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Entries Tagged as 'Marketing'

But where do you find all the content?

by Drew McLellan

October 17th, 2011 · Marketing, Storytelling, Strategy

 

Screen shot 2011 10 17 at 7 42 09 AM
Challenges related to a content marketing strategy

In August of this year, HiveFire surveyed marketing professionals to better understand the state of the B2B marketing landscape including what was really creating the biggest challenges, how they were choosing to market and what they saw on the horizon.  (get a copy of the survey results here)

One major theme surfaced from the results: content marketing (the creation and publication of original content, such as blog posts, photos, videos, website resource pages, case studies or white papers to enhance a brand’s visibility) is changing the way B2B marketers work. More and more marketing effort is being channeled towards content creation and curation.  But it’s not without its challenges.

Some of the more interesting findings of the survey are wrapped in the challenges of actually creating the content.  Few argue about the tactic’s value — it’s the how to get it done on a consistent basis that seems to be causing the most trouble.

Driving leads is the number one objective of B2B marketers but they are challenged with having the resources to accomplish this goal.
  78% of respondents cited driving sales/leads as the most important marketing objective for their organization.

But they have to do it without a lot of help: working with a limited budget (28%) and limited staff (23%) were the top two marketing challenges cited by respondents.

I think most businesses have more content than they know.  They just aren’t looking in the right places.  If you’re trying to implement a content marketing strategy — you can probably re-purpose content found in:

  • Annual reports
  • Sales proposals
  • Marketing materials
  • Sales presentations
  • Orientation manuals (lots of good stuff about the company here)
  • Sales fliers
  • Instructional documents
  • Emaiils to/from customers
  • The FAQ section of your website
  • Diagrams/charts of your product/service (think infographic!)
  • Customer service manuals/instructions

And that’s just scratching the surface.  Remember — the content shouldn’t be all about you.  In fact, if it is — your audience will run kicking and screaming.  Broaden your scope by asking “what does my audience care about?” as opposed to “what can I tell them about us?”

By asking the right question — I suspect you just made finding content to share a whole lot easier.

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How to use Facebook ads

by Drew McLellan

October 12th, 2011 · Marketing, Media, Social Media

 

FBlogo
Facebook advertising best practices

For many businesses, advertising on the social network Facebook has proven to be a very successful model.  Facebook’s model is to be pretty rigid in terms of what you can and can’t do on your ad.  They’re all the same size and shape.  The format for all ads is exactly the same.  There are specific character counts for both the headline and the body copy.

So you have to work pretty hard to capture someone’s attention, considering all the sameness. The ads are inexpensive but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do them well.  If you’re going to invest the money, be sure you consider these suggestions.

Start with the end in mind: Like any marketing, you should set your goals up front.  How will you define and measure success?  Know what niche you’re targeting and what you want them to do.

Decide – click or view: You can pay for Facebook ads in one of two ways.  You can either pay for impressions or for clicks.  If you’re just looking for awareness, impressions may make more sense.  If you want to drive people to another website or a specific product’s landing page, then clicks will work better.  (Do the math to double check your choice)

Already be there: Ideally, you would couple your Facebook advertising with a robust Facebook fan page.  You should also change the standard URL that Facebook assigns your page to a custom URL.  You can do this for free once you have 25 likes for the page.

Visuals: Facebook allows you one photo per ad.  The maximum size your photo can be is 110 pixels wide by 80 pixels tall.  You’re much better off to pre-size your photo yourself, rather than have Facebook do it for you.

You want to have a picture that pops off the screen and that’s tough at 110 pixels.  Be sure you choose a photo that is dramatic and isn’t too busy.  You’ll get bonus views if your image is unusual, very local (if that’s your target)  or even something shocking or impossible.

Hit the target: One of the biggest benefits offered by Facebook ads is the ability to hyper target your ads.  You can target by geography (down to a specific city), by gender, age, education, and even marital status.  Beyond that, you can also target your ads by keywords.  You can be so specific that, for example, the only people who see your ads are married women who live in Colorado Springs, are between 25 and 33 and love both black and white photography, horses and iPads.

