Thursday, April 25, 2013

The Jeffalytics Google Analytics Periodic Table




If you want a more scientific look at the Google Analytics , take a look at the Google Analytics Periodic Table created by Jeffalytics.



Courtesy of: Depth of Knowledge by Jeffalytics





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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Some Valuable Content Gems From The B2B Content Conversions Conference April 2013





The B2B Content Conversions Conference was held recently on 22nd and 23rd April 2013 - Times Center NYC. This conference presented key insights on how to manage the content lifecycle. The reputed speakers http://content2conversion.com/speakers/ shared their thoughts which were shared on Twitter -   #B2BContentEvent .

content2conversion.com


I hope the cut, clarity and the true color of these content gems have been preserved as we share the valuable content gems of the conference as follows:

@TripKucera Trip Kucera, Aberdeen Group
  • 32% of companies have a robust content marketing strategy, up from 16% in 2011
  • We're in the age of data driven marketing
  • Content marketing has got to be about value
  • Marketers need to understand when and where they see content.
  • Lead Management is like scotch: Distillation generates value!
  • Good leads are made through valuable interactions
  • Offers are becoming content-like
  • Marketing leaders save $10k cost per new customer compared to followers. Do it right.
  • leaders say it takes 10 marketing touches to fully engage a qualified buyer
  • top 3 challenges: need skills, content quantity and content relevancy for content marketing success Top challenge for content marketing: lack of talent and resources.
  • Leaders are more likely to have a robust strategy in place
  • Become subject matter experts to offer great content
  • Content marketing is everyone's responsibility
  • Content marketing is primarily managed internally because it is strategic
  • It's content marketing, not content sales
  • Leaders align content with buyer personas & the right stage of the sales funnel. Followers don't.
  • Measure content specifically in the context of the buyer's journey.
  • it is becoming more critical to bring Sales into the content conversation
  • Think about content as marketing offers. Get granular in the way you measure content
  • Content marketing is the alchemy of intent
  • 37% of firms are managing it all in-house
  • Think about the incremental value of content
@juntajoe Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute
  • Content marketing is a business strategy
  • We're not renting the media with content marketing- we're owning it!
  • When you start a content marketing strategy , it can never stop. It goes on forever
  • Content Marketing is creating & curating valuable, compelling & consistent content to change or enhance behaviour
  • Content Marketing is a promise to our customers that we're going to give them something of value
  • Content marketing should change or influence behavior.
  • Content Marketing is a lot like sex. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you're good at it
  • If you do not have a documented Content Marketing strategy, you don't know where you REALLY stand
  • 85% of corporate blogs have 5 or fewer posts
  • Only 36% believe that content marketing is effective.
  • Have a content marketing mission- the ultimate litmus test!
  • 600% increase in leads for indium when Content Marketing  strategy became 'engineers talking to engineers
  • Content Marketing Mission: 1. Core target audience 2. What will be delivered? 3. Outcome for that audience?
  • Think like a Publisher or Journalist, not like a Marketer, when developing your Content Marketing strategy
  • Pull back - more content may not be the answer
  • Develop content marketing mission first
  • marketers are doing much and not seeing  ROI
  • If you're thinking about video, stop thinking of it as an advertising piece. Look at it as a value-add tool
  • The most important thing about video is audio, and keep it short.
  • Think about ROO: Return On Objective,
  • Have someone that owns the content feedback
  • Content marketing is a promise to our customers that we're going to provide true value.
  • Get Found, Get Shared, Get Leads
  • Content Marketing's home has always been in customer retention.
  • The biggest untapped opportunity for B2B content marketers? SlideShare,
@marketingprofs Ann Handley, Author
  • Features of the best content marketing: Utility, Inspiration, Empathy
  • Want to make your content share-worthy? Think about helping your customers. What would they thank you for
  • It's not about a task or channel, it's a mindset. Creating the kind of content that is sustainable
  • Don't think content tactics before you create a content strategy.
  • The best marketing feels like something you WANT to consume
  • My pet peeve: we make Content Marketing  WAY too complicated!
  • Content marketing can be boiled in the 5 Ws of who, what, when, where, why and then how.
  • The best content is packed w/utility, seeded w/inspiration & is honestly empathetic
  • The Content Team graphic  pic.twitter.com/EgBUYDpD4f
  • Newer content channels popping up: Instagram; Tumblr; Slideshare; Pinterest all poised for growth
  • Use social sites as storytelling platforms rather than just sharing platforms
  • A real test of meaningful content marketing: would your network thank you for it
  • If your customer signed your paycheck, what would your marketing look like?
  • The biggest piece of being a publisher is to think of your content in the eyes of your customer.
  • If you're thinking about video, stop thinking of it as an advertising piece. Look at it as a value-add tool
  • If your customers love what you do, they will follow you.
  • 2 things that go into the success of content: the science and the art of it.

