In 2022, social media is just one part of our daily lives. People spend over two hours scrolling through their feeds each day and use seven+ platforms every month.

Brands have a great opportunity to increase their visibility and reach potential customers.

It can be difficult to decide what type of content you want to share on social media. There are many options. You might not find the right platform for you. Different preferences are based on age and other demographic factors. Social media trends and best practices are constantly changing.

Before you decide what your social media strategy will look like, or how you'll update it if one already exists, it's important that you know which types of content are getting the most attention. This is what we will be covering in this article. You'll find out why social media is so important for your content strategy and 6 types of social media that your audience should see on your platforms in the sections below.

Let's get started!

Quick Takeaways

• You can find content (i.e. articles, videos, etc.) One of the top five reasons that people use social media is because it's easy to share content.
• Social media stories can be a great way to share more casual content with your followers.
• Infographics are 3x more popular than any other visual content on social media.
• Social media can be used to increase traffic to your website by promoting your blog articles.
• Half of internet users are able to report that they have purchased products through social media advertisements.

What is the deal with content marketing and social media?

It's amazing to consider how social media has changed in the past 20 years since MySpace was launched (what is that again?). It was first introduced by Facebook. It started as a way to connect with friends in youth, but it became an easy way for everyone to share updates about their daily lives. This eventually led to the huge platforms that allow users to share and consume news and media.

Social media is crucial to your content marketing strategy. It meets your audience where it is, and where it's going to be looking for brand content. Hootsuite's recent research found that finding content (e.g. Articles, videos ranked among the top five reasons that internet users 16-64 use social networking sites.

Image Source: Hootsuite

Social media allows brands to share original content and amplify content from other channels (i.e. your blog, video library, etc.). It is a great way to engage your audience in a meaningful way. This is crucial — 90% of consumers say they are more likely to visit a brand’s website, purchase their products, or choose them over a competitor if they follow them on Social Media.

Source: Sprout social

A brand's success with social media marketing depends on its ability to share lots of high-quality, engaging content. You need to understand your audience's preferences for the types of posts you share on social media.

The next section will discuss 6 top-performing social media content types and how to incorporate them into your strategy.

6 Types Of Social Media Content Your Audience Really Needs

Videos with captions

Video is the most popular and preferred type of internet content. Cisco predicts that video will make up 82% of all internet traffic by 2022. Additionally, 9/10 people want to see more videos from brands. Videos on social media receive 48% more views per post than posts that aren't.

Also, the numbers can be hard to ignore.

HubSpot also discovered that brands use social media the most.

Image Source: HubSpot

Today, it is easy to create video content. You only need a smartphone to record HD videos. Videos can be posted from other channels, such as YouTube or your website. Or you can upload directly to the platform (such as social media stories or live streams).

To see how your audience reacts, it's a smart idea to try different videos.

Stories

Stories are the best channel for sharing video content on social media. They can also be used to share photos, highlight important posts and interact with content such as polls and surveys.

Stories are a casual way to engage with your audience. You must still maintain the same quality standards as for other social media content. However, you can share more everyday content to keep your brand visible to your followers.

Interactive posts

Interactive posts can greatly increase your social media marketing ROI. Although there are many ways to interact on social media, I am not referring to just comments. Interactive content is content that is interactive by nature. This includes live streams, polls and surveys, Q&A content, and much more.

This content can be posted in a variety of ways depending on which platform you are using. Instagram is an example of interactive social media stories that include rating scales, Q&A box, polls, and other features. Twitter's in-tweet (and anonymous!) poll feature allows users to be completely honest with their responses. Facebook Live was the first place we saw people interact directly with brands via live streams.

Interactive content can be a great way to increase engagement. You can also collect valuable insights from your audience regarding product preferences and other relevant information to your overall strategy.

Infographics

Infographics can be used to condense complex and detailed content into an easily digestible social media post. Infographics are great for covering technical topics, statistics, or any other information you need to convey.

Infographics are a great choice for social media because they are the most shared type of visual content. They're 3x more popular than videos and any other regular images on social networks.

This list contains 40 inspiring infographics.

Hyperlinks to other content

Social media should be used as part of a larger content strategy. This will allow you to amplify the content that you create elsewhere, such as on your website, YouTube channel, or website.

Every blog post should be shared on social media. If it makes sense, you can also revive old content or current topics. You can encourage your readers to share your content by including social sharing buttons on your blog articles pages.

Image Source: Marketing Insider Group

To give your opinion on current topics and events, you can also share content from other news sources and brands. This is a great way for your audience to engage in discussion and encourage dialogue.

Promotional content

Speak up! Promo material? This one is on the list, you might wonder. Organic traffic is the best, right?

Well, yes. However, this doesn't mean that promotional content is bad idea, especially when it comes to social media. Here's why:

• 40% of internet users aged 18-34 have reported that they purchased a product via social media platforms.
• A majority of consumers report that they have purchased a product because an influencer recommended it to them.
• Half of adult internet users believe that social media advertising helps them find the products and services they are interested in.

Paying to boost posts and running social media ads can increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website and social pages. Mix promoted content with content that you already share naturally.

Great content can help you increase your social media success

If you don't create great content regularly, it is impossible to share it on social media. Marketing Insider Group's team of SEO experts and writers can provide you with optimized content that is ready to publish every week for a year or more. ).

To learn more, visit our SEO Blog Writing Service or to schedule a consultation with me to get going.

Do you want to give your content marketing an extra boost? Content experiments are a great way to do this.

Technology today allows us to experiment with content strategies in many ways. We can target different audiences and use different content types, channels, timing, etc. This will ensure that your performance results will reflect this practice over time.

This article will show you how to get started with content experimentation right away. This article will help you learn how to discover what works for your audience and make small adjustments to increase ROI. It also explains how to use low-risk experiments as a way to inform larger strategies.

Are you ready to dive in? Let's get started.

Quick Take-Aways

• Content experiments help you stay agile in your strategy and allow for continuous improvement.
• Experimenting with different audiences can help to minimize the risk of trying new ideas.
• It's a great way to find out what works and what doesn't.
• Brands have the ability to diversify their voices through partnerships and content types.
• Brands can use content experiments to help them maintain data-driven strategies, and make informed decisions.

What is content experimentation and what makes them valuable?

Content experiments are a way to try new strategies, tactics, or ideas to improve your content strategy.

