If those visitors don't convert into paying customers, then even great organic traffic is not enough.

While creating great content is essential, it is not the ultimate goal. Conversion rate optimization (CRO), tactics are designed to increase the number of visitors who act after reading your content.

This is what 82% of marketers do currently to drive web traffic. However, 63% don't have a structured approach for optimization.

What's the missing link? It's CRO.

Great CRO goes beyond the standard best practices every marketer is familiar with. While these are great tactics, every company that is well-marketed uses them. Consumers are well aware of the game marketers want to play.

A CRO strategy that is authentic to customers and different from other competitors will get you the results you desire.

Continue reading to learn 5 effective ways to optimize conversion rates that you can use right away.

Quick Take-Aways

• Message matching provides consistent content and fulfills the promises made in SERP headlines.

• Customers can engage with your brand incrementally until they are ready to commit fully.

• Pop-ups are a great way to optimize conversion rates. It's all about timing and offering the right offer.

• Lead magnets are able to drive conversions through the provision of high-value content in return for contact information.

• FOMO can be created with your CTAs and pop-ups. This will make potential customers think twice about leaving your site without taking any action.

Five underused strategies to increase website conversion rates

Matching Messages

Any marketing strategy needs to include online content. It lacks the essential elements of a personal sales pitch. For example, the physical gestures that are involved in a natural conversation or the facial expressions of a person during a conversation.

These words can't capture them all. Website conversion rate optimization is therefore crucial for message matching. The art of message matching (which involves aligning your website's message, which includes the design, copy and general message), with other content channels is called message matching.

Why? These components make up your digital brand personality.

Every aspect of what customers see and read on your website makes an impression they carry with them and help to guide their decisions. They also expect to see fulfillment of the promises they made in Google ads, Google blogs, Google ads, and meta descriptions.

Search engines account for 93% of all web traffic. When someone searches, sees a headline and clicks the link to expand their search results, they expect to see more of what that SERP headline promised. Your website messaging must match up.

The following example illustrates. As you can see, the ad copy matches that of the landing page headline. The headline also matches the CTA copy further down. Consistent messaging is provided to the customer and the website provides a lead magnet that meets its promise as outlined in the Google SERP.

Image Source

True message matching is more than just a brand interaction. It creates an experience. Effective message matching builds brand trust which is one of the most important traits consumers look for when making a purchase decision.

Micro-commitments

Micro-commitments are a way to gain commitment from people incrementally rather than expecting them all to move from web visitor to paying client in one jump.

According to research, it takes an average of 6-8 touches before a lead becomes a customer. You can encourage more interaction and not push for a purchase immediately with micro-commitments. This removes the pressure from potential customers and gives them control over their buyer journey. Another way to build brand trust is through micro-commitments.

Here are some examples of micro-commitment questions that work:

• Sharing a post via social media

• Follow your social media accounts

• Subscribe to your email newsletter

• Register for a free trial

• participating in a survey or questionnaire

• Download free content (e.g. an ebook)

Micro-commitments are the best! These micro-commitments keep customers connected to you brand long after they have made their first purchase. Although it may take longer to convert, micro-commitments help build trusting relationships between brand and consumer.

Exit pop-ups

Although pop-ups are often used to grab attention of readers and direct them towards a particular offer, they are rarely used well.

So how do you do a website pop-up right? Two things are essential: the timing and what the offer will be.

Let's begin with timing. It's obvious that customers don't like being bullied by ad copy once they land on your site. First, no pop-ups after readers get to your content.

Brands do this all of the time! So, they do. Yes, they do. Most people click the X, and that's before they read the contents of the pop-up.

Exit popups are pop-ups that appear after a customer leaves your website or finishes reading your content. They can be a less irritating and more effective method to optimize conversion rates. This allows customers to get to know you before they commit to your brand.

The offer is the second thing that you must get right. Pop-ups asking for money without offering a high-value, clear offer in return will not result in many conversions. Your CTA and your offer message are important.

This does not have to be difficult. Let's say, for example, you want to create an exit pop-up whenever a customer scrolls down to the bottom of a blog article (presumably after having read it). Instead of asking customers to subscribe to your blog and then ignoring them, remind them how valuable your content is.

Here's an example:

Source: Image Source

This pop-up not only tells potential customers what they will receive but also how it will improve their lives. Your pop-up will be more effective if you remind your customers about the benefits of your content (rather that focusing on what they want for you).

Lead magnets

Lead magnets offer high-value assets in return for contact information. These lead magnets offer more than the regular content users get. They can help users develop skills, solve specific problems, or do something else that is directly relevant to their job.

Lead magnets can be a powerful tool to optimize conversion rates. They offer real value to potential customers, and it's free. Free stuff is hard to resist! You can't resist!

Actually, it is. It is. . Many people. You can make free stuff online, so yours must be amazing. These are some lead magnets that work.

• Whitepapers and Ebooks – Both whitepapers and ebooks can be used to further explore a topic that you have covered in your blog content. They also allow you to show your expertise. The only difference is the level of expertise your audience has. Whitepapers, on the other hand, are more in-depth and are geared towards experts. Ebooks are aimed at non-experts.

• PDF checklists – PDF checklists are a great way to simplify complex problems. These checklists can make your customer more productive, motivated, and organized.

• Templates and guides – Templates and guidelines help people start projects that can feel overwhelming. They provide a framework and structure to get them started.

• Video content – This is the most popular type of content. Video content is popular in the form of how-to tutorials and product demonstrations.

This is a deeper dive into how to create lead magnets that convert.

Your customers don't owe any favors to you. It's important to share contact information these days. No one wants to be spammed by every brand they work with. Lead magnets that are effective and useful send the message that you value potential customers' information and offer something in return.

FOMO: Create it

It's something we all feel. Fear of missing out is part and parcel of human experience. Brands can use it to optimize their conversion rates.

Remember how we mentioned earlier that your lead magnets and pop-ups should demonstrate the brand's worth? You can also use reverse psychology to make FOMO.

Pop-ups and lead magnets typically offer two options: either yes (I'll sign up, opt-in, and share my information — whatever your CTA) or no thanks (aka I'm not interested). What if you focus on the benefits that users will not get?

It works like this:

You might use an exit pop-up to ask users to sign up for your content to receive a discount. For example, “Subscribe to our newsletter to receive weekly content and 20% off your first order!”

It's now time to make FOMO. Instead of simply saying “No thanks”, try “No thanks, but I'll pay the full price.”

What are you waiting for? Say what?

You've now got their attention. Nobody would choose full price over a discount. Your user will at least double-take and consider resubscribing.

Important PSA: Be careful not to sound arrogant when trying to create FOMO.

Double take: “No thanks, but I'll pay full price,” may earn you a double look. However, “No thanks, but I like to pay more money” will probably earn an eye roll, or worse, turn off a user. This is because, rather than reminding users about what they will miss, the second option implies that they are unreasonable if they don't say “no,” which can be a huge miss for a brand.

In short, FOMO is a yes. Insults?

Great content can drive conversions

Whatever tactics you use to increase conversions in your business, great content is the cornerstone of any strategy. Content marketing is one the fastest growing and most profitable forms of inbound lead generation.

Marketing Insider Group can provide you with SEO-optimized and publish-ready content every week for a year. To learn more, check out our Content Builder Service.

2022 You heard it right! It's true! It's difficult to believe that we are already halfway through the second half year. It's time to look ahead to next year and consider new strategies for content marketing as we bid farewell to summer. The most important factor to remember? Google ranking factors.

SEO best practices change over time just as web design trends change. Google is always evaluating what factors are indicative of a high-quality site for their users. If you want to be at the top of search engine rankings pages (SERPs), it's crucial to keep up to date with these ranking factors.

Except for Google, nobody can predict what the ranking factors of 2022 will look like. We can still assess available data, examine current trends, and follow official advice from Google.

