Mike Templeman says, “Content marketing can be a fickle thing. One day a strategy works, the next, it doesn’t. Just when you think you’ve cracked the code, you realize you’re right back at square one, looking at a computer screen, wanting to scream into a pillow. So, if you’re knee-deep in content marketing but it just doesn’t seem to be working, here are the top reasons I see campaigns fail. Hopefully you can use this as a diagnostic tool for your marketing and give it the shot in the arm it requires. 1. You’re selling too much. No one wants to read your brochure. I mean, when... [...]

Marc Cecere says, “The age of the customer is characterized by customer empowerment, digital technology, and new business models. These factors are changing who buys consulting, what they’re expecting, how consultants execute on these projects, and how clients pay for them. As a result, firms including Deloitte, McKinsey, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cognizant and others are changing delivery, hiring and contracting models to: Enable reusable assets and software solutions to comprise the bulk of consulting projects. As clients in an increasingly fast world move away from multi year projects,... [...]

Colin Hogan says, “You market and sell to businesses, not to consumers. We’re talking real B2B stuff here. So, if you’re going to create marketing and sales material, which make no mistake your explainer video is, you should make sure to keep the type of business you’re selling to in mind, right? Sure, but what about the people who are going to be watching the video? The way you write your script needs to focus on the humans you’re crafting it for, not just on closing the deal or selling your offering to theirs. There needs to be a story. Your video should evoke some... [...]

Sherry Bonelli says, “Fall is in the air, and that can only mean one thing for most digital marketers: budget season. The approaching fourth quarter is often the time when companies begin the budget and planning process for the next fiscal year. And it seems that ROI, while always considered a top priority, has renewed importance now. Advertising Age recently reported that intense demand for ROI is causing companies to replace their CMOs at a rapid rate — as much as a 48-percent turnover in top retailers. You’d think that ROI would be easy to track on digital, right? Compared to offline... [...]

Barry Levine says, “Since the birth of advertising, marketers have been trying to figure out how such messaging might work best. This week, two new studies presented at the Ad Week conference in New York City offer a few hints. The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) released its study, “How Advertising Works Today,” which focused on the best strategy for campaigns in this multi-platform world. It analyzed as many as 5,000 campaigns (depending on the research issue) for TV, print, radio and digital (including mobile) in 45 countries. Here are the five key findings: – “Spending... [...]

Garenne Bigby says, “A sitemap is a file (XML, HTML, etc.) that is filled with URLs that are associated with one single website. It can be thought of as a log of every web page on the site. It needs to be found easily on the website so that search engine crawlers can stumble upon it if you are not crawling the website manually. Sitemaps were created when websites became larger and more complex, and blogging gained popularity with their owners updating their content on a daily basis. Millions of websites update their content on a daily basis now, and sitemaps have allowed search engines to... [...]

John Lincoln says, “So you’re thinking about adding Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to your website? Stop thinking and start doing! Of course, it is all about how you implement AMP, but we’ll get into that. If you’re unfamiliar with AMP, it’s an open-source technology that enables pages on your site to load quickly for users on a mobile device. This happens with the help of a JavaScript library and some additional HTML markup. Here are five reasons why you should add AMP technology to your website: 1. AMP is essential for good mobile SEO. By now, you already know that if... [...]

David Moth says, “Twitter has just opened up its Moments feature to everyone, so I decided to take it for a test run. I will admit that I’ve probably only clicked into the Moments tab a handful of times, so I’m hardly a power user. Equally, I’ve not noticed many people sharing Moments within my feed. However, Twitter is persisting with this new feature and therefore so shall I. Here’s a quick overview of how to use Moments along with my initial thoughts. Getting started If you click into the Moments tab on a desktop client, you’ll notice a ‘Create new Moment’ button in the... [...]

Aaron Agius says, “Mobilegeddon was a game-changer. Google tweaked its algorithm in April 2015 to favor mobile-ready websites in searches performed on mobile devices. A little more than a year later, over half of all worldwide searches happen on mobile devices. It’s a big deal in marketing. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re waving goodbye to more than half of your potential. Google wants to help with useful links and tools as well as guides designed specifically for content management systems (CMS). It’s good for you, and it’s good for Google. A mobile world. It’s... [...]

Joe Pulizzi says, “If you were able to join us at Content Marketing World — or have been following some of the coverage — you know that the tides are turning. While last year at this time we were facing the trough of disillusionment, the energy and momentum we are seeing right now are far more positive. In fact, our newest research,B2B Content Marketing 2017: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America, backs this up. Sixty-two percent of B2B marketers in North America say that compared to one year ago, their organization’s overall approach to content marketing has been much... [...]