Marketers know that the world is constantly changing. Many of the best practices we believed were good 10 years ago, such as keyword stuffing, are now considered bad. Marketers have to keep up with the latest technologies and Google ranking factors. There are many other factors that can affect consumers' preferences.

We don't always know what the best approach is.

Content experiments are essential to figure this out. You can learn what works and what doesn’t by performing content experiments on a regular schedule. This will allow you to make informed decisions that won’t affect your overall strategy.

It's possible to identify the best practices and increase their popularity, as well as find out what isn't working so that you can fix it or quit altogether.

Content experiments are the most important part of your content strategy. These content experiments help you identify problems, recognize opportunities, pivot as needed, and learn from your mistakes.

Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, states that the heart of any startup is its ability to transform new ideas into products. The product for us is content. It's easy to see how content experiments can help us improve our products when we view it through The Learn Startup's perspective of build-measure-learn.

Source: Twitter

When is the right time to do a content experiment? How do you go about it? We'll discuss 6 reasons why you should consider doing a content experiment, and give examples of how to do it.

Six Reasons (and Methods) to Conduct Content Experiments

Explore new ideas

Even if your content strategy works, it's a good idea to try new ideas. You don't have to try everything at once. And you shouldn't rush to adopt an idea before you're confident it will work.

Solution: A content experiment.

Consider the innovative ideas that your marketing team has developed over the years. Perhaps it was to create a new social media campaign or to change the look of your branding. Or maybe you wanted to integrate interactive content into your blogs and emails.

To experiment with new content ideas, it is important to start small and then grow as you experience success. Think about the interactive content idea. It's better to test the content with a small sample audience, such as your most engaged subscribers, than to add it to every email. You might then use it to create an A/B test to send a larger email blast.

If you see high engagement, it is a sign that this strategy should be part of your overall strategy. If not, no harm done.

Expand your audiences

Companies often expand their target audience as they grow. Maybe you see a way for your product's value to be added in a new market. Perhaps you offer new solutions that are more relevant to larger audiences. Perhaps your company is growing and is ready to serve a wider customer base.

You can conduct content experiments if any of these are applicable.

Niche content is a great way to do this. Your brand will be seen as an expert by new audiences if you can help them see how your solutions can benefit their lives.

Marketing Insider Group has had great success with SaaS agencies. SaaS companies were slow to adopt content marketing for a long time. MIG, like other content agencies, saw the importance of content marketing for SaaS and so we created a series blog posts.

We wrote about SEO and Content Marketing for SaaS and other topics to reach this audience and show how our services can benefit them.

Image source: Marketing Insider Group

This niche content can be used to test your ideas and reach new audiences. Monitor their responses and then dive deeper into what resonates with them.

Blogs are not the only way. Engaging new audiences can be done through videos, infographics and ebooks as well as social media posts.

Profit from your success

While it may seem obvious to do more of what is working, you need insights to help guide your decisions. Content experiments can provide objective data that will help you make the best content strategy decisions.

Content experiments allow you to drill down into specifics and optimize the performance of your content. Optimize the send time of emails and blog article posting days. To determine which factors are most effective for your brand, you can test subject lines and HTML formats.

Although each of these seemingly insignificant factors might not be significant on its own, they can have an impact on performance. However, you will see an increase in performance results if you optimize these content factors over time.

Eliminate unsuccessful content

Content experiments are another way to see when things are not working. Data can help you identify issues early on and quickly pivot to improve the performance of your content. It is possible to identify when something is not working and fix it quickly before it has a negative effect on your content.

For example, let's say you are launching an email newsletter. You might be uncertain about what content to include if you have never created one before. It might be necessary to determine how to segment your audience so each receives the newsletter that is most relevant to them.

You can rapidly and continuously improve your email newsletter by testing content and lists and tracking key KPIs such as open and click-through rate while running A/B tests. This will allow you to quickly and easily refine your email newsletter.

Diversify your brand voice

You can diversify your brand voice by creating varied content and featuring guest contributors. This will allow you to reach more people. These are great ways to increase brand awareness through content experiments.

You may already be doing some of these things, but it is important to treat them as an experiment.

Here are some ideas to diversify your brand voice:

• Extend your content beyond blogs. You can also try video, infographics and social media stories.
• Your blog should feature guest writers. You can either make them part of a series, or do occasional guest posts on different topics.
• Contribute to podcasts or blogs where you think your audience is interested. You may be asked to contribute if you have a strong brand. Reach out to potential partners for brands that you are interested in.
• Influencer marketing is a great option. Influencer marketing is a way to get consumers to trust you and make a purchase based on your recommendations.
• Co-branding opportunities with brands: Partner with us

Marketing Insider Group recently experimented with infographics. They have been used to summarize our most important articles.

This infographic will show you how to create the perfect blog post.

img alt=”A portion MIG's Perfect Blog Post infographic.” height=”763″ loading=”lazy” src=”https://marketinginsidergroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Perfect-Blog-Post-1.jpg” width=”515″/>

Image source: Marketing Insider Group

You can expand your reach, increase your shareability, and drive more traffic to the site by experimenting with different content types and partnerships.

Uncover valuable insights

It is important to remember that content experiments are a critical part of gaining data-driven insights into your performance.

Continuously and systematically collecting data and analysing it to inform your strategy will enable your team to make objective, informed decisions. This will increase your engagement and save you time and money.

Learn more about creating a data-driven strategy for content and how data can help you succeed with content.

We can help you run a year's worth of content experiments

Content experiments and larger content marketing campaigns require a solid content strategy, lots ideas, frequent, high-value, and measured results. Our SEO writers, editors, and client service managers will deliver optimized content that is ready to publish every week for a year or more. We also help you measure what works.

Are you ready to get started? Get more information about our SEO Blog Writing Service, or book a consultation right away.

Marketing is an excellent tool for helping grow your business, according to most business owners. Marketing can help you grow your business by using growth marketing as one of many tools.

Two strategies are key to growth marketing. Growth marketing is primarily about building customer relationships. It fosters loyalty among customers to keep them coming back.

Growth marketing is a long-term strategy but it can yield dividends if you stay with it. But where should you begin? There are many steps you can do on your own but experts will often give the best results. These top growth marketing agencies will help any business owner maximize their success in their business's trajectory.

