Many potential clients ask us why we don't just create content.

Most clients are capable of creating great content. Clients know their customers, their industry and their business. Many are also talented writers. We have often scanned potential clients' websites and discovered that they have published many insightful blog posts.

Hence, why would they hire Marketing Insider Group?

Because writing great content is not enough. You need great content to gain Google's attention and gain visibility with your target audience.

All of this is done for our clients and our writers are at center of it all. They deliver smart content on a large scale without sacrificing quality. Each piece is created with the client's customers in mind and designed to increase traffic, leads, conversions, sales, and revenue.

This article will share the secrets to how our writers create great content and ensure it hits the mark. This guide will provide you with the steps-by-step instructions that you need, whether you are thinking of outsourcing your content creation and wondering how it works.

Quick Take-Aways

• When you have multiple projects, templates and outlines can help you to avoid procrastination.
• To get an idea of how to distinguish yours from the rest, you can read all the top-ranked content for your keyword.
• It is best to start with your ideas. The article should be written first. Editing can be done later.
• WordPress and other publishing platforms make it easier to do SEO assessments and final editing.

Five Steps to Success in MIG Content Writing

Step 1: Make your Outlines

Use templates to get you started

Wrapping your head around all the writing projects you have in front of you can be intimidating. This is the step that leads marketers and writers to procrastinate about content production. There's so much to do, where should you begin?

Marketing Insider Group's writers begin with templates and outline to make the writing process easier. Here's how Google Docs works for us:

• Each client receives a folder to keep drafts in progress
• These folders are kept in one large "drafts" folder. Each writer has a separate folder for each client.
• You will find a template document in that folder (pictured below). Simply copy it for every article. Then, move to your right client folder and add the title as well as keywords.

Instead of opening a new document with the dreaded blank page or blinking cursor, you can copy your existing template and then add the basics. You're now technically done with your article.

Marketing Insider Group's Draft Template for Articles

Your outlines should be built

Next, you need to create an outline. You will need to find out what is already available on the first search engine result page (SERP), for your keywords, and how you can improve it.

This requires you to actually read the content and use it to outline your article. This is how it works:

• Google your target keyword as well as your article title
• Every first page result should be opened in a new tab. Many will overlap with keyword and title.
• Every article should be speed-read. For the best articles (which may not necessarily be the most highly-ranked), slow down.
• Noting important information and insights as you go through the content that is available for your keyword.

At this point, your tabs may look a bit crazy — you can open 10-15 tabs at once which makes it overwhelming. However, it is worth reading all the top-ranked content for your keyword at once to get a clearer idea of what you need to cover in your article.

Pro tip: If you are reviewing existing content, you can click on the "Images” tab of the SERP. There you will often find images that have great statistics you can use in your article. These images may lead to higher quality articles than those that were on the SERP.

Once you have read the content related to a keyword, it will be easy to plan how your article should look. You can take the notes that you made while reading and edit them to make an outline of your article. This is where you will want to add your expertise and insights.

Step 2: Create a plan

We recommend that you fill your templates with outlines and outline for all articles on your list before you begin writing.

Here's why: Being able to produce high-quality content and maintain high volumes of content is crucial. You can see which articles take longer or shorter to write, and which are easier for you to manage.

Marketing Insider Group's writers create their outline and list the articles in the order they plan to write them. This list can then be organized into a schedule that you can use to complete all the writing.

You don't have to stick to it, but it is important to do so. You will be more productive if you have a plan and stick to it. Many writers find that this helps them increase their bandwidth and allow them to take on more projects, whether they are writing articles for clients or their passion projects.

Step 3: Write (and don't stop!)

This step will allow you to have completed your outline and templates, as well as your schedule and project order. It's now time to get down to the writing!

Open the outline of your first article. Then, pull up any existing content (yes it all from the first-page SERPs), so you can refer to it as necessary.

Marketing Insider Group writers have one main piece of advice: Write only. After you're done, leave the editing and research to the professionals.

If you have a great idea based on research and knowledge, but need to find a statistic to support it, don't hesitate to search for the stat right away. You can keep your writing flowing by adding a quick note with the "Insert Stat Here" button and highlight it or bold it for later. The same goes for supporting images.

If you feel the need to edit, don't. You don't have to spend an hour editing a paragraph. Instead, you can just write and come back later with a fresh mind.

It's easier to make your articles read as you intended. It's all about getting your ideas across the page.

Step 4: Edit and Finish

After you have finished your first draft, it is possible to go back and improve. Begin by reviewing your content and adding links and statistics. Next, make any necessary edits or rework to the article. Final, go through the article again to ensure it is free from spelling and grammar mistakes.

Step 5: Add internal links and optimize

Optimize your article for SEO. You should start with internal linking. It's best to include at least 4-6 links to other articles you have created within the article. This will create a compounding effect which drives traffic to your content library and improves ranking.

After you have finished linking, make sure to check your article for important SEO points like sentence length and keyword usage. To make final edits, drop your article to WordPress if you are publishing on a platform such as WordPress.

More to you

Writing takes time. There are many ways to make it easy while maintaining a high level of quality. Marketing Insider Group's writers have been able to write for companies of every size and in every industry over the years.

To improve your content strategy, visit our SEO Blog Writing Service. Or schedule a consultation to find out more!

Solid keyword research is an essential part of content marketing. Keyword research can help you bring your customers' voice into your content marketing strategy. This provides a quick and easy way to measure the value of your content. Keyword research is the foundation of all digital marketing.

Keywords are key to your content. The higher your keyword rank, the higher Google will show you in search results. To have a healthy content marketing strategy, it is important to see how your organic search results are performing.

It's not the easiest thing to get views on your website content. Payed advertising can be a great way to increase your impressions of your content marketing efforts. However, it is not a good idea to spend a lot of money on this.

Organic search rankings can be more beneficial than paid advertising for your website traffic, but this is a fact. It's also a more cost-effective way to market your website. It is important to fuel the SEO machine in order to get your content in front your prospects' eyes.

It is important to distinguish between organic and promoted, since they accomplish different goals. However, both can be driven by keyword research.

Quick Takeaways

• SEO for your website and content is key to building organic search rankings
• Keyword research is how to determine what people are searching for in relation your product or service.
• SEO practices will increase your online engagements by creating content that is optimized for search engines.

These are the 5 best keyword research tools that you will ever need. How to use them long term.

1. 
   Semrush
   

This is our main keyword research tool (not a paid endorsement). Semrush allows us research our clients, their competitors, find competitive gaps, and dive into keyword research. Semrush also lets you research paid keywords and site audits.

After identifying the focus keywords of our client, we send them to our editorial team for content ideas and headlines. To create a client visibility tracking report, we also upload them to Semrush. All of our clients receive these reports monthly.

• All keywords that we track have an average visibility in search
• A rough estimate of their organic traffic (be careful).
• Average rank position
• What percentage of keywords are in the top 3, 10, top 20 or top 100? How many have changed or improved?

The competitive review, which shows client visibility versus the competition, is my favorite part of this report. It is a direct reflection on the keyword research that underpins our content strategy.

Semrush can be used to research keywords and websites for your industry, your competitors, or both.

2. 
   Ahrefs
   

Ahrefs has been providing excellent services for SEO professionals and marketers around the globe for more than a decade. They offer a great trial plan and excellent keyword research analysis for the best websites and articles.

They also offer Webmaster Tools as a free service to website owners. My favorite is the Keyword Generator, which generates 150 keywords ideas for any keyword.

3. Keywordtool.io

Keyword.io's free keyword research service boasts a 99.9% success ratio. It's so free that you don’t even have to create an account in order to access its extensive database. Their site says:

Keyword Tool allows you to use Google Suggest for keyword search. It will extract Google keyword suggestions from Google and present them to you in an easily-understand interface.

4. 
   Google Keyword Finder
   

You might have guessed that we would get to the largest source of keyword research, Google's keyword searcher. Google is the market leader in keyword research, and you will soon be a result of their search engine results.

Although it's not as intuitive as other tools, it is completely free and provides all the information you need to make informed decisions about your SEO practices.

5. 
   Moz
   

Moz was the first tool that I used to research keywords. It is great for analysing your website and identifying keywords. Moz helps you to understand how people find your website, and how to make use of keywords.

Other Keyword Research Tools

• Google Trends not only shows you the relative volume for multiple keywords, but also provides trend data to help you see what's hot and what's not.
• QuestionDB uses reddit and related queries to identify question-based keywords
• Jaaxy offers keyword, topic, and idea suggestions for any keyword.
• Keyword Sheeter uses Google Autofill to populate thousands ideas from any focus keyword that you enter
• Answer the Public uses Google autofill and People Also Ask to populate search terms with all the who-what, why, how, when and where versions of any query.
• Keyworddit pulls data directly from reddit, and provides interesting perspectives on topics you can explore for any keyword.
• Bulk Keyword Generator is an excellent research tool for local SEO
• Soovle uses search data sourced from Google, YouTube and Amazon
• SECockpit, the SEO tool that SEO professionals swear by, provides a lot of depth.
• Keyword Snatcher offers up to 2,000 keyword ideas for any "seed keyword" (as SEOs refer to them).
• KWFinder lets you search by keyword difficulty
• Serpstat, another tool that allows for deep dives and is loved by many SEO professionals, is another tool.

What is new in keyword research?

Our first step is to ask our clients a few simple questions:

1. They wished to rank for 5-10 keywords
2. They consider the most important topics, categories or themes in their industry.
3. The top 4-5 competitors
4. Their audience may read 2-4 trade publications from their industry.

We can then expand the keyword list. These keywords are then grouped into categories or themes. We then identify the most important keywords, or "focus", by examining whether they are short-tail or long-tail and whether they have clear buyer intent.

CPC data is my favorite tool to find keywords that people are spending money on. This assumes that people won't pay more for advertising against keywords if they have lots of value.

BONUS – This and other keyword research tips and tools can be found in my webinar 10 tips to optimize your content marketing.

This video provides a more basic training in keyword research.

Conversion rates based on your keyword research

While views are wonderful, what happens once the initial click is made? Are they just browsing your site? Is the reader sharing your website? Are they buying your product?

The conversion rate is a measure of how many prospects become customers. This metric will be the defining metric of your content marketing efforts. Your top goal in content marketing should be to convert prospects.

Many times, the places you produce and publish media can provide you with excellent analytics tools that will help you determine which ads or content are converting the most.

You can make informed and better decisions about what media you want to use by determining what content is most successful across which platforms.

Keep your customers as long-term clients

Source: Marketing charts

Customer retention is the percentage of customers that continue to use your product over time. This can be measured using keywords. Other companies use to measure retention. The percentage of customers that leave within a certain time frame.

The only way a company will succeed is if it can attract and retain customers at a cost that is minimal or negligible compared to the return on investment of that customer (about 3-5x this cost).

How can you tell if your digital media efforts are retaining customers? There are a few options!

Analytics – Often websites will display on the backend how many of your customers are repeat customers. It is a great way to reach your KPIs by digging into the additional layer and seeing how many of your digital media efforts are responsible.

Ask – Using surveys in your email marketing efforts to find out who is using your product or service for a longer time can help you determine. It builds trust and brand loyalty because people want to feel that you care about them.

Take a look at the voices on your social channels – Seeing the individual voices of your business community discussing your content, business, and service can help you get a better idea of how many customers you have, as well as if you have any older clients influencing the conversation online.

Wrap up

Keyword research is essential for generating reliable search traffic to your site, regardless of which website you use. You're wasting money on easy traffic that will make you money by not using good SEO practices in your writing and meta descriptions.

Now that you have the knowledge, it is time to jump onboard with one of these keyword research tools.

You want to implement some of the strategies shown on MIG's website but need advice or help? Marketing Insider Group is home to a group of 35+ writers who are ready to create content for your business. Get a consultation or check out our blog content.

