This Week in Content Marketing: The Future of Television Advertising Is Native

PNR: This Old Marketing with Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose can be found on both iTunes and Stitcher.

In this episode of This Old Marketing, Robert and I discuss Facebook’s dominance in digital advertising and predict how it will fill the biggest gap in its business model: Content. Next, we roll our eyes at yet another prediction of the death of content marketing, but acknowledge the author’s point that influencer marketing is more important than ever. We then turn our attention to new research from Google that “proves” advertisers should spend a lot more on YouTube ads, and we praise NBC’s decision to incorporate sponsored content into its popular Saturday Night Live TV show. Finally, we’re disappointed with an opinion piece from HBR that laments the glut of digital advertising, but doesn’t offer a solution to the problem. Rants include two beat downs on questionable native advertising practices. This week’s This Old Marketing example of the week is from Schneider Electric’s Energy University.

This week’s show

(Recorded live April 25, 2016; Length: 1:01:55)

Download this week’s PNR This Old Marketing podcast.

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1. Content marketing in the news

• Facebook’s scary new world for media companies (6:23): Facebook has created a scary new world for media companies, according to Business Insider. Their distribution — which controls how many people see your stuff and thus affects how much you can command for ads — is now in the hands of Facebook and Google, which may control as much as 85% of online ad revenue. Robert and I agree that the missing piece Facebook needs is content; that’s why it’s aggressively courting advertisers to host their content on its platform. We discuss several ways Facebook could easily fill the content gap, and what this could mean to brands and publishers.

• The death of content marketing – why brands must become cultural currency (14:59): Content is quickly becoming a commodity, warns David Armano. Because of this, it lacks cultural relevance to the audiences it’s supposed to influence. His solution? Brands should partner and collaborate with influencers in the niches they serve. In this way, they have the potential to make a bigger impact with customers who are members of these communities. Robert and I aren’t quite sure what Armano is trying to say in this article. Influencer marketing is very important today. But it has nothing to do with the supposed death of content marketing.

• Google says YouTube ads are 80% more effective than TV (22:00): In a new report that is sure to anger the TV industry, Google says that YouTube ads were more effective than TV ads 80% of the time. Fifty-six case studies from Google and its research partners show that advertisers should be spending six times more of their budgets on YouTube advertising than they already do. Robert and I agree that this is a self-serving study with dubious data. But we believe brands ought to consider devoting a small percentage of their ad budgets for paid distribution of their digital content – or doing something more innovative than jamming their existing TV ads into YouTube pre-rolls.

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• SNL will decrease ads by 30% next season (27:28): NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) plans to cut about 30% of ads out of the sketch comedy show next season. In its place will be six pods of custom branded content per year, produced by the SNL cast. This is part of a move by TV networks to make the viewing experience more consumer friendly by reducing commercial interruptions and weaving in brand messaging that more closely resembles the content viewers tuned in to watch. Robert thinks this is a genius move by NBC. I predict this is what advertising will evolve into during the next five years.

• Social cost of bad online marketing (33:43): Alexandra Samuel’s opinion column on HBR.org points out that relentless advertising and marketing have polluted the web to the point where independent voices have been pushed to the margins. Robert and I agree that this article is too focused on Samuel’s wishes for a pure, altruistic online world, but doesn’t offer a solution. She also ignores the fact that content marketing, if it’s done thoughtfully and strategically, can share information and educate – without being obnoxious about it.

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2. Sponsor (42:02)

• Marketo: No matter what rumors you’ve heard – email is not dead! It continues to be a top performing marketing channel – as long as you stand out. Check out Marketo’s Highly Effective Email Marketing Lookbook to get inspired with nine new email types to stay front and center with clever, catchy, and bold content. Download the Lookbook here: http://cmi.media/pnr128 
  

3. Rants and raves (44:39)

• Robert’s rant: Robert was recently interviewed by a newspaper for an article it was producing about the evolution of marketing. The interview went well, and covered a lot of great information. However, when it was published on the newspaper’s website, it contained a call to action at the end for the newspaper’s content studio. The reporter never disclosed to Robert that this article was actually a native advertising piece. That incident points to the need for full transparency in sponsored content.