Google uses approximately 200 ranking signals to rank websites. Publishing content optimized for each of the 200 signals is impossible. It's impossible. It is impossible.

Let's take a look at the top 10 ranking signals that SEO experts agree with content marketers should focus on.

Quick Takeaways

• 
  Google values high-quality, high value content.
  

• 
  Although SEO best practices for keywords have changed, they are still important.
  

• 
  A great user experience is key to organic search ranking.
  

• 
  Mobile optimization is becoming more important as more people use voice and mobile search.
  

• 
  Quality backlinks remain a key component of Google's ranking algorithm.
  

High-Value, Relevant Content

Google has recently confirmed that RankBrain, its AI-powered algorithm, is the third most important factor in determining where a web page appears in search results. RankBrain analyses user activity and compares it to search results in order to determine their quality and relevance. If a user clicks on informational pages and remains on them for a long time, it is more likely that they will rank higher than pages that are not helpful or have a high bounce rate.

Keywords are still very important. You need to ensure that your content includes relevant keywords to be able to rank high in search results for that keyword. Google's algorithms are much more sophisticated and can tell if your content covers a topic in an appropriate way or just stuffed in a few keywords.

RankBrain's most valuable feature is its ability to remove keyword-stuffed content in the SERP top results. It instead ranks the content that is most relevant to the query and provides high-quality, high value content. There is no proven way to optimize for RankBrian. This video will explain this further:

It's not about optimizing for RankBrain in one way. It's not about finding the best way to optimize for RankBrain. Instead, it's about understanding your audience and creating high-quality content that addresses their needs. Although keywords and other ranking factors are still important, RankBrain will not push your content to number one on any SERP.

High-Quality Backlinks

Your rankings are directly affected by backlinks. They are at the heart of Google's ranking algorithm, PageRank. Although PageRank hasn't been updated for several years, Google confirmed that they still use the site.

Google backlinks are used to determine your authority. They also aid other users in finding your content. You should have a plan for building links.

Quality is still more important than quantity. Although it is true that more links are better, you should still be building links to high-quality sites with high authority.

Keywords

Many conversations are centered on why brands should stop keyword stuffing. It's easy for people to believe that keywords don't matter anymore.

It is impossible to be more wrong. While keywords are not the only thing that matters in SEO, it is true that they aren't as important as they used to be. The most important thing has not changed in terms of keyword importance, but how to use them.

Google's messaging about RankBrain, as well as other factors (that will be discussed soon), shows that the AI behind Google’s algorithms is becoming smarter and expects more from content creators. They don't want keywords-laden content without real value.

Keyword analysis can be used to help you develop your content plan. It will also help you find topics that are most relevant to your audience. To help improve your rankings, you can position keywords in your titles and headings as well as the text body. Keywords alone are not enough.

You may feel that you are forcing keywords into certain places in your content. Keyword placement is important, but quality should always be first. Both must be in sync to achieve better rankings.

Site Authority

Google uses human agents to evaluate the quality of SERPs as well as the pages that appear on the first page for different searches. These guidelines are made public by Google and can be accessed publicly.

These guidelines verify that you have the expertise, authority and trustworthiness (also known as your EAT rating) are important factors in ranking pages. This is especially true for sites that fall under “your money or life” category. Sites that provide legal or health advice, or that process financial transactions, are generally considered to be in this category.

It is important to show your authority in your niche and your audience to Google. You can start by publishing author bios that include relevant experience and qualifications. Or, you may need to build this reputation over time through excellent content and building a strong authority.

Site Structure and UX

If your website is difficult to navigate for users or Google site crawlers, you won't be able to publish high-quality content. You must ensure that your site has a clear hierarchy and focuses on the user experience.

Good user experience will encourage searchers to stay longer on your site. Google should reward this positive sign with a high ranking site.

SEO-friendly sites can be achieved by starting from the basics. Keep your URLs concise and include your keywords. Implement intuitive navigation and eliminate duplicate content pages. Include a sitemap.

Mobile Optimization

Google now implements mobile-first indexing. This means that many websites are considered more valuable and useful on mobile devices than their desktop counterparts. This is logical, as more than half of web traffic comes from mobile devices. Google also has 96% of all search engine queries.

Source: Image Source

This means that we need to go beyond mobile-friendly strategies and concentrate on responsive design and mobile optimization. This is it:

• Mobile-friendlysites are designed for desktop users, but work well for mobile users
• Mobile-optimizedsites have been designed to be mobile-optimized and can be restructured accordingly
• Mobile-responsive adapt to the device of the user, reformatting and restructuring based upon screen size and device

Responsive design remains the standard. Google's mobile usability tool can help you assess how your website compares to mobile design standards.

Site Speed

Did you ever click on a Google search result and wait for it to load? Then, go back to another Google result that loads immediately. This isn't a common occurrence. The web user of today is impatient.

The changing way we use search engines is partly responsible for this. People are increasingly using search engines to quickly find answers to their questions, regardless of whether they are on the move or mobile. Voice and mobile search rates have increased dramatically.

It is therefore important to optimize your website for speed. Your ranking could be affected by a mere microsecond delay in site loading.

When you plan to refresh your site in 2022, speed should be a top priority. There are other ways to speed up an existing website. These include compressing images or using a CDN.

Google PageSpeed Insights can be used to check the speed of your site and to find ways to improve it.

Domain Security

Now is the best time to make the switch from http to https. Your domain security is a key contributor to your trustworthiness, which is one of the top factors Google uses when ranking your content. Google does not want its users to go to sites that might not protect their data, or could be harmful.

An SSL certificate is essential for all e-commerce websites. However, it's no longer optional for general sites that collect any type of user data. At least for those who want to rank.

While we are on the topic, consider adding additional domain security to your domain provider. It's a good idea to use tools that check for SMTP anomalies and DDoS protection.

Metadata

We have already discussed RankBrain, which uses the time spent on a page to determine its relevance and quality for each searcher. RankBrain also considers clickthrough rates.

The clickthrough rate is the percentage of searchers who click through to your site from the search results. As they haven’t yet seen your site, this factor doesn’t reflect the quality of your website. It is dependent on the relevancy of your content to their search and how attractive your link is.

What does this all mean? It is crucial to create compelling headlines and captivating meta descriptions. You can have the best content on the internet, but no one will see it.

Listings for Businesses

Over the past few years, local SEO has gained in importance. Mobile search continues to be the dominant method of searching for businesses. Businesses with a physical presence in a city must concentrate on their local SEO to improve their results at both a national or global level.

SEO strategies can have many aspects, but the most important is optimizing your Google My Business listing and making sure that your business information is correctly listed in local directories.

This information is used by Google to determine which local businesses will be featured in the Google 3 Pack. Your site will be more popular through business directories, which will increase traffic and increase the number of incoming hyperlinks.

Image Source

Featured Snippets

Featured Snippets are short excerpts that appear at top of Google SERPs to answer users' queries quickly. They receive about 8% percent of clicks related to a search query.

Source: Image Source

Although there is no single way to get the featured snippet, it is possible to increase your chances by making sure that your content is relevant and high-quality. Also, Google Search Console will allow you to check your content and ensure consistency in your content publishing. As your brand grows in authority and rises up the search rankings, patience is sometimes necessary.

You can expect to see an increase in brand authority and visibility when you earn a featuredsnippet.

Optimize your Content for Google Ranking Factors

It's not easy to optimize your content for Google Ranking Factors. There is a lot of information available, and it changes frequently. Marketing Insider Group's writers and SEO teams can produce optimized content on a weekly basis for you for one year or more. You can find out more at

To learn more, check out our Content Builder Services.

Your company has a powerful marketing tool. There's a good possibility that you aren't using it.

Or, at the very least, not using it as often as you should. This tool is text messaging marketing, also known by SMS marketing.

Grandview Research says the SMS marketing industry has exploded. Grandview Research projects an annualized increase in SMS spending of over 20% between 2025 and 2025.