Is your brand using a content strategy? If the answer is no, then your content strategy may be disjointed from both your perspective and that of your audience.

The foundation of all your content depends on pillar content. It is focused on the most important topics that you and your audience are interested in and establishes your industry expertise to potential customers, search engine crawlers and industry peers.

This article will cover all aspects of creating a content-pillar strategy that works. We'll explain what it is and how to create it. And we'll show you the benefits that you'll get from having one in place.

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

Quick Takeaways

• 
  Pillar content provides a comprehensive guideline on a topic that is important to your audience.
  
• 
  Pillar content has an evergreen nature. It is reusable over time and can be used to generate compounding returns.
  
• 
  Before you can develop a content strategy, brands must first understand their audience.
  
• 
  Boosting pillar content across multiple channels (like email and social media) creates momentum after it is published.
  
• 
  Pillar content should be regularly updated to reflect industry trends.
  

What is pillar content? Why do you need it?

Pillar content is a comprehensive guide for a topic that is important to you and your audience. The content is extensive and lengthy, and it answers any questions the reader may have about the topic. It also tells them all they need to know.

Rand Fishkin, former CEO of Moz, coined the term "10X Content" for pillar content. It should be 10X more valuable than the current highest-ranking piece on the topic.

Image Source: Ceralytics

10X better?! This sounds daunting. How can you make something better than the content already on Google SERPs? It takes time and effort, so pillar content should only be reserved for topics that are most important to your brand.

It is important to create pillar content on topics that you have a strong brand authority. A strong pillar content library will be the foundation for all the niche and long-tail content that you create.

Your pillar content, in other words, is the root of your content tree. You can grow a large content library with many branches, but your blog's pillar content keeps it performing at a high standard.

Let's take a look at a step-by -step guide for creating pillar content on your company blog.

7 Steps to Create a Content Pillar Strategy

Know your audience

Who is the audience for which you are creating content? This is the most important question to ask yourself when you are creating (or revising) your content strategy. It is essential to understand your audience before you can choose the right content pillars.

You could also skip this step and end up creating content that your audience doesn’t need.

How can you get to know your audience better? There are many proven methods that you can use to get to know your audience. One of the most well-known frameworks is buyer personas.

Once you have identified your target audience, it is time to determine their pain points. Your audience's pain points are the real problems or challenges they face and that motivate them to search for your solutions. Remember that users don't care what solution you choose as long as they solve their pain points.

In other words, If your Google SERPs rank high, people will see your content first and realize that you can solve their problems. They'll also be more likely choose you over other competitors.

Strategyzer's Value Proposition Canvas is one of the best tools to discover your audience's problems. Here's how you can use it.

Select your content pillars

Next, you need to decide on your content pillars. The pillar topics you choose will be easy to identify once you have a clear understanding of your audience and their needs. The number of topics you choose depends on how big your company is and what your offerings are.

It's best to have 3-5 content pillars for small to medium-sized companies. Never more than 10. Your content pillar strategy will remain focused on the most important topics for your audience (and eventually the subtopics). While you will still have a large and varied content library, it will remain consistent.

Search engines can recognize topics you are an expert in and rank your content accordingly.

Do keyword research

After you have established your content pillars you need to do keyword research to find out how your audience searches for your pillar topics. It is important to match your focus keywords for pillar material with the Google search bar queries. This will help you achieve high Google rankings.

SEMRush's Keyword Magic Tool makes keyword research easier than ever. You can download it for free.

Create titles for your pillar content

When your content appears in their SERP pages, the blog article titles is what people first see. It's the first thing people see when your content appears on their SERP pages.

How can you make compelling titles? These are some suggestions:

• Use numbers and questions (ex. "8 Steps to Creating a Perfect Blog Post" is better than "Creating the Perfect Blog Post".
• Value — In the title, explain to your readers what you expect from them.
• You don't have to be serious. Our blog post Personas are Great (Except when They Suck), has received lots of attention due to its attention-grabbing snark.
• Include your key words. It's what got users to your site in the first place.
• Be concise. Google SERPs will only display the first 50-60 characters in your title.

Once you have titles created, add them in your content calendar to ensure you are on time for publishing them.

Make amazing content

Let's get to the fun part — creating your content. While most brands think of pillar content in the format of blog posts which can be very effective, you can also make infographics and videos to rank as pillar material.

Creativity is key! Consider what is most valuable to your audience and then go in that direction. You don't have to be boring. MIG, for example, has started to add more shareable infographics to our pillar blog posts (like the one below on How to Create the Perfect Blog Post).

Image Source: Marketing Insider Group

Amplify your pillar content across channels

If you want your content to be successful, it is crucial to include a plan to increase your content in your pillar content strategy. To give traffic an extra boost, share your pillar content via other channels.

Sharing ideas: Your company's social media pages, employee social networks pages, email newsletters and links in email signatures.

Update your pillar content regularly

Keep your pillar content current. Every industry changes and evolves over time. Your content should reflect current best practices and key information that people need to know. Marketing Insider Group provides an example of this in the SEO articles that we create for our blog.

An SEO strategy pillar piece would look very different in ten years ago than it does today. Google ranking factors, best practice, industry norms and audience behavior all have changed over the years. We must update our pillar pieces to reflect these changes in order to keep them performing.

Benefits of Pillar content for your brand

Traffic compounding

Pillar content is more timeless than news or niche content. Pillar content is timeless and relevant for a long period of time. It also has a longer shelf life than articles written for other topics. They will continue to attract traffic over time. This traffic will increase as more people share your content.

Google Rankings Higher

Google's algorithms are more sophisticated than ever. They are no longer searching for keyword-stuffed content. They instead identify the articles that offer genuine value to those who are searching for information about that topic.

You can expect higher Google rankings for your pillar content if it is current, comprehensive, and of high value.

Authority in branding

Your brand authority is established through strong pillar content libraries. Through pillar content, people build trust in your brand and begin to actively seek out your content when they have questions.

Pillar content is also trusted by industry peers, which means it will bring you more backlinks (and therefore more traffic) than other content.

Killer Pillar Content Examples

The Atlantic makes the population healthier

This page from The Atlantic will be on almost every list of high-quality pillar content examples if you do a search. This content will take you on a journey through Massachusetts to learn about one city and the ways they made their citizens healthier. Population Healthier's design makes it easy to understand and leaves a lasting impression.

It is a beautiful design that makes the content a strong pillar. But it's also because of the quality content. Lowell MA's study is timeless. While the future may not be known, the process of moving from point unhealthy to point health will continue to apply.

How to Create a Content Style Manual by Impact

This example from Impact shows how pillar content can be made more accessible. To write quality content, you don't necessarily need to be a graphic designer major.

The author clearly explains what you will learn in each pillar piece from the beginning. You don't have to waste your time looking through the outline if it doesn't contain what you need. The outline even lists who each pillar is and why.

Impact provides actionable tips and explanations on how to create a content style guide.

Battle of the Bots by HubSpot

This HubSpot Battle of the Bots page, a graphic design masterpiece, tackles a technical topic. It is easy to get lost in the technical world of tech. HubSpot makes it easy to understand bots by explaining them in laymen's terms using real-life examples. It is also timely, providing insight into the current state of technology and the direction that it is heading.

They make it enjoyable! An army of robots will be with you every step of your journey.

What exactly is wine? Wine Folly

To create pillar content, you don't need to be a marketer! Wine Folly's example is a great way to explain the core values of the wine industry. Although the article is broad at the beginning, you will find more information as you scroll down.

These pages cover all aspects of wine grapes vs table grapes, the contents of a wine bottle, and even taste descriptors. This page is for anyone who has ever felt confused by a server asking if they would like to order a sweet or dry wine.

Wine Folly is a fun company that keeps things interesting through their pillar content. You can even send memes to someone you know from Wine Folly.

Create Your Brand's Pillar Content Strategy Today

Great content is the foundation of a great pillar content strategy. This content takes experience and time to create. You may not be able to create pillar content that is relevant to your business. Marketing Insider Group's SEO and writer experts can provide optimized content that is ready to be published 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!

Black Friday is the day retailers finally see profit after months of stocking inventory and slow summer sales. As we approach the holiday shopping season, the fall season is an ideal time for ecommerce businesses to increase word-of-mouth awareness as well as sales.

These are some statistics that show the current state of holiday shopping season.

• E-commerce is responsible for more than 20% in total U.S. retail sales during the holiday season.
• 40% of holiday shoppers started shopping before November.
• Over a third of Americans purchased online during Black Friday/Cyber Monday, compared with just under a third (100,000,000) who went to stores.
• Online sales reached $211 Billion in 2o21. This is an increase of 10% compared to 2020 and more than half compared to 2019.

Marketers, founders, and owners of e-commerce cannot wait until Black Friday to start building awareness. It is smart to begin now in order to prepare for the holiday season, and to automate all of the tasks you should have been doing throughout the year. Content marketing!

We'll be sharing 8 tips that you can use to grow your holiday season.

Tip #1: Reach Out To Your Best Customers

You can tap into the power and pleasure of customer delight by mobilizing your top customers. Customer delight is about creating amazing experiences for customers who love you and spend a lot.

Customer delight means doing more than just providing excellent customer service. The delight part is about surprising customers with something new. We send our clients a box filled with locally-sourced specialty chocolates. The fun pun is on the content.

John & Kira's is the company that fulfilled this gift. They just sent my wife and me a sample box of chocolates. We used them last holiday season to give as gifts. Smart! Smart!

How can customer delight be used to increase word-of-mouth sales in the fall ahead of the holiday season?

If you're an e-commerce company, 20% of your customers will account for 80% (the 80-20 rule). The first step is to identify the top 20% of your customers. This is easy – it's just data. Next, you'll want to identify your most happy customers.

It may be worth looking at customers who have given you reviews or sent you thank you letters. To find out who you love the most, you could also consider repeat customers or recurring customers.

You can then create a list of your top customers and send something to them. You could send them a sample of your product or some chocolate. You might also include gift ideas for the holiday season. You could even send a thank you note to them for their business in the past – they don't do that anymore.

Include a handwritten note to thank them for being such a loyal customer. If they don't mind giving you a review, you might ask them to do so. You could also tell a friend how much you love them, or give them a coupon code. Whatever motivates them to take action on your behalf. It's important to say thank you to them for being awesome and then ask them to do something.

Bonus: Write about your process, and make it a customer-pleasing campaign. It can be shared on your blog or on social media. Make a TikTok about the gift-giving process. You want the world to know that you appreciate your loyal customers and would love to invite others to join this small community.

Tip #2: Encourage your employees to share your content

Employees are a great resource for word-of mouth. You can ask them to share and write content, but don't force it. Ask them to be internal ambassadors for the brand. However, if they don't feel comfortable sharing press releases or product promotions with others, ask them not to.

This is why you want to hire people who are interested in this job! Why would employees want to do this job? It helps them create their own brand. It is important to create content that people want to share. These stories can be customer delight stories (see above), insider coupon codes or bring your dog to work days. All these stories encourage word-of mouth conversations about your brand.

Be careful. You must be 100% authentic.

Bonus: Create a campaign around this idea that your employees can share. You can make it a contest or create a leaderboard. You can reward the most influential ambassadors by asking them to use a unique number for all the content they share. To show the world how cool your company is, share your campaign story.

Double Bonus Read our complete guide on managing an ecommerce blog. You can also check out our weekly blog content service, which will drive traffic to your site all year!

Tip #3: Host Weekly Live Social Media Events

Although social media is not enough to drive your business, it's worth exploring the possibility of hosting live events on social media. These events can showcase your personality and humor, and help you tell your story. Facebook Live events are a great way to increase word-of mouth by providing fresh content that your followers and customers can watch and take part in.

Facebook Live gained popularity in the last five years and brands are starting to notice. Over the past few years, TikTok and Instagram reels have seen a surge in popularity. Every week, businesses are getting more active on Facebook Live, Instagram, and TikTok in order to promote their products and answer customers' questions.

