a compelling story that strikes the note with your target audience emotionally and cognitively. When a brand is thus activated using various forms of media and a solid creative basis, people will begin to find you relevant, convincing and important. Why is it important? Brand activation that fosters engagement helps in: Boosting brand loyalty Fulfilling buyer needs Appealing to senses Satisfying market needs and demands Enhances sales However, the goal of brand activation shouldn’t necessarily be focused on the buying process like most authorities and academics would tell you. Instead, it should focus on fostering engagement. In this article, let us take a look at how we can activate a brand to foster engagement. What a good brand activation routine looks like A good brand activation program follows a multi-channel approach. You will need to combine social, digital and real life engagement in order to activate emotions and behaviors that are desired. In other words, brand activation ensures that certain behaviors and emotions are activated each time a prospect encounters your brand. To ensure that this happens, you will probably need to create inspiring content, events, activities and other experiences which inspire the customers to act. All this requires you to study consumer behavior closely and personalize the entire experience. It is important to remember that brand activation does not follow a format, and you will probably have to create your own model to chart success in these kinds of programs. However, you can follow certain general rules that help in creating brand activation that foster engagement. The more you make these branding experiences interactive, the higher your chances of creating an engaging experience that translates to brand loyalty. Thus, you will have to focus on making experiences interactive and tie these experiences with your brand’s story. Support your brand with a compelling story The most important aspect of any brand activation exercise is to connect with the target audience. This can only happen when you create a compelling story with which your target audience can relate. In other words, make your products or services accessible. This helps the target audience to interact with your content, events and experiences. Tie all these together with your brand, and ensure that you reinforce desired behavior. The story should act as a glue to connect the target audience with your behavior, so that it activates longing, desire, inspiration and other positive emotions. Use social and digital tools to enhance Engagement One simply cannot look away from social media, if one were to enhance engagement. It is then no wonder that social media and digital platforms are an integral part of brand activation. Infuse the story or the narrative into your social posts and digital marketing campaigns, so that there is always a shadow of your brand in everything that you communicate. Whenever there is engagement, allude to your brand narrative directly or indirectly. Inspire, nurture and influence your audience Your brand activation exercises should be first and foremost inspiring. They should inspire your target audience to take interest, try and then keep coming back for more. Secondly, nurture those who show interest in your branding exercises. Continuous activation leads to hard-wiring of a particular behavior, and this is neuroscience. So, nurture those who engage so that they become hardwired to respond to your brand narrative positively. Thirdly, influence your audience with expertise and quality. Weave these qualities into your brand narrative and ensure that you reinforce engagement when it happens. Create experiences, not just branding exercises Brand activation is inherently tied to branding exercises, both online and offline. However, remember to create experiences that take the brand narrative into account. Always remember that the purpose of the brand activation is to promote or inspire a desired behavior while pairing your brand narrative with something positive. For this to happen, create experiences that are unique and that which are tied to your brand narrative. Use every creative media to weave the story with events, content and experiences, so that there is more engagement. Make brand activation a part of your overall marketing strategy Brand activation is not a onetime exercise. It needs to be an ongoing and year-round activity whose success is measured and analyzed. For this reason, you will need to start quantifying your brand activation exercises. Analyze the success, growth and goals that are met with the help of brand activation. Accordingly, make changes to the strategy so that there is more engagement. Focus on engagement Indeed, the focus of any brand activation strategy should involve engagement. Engagement is one of the most important ingredients of brand activation. Your target audience needs to engage with your brand narrative when they are exposed to visual, sensory, auditory or other forms of stimuli. Only when they feel inspired to act and engage, and then take action will your branding activation be successful. So, always bear in mind that along with creating a compelling story, you should also focus on boosting engagement.

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How to Reach New Customers amidst Online Noise