Text marketing is becoming more popular than ever with your competitors. Are you one of them?

Learn more about SMS marketing and how you can use it to reach your target audience.

Text Message Marketing Benefits

There are many benefits to text message marketing, but two stand out for marketers and businesses that are skeptical.

It's also very affordable. Anthem Business Software, which is a small-business marketing automation provider, says that text message marketing costs can often be as low as pennies per message. This is a lot cheaper than paid digital marketing which can run into the hundreds each day.

Second, SMS marketing converts much faster than traditional marketing strategies. Most prospects receive messages in less than five minutes. As many as one third of them click through to relevant offers. Wow!

How to make text message marketing work for your business

How can SMS marketing be a success for your business? How can you improve your trust and visibility with high-potential prospects

These strategies are a good place to start. These strategies have worked well for others and can work for yours.

Send personalized messages

Personalized messaging is possible with texting. This is especially important in a market where consumers don't like old-school marketing techniques and are skeptical of one-size-fits all sales.

Marketing effectiveness is not all that matters. Personalized messaging can help keep your brand top of mind for consumers who are pulled in many different directions.

Set up reminders for appointments and events

SMS marketing is still effective for customers who are ready to convert, and prospects who are already interested in converting again. It can be used to remind customers to make appointments or to schedule events to help them follow up. You can also use it to close the sale if the “event” is an abandoned digital shopping cart.

Send targeted, time-sensitive promotions

SMS is a great way to reach customers who are more likely to purchase at certain times of the day or week. SMS is more effective in crunch time than promo emails which prospects may not see until too late or never.

Combine your time-sensitive text messages with exclusive or special pricing for recipients. Nothing is more satisfying than getting a deal that only a few people have. Your prospects are more likely to pay attention when you offer exclusives.

Use Geofencing to Improve Targeting

You want to capture more prospects at the critical decision point when they are making a decision whether to buy from or go elsewhere.

Geofenced SMS targeting is a great way to do this. It allows you to target customers in certain locations. For example, a neighbourhood where you have a store or inside your store. You'll increase your conversion rate and revenue per transaction by reaching more customers at the right time and place.

Make sure to target key decision-makers (and know when they receive the message)

Are you tired of sending marketing messages to the wrong people? SMS marketing allows you to reach those who make the buying decisions. This is especially true in B2B sales where the difference between closed sales and lost opportunities can be as easy as a phone number.

Analyze Your Marketing Effectiveness

Are you able to identify who is actually viewing your TV ads, rather than just fast-forwarding through them.

No. Television doesn't offer that level of marketing analysis.

SMS marketing does. You can use your marketing suite's built in analytics to see who is opening your messages, clicking through, and converting. This information is essential to help you make informed marketing decisions.

Send secure payment reminders and requests

SMS is an excellent way to notify pay-later customers that there has been a change in their bill, and remind them to settle.

Consider including a payment link. This may be flagged by clients' carriers as spam, and some won't use it anyway. However, you can include instructions for bill payment in your text messages.

Get feedback from customers (and people who haven't converted yet)

It's easy to get feedback from customers and prospects about your brand through SMS messaging. They don't have to create an account or fill in a lengthy form. It's often as easy as answering a few questions with “yes” or “no”.

Text Message Marketing can make a difference

Text message marketing can be a powerful tool to reach prospects wherever they are. Literally, they can text message you as long as their phones are on.

It is versatile too. It can be used to send reminders, send geo-targeted and time-sensitive promotions, collect feedback from customers and prospects, and send payment requests and reminders. Your creativity is the only limit to SMS marketing's potential.

90% of startups fail within the first year. It is crucial to learn how to market yourself effectively and efficiently.

Once your product-market fit has been established, it is time to spread the word, get those first customers and learn how you can scale up growth. Growth is an engine, as I discovered in my first startup. Once your startup is up and running, all you have to do is keep adding fuel to it and try different ways to scale and accelerate that growth.

You know that year one is not only about revenue, growth and getting new clients. Cash flow and predictability are also important. If you are a bootstrapped startup, a couple of bad months can bring down your business.

It is important that your startup marketing plan doesn't depend on hiring more salespeople or spending money on ads that no one wants. Startups must find cost-effective marketing strategies that work without breaking the bank.

It doesn't happen overnight. It takes small, incremental improvements over time to grow. Consistent improvement over time leads to massive compounding “hypergrowth.”

Source

How do you find the first customers to your startup? The resulting revenue should be a major part of your year-one marketing strategy.

Let's look at the other things you should do and then link to some amazing resources that will help you go through each step.

Understanding and Identifying Your Audience

Before you can do any other marketing, it is essential to identify the people you are targeting.

You should have a good idea of your target audience after doing your market research. However, you can and should do more research to really understand them and their motivations.

Personas are great, except when they suck

It may seem like a decade ago to develop personas for your ideal buyer. Buyer personas are actually very useful. Although creating a moodboard for “Millennial Mary” and “Boomer Bob” is absurd, identifying the questions buyers ask and the content they want can help you to plan your marketing strategy.

How to Build Your Buyer Persona (Infographic).

To create a successful strategy, it is important to have a clear picture of your typical customer. This article, which I wrote earlier in the year, outlines the steps to building buyer personas that work.

20 Questions to Ask Your Target Customers

Hubspot's article outlines the 20 most important questions to ask your target customers to help you create a profile that reflects their needs, pains, and challenges.

7 Questions to Get to Know Your Audience Better

Marketing strategies are only as effective as the people you know. How can you get to know your audience? Timothy Carter, a MarTech columnist discusses seven methods to get to know your target audience so that your marketing attracts the right people.

10 ways predictive analytics can help you achieve your marketing goals

Predictive analytics is a great way to create unique experiences for customers. You can use critical consumer data to understand your audience's engagement with you and help you adjust your strategy accordingly.

The Ultimate Guide to Startup Marketing for SaaS

SaaS startups face many challenges in marketing their services to prospects. Marketing your SaaS company requires maximum ROI at a low cost.

SaaS companies are able to win content marketing because they have the right people. It's easy to measure the results and it is affordable. This is also why we use a SaaS model with our own content marketing. Regardless of how saturated your market may feel, small but steady investments can yield big returns.

Set goals

Marketers who are most successful set clear, achievable goals for their campaigns and themselves. Because goals help them and their team focus, understand their goals, measure their success, and track their progress, they do this.

Your goalposts may be shifting frequently during your first year. You'll need to monitor your progress and adjust your goals at regular intervals.

How to set marketing goals you can actually achieve

If you set the bar too low, your team may not feel motivated to achieve their goals. Setting the bar too high can cause low morale and lead to failure to reach goals. Maximizing results is possible only when you strike the right balance.

How to set SMART marketing goals [Free Template]

Although your goals should be “smart”, SMART is an acronym that stands for:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Time-bound

SMART is a way to specify what your goals should include. This template will help you set goals that fit the SMART criteria.

How to set marketing goals based on business goals

Your business's marketing goals are directly tied to your business's goals. However, setting goals is not as easy as saying “We want our business to grow and make more money.” This article will show you how to link your specific business goals with your marketing campaign targets.

The Affordable Guide to Content Marketing for Startups (KPIs Included).

Startups we work with are passionate about sharing their passion with customers through providing exceptional products and services they love. To get customers to join your startup, you must build a brand that will create interest in the company and instill loyalty. While you must optimize your brand storytelling, you should also be responsible for the correct KPIs. This article can help.

Keyword Research

Keyword research will ensure that you target the correct keywords on the appropriate pages of your website.

It is also a crucial part of understanding your market. It should be a top priority in every startup's marketing plan.

Google's Keyword Planner is a popular tool for keyword research. It's great – Keyword Planner is a great tool. However, it can only be used to identify generic terms and head terms (and terms very closely related to your original search).

A good keyword strategy has many layers. These articles will help you dig deeper and discover the thoughts of your audience.

