Whether you are an eMarketer, blogger or a marketer directing traffic to a corporate or non-profit website, you need to know that you are creating the right content for your audience, promoting it on the right platforms and monitoring it with the best marketing tools.
Our previous post gave you 5 tips about blogging, this post highlights 3 tools to help you make your blog successful.
Here are three that you might not know about. We find them very useful.
Ask the public has a free version which is great for generating content ideas and blog titles for bloggers and entrepreneurs just starting out. There is a premium paid version designed for marketers, agencies and anyone wanting more details. The premium version can be used by teams.
The free version will generate questions about a keyword and present them in the form of a wheel like in the image below or as a csv file for downloading.
Questions generated for “Widgets”
2 BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is one of the best marketing tools for finding the best content ideas for your market. It will show you which are the most shared articles in your category or for a keyword.
It has a free trial period and can be used for free subject to a monthly search limit. The paid version offers many advanced features.
3 Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest was developed by the brilliant eMarketer and SEO specialist, Neil Patel. This marketing tool will give you an overview of how your domain is performing compared to others in your industry or market niche.
It will show you top SEO pages, keyword suggestions, content ideas and backlink data.
Ubersuggest has an SEO analyzer and a tool to find backlinks. Best of all it is free.
Conclusion
These three marketing tools are useful additions to any marketer’s toolbox. Give them a try and come back and leave a comment about your experiences with them.
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Internet marketing is going to experience major changes in 2019. These changes will have an effect on your own marketing activities – whether you are primarily an online or offline marketer.
Here are 5 areas that will see huge advances in 2019:
Voice Search
Chat Bots
Voice DIctation
Micro Influencers
Personal Interface
Voice Search and Internet Marketing
ComScore estimates that by 2020 50% of all online searches will be done by voice not typing on a device. Increasingly people will be using smart home devices – Google Home, Alexa.
Neil Patel has published an article about this trend and other interesting facts including that there are now over 1.8 Billion websites.
This will require a new approach to SEO
Chat Bots
What are chatbots? Those little message boxes that pop up, generally on the bottom right corner of the screen with a message “Hi, how can we help you”.
They work because of advances in Artificial Intelligence AI which allows them to respond faster than a human, work 24 / 7 without complaining and with very low operating costs. No salaries, payroll taxes, medical costs, vacations or bonuses.
Set up effectively, they can access your customer’s profile and personalize responses and suggestions. A great tool for internet marketing, but one that needs careful design and management
Voice Control and Activation
How much time would you save if you dictated your emails, articles, blog posts, all your content creation? It’s possible and it is going to become easier to use. An increasing range of computer applications will be controlled by your voice.
With the penetration of voice-activated smart home devices and growth in the use of voice search mentioned above, we could see disruptive effects in many industries from keyboard suppliers to printer manufacturers.
Micro Influencers and Internet Marketing
With the demise of traditional advertising and the “old” media it used as platforms, we have seen the importance of “influencers” rise. We have been used to seeing celebrity endorsements used in mass consumer advertising of, fashion, sports equipment and other major product and service categories. Names like the Kardashians stand out.
Now that is no longer the exclusive domain of big brands or big names.
Young children and cats are becoming YouTube millionaires because of their appeal to smaller groups of consumers. On a smaller scale, people you and I have never heard of are being paid to promote products or services to comparatively small numbers of social media followers.
The secret is relevance. Followers of a skateboard champion are probably not going to buy products designed for the recently retired.
Almost counter intutive to the 4 trends mentioned above which are possible because of advances in technology. This trend recognizes the need for human connections.
AI, chatbots and warm voices on smart devices all help to deliver a more personal experience to a consumer or new contact. Chatbots can quickly address the enquirer by name, scan data to “know” where the customer lives, what he or she has bought before. If there have been complaints or returns. In a service industry, the payment history can be checked and much more information can be used to enhance the customer’s experience.
That’s all because of technology. Sometimes that is not enough. At some point, many customers want to talk to a “real” human. You may share my frustration with automated call answering when none of your problems fit in the standard “Press 1 for sales, 2 for……” list of options.
The businesses that will excel will be the ones which marry the best technology with just the right amount of human contact for each interface with customers, clients and prospects.
Some businesses have become highly successful by putting more responsibility in the hands of the people in the organization who deal directly with the customer.
In some cases, this results in cutting back on some uses of technology.
A great example is Timpson in the UK who introduced their “upside down” management policy with only two rules for employees.
Technology can alienate customers when low-level decisions are taken at corporate head offices based on historical data used to make decisions based on changing circumstances.