What is the mark of a great growth agency? How can you find the best one?

Many people who are interested in growth marketing find it difficult to understand. When you are trying to grow your company, a growth marketing agency should be your partner. They can help you focus on your business while you let them do the work of executing your plan.

How do you choose the right agency for you? An excellent growth marketing agency should:

• You should be open and transparent about their approach and how they could become an asset to you team.
• It is important to understand that growth marketing puts the customer first.
• Learn about you and your client to establish a trustworthy customer relationship.
• Their strategy should be supported by data or examples that support their methods.

These are the top growth marketing agencies:

1. Relevance – One of the best choices to lead your industry through SEO, PR, and Thought Leadership. Best Overall Growth Marketing Agency
2. PreApps – Best Mobile App Agency – Reputable for strong results in app marketing and adoption
3. Swidia – We offer personalized media strategies that will support your business credibility and help you scale quickly. Best Media Strategies Agency
4. EmberTribe – From email marketing to social media assistance, EmberTribe can help you build your sales funnel.
5. Tuff Marketing – Tuff Marketing is the best data-driven agency. From creating original content to developing a strategy, Tuff Marketing will help you get fast results.
6. Ladder.io is a strong global agency that offers expertise in global growth marketing.
7. Marketing Insider Group – We are tied for the highest-rated content agency on G2 with over 20 customer reviews, an average rating of 4.9 and more than 20 customer ratings. We hope you choose us to write your SEO-driven blogs. Best Content Marketing Agency

Methodology for Assessing An Incredible Growth Marketing Agency

When choosing the best agency, there are many factors to take into consideration. A thorough review of each agency's website will give you a lot more information about their services. Online reviews can be useful, but they are susceptible to manipulation. There are many full-service agencies. We required that the agency focus on growth marketing to be included in our list. We also looked at specific tactics used by them.

Three main ingredients are what make us a highly-rated growth marketing agency. These are the key ingredients to driving business results in 2022 and beyond.

Innovative Strategy

Innovating in growth advertising means creating custom strategies that are tailored to each business's needs. What is important for your company? Are you looking for significant organic growth or pay growth?

Your growth marketing agency should be able create a plan that will help you reach your goals. Long-term brand loyalty requires different processes and timelines than support for a new product launch. Find out what you are looking to grow and find an agency that can help you use a combination of strategies to achieve it.

A wide range of clients

Your agency should have both small and large growth companies. They should also be familiar with other industries. While specialization can have its benefits, flexibility has many advantages.

Agencies that serve a variety of clients are more able to adapt to changes in growth methods. A technique that works well in one industry can be adapted to work in another. Experts may not be aware of other opportunities. The most successful growth marketing agencies will have a broad range of skills and be adaptable.

Ability to Execute

Are they required to deliver the service fee? Or are there retainers that must be paid regardless of placements or content? This is a good time to clarify your expectations. If you believe that your monthly fees will guarantee delivery, make sure you receive them. Are your deliverables on time?

It is also important to inquire about the goals and objectives of their growth marketing agency. It is important to understand how to assess the effectiveness of growth marketing agencies. Do you want to increase a specific number of keywords rankings? Are they looking to increase revenue by tying their keywords rankings?

Execution is a measure of whether they are able to deliver on their promises. You should not hire an agency that cannot meet deadlines and does not deliver results within budget.

The Best Growth Marketing Agency Reviews

Once you have a better understanding of the criteria and how we have broken down the top agencies, this is a detailed list that will explain why you will or won't love these marketing agencies.

Relevance – Relevance assists clients in achieving their goal of owning their industry. Their goal is to be a top-rated growth marketing agency. They focus on industry ownership by aligning a content strategy and digital PR. Relevance's strategists can help you get real results in growth marketing. Relevance is a great agency to consider if you are looking for honest partners with proven results that will help you to own your industry.

PreApps: If you need help in launching an app, PreApps can help. PreApps offers clients a way to launch apps. They offer clients an app analysis report on their website. To maximize their success, they offer both organic and paid ads. There are also podcasts and a blog that provide information about the App Industry.

Swidia: Growth marketing can be slow and steady. However, Swidia offers clients an opportunity to move quickly. Swidia offers a user acquisition team as well as a creative studio and growth advisory for clients to help them generate new leads. This agency has a lot of success stories, including Cameo and Hennessey.

EmberTribe – EmberTribe offers everything a client requires in terms of paid advertising. Their site outlines their proprietary method. This agency is perfect for ecommerce businesses, especially those that need to grow their business. This agency is the best place to start if you're looking for paid search, social media or conversion rate optimization.

Tuff Marketing – Tuff Marketing values transparency in data and adapts its strategies to adjust to the successes and failures of tactic. Instead of a “set it, forget it” mentality, you will receive regular updates about how keywords and traffic are performing. Tuff Marketing can help you create and implement a custom plan that will work for your business.

Ladder.io – Ladder.io truly is a global marketing agency that has strategists all around the globe. They work with startups as well as Fortune 500 companies. They pride themselves on staying current with growth marketing trends and provide full-funnel assistance. Ladder.io can help you adjust your strategies as your business grows.

Marketing Insider Group – MIG uses three tools to help its clients succeed. The technical SEO, content strategy and weekly SEO blog posting all work together to improve organic search rankings for the right audience. MIG works with large companies as well as B2B SaaS experts and startups that sell information online. On average, our clients experience 138% YoY growth with 7x ROI. You can see some of our case studies, including one that involves a large technology company, a SaaS-based business and one we created ourselves.

How to Choose the Best Growth Marketing Agency

We can help you choose the right growth marketing agency for your business. These companies all have amazing clients and unique skills. They also experience tremendous growth.

We can help you get started. Reach out to us to find out more. Only companies that get what we do are our clients. Relevance is a growth marketing agency that we will gladly refer to clients when it makes sense. Give us a call and we'll get you on the right track to growth.

The end of the year signals the need to reevaluate old strategies and find newer strategies in order to remain competitive in your industry.

B2B buyer behavior is continuing to change at an incredible pace, thanks to a variety of emerging technologies and new insights. B2B marketers face a difficult task in recalibrating their lead generation strategies within this constantly changing landscape.

Consumers are becoming more educated due to the explosion of content that addresses consumer concerns at all stages of the buying process. A growing technology revolution has raised consumer expectations about customer service.