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• Joe’s rant: A publisher friend of mine in northeastern Ohio was involved in the launch of a print and digital magazine. The publisher’s top management decided that it would run native advertising as if it was unpaid editorial, which violates FTC guidelines. I advised my friend against this decision and encouraged him to follow best practices for native advertising. The print magazine arrived this week, and sure enough, it contained at least 10 articles that appeared to be native ads. If the FTC decides to take action on this case, the brands running the ads will be at risk, not the publication.

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4. This Old Marketing example of the week (54:30)

• Energy University: Ten years ago, Schneider Electric launched Energy University, a free online educational resource that provides an extensive library of training videos about energy usage, technical developments in various industries, management solutions to energy consumption challenges, and other energy-related topics. It contains almost 500 courses and has over 500,000 subscribers, who have taken over 750,000 courses since the website was launched. The courses are translated into different languages, giving Energy University a global reach. Its impact includes acting as a source of new business for the company, providing insights into customer needs in regional markets, helping Schneider recruit new employees, and, of course, educating people about developments in the field of electrical engineering. It’s an excellent example of This Old Marketing.

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For a full list of PNR archives, go to the main This Old Marketing page.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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The post This Week in Content Marketing: The Future of Television Advertising Is Native appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

7 Less Obvious Tools to Improve Your Visual Content

You really can’t have enough tools for your visuals to make your content stand out. New tools bring more inspiration, creativity, and more ways to get your images in front of relevant audiences.

The more tools you get to know, the more you are able to experiment, and the more varied your visual marketing tactics become. Therefore, I share some newer, less-discussed visual marketing tools to help you improve and diversify your visual content marketing strategy.

You see lots of image-creation tools repeated from roundup to roundup. Here’s one of the most popular. I bet you haven’t heard of these tools – to create, to plan, and to promote visual content.

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Create visuals

1. Haiku Deck Zuru: Turn your slides into awesome visuals

The newest feature of well-known app Haiku Deck Zuru is a great way to repackage your presentation into lots of awesome visuals.

Upload your presentation, let Haiku Deck Zuru work on it for awhile, suggest some related tags and images (to help the app), and generate a collection of much more beautiful slides.

The visuals turn out better when you don’t have too much text on the slides so I usually end up deleting or skipping text-heavy slides.

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2. Bannersnack: Analyze how your audience interacts with your visuals

Bannersnack is an easy banner-management app that can be used as effective image-creation and analysis tool. Its new analytics feature shows how your audience has been interacting with your image via a nice heatmap:

This tool also has a handy editor, which enables you to create any size image or a banner and export it:

3. Datawrapper: Create cool charts

Datawrapper is by far the easiest way to visualize data. Using visuals to reflect numbers-related content can be useful in so many ways – presentations, infographics, etc.

Cool charts and stats visualizations are popular as social media posts so you may find yourself using this tool every day.

Export your information, customize with a couple of clicks, and then embed or share the visual anywhere you like.

The tool offers line, bar, stacked-bar, map, donut, and table charts as the basic templates. Upgrades enable you to check out the gallery for more options.

You can download completed charts in PNG formats if you want to take them offline as part of a presentation.

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Plan campaigns

These two tools will help you scale, plan, and semi-automate effective sharing of your visual content.

Note: I am sure you can name many more tools to accomplish this, but I am only listing two of the newest ones.

4. DrumUp: Co-manage multiple social media channels and schedules

DrumUp is a great way to re-share visual quotes across social media channels and schedule repeated shares.

DrumUp supports LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Plus, you can link to your Facebook Business pages and LinkedIn Company pages.

I recommend sharing manually the first time to make sure all social media tagging is done properly and schedule a few re-shares weeks (or even months) ahead.

5. Later: Plan and scale Instagram content management

Later is the only reliable Instagram scheduler I am aware of. The thing is, Instagram isn’t allowing post scheduling through an API. If you see any Instagram schedulers, they essentially break Instagram rules by using workarounds.

Later is different: It forces you to confirm each scheduled update before it goes live. I use this tool not to schedule, but rather to engage my team in our company’s Instagram-managing process.

You can add contributors to your Later account. They can submit photos, then you can put them on the schedule, and publish. I have found this to be the most reliable way to keep our corporate Instagram account constantly active (and thus quickly growing).

You can also add multiple Instagram accounts and get your team to contribute to any of them.