These platforms are great for businesses that have not yet tried them. You can create a creative campaign that is tied to your live events. These platforms are used by some companies to announce new products and throw virtual parties. Some companies use it to host Q&As with customers or industry leaders. For the remainder of the year, you should create a campaign that makes you live on social media once per week.

Bonus:Don’t use these platforms for just promoting or demoing your products. That would be boring. Enjoy more of the experience and be more playful with them.

Tip #4: Use holiday-themed graphics

Image source: Crestline

Use holiday-themed graphics to get your website visitors and subscribers excited about the holiday season. These are the most common places to update:

• Your website homepage hero section
• Cover photo for Facebook
• Cover photo for Twitter
• Your blog rss email header
• Your next custom email campaign
• Your banner and Facebook ads
• Your product pages
• Your website's header or banner section

Bonus: Add your holiday-themed graphics and promotions to a holiday event or promotion that your customers, visitors, subscribers, and clients can benefit from.

Tip #5 – Partner with another company

Partnering with a company that shares your mission and products is another creative way to increase sales. This was the case for this shady holiday partnership between Lyft and Tinder last year

Although this idea will require more planning and investment, it can drive serious word of mouth and ultimately ROI for your company if you put in the effort.

This is how it works: Find a company with whom you can collaborate on a product. Reach out to other companies or brands in your industry to ask if they are interested in producing a small quantity of products for you to sell in your stores. This is a way to (1) increase your customer base and (2) drive urgency by offering limited quantities of the product that you have collaborated on.

Bonus: Make an agreement with your partner before you start to promote and market the product. You should ensure that both parties are investing equal amounts of effort and money in getting word out about your product.

Tip #6 – Launch a Giveaway

To launch a huge giveaway for your ecommerce store, you can use a tool such as Gleam. You can't give away just one product to make your giveaway a success. You need to think larger. You can generate excitement and word-of mouth by giving away a prize package you can afford to only one person. Don't give away $20 products that no one can afford, but a $500 gift that some people may not be able to buy for themselves.

If you are a seller of travel bags, offer a complimentary stay at a resort. Offer a weekend getaway to a spa to makeup sellers. People will share your contest with their friends and family members if you are more ambitious than they think.

Participants can enter your giveaway by either entering their email address or using their Facebook account. Participants can get additional entries by taking any actions you have planned for your giveaway. You can ask a question on a landing page or website, share the contest on Facebook and Twitter, or email a referral link to a friend.

Bonus: Before you launch your giveaway, take some time to think about how you will promote it. Send an email to your subscribers? Create a blog post on it. Create a Facebook ad? Ask for help from vendors, partners and businesses in the industry. You risk investing too much time, energy and money in promotion that doesn't work.

Tip #7 – Prepare for Cyber Monday & Black Friday

If you have been in the ecommerce industry for over one year, then you are likely to have seen the ugly and good parts of Cyber Monday and Black Friday. You can use your past experiences and the data from last year's efforts to create a new strategy you can put into practice this year.

Bonus If you don't know where to begin, take some time browsing this resource from Shopify. This checklist contains 26 points that you can use for preparing your store or business for Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Tip #8 – Promote products as gifts

Promote your products as gifts to different people to increase product awareness. Gift guides are very popular this time of year. Everyone is looking for the perfect gift for their parents, siblings, brothers, girlfriends, bosses, and boyfriends. Your products can be made easy by being positioned as the perfect gift for _____. Create gift guides on your blog to promote your products as gifts that appeal to certain people. You can also launch Facebook ads to target people who might buy your products for gifts.

Bonus – To have even greater success, contact other editors of blogs who created gift guides for 2016, and see if they can add your products to their lists for 2023.

More to you

What other things can you do to increase brand awareness and sales this fall? Comment below.

In 1995, the average consumer used two touchpoints to purchase an item.

What is that number? Six.

How can retailers keep up with today's consumer demands? Adopting an omnichannel retail strategy.

The long answer is much more entertaining. Keep reading. We must first look back at the past to understand the current state of retail. What was the strategy of big retailers? How do the pros keep up?

The Key Takeaways:

• 
  Omnichannel retail marketing doesn't mean being everywhere you want to be. It's more about being there your customers are
  
• 
  Customers are demanding the best of companies today. This customer-centric approach is essential to survival
  
• 
  Omnichannel approaches are more efficient, effective, and still profitable
  

What's the history of omnichannel retail advertising?

In recent years, the importance of the retail store has changed significantly. Despite all the advances in e-commerce and online shopping, as well as instant delivery and flexible store environments and flexible store environments, customers still visit retail stores to conduct research and wanderlust.

In the early 2000s, the dot-com bubble burst, launching us into an age of technological innovation and mere oblivion. Retailers tried to keep up with the pace. Companies capitalized on their strengths in order to keep up with the increasing competition from online sellers.

They made their physical spaces larger and taller.

What is single-channel retail?

Single channel retail refers to the use of a single channel to sell, market, and communicate with customers. There are two types of brick-and-mortar retail: online and offline.

These businesses are still available, even though Jeff Bezos isn't in the middle of the action. Some might even succeed!

They come with their own benefits and drawbacks, as does everything else. Let's take a look at them for a second.

Benefits

• Centralized information
• One warehouse
• Streamlined communication
• Lower overhead costs
• Predictable expenses
• Focus on strengths and sales growth to drive sales growth
• Maximize control over a saturated market

Single channel retailers profit from being the best at what their business does. If their company is able to stand out and keep their product's authority source, they might be able to coast for a while in a saturated market.

Each department or team may be able track sales data more easily, predict inventory levels, and maintain consistency in their marketing efforts by using one channel.

Reaching customers and keeping them happy is easy if they are all in the same place.

Wrong! They still have a lot of noise to consider and many realize it before it's too late.

Limitations

• Digital age is here NOW
• Shoppers have less flexibility and convenience
• Less consumer touch-points

Companies had to think about the ease of shopping for customers long before the internet boom. They had to be agile and use their strengths in order to keep up with their competition.

You had to be confident that customers would drive past you on their daily commutes if you owned a shop or chain. Even before the advent of distractions, people's lives were always busy. Relying on one touchpoint to reach consumers was bound for failure.

Others didn't make it, such as the beloved Toys R Us children's shop.

Toys R Us was an example of how many companies could not compete in the digital space and instead tried to maximize their physical presence. Digital marketing tools and landing page replaced the in-store sales representatives who were considered 'experts'.

Some were building websites, buying domains, and then crash-couching their way into the ecommerce world overnight. We all know this is not an easy task, even today.

These were single channel retailers in a multichannel environment.

Multichannel retailing is on the rise

Multichannel retailing means that you can use as many channels as you like and have them all managed separately.

Yikes. This will get really messy very quickly.

But I'm not trying to ruin anyone's day. This could be a good idea for you. It could be a great idea in theory.

Benefits

• Expanding their reach can help retailers sell more products.
• Stay on top of digital advances
• Each channel strategy should be managed separately

Do you want more money? Nice. You are adapting to the times. Keep up the excellent work. How can you manage the different channels' strategies? Don't panic.

I hope that you think the same way as I do. What does this mean for the customer?

If you are all over the place, it is foolish to believe that customers will believe what you have to offer.

Let's now discuss why this won't work.

Limitations

• A retail-centric mindset can lead to gaps in customer experience
• Lacks a strategy and message that is cross-channel
• There is a disconnect between brick-and mortar and e-commerce strategies
• Multi-warehouse management results in supply-demand gaps
• Data accuracy and consistency problems

You're only solving a fraction if you go into this strategy expecting to make a lot of money and solve your crisis of disconnect.

It shouts:

• "Look at my product!"

• "Give me all your money!"

• "We are sorry for any inconvenience/delay/misunderstanding."

Some critics claim that Omnichannel was not born of multichannel and is a distinct entity.

Multichannel retail is a concept middleman in the transition to the desired omnichannel experience we all should strive for.

What can we learn from the evolution in retail? We will show you why Omnichannel is the clear winner and why it isn't going anywhere.

Here to stay: Omnichannel retail marketing

Omnichannel refers to the use of multiple channels to sell, buy, deliver and market goods to customers. Omnichannel retailers use both offline and online spaces to satisfy their customers' demands and needs.

There are many similarities between multichannels and omnichannels, but omnichannel is a superior channel because of the increased integration between channels.

Customer-centricity is the key to an authentic omnichannel retail marketing strategy. Your customers must be able to experience the same brand experience at every touchpoint. Channels should be friends and not enemies.

This means seamless experiences for consumers and retailers when they use online and offline channels. For retailers, it means one platform that integrates digital and physical options.

Omnichannel AND omnipotent

There is no one right or wrong way to beat it in an Omnichannel game. That's what makes it so much fun! Explore your options.

Some may be more focused on ecommerce to sell their goods, while others may rely more on their brick-and mortar network.

While you might make most of your income online, you can still use a brick and mortar showroom to sell your products.

Peloton is a digital fitness platform that also produces stationary bikes and is a prime example of an omnichannel approach.

Peloton's consistent presence on Instagram, their cult-like following, or the physical showcase rooms they have set up in malls is proof of that. They are there to help their customers, and make it easy and accessible for them.

A brick-and-mortar or mall-based retailer can also use online and mobile channels to sell its goods.

Sephora, a beauty connoisseur that sells countless brands of makeup, hair and skincare online, is one company that excels at this task. They seamlessly combine the in-store and online experiences.

They have knowledgeable makeup artists and salespeople who are available to give advice, makeovers and suggest products. Need help from experts but can't make it to the store?

Customers can track their online purchases, view tutorials, scan items in-store, make a wishlist, and more with their Beauty Bag accounts.

Companies must be innovative and creative. Companies must think about customer experience in all they do.

The best omnichannel strategy

Omnichannel is here to stay. Your retail business is not connecting with customers through multiple channels or unifying customer interaction between offline and online.

Are you still not convinced? These stats will convince you.

• A 287% higher buy rate was achieved by marketers who used three or more channels in a campaign than those who only used one channel
• Retention rates for customers are 90% higher when they use omnichannels than single channels
• 71% of shoppers who use their smartphones to research in-store for shopping say it has become an integral part of their experience
• 90% of customers want consistent interactions across channels

Here are some things you can do to ensure you don't suffer from this opportunity cost and win at the omnichannel game.

Incorporate your approach

It's not about connecting with customers on a variety of media. Success in Omnichannel is about integrating strategies to create a cohesive whole.

The omnichannel strategy can be viewed as a single strategy that brings together all members of your team and ensures everyone is on the same page.

Only a concerted effort can ensure smooth transitions between channels and consistency between stock levels on- and off-line, as well as a seamless customer experience through the entire lifecycle. This is why you need to ensure that you have the resources and ability to deliver it.

Plan your journey

Maybe a friend refers a customer to your products. They may follow you on social media to stay up to date with new products and offers, and they might be pleasantly surprised to find an online sale for seasonal products.

They look through your online inventory and add items to their carts, but they don't make the purchase. They visit your store in passing, make the purchase, and then re-engage via your after-sales support emails.

This is how the consumer experience works in an omnichannel world. Each journey is unique.

Use feedback loops to reach customers and find out where they are at each stage of the process. This information can then be used to map and understand the journey. It is impossible to improve anything unless you know it. Make sure that knowledge and action are the primary components of your Omnichannel Strategy.

Exceed expectations

It is impossible to surprise your customers with omnichannel technology and reap the rewards. Customers have high expectations, and they are rightfully so.

While you cannot please every customer, you can make them happy. Today, 90% of consumers want an omnichannel experience. Consumers want to be able shop online and pick it up in stores, or to browse helpful articles to make sure they are making the right buying decision.

Before your customers get to you, they need you to be there. You must be friendly and helpful. You must answer their questions, compare product benefits and be honest about whether your products are better suited to their needs.