Walker Information found that customer experience is more important than product and price as a brand differentiation.

While some B2B brands convert more prospects, others remain stuck in old ways and are unsure of how to spice it up.

However, 61% of businesses believe that lead generation is their greatest marketing challenge.

While there are many lead capturing strategies that can be free, few of them will maximize your ROI. These efficient B2B lead generation strategies will help you win.

1. Create High-Quality, Evergreen Content

You should publish content regularly as content is today's currency on the internet. Not only will you build your authority as an expert but you'll also increase your reach and exposure. Don't just create content. Your content should be valuable to your audience and not just a pretty face for your brand.

You earn their trust by publishing valuable content that educates, entertains, and informs your target audience. Once you have their trust, it's much easier to convert leads.

It is also important to publish your content on a regular basis. Your commitment to publishing quality content more often will show your target audience that you are willing to go the extra mile to address their concerns.

Hubspot's study found that companies publishing 16 to 24 blog posts per months generate 4.5 times as many leads than those publishing 0-4 posts per monthly. Further, 47% of B2B buyers depend on content to make purchasing decisions and conduct research.

B2B buyers read at least three to five pieces related content before they contact a sales representative. This information can be leveraged by creating more content frequently to meet the information needs of your audience.

Moment marketing can be a great way for your business to remain relevant and go viral for a short time, but it is important to find evergreen topics within your niche to attract clients at all stages of the sales funnel.

Your SEO strategy should include evergreen content. This will allow you to remain relevant on search engines. High-quality content that is evergreen can be helpful, informative, and shared. It never goes out-of-fashion.

2. Secure Your Content Strategically

Marketers are not all experts on whether to gate their content. This is one of the best ways to identify and attract leads that care about your business.

Gated content can help increase conversions and leads when done correctly. A content locking script was used by Trading Strategy Guides, a finance and trade website. They added nearly 11,000 subscribers to their email lists in just one month. Unbounce's content stats show that Unbounce has more campaigns with conversion rates between 19 and 45 percent.

If you have a large library of content that your audience enjoys, it is a smart idea to release gated content. You can be confident that your loyal readers will give you their email addresses and names to read what you have written.

3. In exchange for email or personal information, you can offer content

Use content offers that require users to provide contact information in order to gain access. This will allow you to rapidly grow your contacts and start the lead generation process. You can provide various resources, such as whitepapers and checklists, eBooks, tutorials, tools, and other useful information to your audience members.

If possible, you should also use other opt-in options like webinars and newsletters. Produce something that is useful, educational, or entertaining.

If you want to collect contact information from your visitors, forms will be necessary. It is best to limit the required fields and ask only for what your sales team needs.

A form that is too difficult will scare off potential leads.

4. Personalize more touch points

Marketing that is one-size-fits all is dead. Customers are looking for a human touch to build deeper connections and meaningful relationships with brands.

A SalesForce survey of 7,000 respondents found that 57% would be willing to share their data for personalized offers. 53% said they want personalized product recommendations and 53% wanted personalized shopping experiences.

Personalize your content marketing efforts. There is no need to use stalkers or first names on the internet. To present personalized content, however, you must take into account the content consumption habits of your audience.

5. Personalize social media interactions & build communities

Social media is more than a way to promote your content or publish it. Social media can be a great tool for your business.

This is your opportunity to connect with your audience. An average person has 7.6 social media accounts, and spends more that 2 hours per day on them. This is your chance to take advantage.

You should be active on all platforms that you use. You should consider using at least three to four social media channels to promote you brand. You should choose the one that best suits your target market and their preferred location.

A Facebook group can be created where you can discuss pressing issues in your industry. You can connect with people who are interested in the same causes or issues by using hashtags on Instagram and Twitter.

LinkedIn Marketing is essential as it is the most popular social network to communicate with prospects in B2B and tell them about your brand. LinkedIn Marketing has impressive popularity as a B2B lead-generation network. LinkedIn is the number one source of B2B leads. This tells us that CXOs must expand their social media presence.

It is impossible to connect with potential customers when every marketer is reaching out via social media channels. Personal connection requests and messages are a great way to reinforce the human side of your brand. Being active in your community will bring you the best results.

6. Optimize your landing pages and CTA

Did you know that many landing pages include more than one offer? This means that your landing page may fall into this category. It's time for you to rethink how you convert leads. Marketing experiments have shown that multiple offers on one page can reduce conversion rates by as much as 266%.

SEO best practices are key to optimizing landing pages for lead generation. This includes focusing your content on your offer, optimizing signup forms for engagement, and implementing customer testimonial campaigns.

These strategies will make your offer much more appealing to visitors and increase conversion rates.

To reduce distractions, you should be focused on one goal for each landingpage and clear in your Call to Action (CTA) messaging. You want to convert visitors into leads. Make sure that your landing pages and CTAs communicate your primary goal. You want them to feel comfortable and confident when filling out your forms.

CTA buttons can have a significant impact on whether someone clicks through or not to your landing page. You should ensure that your CTA buttons are in the correct colors, shapes, sizes and positioning. To improve your conversion rates, you can A/B-test your CTA buttons.

7. Keep track of the actions taken by your website visitors

Analyzing the actions of your visitors on your website is a great way to determine why they aren't buying. Hotjar and Mouseflow allow you to track user sessions and plot heatmaps of the most clicked buttons on your website.

Experts in Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), swear by this step. They believe it is one of the fastest ways to discover the “Whys” of your process.

• Why don't they convert?
• They are not filling out my forms.
• Why is this website so popular?

This is where you can correct a problem or add more of the same strategy on other pages. This is also useful for A/B testing.

8. Encourage Online Reviews

RevLocal's study found that 92% consumers review online reviews before purchasing a product or service.

Your chances of getting contacted could be affected if your website does not have a testimonials or reviews page. Your customers and clients should have the opportunity to leave reviews and post them on your website.

Reviews increase consumer trust, improve local search rankings, and ultimately, improve conversions. RevLocal also found that customers are more likely to spend 31% on businesses with excellent reviews.

9. Increase your online presence

Your brand's persona is more than your website and social media channels.

To increase your credibility, you can appear on other websites, such as guest blogging or being interviewed or answering questions on Quora.com, other industry-specific Q&A forums, and/or Quora.com.

This is an excellent way to establish authority for your personal brand, and to get your business name out there to people who are looking for solutions to their problems.