How to Do Keyword Research for Beginners

Hubspot's guide is great for anyone who wants to learn more and take some time to do it. SEO should not be outsourced. As a founder, I would prefer to spend my time doing things that add value to our clients. But, I do appreciate people who are able to learn and do things their own way.

Keyword Research: The Ultimate Guide

The definitive Backlinko guide to keyword research covers seven chapters. It will walk you through the basics and show you how Keyword Planner works (and what its limitations are), identify long-tail keywords and explain the importance of keyword competition and commercial intent.

10+ Keyword Research Tools For SEO

This article will take a look at 10+ tools at different price points that can be used to help you do keyword research for SEO.

Driving organic traffic

Organic traffic is always free and it tends not to drop as quickly. It is vital. It's not easy to get your website in a position that will attract a lot of organic traffic. This usually requires a combination of technical fixes, optimizations on the page, and a strategy to drive links.

It takes time.

SEO is not a one-time process. It takes time. SEO is an ongoing process and should be continued for as long as your site wants to attract visitors. Here's an example of a client who saw steady growth and then huge growth in the sixth month.

SEO: The Beginner's Guide

Moz's “Beginner's Guide to SEO”, a massive guide to SEO, has been viewed more than 3,000,000 times. It's not hard to see why it is so popular. It is also regularly updated, which is crucial in an industry like SEO that constantly changes. It is worth reading. Save it. It can be reread in six months.

How your small business can achieve massive organic growth

Your content strategy is key to small businesses getting noticed. This strategy drives traffic to your website, improves conversions, and strengthens the brand.

It's not easy to create blogs that rank and rank well. But it is possible. This article will show you how to rank and write content that your customers and search engines love.

15 SEO Tips and 9 Best Practices

These are the SEO tips that every startup should use to increase blog traffic, increase awareness, get more leads, and all this without spending any money on advertising.

How to fix common website issues

Your website is now amazing. This article will show you how to optimize your website for traffic and rankings, leads, sales, and conversions. It's been a long time since you launched your brand and website. Now it's time for you to ensure it continues to work for you.

Startup branding and PR

PR has been transformed by the explosion of the internet.

Digital PR is as important, if no less, than offline PR. If done correctly, it can drive significant traffic and links. It's not about brand visibility and press coverage anymore.

Marketing professionals need to understand that PR is not a way to drive sales.

Although this might seem discouraging for the C-Suite marketers, it doesn't mean that PR isn't worth investing in. Consumers buy because they trust a brand. There are many factors that influence their buying decisions. This is where PR can and should play an important role.

Everything you need to know about PR in order to do it yourself

This article provides a comprehensive guide to how to tackle PR by yourself. It covers everything from understanding the basics of PR to the key ground rules to follow and what it takes to get the media to cover you.

A Complete Guide to Public Relationship Tools

This huge list of 140 PR tools will support and complement your efforts.

The Ultimate Guide to Brand Building Your Startup

It is exciting and scary to make the decision to start your own business. You're about to make your passions come to life and earn a living doing what you love. You get to share your passion with customers, providing exceptional products and services they will love.

To get customers to join your startup, you must build a brand that will create interest in the company and instill loyalty. Your brand storytelling must be consistent in character and feel across all products.

Content Marketing

Content builds brand awareness and helps to build links. A content strategy is essential if you are to increase your online performance.

Optimized content can rank high in search results and drive qualified visitors to your site. You can promote shareable content and drive links. Conversion content is able to target customers at all stages of the sales funnel. It can turn potential customers into real-life revenue-driving customers.

Content is what will help your website grow. Without content, your website could stagnate.

A content strategy does not have to be expensive. Even the smallest companies can and do compete.

What is Content Marketing?

Before you do anything, it is important to understand what content marketing is. This article will explain what content marketing is and what it doesn't look like. It also demonstrates how you can show other people how it differs from the way most brands promote themselves.

The 12-Month Content Marketing Strategy For Startups

There are many things to think about when you start your business: how to finance all the equipment, how you keep track of revenues and expenses, how you produce goods and services economically enough that you can make a profit, and how you get word out about your products and services. A content marketing strategy? It's essential. So we've got you covered.

How Often Should You Be Visiting Your Blog?

This article will show you how consistency is key to making content marketing successful. How often should you publish content to show results? This research led to the creation of our blog subscription service.

How to Write the Perfect Blog Post

This article outlines everything we have learned over the past 3 years in writing and analysing weekly blog posts for almost 30 companies. This article includes our 20-point checklist and the template that we recommend for each article page.

Social Media Marketing for Startups

Social media can be used to connect with customers and turn them into brand advocates. It can drive traffic to your website. Startups make the common mistake of hiring a young agency or kid to post on social media before they have a strategy for content marketing.

Social media accounts for only 2% of website traffic to companies and even less leads. Social media accounts for less than 5% in sales, even for e-commerce businesses. Most of this is paid!

Social media is essential for your business. However, it's not enough to drive growth. Don't invest in social media without a solid content strategy in place.

While it is important to keep up-to-date with social media trends, we recommend that you limit your focus to just one or two social networks. Understanding how people respond to your brand is the best way to gain insights. If it helps you build an audience, that's a bonus.

The Beginner's Guide To Social Media

Another amazing guide by the same Moz team that brought you “The Beginner’s Guide to SEO” is here. This time you'll learn all about social media's value, best practices, how to measure success and which channels to use.

Social Media Case Studies: Successes & Failures

Here are links to 132 case studies about social media that have been successful and those that have failed. Learn from them and avoid making the same mistakes!

Email Marketing

Email still matters, despite what some may think.

Email is an outdated and innocuous technology, but the chants of “Email is dead!” that are heard by many businesses are inaccurate.

Email marketing is the best way to communicate with leads and convert them into sales.

Litmus, an email analytics company, revealed that email has a better ROI and conversion rate than banner ads and PPC, as well as a higher ROI than PPC, banner ads and PPC combined.

The Essential Guide to Email Marketing For Startups

Email marketing is an essential tool for startups to reach customers, leads and investors. Incredible content is key to amazing email marketing – in email as well as elsewhere. To nurture and get leads, startups must figure out how to send all this amazing content via email.

How to Create an Email List From Scratch in Just 48 Hours and Get 205 Subscribers

This comprehensive strategy will help you increase your email list's value by converting it from nothing to at most something in 48 hours.

25 Easy Ways to Increase Your Email List

It is always the most difficult task to get those first emails. Here are 25 strategies to help you get over this hurdle.

Lean Startup Guide to Email marketing

This introduction to email marketing is written for startups and focuses on what works.

49 Email Marketing Tips For Beginners

Here are 49 email marketing tips for beginners. They focus on five areas.

• Getting started
• Content
• Subject line
• Sending your email
• Manage subscribers

8 ways to segment your email list to maximize ROI

The same email you would send to your best friend or your grandparents is not something you would do. So why should your entire email list be in the same place? This article will show you eight ways to split your email list to ensure you are sending the right messages.

It has been shown to be very effective.

Everything I have learned about email marketing

This article provides a firsthand account on the ups and downs and lessons learned when using email marketing to build both a blog or a business.

Relationship marketing and customer retention

Relationship marketing is all about creating long-lasting relationships with customers. This is a sustainable approach to building customer relationships, as opposed to focusing on the next sale.

Relationships and customer retention marketing are so important, but it is actually more of a lost art.

Relationship marketing is about getting your customers to stay with you and continue to buy from you. This has the following consequences:

• Higher customer LTV (lifetime value)
• Refer more people and get word-of mouth marketing for free

Stop focusing on gaining as many customers in your first year. Take a step back and look at what's happening. It is likely that it will pay off to concentrate on keeping and retaining a smaller number of customers happy.

How to Use Content Marketing to Retention Customers

In today's world where predictive analytics tools can be used to create highly personalized experiences, it is crucial to place value above making a sale, or too much on cost.

