Annie – Page 2 – Editorial PR

24/Oct/2016

Video marketing is becoming huge, with content strategists increasingly using this medium to gain momentum and interest through their campaigns. However, it is vital to recognise that the first five seconds of a video are crucial for maintaining interest. If a brand is unable to hook a viewer immediately it risks losing some business, so it’s essential to focus on video openings.

New research from Cisco suggests that over 69 per cent of content could consist of video by 2017. This shows that the video marketing approach continues to excel; however, it also indicates there will be far more competition than ever before, meaning that videos must be expertly curated if they’re to keep consumer attention. Users are becoming extremely fussy over what they watch during their precious time, so companies need to catch them during the first five seconds, otherwise, people will simply move on. If it’s a small firm they’ve lost interest in, they may well forget that brand name forever.

There are numerous reasons why the first seconds are vital. For example, research has shown that the average attention span has shortened. In just 15 years, it has dropped from 12 seconds to 8.25 seconds. It now means that human beings have an attention span less than goldfish; which has an average of nine seconds. With it being harder to catch and keep people’s attention, brands must now offer some form of instant gratification.

Viewers need to be hooked instantly if they’re not to click back and forget about a brand. To do this, video needs to speak to the consumer directly and answer any questions to confirm they’ve found the information they’re looking for. When a consumer knows they’re in the right place, they’re more likely to stay around. In addition, the first five seconds of a video can be used to set the tone – not only of the content to come – but the brand overall. There are many ways to do this, including voice tone, visual style and music.

Finally, all video content must spark curiosity. Most consumers will not stay around long enough to watch the entire piece if it doesn’t make them wonder what’s to come. Five seconds is not a lot of time to work with and it’s a huge challenge to get any form of complex idea across. However, by hooking viewers and making them curious about the content, people are more likely to stay for longer. One good tip is to open with a question they’ve asked themselves; thereby indicating the content has the answer. Alternatively, outlining a common situation they may find themselves in and indicating that the video will have solutions is a good option.

Video marketing is set to continue growing in appeal over the coming months and years. It is, therefore, essential for content strategists to start honing their expertise in this space. With falling attention spans, hooking consumers immediately is of growing importance, especially if brands are to get people to watch an entire video, regardless of its length.

Annie

17/Oct/2016

For many companies, especially small firms and start-ups, there may be a temptation to try to conduct every aspect of business in-house. At first glance, this might be a way to save money. However, content marketing can be extremely complex and challenging, so it’s a good idea to utilise experts. If such a choice is made, it is essential to make an educated decision about just which agency should be contracted so that the full advantage can be had.

There are many benefits in using a professional agency instead of trying to conduct content marketing work without the right expertise. Firstly, there are actual cost savings to be realised. In addition to having a better chance of avoiding expensive mistakes, hiring outside help often works out to be cheaper than hiring a full-time employee to handle this workload. Agencies often provide competitive rates, and workloads can be scalable too, allowing businesses to access as many or as few skills desired. Agency contracts also provide a way to access multiple specialists instead of having to rely on a single generalist. Even if a business is extremely specific in its operations, having a multi-skilled strategy team on hand ensures that content is delivered as perfectly as possible. Many agencies will also be able to provide better content too, as they can use a group of marketers to strategise instead of a single employee trying to cope with all advertising processes.

Another important consideration to take into account is that by using an agency, companies gain a degree of higher accountability; after all, an agency may be obliged to perform as part of their contract. It enables firms to pass some of the responsibility for success to the experts who, in turn, have a stake in obtaining successful results. It also means that if snags occur, there are a team of experts on hand to identify issues and offer solutions. This potential for brainstorming can often resolve problems more quickly, allowing normal service to resume.

With the content strategy niche an ever-changing world, it is vital to try to stay abreast of trends. Even with a costly in-house team, this can be difficult to do – particularly if they are focussed on one sector. Whilst this is an important part of honing any marketing plan, it is also a good idea to keep one eye on the overall progression of the industry to ensure that possible opportunities are not missed. For example, another industry might be using an innovative new strategy that, with a few tweaks, might also work for another sector.