Promote visuals

Finally, if you’ve spent hours putting together great visuals, you want to make the most of their promotion. These tools can make your image promotion more effective and likely expand your reach.

6. Tweet Jukebox: Promote visuals on Twitter

Among the major social media platforms, Twitter’s updates have the shortest life span (about 18 minutes if you have a solid following). Therefore, sharing one update a few times on Twitter is a valid and wise tactic.

That’s where Tweet Jukebox comes in handy, as it allows you to scale for multiple tweet-sharing, including visual tweets. You can organize your updates in boxes and manage each box based on its own separate schedule. Once set up, a box lives its own life, promoting your updates again and again.

7. Viral Content Buzz: Promote visuals on Pinterest

Viral Content Buzz is the only social media promotion platform that has a strong focus on quality and supports Pinterest.

Using this free tool, you can create a project, enable Pinterest, and see how it works. Your article must have a good image in order for Pinterest promotion to work.

What other visual marketing tools are not receiving the coverage they deserve? Please share in the comments.

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Please note: All tools included in our blog posts are suggested by authors, not the CMI editorial team. No one post can provide all relevant tools in the space. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).

Stay updated on the latest tools to grow your content marketing success. Subscribe today to our free daily or weekly newsletter.

Cover image by Viktor Hanacek via picjumbo

The post 7 Less Obvious Tools to Improve Your Visual Content appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Try Infolinks to Boost Your Website Earnings

The vast majority of bloggers and webmasters monetize their sites with banner ads (such as AdSense or CPM ad networks) or with affiliate marketing deals (where they earn a commission for every customer they refer to affiliate partners). These two are very efficient ways to monetize your traffic, but you should rely solely on them if you want to maximize your earnings. In fact, the more revenue sources you have on your site, the better. First of all because many forms of advertising are not mutually exclusive, meaning that you can use them at the same time and both will generate revenue. Second because you won’t be putting all your eggs on the same basket. Should one of your income sources die you will have others still going.

The key aspect here is to find monetization methods that integrate well with the ones you are currently using. If you are using banner ads or affiliate offers, there is one monetization method that you should try in combination of those: Infolinks.

Infolinks is the leader in in-text advertising. They basically transform words from your blog posts and web pages into relevant ads. If you have a blog post about cars, for instance, they might transform the word “BMW” into an ad for a BMW dealer, for instance. Such a monetization strategy has several benefits:

1. It integrates perfectly with your site, reducing the ad blindness of your users and increasing your click-through rate and revenues. Many studies confirm that users tend to ignore banner ads completely, so in-text ads will help to solve that problem.

2. In-text advertising is complementary to Google AdSense, banner ads and so on, so you can use it along those networks. This is a huge benefit because you will be able to increase your revenue without affecting your current income streams.

3. The ads will always be related to the topic of your posts, and this will increase the chance of your visitors finding value from the ads. Again, studies show that ads that are relevant to your content vastly increase the chances of your visitors noticing and clicking on the ad.

Singing up is very easy. You just need to provide the URL of your website and follow the steps. You can even signup with your Facebook account if you prefer. The approval may take up to 48 hours, but usually you will get approved on the same day. Right after approval you will be able to integrate their code and start showing in-text ads on your site.

If you face any problem during signup and integrating, just contact the Infolinks support department. They tend to answer to queries very fast, and their support employees are very friendly.

The technical part is pretty simple too. All you have to do is to copy and paste some code into your HTML. If you are using WordPress, Drupal or Joomla, it is even easier. You will just need to install a plugin and it will do all the work for you.

If you are not using Infolinks yet, give it a try, as it can certainly increase the revenues your site is generating right now.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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This post is courtesy of: http://www.dailyblogtips.com

The DAM Truth: All You Need to Know About Digital Asset Management

When it comes to storing and sharing creative assets, does your organization use Dropbox or Box accounts? Google Drives or Sky Drives? Adobe Creative Cloud accounts, back-up hard drives, or file-sharing systems? Or some combination of these options?

When you hear about digital asset management (DAM) systems, do you think, “With all our media storage options, why would we ever need a DAM?”

If you produce volumes of marketing content and deliver it to different audiences across different channels, it’s worth finding out why. While DAMs offer the same benefits as cloud-based and other sharing and storage services, the best DAMs deliver much more.