Customers will connect with you on a deeper level if you provide real value now and in the future. Customers will be more likely to recall you, love you, trust and continue working with you over the long-term.

How to rock at relationship marketing like the best sales pros

Salespeople who are the best know that closing a sale is dependent on how well they can build a relationship with the person they're selling. This article explains what these salespeople can teach us regarding relationships in marketing.

Framework for Growth Implementation

Every marketing strategy should have the ultimate goal of growth. You can increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts by creating a framework that drives growth.

Growth is my passion. I enjoy implementing strategies to grow my businesses and helping others grow theirs. Growth is my passion. I have helped one non-profit increase its revenue by 5x over the past year, and helped another marketing agency double their leads in six months.

Growth is my “thing”, so I will share some ideas to drive growth that we haven’t discussed.

Growth hacking

Sean Ellis, an entrepreneur, coined the term growth hacking in 2010. It refers to people and organizations that use innovative, experimental approaches to achieve rapid growth while staying within a budget. It's become a buzzword in marketing and growth hacking strategies have been adopted across all industries.

It's evident that organizations of all sizes, shapes, and industries must be innovative and adaptable if they are to survive. Growth hacking is one method to achieve this.

Six Growth Hacking Strategies to Get You Started Right Now

Use the Right Tools

I am a growth hacker and love to find new tools and tricks that will help me gain insights, make the system more affordable, win new customers, and all this without spending too much. Finding and using the best startup marketing tools is one of the ways to get there.

These are the 50 best startup tools to grow your small business

Lead generation

You need to be able to manage leads to grow your business. Nobody wants to pursue leads that are unlikely to convert.

What is the difference between an inquiry and a lead?

As a sales professional and entrepreneur, one of my first lessons was to distinguish between inquiries and actual sales leads.

It is also important to be creative when building leads. This post will discuss some of the creative ways that I've found to accomplish my goals.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a hot topic right now. Influencer marketing is just as important as brands jumping on social media platforms without much growth or traffic. It needs to be analyzed objectively.

Although it is a great tool for promoting influencer marketing, it's not what many companies believe it should be. If done correctly, it can increase your content's reach and help you find new audiences.

Since a long time, I have been discussing influencer marketing. My initial strategy was to create a list of top marketers I believed were sharing cool things and make lists.

• Top B2B Marketing Influencers
• Top Digital Marketing Influencers
• Top Content Marketing Influencers
• The Top Customer Retention Marketing Influencers
• Top Marketing Automation Influencers

After compiling a list of people that I wanted to work with, i reached out to them via email or social media to let them know that I mentioned them. I asked them for quotes, for sharing the content, to sign up for our newsletter, and sometimes to guest-write for us.

This volunteer army of content contributors, as well as a community for sharing, helped us get incredible content from smart people. It also allowed us to increase our content's visibility.

Okay, this article is almost 4,000 words long. Hopefully you have found enough information to help you grow your startup in the first year through growth marketing.

What are your thoughts on marketing a startup in the first year? Do you think there are any strategies that companies should or shouldn't use? Use the comments section below to let us know your thoughts. If you are interested in our assistance, please use the link above.

Content marketing that is always on is the best way to create new relationships for your brand.

Carla Johnson, my friend and good friend, points out that magic content marketing is possible. Just look at what MGM Resorts' Las Vegas properties went through to rebrand. You're familiar with the romantic scenes that revolved around high-rollers if you've seen old Vegas movies.

In the 1950s and 1960s entertainment was a big deal. But what about family-friendly entertainment? It was pretty scandalous to take your child to Vegas.

Beverly Jackson, who arrived on the scene in 2015, changed everything. She created content with entertainment as the central theme and appealed to all hotels. This included families with young children, couples with young children, and one hotel, Circus Circus, which is now poised to compete with Disney in the family market.

This kind of change did not happen with one campaign, or even a series. This was possible by delivering a steady stream of content that was tailored to each property's customers through a variety of channels.

Marketing is a constant process. Content marketing is a great way to expand your brand.

Quick Takeaways

• 
  Find out about your target market and what they need.
  
• 
  Stand out from the rest with your brand voice
  
• 
  Create quality content and increase publication speed
  
• 
  Change your customers' perceptions by using data, innovation and consistent content strategies.
  

This kind of content marketing can help you differentiate your brand from others and from the past. These same content marketing principles can be applied to a rebranding or expansion. These steps will help you change the perception of your brand among your target customers.

Strategically position your new brand image

Deep research is necessary on your target markets and trends within them. The MGM resort hotels, which we discussed earlier, looked at Disney's family-friendly model as a guideline and analyzed what worked and didn't in order to position themselves as a major player within the family resort market.

MGM appears to have also researched the latest trends in the industry. MGM hopes to be the first resort to receive the Advanced Certified Autism Center (ACAC), designation from the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards.

This strategy should help position the chain in this niche, given the rise in autism diagnoses in American households.

Differentiate your brand customer experience from its former self

Coca-Cola's flagship brand cola has been synonymous with its brand for more than 100 years. One exception: New Coke, a marketing disaster that occurred in the 1980s due to the company's decision to drop its signature beverage.

The company had to expand its brand beyond cola after experiencing declining revenues from 2012-2017. Coke's CEO decided not to repeat the brand’s disastrous mistake and instead created new content to highlight its non-sparkling beverages. He used influencers, employees messaging and Indiegogo to generate buzz.

This is the lesson: Think about your audience and their needs. Make sure you create content that they like. Use employees and influencers to share your content.

Consistently publish quality content

No matter what niche you are trying to grow into, it is important to provide content that informs, assists, and answers questions.

Data analytics can be used to find out more about your customers, their problems, where they spend their time online and what they do not like. You can also listen to what they say on social media to get answers to any questions.

These factors will determine what content you publish. All content should be consistent with your brand image.

Every week. Outsource content marketing to an agency if you are unable to keep up with demand. To quickly build awareness when rebranding, it is crucial to make a consistent and sustained effort.

Do not be influenced by trends, but marry a long-term brand strategy

Your online assets should be your permanent storage spot for content. Do not let the latest social media trend be your main place to invest your time and money.

For example, those who had invested most of their branding on MySpace would have to make a costly change when the platform went out of business.

Your websites should contain your best content. You can also use social media and third-party platforms to add some spice. This way you can quickly change your strategy when the next trend emerges.

Find new audiences with innovative strategies

Let's suppose you are a toy maker and Disney offers you the opportunity to make Star Wars toys. You are looking to expand your brand in the adult sci-fi/anime space.

This kind of move will require a completely different brand image from your kiddie line. You'll need to begin posting on channels that appeal more to adults.

You will need a new voice in order to reach the anime/sci-fi community, whether you are creating a brand new website or a separate section of your existing website. Your new customers will be reached by a sophisticated brand voice and messaging in forums and on social media.

No matter how you expand or rebrand, it is important to establish a brand voice that speaks to your target audience in their language. Also, find new ways to reach them.

To drive your content distribution, use customer segmentation

It doesn't matter if you're expanding into new markets or rebranding entirely, segmenting your customers by location, type and stage of the customer journey is a smart move.

Your creative team can use buyer personas to help them create content that appeals specifically to their interests, especially for new segments.

When you are changing your brand image, it is even more critical to convey your message correctly. It's worth the extra effort to create a buyer persona for each new segment of your customer base.

Next, you should distribute your content via the channels that they use, and on your website.

Listen and measure, finally

After you have published and distributed new content, it is time to listen to the opinions of your followers on social media about your brand.

You can look for signs in their comments that indicate that they have changed their perceptions to align with your brand direction.

Next, look at the data to determine how your target customers have responded to your brand new content. Are they converting? Are they progressing along the buyer's journey?

Take the best performing content and repurpose it in another format. You will be able to see your top performers and make adjustments to those that aren’t working in order for your brand’s new direction and the needs of your customers.