According to Oracle's 2021 retail consumer survey report, the top answer was not surprising when we asked about a bad shopping experience online or offline.

You must be open to sharing your knowledge if you want to stand out among the rest. This doesn't mean that you should be proud of your product, but rather how you can help customers meet their needs.

More to you

The omnichannel game is won by going the extra mile and providing a positive experience for every interaction. Keep your company at the forefront of the race, and look into every channel for possible solutions.

You want to implement some of the content marketing strategies shown on MIG's website but need advice or help? Marketing Insider Group is home to a group of 35+ writers who are ready to create content for your business. Get a consultation or check out our blog content.

"Strategy without tactics is a dream; tactics without strategy, it's a nightmare."

Sun Tzu's quote inspired this quote. It implies that there is a clear distinction between marketing strategy, and marketing tactics.

This suggests that you can't do one without the other and strategy must be first. It is the foundation.

However, marketing strategy can refer to two things: the "strategy," or position, by which your brand will be taken to market, and how your company will actually create a brand that will be taken to market.

This is the second definition. It describes what your marketing department should do to make the most of the marketing dollars, time and energy they have.

BOON: These 10 tips will help you optimize your b2b marketing strategy.

The Best B2B Marketing Strategies

A new report gathered data from hundreds of B2B marketers professionals to reveal the majority of B2B marketing departments across the country. This post will show you how B2B marketers plan, execute, and budget their marketing programs. You can make sure that your strategy is in line with your competitors or even ahead in 2022.

1. Make a formal marketing plan
2. Partner with a Marketing Agency
3. Use Retainer vs. Project Contracts
4. Spend 10% on Marketing
5. Take into account Account-Based Marketing
6. The Rise of Mobile
7. Embrace Automation and Martech
8. Visual Content
9. Big Data can help you harness the power of big data
10. Make More Relevant Content
11. Go Multichannel
12. Establish strategic marketing objectives
13. Find a senior marketing advocate
14. Develop and invest in Marketing ROI Metrics
15. Develop relationships with IT and Finance
16. Make sure your content addresses the customer journey
17. Design a brand identity
18. Establish and maintain ongoing partnerships with sales
19. Learn Digital Marketing and Technology Skills
20. Interactive Marketing Campaigns
21. Concentrate on the Buyer

[Check out our weekly blog and annual b2b marketing strategy. ]

1. Make a formal marketing plan

A significant shift in the B2B marketing mix report shows that more B2B marketers are using formal plans to help guide their branding and marketing. 66% of B2B marketers used a formal marketing plan in the past year. This allows them to take a more proactive and strategic approach to their tactics than a reactive and sporadic approach to the market.

There are many differences between a tactical and strategic marketing plan. The strategic marketing plan, as we are referring to it, includes market research and a situation analysis.

Your marketing agency or an internal committee can help you identify your top five-10 competitors and then conduct a SWOT analysis. To find the whitespace, cross-reference the SWOTs of your competitors with your own analysis to discover areas where there are significant gaps in the market or strengths that only you can bring to the table.

This information will help you create a brand strategy that communicates the unique characteristics of your brand.

2. Partner with a Marketing Agency

63% of B2B marketers report using a content marketing agency to handle some or all of their marketing program.¹ For small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that can't afford to build out an entire marketing department in-house, complete with strategic marketers, certified specialists and subscriptions to the various tools and platforms that make a marketing program run, an agency is often the way to go. SMBs have access to high-quality marketing capabilities and resources, as well as the ability to use their internal resources more efficiently through agency marketing.

"Between traditional, digital and inbound methods, there are an amazing number of moving parts. The real art lies not in understanding each tool's best use, but in how they work together. One of the report's publishers said that this requires an agency with a special kind of harmony and individual expertise.

3. Use Retainer vs. Project Contracts

According to the B2B Marketing Mix Report, the majority of outsourced marketing efforts are carried out via retainers. This is because digital marketing programs are long-term and continuous.

SEO (search engine optimization) is a technique that helps your company rank higher in search engines by increasing its visibility in unpaid results. Ranking in search results does not happen overnight.

It involves ongoing technical work such as website optimization as well as local SEO. This is the process of using a company’s geographic location to rank a local business higher than its competitors.

SEO programs are all about link building, keyword research and optimizing copy. However, this is only for projects that have a clear start and finish, such as creating a brand strategy or a website. Retainer contracts are best for implementing a comprehensive marketing program that includes digital.

4. Spend 10% on Marketing

Marketers and senior leadership have different opinions about the goals of the marketing organization. Marketing should be cost-effective to attract customers. This is the expectation of the management team. Marketers believe that it is more important for marketers to concentrate on creating and executing strategies that will increase brand awareness and positioning.

Senior leaders expect marketers to show ROI from their marketing efforts. However, this can be difficult for marketers who feel they don't have the right tools. Other marketers feel that senior management should be more focused on customer insight than on pricing and products.

Marketing leaders are often asked the same question: "How much should we spend on marketing?" This report was compiled by hundreds of marketing executives and found that 10% to 10% of a yearly marketing budget is the magic number.

The report shows that businesses are spending 10% or more on marketing, an increase of 5% over last year. This is a reflection of the priorities of leaders who face greater competition online and offline. To achieve advanced and automated marketing strategies, personalization, interactive material, and new user experience requirements, a larger portion of a company's budget is required. The report identified that the top three strategic areas in which marketers spent that 10% were website development, digital marketing, and tradeshows, events. This is in addition to the marketing staff and agency partnerships.

5. Take into account Account-Based Marketing

Account-Based Marketing (ABM), is a method of tailoring marketing and sales strategies to one account. This can have a significant impact on ROI. ABM doesn’t care about how many followers you have on Twitter. It's the closing of the deal that is important, which will help you grow your bottom line faster.

SiriusDecisions found that 42% of marketers have used ABM for less than 6 months. Lynsay Russell from Medtronic spoke at the Sirius Decisions 2017 Summit. She discussed how ABM has been a benefit to their company. The average deal size for accounts targeted by ABM was 35% higher than accounts not targeted using ABM methods.

Account-based marketers aren't concerned with quantity of leads. They are more concerned with quality. You can narrow your focus and target the best accounts to convert. Don't waste resources on the small fish. The big one is worth it.

6. The Rise of Mobile

Mobile devices account for more than half the web traffic in the world. If you don't implement a mobile-first strategy you are ignoring more than half your potential leads.

Mobile marketing strategies can reach more than 5 billion people worldwide. Mobile has now become the primary media channel, so businesses must take advantage of this opportunity to collect new traffic and data.

Make sure your content is mobile-friendly. Business owners and department heads now use their mobile devices to search for business solutions. Make your website accessible from any device, and optimize it to fit the largest screens to the smallest.

Mobile apps can be used to reach prospects and clients. This will increase sales and client engagement. Research shows that users tend to give up on apps after just 30 days.

7. Embrace Automation and Martech

There are many technologies and innovations that can make marketers' lives easier. These Martech tools can be used to improve existing marketing campaigns.

Marketing automation tools allow you to reach prospects and personalize communications. These repetitive and mundane tasks can end up costing your company more long-term if you continue to do them the old-fashioned way.

Reexamine your approach to marketing technologies. Examine the tools that you use in your different marketing categories. Scott Brinker, the author of Hacking Marketing, lists six marketing categories you can use to conduct your audit.

Marketing Experiences This refers to technologies that directly impact customer touchpoints throughout the marketing lifecycle. It includes email, advertising, social media, SEO and content marketing.

Marketing Operations.Operations covers the tools and data needed to manage the "back-office", or marketing. This includes data analytics, MRM and DAM as well as agile marketing management technologies.

Marketing middleware:Marketing middleware allows you to integrate marketing systems and platforms with one another. This could include data protection, API services and cloud connectors. Tag management is also possible.

Marketing Backbone Portals:Review every backbone platform separately as they may have different purposes. These include tools for customer relationship management (CRM), CMS, automation, and ecommerce tools.

Services for Infrastructure: Your marketing infrastructure includes cloud computing and big data management, databases, as well as software development tools.

Internet Services This doesn't only refer to your internet service provider, but you should also check that. You should ensure that the internet platforms used by you, such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, LinkedIn, and any other services that are part of your marketing environment, are seamlessly integrated.

8. Visual Content

Brand recall and awareness can be increased by including images and videos to your content. Multiple studies have shown that visual recall is more effective than text or audio. People tend to forget 10% of the information they hear after hearing it. This is despite having only heard 10% of it before. However, if you add photos to the same information they will remember 65% after three days.

A third of marketers believe that visual marketing is the most important type of content, as it helps to build trust and engage with their audiences.

Make sure to use compelling images that reflect your brand on all platforms. Use white space to your advantage and make your content easy to read. Don't overwhelm your audience by unnecessary distractions.

To illustrate statistics and data, create graphs and charts. For more relevance and branding, customize your images. Try short, educational videos. Ensure you follow these Top 10 Visual Content Rules.

9. Big Data can help you harness the power of big data

Marketers can deliver consistent, omnichannel customer experiences across all channels and platforms using big data algorithms and advanced analytics thanks to data analytics and big data algorithms. Big data is changing the way we market. It improves the quality of your sales leads and customer experience at every touchpoint. Managers can also use it to make better business decisions.

Without the right data, it's impossible to understand your leads and reach them with personalized communications. Get on board the big data train and optimize your campaigns.

Big data can be used to improve customer relations and go beyond marketing campaign execution. If the numbers seem overwhelming, a data analyst consultant or expert can help.

A big data framework should be aligned with your marketing and organizational goals. To determine which data should be included under social analytics and performance management, data science and data exploration, segment transactional and not-transactional data.

To put it simply, data is about setting up systems that collect and analyze data at all points in your sales process. You will be able to create the best marketing strategy if you have a better understanding of your audience and business.

10. Make More Relevant Content

Yesterday, I was asked by a colleague what my thoughts were about instructing sales to insert the buying process early to "paint a vision".

Most of my conversations with vendors, whether digitally or in person, are focused on them: their products, services, and their unique value proposition. But what about the buyer? B2B companies must develop content that is less about what they want, and more about what the buyer wants.

Selling to the "decision maker" is a long gone tradition. Multiple buyers, with diverse perspectives and biases, are part of the process. It is important to talk to them all. This has a negative impact on the content creation process.

Marketing content should be educational and encourage dialogue about the unique challenges and issues of each buyer. This dialogue should extend to the sales conversation. It is the job of marketing to educate and empower sales to have this conversation.

Many organizations spend more and create more content. But, it is important to ask whether this is the right content. Marketers need to learn the roles involved in buying and then create content that is specific to their needs. Marketing will then see an increase in the quality of their content. Relevance is more important than quantity.

11. Go Multichannel

B2B buyers have many options to explore and research their purchase options. Particularly with social media, they use multiple mediums. This shows that marketing messages must be available across a variety of media, not just email.

It is crucial that organizations understand their customers' preferences and make sure their content is available via all channels in order to choose a profitable medium. Too many organizations depend on email, social media and web as their primary channels. While these channels are frequently used, it is dangerous to assume that these channels are all your buyers use to consume content. Make sure you're using the channels your buyers use and making your content accessible across them all. Multi-channel thinking is key.

12. Establish strategic marketing objectives

Higher revenue B2B companies (37%) tend to see the marketing department as an extension of their sales organization (57%). Lower revenue companies (57%) are more likely not to view them as strategic assets.

They create digital marketing objectives for high-performing B2B marketing agencies, not sales plans. These goals inform the company's business strategy and help to differentiate their brand in a competitive marketplace.

13. Find a senior marketing advocate

A majority of B2B marketers believe that a champion or senior advocate will be necessary to ensure marketing success in the next three years.

This person will represent marketing and customers' voice at the executive table. They will also collaborate with other organizations to help drive business strategy and sales through the use of marketing. Marketing will be a competitive advantage for the company and a revenue stream.

