The Question: “What should I include in my content marketing?”
Here are the things that YOU SHOULD be including in your content marketing efforts.
You don’t just need content, you need Awesome Content!
Developing relevant content does not have to be a difficult. It doesn’t require any special tools, secret or magic. It all begins with understanding who your prospects & customers are, how they behave and what they crave.
The formula: Useful x Consumable x Inspired = Innovative Content
This process begins with the creation of a piece of a REAL IDEA, Not some 2,000 word “evergreen” piece or ebook. Something Awesome. Many marketers will tell you this should be a 50 to 100 page ebook or massive how to guide. The problem is most people can’t handle it. Big = Overwhelming.
Everyone wants to believe there is a magic bullet. So create the Magic Bullet!
Highly valuable & easily consumed content is the gift that keeps on giving. This content will attract links, generate traffic and build brand awareness.
Once your content is created, blast it EVERYWHERE: Company pages, email, blog, sponsored updates, Display ads, SlideShare, PPC, Twitter, etc.
Simple Execution In many cases it is easy to develop a set of goals, but a plan is specific, executed over time and measurable. After determining what your Big Idea is going to be, write that out into a series or digestable snapshots that can easily be distributed over time. This can include videos, infographics, blog posts, 3rd party posts, podcasts, etc.
Week 1: Publish & Schedule Your Content Week 2: Conduct a Webinar Week 3: Run a Contest Week 4: Lead a Twitter Chat Week 5: Do an interview: On TV, Online, At a Conference, etc.
While all of this is running your content is being promoted though influencer outreach, promoted posts, email, sponsored updates, paid search, retargeting, organic social, organic search, etc.
Everything gets tagged and tracked for performance evaluation and follow up.
Your Blog Make your blog content diverse, relevant and structured.
Monday: Case Studies, Statistics / Infographics, Industry (35% time spent) Tuesday: Strategic Research & Analysis, Points of View, Thought Leadership (20% time spent) Wednesday: How-To Posts, Guest Blogging, Peer Content (25% time spent) Thursday: Bold Points of View / Strong Opinion, Challenger (5% time spent) Friday: Light-hearted, Cultural, Funny Amusing (15% time spent)
A Quick View SEO – Lays the groundwork Social – Fuels the content Content – Fuels the demand
Winners:
Consistently deliver content that their target wants to consume & share
PR efforts guide their vision as a leader in the space
Deliver amazing experiences on and offline
Build a thriving community
Make a plan, make it Asesome, deploy, track & measure, optimize, close new business and WIN!
A 2013 study calculated that over 500 websites are created each minute.
That is a HUGE number.
Let’s be conservative and say that today in 2016, 75 of those new websites are being created and are scheduled to replace an existing website every single day.
That is a very large number of sites putting themselves at risk!
How are they putting themselves at risk you say?
Well, let us give you an example.
Imagine you have a website that looks so 2005.
You want to update the look, the copy and make it responsive.
All with the goal of turning more visitors into customers.
These are Awesome goals!
Let’s say your site has an average conversion rate compared to the industry and 75% of your site traffic comes from Organic Search.
HERE IS THE THREAT!
When migrating your website in most cases, your URL structure will change.
This will make all of your old URL’s or links to your site break and generate either a 404 error or some other server error.
If that happens:
Visitors are very unhappy and will leave your site
Google will penalize you for a bad user experience
Your rankings will drop
You could be dropped from the search engines completely for a while
What can you do to FIX This?
Map your current website URLs to your new website URLs
Create 301 redirects (using .htaccess or a plugin or whatever you use choose to create this)
Test the redirects to make sure they are correct
Submit a new Sitemap to the search engines
This is the Number 1, Most Critical Step in Preserving Your Website’s Current Authority, Visibility and Integrity.
If you don’t, then you will most definitely use the acronym FML in a tweet, text, post, etc. soon after.
Social Media is a must do when it comes to growing a business, communicating with customers, acquiring new customers and becoming a real brand. Many companies are not doing it, Many companies are “kind of” doing it, few companies are doing it successfully and only a small fraction of businesses are running social media at the highest level.
