How to Use Podcasts as Part of Your Marketing Strategy
By Brooke Gocklin The rumble of traffic. The buzz of a bee. The whoosh of your coat in the wind. Sound carries with it a sensory experience like no other. Audio stories are different from any other medium for this very reason. Podcasts are used by several influencers, industry experts, and entertainment artists to share perspectives, ideas, and unique insights with a target audience. So how do podcasts fit into your content marketing strategy? The Power of Content Marketing & a Great Podcast As content marketing continues to evolve and adapt to changing consumer behaviors, it’s essential to stay ahead of the curve and explore new ways of reaching and engaging with your audience. And podcasts offer an exciting opportunity to do just that. Podcasts are a way to educate your consumers on important topics and provide thought leadership to the marketplace. Hubspot recently released the Hubspot Podcast Network for professionals looking to build their skills in different areas of business. Other businesses choose to find a thought leader to host their own podcast and sponsor them. Whether they pay to have an ad included at the beginning of a podcast, ask an influencer to hype up a product during their podcast, or pay for time to speak to the partner podcaster’s audience directly, there are several profitable ways to leverage podcast sponsorships. In fact, Influencer Marketing Hub reports that 60% of listeners search for a product after it’s been mentioned on a podcast. Creating your own branded podcast Whether you are in finance, healthcare, insurance, or entertainment, podcasts can be a great place to focus on thought leadership and brand awareness. The best podcasts do this organically by using hosts with subject matter expertise in a specific industry to talk about topics the audience genuinely cares about. Take NerdWallet, for example. Sean Pyles hosts the Smart Money Podcast for a user base that wants to learn how to eliminate debt, build savings, and start their investment journey. This makes sense for their business model since they have an app that helps their users track their money and make smart personal finance decisions. This can also be a great opportunity for partnership with other brands, which NerdWallet does well, too. From credit cards and travel to personal loans, mortgages, and insurance, NerdWallet partners with a variety of industry leaders to highlight the best financial products for their audience. Talk about a great place for financial organizations to advertise their services. From building brand awareness to driving traffic and boosting engagement, content marketing podcasts can be a game-changer for your business. According to Claritas, podcasts can lift brand awareness between 24-79%, depending on the industry. That’s 30x the average of other channels. Claritas evaluated 158 campaigns over 36 months, resulting in 834 million impressions. They found the following brand awareness lift based on industry: Retailers: 79% B2B: 77% Consumer goods: 63% Pharmaceuticals: 37% Automotive: 30% Telecommunications: 26% Insurance: 24% What makes a good podcast? Podcasts are one of the most popular forms of content consumption today, but it does take some skill to create a podcast worthy of listeners. If you’re going to integrate podcasts into your content marketing strategy, make sure that you have the following attributes: Compelling content: Start by selecting relevant topics for your target audience. Good podcasts have interesting and engaging content that keeps listeners coming back for more. The topic, storytelling, and quality of research or interviews should all be well thought out. Quality audio: Poor audio quality can be a major turnoff for listeners, so it’s essential to invest in good recording equipment or work with professionals who can help produce high-quality sound. Consistency: Maintain a consistent schedule so listeners know when to expect new episodes. This means releasing new episodes regularly, whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly. Authenticity: A good podcast is authentic and genuine, reflecting the personality and style of the hosts or guests. Authenticity helps build a connection with the audience and makes the show more relatable and engaging. Audience engagement: Invite feedback, questions, and comments to understand your audience. This will help you understand what they want and create content relevant to them in future episodes. Marketing: Promote and market your podcast to the right audience. You can use social media, email lists, or partnerships with other podcasts or media outlets. The best content in the world won’t get an audience if people don’t know about it. Why Use Podcasts in Your Content Marketing Strategy? When integrated into a larger content marketing strategy, podcasts can help establish a brand’s authority, build customer trust, and drive traffic and engagement across multiple channels. By incorporating podcasts into a content marketing plan, businesses can create a more cohesive and integrated approach that leverages multiple touchpoints to reach and engage with their audience. Whether used as a standalone content format or as part of a broader multi-channel approach, podcasts can help to amplify your message, increase your reach, and build lasting connections with your target audience. Starting a podcast as part of your marketing strategy can offer a range of advantages for your business, including: Building brand awareness: Podcasts can help increase your brand’s visibility and awareness, as they offer an opportunity to showcase your expertise and thought leadership on a specific topic or niche. According to BBC, podcasts that include brand mentions deliver, on average, 16% higher engagement and 12% higher memory encoding than the surrounding content. This is unique to podcasts since global radio benchmarks score 5% lower. Connecting with your audience: Podcasts can effectively build a personal connection with your audience, as they allow you to communicate directly with them in a conversational tone, building trust and rapport. Creating valuable content: Podcasts allow you to provide your audience with valuable, informative content that they can listen to at their convenience, which can help to position your business as a valuable resource. Driving traffic: By promoting your podcast on various channels, you can drive traffic to your website or other content platforms, increasing the visibility of your brand and attracting new leads. In fact, Morning Brew reports that podcast ad revenue surpassed $1 billion last year and is expected to grow in 2023 and 2024.