14. Marketing ROI Metrics: Develop and Invest

It is important to be able to measure and show that B2B marketing has a positive impact on the bottom line of the company and drives business growth. This will change perceptions about marketing as a cost center and competitive advantage. Nearly 60% of B2B marketers admit that they don't have the right measurement tools to prove their ROI.

These barriers can be removed by establishing ROI metrics and investing in marketing strategies and technologies to enable marketers to measure ROI.

15. Develop relationships with IT and Finance

B2B companies with higher revenue believe that building close relationships with other businesses, such IT and Finance, is essential to drive their marketing strategies, measure results, and manage marketing spending.

16. Make sure your content addresses the customer journey

High-performing marketing teams and marketers are distinguished from their peers by their deep understanding of their customers. This includes their most pressing issues and challenges, as well as their content needs and preferences.

Many B2B companies do not have buyer personas, but they plan to create them in the next year to increase their demand generation efforts. According to a Demand Gen Report survey, only 27% said that personas aligned with their messaging. 30% also noted that they will need to refine their efforts.

Campaign failure is often caused by mistargeted messaging and content. Marketers have a great opportunity to create buyer personas that are specific and relevant to their intended audience.

B2B marketers who are successful use customer insight to develop marketing strategies specific to each buyer persona. They also create and curate content that is relevant to the consumer at every stage of their customer journey to connect, engage, and convert them.

17. Use Content to create a brand identity and personality

B2B companies with higher revenues focus their marketing efforts to create and drive a consistent brand identity at all touchpoints online and offline. This ensures a positive customer experience in every part of the company that a customer interacts with.

Marketers must create a strong brand position against their competitors, track and identify segments for better targeting and communicate their findings to sales teams to adjust and improve their strategies.

Important question: Does your company have an established tone of voice or does it change from one person to the next in your PR and content marketing departments? In any company's communications, consistency is crucial. If you don't have a defined tone of voice, it should be a priority for all employees. You can start by:

• Consider how you can communicate with your clients effectively
• Decide what tone you wish to project to your clients in the future
• Look at the competition to see how they communicate.

It is important to compare your competitors. While you will likely communicate in the same way with your audience, it is important to do so in a different manner. This is where a unique voice can help. This is one of the best ways to differentiate yourself.

It is important to set a distinctive tone for your brand. This applies also to your engagement with your customers on social media. To get an idea of how B2C brands interact with their audience on social media platforms such as Twitter, you can also look at B2C brands. With each passing day, the digital divide between B2C brands and B2B is shrinking.

Every company has its own voice and unique style. Next, consider how you want to interact on social media with your audience. You can choose to keep the tone consistent with your other communications or to change it slightly to suit your audience, who may be different than your blog visitors or email subscribers.

18. Establish and maintain ongoing partnerships with sales

Marketing success is still hindered by silos between sales and marketing. A joint survey by ANA/GfK found that more than half of B2B marketers believe that better alignment between sales-marketing will improve marketing's contribution to the company and help them demonstrate their ROI.

According to the research, B2B marketers' top three objectives are to increase sales and leads, brand awareness, customer loyalty, retention, and brand awareness. It is essential for marketing to collaborate with sales to help achieve these goals and to drive business growth.

19. Learn Digital Marketing and Technology Skills

B2B marketers expect that digital marketing and technology skills will be required to increase consumer adoption of mobile and digital technologies.

Only 7% believe that their B2B marketers have a process to collect data about customer behavior, attitudes, and engagement. This information can be used to optimize and inform existing marketing strategies.

20. Interactive Marketing Campaigns

Interactive content has been a popular marketing strategy in recent years. Why? You can write a blog post. But, it can get boring. New types of content can be exciting.

Interactive content can include anything from polls and surveys, to whitepapers and interactive infographics. Interactive content has one goal: to engage your audience in learning experiences, not just reading articles or watching videos.

People, yes even professionals in B2B, love to take part in activities. Interactive content offers a unique opportunity for your audience. Interactive content like polls, quizzes and surveys has a unique advantage. It allows you to collect data from leads and learn about your audience. These data can be used to inform future content marketing efforts or guest blog posts, further establishing you as an industry expert.

21. Concentrate on the Buyer

In the majority of cases, the buying process is getting longer and not shorter. This is a reminder that B2B marketing agencies need to shift away from tactical campaigns and adopt a strategic approach. They must map content to the buying process and engage, nurture, and convert buyers throughout the buying process.

What does this all mean? This means that B2B demand generation programs should always be able to anticipate what's next in terms of content. This means marketers shouldn't be selling an asset but rather seeking to have a conversation. Marketers must have a buyer-centric strategy in order to connect with buyers in this ever-growing buying environment.

B2B marketers will continue to face increasing complexity as the world and environment in which they operate day-to-day will change, shift, and grow in complexity. It is not possible to spend, create, and push more of any product or service with a tactical approach. Real transformation is required to engage and get to know our buyers on a deeper level. It all comes down to the buyer.

What are the most important digital marketing trends we’ll likely see in 2023. I’ve already touched on how we can expect marketing to evolve strategically. In this article, I’ll be looking in more detail at specific trends to look out for.

To make a solid plan for the short term, it’s important to keep an eye on where you’re heading in the long term. Nobody can say with 100% certainty what the future of marketing will look like, but industry professionals can offer useful insights and predictions into some of the possibilities.

Nobody could have predicted how 2020 would change the face of marketing. Those who meticulously planned out their marketing activities based on what they knew at the start of that year found themselves needing to scrap their plan and start from scratch.

We ourselves tripled revenues for our weekly blog content service during the pandemic as more businesses realized that content marketing is the most predictable way to generate a return on marketing.

But some things are certain. The future of marketing and business will be more diverse, inclusive, and connected to real customer needs.

Technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, so of course, some of these trends are focused around technology. However, there’s also a pushback against the increased digitization and automation of interactions between brands and consumers. Today, there’s a desire to make marketing more human again.

While technologies such as AI and data-driven marketing continue to grow, the overarching focus will be on people, not technology.

Quick Takeaways:

• The marketing trends that will dominate in the next 12 months will include Customer Experience, Employee Engagement, and Content Visualization.

• The definition of what we consider as “marketing” is constantly changing and becoming broader.

• Marketing has moved beyond branding and advertising; marketers must work together with other departments to focus on building great customer experiences and engaging them for long-term relationships.

Following the latest marketing trends, I put together these 10 tips for optimizing your content marketing. Watch now.

World Class Customer Experience

Every year is the year of the customer. We’re seeing a massive shift in beliefs about what marketing actually is. It’s no longer about trying to convince people to buy from or work with your company. Instead, the priority has moved towards providing fantastic customer experiences that will keep people coming back for more. When you focus on building a positive business culture and providing great service, the marketing almost takes care of itself.

Not only are customers impatient, but they also want those fish tacos delivered on a silver platter.

Okay, not literally. But they do expect a seamless experience from the first spark of interest to customer service after the sale. From personalized messaging that helps them solve problems to make a buying decision to a customer-focused culture throughout their customer journey, an experience that delivers quality across all channels is more likely to earn their business.

In addition to personalized marketing messages, find ways to listen and respond to their questions. Coordinate your digital marketing team with your sales and customer service teams to deliver quality throughout their experience.

The growth of online content has given consumers more power. They are no longer a passive party when it comes to learning about products. They’re not waiting for you to tell you how great your products are. Instead, they’re going out and doing their own research.

So you have to offer them something more than information. 73% of people say that customer experience is an important factor in their buying decisions, but currently only 49% of US consumers say that today’s companies provide a good experience.

What exactly makes a great CX? Efficiency, convenience, knowledgeable and friendly service, and easy payment options are what people value most in their customer experience. But aspects more traditionally considered as marketing’s domain are cited too: up-to-date technology, personalization, an easy mobile experience, brand image, and design all add up to the overall customer experience.

[TAG1][TAG13]

Building the kinds of relationships with customers that drive loyalty is worth every penny you spend. As the management experts at Bain and Company point out, a mere 5 percent boost in customer retention increases profit by 25 percent.

Can you imagine how your profits would soar if you went the extra mile to deliver the kinds of experiences that build not only loyalty, but qualified referrals as well? When you coordinate your digital marketing strategy with all your teams to deliver those kinds of experiences, you’ll grow your bottom line well beyond even your highest expectations.

In other words, you need to consider CX in every aspect of your marketing strategy. This is how you can provide a great experience in order to keep your customers and attract new ones.

In fact, as you go through this list, you’ll see that every trend is really just one factor of the overall customer experience.

Employee Activation: A Giant Leap Beyond Engagement

If efficient and friendly service is the cornerstone of great customer experience, how do you ensure you’re providing this? The answer, of course, is in your employees. The previously mentioned research also found that 46% of consumers will abandon a brand if its employees are not knowledgeable, and bad employee attitude is the number one factor that stops individuals from doing business with a company.

[TAG2][TAG14]

I call this employee activation. Your employees are the human face of your brand, so concentrating on interactions between your employees and your customers should be a key part of your marketing strategy. When you’re turning the responsibility of creating a great customer service over to your employees, you need to make sure that they want your business to succeed as much as you do.

The key to this is building a solid foundation of employee engagement and taking steps to ensure every employee understands and is aligned with your brand mission and values.

You can’t expect your employees to care about your customers if they’re not happy at work and don’t really believe in what you’re doing as a business. So achieving a high level of employee engagement is the first and most important step in improving customer experiences.

Employee engagement requires you to make your workplace such an attractive place to work that your employees’ happiness will spill on over onto the customers. Indeed, a smile and an extra effort to please that comes from the heart is one of the most effective forms of marketing out there. In fact, companies that engage their employees outperform their peers by a factor of two.

However, that one giant leap for humankind – walking on the moon – is a piece of cake compared to convincing some companies to treat their employees like valuable colleagues instead of glorified house servants. Taking the next step – employee activation – requires you to treat your employees as your most treasured customers.

When you activate your employees, though, it’s marketing magic. Activation includes a wealth of tools to empower your employees to become walking billboards for your company, including:

• Training that not only makes them more informed about your products, but also allows them to climb up the corporate ladder – imagine – you gotta love a company that trains you to qualify for a better job
• Permission to post content on social media and elsewhere about your company’s culture, products, and services
• Involvement in creating blog posts, videos, white papers, and other “official” marketing content, creating a platform on which they can showcase their expertise

Once your employees start sharing the love your company has shared with them, it will pay off. Not only will it pay off in good vibes, but it will also likely make a huge impact on your bottom line.

In fact, leads that your employees generate through social media marketing posts are seven times more likely to convert than leads you generate through other channels, according to Sociabble. In addition, content that they share will enjoy eight times more engagement than content that you share on your official brand channels.

Story-Driven Content Visualization

With the explosion of smart speakers and voice search in recent years, you’d be forgiven for thinking that “readable” content is more important than visuals and design these days.

In fact, this couldn’t be further from the truth. While advancements in voice search are certainly influencing the way that we’ll create content now and in the future, you shouldn’t neglect visual content and the basic elements of brand storytelling.

Research has shown that people prefer visual content to plain text. You just have to look at the growth of image-focused platforms Pinterest and Instagram to see the proof of this.

[TAG3]

Google, Pinterest, and several other companies are also investing in visual search technology. Images are already returned for 19% of searches on Google, and 62% of millennials say they are more interest in visual search than any other new technology.

[TAG4]

Visuals are also easier to remember than written content. Adding data visualizations, infographics, images, and videos to your text not only makes it more interesting and attractive, but it can help your message to be absorbed better too.

Personalization: Your Key to Their Heart

When a customer has two relatively equal products in front of her, and she needs to decide which one she’ll buy, my money’s on the brand that won her heart. One of the ways to engage your customers’ hearts as well as their heads is to personalize marketing to meet their needs.