@BrennerMichael Michael Brenner, SAP
  • It's not about what we sell- it's about what we do for our customers.
  • Our buyers are bored
  • Our buyers are looking for marketers to feel interested in their needs
  • In Content Marketing, act like a publisher—and publishers need to make money
  • We're bombarding our prospects with too many messages.
  • Our buyers are looking for marketers to feel interested in their needs
  • Deliver what your customers are looking for
  •  Stroytelling should be at the center of your Content Marketing .
  • If buyers ask a question, you must answer - Deliver the answers they are asking for
  • Create an editorial board @ your company if there are multiple people creating content.
  • 50% of SAP's content is coming from external sources, including 100's of authors - Author Curation
  • Author curation: Find authors on selected topics.
  • Content mktg metrics: reach, engagement, conversion.
  • Influencer Marketing is key to amplifying your content (stories)
  • SAP is starting to include calls to action within their Content Marketing articles
  • We exist within a content ecosystem
  • The biggest challenge in marketing is to get people to stop selling.
  • Content Marketing should not focus on talking about what you sell, it should focus on what you do for customers
  • The blog post @BrennerMichael mentioned during his presentation http://bit.ly/15DVgVv 8 Steps To Build A Content Hub That Converts [Slides]
  • Focus on subscribers as your conversion objective.
  • digital attribution is still a huge challenge, with last click metrics still ruling the day

@Tweetsfrompawan Pawan Deshpande, Curata
  • Curation is everywhere, reddit, digg,etc.
  • 32% of marketers share content from blogs, industry pubs or online outlets w/ custrs
  • curation is relevant now b/c consumers have too much content
  • Why is curation relevant? Consumers have too much content. Marketers have too little
  • The content beast has a very high metabolism:
  • think beyond your brand… include your competition
  • 95% of marketers are using OPC( Other people's content) today
  • CMOs care about both creative and metrics
@jasonthibeault Jason Thibeault, Limelight Networks
  • Stories are a container of ideas
  • By 2017 video will take up much of internet traffic
  • You message needs to be connected regardless of device.
  • Narrative arc is what connects us to our audience, gives them a reason to connect with our stories.
  • The digital relationship pyramid  pic.twitter.com/nnBiTQgXzU
  • If it is not connected the audience gets disengaged
@MargaretMolloy Margaret Molloy, Velocidi
  • Content means Brand, trust and relationship builder
  • There is no single attribution. It's a math problem

@lbfeldman Lori Feldman, Cigna International
  • Don't underestimate the importance of listening. Listen before you speak and develop content.
  • Stopping and listening, and seeing what's resonating in a given market is key
  • Listen to your audience and create content accordingly
  • The days of the one-size fits all website text are over
  • Don't forget pictures and graphics in your content. Images can resonate globally
  • Common mistake in Content Marketing : publishing without engaging, not initiating two-way conversation with customers
  • Revenue is important. but don't forget relevance & shareability of content to get audience to come back.
  • If we're not all sharing in this digital world, we're doing ourselves a disservice says
  • To get to the point of revenue, marketers must not forget the point of sharing (targeted/compelling) content
  • Think like a publisher; be an educator. Your audience is looking for insights. -- Tell, don't sell