For many firms with the right capital there is, obviously, the option to hire and develop an on-site team. However, with the best strategists being costly, it only takes a small team to cost thousands of pounds each month, which can negatively affect bottom lines. It is also possible that newly constructed teams will not see positive returns right away, meaning that positive return on investment (ROI) could take far longer. Therefore, utilising a content agency is often the ideal way to kick off new strategies.

Annie

10/Oct/2016

2017 is predicted to be a year when mobile content really takes off to new heights, so it’s vital that strategists are prepared to make an impact. Almost every aspect of life has now been disrupted by mobile, with people spending more and more time on smartphones and tablets. In fact, a Deloitte survey in 2015 found that phones are checked 440 million times every day. Meanwhile, it was reported that tablet use in Australia had surpassed PC use in November 2015. This means that more strategists need to look to the mobile market if they’re to deliver content in a successful and modern way.

One of the most important things to do is to ensure that content has all of its barriers removed. This means that content must be individually optimised for mobile. Google has already stepped in to downgrade content that is providing a poor mobile experience. Lately, they have also been targeting websites that include barriers such as pop-ups or newsletter sign-up overlays. These can be difficult to navigate on a mobile platform and, therefore, impact upon experience.

In addition to removing mobile barriers, firms have to ensure they are providing a smooth, quick and efficient digital experience. Site speed has been included in Google’s search algorithm for some time, and audiences have less patience and will put up with fewer delays than ever before. Ensuring quick loading time is incredibly important to build audience retention.

However, simply streamlining mobile operations isn’t enough and marketers need to actually change the way that content is created. For example, large blocks of text simply do not work in the mobile market, and can put audience members off from even starting to read a blog post or article. Instead, short headlines, bullet point lists and easy-to-navigate information is key.

In addition, web analytics firm Kissmetrics suggested that brands have up to ten seconds to catch someone’s attention on mobile before people navigate away. This means that key takeaways must be instantly apparent, and content should have obvious value. Strategists also need to alter their approach to call-to-actions. For example, adding these at the end of mobile content is no longer advisable. It is better to spread them throughout content instead. Videos can also be added to improve the quality of mobile marketing. Audiences are increasingly looking for rich media such as photos, charts and video instead of the traditional blocks of text. Adding video that has been optimised for mobile search and playback can significantly boost engagement.

Finally, it is extremely important for mobile content to be supplied on a platform that has a very simple, tap-friendly navigation. Tablets and smartphones have relatively small screens, and without the use of a mouse, audiences have to rely on touch gestures. Therefore, easily clicked links and collapsing menus can be utilised to save space and provide readers with an enjoyable experience.

When it comes to content marketing, the mobile era continues to change how material should be published. And, for those wanting to optimise their mobile content, delivering the right content in the right way is crucial.

Annie

26/Sep/2016

The future is definitely with mobile – and this is creating some challenges for content marketing. After all, smartphone screens are relatively small, so any publication has to be succinct and must get to the point right away. However, it is still essential to give readers valuable content alongside an experience that is comparable, if not better, than the desktop. To achieve this, there are various methods for marketers to use.

The first thing strategists need to be aware of is that people are now consuming content on their mobiles more than ever before. The latest devices are optimised for web browsing, and are extremely powerful – allowing content to be viewed immediately instead of saved for later when a user has access to a larger screen. Therefore, mobile content needs to be a continuation of high-quality web content, and not a poor second-best. It is wrong, therefore, to assume that mobile content needs to be a ‘dumbed down’ version of web copy.

Marketers also have to bear in mind that smartphones vary widely in their power, size and operating capabilities. This means that though a piece of content might be optimised for one platform, it could offer a poor experience on a different device. Therefore, content marketing needs to utilise an adaptive strategy that caters to all platforms, and not a micro strategy that focuses on individual platforms. It means that all content needs to adapt to the device, situation and customer, as well as being free from any design constraints. To write optimised content, traditional pages and paragraphs should be thrown out in favour of blocks, nuggets and ideas.