For years, psychologists have taught us that people love to hear their name and see it in print. But today’s technology allows digital marketing teams to dig deep into the data to identify the things that keep customers up at night – and identify what messages will solve those problems and give them a good night’s sleep.

In the 2002 movie Minority Report, the character John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, is bombarded by a series of personalized ads calling him by name as he walks through the city. This was obviously complete science fiction at the time, but not quite two decades later, reality has almost caught up with the marketing future of Stephen Spielberg’s imagination.

[TAG19]

Today’s consumers are flooded with marketing messages from multiple channels to the point where they have started to tune them out. Traditional advertising is losing its effectiveness, so what’s the answer? Personalized marketing messages that forge a real connection between the brand and the target market. So, go way beyond the “Hi [Customer Name]” emails, “Don’t you want to make more money?” popups, or “Hey, come back here!” cheesy messages in the browser titles to find what makes your customers tick. Then, give them content that will win their hearts.

Again, a little effort will yield amazing results. In fact, 80% of consumers said that they’d be more likely to do business with a brand that provides a personalized experience, as per a survey by Epsilon.

Improvements in technology such as AI combined with increased data collection and insights from social media and other sources have made it possible and easy to hyper-personalize everything from content to design to product recommendations and everything in-between.

Conversational marketing

There was a time when sales and customer service were formal processes. Representatives used “sir” and “ma’am,” and making an inquiry required significant time — a phone call, a visit to the store, and in recent years an email or online form.

Today? Sales and customer service reps (and bots) are chatting with customers through instant message. The interactions are like those you might have with a friend. It all centers around other trends, some that we’ve already talked about, like the need for personalization and more human-centered interactions.

Customers don’t want to talk to someone who is following a script. They want help that’s specific to their needs and situation. They also want immediate response times. That means more and less formal communication channels.

Strategic Marketing Transformation

When you’re reading about up-and-coming trends in an article like this, it’s all too easy to think that being successful in marketing can be simplified to following a list of best practices and making sure you’re using the latest techniques and technology.

The business of marketing is becoming increasingly complex. For companies to succeed in 2021, they’ll have to think beyond what they’re doing and link everything back to the why of the business as a whole. Your marketing goals and objectives must align with the overall goals of your business.

Strategic marketing transformation is the term used to describe the process when a business operating without a strategic marketing plan evolves by changing its fundamental business processes and procedures.

Undergoing a marketing transformation can help companies to improve customer service and experience, boost brand awareness and reputation, and ultimately increase revenue and profits.

Businesses achieve these benefits through a combination of data collection, using modern technology, building customer relationships and engaging with customers online, publishing quality content, and improving their online presence. All of these things are part of the underlying strategy that influences every department and employee in the company, not just the marketers.

Your strategic marketing plan defines goals and determines which marketing tactics you will employ to reach your customers including content marketing, SEO, email marketing, social media, advertising, and offline marketing. It then lays out a plan for how every part of the organization will be involved in these tactics.

To put it simply, the marketing strategy is no longer only the responsibility of the chief marketer or CMO. Strategic marketing transformation recognizes this and ensures that the brand, company reputation, customer relationships, and the customer experience as a whole are considered in every business activity.

Push Notifications

Two things are driving the emergence of push notifications as a digital marketing trend. First, the email marketing landscape is becoming so saturated that it’s only getting more difficult to truly connect with your audience through that channel. Second, people are increasingly using mobile phones for all types of online activity — including brand search and online shopping.

It makes sense, then, that brands are turning to push notifications as a more effective way to capture customer attention. Today, more than half of consumers are allowing push notifications on their phone so brands can get in touch with them.

There is a fine line, though, that brands must be careful not to cross. Industry research has found that across industries, push notification unsubscribe rates stay under 1% when the number of daily pushes is low. Once it hits a certain threshold (around 10+ pushes) those unsubscribes begin to spike.

Image Source

When done correctly, however, push notifications drive open rates, conversions, and overall audience engagement.

Featured Snippets in Google Search

SEO will continue to be an important aspect of digital marketing as we move into 2021, but we’re now seeing one of the most major shifts in the SEO industry in the last decade.

With the growth of mobile and voice search, people are changing the way they use search engines like Google. Being number one in the search engine result pages or SERPS is no longer necessarily the primary goal your business should be aiming for.

You’ve probably noticed your own search and browsing behavior has changed in the last few years due to Google changes and the fact that you’re looking for the fastest information when you’re on the move.

Featured snippets and other “on SERP” information means that you don’t need to click through to a website to get the information you’re looking for anymore – it’s right there on the Google search results page.

This on-SERP information may appear in various places, but the most sought after position is right at the top of the page, before the organic listings. This position has been dubbed “position zero”. As it’s often the only information that a searcher will view, it’s highly coveted. Over 60% of search results returned by Google are now featured snippets.

Brands are still trying to figure out how to achieve the erstwhile “position zero” as it requires different SEO techniques than those employed for a normal listing in the SERPs. If you can be the first in your industry to get there, you’ll have a huge advantage over your competitors. So expect to see more SEO companies offering this service over the next year, and pay attention to the latest best practices for optimizing your content.

Social Commerce

Social commerce isn’t new, but it is finally becoming a mainstream form of shopping. Brands are becoming savvier than ever about leveraging influencer marketing, creating ads that fit seamlessly into social media feeds, and integrating their ecommerce platforms with social media channels.

Instagram and Tik Tok have been particularly influential in accelerating the social commerce trend. Instagram Checkout makes it easier than ever for brands to advertise and sell their products directly through the platform.

Tik Tok is absolutely changing the game when it comes to influencer marketing with tools like Creator Marketplace, where brands can find creators that align with their products and interests, and Tik Tok Shopping, which allows brands to more meaningfully engage with customers right through the app.

Research by Statista shows that social commerce is on the rise for 2023 and not slowing down any time soon.

Image Source

Voice Search

I’ve mentioned voice search a couple of times already, so you knew it was going to be on this list. Voice search shows no sign of slowing down and will continue to be a major influence on how brands create content and market themselves online.

We’re not quite at the commonly cited prediction that 50% of searches will be driven by voice in 2021 (we’re currently sitting at about 20% according to Google), but this statistic is probably not that far in the future. The smart speaker business is booming, with around a quarter of US households now owning a Google Home, Amazon Echo, or another smart speaker.

Consumers are also expecting to use voice search more in the near future – 61% of those aged 25–64 who already use a voice device intend to use it more in the future according to research by PwC.

Voice search brings with it new challenges but also exciting opportunities. “Branded skills” is one example of a smart speaker advertising opportunity that emerged in the last year. Tequila brand Patròn is an example of a company that’s seen huge success from using branded skills. Smart speaker users can ask their digital assistant to “ask Patròn for a cocktail recipe.” This not only helps to increase brand awareness and visibility, but it also enables users to buy the product directly from the recipe results.

[TAG21]

Even if your brand isn’t ready for smart speaker advertising, it’s important that your content is optimized for voice search. Voice searchers use search differently. They use longer, more conversational queries, so slanting your content to serve these queries, as well as answering questions directly, can help to make it more visible to voice searches. This has the added bonus of making your content more likely to be picked up as a featured snippet or found on position zero on Google.

AI-Based Automation

Will 2021 be the year of the rise of the robots? Maybe (but hopefully not in the Terminator-style of dystopian science fiction movies!)

We’ve already seen huge advancements in AI over the last few years, and a great increase in the number of businesses using AI-powered technology and automation to assist their marketing efforts.

AI is one of the major technologies behind voice search and smart assistants. It’s also made chatbots possible, which are now popping up on more websites than ever before.

AI technology and automation are helping to take some of the grunt work out of marketing so brands can concentrate on strategy and crafting a fantastic customer experience.

Remember, the human aspect of marketing is still important (perhaps more important than ever before), so the idea is to use this technology to enhance your marketing efforts, not replace the real people behind them.

Big data, supported by AI and predictive analytics, is also helping brands to learn more about their audience and customers. It’s enabling hyper-personalization of customer experiences and marketing messages at scale.

Video Marketing

Research by Cisco found that video accounts for 82% of all online traffic. Videos are 53x more likely to generate first-page SERP rankings than other SEO tactics. Today, 84% of consumers have been convinced to purchase a product after watching a video.

Not to mention that nearly all digital marketers — 93% — say that video is currently a core part of their content strategy.

Image Source

The takeaway? The future of content marketing trends lies in video. Brands must integrate video content like product demos, webinars, and live video events (more on those shortly) to keep their content fresh and aligned with what consumers are looking for.

Focus on Customer Retention, Loyalty and Advocacy

A huge part of providing a great customer experience is making sure that CX is ongoing and focused on keeping your existing customers, rather than just attracting new ones.

Recurring customers are more valuable than new customers. Studies have found that it costs five times as much to attract a new customer as it does to keep a new one, so it’s definitely worth putting in the effort to keep your customers happy.

Loyal customers also help to increase the reputation and awareness of your brand as they’ll talk about your company and products with their friends and family. Happy customers make great (and free!) brand ambassadors and influencers.

Many of the above-mentioned trends and technology can be helpful for increasing customer retention rates. Personalization, for example, is certainly expected from your existing customers if not your new ones, and it gets easier to personalize communications the more interactions someone has with your brand.

Live Video

The live video industry is expected to be worth over $70 billion by 2021. Live video is incredibly popular with consumers, and people spend three times longer watching live video than they do watching pre-recorded video.

Video is also the most popular way for consumers to learn about new products.

[TAG8][TAG15]

When the live element is added, this makes video more engaging as the audience feels they’re a part of it and can influence the content, rather than just passively watching.

Live video is great for grabbing the attention of your social audience on Facebook or Instagram. These types of videos are so attractive to viewers because they tap into “FOMO” or fear of missing out. When you’re not sure if a live video is going to contain a tidbit of information that you can’t get anywhere else, or it will mean you’re the first to find out about some new and exciting news, you’re going to want to watch it.

Account-Based Marketing

Although corporations aren’t people, their C-suites certainly are staffed by them. Specifically, by people with widely divergent interests.

• The chief financial officer wants to know how the widget you make will save steps in the manufacturing process, saving time. And time, as we all know, is money.

• The chief marketing officer wants to know how your widget can help make a better product – and why – so that she can explain it to her customers.

• The head of human resources wants to know how much easier your widget will make assembly line workers’ jobs, specifically, how it can help them avoid tendonitis.

And so on.

Account-based marketing personalizes messaging to businesses, targeting each decision-maker with the information they need to solve specific departmental problems. Like personalized messaging directly to customers, account-based marketing yields a higher ROI than other types of marketing. If you sell to other businesses, particularly large corporations, account-based marketing is one of the “already here” digital marketing trends you need to embrace during the coming years.

Gen Z Will Continue to Influence Marketing More Than Millennials

The marketing industry has been obsessed with Millennials for the past two decades. In fact, a Google search currently yields around 129 million results for the search term “millennials”, compared to only around 7.2 million for the previous “generation x”.

But the millennials of today have outgrown their caricature as a bunch of entitled 20-somethings. The first millennials are now approaching their 40^th birthday. While this age group still makes up a significant proportion of the audience of many marketers, some predictions made about their importance have fallen short of the mark.

For example, the oft-quoted statistic that Millennials will make up 75% of the workforce by 2025 is now not only unlikely but rather impossible.

It’s 2020 and Millennials have already peaked as a percentage of the adult population, making up just over 40% of the global population. By 2030 this percentage is expected to drop to just under 37% as Generation Z starts to come of age.

[TAG10][TAG16]

Generation Z consists of people who were born from 1995 to 2010. These young people have grown up in a digital world and have very different viewpoints than generations that came before them. They’re also more diverse than any other generation in history.

A more diverse audience can make content marketing challenging, but it also opens up more opportunities to reach different segments of that audience through personalization.