Building Trust and Engagement: Best Practices for Financial Services Content Marketing
By Kara Parlin Content marketing is rapidly changing, with new opportunities and challenges arising in the financial services sector. But effective financial marketing requires careful planning and execution, particularly given the regulatory landscape that governs the industry. To better understand how content marketing has evolved and the strategies that will be essential for success this year and beyond, Contently released the comprehensive State of Content Marketing: Financial Services 2023 eBook. It offers insights into key trends and tactics across various areas like trust building, customer engagement, personalization, workflows, secure tech stacks, and more. Here, we’ll explore the main takeaways from the report to help you build successful content campaigns for financial services. Trust Building Is a Requirement, Not an Option Trust is a critical component of the financial services industry, and it’s equally important in financial services content marketing. Organizations in this sector need to provide truthful and trustworthy content that appeals to customers wary of shady investments and deceptive practices. Consumers want accurate information about their options, so companies need to focus on building trust through transparency, reputable practices, and support for social issues. JPMorgan Chase & Co., for example, includes a section on its site to explore its general impact and commitment to racial equity. Successful financial services content strategies should focus on these four steps to build a solid foundation: Create data-backed buyer personas. Perform a full content audit. Assess your organization’s content maturity model. Set and track content goals and KPIs. These measures can help establish credibility among potential customers and give them confidence that they are dealing with a reputable company. Take Financial SEO Challenges Into Consideration Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a critical role in content marketing, particularly in industries such as finance. However, financial service organizations face two main challenges in optimizing their content for search: Challenge 1: Large institutions often dominate high-volume search queries, making it challenging for smaller institutions to rank for them. Solution: Focusing on long-tail keywords is often more effective, particularly as consumers become increasingly specific in their search queries. Local optimization can be effective for financial companies with brick-and-mortar offices, too. Challenge 2: Google holds finance-related content to a higher standard to protect searchers from harm. Solution: Ensure all content adheres to Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) and Y-M-Y-L (Your Money, Your Life) concepts. You should strive to have subject-matter experts write financial content and ensure all content is well-researched to demonstrate authority and trustworthiness. Y-M-Y-L guidelines apply to content that can potentially impact a person’s health, happiness, or financial stability. Financial organizations should ensure their content is accurate, trustworthy, and transparent to meet these guidelines and avoid any negative impact on their reputation or rankings. Here are seven characteristics financial services content marketing should have, according to Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines: Reviewed and updated regularly (including links) Connected to social profiles that reflect financial expertise Fact checked Connected to sites that actively respond to reviews Connected to reputable websites (through backlinks) About page where contact details are easy to find Connected to author pages with bios Opt for Interactive Mid-Funnel Content Over Generic Advice According to a JD Power study, consumers are more likely to engage with brands that provide personalized advice specific to their needs. This means that traditional content marketing formats like webinars, eBooks, and whitepapers are less effective. Instead, brands should focus on interactive elements such as quizzes and calculators to help customers make informed decisions and differentiate their financial services from their competitors’ offerings. Like many insurers, Lemonade includes an online quote feature on its website that allows visitors to customize their quote requests according to their requirements. This gives people a self-serve option while also allowing the company to capture lead information like a person’s name, email address, phone number, and home address. Incorporate Inbound Call Tracking Into Bottom-Funnel Content When it comes to the bottom of the funnel, financial services content marketers need to think beyond traditional content strategies like case studies or email campaigns. The challenge is that finance consumers don’t typically convert online — they want to talk to someone on the phone or in person before making a purchase. Solution? Your bottom-funnel content needs to focus on getting potential customers to pick up the phone. According to Invoca, a significant percentage of banking and investment consumers prefer to call to make a purchase, and loan shoppers want to talk to someone on the phone at least twice. So content marketers need to focus on measuring their content’s impact on call success. By including specific calls-to-action in your content that encourage potential customers to pick up the phone, you can partially attribute call-enabled revenue to the content that motivated the customer to take action. Create Content Workflows That Capture Key Process Steps Building custom workflows is critical for effective and efficient content marketing in the financial services industry and ensures that content meets regulatory requirements. Workflows should also be specific to the type of content being created, such as SEO-driven articles or multimedia content. By leveraging workflow automation solutions like Contently, marketers can streamline processes and reduce manual tasks such as creating content calendars, establishing review cycles, setting deadlines for deliverables, and even booking writing talent. These solutions can also be used to automate content creation from existing templates as well as track progress across different teams and channels. This helps companies maintain consistency in their operations while freeing up staff to focus on more crucial tasks. Find Success in Financial Services Content Marketing By combining these tools, content marketers can gain a holistic view of their content’s impact and optimize their strategy accordingly. With a secure and comprehensive tech stack, financial services content marketers can confidently measure their content’s impact, optimize it based on their learnings and effectively target different buyer personas while keeping consumer data safe. With these strategies and best practices, financial services organizations can stay ahead of the curve and remain competitive and compliant. Companies should use these insights to develop content marketing strategies that meet customer needs, build trust, and strengthen brand loyalty while protecting customer data. Download our State of Content Marketing: Financial Services 2023 eBook to further explore these
Improving Content’s Impact Using Marketing Data Analytics