The right content can help you drive your brand message home, whether you are rebranding your business or expanding your view. Our Content Builder Service can help you increase traffic to your website with a long-term content marketing strategy that includes high-quality, branded content. Get in touch with me to schedule a consultation and receive a PDF copy of my books for free. Get started today and you'll be able to generate more leads and traffic for your business.

You have a company blog. We hope so! You're now ready to get some ROI from your content. It's great! But it's not as simple as just writing an article and pressing publish.

Google's ranking factors determine whether your content appears in search results. If it does, that's a problem. The most important factor is link building. Link building.

Link building, in simplest terms, is the act of creating links between your website and other sites. Link building is a long-term strategy. It takes time, effort and consistency to make it pay off. You'll be able to see huge improvements in the performance of your content once it happens.

To help you stay on the right track, we have compiled 5 key points to remember when link building.

Here are some quick tips:

• It is essential to vet all sites that you use for link building strategies in order to ensure quality and relevancy.

• Link building ROI is dependent on anchor text. Don't spam the same keywords or pages with junk anchors.

• To maintain a balance between do follow and not follow links, it is important to understand what they mean.

• It is possible to research the backlink profiles of competitors to identify high-quality sources that you can reach out to.

• It is important to have backlink diversity. Make sure you don't put all your backlinks in one place (like your homepage).

Avoid backlinks

Backlinks do not all have to be created equally. Your website should be linked to relevant brands and websites, which will bring you the right amount of traffic. Avoid these backlinks:

Reputation or poor quality

Although this is obvious, we will mention it anyway. Be aware of which websites you are earning backlinks. Linking to a suspicious website can cause more damage than good. While you cannot always control the links from other brands to your site's content, you can manage who you contact in your link building efforts.

Irrelevant niches

Linking to websites that aren't relevant to your brand will not help you. Your efforts should be directed at websites and brands that are in line with your message and industry.

Sites are overloaded with hyperlinks

Your website should be linked in a way that makes sense to the user, and drives high-quality organic traffic. You're more likely to get lost in the shuffle or receive traffic that doesn't convert.

It is important to be proactive in finding the right backlinks. Here are some great tips for finding the right link building partners.

Anchor text

Anchor text is important.

Let me repeat it: Anchor text is important.

This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in link building. You can avoid this mistake if you have the right link.

Let's see:

Junk anchors

When it comes to SEO link building, “junk” anchor text such as “here”, “there”, “read more,” or “click here” aren't very helpful. They aren't necessarily bad. These anchors may be the best fit for your sentence. They can also be used to drive conversions.

In short, they can be useful when you need them, but they won't improve your SEO ranking. Use directly relevant keywords for your anchor text when you can.

Anchor spam

Anchor spam is when anchor text is repeated too often.

You don't have to! It's possible to link to more than one webpage.

Yes, you can. However, it can have some very negative consequences such as a drop in rankings or backlinking penalties from Google.

How do you fix it? The solution? Similar to keyword stuffing, forcing links in your content can not only look bad but also hurt the rankings of the pages you are trying to improve.

You can assess your anchor text performance by visiting Serpstat, doing a backlink assessment, and then scrolling down for your anchor profile. This analysis will give you valuable information such as anchor keywords, domains using which anchors and the number of backlinks to a specific anchor.

Here is a screen shot from Serpstat's Backlink Analysis Guide that illustrates how your results will look.

Image Source

Follow vs. not follow links

Let's first discuss the differences between do follow and no follow links. Do follow links are SEO-friendly. Follow links do not.

This means that people cannot use any follow links. However, search engine crawlers ignore them and they won't count for a contributing backlink to page rankings.

However, that doesn't mean they aren't necessary. Is it wise to not use follow links?

• Promote an affiliate link

• To avoid spam comments (many companies make their blog comments nofollow)

• You were paid by a brand to share their link

• This is a site that uses low quality content to illustrate a point (i.e. Guides on “what not to Do”

You should use do follow links whenever you link to a trusted brand for a purpose that justifies it (e.g. citing a great source of information in a blog post).

Your competitors

Let's face it, a key part of link building success is beating the competition. It's not wrong to do some detective work in order to achieve that goal. You can spy on the backlinks of your competitors and find out which domains link to their websites. When it makes sense, you can target these sites as well.

Serpstat's Referring Domains Analysis can be used to find out the backlinks of your competitors. This is Serpstat’s guide for conducting a referring-domains analysis. These are your results:

Source: Image Source

It will provide you with a list domains linking to the site that you are analyzing, the number and the rank of the domains.

Remember that even the most reputable blogs are not perfect. After you have identified some links that are high-potential, make sure to do your research to ensure they meet your quality standards.

Link building growth rate

Although it may seem tempting to build links quickly, this is a way for Google to penalize you. You should build links slowly and steadily. Do not use all your quality backlinks at once. Spread them out over time for consistent growth results.

Here is an example of how a high rate of link building growth looks:

Source: Image Source

Diversity of backlinks

Your primary goal in link building is to create a profile of backlinks that looks natural. It is not the best way to build backlinks to your homepage.

It is better to prioritise the web pages and content that you believe will be most valuable to your audience. Next, you should focus on the strategic ways that backlinks can be earned for these pages.

The saying that all traffic is good traffic is false. People who arrive at your site should understand why they came there, and be able to find the information that will solve their problems or meet their needs.

Search engine rankings are also improved by backlink diversity. This is because SEO power spreads across multiple pages of your website instead of being concentrated in one area.

Link building is not something you can do on your own.

Link building is a complex and ongoing process. It takes experts to execute link building in a professional manner. Marketing Insider Group can assist you in performing a content audit. They will then prepare consistent, publish-ready content that is optimized for link building.

To learn more, check out our Content Builder Service.

Content quality vs. content quantity. Is there enough content? How much content is enough? This post was written 7 years ago. Then, I was the closing keynote at a recent content marketing conference where I saw that the debate continues. Here's an update!

Every business has to wrestle with the issue of quality content vs. quantity. This has been a problem for marketers since the beginning. I've seen the arguments from ad executives and agencies about whether they should buy more reach, frequency, or media impressions.

This is something I've dealt with as both a salesperson and demand gen marketer, sending leads to sales. Are we sending enough leads to satisfy sales? Or do we send quality leads that they buy?

Content marketers from all industries are facing the same dilemma. How much content should they create, how frequently should we post, how long should it take, what should its cost, and how high should it be?

Let's get down to it and find out the answer once and for all.

Quick Takeaways

• 
  Research shows that web traffic growth is directly related to the content you publish. You will receive more traffic if you publish more content. However, quality must be maintained.
  
• 
  It doesn't have to be about content quantity and quality. You can get the best of both with a few adjustments to your content strategy.
  
• 
  Repurpose old content to build new perspectives in your industry.
  
• 
  Quality vs. quantity are not two sides of the same coin when it comes to content. You can have your cake, and eat it as well! There are no two options.
  

Is there a balance?

What is content quantity? It is the amount of content that you have published over a time period. A number that is measured over a period of time represents content quantity. Examples of content quantity are 2 articles per week and 1 article per day. Similar terms include content frequency and content cadence.

We need to balance the lines between creating enough content that increases your customer conversations and the need to present your unique viewpoint and distinguish yourself from your competition.

My friend Doug Kessler, Velocity Partners, said that we must “Stop Creating Crap.” However, this doesn't necessarily mean we should create less.

What does content quality mean? Content Quality is subjective. It is the quality of a piece or content that answers the search query of the reader. The quality of content is determined by factors such as word count, years of experience, and other accolades. However, these factors only assume that the content answers the question being asked. The individual reader is the best judge of quality.

It's easy to pick the side of quality when it comes to this debate. We must create useful, entertaining and engaging content. It must live up to your brand's standards.

Content marketers must produce content that is relevant to their target audience and that inspires them to take action.

We have to do this all at a level that is beneficial for the business. When content is only good for a few hours at most and short-lived in the real world, we can't produce one piece of great content per month.