There is also a great need to conduct ongoing content audits to ensure that mobile strategies have the best chance of noting success. When developing new mobile publications, it’s worthwhile to audit all current content and identify what’s turning consumers off and what’s being shared. Much of the positive material could be re-purposed for mobile devices simply by breaking the content down into key engagement metrics, ideas, audience and potential future value. With mobile, the first three words can be the most crucial, and there are just seconds to impress people. It is not, however, about stripping content away. In fact, it’s about offering a small titbit and inviting audiences to stay for more.

Finally, it is absolutely essential that all mobile content appeals to a user’s priorities. In the digital age, it is vital to provide people with information quickly to make the consumer journey swift, easy and efficient. Therefore, scrolling and tapping has to be avoided as much as possible. Particularly when it comes to mobile content marketing, information architecture needs to be orchestrated to meet user priorities over things like animations or interesting visuals. If the latter takes precedence, it could have a large and detrimental impact on user-experience, resulting in site engagement levels falling.

With mobile marketing becoming a larger part of any advertising strategy, it is important that content also evolves to meet expectations. And, though material must be easily read and digested, it remains essential to continue providing an audience with valuable material if success is to be seen.

Annie

12/Sep/2016

In an era of high competition amongst brands, and some of the shortest time spans in history with which to grab people’s attention, it is vital for content marketing to make its mark on customers immediately. For the best strategies to work, there must be immediate impact so that target audiences remain engaged for long enough so that a piece of content’s messages can be conveyed. For advertisers trying to tackle bounce rates and boost interactions, there are numerous data-backed tactics to utilise.

One of the most important priorities for any content marketer is to ensure they have an accurate buyer persona. It’s useless targeting content towards uninterested parties, and keeping people engaged relies on customers actually wanting to hear what’s being broadcast. To do this, brands must focus on unique buyer personas that allow them to identify what people are looking for and, therefore, help shape content and increase engagement. On average, marketers have four defined ideal customers, though niche companies may have fewer. It’s vital, however, to stop treating any audience as a single entity if any improved interaction is to be noted.

Another tactic, though one that may have to be run past superiors, is to increase the content marketing budget. It’s a fact that real results often come from a boost in spend. Marketing strategies can be kicked off with little capital, but to keep the ball rolling and improve results requires more money. As such, marketing budgets should not solely be for the purpose of written content curation. Money should also be spent on increasing multimedia content, investing in eBooks and whitepapers, and paying for increased promotion and analytics opportunities.

There is also some importance in not overlooking potential platforms, even if a host of networks are already being used. For example, LinkedIn can be incredibly useful for conducting B2B content marketing. In recent studies, the platform was found to be the only truly effective place for B2B marketing. Creating an account and blog is relatively simple, and this allows for original content to be shared across the network. Even better results can be found by utilising LinkedIn’s niche groups.

Email marketing should also play a role in any content marketing strategy. Whilst disseminating material across social media networks can provide good results, any curated email list provides a direct link to consumers. A report from CMI found that 73 per cent of B2C firms still believe email marketing is extremely effective – even more so than producing video content. There are many automation tools on the market too, allowing strategists to easily add email advertising to their content plans. Even sending out a single monthly email can be a very good way of maintaining brand visibility and keeping customers involved.

The best content marketing efforts are not solely focussed on new prospects, but aim to boost relationships with current customers too. And, by using a variety of data-backed tactics to keep people engaged, brands can boost the effectiveness of advertising plans – not only to better the bottom line, but to nurture consumer relationships for the future as well.