If you answer relevant questions within your industry, Quora can help you get thousands of leads. Your brand's reputation as a thought leader will increase brand awareness, and help new learners build trust in your brand.

10. Gmail Ads can be used to target your competitors' audience

Email marketing is still the most used lead generation channel. According to SuperOffice's State Of B2B Email Marketing report, 77% of B2B marketers use it to drive leads.

It is important to draw the attention of customers of your competitors in B2B. Google Ads allows you to target Google Ads campaigns to people who have already received emails from your competitor. Does that sound shady? It sounds sleazy, but it is very effective. This gives you direct access and knowledge to those who already know the nature of your service.

Use this opportunity to stand out from your competitor. Make sure to use familiar language and optimize your email marketing layout. Then, make them an offer that they won't resist.

11. Get more video marketing

Video marketing is a great way to reach your target audience. According to a Forbes study Video in The C-Suite, more than 75% Fortune 500 executives watch video content on a regular basis. Around two-thirds of those visitors visit vendor websites. It's clear that video is an effective way to get leads.

Video content is a key driver of purchasing behavior. Animoto's State of Social Video Study found that 64% of consumers purchase after viewing branded social videos. Adelie Studios data shows that landing pages can increase conversions by as much as 80%.

HubSpot's State of Inbound Report found that 48% of marketers already plan to include YouTube within their content strategy over the next few years. Do not fall behind your competitors. Get your camera rolling!

12. Automate social media sharing

Promote your content on Facebook and LinkedIn to increase your digital footprint.

Marketing professionals have too many other things to do than prioritize social networking. There are many apps and tools that can automate social media, schedule posts, tweets and likes, or automate any other type of social engagement.

Hootsuite is my favorite, but Sprout Social, Buffer, and Buffer are highly recommended by marketers. They not only automate sharing, but also provide analytics that will help you make sure you're sharing content the best way possible.

13. Participate in Offline Events

It is not enough to be visible online. While your clients may see you online, do they actually see your brand in person?

You can generate leads by attending offline events like digital marketing conferences or trade shows.

Many businesses, particularly larger and older ones, don't rely on the internet for business networking. They enjoy putting a face to the name and trusting others.

14. Optimize your website for mobile

Online B2B queries are shifting to smartphones and personal computers. Google's research has shown that half of all B2B online queries are made from mobile phones.

This figure is expected to rise to 70% by 2020, if we consider the increased number of B2B employees of the “digital generation” (Millennials, Gen Z) and the growing use of smartphones among older generations.

A recent BGC report on B2B buyers' use reveals that 60% of them admit that mobile played an important role in their recent purchase. Mobile can reduce the time it takes to buy by 20%, by improving team collaboration and efficiency in decision-making. BGC also reports that mobile is responsible for 42% of total revenue.

These are the questions that you should be asking yourself:

• What is AMP?
• Are all my websites responsive? Are they mobile-friendly?
• What is the mobile-first indexing of my website?
• Are I maximising engagement with micro-interactions

Optimizing your website to work on smartphones will not only benefit your B2B marketing goals, but it will also help buyers make better business decisions. Mobile must be considered in an omnichannel customer journey. You should also find new and better ways to engage and reach your audience.

15. Get more retargeting

Prospects often browse multiple websites to find information that will help them make a decision. Only 2% of buyers purchase from their first visit. Retargeting is a way to get the 98% back and encourage them towards your brand.

Although retargeting is not yet widely used by B2B marketers it is becoming more popular. Retargeting accounts for approximately 70% of B2B marketers. If you don't have retargeting, now is the time to start. This will increase your chances of them choosing your brand over those of your competitors by 70%.

Advertisements that display a variety of content might be worth your consideration (soft-sell vs. hard-sell). Prospects who aren’t ready to purchase may be persuaded to do so if your brand is constantly visible to them.

16. Maximize Marketing Automation

Marketing automation tools combine email marketing tools with CRM. Marketing automation software can connect with your CRM to send targeted, personalized emails to leads. This allows you to provide timely and relevant content to the right prospects.

Thomson Reuters has confirmed that their revenue increased 172% after adopting a marketing automation system. Nearly three quarters of marketers agree that email is the most effective method for lead generation. Email marketing is already doing well, and has been for a while.

When you integrate the functions of CRM, you'll be able to see why B2B marketers consider marketing automation one of the most effective ways to generate qualified leads.

17. AI Chat Bots to Engage Prospects

Chatbots, artificially intelligent messaging-based robots that are able to engage website visitors autonomously and automate business transactions, are chatbots. AI interprets text and speech inputs from your customer or prospect and sends the appropriate response.

Chatbots are a powerful way to communicate with your prospects. You want them to feel comfortable and have seamless interactions. Incorporating AI into your lead generation strategy opens up new possibilities for efficiency and optimization. Operational costs will be reduced by reducing your dependence on lead generation and customer support.

18. You can A/B test your paid campaigns

Paid campaigns can be used to test A/B methods. This allows you to make sure you are using strategies and directing money towards what works. The beauty of A/B Testing is that it can quantify the value of each strategy tweak to your lead generation campaigns, so you can see how each experiment performed.

It's important not to cast too wide a net. Keep trying new strategies to find the right balance between scale and stopping.

19. Take advantage of the power of micro-influencers

While influencer marketing remains strong, we are seeing brands using lesser-known influencers in 2018. This is because they have authority in smaller niches. Although they may have fewer followers than their influencers, the relative power of these guys is not diminished.

Major influencers are being bombarded daily with requests. This makes it very costly for popular influencers and also means they are extremely selective about who they work alongside.

Brands can leverage micro-influencers to solve this problem. Despite their enormous potential to reach new audiences effectively, these micro-influencers remain relatively underutilized. They are also more affordable and don't mind receiving unsolicited offers from other brands.

20. Analyze your data

You can improve your market research, data gathering techniques, and analytics to identify who your ideal audience are, where they are coming from, what channel is generating most leads, as well as which leads are more likely convert to sales.

Data analytics can help you identify behavioral changes in buyer personas, so that you can adjust drip strategies accordingly. Always analyze! Numbers and metrics don't lie. Recognize significant trends and take advantage of them.

You should at least be using Google Analytics to collect data. However, if you have the resources it is worth investing in a CRM tool that suits your needs.