Mark Wilson, @Avaya
  • Be provocative in content marketing,
  • Content Marketing must be... simple, unexpected, offer credibility, have a motive and told as a story
  • Instead of asking people what keeps them up at night, tell them what should keep them up at night.
  • Marketers are probably the worst people to write content
  • to make your content compelling, be provocative and snarky when writing
  • Marketing needs to look like a Newsroom, not a cubicle farm
  • Come up with a non-standard point of view and defend that view.
  • Content Marketing must be... simple, unexpected, offer credibility, have a motive and told as a story.
  • Serving a niche market is how you get BFFs - become the definitive source for that community
  • great content doesn't distribute itself - split out publishing from editorial. In Content Marketing  separate editorial (is it interesting?) from publishing (medium, frequency)
  • For a quick Content Marketing win, segment, then address audience needs
  • I don't care how many people are tweeting, not tweeting, etc. At the end of the day, we're here to drive revenue
  • Mobile content is a lot more popular
@LeeOdden Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing
  • 81% of b2b buyers start with search engines
  • Optimized marketing means your brand is the best answer when and where buyers need it
  • Must integrate SEO and content, but optimize for customer experience
  • Anticipate demand with search and create [I would say satisfy] demand with content
  • Search often validates what users find on social
  • The definition of optimized marketing pic.twitter.com/lJHCYiNtc1
  • Great content isn't great until it gets found, consumed and shared.
  • Not everyone in your audience will be motivated by an infographic
  • Be the best answer for customer needs and that matches your brand value
  • Optimize for engagement AND conversion, then through to purchase and advocacy
  • Optimizing is about making it easy to attract, engage, retain
  • Facts tell, stories sell. Stories are essential for your brand. It's key to amplify
  • Optimization is an ongoing process! If people have a great experience they're more likely to DO something
  • every author at your company should have Google+ account
  • 4 types of content: Evergreen, repurposed, curated, and co-created
  • 16% of daily Google search queries have never been seen before. Keyword research is a goldmine for content ideas
  • There are many content marketing tactics, but are they integrated? Alignment is powerful in the customer journey.
  • Investing in high quality content doesn't mean anything if people cannot consume it, says
  • You want to create anticipation
  • Real influence isn't huge fan & follower counts, it's niche communities that take action.
  • The quality of your content will contribute to shorter sales cycles
@CroweHorwath_US Lee Odden, TopRank Online Marketing
  • You have to be able to understand who you're targeting.
  • Target market segmentation is key in lead nurturing.
  • Talk about the buyer's journey, the buying cycle.
  • In lead scoring, pay attention to digital body language
  • An innovator isn't about new products. It's about someone who wants best practices.
  • 28% of invited executives engage in program after 7 months.
  • Don't underestimate the power of e-Comms and landing pages.