Annie

15/Aug/2016

In a recent publication by CMI, it was reported just 34 per cent of both B2C and B2B brands rate their content marketing as effective. In fact, the 2016 Content Marketing Benchmark report revealed that producing engaging content for lead generation and sales was a top challenge of 60 per cent of firms. However, the figures suggest two fundamental mistakes that could be undermining strategies – the first being that many firms invest in content simply to produce material that is clicked to generate sales. Secondly, they prioritise any rise in sales and leads over the process of earning trust, familiarity and relationships.

On average, consumers come across around 285 pieces of content every day. According to Lifehack, this material is often served to consumers as a way to create action, whether that’s to collect data or gain a sale. However, the average consumer does not follow a linear route with content and, therefore, there is no guaranteed sale.

One of the biggest mistakes brands make when it comes to content marketing is creating content with the sole purpose of generating sales and leads. While strategists may have invested time and effort on the creation, distribution and sharing of material, many will have neglected remembering that content needs to be centred on its target audience. To correctly engage with people, marketers need to understand the customer journey and the experience – and they can do this by following four key phases.

Firstly, it’s vital to uncover people’s journeys. This can be achieved by understanding the motivations behind consumers’ actions. The various characteristics of people’s personas must be identified, as they will help drive the type of content to be created. Secondly, a customer’s experience must be properly mapped from beginning to end. Every interaction should be included, with positive outcomes being used towards creating good content.

The third phase is to chart content to ensure it serves informational, emotional and functional needs throughout. As content is aligned to the journey, it is important to match solutions to problems instead of focusing on services and products. Consumers rarely know the exact product they want; rather, they know their end goal and need a way to achieve it.

Finally, it’s important to tell the story correctly, using a storyboard to include all the previous phase elements into a cohesive journey. The resulting content needs to connect everything between a business, brand, customer and product or service benefits. In addition, it must be remembered that consumers often prefer different channels, so it’s important to use various platforms to connect with different audiences.

Overall, organisations must ensure they’re focused on creating content full of value for their consumers, and not simply pushing products and services upon people. It’s best to prioritise answering a problem instead of simply promoting the generation of sales and leads. In addition, by offering solutions to a target audience’s issues, brands will not only boost sales but also nurture the relationships and emotional ties between their business and its consumers.

Annie

01/Aug/2016

There are many social media platforms around, some of which might not immediately spring to mind as a good advertising opportunity for content marketers. For example, strategists might readily dive into Facebook and Twitter but leave other platforms on the sidelines. However, with many Fortune 500 brands turning to Instagram as a way to spread their message and interact with fans, this image-based application should not be overlooked.

Instagram made its debut in 2010 and has proven extremely popular with users since then. As the platform gained attention, it began to provide tools for content strategists and marketers. Now, more than half of Fortune 500 brands are using the application, showing just how important Instagram can be for any digital campaign.

A report from TrackMaven that analysed more than 41,000 Instagram posts between May 2015 and May 2016 discovered that the vast majority of interactions were click-based. In fact, 98.9 per cent of all engagement noted was made up of “double taps”, the system Instagram uses for people to “like” an image or video. This clearly shows the platform is not geared towards personal conversations or feedback. Instead, it is about brands and content creators engaging with their fans and followers through “like” and “comment” features.

One interesting point for all content strategists to note is the lack of filter use by global firms. One of the core appeals for users is that Instagram offers a various filters and tools to manipulate uploaded images. However, these are largely ignored by big brands.

TrackMaven Content Director Kara Burney explains that this is because most Fortune 500 brands upload pre-made content, although this method of content dispersal could be negatively affecting engagement because 12 of the filters are well-documented to actually boost interaction. Ultimately, brands should use filters if they want to ensure a smooth and immersive experience within the social platform.

Talking about the fact that many brands do not use filters, Burney said: “This finding indicates that there is an appetitive for authenticity on Instagram. Brands need to remember and respect that their content is appearing not amongst a feed of other brand-generated content, but among content from users’ friends and families as well. Remaining true to the aesthetics of each social network, like taking and editing photos natively in each platform, could prevent the jarring ‘this is obviously an ad, let me ignore it’ effect on social media.”