21. Profile Your Target Audience

As technology advances, user behavior changes just as fast as the technology itself. To better understand your users' needs, challenges, and buying habits, it is important to research your target audience.

If you were able provide for their needs last year, maybe you can now focus on another problem they might be facing.

Consider a problem you can solve with a product or content offering. Your buyer persona will influence your content marketing strategy. This is where it all starts.

22. Collaborate closely with your sales team

Sales personnel interact with clients. It's crucial to collect their qualitative feedback in order to combine it with your quantitative data.

Your sales team can help you get a better understanding of your buyer persona.

To achieve the best results, sales and marketing must always work together. A good sales and marketing alignment will usually result in better conversion rates, higher performance from both departments and a more functional work environment.

23. Google Search Rankings: Stay at the Top

Is your website listed on Google's first page? Over 90% of Google users never go past the first page. The first page of SERPs is highly sought after. SEO is about relevancy and authority. This is how you should address the online assets of your brand.

Remember that ranking well is not just about traffic. It is also a sign of authority in your niche that your company ranks on the first page.

24. Incentive-Based Referral Programs

Word-of-mouth marketing is still a major factor in almost half of all buying decisions. Statistics show that referrals lead to 70% higher conversion rates for B2B companies and a faster closing time.

Clients who are satisfied with your services will be the best to promote it to others. Incentivize referrals! You can make it more fun for them by giving them customized referral codes that will give them discounts. It is also easier to track the source of your leads and determine which ones are converting.

25. Integrate your marketing campaigns

Try different strategies. Combine your strategies across different lead generation channels.

Your audience will be able to identify your brand personality with a single voice. This is crucial in B2B lead generation because it shows users and businesses that you are reliable and your brand is here for the long-term.

The Essential Questions to Answer Before Starting Lead Generation

You would think most companies know the best way to collect prospect information. You would be wrong. According to the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (Rain Group), 42% of 845 companies said they have difficulty planning a lead generation strategy.

It is easy to plan your lead generation strategy by asking the right questions about the sales and marketing process. Before planning a successful lead-generation strategy, it is important to clearly define and answer these questions. These answers will serve as benchmarks to help you plan your next steps, avoid common mistakes, make better decisions and highlight areas where you can improve.

What are your potential customers looking for?

If you assume that you know your target audience (as you should), then you need to discover their needs. To fully understand their needs and goals, you need to know how to communicate with them. This involves conducting industry research, surveying customers, consolidating information and trying to understand the data.

What can you offer your business?

Create a unique selling proposition about your business. Make sure the whole organization understands and aligns with it. Your USP tells your target market why they should purchase your product or service. It also explains what sets you apart from the competition. What can you promise potential customers? And what is your value proposition. It is important to communicate the message right from the beginning of the buyer's journey. This will help your business stand out.

Who are your leaders?

Without knowing what your company's definition of “lead” is, you cannot generate one. Make sure all teams involved (especially Sales and Marketing) are clear about who they are trying to reach. This step will help you align your Sales and Marketing efforts.

How can you reach your leads easily?

Learn about your prospects' preferences and search patterns to determine the best channels for communication. You can then use strategies such as content marketing, paid advertisement, sponsorship, or affiliate programs that are targeted at your prospects. You can use this information to create surveys, social media monitoring, interviews, A/B testing and many other activities to collect more information about your leads or drive them.

Where in the sales process are you looking to generate leads

Leads can be generated at any stage of the sales process, but not all stages. Each stage should be approached differently. Someone in the beginning stages of a problem will need more support and guidance. If the person is ready to buy, however, this same strategy will not work. To maximize conversion rates, you must know the stages of your sales funnel.

What to do with the lead?

For the closing step, leads should be directed towards the Sales team. However, some leads may need to be directed at Marketing for nurturing as they may not yet be ready to buy. Lead nurturing is the process that guides leads through the sales funnel, informing them why they should purchase from the company. It is essential to create a nurturing process that works and then stick to it.

When prospects become leads?

Your company must first establish a process for lead scoring to determine if a lead can be purchased. A lead can be either a Marketing Qualified Lead or a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL). An SQL is a lead that a Sales person can reach out to. While an MLQ is for Marketing purposes, it is for further nurturing. To determine a lead's score, there are several key indicators. Metrics for these indicators can be set through a Service-Level-Agreement (SLA) between the teams.

Where will you distribute your content?

It is worth creating content that makes you trustworthy and recognizable to customers. You can deliver the content through blog posts, videos and images, infographics or webinars. Whitepapers, ebooks and whitepapers are all options. You can choose which channel to use depending on what content you have created. There are many options: blogs, websites, social media accounts and email. In exchange for granting your prospects access to your content, you can also leverage exclusive content or gated content.

What are you expecting customers to do after purchasing?

After the sale, it's important to continue to interact with customers or leads. Satisfied customers can help you gain more leads and prospects by helping to place lead generation strategies within the context of your customer journey. Good publicity can be a boon for customers, especially in these days of social media.

How can you keep track of your progress?

CRM software is the best way to monitor your lead generation progress. You can't fail if your customer management software isn't up to the task. The right CRM software will allow you to quickly and accurately track the success and status of leads, based on your goals and metrics. These tools can store and manage contact information, which can be helpful in the qualification of leads.

How to generate more leads?

Growing a business is a sign of a successful business. Profitability is only possible if the right customers buy your products and/or services. Although it's not impossible, acquiring clients and prospects must be done with seriousness.

Your lead generation strategy is the foundation for all of your sales moves. Engage and convert your visitors by being creative and smart.

SEO is a key factor in Google ranking success. What is the secret to a strong SEO strategy, you ask? Keyword research!

Keyword research is the foundation of your overall content strategy. This determines the topics and articles you choose, as well as your article titles and search rankings.

This is the problem: Many people, even professionals marketers, see keyword research simply as a process that lists key words and phrases and then dumps them into blog articles.

However, this is not enough. Laziness in keyword stuffing can have a negative effect on your search results.

When done correctly, keyword research is a multi-step process. It requires research and strategy. It's well worth the return on investment.

The following sections will walk you through Marketing Insider Group's proven keyword research process, with tips and templates that you can use.

Quick Take-Aways

• Buyer intent is the basis of good keyword research.

• A brief document can help you clarify your preferences, target audience, and keyword research goals.