@madisonlogic Thomas Koletas, Madison Logic
  • The average buyer is in the research mode for 4 to 6 days.
  • Leads from content mktg are often not followed up for 2 weeks
  • Wanna be salesy in your copy? You've got to segment your audience
  • Video is most compelling content right now. Segmentation is pretty key too
  • Key question: How do you get intent data
@Robyoegel  Rob Yoegel, Monetate
  • You have to remember that everything you do goes back to the customer
  • The key is getting the right content in front of the right person at the right time
  • start Content Marketing by creating content that the sales team needs
  • Social drives 25% of inbound traffic!!
  • Search isn't dead - it isn't going away.
  • Content development should be someone's job
  • Only those who TALK to their customers know what their customers want
  • Sales people should be educators
  • If you don't have the answer, your competitors will.
  • You can't really have a content calendar without knowing what to write about,
  • Ask your audience what they want to read -- critical tactic.
  • marketers should have content addressing the first questions your buyers ask when researching
  • Only those who TALK to their customers know what their customers want
  • 4 ebooks a year can fill up your content calendar,
  • Nothing gets our hearts pounding more than video
  • More effective lead gen with video by thinking outside the frame
  • Traditional video is based on an old television model
  • Content Telemetry = measuring content use, engagement & impact
  • Engagement: moving visitors from passive to active consumption,
  • If marketing automation is the rocket, then content is the fuel
  • People have more tolerance for longer content with knowledge of where it's going and for how long
  • When content is wired for interactivity, clickstream can be captured
  • Adobe should allow measurement of engagement in PDFs.
  • One can't make Spielberg production with every video. Need a strategy using multiple types of video
  • The key to using video is figuring out how to survive the rest of that video strategy
@JeffFuhriman  Jeff Fuhriman, Adobe
  • Use everything you've got to keep it personal
  • lets its customer tell the story - the Adobe experience.
  • Personalization drives easily 40% more conversion on our website
  • Find your most valued area -- You'll fall fast, learn fast and reiterate fast.
  • Adobe Target + Demandbase IP can ID who you are BEFORE cookies. Skeaky, but nice given how flawed cookies are
  • The odds of winning today: 4 every 650 leads,1 deal closes in 19 months.
@fdonny  Frank Donny, Marseli
  • Sales leadership will not respect you unless you have skin in the game
  • A sales person is concerned about 2 things: time and money
  • On average, 60% of all qualified sales opportunities end up in no decision
  • Clever analogy of sales and marketing as relay race supporting the revenue supply chain: inquiry > nurture > qualification > selling
@jill_rowley Jill Rowley, Eloqua
  • Definition of sales enablement: content, tools & training.
  • Its not quantity of leads, but quality and conversion rates that matter
  • Contacts from a conference are not leads, scoring means getting sales-ready leads
  • People don't buy from those they cannot trust.
  • Sales is only managing 43%  
  • Use social to find, engage and amplify them
  • Read the content your buyers read and share it across your own social platforms
  • Enable your salespeople to tell customer stories
  • Some see prospects, I see future advocates
  • Social selling is different from social stupid
@TRiesterer Tim Riesterer, Corporate Visions, Inc.
  • You have to think of it through the entire spectrum.
  • Sales enablement answers: what are you going to say when you get the meeting
  • Give sales lead with a cheat sheet on what the lead is interested in to facilitate the first conversation

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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Content Marketing – From Renting An Audience to Earning An Audience




The Highlights According To An Econsultancy Survey In October 2012 Are:
  • Over 90% of respondents believe that content marketing will become more important over the next 12 months. 
  • Nearly three quarters (73%) of digital marketers agree that ‘brands are becoming publishers’. 
  • Less than half of companies have dedicated budgets (34%) or individuals dedicated (46%) to content marketing. 
  • Increased engagement is the most commonly cited objective for content marketers, with 52% of in-house marketers and 58% of agency marketers listing this as one of their top three business objectives. 
These statistics prove that though the majority believes that Content Creation and its marketing is important but less than 50% of the companies have yet to focus on the same by dedicating an in house team for content marketing or outsourcing it with a decent budget.






Why “ Content Marketing” is gaining the attention of digital marketers and brands?

In the real world you are what your thoughts are and you are known by the company you keep. On the WWW your identity is established by what you share and publish.

Brands need to establish their trust and credibility online to reach out to potential online customers or to retain existing customers . This is not possible by just having an optimized website for search engines .

A good site optimized for search engines may bring targeted visits to the site, but after the visitor comes to your site and gets impressed and is convinced by the content on your site he will go to the social media sites to confirm what others have to say about your products and services to get a reality check.

The content on your website is what you say about your products and services but the content on the social media sites put forward what others have to say and when both these voices are in sync a credibility is established. This may influence the visitor to buy the product online but the whole experience of buying online and getting any after sales assistance if needed establishes the faith in the brand.

When the visitor who becomes your regular customer and keeps getting the immediate quality services and response online spreads the WOM and when this WOM magnifies and multiplies TRUST is established.

More than the affordable price brands need to establish trust online and content marketing is the right platform for putting your best foot forward and for proving the trust worthiness.

Hence Content Marketing helps a brand establish its unique identity, offers a platform to engage with the customers directly, win public trust and can ensure happier clients.