By Laura Starita Marketing budgets increased in 2022 after dropping to a historic COVID-19-related low in 2021. But content marketers can’t celebrate yet. That extra budget increases the expectation that marketers prove content delivers business results. Content marketers must step up their marketing data analytics approach to show how content delivers business results. Doing so brings two fundamental benefits. First, marketing data analytics helps content marketers communicate the benefits of content to non-marketing peers. Marketers can get buy-in and build stronger relationships with business stakeholders by linking content assets to concrete business results like marketing qualified leads (MQLs). Second, marketing analytics also equip content marketing leaders to make data-informed decisions about where to invest money and talent resources. Marketers can de-emphasize poorly performing platforms and formats and invest more in higher-performing alternatives. That can increase the ROI from content marketing. In fact, more than a third of marketers named analytics as the emerging technology likely to impact their strategy. Whether you’re just getting started measuring the impact of content or looking to refine your current program, follow these four steps to define your strategy for marketing analytics. Step 1: Decide what you want to know from marketing data analytics. More is not necessarily better when it comes to analytics, despite the availability of free or low-cost marketing analytics tools. After all, every metric you decide to track requires investment from the marketing team to make it useful. You need to track it over time, clean the data, de-duplicate it, and validate that it complies with your organization’s governance policies. And if you want to present it to anyone, you’ll need to visualize the data to make it consumable. To avoid wasting resources tracking marketing analytics you ultimately don’t use, start by asking what you need to know. Pay attention to the questions you ask while planning your content strategy or quarterly calendar. Examples include: What content formats produce the highest volume of engagement? Which ones produce the deepest engagement (meaning, they drive conversions)? What content surprises do you see in terms of over- or under-performance? Step 2: Understand what your business partners want to know from marketing data analytics. You can engage with your business partners to understand their questions and identify corresponding data and analytics that could help answer them. By deciding which marketing analytics will help, you both commit to assessing impact according to the same terms. You also improve collaboration and alignment to determine which metrics to track, retire, or add as circumstances change. Step 3: Ensure balance in the marketing data analytics you track. journey. For example, striking a balance between “attention” or “attraction” metrics like site visits, banner clicks, and email opens and “engagement” metrics such as repeat visitors, social shares, or weekly newsletter sign-ups. Other organizations may instead categorize metrics according to the business performance standard of leading indicators, lagging indicators, and operational indicators. Leading indicators predict specific actions, lagging indicators tell you what happened in the past, and operational indicators tell you about the effectiveness of your marketing processes. All three may align better with what business stakeholders expect to see. Step 4: Leave room for soft metrics. The evolving world of marketing data analytics can bring immense benefits. But that doesn’t mean marketers can or should abandon all non-quantitative approaches to assessing value. This applies to how marketers view the outcomes they can measure and how they communicate about aspects of marketing that remain inscrutable. One example of the need for nuance in leveraging metrics relates to timelines. Some initiatives produce clear, short-term, and measurable benefits. A seasonal or event-related campaign is an example of that. Other initiatives, such as branding partnerships, are long-term by design to deliver value incrementally, often in ways that are difficult to quantify. The latter isn’t necessarily less helpful for its lack of transparency, but you need to evaluate it differently. The core takeaway is that marketing analytics is critical in identifying high-value content topics and formats, measuring content’s impact on business results, and communicating that impact to others. But it is just one input you should use to define your content strategy, create a plan for executing it, and assess how well it served the business. Stay informed! Subscribe to The Content Strategist for more insight on the latest news in digital transformation, content marketing strategy, and rising tech trends.
Marketers Are Behind: Here’s How to Win Back that Competitive Edge
By Megan Morreale The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) position as we know it is in trouble. Companies like Taco Bell, Uber, Johnson & Johnson, and Hyatt Hotels have eliminated the CMO position and course-corrected with replacement roles like Chief Growth Officer, Chief Experience Officer, or Chief Revenue Officer. Only 70% of Fortune 500 companies had CMOs in 2019, down from 4% in 2009, and their tenure is the shortest of the C-suite at 3.5 years. These trends reflect a transformation that has marketers losing their seats at the table, which is strange because marketing budgets are higher than ever. Overall budgets have risen to 11.8% in 2022, resetting to pre-pandemic levels. Why this shift away from the CMO role? Companies want every position to be as efficient as possible with profitability in mind—no matter what department you work for. This transition can be challenging for CMOs who lead a department that’s traditionally been a cost center. If CMOs want to keep their seat at the table, they need to shift their focus and become obsessed with three things: customers, data, and revenue. Prioritize Your Focus on the Customer Journey CMOs have always been concerned about customers, but today, a CMO with a competitive edge has to prioritize their focus on the entire customer journey. Traditionally, a CMO’s core responsibilities include market research, vetting new products, advertising, and managing the brand, all of which happen before a customer makes a purchase. Today, savvy CMOs understand the whole customer journey impacts someone’s decision to make a purchase—from marketing to sales to support. The marketing team’s scope has widened in response and oversees everything from the initial interaction with a brand to providing engaging experiences and exceptional service. Each of these elements affects whether or not the overall customer experience is positive, which 73% of customers say is a factor in their decision to make a purchase. And CMOs obsessed with optimizing this experience will be the most successful. Data Management Should Be a Top Priority People interact with almost every business online. Even if they’re not tapping a virtual credit card, they’re still researching before making a purchase. All this online interaction creates piles and piles of data to be collected and analyzed. Keeping track of that data while ensuring you comply with privacy laws must be a top priority. Most