There is a lot of noise out there, with blogs becoming the norm for every company to reach their target audience, and also to boost traffic to the website. There is also a lot of noise originating on social media, with every company making claims and with people talking about these companies too, without much basis or evidence. Some rate certain products and services highly and some, poorly. Yet, one can never tell if these reviews, blogs, or social conversations are unbiased or if they come with certain shady intentions. Nevertheless, if you are selling genuine products and services, there is a way to reach new customers amidst all this online noise. The main modus operandi is to persist. Persistence pays off very well, especially when it comes to remaining online, and remaining relevant. Companies that are looking at making a quick buck will usually lose interest in blogging or in social media campaigns, which need to be ongoing and relevant throughout. These companies often tend to be erratic and sometimes even dramatic, when it comes to posting online. Much of online noise is from companies like this. On the other hand, genuine companies that really want to inform their target audience and still reach new customers tend to be persistent with their content marketing efforts. This is because; they truly have something lasting to contribute. To reach new customers online despite the noise, here is what you should be doing: [php snippet=1] Slow and steady wins the race When it comes to content marketing, you need to be slow and steady. What does this mean? Should you post 4 blogs a month or 8? Or should you post 20 blogs a week? The answer really depends on your ability and also, what you can provide to the community. If you run out of topics or information related to your product or service, you will not have much useful content to write after a while. So, probably, it is a good idea to remain slow and steady, and publish as much content is required. This could be anywhere between 4 and whatever number you would like to publish. Just ensure that you can blog for years, and not weeks or months. Be patient and persistent Rome wasn’t built in a day. Likewise, your content marketing strategy cannot be solidified within a month or two. It takes time to get the strategy going, and it takes even longer to see the results. However, when you start seeing organic traffic coming your way, you will realize that your efforts are well worth it. However, you need to be patient and persistent in your approach. With patience, you will research better, publish more often without feeling pressurized and you will be able to publish regularly, instead of going on an overdrive and then not publishing at all. Do your research Before publishing any blog or post, you need to research your topic well. Most blogs published today are not well researched, and they are simply published to generate traffic. You should not publish anything with traffic in mind. You should consider every content piece of yours to be a sales document, which will last for a long time. This requires a lot of research. Put together resources, studies, numbers etc before you publish a post. Develop a content niche You cannot possibly publish blogs on all topics related to your field. You should not be doing that anyway, as that will likely seem like noise to your readers. The more general your topics are, the more chances of your message getting diluted. You need to find that sweet spot where you do not come across as a person with an obsession for topic specificity, and at the same time, you do not become so vague that your message is lost. Be genuine in your communication There is nothing worse than inauthentic messages and blogs. You need to develop your own voice and provide content that is engaging. Engage with your readers in a manner that is authentic and honest. Do not communicate in a manner that does not come across as genuine. Being genuine helps you to connect with readers, and they will be more amenable to receiving your sales message. After all, you need to be making those sales happen at the end of a content marketing campaign. And, content marketing campaigns do not end. They go on. The take home message As you can see, online noise can be a very annoying problem to handle. There are a number of companies out there, all trying to create a buzz about their own products and services. With so much of noise online, it becomes difficult for you to stand out, yet, all is not lost. Most of the companies tend to be either creating noise for the sake of attention or for the sake of grabbing as many customers as possible. The good news is, content marketing is not something that will pay off dividends overnight. It needs a slow and steady approach. If you have a genuine product or service, you can be persistent with your content marketing strategy and remain relevant for a long time. The take home message is that you should be slow and steady with content marketing efforts and that you should not look for quick results. You must be patient and persistent, and always look towards creating content assets that will last for years and that which will remain relevant even after a long time. Before publishing anything online, do your research. Ensure that all your content is backed or supported by research. Do not create content that is only remotely connected with your actual product or service. Find your niche and develop content that is relevant. In other words, develop a niche. Most importantly, be as honest and genuine as you can be, when you communicate with readers and followers. This will help you to stand out from the rest of the noise online.

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The Relationship between Content Marketing and Conversions