Timpson had taken all the network connected point of sale check out machines from its retail stores and replaced them with simple cash registers. Decisions on refunds, discounts, special offers are taken at store level.
There is more on the success of Timpson on Wikipedia.
Conclusion
Changes in marketing and especially, internet marketing are rushing towards us. Advances in technology and changes in consumer demographics, lifestyles, attitudes, buying habits will all be affected by and influence marketing strategies and tactics.
Our objective as marketers is to adapt to the changes, use technology to enhance our customer’s experiences, not be a slave to it and to never forget the importance of the human connection.
That can be difficult for you as a small business owner or solopreneur, that’s why we have started a new service to provide qualified IT workers at rates you can afford.
Did you know that marketers that blog regularly generate 67% more leads than those that don’t? How many of you are cringing right now? Although the idea of writing blogs can be an enjoyable task for some people, helping them to tap into their creative side but for many, it’s a task that simply feels like a chore. Lucky for you, there is a fail-proof template that might make things a bit easier. Here we go:
Step 1: Creating a template
Don’t be afraid to take extra time when writing your first few posts. You’ll find your groove and if you keep to a standard process for how you go about it, well, you’ll be spitting these out in about 45 minutes (and never longer than 2 hours).
Topics – You know your business better than anyone so think about questions your clients would typically ask you and write about it. Still need more ideas? Hubspot’s Big Ideas Generator could be a useful tool. Simply tell them words that interest you and they will come up with topic ideas. Brilliant. Another good tool is Buzzsumo.
Fill in the Blanks – I remember learning how to write an essay in 9th grade and what has stuck with me to this day is the basic structure: Introduction, body (with 3+ paragraphs) and conclusion. So go ahead, take some paper and jot down a couple of sentences to introduce the topic to your readers. Then, write down 3 subheadings. Finally, write down Conclusion. There’s your template!
Go back and fill in content under the subheadings with 3-5 lines of text.
For your conclusion, summarize key points so that someone just skimming your content can quickly decide whether they want to go back and read the whole article.
Step 2: Images
Select some good images. There are stock-free images that you can get from sites like Pixabay but if you really wanted to step it up, you could pay for images on sites like Fotolia. Spend time selecting impressive images because as the old saying goes, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. No one wants to read an article that is just text.
Step 3: Writing Style
When you begin writing your blog posts, keep to a certain style that you are most comfortable with. However, one of the styles that most people enjoy reading is one that is more conversational like using the words ‘you’ and ‘I’. Unless you’re writing a peer-review for a medical journal, keep it relatable. Here are a few more tips:
Use short paragraphs which should never be longer than 6 lines.
If your writing a blog that is roughly 2000 words include about 6 or 7 images throughout the body. Use your judgment here. If the blog post is shorter, still include a few images to help break up the text and increase the visual appeal.
Ensure you include supportive links to back up your statements. It only adds credibility to your article.
Encourage reader engagement by ending your post with a question. This invites the reader to comment or reach out to you for more information.
Conclusion:
By repeatedly following the above protocol, you should have a good routine in place to help you create blogs in no time. Remember to:
Create your template with an introduction, some subheadings and conclusion. Go back and fill in content under each section.
Select some good images.
Be consistent in your writing style and keep it more conversationalist.
Years ago, marketers emphasized the importance of building your brand on land that you own such as your website, email lists, etc. Building on things that you don’t own such as your social media accounts were discouraged because marketers felt you were helping to build someone else’s business, not your own.
My, How Times Have Changed!
Business owners discovered that trying to divert traffic to their websites so people could read their blog posts became increasingly more futile. So, new ways had to be adopted for content flow to gain more visibility.
Rented Media Space
As much resistance as business owners had in embracing social media, they’ve come to realize it’s a veritable gold mine in accessing their audience. Content needs to be unleashed! It has no value by sitting at home on your website. You need to have it sitting everywhere people will have a chance in seeing it, hence using ‘rented land’.
Use platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Klusster, etc. to get your message out and hopefully drive more traffic to your website as a result. Social sharing, as marketer Mark Schaefer has said, is the most important digital marketing metric after sales and leads. “Social sharing is advocacy”. In other words, when someone shares your content, it acts as a referral. There is no stronger lead than that!
It’s also important to be seen repeatedly. Someone may not click on your article the first time they see it in their posting feed but if they see it a few times, they are more likely to take notice and open it. Some business owners have noticed that their articles may not be read through their newsletter offerings, but the same article may be clicked on LinkedIn, Facebook or Klusster. The point, park it in several places!
So, go ahead and make use of any platform which will allow you to readily access your audience.
Have any questions? Please reach out and let me hear from you.