marketing leaders think managing customer privacy falls under their job description, and 58% are taking steps to strengthen data management practices in response. CMOs who want to stay competitive will need to do this while weaning off third-party data before the cookie dies in 2024. Almost 18% of marketers expect their use of third-party data to decline over the next two years, indicating that savvy CMOs should focus on building a robust first-party data strategy and testing alternatives like contextual targeting. Part of managing data well includes using the smartest technology you can—CMOs can get ahead by looking for platforms that manage and analyze customer data for you while also meeting the compliance requirements for your industry. All Activities Should Be Measured By Revenue Impact Modern CMOs are responsible for revenue generation, and their success is measured by it. While attribution for this—like sales representative activity or the impact of an event or ad campaign—may be clear, it gets muddier when you start digging into activity that happens earlier in the customer journey. The modern CMO should seek to advance their measurement capabilities so that single-touch or multi-touch attribution is possible for all marketing activities. Contently has built a maturity model to guide companies looking to advance their digital marketing measurement in four easy-to-follow steps: crawl, walk, run, and fly. Gaining Back a Competitive Edge Is Within Reach for CMOs The fate of the CMO isn’t sealed—far from it. The role is just transforming. The CMO’s fate depends on their ability to focus on the customer, manage their data, and measure the impact marketing has on revenue. Gaining back your competitive edge is a matter of shifting focus to the customer journey and measuring your success by revenue. Schedule a demo to learn how working with Contently will tie your content marketing efforts back to revenue and accurately measure your content’s impact on your customer experience. Image by leremy
Top 5 SEO Strategies to Help You Rank Higher
By Amanda Lawson SEO may feel like “internet alchemy”—that intangible thing you’re not exactly sure you know what it is, but you know you need it if you want to see your content on Page 1 in a search. And with the rapid change in algorithms and technology, how do you know you’re doing the right thing? We’re here to help. Why SEO Matters First of all, it’s important to know why SEO matters. An SEO strategy is essential to playing the marketing long game. It’s how consumers find your content when they search the internet for answers. To keep up, you need to stay up-to-date on the latest strategies and search engine updates. Google, the undisputed king of search, released its last major algorithmic update in 2021 to prioritize pages with quality user experience (UX) and a core update in May 2022, which it updates several times a year. In light of these changes, Google gave site owners the following tips to optimize site performance: Focus on your content Get to know the quality rater guidelines and E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) But even with all the fancy know-how and tricks, you can’t game or short-cut the search engine algorithm. And ways to do so successfully in the short run will eventually be snuffed out by the search engine gods. Ranking on Page 1 takes time—there’s no way around it. Below are 5 things you can do to level up your SEO skills so your content will rank higher. 1. SEO basics Any good SEO analysis starts with the basics. A great place to start is by reviewing your content’s framework. Make sure your website’s pages include effective titles, compelling meta descriptions, and subheadings that incorporate your SEO keywords. Is your website indexed with a sitemap and a robot.txt file so a search engine’s crawler can rank your site? If not, it should be! Make sure Google Search Console (GSC), Bing Webmaster Tools, and Google Analytics (GA) are set up on your site. Tools like Yoast and Semrush Organic Research Tool can help ensure your content performs optimally. Once you’ve got the basics down, it’s time to tighten up your existing content and what type of content you’ll create. Know Your Keywords Keyword research is critical to a good SEO strategy. You’ve got to know what your customers are searching for to make sure you’re offering them the content they need. This means you need to know what your main, money-earning keywords are as well as question keywords. And don’t forget to find out your handful of long-tail keyword variations. Industry glossaries are another useful resource for building your keywords. Luke O’Neill, owner and operator at Genuine Communications, an Australia-based fintech marketing company, prioritizes using these glossaries, particularly for top-of-funnel web visitors. “Industry glossaries are a good SEO play. Individual glossary entries can be used as internal links. And once you’ve built a thorough glossary, you can analyze the most-visited entries and create further content around the topic. Take a look at how fintechs like Ramp and Paddle have published glossaries to see how you could do them too.” Know Your Competition Competitor analysis is well worth your time. Seeing how your competitors rank is like playing poker while being able to see their hands. Check out what they’re doing, learn from them, and make it your own. Conduct a keyword gap analysis and break down the intent and keywords of competing pages that rank well in search results. You may even want to create a keyword map to capture your research. After you’ve reviewed your keywords, it’s time to fine-tune your list. Make sure you prioritize by search volume and keyword difficulty to get the most bang for your buck. Additionally, if you’re able to invest in the tech, you can also use artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze keywords through sophisticated models and algorithms. Founder and CEO of personal finance site BankingGeek Max Benz suggests this strategy “rather than relying on traditional keyword research” to identify and target keywords. You can also look at data from social media and other platforms to get a more complete picture of your customer and what they’re looking for online. 2. On-page SEO and content First, make sure your on-page SEO housekeeping is in order. That means finding and fixing multiple H1 tags (only one per page!), duplicate or missing meta descriptions, and duplicate, missing, and truncated title tags. Along with the page content, all of these should be optimized to be readable, SEO-friendly, and aligned with your target audience’s needs. Content Audit A content audit is an assessment where you root out and update old content. Ask yourself if it adds value to your customer and communicates your unique selling point. Don’t forget to include clear and interesting CTAs. Re-organize your content so the flow makes sense, and the customer journey is simple by using topic clusters under a pillar page. Finally, find and fix keyword cannibalization (when your pages compete against each other to rank for the same keywords). Create Content Once you’ve identified your keywords, create content briefs and turn them into relevant content. Consider mixing in formats that typically perform well, like short explainer/demo videos or infographics that feature original research or case studies. In the fintech industry, a type of content that web visitors enjoy is a free calculator tool that helps them calculate some metric related to your business. Contently has a tool built into the platform that looks at your target keywords and suggests related topics to consider, and it gives you information like search volume, number of results, and cost per click if you were to take out a search ad for that topic. Gamify Your Site Another way to have fun with your content and provide your target audience with an engaging experience is through gamification. By gamifying, or adding gaming elements, to your web content or purchase system, people are more likely to enjoy engaging with your content. It’s estimated that 70% of Forbes Global 2000 companies use some form of gamification. An effort by the financial services community Sharedserviceslink.com found that using gamification, even in a conservative industry, led to an increase of 108.5% in website visits and a conversion