What is a DAM?

A digital asset management system is a centralized repository in which organizations can efficiently store, organize, manage, access, and distribute large numbers of digital assets such as images, graphics, layouts, PDF files, documents, web pages, video clips, social media posts, and audio files.

How does a DAM enable effective content marketing?

A robust DAM offers benefits that span the content life cycle – from creation to management to distribution to storage – so it can help your organization master the challenges of modern content marketing.

A DAM acts as a single source of truth for your marketing organization. It brings together people, processes, and data to make many essential content marketing workflows – including creative collaboration, content review and approval, brand management, version control, and license management – more streamlined and efficient.

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By allowing your team to create content once and then customize it for delivery across multiple media channels, a DAM helps you reach more customers on more platforms with more targeted content so that you can be more effective at making sales.

And the best DAMs can interface with your existing marketing automation solutions to provide a single view into all of your marketing data, analytics, and resources.

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Benefits of a DAM

Here are some of the key benefits of DAM solutions for content marketers:

• By making internal processes more efficient and enhancing team collaboration, a DAM frees staff to spend more time on the core creative work that brings in revenue.

• By making it easy for team members to access the digital assets they need, a DAM speeds review, approval, and delivery of final files to get content to market faster, giving you an edge over your competition.

• By offering permissions-based access to digital content as well as digital rights-management controls, a DAM helps avoid common problems such as publication of outdated, off-brand, or unlicensed creative assets. This helps improve the quality of your brand communication to protect brand investments and even mitigate business risk.

• By giving authorized users quick, easy access to the files anytime, anywhere, a DAM eliminates time-intensive, costly file searches and recreation of missing assets.

• A DAM eliminates the need for staff to post and deliver files to multiple locations. In addition, it eliminates the costly errors and inefficiencies caused by different versions of the same file in multiple places.

• A DAM can be integrated with your marketing resource management (MRM), product information management (PIM), content management system (CMS), customer relationship management (CRM), or other marketing automation solutions. It acts as a single source of truth that helps you better manage projects, allocate resources, personalize and target content, and understand which assets are performing best across different channels.

• A DAM makes it significantly faster and easier to repurpose content across devices and platforms, opening up possibilities for new revenue streams. For example, some agencies make asset distribution a profit center by charging for every upload or download.

• Agencies can use a DAM to create secure, private web-portal sites customized for individual clients, partners, or teams.

• A DAM can help the sales team centralize proposals so that the entire team can easily review and collaborate. Efficient digital asset management also can be a value-added service that can help win business.

• The best DAMs also track the traffic for timely reporting and, if applicable, client billing.

Calculating the ROI

While DAM solutions have a wealth of benefits for content marketers, there’s no denying that DAM represents a substantial investment. First, there are the software licensing fees. (Contrary to popular belief, most open-source DAM solutions have licensing fees, too.) Second, DAM solutions include other up-front expenses for things like storage servers, staff training, and IT support.

Given the expense, your DAM solution needs to deliver maximum ROI. But if you’re part of a large organization that creates, manages, delivers, and archives many thousands of digital assets every year, the ROI of a DAM can be significant.

To find out the return for your organization, use this DAM ROI calculator. Plug in these estimates to get an idea of your total annual return:

• Number of assets you create and duplicate, with associated costs
• Time you spend searching for assets, with associated costs
• Number of assets you distribute, with associated costs
• Additional work and revenue streams you could gain, with associated revenues

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Top 10 questions to ask before you adopt a DAM

Now that you have calculated your potential DAM ROI, here are some important questions to answer before you consult with solution vendors or systems integrators about adopting a DAM.

1. Overall requirements – What types of file formats must it support, what volume of content does it need to handle, and what types of capabilities must it have (security features, job tracking, remote proofing, etc.)?

2. Integration – How will the DAM integrate with the software tools and workflow solutions already in place so that you can make the most of your existing IT investments? Can it interface with your marketing resource management, product information management, content management, or customer relationship management systems to provide a single view into all your data, projects, and marketing campaign results?

3. Hardware and network infrastructure – Are your hardware platform and network infrastructure robust enough to handle the DAM software and data transfer needs? If not, what will upgrades cost?

4. Disaster recovery – How will you ensure the security of your digital assets in the event of a system failure or another catastrophic event?