• It is important to begin keyword research by researching your keywords and those of your competitors.

• Headlines determine whether people click through to your content in search engine result pages (SERPs).

• To maximize your ROI on keyword research, follow these best practices when writing blog articles.

• You can track your monthly SEO progress to help you capitalize on opportunities and resolve problems faster.

What is keyword research? Why is it important?

Keyword research should always be rooted in buyer intent.

What does this mean? What does this mean?

The buyer's stage must also be considered. Consider whether they are ready to buy or just starting their exploratory search. These buyer groups will have different needs.

Image Source: Edwards Media Solutions

With this in mind, I'll show you how I define keyword research.

Keyword research involves identifying keywords and phrases that your target customers are searching for in each stage of their buyer journey, as they search for solutions to their problems.

The key phrase is: Solutions to their problems. Buyers want to solve their problems and are not attached to any one solution. They look for brands that best meet their needs and address their pain points.

Blogs are read by people primarily to be entertained, learn new things, or keep up with the latest industry news. Simply put, people care only about what they are reading.

Image Source: HubSpot

You can demonstrate to customers that your brand is trustworthy and understands them by conducting thorough keyword research.

How to do keyword research that works

Marketing Insider Group follows a 5-step process to keyword research. It all starts with collecting important information about your brand's content goals. Then, it continues by publishing monthly progress and continuing to document that information.

Let's take a look at each step in more detail.

Make a short description

Each MIG client completes a client brief. (See a part of it below). This gives us an idea of the client's preferred writing style, brand voice, tone, and content goals. It's something we believe so much that we completed one for ourselves. It is updated frequently to reflect new goals, and keeps it fresh.

img alt=”A section of Marketing Insider Group’s client briefing document.” class=”aligncenter” height=”407″ loading=”lazy” src=”https://marketinginsidergroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Briefing-Doc-Screenshot.jpg” width=”582″/>

Image Source: Marketing Insider Group

Whether you are working with an agency, or creating your own brief, the first step in your keyword research should be to define your brand's purpose. This is an important step regardless of how familiar you are with your brand.

Here are some things to include in your brief.

• Writing preferences – Tone, word count, and other details your writers need to know
• Your target audiences – Whom are you writing to? This can be done by using your buyer personas.
• Competitors – Which brands are you competing with for customers or space on SERPs and other listings?
• Content themes and pillars: These are areas of focus for keywords and other topics.
• Examples – These are examples of keywords you want to rank for, articles that you love, and publishers that you have read.

After you have completed your brief, take some time to reflect on it. Consider how it can help with your keyword research and your overall content strategy.

Focus keywords

Finding your target keywords is the second step of your keyword research. This step should be preceded by research on your current keyword rankings and those of competitors.

Check out your keyword rankings

Google Search Console is an excellent tool to get started if you don't have it. This free service gives you tons information on keyword analytics. To find out which keywords are earning results for your site, visit Google Search Console > Search traffic > Search Analytics. This will give you a good starting point to keyword research.

Perform a competitive keyword gap analysis

The next step is to determine the rank of your competitors. You want to find out what your competitors rank for and which ones you don't. This gap should be one of your content goals.

Important to remember that search results may differ from your direct competitors. To ensure that your competitor list is complete, you can do a Google “related” search. It's simple: just search for related:yourwebsite.com.

Once you have a complete list of competitors, you can use a content gap analysis tool or competitor analysis tool and enter their domain to find their ranking keywords. This can be done with many tools. The Traffic Analytics tool by SEMRush is my favorite. You will need to subscribe, but you can still use it free.

Use a keyword generator to round out your list

You can also use SEMRush's Keyword Magic tool to search for keywords that you are interested in ranking for. This will allow you to drill down to identify related keywords and long tail keywords. It will also help you understand the volume and difficulty of keywords and to filter other options to ensure you find the best keyword list for you business.

Here is a quick overview of the Keyword Magic Tool's operation:

Develop creative, engaging headlines

Why are headlines important?

Your blog's headlines are what will make or break your posts. These headlines are what appears on Google SERP pages and what people use to decide if they want to read your content. The truth is that 80% of internet users don't read beyond your headline. It is essential to write headlines that catch a user's eye and make them click.

Image Source: Niel Patel

Great headlines! They are rooted in your keyword research.

Let's recap: You have already completed your brief, conducted research on your audience, and created your keyword list.

Next, create a list with 20-30 topics and content themes from your broad keyword list. Next, it's time for you to start creating your headlines. MIG clients receive approximately 100 headlines per week (enough to publish two times per week for one-year).

100 headlines?! This might sound daunting. It is not easy and takes time. However, you'll reap the benefits of building your headline list early.

You can use a pre-prepared list of headlines to:

• A holistic view of your content listing
• Make sure you are careful about the order of your title and what topic coverage you include
• Keep on top of your publishing schedule
• You can easily assign articles to writers and do it quickly and efficiently.

I suggest that you put all 100 titles in a content calendar. (At MIG, we use a simple Google Sheet template). This will allow you to track your keywords and due dates, as well as your headlines. It is possible to centralize all links to drafts as well as published articles in one place.

Here is the content calendar template that we use for clients. Headlines should be placed in the “Topic/Title” column.

img alt=”Marketing Insider Group’s content calendar template.” class=”aligncenter” height=”494″ loading=”lazy” src=”https://marketinginsidergroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Content-Calendar-Template-MIG.png” width=”1236″/>

Image Source: Marketing Insider Group

Write headlines that stand out

The key question is: How do you write great headlines?

Although there is no single right answer, research has shown that there are some reliable tips you can use to make your headlines stand apart.

• Your headlines should be no more than 55 characters. This will ensure that your entire title appears in SERPs.
• Use numbers (i.e. Use numbers (i.e. “10 Tips to Better X” vs. “Tips for Better X”.
• To align with search queries, use question words (What? Why, How, Who, Where)
• Use compelling adjectives
• Your audience will benefit from your article if you communicate your value.

Create well-written articles

Rankings can't be achieved by keyword research alone. Keyword research alone won't get you to the top. You must use the keyword results to create well-written, SEO-optimized content that delivers value to users and catches the eye of search engine crawlers.

Our 20-Step Checklist for Writing the Perfect Blog Post will help you dive into writing amazing blog posts. Here are the highlights. These are:

Readability

People want to feel that they are reading blogs, not research papers. Your tone should be conversational. Avoid using unnecessary jargon and skim the extraneous parts of your writing. Simply put, get straight to the point.