How Video Marketing Is Reshaping Content Strategies
Video is now the main way people consume content online. Much of that video content is pure entertainment, but consumers are itching for branded videos. In fact, 91% of people say they’d like to see more videos from companies they support. In response, brands are investing more in video marketing content than ever to meet such strong engagement and potential ROI. Of the marketers who responded to Wyzowl’s State of Video Marketing 2023 report, 92% say video gives them a good return on their investment. Yet marketers are still challenged by new, fast-moving video formats that continue to redefine the landscape. Let’s explore three emerging video formats and how brands can integrate them into brand awareness and lead-generation campaigns. Top 3 video formats and how they drive engagement Brand videos can be lighthearted, but there’s a danger in thinking of video as only a top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) asset. If executed well, video formats such as short-form, live streaming, and user-generated content can serve all stages of the marketing funnel. As you execute your video marketing strategy this year, keep these trends in mind. 1. User-generated videos User-generated content (UGC) videos, from unboxings to tutorials to reviews, can help build trust in a brand because they come from regular people who simply enjoy the products they’re posting about. But UGC can also meet middle and bottom funnel goals such as leads and sales. Nearly eight out of 10 consumers say user-generated content highly impacts their purchasing decisions. As any consumer can tell you: a thumbs up from a fellow shopper is often the final push to click the buy button. The benefits of user-generated videos are clear, but that doesn’t mean marketers should throw out branded content. Combining user-generated videos with more polished, professionally generated videos is the sweet spot for most brands. To get your brand fans to submit UGC videos, you should: Ask followers who are active on your brand’s social channels to shoot short videos using your product. In return, you’ll feature them on those channels. (Ask users to keep it short and simple. You’re not looking for a documentary!) Run contests that encourage customers to create short videos. Incentivize them with gift cards and other rewards. Good examples are shoe brand DSW’s #DSWCutLoose campaign on TikTok and GoPro’s #MillionDollarChallenge on Instagram) Create Google Alerts to capture any mentions of your brand online. This is a great way to discover existing user videos. Be sure to always ask users for permission before reposting their videos. 2. Live streaming Live streaming — defined as video streamed in real-time where viewers can interact by liking and commenting — delivers numerous benefits, including humanizing your brand, generating revenue, and expanding your target audience. Livestreams are also affordable to produce if you have a smartphone, basic lighting gear and microphones, and decent on-camera talent. It helps that consumers strongly prefer live video, too. Facebook Live videos drive three times more engagement and 10 times the amount of comments than traditional videos. Livestreams can take on many forms. Big, elaborate events such as conferences switched to a livestream model during the pandemic. But tech giants like Google (Google I/O), Microsoft (Microsoft Build), IBM (IBM Think), and Apple (WWDC) have continued to stream their conferences because they’ve experienced firsthand how live streaming can increase a conference’s reach beyond in-person boundaries. As for more specific examples of live streaming, Q&A sessions are becoming more popular. Typically, a host will answer viewer questions or do a fireside chat-type interview with an industry influencer or customer. Enterprise software provider SAP live streams conversations with its high-profile customers each month in a series called “Better Together: Customer Conversations.” In 2021, Salesforce live streamed a series of Q&As with industry influencers on LinkedIn Live as 600,000 organic viewers watched. Some brands have taken to live streaming to teach new skills. Adobe, for instance, live streams classes for illustration, photography, and graphic design taught by influencers in the creative space. On the consumer side, one of the hottest ecommerce live streaming trends is live shopping, where an influencer promotes brand products in real-time. Consumers tune in to learn, chat, and purchase products directly from inside the live video. To live stream effectively, consider the following. Have a plan. What are you trying to accomplish? What are the topics you want to cover? What is the structure of the live event? What’s the takeaway for viewers? Live stream where your audiences live. That could be Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn. To promote your livestream, start advertising it two weeks in advance, and then send out a reminder a week before the livestream, and then a day before, and then two hours before. Promote it via emails, newsletters, and blog posts, as well as on all social channels where your brand is active. Record the livestream and repurpose it in blog posts, embed it email newsletters, andturn excerpts into Instagram Stories or TikTok videos. Livestreams can generate interest long after the actual stream happens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5jJsppS0Ds 3. Short-form video content Influenced by TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, short-form videos that use humor, music, and on-screen text were the most popular type of content on social media in 2022. And brands noticed. Ninety percent of marketers who leveraged short-form video in 2022 plan to keep doing it this year. It also has the highest ROI of all social media marketing strategies. Whether your brand serves up short-form video on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, the best practices are similar. 4. Be authentic and informal With short-form video, your job is to quickly entertain and inform consumers using a conversational style, on-screen captions, polls and quizzes, and of course, music. On-camera talent matters, so tap your brand’s subject matter experts — or influencers, if possible — to give your short-form videos authority and personality. Don’t use short-form video as a sales vehicle, though. Soft selling is OK if the video is about the lifestyle around a brand rather than the product itself, as L.L. Bean does brilliantly in this Instagram Reel. 5. Get to the point immediately According to Facebook data, 45 percent of people who watch the first three seconds of a video will watch for 30 seconds. Every second counts, so start