So do we need more content or better content? We need more and better content.

My answer to the question of content quality vs. volume might surprise you. Since my first speech on this topic in 2013 at the 2nd Content Marketing World conference, I haven’t changed much.

This is because I have studied data on content quantity, and it shows a real correlation to traffic and leads. This theory was tested in my first content marketing program with SAP. Content Quantity is important, so I'm convinced. Don't take my word for this.

HubSpot, a marketing giant, agrees with my studies as well as many other researchers. As you can see in the graph, there is a sweet spot for blog posting.

The increase in traffic from companies that post HTML2_ to 4 times per week (eight-16 posts per month) is anywhere from 2 to nearly 4 times.

The traffic is high quality traffic. Hubspot also showed the exact same increase of leads. You can expect to see 2-4x the traffic if your blog publishes more than 2 posts per month. It can take up to a year for these results, according to our data.

You can have the best both of them.

Commitment to Quality Content Leads to Content Quantity

“Deadlines can be the greatest source for inspiration.” Mark Twain

Mark Twain is right. Having a publishing schedule can help us create better content. Start by setting a quantity goal. It is important to establish a publishing schedule that is dedicated and consistent. This will enable us to reduce the number of customer conversations online. You must think like a publisher to set deadlines.

Once we have chosen our publishing schedule, we demand that each piece we publish be of high quality.

Volume also has its advantages. There are many benefits to having more content. You get better insights into what works. Increased content means more social engagement opportunities. You have more chances to answer customers' top questions if you create more content.

To produce quality content at scale, you don't have to be a writer

It doesn't take much to live in the industry that you have chosen for your career. You don't need to exert much effort to express your passion.

You can create great content via video or audio posts even if you don't like writing. You could also write down your ideas and have a blog writing service such as ours edit them.

You could also just BE. LIKE. Gary Vee

Your field is your expertise. It is not “crap” to share your expertise with others who are in need. All you need is a masterpiece of grammar and search engine-friendly keywords. Empathetic language will win hearts as well as minds.

My friend Doug Kessler brought this paradox out in an interview with Ceralytics. He spoke about the challenges of creating quality content and maintaining consistency. He stated, “If your story isn't unique, it's not going to allow you to deliver consistent results over the course of time.”

His concept of a “differentiated story” was precisely what I try to convey to my clients. Content marketing success is all about standing out as a thought leader within your niche and creating content that reflects your expertise.

You do two things when you use your expertise to spark content ideas.

• This allows you to limit the content you provide and helps you rank higher in search results for products or services that you offer.
• By creating content that is familiar with your topic, you can simplify the content creation process.

You will rank higher in search results for the content you create. But, you can also produce more content, easily increasing your content production to two to four posts per day. This is not only for those who are good at writing.

We have worked with subject matter specialists, leaders in their fields. They were either not native English speakers or had difficulty writing. There are many ways to help industry leaders get their message across.

Recording a video or audio recording of your thoughts can help you express your thoughts clearly if it is difficult for you to write. Our blog writing service can even turn transcripts of executive ideas into high-quality articles.

To increase your posting frequency, you can reuse older content

To increase their reach, companies should not only focus on their expertise but also repurpose older content. There are many ways to reuse old content. Your imagination is the only limit. This content marketing strategy will allow you to quickly increase your production.

Make the channel change Not everyone enjoys reading. This includes your target customers. Turn your blog posts into videos, your videos into podcast episodes. Make infographics using the statistics you have so carefully researched for your blog post. To reach people with different learning styles, you can find the best content and distribute it in many forms.

Change perspectives: There's so much to a topic in your niche that one blog post, video or podcast cannot cover. Let's take this topic as an example. This topic is an example of the “why”. However, we haven't covered the “how” to create that amount of content in a week. The next post will cover time-saving writing strategies and tools that can help your team produce better quality content in a shorter time.

Read comments and questions from readers on previous posts to get ideas. Content marketing is all about answering customers' questions and solving their problems. They'll feel more comfortable with you addressing their concerns. For more ideas, you can also keep an eye on the comments of your followers on social media posts. A webinar might be a good idea if there are many people who have the same concern.

If you are able to pump the content pump, you will be able to publish at least 2 blog posts per week. This is your passion, your life's work. This is what you have.

As you get more comfortable sharing your expertise you will find that you publish more often. You'll soon be publishing four posts per week and gaining the kind of traffic that will boost your ROI to incredible heights.

Our Content Builder Service can help you get more visitors to your website by providing quality content that is consistently published – and often. Get in touch with me to schedule a consultation and receive a PDF copy of my books for free. Start today and start generating!

Comment below to let me know your thoughts.

Marketing and sales teams who want to increase conversions will find a great case study a gold mine.

This is especially true for B2B, where potential clients want to see proof of long-term results from other companies before they make their buying decision. A complete B2B marketing strategy will require you to know how to create a case that clearly shows your company's ability and delivers.

Recent research has shown that 73% of B2B marketers use case studies in their content marketing strategies. It's important that your case studies stand out.

Here are 7 ways to create case studies that will impress your clients and increase conversions.

Quick Take-Aways

• Potential clients are most interested in case studies during the latter stages of their buyer journey.

• It is essential that case studies include specific details about the client, their problem, or need, as well as the solution.

• Real numbers, examples and testimonials can help you make your case studies more impactful.

• Visuals can make your case studies more memorable and engage.

• Your website's main navigation menu should include a list of case studies.

How do case studies fit into your buyer journey?

Understanding your buyer journey is key to creating a case study that delivers results.

Did you know that an average B2B buyer journey can last several months? Before reaching out to you, your customers conduct a lot of research online. Your content is convincing customers that you are the best choice.

A big part of this is case studies. You can better understand the motivations of your potential customers to seek out and read case studies so you can craft them in a way that makes an impact.

Marketers agree that case studies fall within the final stages of the buyer journey, the consideration and decision phases. These are the stages where you have already captured your leads. Now, you need to nurture and convert them.

Source: Image Source

What does this mean?

These potential customers will likely be familiar with your company and what you do. This information doesn't have to be lengthy in case studies. Instead, you can get to the point and show how your services are able to deliver on your promises to clients.

How to make a case study that impresses your clients

Your case studies should be relatable

Case studies are designed to show how your services can be of value to clients by solving their specific problems and needs. This goal can be achieved by focusing on making your case studies relatable.

Consider your ideal client. What industry is this client from? What are their most pressing needs and problems when they contact you?

So that your potential client can relate to the case studies, you want to create them. They will trust you more if they feel the same.

You may have clients from many industries, with different needs and challenges that you can help. If this is the case then you should create case studies that represent a variety of clients and situations to ensure that you have something relevant to share with your potential buyers.

Be specific

When creating a case study, don't forget to include all the details. You must be as precise as possible, even if you are required to keep client confidentiality intact or provide certain information at client request.

These are the key areas that you should be as specific and precise as possible.

Your client

Be specific about your client.

Use their name if you are allowed to. If you are unable to use their name, please describe them as best as possible. If your client is Walmart, it would be impressive! Although you cannot say it directly, you could say, “One of the largest retailers in the world, with more that 2 million employees and thousands store locations throughout the country.”

Sometimes, even a description without a company name can reveal a client's identity. Talk to your client about their concerns regarding anonymity. Most cases will allow you to strike a compromise that preserves your client's privacy and provides strong context for your case study.

The problem or the need

Do not ignore the problem and get on to the results. While results are important, and we'll discuss them more later, the most relevant part of your case study for potential clients is the problem. When they read your case studies, you want them to say “Yes, this is exactly the problem we are dealing with!”

Results

Your case study will have more impact if you are specific in your discussion of results. To demonstrate results, use real numbers and metrics. Your company's value to your client should be clearly stated (e.g. What benefits do they now enjoy as a result of your work?

Tell the whole story

This is an important one. While case studies should be simple and clear, they must also tell the whole story. Begin with the first contact with the client, and continue the story through long-term results.