An excessive amount of junk content is produced online and visitors often get overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of content. Content marketing is focused towards producing only relevant, quality and valuable content to enhance customer experience online. Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to influence visitors and take them ahead in the purchase cycle.  It is an educated way of marketing that genuinely creates brand awareness, builds trust and helps consumers to find appropriate solutions for their problems. Content marketing is a long-term strategy that needs consistent publishing of first-rate content. Marketers pursuing content marketing goals spend a lot of time and money in producing content for their visitors. However, is it worth the pain to spend all those resources on content marketing? Marketers are always skeptical to predict ROI when they go ahead with a content marketing campaign. An important parameter to calculate ROI is lead conversion. What is the impact of content marketing on lead conversion? What effect does it have on the bottom line of the company? There are different factors that affect conversion. The purpose of this article is to understand the relationship between content marketing and conversion. Content accelerates sales Purchase cycle of your company may differ from others. Ideally, it begins from an unaware customer to a customer who buys from you. It is important to design content keeping in mind the prospects in the purchase cycle.  Content needs differ at different levels of purchase cycle and it should be able to fulfill needs of prospects at every level of the sales funnel.  This brings them one step closer to purchase. [php snippet=1] On-site content improves online presence Good content attracts new visitors to your website every day It frequently provides fresh content to search engines Authoritative and authentic information builds trust among followers Educative content is always appreciated by visitors who seek more information about your product. This gives them a reason to return to your website Blogging Blogging is an effective way of sharing content as it positively affects your ROI It generates a consistent flow of traffic It improves your search engine ranking It converts your visitors into leads Role of social media to push content Marketers use user information on social media to precisely target content Marketers can freely interact with followers on social media It is a platform for visitors to openly express their opinion User sentiment on social media helps marketers to create tailor-made content Good content is always liked and shared on social media There are a number of social media platforms available. Choose the platform that is used more by your target audience. You need to identify leads from a list of followers.  Try to engage them even more through direct messaging and chatting. Go to any extent to resolve their queries. Henceforth, the probability of turning leads into customers multiplies. Content curation Content curation is a smart method of content marketing. Here, you need not create original content. Marketers need to find, organize, and add value to existing third party content. Expand your content reach You are promoting other people’s content for your benefit.  So, it is a win-win situation for both the parties.  Other bloggers and marketers get more exposure because of you. Similarly, they would be interested in promoting your content. This gives you more visibility and ultimately more leads. Summative content Curated content gives you a chance to provide visitors with all sources of information they seek.  This saves their time and they are likely to become your loyal visitors.  Loyal visitors are more inclined towards conversion. Curated content is unbiased Since you collect information from different sources, there is vastness in your opinion.  Content shared is not opinionated and visitors can form their own opinion. This creates room for healthy discussion.  Thus, curated content is more engaging. Long-form content Long-form content is an elaborative approach towards content marketing. This approach is suitable for prospects higher in the purchase cycle.  Long-form content may include research report, eBook, white paper, case study, tutorial content in the form of videos , infographic etc. Long-form content is useful for visitors who are looking forward to learn much more than basic information.  It is an interesting way to increase your email leads. Consumers are willing to share their email Id if they get something in return. Marketers often use this approach on their blogs by offering users to download content in exchange of their email id. Measure the impact of your content marketing campaign Measuring the impact of your campaign is important to understand how it adds to your sales revenue. Conversion goals should be clearly defined There are a number of tools available to measure your goals.  As a marketer, you can define a number of goals that you consider suitable for increasing conversion. Such goals may include expanding: Social media followers Newsletter subscriptions Website traffic Brand mentions Leads from task completion  How well do you measure and manage your content marketing campaign? Content marketing needs a well-defined strategy for creating and distributing content. The content you create should be evergreen and have the potency to be used time and again when required. It is essential to create metrics attributed to your defined goals. This helps you to measure the result of certain content posted on a certain platform. Accordingly, you can boost your efforts and allocate more resources for a specific type of content on a specific platform. On the contrary, it could be possible that your sales rose because of the organic upgrade in your search engine rankings due to some change in search engine algorithm and not due to the content marketing campaign. In such a scenario, you will realize that investing further in content production and distribution is insignificant. Conversion through content marketing is a long-term process It is essential to understand that the success of content marketing campaign can’t be measured in real-time. It is a gradual process that initiates with traffic generation. Once you are

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Importance of Blogging in the World of eCommerce

There is a misconception in the business world today that a blog is quite expensive and difficult to maintain. Many business owners also believe that blogging is more suitable for showcasing services as people would be purchasing something intangible. If one is selling products, there really is no need to write blogs, or so goes the belief. Unfortunately, this is not true. A blog drives traffic and all website owners agree that they need more traffic. A blog can do a lot more than you think it does Email newsletters, direct sales and marketing can only go so far and will not add anything of importance to the website. A blog, on the other hand, ensures that there is informative content that can be indexed by search engines. While your SEO improves, people will also be able to find your products because of the blogs you write. There are a number of times when people are interested in purchasing your products but do not do so because they do not find the product description convincing enough. Product descriptions are just that, they do not add anything of value to your brand. When blogs are written for shoppers with their interests and thought processes in mind, you will gradually realize that people often read your blog and then decide to purchase your products. Blogs also help in nurturing your leads and providing post-sales information. Most of the times, people stop themselves from making purchases because they have not decided yet. If you narrate compelling stories that are informative and entertaining, you have made your job much easier. People will already be hooked to your website and purchase what you probably sell on your website. It is common for people to purchase ingredients recommended by online recipe blogs than the advertisements that they see on the right sidebar. This is because most people have an innate tendency to believe those who are well informed. If you know what your products do and how they will be used by your consumers, all you need to do is write blog posts about that. When people are looking for a solution, they will find your blog post and have that eureka moment. Invest in blogging The most important message to take from this article is that if you are running an eCommerce store, it is in your best interests to invest in a blog. Of course, blogs are not cheap and they are difficult to maintain. You can always hire great writers who will write excellent stories that will captivate the imagination of the readers. These are the very readers whom you want to attract to your product pages. Once you write frequently (or even infrequently), your credibility as a company increases. People will know that you are not just an eCommerce store trying to sell products. They begin to realize that you know what you are selling and that it will be useful to those who purchase them.