In Tough Times, Self-Aware Marketing Helps You Stand Out & Save Money
The DC superhero Deadpool has many superpowers, but his strangest one is completely unique—he is the only superhero aware of his comic book status. In one issue, when asked why he did something, he retorts, “Because this is my book.” In his movie, he calls a particularly cliched comeback from his nemesis “lazy writing.” Fans love it because Deadpool subverts expectations by being self-aware. You can see a similar idea at play when the writers behind the TV show “30 Rock” created an episode where the characters debate the merits of creating a TV show. Or, to get really meta, when a cafe’s sandwich board proclaims, “This is a sign.” Right now, budgets are frozen, technology spend has decreased for the time being, and buyers of all manner are fatigued from the barrage of “We’re here for you in uncertain times” emails. This self-aware approach offers marketers a lifeline. And it can be done with playful humor or straightforward analysis. Going meta—using your product to market itself—can be a clever way to draw attention, stretch your budget, and be disarmingly and refreshingly honest, all while still selling your product. No but seriously, this is a sign Self-aware marketing works, but for a different reason than it works in media. While “going meta” in pop culture surprises and delights because it shatters the so-called “fourth wall” and draws people out of what they’re watching, meta marketing typically draws them in. It demonstrates the product by showing it. Take the billboard pictured below by 3M, the maker of duct tape. The tape appears to be supporting the billboard—an allusion to its utility as a fix-all. It’s cheeky but also demonstrative. Among my favorite meta assets ever—so enjoyable that I’m still sharing it years later—is the survey software startup Typeform’s article “The Rise of the Conversational Interface.” In it, the author demonstrates the rise and uses of chatbots … by inserting a chatbot into the article. As you read, you can ask the author questions about the article. When I interviewed Paul Campillo, now the company’s head of brand and communications, I learned that when he started writing it, Typeform didn’t even offer chatbots. Now they do. And it’s because the self-aware chatbot article was such a smash hit that buyers demanded it. “We were pitching blog ideas about chatbots and someone had this idea to insert one into the article to provide a director’s cut commentary,” Campillo said. “We said, yeah that’s great. But we’ll need a chatbot.” So they made one. A developer on the team spent a tremendous amount of time trying to understand the structure of a conversation with flowcharts. This raised new questions that influenced the article, which then influenced the chatbot. “The article was a huge success,” Campillo explained. “People started pinging the heck out of me on Twitter asking, ‘Hey, is this available?’ and after a while, we built it. Now it’s one of Typeform’s three offerings.” Typeform’s success fits a pattern. People increasingly want things they can see, try, and apply without sales pressure. Consumers are fatigued and fed up with traditional marketing tactics. If your product is good enough, enthusiastic users will indirectly do your marketing for you. Product-led advocates implore marketers to let buyers see your product organically in action rather than just pouring money into paid ad channels. Plus, going meta can be easier on marketers who are trying to figure out how to do their jobs in the middle of a pandemic recession while also reckoning with the country’s long unaddressed racial issues. There is no easy way to be both sensitive and clever, so brands are finding simple ways to show what they’re selling with a more honest approach that doesn’t sacrifice creativity. I’ve seen more and more companies launching webinars on how they use their own software. The really good ones are building trust with no-BS stories of trial and error—just people trying to figure it out and help other people. This path gives potential customers a chance to see what they’re paying for without PR glitz. From the calendar scheduling app startup Chili Piper inserting “book a meeting” links into its own marketing assets to the real estate AI startup Skyline AI using its own data to run reports, more brands are trying to use their software to advertise it. And you know what they’re all finding? It’s both earning them attention and, in many instances, saving them money. The budgetary benefits of self-aware marketing Now that I’ve highlighted self-aware content, you’ll start to see it everywhere. “If you’re lucky enough to have a product you can show without having to shoehorn it in, there’s really nothing more cost effective,” said James Winter, VP of marketing at Brandfolder. “We offer a DAM—an organizational platform for your company’s creative assets. When our sales reps reach out to prospects about Brandfolder, they create a Brandfolder, fill it with that company’s own assets, and send a link. People love it. It’s genuinely useful to the situation, gets them invested and comfortable with the product early, gets the point across, and yeah, it doesn’t cost us a thing.” Self-aware marketing can also save you agency fees—particularly in B2B software—since this kind of content relies on internal expertise. If it’s really clever and sparks a discussion on social media, you’ll get a better bang for your marketing buck. The customer data platform Segment, for example, ran a billboard campaign across major cities that got some major social media pull-through. It demonstrated the frustration people feel with bad data by buying billboards that addressed each city by its rival city’s name—in San Francisco., it read, “Good morning, LA!” “This actor in L.A. got caught up in the joke of it all and posted a picture of our billboard to his followers asking if we meant it to be there—twice,” said Maya Spivak, Head of Global Brand Marketing and Communications at Segment. “We got tens of thousands of these wonderful organic impressions.” If cost savings, added attention, and selling without appearing to sell aren’t enough
Prep Your Team for the Future of Marketing with These Key Lessons