We break out Social Media Marketing effort into 3 Phases.
Table Stakes (thanks to Eliot Frick from BIGWIDESKY for this name)
Successful
Top One Percent
*We don’t even consider not doing it a phase. If your company is not on Social Media, please call us right now, at this very moment so we can get you up and live on social. Every second you are not online and up on social media the quicker your company will die.
Table Stakes
When it comes to Social Media Marketing there is a minimum level of effort that must take place.
Having live profiles that contain consistent and accurate company information, imagery, posting content regularly at some frequency and linking to these profiles from other places on the web including your website, other social profiles, email, etc.
This is easy and will give you a boost in the search engines, overall customer visibility, website traffic, foot traffic, leads and sales.
The Dallas Furniture Bank has consistent and accurate information, while posting regularly.
There is not an a large amount of engagement and obviously not running any paid promotion.
This is fine for many companies and should be getting done, but could be getting done in a more significant way by moving into the Successful Social Media Marketing phase.
Successful
To be running at the Successful Social Media Marketing phase, you must be doing everything in the Social Media Table Stakes phase plus driving consistent meaningful engagement through strategic organic & paid tactics as well as relevant strategic content (copy, images, videos, documents, etc.).
The Watering Bowl has consistent and accurate information, while posting regularly.
There is good engagement, they respond, comment, message and are running some paid promotion.
This where most companies should be, but there is still one more level that your business could be reaching, it is the Top One Percent Social Media phase.
Top One Percent
To be in the Top One Percent of companies on Social Media you must be everything from the 1st and 2nd phases, plus creating a massive amount of content, promoting accurately through all means possible, engaging like your life depends on it and having passionately dedicated resources to work on this 100% of the time.
Red Bull does everything on social media, all the time, in every corner of the web and is engaging, relevant and passionate. Strive to be like Red Bull when it comes to the social media part of growing your business.
Below are a handful of GIF tutorials on how to use the platform
Snapchatting a Video vs. Photo
How to Add Filters and Double Filters on Snapchat
How to Use Snapchat Video Filters
How to Save a Photo or Video on Snapchat
Accounts to Follow on Snapchat
This is just a short list of people who are killing it on the platform. There aren’t that many yet because people still aren’t taking it seriously. So get on it now.
DJ Khaled: @djkhaled305 John Bracamontes: @acumenstudio Casey Neistat: @caseyneistat John Bracamontes: @johnbracamontes Diplo: @diplo Kate Hudson: @khudsnaps Gary Vaynerchuk: @garyvee Eva Longoria: @realevalongoria
We are always putting out content on digital marketing tactics for SEO, PPC, Social Meida, Email Marketing and Analytics, but the truth is we really are a Content Marketing Agency.
Our Definition of a content marketing agency is one that creates content based on research and strategic principles that generate awareness, drive more traffic, leads, form submissions, phone calls, new customers and revenue.
We are a Really Good Content Marketing Agency!
Many agencies, especially here in St. Louis, can write and publish content while calling themselves content marketing agencies, but the truth is, they are rarely strategic and virtually none of them have the deep discipline experience to effectively utilize a multi-channel strategy that will drive results.
Good Content Marketing delivers results.
The goal is to ultimately obtain new customers through the strategic exposure and knowlege share that content marketing lends. Greater visibility, More Traffic, More Leads, Form Submissions, Phone Calls and Revenue. This is the goal.
We approach content marketing from a very technical position.
First, we get to know a company at it’s core.
Then focus on the why, the how and the what.
This allows us to perform meaningful research into the behaviors of users and potential customers around strategic topics and terms.
We then perform a content gap analysis to identify what content does exist or needs to exist on your website.
The modification of the existing content and addition of the missing content is outlined and implemented.
We then monitor, analyze and recommend tweak or additions thereafter to continously optimize the content marketing efforts.
We are not a Creative Agency
There are a TON of agencies in the St. Louis area that call themselves digital marketing firms, content marketing agencies or marketing agencies and try to do the strategic work, but this needs to be handed over to the pros the digital marketing technologists and analysts that know the tools, tactics and research methodologies.