What this means is there is very little waste.  You can pinpoint exactly who matters. You can also narrow the field too much. Be sure to think through those decisions carefully.

Less is more: You only have 135 characters for your body copy so choose every word with great care.  Don’t waste any words on giving them contact information (they’re going to click on the ad if they want to reach you) or details that aren’t critical to getting them to take that next step and click.  Like in all advertising – asking a question can be a very compelling way to get someone’s attention.

Testing 1-2-3: One of the best things about Facebook ads are all the analytics they provide at no charge.  You can track and test your ads over and over again until you’ve reached the pinnacle of effectiveness.  Run multiple ads in a campaign and see how they perform against one another.  Watch for ads that start to slow down.  Change something simple like the headline or image to see if the ad’s activity picks back up.

Facebook ads can be a potent tool in your marketing arsenal so make the most of them by following these suggestions.

If you’ve used FB ads — what was your best secret?

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Are you a speed and sputter marketer?

September 30th, 2011 · Business owner/leader stuff, Marketing, Strategy · 3 Comments

Are you guilty of speed and sputter marketing? I do a lot of driving.  Between work, providing my mom (3.5 hours away) with computer support and fetching my daughter every so often at college (2 hours away) — I’m on the road quite a bit. I found myself wondering if I’d make better time if [Read more...]

With all due respect, what are you waiting for?

September 4th, 2011 · Business owner/leader stuff, Marketing, Strategy · 6 Comments

…what are you waiting for? I’m all for having a plan when it comes to marketing.  To just start flailing around is usually a waste of money and opportunity.  But for many businesses, the need for a plan and the “right” time is just an excuse to do absolutely nothing. I’m also absolutely positive that [Read more...]

Marketing tip #83: You really can’t make the horse drink

August 26th, 2011 · Marketing, Sales, Strategy · 8 Comments

You can’t make a customer buy! Here’s an uncomfortable marketing truth:  With few exceptions, you cannot control potential buyers. No matter how great your product, how spectacular your price or how unparalleled your customer service reputation — if they aren’t ready to buy, they just are not ready to buy. Yes, as the old adage [Read more...]

Content marketing playbook

August 22nd, 2011 · Marketing, Media, Strategy, Trends · 7 Comments

…get a playbook to help you create content that matters The idea of creating content to establish your expertise, influence the search engines and create a community has been an evolution of one of the oldest marketing tactics out there — sampling. If I share with you what I know and you learn from it, [Read more...]

You need a smaller net

August 15th, 2011 · Customers/Clients, Marketing, Strategy · 9 Comments

  …are you fishing with too big a net? Fear can make us take our eye off the ball and lose focus on what really matters.  In marketing, that often translates to these sorts of mistakes: I’m afraid this is the only ad/website/sales letter they’ll ever see so I need to cram everything I can [Read more...]

Are you sure it’s what they want?

August 11th, 2011 · Customers/Clients, Marketing · 9 Comments

…Give your customer choices they actually care about One of the buzzwords that continues to bounce around the marketing world is “value add.”  I have no issue with providing more value to your customers.  In fact, I think it’s a dandy idea.  But I think you can also stub your toe when you do it [Read more...]

You’ve got a bird in your hand. Now what?

August 8th, 2011 · Books, Business owner/leader stuff, Customers/Clients, Love affair with customers, Marketing · 8 Comments

  … Do you value what you already have? Like the old idiom goes…a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  I’d argue, when the bird is a customer, the ratio is even greater. For years, at the risk of preaching, I have been banging on the idea that we spend way [Read more...]

Stelzner’s Launch should get you off the ground

July 24th, 2011 · Books, Marketing · 5 Comments

…Stelzner’s Elevation Principle illustrated The basic premise of Michael Stelzner’s new book Launch* (click to buy) is that companies have to shift from telling customers “buy this” to asking “how can we help you?”  He goes on to advocate giving away your content (knowledge) or sampling to create familiarity, trust and eventually demand. If you’ve [Read more...]