MarketingExperiments team says, “Content marketing determines how your customer gets to know your company and your product. It’s your chance to break through the inner monologue of your customer’s decision-making process and create a dialogue. However, marketers often fail to capitalize on the total potential of content on a blog, social media or site pages, which causes leads to leak out of the sales funnel. How can you turn your content into a true lead generation tool? In this Web clinic, the MECLABS research team made three key observations from a recent experiment where one company... [...]

There are several different formats for graphics. Over 20 years ago, the BMP file was invented by Microsoft. Not long after came the JPG file (invented by an industry group not wanting to be tied to Microsoft). This is all techy stuff we can mostly ignore, but one graphics style has a special use, the GIF file. Unlike all the others, not only can it show a picture; it can also show a moving image. And it does it very efficiently. This means that you theoretically can use a GIF to show a short screen capture or other video. Besides the small file size (important for fast websites), a GIF file is... [...]

Isla McKetta says, “In a post-Hummingbird world, we all know content matters. But many SEOs are still trying to work around this update because we think we don’t have the tools to gauge content quality.  If you’ve said, “I’m not a writer,” or, “How do I know what will resonate with my audience?” And even, “Content is hard and takes time; do I really have to?” You might be suffering from content anxiety. Content quality anxiety can come in many forms: What is content, really?”. “But How Do I Know if It’s Good?” How... [...]

Anna Rodriguez says, “If your company has not yet shifted to content marketing, chances are you are losing your audience and missing out on a lot of opportunities. The adoption of the practice is on the rise with a staggering 93 percent of marketers focusing on content, according to a 2014 research by the Content Marketing Institute. The study also revealed that 42 percent of business-to-business or B2B marketers actually think they are good and effective at it. Content marketing is more than a fad but also the future. Econsultancy’s first Content Marketing Survey Report showed that... [...]

Rebecca Lieb says, “How should content be measured and analyzed? Let us count the ways (or at least begin to). This column is intended to be an informal sounding board for ideas. Summer’s over and it’s time to get cracking on new research. Next up (in my capacity as a research analyst): content metrics. My goal on this next project (which I’m undertaking with fellow analyst Susan Etlinger, a specialist in data and analytics) will not merely focus on how companies are measuring the most obvious content marketing goals, such as ROI, or increased sales, leads and conversions. We’re... [...]

Ryan Skinner says, “Publishers Are Engaged In Self-Harm With Marketers As An Accessory You remember when the email spam problem maxed out almost a decade ago? Or when content farms threatened to turn Google search results into useless piles of keyword-slurry? Or peak belly fat? There should be a word for the moments when the mechanisms that aim to keep our electronic information corridors running well, fail. It’s shaping up to be one of those moments for the content distribution space (and particularly its sub-discipline native advertising or sponsored content). You can pity the reader... [...]

This is a reminder for the eMarketer’s B2B Content Marketing Ad webinar on September 4. eMarketer team says, “We’ll address these key questions: Are B2B marketers too focused on leads? How can marketers achieve soft goals like branding—and measure success? Are intangibles as much a part of sales conversions as lead generation? Will budgets be cut if satisfaction doesn’t improve?“. Webinar Details Organizer:  eMarketer Key Speaker: Mike Hudson Topic: B2B Content Marketing—It’s Not Just Lead Gen Day/Date: Thursday, September 4 Time: 1.00 pm ET – Time Zone... [...]

Ginny Soskey says, “When most of us think about creating content for a businesses, we tend to think about the content that helps generate awareness or new leads.This type of content isn’t self-promotional — you typically use it to answer industry-related questions and address topics that’ll attract people to your website, entice people to follow you on social media, and spur visitors to give over their information to receive a free offer. But we all know that the buying journey doesn’t end once someone’s received a free ebook — and your content shouldn’t,... [...]

The ‘Business 2 Community’ team says, “To turn business buyers into long-term loyal customers, marketers must mature their content marketing practices to produce relationship-building, useful information. Forrester teamed up with the Business Marketing Association (BMA) and the Online Marketing Institute (OMI) to benchmark the maturity of business-to-business (B2B) content marketing efforts of 113 marketing professionals. We found the vast majority are in the early stages of assembling a content strategy and executing against it. Only 4% are true masters of content marketing. From examples... [...]

Rand Fishkin says, “We hear frequently from marketers who are frustrated that their audiences aren’t sharing their content, making them think the only way to promote their brands is to pay for exposure. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand shows you a new way to think about your marketing that may be just the solution”. But I Have to Buy Links, Ads, and Exposure, Because My Customers Won’t Amplify My Content MOZ Blog  [...]