If you’ve been focusing your marketing strategy on Millennials, it may be time to take a step back and come up with some new ideas for reaching the workforce and decision-makers of tomorrow.

Growth in Emerging Markets and a More Diverse Audience

Emerging markets in Asia have grown significantly over the last decade and are expected to continue to grow over the next ten years.

Over a billion new middle-class consumers from countries like China, India, and Indonesia will be added to the global pool of consumers.

[TAG11][TAG17]

Companies that want to expand their marketing efforts beyond North America and reach these new consumers will have to think carefully about how best to reach them.

Different cultures, languages, social norms, and online behaviors can all make marketing a challenge when it comes to creating content for these audiences.

For large global enterprises, having a local on-the-ground marketing team in their main market locations is often the answer.

But smaller businesses can market globally too. The key to success is embracing diversity from the inside. Companies that strive for a diverse workforce and corporate culture will find that marketing innovation flourishes naturally.

Integrated Online-Offline Customer Experience

Physical stores with little online presence have been struggling more in recent years. For many businesses, the 2020 pandemic proved the final nail in the coffin, with the last six months seeing an unprecedented number of store closures.

Conversely, many online retailers and digital brands have thrived. Massive numbers of consumers have shifted to moving more and more of their purchases and everyday activities online.

However, physical stores are not doomed to become a relic of the past. Consumers still prefer physical stores. But brands must adjust their marketing strategy to take advantage of this increased digitalization.

In the future, stores will be more than just a place to do your shopping. They will be a place where brands can really engage with their customers and improve the customer experience.

Moreover, VR and AR technologies will bring more of the shopping experience to the home, improving the online shopping experience. Ikea already has an augmented reality app that allows customers to see items of furniture in their own home and several fashion brands have launched apps enabling shoppers to virtually try on clothing before they buy.

More and more brands are jumping onto this trend. For example, Nike has launched a number of “retail experiences” in recent years including terminals with product information and online ordering functionality, integration with customer smartphones, social media walls, interactive augmented reality installations, and more.

Responsible Consumerism

Today’s consumers are more aware than ever before of the effect their buying habits have on the environment and society.

People are taking more care over the products they choose to buy and the brands they choose to associate with.

[TAG12][TAG18]

Many brands have already been making a move toward more sustainable practices to reduce their impact on the environment. However, social responsibility is becoming just as important as being “green”.

As we saw with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, people are no longer just expecting the brands they support to avoid harmful practices. It’s now expected that corporations will actively fight injustice and support the causes they believe in.

In the near future brands will be expected to be ethical in all of their business practices and use their resources to be a force for good in the world. Those that don’t will be left behind as customers choose brands that align with their own values.

Brand responsibility goes beyond marketing. But marketing the things that a company is doing to make a positive difference in the world may end up being more effective than advertising its products.

The Internet of Everything

In 2020 the Internet of Things (IoT) has already made significant changes in how consumers interact with brands.

Over the next decade, this trend will ramp up even more as it becomes the norm for everyday devices to be connected to the internet.

Smartphones, smartwatches, and smart TVs are already commonplace. The technology is becoming smaller and cheaper all the time. In the not-too-distant future, it’s likely that almost every electronic device will be “smart” in some way. Even more striking, smart microchips are already being implanted in humans.

Smart cities – urban areas that use IoT technology to manage resources and services – are also on the rise globally. It’s estimated that by 2025, the top 600 smart cities will account for 60% of the world’s GDP.

This massive number of connected objects will generate a huge quantity of data that can be used to gain advanced customer insights. This information can then be used to personalize the customer experience and provide easier communication and engagement with the brand.

Hyper-Local Marketing

Along with the growth of IoT devices and increased expectation for personalized customer experience comes increased used of geolocation data in marketing.

Local marketing is certainly not a new concept. Even the largest global brands recognize the value of customizing their marketing messages on a local level. And search engines like Google have become very good at serving up businesses in the local area whether you’re looking for a coffee or a new pair of shoes.

But geolocation services are due to step things up a notch. Eight in 10 marketers currently use location data in their marketing strategy and 94% plan to do so in the future.

Now that everyone has a smartphone, potential customers can be targeted with marketing messages as soon as they’re detected to be within a certain distance from a store.

Brands can use geofencing to deliver personalized messages to a very small set of individuals who are more likely to buy (location-based marketing has been found to be 20x more effective than standard ads.). This reduces marketing spend. Budget is not wasted on prospects who are less likely to result in a sale.

Combining geolocation and IoT technology means some very sophisticated and personalized marketing is possible. For example, a customer could get a reminder that they’re running low on eggs as they’re passing close to the grocery store.

Get Ready for 2023

Now is the time to start planning your 2023 marketing strategy if you haven’t already. Make sure you start the New Year with a clear plan of your goals and how you’re going to achieve them.

While marketing trends come and go, the basics of success remain the same: understand the needs of your audience and communicate with them clearly and consistently. That’s why customer-focused content has always been the best way to establish solid relationships with your audience. It goes without saying that content marketing will continue to dominate the digital marketing landscape for some time to come. Most of these trends rely on content in some way. To have success in them you’ll need to have a solid base of quality content across all your marketing channels.

Are you interested in engaging and converting new customers for your business using the most important digital marketing trend: consistent and quality content?  Check out our weekly blog content service. Get started today and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

"Does content marketing work? What is the average time it takes to see the results you want? These are common questions we get.

Yes, content marketing is effective. To see substantial results, it can take up to five months .

Remember that your business may have a different answer. Depending on the amount of effort you put into promotion, strategy, and production, Content Marketing ROI might be more visible.

It may take you longer to see the same results depending on how much content you produce and where your focus is. These factors will affect your timeline.

• Model for business
• Market and industry
• Strategies and goals
• How you define success

Content marketing is a time-consuming process. This is a long-term strategy. You may not get immediate results if you are looking for them. Content marketing is a great option if you want to build a solid foundation for your business and continue growing confidently.

These stats prove the importance of content marketing.

• 
  
  More than 90% of B2B marketers, and 86% of marketers in B2C use Content Marketing
  
  
• 
  
  Conventional marketing costs 62% less than Content Marketing
  
  
• 
  
  Companies that blog generate 67% more leads compared to those who don't
  
  

Quick Takeaways

• Each business's results will vary depending on how hard they work. Your goals and execution will determine how content marketing works for you business.
• 
  Content marketing is a long-term strategy. Although it can seem discouraging at first, the long-term results can be substantial and compound over time.
  
• 
  It is essential to consistently produce quality content.
  

How to tell if your content marketing strategy is working

How to prepare your content marketing team for success. You can also measure your results to determine how effective your strategies are over time. Here is a basic guideline.

1. You can define success for your content marketing efforts

Before you can determine if content marketing works for you, you need to first define success for your company.

Is success defined as making the first dollar. Is it possible to succeed if you reach a certain level of traffic or leads? It is when you reach a certain amount of sales. How many shares you have on Facebook and LinkedIn? Engagement? Month-over-month growth?

Your brand will succeed if your efforts reach the goals that you have set. Content marketing is not easy.

The chart below, which includes 15 of our clients shows that content marketing has a significant impact on revenue and leads. The real growth comes around month 6. When is the best time for content marketing to begin? Yesterday!

It took SAP a year for us to reach $1 million in sales. However, the ROI was immediately evident when the content was used by our sales team to create conversations with prospects.

2. Use the right metrics

Before you can set goals and create content marketing strategies to grow your company, you need to define your key performance indicators (KPIs). You should choose the most relevant metrics to your industry and business.

If you are a startup, your key metrics could include website traffic, email subscribers and brand awareness. You might want to concentrate on metrics such as revenue and sales-qualified lead (SQL) if you have been in business for more than ten years.

No matter how large or small your business is, we recommend that you include the following metrics in your Content Marketing Plan.

• Traffic: traffic is the lifeblood a website. Your content marketing efforts won't succeed if you don't grow your traffic consistently.
• Leads The ultimate reason for driving traffic to your site is to generate interest in your content or business.

If you want a more detailed view of the topic, click here to download a free content marketing measurement template.

3. Find your target audience and create buyer personas

If you don't know your target audience, how can you create effective strategies?

Researching your audience is an important step in building a content marketing strategy. To target your ideal customers through your content, you must create reader personas.

Personas should not be void of actionability. Include the following things when building personas:

• Basic demographics (age and gender, income, etc.
• Background information (career history, job history, and position)
• Personality/unique traits
• Challenges/pain points
• What they do to find answers (or your business)

You can create your reader personas by conducting research online and interviewing people to gain more insight. This will help you determine the content your audience is looking for. This information will directly impact your marketing strategy and goal setting.

4. Set Smart Goals

You won't know if your content marketing and content creation efforts are producing desired results if you don't define success and set goals. Prior to defining and implementing content-marketing strategies for your business, establish SMART goals.

As we have already mentioned, it is important to use the right metrics for your business and industry. Semrush discovered that the top goals in content marketing include increasing quality leads, attracting more visitors to the website and improving brand awareness.

These are just a few examples of how SMART goals could look for your business.

• By June 1, 2023, I want to increase my newsletter subscriber list by 500 people
• By the end of Q1, increase blog traffic to 10,000 visitors per month
• In Q2, generate on average 100 qualified leads per month

5. Analyze the results regularly

Now you're ready to start implementing your strategies and creating and publishing quality content. You need to track your results in order to see how you are doing. You can measure your performance to determine if the goals you have set are achievable or if they need to be adjusted for the next period.

To ensure that you are on track, review your overall goals every three to six month. You can always create new goals if you have exceeded your original plans. This will allow for more amazing growth.

To know how effective your CM works, make sure you are getting feedback. Send a survey or email to your contacts. You can identify which tactics are most effective in reaching your SMART goals, and which ones you should abandon. Continue building momentum by reviewing your goals and adjusting your strategies.

6. Be patient and consistent

Do not rush the process and don't expect to see results immediately. You'll regret it later. Content takes time to rank on search engines. Your business brand must also be established online to establish authority and recognition.

There may be spikes or drops in traffic to the website. This is normal. Keep your eyes on the steady, gradual climb. Content marketing results increase exponentially rather than linearly. It is possible to make tangible progress and generate revenue from what may seem like a tedious task at first.

Content marketing is hard work. The longest articles that perform well online are over 3,000 words. They get three to four times the traffic, four time shares, and three and a half times backlinks for average-length articles (901-1200 word). Many businesses outsource their content marketing so that they can concentrate on their business and not worry about SEO and content creation.

You must work hard if you want to see results. Be patient, invest in the right resources and be patient, especially at the beginning. You will see long-lasting and significant results if you do.

Content marketing is a powerful tool to increase your brand awareness, drive traffic, sales, and grow revenue. These are just a few of the many benefits that content marketing can bring to your business:

• Social media platforms can help you gain more traffic
• Attract the attention of your target audience
• Building trust and loyalty
• Convert more customers
• Be a thought-leader in your industry
• To rank higher in SERPs, you need to build a base of authoritative and quality content
• Increase your traffic and lead volume.

8 Reasons Why Content Marketing isn't Working For Your Business

The following list of reasons why content marketing isn't working for your business may help you to see the results you desire. There's always hope. To improve your results and efforts, make strategic changes.

1. Your budget is too low

You won't get the results you desire if you don't put enough effort and time into CM. Higher quality content can be afforded with a larger budget, which will result in faster results. You get what you pay.

Be consistent regardless of publishing frequency or budget. Focus on cheaper tactics like blogging or free social media promotion. You can skip more costly strategies such as video marketing and paid ads until you are able to afford them.

Track which initiatives have the highest ROI for your company and spend more money there. Consider whether outsourcing CM is more cost-effective and efficient than trying to juggle all the tasks in-house using limited resources or hiring an expert.

Although content marketing is expensive, it can provide a high return. It generates three-times as many leads per dollar than traditional marketing (Demand Metric).