On the web your potential clients or customers can come majorly from the search engines (Organic or Paid presence) and social media platforms.

In order to have a quality presence on search engines or social media sites brands need a well optimized site and a blog which is updated with regular quality and informative content. i.e your blog/site is a container for the content. Both the container and the content need to be impressive in order to convince.

The site (the Container) needs to have a good design appeal and also needs to be user friendly. The content adds the soul hence if the content is just a few paragraphs added just for the sake of adding words its of no use. Every piece of content should reflect the personality of the brand and raise the trust and goodwill factor limits a notch higher.

All this discussion raises the following questions which I am asked repeatedly by clients:

· How to create regular quality content?


Creating quality content regularly is a challenging task and needs a lot of planning and strategy to reap the right return. Depending on the purpose of the online presence the content marketing team needs to decide upon the right type of the content media mix - text, podcasts, videos, infographics, etc. Then the frequency needs to be decided upon i.e you would like to publish content daily or weekly. The content topics need to revolve round the purpose to be achieved online. If the main purpose is to establish a brand then publish blog posts about
  • The company happenings 
  • achievements 
  • faux pas made by your team 
  • efforts put in for making a product more innovative 
  • a solution achieved for a problem faced 
  • the industry ideologies that our company promotes 
  • Share the latest news about the products and services we deal in 
  • Videos about the new outlets opened or achievements celebrated 
  • Discuss customer reactions and review 
  • Support a cause , event or promote industry related conferences, seminars and exhibitions 
We all discuss our success but for a change if we discuss some failure and the lessons learnt by that also is something which gets widely read and accepted as it helps others learn from the mistakes made by us.




This way the web presence of your business will become a true reflection of your real time business where there will be no dearth of actual valuable content and this content will be helpful in projecting the true image reflecting the authority, identity and popularity quotient of your business. Every happening, innovation and development in your office or company can become a topic for a blogpost adding valuable content if you think it will help and offer some valuable information your existing customers, potential clients, shareholders or any targeted visitor to your website in some way or the other.

Work hard in the real world to have more satisfied customers and more acheivements in business which helps your business grow and then update and upgrade your virtual business and presence with the real world facts, figures and experiences thereby being in a win-win situation in the virtual world as well as the real world.

The greatest example is Google itself , if we see the Google blog or any other web presence they have – It is always updated with their latest developments and the discussions about what their priniciples and ideologies in practice.

Paid content, like paid links does not have any value, if your business is not living its actual essence in real life. It will soon fizzle out like paid links . But, content generated with a view of updating the existing client with the actual product information or the content which helps the potential client take a decision or the content which makes the shareholder in your business achieve confidence in the company is all content valuable from the user and the search engine perspective.

Genuine, informative and knowledge based content does not only add value to the content aspect of the web presence but also has the potential of getting inbound links in a natural way boosting the web presence multifold .


· What is the ROI of Content Marketing?


Content Marketing is not a campaign. Instead of buying the media the marketers are owning the media. Instead of renting an audience they are earning an audience and this takes time. In content marketing once you have built your audience you own it and it continues to generate market results. You don’t have to pay rent to the media. The point is that those who embark on content marketing must understand that it is a long term effort requiring significant investment of time and resources before its results can measure up favourably. “



You can start with monitoring visits to your website and to each of your content items. Increases in organic search traffic will signify that your SEO strategies are proving effective and that the keywords you have been targeting in your content creation are starting to raise your website up the search rankings. Another metric of success is increases in the shares of your content which you can monitor by tracking the social media reports.


The metrics that matter in this context are:

  •  No. Of Visits 
  •  Sources 
  •  Landing pages 
  •  Time On Site 
  •  New v/s Old visits 
  •  Facebook likes 
  •  Retweets 
  •  LinkedIn and other shares 
  •  Reblogs 
  •  Links back 
  •  Comments 
  •  Time spent on page 
  •  Average page views per visitor (especially if you're effective at internal linking of your posts) 
  •  Followers 
  •  @mentions 
Content marketing cannot succeed on its own as it is a part of the whole marketing mix. To understand the concept for ROI for Content Marketing we need to understand that the success of content marketing depends on the success of all the other links in the chain of the whole online marketing process.