This should be obvious, but I will say it anyway: Check your grammar. One mistake can turn off readers and cause them to abandon your brand.

SEO is key

These best practices include keyword usage, link building, meta data, text length, visual support content and strong calls for action.

Length

Blogs work best when they are between 1000 and 2000 words long. When writing blog articles, ensure that your writers aim to maintain this length.

Your brand voice should be heard

Blog posts should reflect your brand's voice. Your brand personality will make your blog posts more interesting and fun to read. You are building expertise in your field by including opinions. Do not be afraid to comment on current events that are relevant to your audience, or give an opinion on a topic.

Keep track of your progress each month

Track your progress. The beginning keyword research is not the end of your keyword strategy. You can continuously optimize your strategy by keeping track of your progress, which we do monthly for our clients and ourselves.

You will want to track the following KPIs:

• Keyword rankings (specifically rank changes over time)
• Search visibility is how often your domain appears in SERPs for keywords that rank high for you
• Organic traffic is the number of visitors that you get from search results
• Top Keywords – Keywords that rank highest

More to you

Are you ready to launch a keyword strategy that increases your content ROI?

This article covers the SEO Blog Writing Service. It also includes the complete keyword research strategy. After your keyword research is complete, our writers will provide you with optimized content that can be published every week for a year or more. ).

To learn more, or to schedule a consultation with me immediately, click here!

Simply put, the sharing economy is a new model of economics that relies on peer-to-peer networks. It is simple as it sounds: strangers share everyday goods and services via the internet.

Consumer-driven businesses in the sharing economy can save buyers time, money, and space by reducing the “hustle” of the daily grind. You can find a pet sitter with Rover, an Uber ride to the airport, or just a parking spot (Yes! These companies give regular people more control over almost any industry.

Each week, new tech start-ups in the sharing economy are popping up. They're also taking a substantial share of traditional counterparts' revenue. Reuters reported that AirBnb accounted for 18% U.S. lodging revenue for 2020, surpassing both the hotel industry as well as online travel agents sites like Expedia.

The sharing economy has revolutionized the world of consumerism and allowed for new multi-million-dollar businesses to flourish overnight. How can traditional businesses benefit from the sharing economy? These are five marketing lessons you can use in order to learn from the sharing economy.

Quick Takeaways

1. Co-creation can bring people together.
2. Encourage loyalty and empower your customers
3. Sharing is a social activity – Integrate social media to build trust between your buyers.
4. Get feedback from users to create the perfect website.
5. Community awareness can help you grow your business.

1. Co-create

Resilient communities are at the heart of many successful sharing economy companies like Uber and AirBnb. People come together to create something that is valuable for all. This is a great opportunity for traditional businesses to learn by working with customers in a collaborative manner to bring in new perspectives and ideas.

Co-creation places the human experience at its center. Crowdsourcing can be used to stimulate customer participation and product innovation. This creates loyalty among your customers and gives them the feeling of being part of something. This is what we all want, right? Starbucks has a program that allows customers to nominate new coffees.

Open-source platforms are often used by tech companies to encourage innovation and participation. In the sharing economy, co-creation can be a powerful tool for branding. Consumers who become co-creators of a brand experience are more likely to purchase from the brand.

2. Build Trust

The currency of the sharing economy is trust. A brand that empowers its customer is the foundation of this trust. How trust consumers place in your brand is a key factor in whether they choose sharing over traditional buying.

To build authority and trust with customers, you can use customer reviews and other community-building strategies. These reviews can be extremely helpful and help you to anticipate and resolve issues. They create a sense of belonging for the customer and encourage them to engage with you. They are a valuable resource for businesses in helping us understand what motivates buyers.

People must trust strangers in the sharing economy. Social proof and peer reviews can be leveraged by marketers to build trust with customers on a grassroots level.

3. Integrate Social

Social integration is becoming a key element in brand engagement and discovery. Sharing is convenient. They also switch because sharing is a social exchange.

It takes effort to build a network of brand advocates. Every brand experience should be social. Customers can share and engage with each other, creating a shared identity.

Studies have shown that consumers are more likely to trust the platform if they feel like other users on it are emotionally present. Trust empowers customers.

4. Create a great website

Here are some tips from the top sharing economy websites. These sites are engaging because of their peer reviews, simplified navigation, local info, and the use maps, imagery, and video.

Accessibility and convenience are the key ingredients of the sharing economy. Access to your products and services via your website is essential. To do this, optimize your site for various devices.

We've all been there. You pull up a website on your phone, and it's frustrating to navigate or even to read.

You can use customer feedback to help you figure out the best experience. Consider what features can distract you and what features will enhance your experience. Challenge assumptions! Use our ultimate website launch checklist.

This can be done by simply sitting down and mapping out the user experience and administrative experience. You will have a complete blueprint for your entire product, which is your website. This allows you to plan ahead and avoid making mistakes after the website is up and running.

The following video will help you if you don't have the technical skills. There is also a crowdsourcing platform available for web development.

5. Communities with Micro-Targets

The sharing economy is local; it creates business by building community awareness. Many large companies don't invest enough time in community engagement to be successful sharing economy brands. Spend time in your community to tell your brand story and create brand-building campaigns within your targeted communities.

Businesses in the sharing economy are fueled by location data and analytics. Businesses can use geo-location analytics to identify market trends and plan for the future. Let's take, for example, a sneaker business. If you see a high number of shoe shops in a particular area, it means that people have to travel to X, Y and Z to purchase their shoes. You can then determine the location of another store.

Rapid re-urbanization is causing more people, especially millennials, to move out of the suburbs into the cities. The sharing economy is more accessible because of the increasing population.

Delivery services that use a shared economy model like DoorDash or GoPuff need to be able to access location-based analytics because more people are working remotely or have hybrid schedules.

Keep your mind open.

Instead of seeing the sharing economy negatively, look at it as something that you can learn from. Leaders and visionary businesses who are open to building new business models that leverage this new economy can take advantage of peer-to-peer networking. How can you tap into the sharing economy

Are you willing to learn from the sharing economy and create a new business model? The hardest part is always figuring out where to begin. You can get help by visiting our SEO Blog Writing Services. Or, you can request a consultation for free here.