This is a brief overview of the most important components that every case study should contain:

Image Source

You may need patience to tell the whole story in your case study strategy.

Before you create a case study, wait until your client has actually experienced the results that you promised. You can update case studies that you have already written to include more information about your client and results over a longer period of time.

Remember that not all client-company relationships are linear. Do not be afraid to discuss any setbacks that you and your client have experienced. Consider it an opportunity for you to demonstrate how resilient you are and how you have found solutions to unexpected problems.

Clear results

The problem or challenge section in your case study might be the most relatable, but the results section is what clients care about most. The results section is where your brand's value and the solutions that you offer are demonstrated.

The culmination of your story is the results section. The results section should be built up and made a strong conclusion to all the other sections. Use real numbers and examples as evidence to show what you have achieved.

Your results section should not be unclear. Your results section should be a demonstration of how you can deliver on client expectations.

Include testimonials and quotes

This is what 97% of B2B customers said was the most trustworthy type of content: testimonials and peer recommendation. A 92% increase in B2B customers who have read a positive review are more likely than others to purchase. These are big numbers!

It is important to remember that even peer reviews can be trusted by consumers, so they will read many reviews before making a purchase decision.

In short, your case studies should include testimonials from clients.

Customers shouldn't be expected to believe what you say. Ask clients to provide testimonials about their experiences when you are working with them to create a case study. Your clients will understand why you are creating a case study and will most likely be willing to help.

Include strong visuals

Case studies are full of data and information. There is a lot of information to include and it is important. How can you make your case study easier to understand without omitting the most important content?

It's very simple: Make it visual.

Visual content is more effective than text content. Visual content can be used to highlight key points, make them more memorable, and increase the shareability of case studies.

Venngage offers some great visual case studies templates that you can use. The one below does a great job visually highlighting the results.

Image Source

Make a collection of case studies

Don't hide your work! You can create an online library of case studies that you have developed with clients over time.

This is the best and easiest way to do it. Add a page dedicated to case studies to your website. Highlight the most important case studies on your case studies page. Other ways to highlight your clients include including testimonials and logos on the page.

You can find inspiration on our case studies page.

Source: Image Source

Case studies can help you reach your target audience and win them over

We would love to assist you in using case studies to reach new customers and engage them. Marketing Insider Group is a specialist in blog writing, subscription marketing strategy, and blog writing. Our proven strategies can help you elevate your content for better search engine rankings, increase your online traffic, or win the right customers.

The Content Builder Service provides clients with all the content they need in order to win new customers. Our team includes writers, strategists, and researchers who can create and promote the content that your audience wants. You can have case studies or other content added to your package.

To get started, schedule a quick consultation.

It seems like there is a constant tug-of war between CEOs, CMOs, and CMOs.

CEOs are looking for results. CMOs desire to deliver results.

What's the problem?

According to CEOs, the most important role of a CMO is to help grow the business. CMOs must deliver ROI and provide proof that their work is working.

Image Source

CMOs are often asked by CEOs to do trivial tasks, such as rebranding or paying digital ads. Then they get frustrated when there is no business growth.

Marketing that fails to work is not acceptable by CEOs. They shouldn't have. It is difficult for CEOs to see the difference between what will work and what won't. This takes time. This is the job of the CMO.

Only 34% confidence their CMOs. It makes sense that the two are tethered to each other on a rope while running in opposite directions, and suspend their ultimate goal of business growth.

They tend to have a very tense relationship. It would be much easier for them to learn to work together and achieve their common goal. How can CEOs and CMOs become teammates working towards the same goal?

The Key Takeaways

• 
  CMOs must take full responsibility for their marketing efforts and resist requests that don't benefit the company.
  
• 
  CEOs must give their marketing professionals a seat at their table. This will allow them to fully use their skills.
  
• 
  Teamwork is key to making dreams come true. Looking at the future together can help build trust between executive branches.
  

Let's first look at the common mistakes made by these executives.

Common Mistakes in CMOs

Don't let buyers' needs get in the way.

In the age of the internet, customer-focused marketing is essential. It is a fact that people don't care much about what doesn't directly apply to them. This sentiment is only amplified by the many options on the internet.

Are your customers truly interested in your latest plan to rebrand? Your customers may not care much about the color change from cyan to deep turquoise in your logo. It doesn't matter if your product is worth their time.

Marketers must focus 100% on the customer's interests and needs. CEOs are more likely to ask for remedial tasks such as rebranding or excessive paid social media advertising, which is a distraction from the real work.

Although it might be more credible to post about the award you have won, it is not worth investing any time or money in marketing it. You won't generate leads just by posting about the award, even if you are doing it for self-gratification.

Let's say you mention the award in a thought-leadership style article on future trends in your industry. Potential customers will be able to read the article and get new ideas for their daily lives. They also learn more about your industry credibility.

This situation allows the CEO to display their accomplishments and the CMO to use them to generate leads. This is a win-win situation, but it's not common in these situations.

You should leave enough research out of the conversation.

CMOs are responsible for conducting the necessary research to help a CEO make the right marketing decision.

The lack of feedback is one of the problems between the CEO and CMO relationships. Instead of blindly following the CEO's wishes, the CMO should find research that supports or derails the proposed effort.

CMO tenure is the lowest point in the past decade. CMO tenure is at its lowest point in the last decade. However, 80% of CEOs attribute this short tenure to CMO failure. This disconnect between what success actually looks like is quite remarkable.

CMOs can be helpful by pushing back against requests that they know will not work.

Let's take banner ads as an example. Banner ads don't work, according to research. Banner ads still see yearly increases in click through rates of 7%, despite having a click through rate at 0.06% (60% is accidental or bots).

This marketing campaign is clearly not working and companies are still wasting their time. This is true for many different digital ads. CMOs might avoid another failure if they did the research.

Common Mistakes CEOs Make

Do not be distracted by the shiny new strategy.

CEOs who have difficulty sticking to a strategy are also more likely to have trouble measuring or delivering results.

While the shiny new social media platform or aesthetic trend might seem appealing, it's not always the best thing to switch up from what you have already done research and worked hard on.

These decisions can be made in a collaborative manner with a CEO and CMO relationship.

They are trying to solve the problem before they fully understand it.

Hubspot refers to this as ‘tactical blindness'. This is a common mistake made by CEOs.

One of their marketing campaigns gained popularity a few years back. Their carousel ad campaign reached its target audience and generated high CTR. This is great but it's not a reason to assume that the same strategy can solve a new problem in another year.

There are many answers that may not be obvious at first. Marketing is constantly changing. A company's strategy must be.

What are some tips to improve the CEO-CMO relationship?

CMOs don't seem to be going anywhere. However, only 32% CEOs trust CMOs. This means that their relationship needs to be nurtured.

Take a team approach to the future.

They have the same goals so why play tug-of war with each other? They can achieve a lot more if the relationship between them is long-lasting.

The ability to develop growth strategies together can help you identify common goals and the best ways to achieve them. This will be a lot more useful than CEOs asking for what they believe will work, without the input of a marketing expert.

Align your company's goals with your marketing goals.

The CEO has the ability to integrate marketing goals and strategy into all areas of the company. This can help marketing professionals thrive.

Source: Image Source

The payoff is enormous when all of the company's branches work together towards a common goal. These ideas are more likely to pay off if the CEO supports them.

There will always be tension between CMOs and CEOs. When it comes to success measurement, it is important that you are on the same page as your executive counterpart. Trust is built by having the same vision of success and the same approach to getting there.

How can CEOs and CMOs work together?

It is important to work together and align the company's goals with your marketing strategy. This ensures that your marketing is supported by the executive team, drives towards business goals and helps to make the annual budget discussion a little easier.

You need help in measuring marketing ROI so you can show your CEO you are aligned with their growth plans. Get in touch with our Content Builder Service to schedule a consultation.