2. You are not producing the right types of content

B2B marketers think blogs are the best channel for content marketing at 59%. According to Demand Metric, companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who don't. But it is not the only viable or most profitable option.

You should begin blogging if you don't already. Here are some additional content forms you might consider to add to your marketing plan if you're not already blogging.

• Ebooks
• Pillar pages
• Video
• Infographics
• Case studies
• Guides
• Checklists
• White papers
• Podcasts
• Interviews
• Webinars
• Courses
• Slide decks
• Posts on social media
• Reviews and testimonials
• Paid Ad Content
• Content created by users

3. You are not promoting enough

Do you promote your content once it is created? This is just as important as the creation phase. You won't be able to build engagement if you don't promote your product. Engagement is the key to higher search engine rankings and more traffic.

Promote your content on social media and in email newsletters and other blogs, as appropriate. You might also consider working with influencers. You can ask them to share your content with your audience, expanding your reach. Make sure that you both have the same target audience.

4. Low quality content or low value

Does your content engage your target audience? Is it relevant to their needs and provides value?

Your content should be engaging, relevant, and well-written to be considered high quality. You must also demonstrate authority, knowledge, and trustworthiness about the topic. It should inspire your readers to take action, such as to fill out a form and download a PDF.

Your content may not be providing enough value to readers if it isn't. These statements may be true if your content is of poor quality.

• Your content is boring when it should be entertaining
• Your writers don’t know your market and buyer personas.
• Your ideal audience doesn't like the content you produce.
• Your writers lack experience. Your work will not be of the highest quality.
• Your content is too vague or broad, rather than being focused. It lacks depth.

5. You don't publish consistently

This has been mentioned before. Your results will improve and speed up if you produce high quality content that your audience enjoys. To build trust with your followers, ensure consistency over the long-term. You must commit to a plan that you can achieve.

6. SEO is not a priority

Are you tracking your progress and keyword research? Are you optimizing each piece of content to be found on search engines? Is your website keeping up with the latest content? You won't be able to succeed if you don't.

An expert consultant or agency can help you with SEO. An audit can be done to determine SEO weaknesses or gaps and then they will tell you how to fix them, or do it for you.

7. The Landscape is extremely competitive

It may take more time to rank in search engines and get the traffic you desire if you are in a niche that is highly competitive. If you are in an aggressive industry, here are some tips to help you stay on the right side of the action.

• Continue to produce consistent, high-quality content.
• Do a content gap analysis to identify and fill the gaps.
• Do more research than your competitors.
• To build a loyal fanbase, target a specific audience and treat them as royalty.

You must be strategic and hardworking to compete with larger, more established competitors.

8. You have set the wrong expectations

You will never be satisfied with your results if you set unrealistic expectations. Do not compare your results with other businesses or competitors. If you don't achieve your goals, you'll be discouraged.

Compare your results to how you did six months ago, last year, or this year. Give it more time if you aren't producing consistent content for a while.

We can make content marketing work for your business

Marketing Insider Group, a content marketing agency, is a business thought leader. Our clients can count on us to provide strategy, branding, coaching and ROI. Our Content Builder Service was created to create custom content marketing strategies that help businesses win new clients quickly.

MIG will take care of all the details. MIG will help you create a content strategy, implement key strategies, and reach your SMART goals. We will create high-quality content that attracts the right traffic and converts leads. Instead of worrying about your business, you can concentrate on building it.

Learn more about our Content Builder Services.

The financial technology market is experiencing a golden age, or a revival. Everyone wants to be part of the next technological breakthrough. Content marketing is key to business growth, just as in every other industry.

This graphic is from Codefuel.com. According to some studies, digital advertising spending could reach $242.80 trillion by 2024.

Source: eMarketer

You are behind the times if you don't use content marketing. This is your signal to get up!

Let's be honest if you already use content marketing. There are some things you should keep in mind when you improve the content on your website.

Intrinio has a quick overview of the basics:

Quick Takeaways

• Content marketing is a must-have tool for any business.

• It is more cost-effective to build an organic audience over time than paying 100% advertising.

• It is essential to maintain a consistent content marketing program that is high quality and relevant for your bottom line.

Below are some tips to help you maximize the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts in Fintech.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing can be a cost-effective way to get your name out to prospects who are most likely to convert. You can reduce your marketing costs by creating and publishing your content yourself using good SEO practices.

To maximize your product's visibility, you must adopt a solid content-marketing strategy. While it's easy for people to forget about content marketing in the hustle and bustle, it is crucial to your long-term sales goals.

This guiding star is particularly useful for businesses who expect prospects to search information and education before they buy. This is most your base in Fintech. Therefore, creating context around why they need your item is crucial and leading them to the conclusion. Why is yourapp a great way to become the next Robinhood.

Is content marketing really that hard? It can be, but it is well worth it. Content marketing is sustainable, and can bring about exponential growth for your brand. These are the definitions must know:

Traffic:

Source: Growth Badger

Traffic is not about pageviews or users. Google analytics is a great tool to get a clear view of this data. You can also see exactly from which views you are viewing.

Conversions:

While views are wonderful, what happens once the first click is made? Are they just browsing your site? Is the reader sharing your website? Are they buying your product?

The conversion rate is a measure of how many prospects become customers. This metric is the true star of your content marketing efforts. Your top goal with content marketing should be to convert prospects.

SEO:

To have a healthy content marketing plan, it is important to see how your organic search rankings perform. Keywords are key to your content. The higher you rank for keywords, the higher Google will show you in search results. Since when have you ever clicked the seventh link?

What does quality content look and feel like? If you are looking for blog advice, our guide to creating the perfect blog post will help you. Here are some tips for publishing content to your website.

1. Keep your word count between 1000 – 1800 words

Google prefers articles that fall within this range. You don't want to have too many articles. This could make your hard work less effective in ranking.

2. Find your keywords

SEO/SEM can be very successful if you know which words are most relevant to the topic you're discussing. To return to the tech example, tech, wearable and watch would likely lead to a higher ranking than similar articles.

3. Have a compelling meta description

You know that the hook is the most important thing. A good description will make your blurb stand out to prospects. They won't click on your article if it is boring or irrelevant.

Tips for Content Marketing Your Fintech Company

Know your audience

A solid understanding of your audience is the first step to creating great content. You want to make sure they are able to find your products or services on your website. However, the most important part is getting to your site.

This is because Fintech is most your base. Therefore, creating context around why they need your item is crucial and leading them to the conclusion.

For example, imagine that you are trying to sell your mobile budgeting app. Your target audience (budgeters), will find your website if you create content that is focused on keywords such as budgeting or financial. You can attract them to your site with Top 10 Financial Assistance Apps and Best Methods to Invest.

Use good sources

It is important to find reliable sources. It is important to be able to prove your credibility and build trust with the reader. This will increase their likelihood of converting. It's not only acceptable to use another person's credibility to support your point, but it's also the smartest thingto make.

What are the top sites to avoid? These are the same sites that your high school teachers used yell at (We're looking you Wikimedia).

This includes data citation.

ConvinceandConvert.com says:

Your content should be grounded in facts. Data, research, numbers and statistics are the foundation of any story. Your opinions, spin and ideas might be part the story. Depending on what message you want to convey, they may not.

They're right! They're right!

Hire Great Writers

Hire someone if your business is growing or you are running out of time for your content marketing efforts.

You have two options that will produce similar results. Either hire SEO writers with experience or hire a content marketing agency for the writing, research and publishing.

When you are looking to hire individual writers, make sure they have both SEO and Fintech experience. Experts in the field can offer excellent perspectives and content for your site.

Both have their benefits, but a consultant often has access to the resources and experience that individual writers don't. It is crucial to do your research on both sides in order to determine which one is best for your company.

Optimize for SEO

Source: Marketing charts

To have a healthy content marketing plan, it is important to see how your organic search rankings perform. Keywords are key to your content. The higher you rank for keywords, the higher Google will show you in search results. Since when have you ever clicked the seventh link?

Automated SEO tools can simplify optimizing your content.

Publish Consistently

It should be obvious, but sometimes it is difficult to keep track of things. Content marketing is a reality. You need to produce quality content every day to make your efforts successful.

To see a greater yield, you will need consistent, high-quality content for an average of 3-4 months. Although one article per week is a good start, you will see the best results if you publish more often.

Share on Social Media

What is your social media presence? Your visibility may be low if your answer is no or poor. Your brand's visibility is enhanced when you are connected to your target communities. This builds trust and brand recognition with prospects.

To give your traffic an extra boost, make sure you are publishing your content on all your social media channels.

Send to Mail Lists

MailChimp, Constant Contact and other services are not to be missed. It's easy to communicate with prospects and customers by creating subscriber lists. It is easy to send out daily articles directly to your prospects and customers' emails.

These sites have analytics pages that will give you a complete overview of your distribution efforts. These pages can provide information such as a penrate, best time to send, or percentage clicked links.

Use Analytics

Analytics should be the driving force behind your content. Analytics should drive your content. You can use Google Analytics or other internal analytics tools to see where your content is performing well.

Analytics can also tell you where your content needs some improvement. You might want to try other content types if certain pieces don't draw many people or convert well.

Optimize For Mobile

Although this seems obvious, when was the last occasion you visited your website from your phone? When publishing content, mobile viewability is essential. More than 50% all content can be viewed via a smartphone. Your website should be optimized for mobile devices. This will only make you look bad. Particularly in the Fintech industry, where technological advancements can increase your credibility. This is one reason it is acceptable to hire consultants or contractors.

Repurpose your Content

All the hard work that you have already put into your website was not forgotten! You don't have to let your best-performing articles sit on your website, rotting in the pages of time.

Articles that used to bring in a lot of traffic end up losing their relevance to the changing world of search engine optimization. The actual content may also become outdated in today's digital world. This is a common occurrence in the constantly changing world of financial technology.

SocialMediaToday.com says:

Marketers have the option to turn an article into a video or an infographic. Or vice versa. Marketers can reuse tips from an article by breaking them into Stories frames or posts, or posting soundbites directly to their social media channels.

Your writers can restructure the content of your website into new forms. This is a gift that will keep on giving. Even a simple refresh of an article from a few decades ago can give your content the modern makeover it needs.

Payed Content Marketing: How to Use It

Paid SEO

Google anything. Anything. There is a good chance that the top 2 to 3 sites will be promoted or paid to be that high.

Google Ads sponsors an auction you can bid on. You would typically bid on keywords related to your topic, business, or product.

What's the point? People love to see their favorite social media stars showcase products and companies. Companies like BetterHelp and Hello Fresh have had record numbers of sign-ups thanks to paid advertising on popular podcast channels. Listen to the marketing messages being sent to you next time you listen to your favorite tech podcast.

Promotion on social media for a fee

What is your social media presence? If you answered no or poor, then your visibility may be low. Your brand's visibility is enhanced when you are connected to your target communities. This builds trust and brand recognition with prospects.

If the answer is quite good, then paid social media promotion may be one of your best options for paid content marketing strategies.

These companies use their own targeting algorithms and algorithms to ensure that your ads reach your intended audience and buyer personas. To attract new customers, you can earn followers and engagements by paying for your content on social media.

Marketing to Influencers

What about using social media to promote your product or service in a new way? Influencer marketing involves sending money to people with high following numbers to promote or demonstrate your product or services.

Many financial apps have made it onto Twitch and YouTube. These sites hire celebrities to promote their products. Marques Brownlee is an example of this. Companies will send him tech for his 10 million subscribers!

Although influencer marketing isn't something new, it's here to stay. What can you do to make it work for your company?

Take a bow

While content marketing can be rewarding, it can be hard to keep up with and maintain your Fintech business's content marketing. You can use the following tips to help you get and keep on track to surpass your content marketing goals.

You want to implement some of the strategies shown on MIG's website but need advice or help? Marketing Insider Group is home to a group of 35+ writers who are ready to create content for your business. Get a consultation or check out our blog content.