5. User licensing and privileges – How many people will use the system and what access do you want to permit? What types of user authentication will be required? Do you want your system to offer a variety of access levels for granting and restricting access to file formats, delivery methods, groups of assets, and administrative functionality?

6. Vendor selection – Who will be the key stakeholders in charge of the vendor selection process? How will they manage vendor consultations and the RFP process?

7. Implementation management – Which stakeholders will manage the system implementation with the vendor from start to finish? How will the stakeholders work together?

8. Internal adoption – How will you avoid resistance to adoption and get your whole organization on board with using the software?

9. Training – What’s your plan? How can you ensure that key employees are thoroughly trained on the software so you always have experts on staff, not just on call?

10. Support requirements –Do you need phone support vs. email support? What’s your expectation for response times and escalation processes?

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Conclusion

Acquiring a DAM system requires significant up-front work to ensure that it meets your brand’s needs – from your volume of content and existing internal programs to your implementation requirements and ongoing support. However, it’s worth the effort because a DAM can make a significant impact on your content investment. For additional guidance in preparing to adopt a DAM, download Essential DAM Implementation: A New Project Guide and Toolkit by Lauren Philson.

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Sign up for our Content Strategy for Marketers newsletter, featuring exclusive insights from CMI’s Chief Strategy Officer, Robert Rose. If you are like many other marketers we meet, you’ll come to look forward to his weekly thoughts.Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post The DAM Truth: All You Need to Know About Digital Asset Management appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

24 ‘Baller’ Tactical Plays That Will Up Your Content Marketing Game

To be successful, every marketer needs a game plan – a strategic collection of plays that will help you score points with your audience and produce winning results for your brand.

Having a documented content marketing strategy is always your smartest opening move, as it helps you clarify your brand’s strengths and opportunities, and ensure that your team’s players are all working toward the same goals.

But once you’ve defined your strategic direction, there’s still the matter of picking the content marketing tactics you’ll use to tell your brand’s stories and position them for optimal success. With so many content formats available – each with its own particular strengths and limitations – it’s not easy to figure out which ones will work best for your business. For example, have you ever considered your answer to any of the following questions?

• Which content creation techniques will help get our point across with those in our audience who prefer skimming to reading?

• Are there certain formats that require more resources, technical expertise, or maintenance than others, and are they worth the extra effort?

• Which tactics work better when we have an emotionally charged story to tell, or need to discuss a sensitive issue with customers?

• Are there formats that are easier to repurpose, helping us get more value out of our marketing spend?

If finding the right format for communicating at the right time and place is something you struggle with, we have a new resource that can help: The 2016 Content Marketing Playbook: 24 Winning Tactics.

2016 Content Marketing Playbook from Content Marketing Institute

The 2016 Content Marketing Playbook covers 24 of the most popular content types to consider when you are ready to execute:

• Social media content
• Case studies
• Blogs
• E-newsletters
• In-person events
• Website articles
• Videos
• Illustrations/photos
• White papers
• Infographics
• Online presentations
• Webinars/webcasts
• Microsites
• Research reports
• Print magazines
• Print newsletters
• Digital magazines
• Mobile apps
• Branded content tools
• Books
• Podcasts
• Virtual conferences
• E-books
• Games/gamification

Not only does this year’s playbook provide a snapshot of each technique’s value proposition, it also reveals key industry insights, offers ideas to help with content creation, and highlights essential considerations for achieving success with the tactics you select.

For each tactic, we share:

• The percentage of marketers currently using it (based on our annual content marketing research), and how that usage rate varies across several key marketing sectors (B2B, B2C, Australia, United Kingdom, and nonprofit)

• How effective marketers find each tactic (according to those who are using it)

• Tips that make it easier to create content in a given format and increase the impact of the effort

• Killer brand examples of each tactic in action

We’ve done the prep work by detailing over 24 plays. Now, you can study them to create your brand’s content marketing playbook. Game on.

If you are looking to learn even more about working with content marketing tactics like these, enroll in the content marketing industry’s premier online education and training program – CMI University. Sign up now to secure your spot before our next semester begins.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post 24 ‘Baller’ Tactical Plays That Will Up Your Content Marketing Game appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

So You Want to Be an Affiliate: Start Here

If you’re just starting to dabble in the world of affiliate marketing, it can be a lot to take in and wrap your head around. At the core, it’s simple: affiliate marketers promote a link (i.e. a product), and when people buy from that link, the affiliate makes a commission.