One of the first Fortune 500 firms to use Instagram was Starbucks, and the brand’s strategy is working. Engagement on the platform has reached a record high for the coffeehouse brand, with a ratio of 24.64, which is calculated on the number of interactions each post gets per 1,000 fans.

For strategists that want to extend their digital approach, utilising Instagram is a wise move that can be used in combination with other social platforms to boost audience reach and interaction. Data shows that some of the highest engagement levels are experienced on weekends and late at night as users sit down to surf the application during their leisure time.

Annie

27/Jun/2016

New data has suggested that many strategists will be heavily focussing on digital marketing throughout 2016. In fact, it is likely to become one of the most important platforms for content creators, with many marketers already spending vast amounts of time and money on creating campaigns to boost engagement on digital posts, videos and other content. With the plethora of platforms that enable content to be spread across the globe, each having the potential to hit the lucrative ‘viral’ status, a lot of priority will be placed upon digital advertising.

The latest predictions for the remainder of the year come courtesy of Ignite Digital, the recruitment specialists. In a new study, it was revealed that two thirds of marketers have already created content campaigns with the aim of raising engagement and interaction levels. It’s been well reported for some time that content marketing has been seeing a noticeable shift towards highly engaging, interactive and creative mediums.

It was only in February 2016, that 29 per cent of Canadian-based marketers revealed their primary marketing focus this year would be on content marketing. This was 10 per cent above those who chose engagement on social media as their top priority, and 16 per cent more than those who mentioned search engine optimisation (SEO).

There are also some interesting findings in relation to just where campaigns are being run. For instance, social platforms have become big business for strategists over the past few years, with Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook taking the fore. In the study, it was shown that 83 per cent of content marketers are conducting campaigns on these platforms, engaging with both clients and customers through these portals. Meanwhile, 80 per cent of people are marketing via website development, far ahead of content marketing and email marketing, both of which scored 69 per cent.

It is also interesting to note that though there is a huge buzz around the potential for mobile applications, only 26 per cent of survey respondents are placing a priority on developing new apps. Instead, social media continues to be one of the most popular tools for boosting engagement, with almost two thirds of marketers saying they regularly monitor places like Facebook and Twitter, not only to connect with customers, but to identify the latest trends and developments.

For content creators wanting to put efforts into the right type of media, it’s important to note that blog-type articles and videos continue to be successful. They make up a notable contributing percentage of marketing activity, with 78 per cent of people saying that the personalisation and management of content remain a critical operation. There’s also a similarly weighted emphasis upon SEO and the value of social media for creating and running a successful and effective digital marketing campaign.

Ignite Digital’s data was published as part of the ‘Canadian Marketers 2016 Outlook Report’. It was revealed, overall, that 83 per cent of marketers aim to boost their campaigning efforts this year. In fact, 43 per cent of respondents said they believed company budget for content marketing would be higher than in previous years.

Annie

27/Jun/2016

Most companies have a well-considered and strong mission statement that’s used throughout their operations to drive business in the right direction. These businesses also have a good content-marketing strategy so they can draw customers in, make sales and build positive branding. However, to achieve the greatest amount of success, these two areas need to be meshed together.

In many scenarios, content marketing strategies are separated in silos and cannot interact with other business operations. This often happens because advertising is looked at as an external platform and not, therefore, part of a firm’s culture and internal values. However, the best marketing occurs when businesses are able to clearly communicate their ethos, branding and mission to consumers. As such, these two areas need to gel firmly if the best success is to be seen.

One of the first steps to help missions and content marketing work alongside each other is to ensure brand consistency. Every platform should provide customers with the same message, regardless of how, where and when consumers are getting the information. Even for those displaying a logo on their content or developing a personal brand need to be sure that nothing deviates from their main persona. Consumers must have the same ‘feel’ whenever they come across a brand, so consistency is key.