We’re not just in St. Louis
Mentioned alot here in this article are “St. Louis Content Marketing Agencies” or Marketing Agencies in general, but we actually have phenomenal clients from all over the united states and are working on global campaigns for a couple of our domestic clients. We just want to be clear in giving examples of what we actually do and what other agencies say they do. Plus we Love St. Louis and rep this city pretty hard!
Why work with us on your Content Marketing Strategy
We’re really really good at content marketing
Our goal is to generate as much value as possible for you (authority, leads, customers, revenue)
We are on 24/7. Accessibility, transparency and getting things done is what we do all of the time. There is no such thing as too early or too late for us!
If you want to work with the Best St. Louis Content Marketing Agency or learn more then please contact us by phone or by filling out the form on this page and we will speak with you very soon.
Google released a paid search update recently. It is a second line of structured snippets that can be inserted into PPC ads.
This new update gives ads more space in the search engine results pages and allows companies to callout different things about their business. Below, a shutter company, uses the headers “Styles” and “Services,” to highlight unique product offerings.
This new ad format looks great, but what it will do to help your marketing and ultimately your business?
Below are a few tips, benefits and structured snippets tests across PPC & SEO channels to highlight how this update will help drive more qualified conversions to save your business time & marketing spend.
Utilize categories to show unique product offerings
While PPC experts like us were initially loving the news of new structured snippets, our smiles began to fade as we read the fine print. There are a limited number of headers you can choose from for your snippets and there are only a few industries. The following headers are available:
Amenities
Brands
Courses
Degree programs
Destinations
Featured hotels
Insurance coverage
Neighborhoods
Service catalog
Shows
Styles
Types
Industries that really benefit from this category extension are those that have a high cost per click. Insurance keywords are responsible for 24% of Google advertising revenue, which is most likely why “Insurance Coverage” was added as a distinct header. On the same note, 4 out of the 12 headers are related to travel, which also have historically high CPCs.
In the future Google will expand the number of header options, but until then, advertisers have to get creative on ways we can utilize them. For instance, financial institutions could use the “Types” structured snippet for No-Fee Savings, High Interest Savings or list out the types of certificate of deposits they offer (3 month, 6 month, 12 month, etc).
Raise awareness for additional service lines
Your business may have one very well known product or service, but it’s struggling to get the word out about the additional items it offers. By adding structured snippets into your PPC ad account, you can use the new headers to bring attention to the business’ additional offerings.
An example of this is Drexel Online. Many people know that they offer online bachelor’s programs, but everyone may not know that they also offer master’s programs and certificates. By utilizing structured snippets, Drexel can inform searchers about other aspects of their business.
Create more effective call to actions
PPC continuously has the ability to test call to actions within search ads. With the new snippet feature, PPC ads can test more specific styles and service lines to hone in on the language and format that best connects with consumers. From these tests, your marketing team can vet the call to actions that convert the most, to identify what phrases and styles to use within SEO content, such as meta descriptions, headers, and call-to-action buttons.
Google may still choose to create their own meta description based on the search term, but in many cases your well crafted meta description will now show up with an even better chance to convert due to the PPC tests.
Save money & avoid a negative brand experience
This extra PPC snippet will enable searchers to be better at self-qualifying themselves for your business. Let’s say you own a wedding dress company. If customers are looking for a specific type of wedding dress, for example, A-Line, Mermaid, Ballgown, Trumpet, etc. and it’s not listed in your snippet, they know not to visit your website. Great! One less unqualified person potentially filling out a contact form asking your team about it.
There’s also a big cost-saving here. By having better pre-qualified leads coming to your site, it saves the call center or whomever reads submission forms time. If the call center charges per minute, every call – whether it’s profitable or not, costs your business money. However, if more incoming calls were qualified, the more profit you could get out of those calls.
In addition, setting the expectation of what your site contains before the person clicks, will help ensure that customers never have a jaded customer experience. As structured snippets give you more room to discuss your business’ offering, it could prevent shoppers from leaving a poor/mediocre review because your site doesn’t have what they’re looking for.