The quality content published can reach a wider audience and have a long term life if the SEO of the site on which it is published is up to the norms and it is being crawled, indexed and ranked well. Further on it will have a good outreach if it is being shared on relevant social media platforms and the page on which it is published can be shared easily by the incoming visitors,

Hence the brand needs to invest on:

  •  Developing a good site with a good CMS and a good visual appeal and user friendliness 
  •  SEO 
  •  Having a good social media presence and identify the right social media platform for the kind of content it wants to share. 
  •  Create and curate good content regularly 

If the person managing the social media engages with the audience and keeps sharing relevant posts from the archives to answer their questions and cater to their curiosity the old published content can also be revived as per relevance.

·Is our SEO taken care of if we focus on content marketing?

SEO and content marketing are two different industries but are like two sides of the same coin. Your SEO may or may not create content for you and at the same time your content creator or writer may or may not optimize your site.

No doubt, every piece of quality content boosts your search presence – provided your site has been optimized wisely for the search engines and the search engines can easily index and extract the right context of the content to make it prominently visible on the search results for their users.






Where there is content there has to be an author. Hence establishing the Authorship Mark up is of utmost important as this gives an identity to the content and also helps in establishing the author as a thought leader.
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Monday, April 15, 2013

Strengthen Your Blog's Rep, Step by Step






Guest Post

According to eMarketer, 2012 saw U.S. Internet usage expand by another 3.1 percent, reaching 239 million people— 75.6 percent of the population. If you can consistently corral just a fraction of those reader's interests, you've got a massive success on your hands. However, all the ambition in the world won't help you get from aspiring blogger to massive success unless you know how to apply your savvy ideas consistently and effectively.


Managing your blog is like managing your brand. Noted internet author and lauded connoisseur Seth Godin describes a brand as a “set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships.” Tied together, they account for an audience/consumer's choice in product or service. Branding service Reputation.com knows that being on the web means “the end of forgetting,” Reputation founder Michael Fertig tells the New York Times. The double-edged sword of online exposure can be swung in the direction your blog's popularity— that is, if you use some savvy tips and tricks from the pros.
Stay Ahead of Trending Topics

Naturally, not every trending topic is going to be relevant to the content of your blog, but with some creative content strategy you can leverage the hottest tickets of the trend-o-sphere to help generate eyes to your site. If your blog is predominately home-and-garden based, for example, you could feature an article about the recently published look inside Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's new home. There is always something abuzz in the media that can help draw attention to your blog. Spending some time each day building alerts and perusing Google trends can help ensure you get the best bang for your trending buck.
Brief Yourself On SEO

Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the golden tickets of conquering internet popularity and reputation management. Although it seems like only super scientists truly understand the complex algorithms that make the internet zoom, teaching yourself a basic understanding of how key phrases and words can be used to help poise your blog is essential. Allblogbasics.com has an excellent run down of what bare bones SEO terms and practices means in three key arenas:
Site Layout (Site Design)

  • On-Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Off-Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Look for Creative Social Media Tie-Ins

Blogger Jeff Bullas remarks that the rise of social media was once thought to be a threat to blogging by many, however that has turned out not to be the case. Micro-blogging sites like Twitter and social media titans like Facebook had some bloggers worried that their content would be pushed to the wayside in favor of shiny new ways to connect.

 Luckily, this is not the case, and bloggers have found many creative ways to parlay social media to better their blog's reach and reputation. 

  1. Link Link Link: Spreading your words across all your profiles is an important way to increase attention and visibility, and can also help strengthen the SEO power of your posts.
  2. Titles and Intros: The title and first few lines of your blog post are the most important when it comes to getting people to click on it.
  3. Contests and Questions: Drawing people to your blog through clickable content is one thing, but bringing them there by leveraging their own interests is another. Tweeting engaging questions to your audience, can also help draw passionate people toward relevant content and get you noticed.