But before you take your first steps toward becoming an affiliate, it’s important to know the lingo and understand the different offerings and best practices out there. With that in mind, we’ve put together a primer with the basics.

Don’t force a square peg into a round hole

The most successful affiliates are the ones that have found their right niche and product fit. When thinking about what program to join, ask yourself: Is this product something that will fulfill a need for other people? Would I enjoy it for myself? Can I talk comfortably about it? You want to say “yes” across the board.

Some affiliate programs involve promoting a single product or service, while others can open you up to many products that will help your readers. For example, joining eBay’s affiliate program gives you access to 800 million listings by sellers in a wide range of categories in eBay’s marketplace.

Getting paid

Affiliate marketing is a form of “performance-based marketing,” that is, affiliates drive visitors to purchase (or another action, below) and are then rewarded. There are three main commission models offered by affiliate programs:

• Cost per sale (CPS): You get paid when you drive a visitor to the affiliate merchant’s website and they complete a purchase. This is the most common payment type.
• Cost per lead (CPL): Also called cost per action (CPA), in this model a lead can be defined as a registration, download or other action.
• Cost per click (CPC): This model isn’t based on sales or conversions, but rather you earn commissions based on the number of visitors you drive to the merchant’s site.

Commissions vary across each network. With eBay’s affiliate program (a CPS model), the amount is based on category-level commission rates. Affiliates earn anywhere from 40% to 80% of eBay’s revenue, depending on what product they’re selling.

Commission models and base rates are one of the biggest factors to consider when looking at affiliate programs, but also be sure to compare any bonuses or other opportunities offered. For example, eBay Partner Network pays a 200% commission bonus for each purchase made by a new or reactivated eBay buyer.

Using tools and tracking

Once you’ve found the right program and model for you, you want to do things right. Luckily you’re savvy and do your homework. Stay ahead of selling trends with Terapeak, a powerful tool for eBay and Amazon sellers to identify top products and know where to focus your efforts. DataLabs, a free eBay-specific alternative, gives insight into top selling items in real-time, along with their value.

Finally, tracking and analytics should be woven within all of your efforts. Ensure your website is properly set up with analytics, use unique tracking codes for different campaigns, and dig into the data from your site as well as from your affiliate partner often to know what’s working and what isn’t.

Now that you’re primed with the basics, check out this comprehensive rundown by affiliate marketing expert Geno Prussakov to learn more about getting into the affiliate marketing game.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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This post is courtesy of: http://www.dailyblogtips.com

15 Things to Try When Your Content is a Mind-Numbing Wall of Text

BAM! You’ve hit the wall.

It’s over. Your creativity has run out.

Your content marketing was purring along just fine, but then the juices stopped flowing, and the content got really boring.

Your users can tell. What used to sizzle and pop with excitement is now a mind-numbing wall of text and brain-cell-killing content.

What should you do?

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1. Drop the blog

Maybe it’s time to stop blogging. For real. If your blog is that boring, then give it a rest.

Source

To stop blogging is not to stop content marketing. Instead of blogging, try your hand at a new content form. Take some inspiration from GoPro. I don’t think it has a blog, at least in the traditional sense.

What does GoPro have? Lots of content – really, really good content.

You can have an incredible content marketing thing without even having a blog.

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2. Shoot some videos

While we’re on the subject of GoPro and videos, let’s talk about that for a second. As content marketing trends go, video takes the cake.

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Why? Because it’s so engaging.

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Give video a try. You may discover your newest content marketing love.

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3. Start a Twitter hashtag movement

Twitter is the ultimate non-boring optimizer. How does this work?

With Twitter, instant is everything – instant content, interaction, posting, visibility, “likes,” and retweets.

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In this instantaneous environment, content is bound to be anything but boring. By unleashing a unique Twitter hashtag campaign, you can start something that takes on a life of its own.

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4. Host a meetup

Sitting in your cubicle all day can lead you to create boring content. Try a meetup. Get real people to come hang out, have some beers, and get to know each other.

Meetups bring the static nature of an online content form into the dynamic interaction of human beings.