Another way to ensure that content strategies and missions align is to actually draw topics from objectives and use these to build a campaign. For example, a firm who aims to reduce their carbon emissions should make their customers aware of this through content marketing. It’s also worthwhile to announce any efforts being made in this area. For example, if reducing emissions is part of your key agenda, participating in green initiatives and similar schemes all work as positive branding. Meeting attendances, speaking at a summit or creating a new environment campaign could then be applied to create new content to engage with like-minded consumers.

Businesses must also keep the demographics of their audience, and the tone of their content, in mind at all times. It is here where objectives and missions once again come into play, helping companies decide how they want to come across to consumers. If a mission is to improve communication with people, then a conversational tone should be preferred. There should also be many opportunities for consumers to engage with content.

Writing out mission statements and setting strong objectives is often one of the first tasks undertaken by businesses. Therefore, it’s important to use these for other operations too. Content marketing strategies should include these messages and help back up a firm’s branding, and shouldn’t only be used to push products and services. In the modern age, consumers want to buy into an entire firm, not just individual items, so it’s important for firms to show their values to their audience.

Luckily, meshing mission statements and content strategies together is relatively easy. It only takes a small number of changes to strategy development to ensure that marketing aligns with core values and benefits a brand’s reputation and visibility.

Annie

27/May/2016

Instagram, the popular photo and video-sharing social platform, has revealed it will soon launch a new analytics tool that can be used by content creators and marketers to help focus their campaigns and build better success. The new ‘Insights’ solution will be of use to publishers and brands looking for a better idea of who is interacting with their content and how posts can be improved.

News of the analytics tool has been reported by Later, a firm offering software to help with Instagram post scheduling. The company suggested that ‘Insights’ would provide key information on follower demographics, as well as analytics on individual posts. This will help marketers work out which content has been the most successful, and how it has been engaged with.

There are a number of important features coming with the new tool, one of which will provide location data. Under the follower demographics tabs, marketers will be able to sort their fans by gender, age and location. Data will be easily digestible due to the use of graphs and pie charts. Location will be further honed in on by country and city, providing some great information for advertisers – particularly those running targeted campaigns based on region. The location section will also provide the details of new followers, both by hour and day.

Elsewhere, the post analytics tab offers various metrics for each individual piece of content. This includes impressions, website clicks, reach and a variety of other activities that will provide creators and advertisers with more data on how well specific content performs. One interesting feature enables brands to check the peak times for usage, allowing for better scheduling of content so it reaches the most fans.

For companies wanting to gain a quick overview of their posts, the visual content tab is ideal. In this section, a Top Posts lists makes it immediately obvious which images or videos have performed the best based on impressions, both for monthly and weekly data. Utilising its strength as an image-based platform, Instagram presents the information here in image thumbnails for maximum impact. It also makes it clearer to see the best posts with one glance.

The latest news comes as Instagram continues to offer increased marketing opportunities to advertisers and showcase itself as a valuable tool. The Facebook-owned platform’s development of ‘Insights’ shows a significant step towards proving just how useful it can be, and with audience data made available to brands, it is hoped that many companies will be able to produce more engaging and successful content as a result.

Though no official details have been launched regarding ‘Insights’ other than that the platform is undergoing testing, it is expected that the public launch will debut in the next few months. According to TechCrunch, a few users have already noticed some analytics features being listed as live when using the mobile application. The arrival of ‘Insights’ follows Instagram’s recent tests for a variety of new profile features for businesses, including linkable location tags, a ‘contact’ button and mobile ad-buying experiences.

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EditorialPR Musings
Content Marketing Blog

Content marketers must focus on first 5 seconds of video

Utilise a content agency to gain cost savings and efficiencies

Marketing tips for mobile content strategists

Mobile copy must be succinct yet valuable

Keep visitors engaged with data-backed tactics

Fundamental mistakes undermining content marketing campaigns

Fortune 500 brands harness the power of Instagram

Strategists to focus on digital marketing in 2016

Content Marketing needs to mesh with a mission for success

Instagram’s analytical tool offers insights for marketers