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Why You Must Avoid Sensational Titles in Articles

We have all come across those attention grabbing titles, which seem interesting enough to click but when you open the page, it is a mere disappointment. Sometimes, the article is not even about what the title made you think it was about. This kind of click-baiting is not only bad for the company but is also deceitful. Sensational and unrealistically ‘viral’ titles are not credible and may make you look untrustworthy at worst and not-serious at best. Either ways, it is better to avoid them. In this article, let us take a look at some of the reasons why sensational titles are so outdated. 1. They are tiresome One of the major irksome qualities of sensational titles is that they tend to turn off visitors. A lot of people find sensationalism associated with tawdriness and low quality. They may also feel annoyed or put off when they see screaming titles that seek attention. While some people may click on these topics, they will eventually hurt you more in the long term. It is a better idea to avoid these sensational titles and instead, stick to something that is more appealing to journalistic standards. Indeed, many studies point towards the popularity of websites that seem authoritative and serious. 2. They raise expectations On the one hand, sensationalism tends to drive people away. On the other hand, many people are attracted to your titles and they begin to click through. They may even read through your blog posts regularly, after falling into the trap of sensational headlines. However, you will need to come up with more and more sensational topics and titles in order to keep your new breed of readers interested. These are the readers who may just be clicking on your blog topic because the title looks interesting. When they do not find anything that they are looking for, they may simply leave and never come back. 3. Sensationalism is not sustainable In the long term, sensationalism is not sustainable. It is not possible to constantly come up with witty titles when the context is not interesting enough. It is not necessary for every blog post to be read like entertainment. A majority of blog posts are boring because, well, life can be quite monotonous too. Nobody can party everyday and so can’t your blog. With this in mind, you will probably need to write in a level of seriousness that matches your business and company’s ideals. Look for the long term sustainability rather than temporary clicks and views. Looking forward Initially, you may find that sensational titles are fetching more visits to your blog. However, in the long run, they are not a sustainable way to engage in content marketing. They also have the tendency to reduce your credibility overall and make you look less serious than you might want to appear. Additionally, you may even look untrustworthy and may damage your company’s reputation. Looking at all these factors, it is a better idea to avoid sensationalism and to just stick to good writing and journalism.  

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Writing Blogs for a Mobile Audience : Here Is What You Need to Know

A lot has changed in the world today. People are accessing content on their mobile phones more than on desktops. There is a sea change in the way people approach content and also the way they use it. With more and more people using tablets and mobile phones to access content, traditional websites are not as popular as they once used to be. In order to be accessible to this burgeoning population that specifically uses mobile Internet, you will need to build the website and create content in such a manner that it is easily readable on mobile devices. In this article, let us take a look at how you can ensure that your blogs, in particular, are optimized for a mobile audience. 1. Keep your blogs short and crisp There is nothing worse than having to scroll down using a mobile touchscreen to read lengthy and verbose articles. Keep your articles simple, short and crisp. A word length of 500 to 600 is optimal but for longer and more in-depth ones, you can choose to have around 1000 words. Anything longer will not be particularly comfortable to read on a mobile device. 2. Make sure that your images are not heavy A lot of bloggers upload full resolution images, which take a lot of time to load. Also, it may not be a good idea to upload too many images anyway, in a blog post. Sometimes we see blog posts with more than 10 images. That is more akin to publishing an image after every few sentences. It distracts the reader and he may not read what is most important. 3. Get your developer to make your blog readable Readability has got a lot to do with your spacing, design, and typography. All these can be fixed by your developer. Ensure that your blog looks neat and tidy and that the best font style and size are used. The more white space you use within your blog, the better it shall be. 4. Give even more importance to blog titles than you did previously Blog titles should be catchy and attractive. Boring and lengthy titles will not attract people to click, especially when they are browsing on a small screened touch based device. Ensure that you make sure your title is as creative and attention-grabbing as possible. 5. Always include a call to action in the end Most bloggers forget to add a call to action in the end. It is very important to add a CTA so that the readers do not forget to contact you again. Just asking them for their email address should be more than enough. If you can find another way to ask them to take action, please go ahead and do so. Looking forward At the end of the day, it is important to write blog posts with mobile users in mind. People are mostly using their cellphones and tablets to access the Internet and writing blogs with mobile screens in mind is very important. Also, people who read on their mobile devices might be doing on so while they are on public transportation or while they are waiting for someone on the streets. This means your content should be able to keep their interest in spite of all the disturbances around.  

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