The future of marketing is bright with opportunity. AI gives us the ability to create incredibly customized messages for our audiences. And consumers will continue to expect more personalized content and advertising as they engage with brands they love and those they’ve just discovered. The algorithms and technology used to serve those unique experiences will continue to become more sophisticated and advanced. Content and marketing teams must level up to keep pace with the changing landscape of consumer expectations. The future of marketing has already started This isn’t the first time marketers changed their operations and team functions to stay relevant. Before the 90s, no one knew about “digital marketing.” And who could predict that, with the birth of Google in 1998, words like “SEO” and “social share” would be top-of-mind? In a 2022 survey from Marketing AI Institute, over 51% of respondents said that AI is critically important to their marketing success over the next few months. And 74% said they’ll be intelligently automating more than a quarter of their tasks in the next five years. It’s time to face the music. The future of marketing’s team structure must undergo significant restructuring if it’s going to survive the disruptive shift AI will cause. But is AI genuinely on track to take over the world in some SkyNet nightmare? How can we reassure our team—and ourselves—that we can be relevant despite the coming changes? Training is crucial While most of us agree that AI is critical to future success, many marketing teams have yet to adopt it. Marketing and content teams are behind. So, why aren’t we leading the charge in embracing this new world? One of the biggest fears facing marketing teams? Not having the knowledge and education to integrate new AI tech successfully into strategy and process. Nearly half of the Marketing AI Institute’s survey respondents said they consider themselves beginners in AI, and most companies don’t have AI-focused training for their employees. Those marketing teams seeking to outpace their competition will need to ramp up their AI education starting yesterday. While we could get a certification in a topic and call it good a few years ago, that’s not the case with AI. As technology adapts and changes, so must our knowledge and training. To stay relevant and ahead of the curve, ongoing AI education and training will become a “must have,” not just a “nice to have.” It’s a unique partnership While we’re learning how AI can improve and accelerate our customer relationships, we need to start thinking about this tech differently. AI, while incredibly predictive and intelligent, isn’t perfect. It’s only as smart as the data it receives. While its ability to predict and deliver a fantastic customer experience is scarily accurate, it has its moments where it’s wildly off-brand or gives the wrong message to a section of an audience. That doesn’t even begin to touch on the legal and ethical conversations around the intersection of AI and customer privacy. To keep your AI tools on the straight and narrow, someone needs to ensure the data and parameters given to the machine are accurate. In addition, a human must watch those outputs to ensure the deliverables are just as solid. Division of labor In the future, AI will be a strategic member of your marketing team. As you look at all the strengths that your team possesses, you’ll need to decide which ones fit into “Team Human” and which ones fit into “Team AI.” We like how AI for CMOs: The Real-World Playbook for Digital Transformation put it: “Human marketers understand best what consumers are looking for in comprehensive, compelling content, and give them what they want. AI understands best what search algorithms are looking for when ranking search results and gives them what they want. It’s the perfect marriage of human and machine.” As you assess the functions of your team, look at the specific tasks within the 5Ps of marketing intelligence to determine where AI might fit best: planning, production, personalization, promotion, and performance. Some of the things AI tends to excel at include: Data-driven, repeated tasks Creating personalized experiences Providing better, more actionable data Generating greater ROI Predicting consumer needs and behaviors How do teams shift? As you’re looking at how AI sits at the marketing table, you also need to look at how the structure of your marketing team may need to flex. Are your teams currently siloed? This may be the time to readjust into cross-functional teams that can respond and bend more nimbly. Sadly, you can’t flip a switch tomorrow morning and have AI back your operations. As you move from “how you do it now” to “how we’re going to do it,” you’ll want to create a pilot program with a minor team that focuses on a specific project and puts your AI model to the test. You want to prove the model works before you try to scale up. The team you create for this project can be influential in training the rest of your team about how your AI works and what it means to use it as a true partner. A plan for long-term success It’s a complex and uncomfortable fact: Teams’ roles will change. Anytime a job held by a human for decades is threatened, it causes people to reach for that bottle of heartburn pills. Yes, some traditional positions will be replaced by AI, and some will be modified. But new jobs will also be created. How nice would it be to add “marketing AI specialist,” “AI ops leader,” “director of deep learning,” or “VP of AI” to your LinkedIn profile? The future of marketing will house different roles. AI will do repetitive tasks and even some level of data interpretation. Future marketers will focus on strategy, testing what AI delivers, and optimizing AI to perform better tasks. Humans will still be at the wheel. We’ve just got a new navigator. Image by girafchik123
Three Ways to Use Google Trends for SEO in Your Content Marketing
Content marketing is like cooking. There are days when you are inspired and creative and deliver the best risotto ever. And then there are times when you just want someone to tell you what to whip up because you’re flat out of ideas. Another challenge? Your creation has to satiate even the most finicky eaters. In its State of Content Marketing 2022 Global Report, keyword research tool company Semrush surveyed 1,500 content marketers worldwide. Only a little over half had a documented content marketing strategy despite nearly all (97 percent) reporting that content marketing was a part of their marketing strategy. Among their ongoing challenges: attracting traffic to content, improving its SEO performance, and generating content ideas. Fortunately, Google Trends is a free tool to help solve these challenges. It can help you deliver the best content consistently and creatively. Google Trends can help you figure out: The topics to address and the content you could create (what you can cook) How to time your content (when to cook what) Which keywords to play with and the kinds of content that will likely resonate with your audience (the right ingredients to use) Selecting a Content Topic Worthy of Engagement You want to feed your readers the content they’re most curious about, which directly ties to your brand. Peeking into keyword search is a great way to get on-the-money content ideas, giving you insights about what readers want to know. Compare and contrast keyword terms to determine how popular yours might be. For example, this chart shows that “car repair” consistently gets more hits than “car maintenance,” likely because repairs are more urgent than routine maintenance. To discover other related keywords that audiences use in search, look under “Related Topics and Queries.” You can see “car maintenance cost” and “car service” both do well. Related topics and queries can be especially helpful for identifying alternatives to keywords with a lot of competition for top positions in Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). Such long-tail keywords found through Google Trends are easier to rank for. Toggle “Rising” queries