For example, when conducting a quick search on reseller.com ratings for “limited selection,” “small selection,” and “didn’t have,” we found time and time again that customers left mediocre reviews because the store did not carry the products that they had expected.
By using structured snippets, www.reseller.com could have set better expectations up front about what they do, and do not, carry, to avoid these negative ratings.
Learn & test for organic SEO
From Google’s past PPC tests, we predict that Google will measure the success of the new category PPC snippets, before rolling out additional rich snippets to organic SEO category pages. Currently, as the example shows below, Google indicates only the following for organic product specific pages:
Ratings by star
Number of people who rated
Price
In-Stock
Number of stores nearby
Before I click on the product in the SERPs, I already know if it’s in stock, within my price range, how many people loved or hated it, and if a store is located nearby.
In organic results, Google also has sitelinks, although these don’t show up for everyone and don’t include all styles:
Right now, these sitelinks indicate some categories, but do not touch upon all of business’ product offerings. It would be great to see a Style snippet in the SERPs before I click, indicating that RevZilla offers Motorcycle Touring, Half, Hi-viz neon, or race helmets as well as the categories pulled in through sitelinks.
In the future, as Google aims to improve user experience, it seems very likely that Google will roll out a style snippet for organic results. If it does, you’ll already have PPC data to work with to know which Types or Styles convert the best for users interested in your products.
Increase your paid search real estate
While there are pros for both PPC and SEO with the new structured snippets, there is one aspect that makes organic SEO practitioners not so happy. With this additional line of structured snippets, paid search gains a new way to obtain more real estate in the SERPs, while simultaneously pushing organic results farther down the page.
Contact us Today if you want to get your Paid Search up to date in 2016. Fill out the form on this page or give us a call!
Make 2016 The Year of Marketing Intelligence. Understand what your marketing dollars are producing for you, identify waste & optimize your marketing efforts!
Here John Bracamontes discusses what Acumen Studio does and how we can help you generate greater visibility online, generate new customers and more revenue.
Digital Marketing Digital Strategy Content Marketing Content Strategy SEO / Search Engine Optimization / Organic Search PPC / Pay Per Click / Paid Search Social Media Email Marketing Analytics, Analysis and Inisghts
The fundamentals and core attributes of marketing apply to Certified Public Accountants just as they do any other industry, but with accounting firms, both large and small there are tactics that can generate massive success.
Be Personal One of those tactics is showing genuine personal attention to your clients. Sounds simple enough, but personal can be defined differently by most so we want to clarify what some of those effective personal touches are.
Many CPA firms will send out direct mail to their clients that uses their name on the piece, that is great, but not the personal we’re talking about. Try sending out mail with handwritten notes that mention family or events. You can also make sure to send out anniversary cards, holiday cards, birthday cards with a dollar inside (or five) all with handwritten notes.
The Certified Public Accountant needs to be marketing themselves 100% of the time. Something that can be overlooked is the expectation of a client that they are important (which they are) and the CPA needs to make them feel that way. Being enthusiastic when meeting with clients or on the phone, making eye contact and looking genuinely happy to see your client is critical to creating that personal relationship which can ensure that they are a customer for life.
Digital Marketing & Traditional Marketing This type of personal attention can be showcased in marketing collateral, events and on digital channels. Use written and video testimonials, hold and highlight customer appreciation events such as galas, picnics or sports outings or hold contests that keep your clients engaged. All of these things can easily be communicated in newsletters, social networks, display ads, brochures, direct mail, television, radio, SEO, PPC and more.
If you want to learn more about CPA (certified public accountant) Marketing contact us using the form to the right or giving us a call.
We work and have worked with many CPA firm across the US, but we just recently had the chance to see the extraordinary things going on at one particular CPA Firm that we just have to give a shout out to. The leading CPA Firm in Dallas, Gurian CPA has made huge moves in the industry when it comes to client service. They are 100% in it for their clients making sure that every piece of advice is one that will help them grow. Just wanted to throw that out there and show them some love.