vs. “Top Queries,” and you’ll find the search terms gaining traction. Spotting and capitalizing on these trends early, especially in a B2C market, will help you ride the popularity wave while it crests. Be careful to time your activities. Fads can crash quickly, and prospective consumers will tire of a topic if it’s seen too much air time before you’ve gotten to it. Google Trends also enables you to parse search results by geography for further segmentation, which is useful for targeted pay-per-click campaigns. Look to Google Discover on mobile devices to sift for more contextual ideas. Use Data to Target Your Audience at the Right Time Successful content strategy is not just about discovering what topics and angles to cover; it’s also about targeting your customer at the right time. Use Google Trends to find keyword phrases relevant over long and short periods. You can start from 2004 (which is how far back Google lets you go) and measure trends over a year, a month, or even a few hours. The latter is useful if you’re playing with rapid-fire breaking news—though this is rarely the case with B2B content marketing. This screenshot shows the rise in searches about ChatGPT, an AI-driven language generation robot. While there were small blips in October and November 2022, it caught on like wildfire in December. Breakout trends like these might be worth harnessing, especially if you’re in the B2C market. A note of caution: You always need an original point of view, especially when the web is filled with content addressing the same topic. Watching trends play out over time can help your content strategy as you observe peaks and troughs for certain keywords. For example, do certain keywords trend as you approach Earth Day in April? Plan content calendars in advance so you can develop fresh takes every year. Optimize Your Content on the Right Channels Successful content uses relevant keywords and presents them in a format that suits the goals of the asset. If your strategy is not limited to written content alone, understanding what kinds of searches to optimize for (news, videos, etc.) will help. Toggle through the other options on Google Trends (Image Search, News Search, etc.) to find what kinds of content are doing well. It might spark ideas for diversifying your content buckets in the future. Much like cooking, sometimes content strategy requires understanding how well existing content (listicles, blog posts) is performing and how you can repurpose them in new ways. You can also use Google Trends to get inspiration for adjacent categories by looking under the “Related Topics” widget. A related topic for the “Chat GPT” search term, for example, is “artificial intelligence.” Google Trends can also help you keep tabs on your competition’s content efforts. Enter Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola in the comparison search boxes, and you can tell the cola wars are steady as ever. If your company’s search trend pattern dips compared to others, you may need to refresh your awareness-building efforts. Research Google Trends for Content Topics with Reach Google Trends is a helpful tool for identifying content marketing topics that have reach. Careful menu planning still doesn’t guarantee a great meal, however. Delivering consistent content that resonates requires you to understand your audience and audit content regularly to find the top performers. Use your best judgment. If a keyword term is tired and used often, try and test new topics and approaches. There’s no substitute for well-produced content that is useful, resonates with your readers, and effectively positions your brand. It’s a tried-and-tested recipe that propels your content marketing strategy on the path to success. To stay informed on all things content, subscribe to The Content Strategist for more insight on the latest news in digital transformation, content marketing strategy, and rising tech trends. Image by Adjima
What Are the Hot Content Marketing Trends in Technology for 2023?
Here’s the hot take on the trends related to technology for content marketing, based on responses to the 2023 Contently State of Content Marketing Survey. Almost all content teams—94 percent, in fact—use some technology to facilitate content creation and delivery. That’s according to the 206 marketing leaders who responded to the survey. A common thread connects the most popular technologies respondents use today, as well as the ones they’re planning to invest in for 2023. And that thread weaves through the challenges content marketers expect to face this year. That is, business leaders have high expectations for returning to growth, though they are scrutinizing how marketers spend every dollar. As a result, content marketing teams are focusing on building up the skills of their people and investing in enabling technology to drive content impact. Let’s take a closer look at how that shows up in the findings on technology. Installed Tech Emphasizes Collaboration, Publication, and Measurement Installed Tech Emphasizes Collaboration, Publication, and Measurement The most popular technologies for content marketing teams make it easier to collaborate, share information, manage workflows across projects and tasks, and push content out to the market. These include content collaboration tools like Google Docs, Dropbox, or Sharepoint; followed by content management systems like WordPress; SEO tracking and measurement solutions like Semrush or Moz; and project management platforms like Asana or Workfront. These insights into the technology that content marketers use echo the types of skills respondents hope to develop in their teams in 2023. Specifically, about a third of respondents say they want to improve project management skills in their people. This makes sense, given that better project management skills—coupled with a project management platform to provide transparency and automation—can make teams more productive. With clear processes, expectations, and information, content teams can spend more time creating and less time bogged down in clunky processes. Future Tech Will Enable More Efficient Creation That theme of doing more with the same resources also came through when we looked at the fastest-growing technologies in content marketing. For instance, we see rapid growth in the adoption of content marketing platforms in 2023. Eighteen percent of respondents used one in 2022, and an additional 24 percent plan to deploy one in the coming year. If respondents realize those plans, it would represent a 133 percent year-over-year growth in adoption by this sample. What other technologies will achieve transcendent growth in 2023? Generative AI, especially for language. That probably surprises no one. Fourteen percent of respondents say they used generative AI in 2022, and an additional 23 percent plan to deploy it in 2023. That’s a 160 percent growth rate! AI editing tools like Grammarly possibly smoothed the way, given that 40 percent of respondents already used them in 2022. Doing more with the same resources requires that content teams up their game with sound processes and a functional and easy-to-use technology stack. Learn more about how content marketers are investing in people and technology in the State of Content Marketing 2023 report. Click here to download your copy. Image by nadia_bormotova