5. Try a new, random platform

Never tried Pinterest? Give it a go. What if it doesn’t work? It doesn’t matter. Try it anyway.

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Using a new-to-you content platform can rejigger your worn-out brain cells and give you some sweet new not-so-boring ideas for your existing platforms. See?

Who even knew that mustache dating was a thing?

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6. Pull a stunt

What kind of stunt? Embrace the full power of your imagination.

Red Bull did a space stunt. Well, the edge of space at least.

Source

What kind of stunt can you pull? It depends on your industry and your audience.

Some creative people buy iPhones and then drop them.

Waste of money? Maybe. But look – it got over a million views.

It’s not boring, that’s for sure!

7. Rap

“Rappers are the original content marketers,” writes Eric M. Ruiz in Observer. You might not have the style of a Jay Z, but you can unleash a rap, right?

HubSpot did it.

OK, it’s corny, but hey, it’s not boring, right?

8. Hire someone new

This might hurt. But it’s OK, it’s a good hurt.

Hire someone new. Fresh blood in your organization can shake things up, give you some spicy new ideas, and infuse your content with the not-so-boring approach that you need.

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5 Essential Skills for Content Marketing Copywriters Today

9. Get ideas from your competitors

Have you thought about stealing ideas from the competition? On AMC’s Better Call Saul, James McGill did this, and even though it didn’t work out for him, it could work for you.

No, I’m not suggesting that you do anything that would violate copyright laws. Obviously.

Source

What I’m suggesting is that you take a look at your competition and see what they’re up to. Perhaps their approach could spark some different ideas that you can implement into your own content.

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10. Give away free stuff

One thing that HubSpot did right was to give away free stuff. Lots and lots of free stuff.

Providing your audience with free resources is smart. Why? Because everyone loves free stuff. Even if the content itself is dry, the concept isn’t. By providing free resources, you can jump-start an otherwise predictable marketing campaign and take things to a whole new level of interesting.

11. Go real deep

One area in which a lot of content marketers seem to struggle is the depth and authority of content.

Here’s what I mean. There’s a lot of great information on the Internet. Sadly, a lot of this content simply repeats itself. The content that you write is no different from what competitors A, B, and C wrote on their blogs.

You don’t want that. How do you differentiate your content in a way that is interesting and makes people want to read it? You make it better by making it deep.

When you delve deep into a topic with all its fascinating nuances, intricacies, technicalities, and disagreements, you get readers who are interested in that level of detail. These are the readers that you want. They’re engaged and sold on what you have to say.

Boring for some? Maybe. Boring for the right people? Not a chance.

Brian Dean uses a version of this in what he calls the Skyscraper Technique.

• Step 1: Find link-worthy content.
• Step 2: Make it even better.
• Step 3: Reach out to the right people.

It’s true that there’s “nothing new under the sun,” even in content marketing, but at least you can make something better under the sun.

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12. Go real long

Deep content is great. But long content is also great.

Often, deep content is long content.

Long-form content has been my preferred method for several years. I often write blog posts that are thousands of words long. My advanced guides are super long – basically book length.

There’s a major benefit to long-form content. It has higher search rankings.

Source

I don’t recommend that you write long for long’s sake. Instead, write long because it’s interesting.

This seems counterintuitive, but remember what I wrote in the previous point? Long-form content will attract the right kind of readers.

Some readers are in it for a quick thrill. But other readers want deep, long content.

13. Use more images

This will be quick. If you’re not using images in your blog posts, it’s boring. It’s that simple.

Add images, and you’ll add interest. End of story.

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14. Get a celebrity to endorse your product

It doesn’t need to be a Tom Hanks or anyone super famous.

Every industry has its celebrities. You may have never heard of Peep Laja, but he’s basically a god in the conversion rate optimization industry.

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Who’s your industry’s celebrity? As long as that person is not a competitor see if you can get an interview, an endorsement, or just a loving pat on the back if that’s what you need.

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15. Create a caption contest

Engagement is not boring. And there’s no better engagement than the caption contest. A simple “caption this” can turn your bored fans into eager participants.

Conclusion

Boring content is a complete turn-off. It bores you. It bores your readers. It discourages your brand. To punch boring in the face, you’ll have to do more than use active verbs and italicize words.

You’re going to need to do something absolutely new.

Maybe this has given you some ideas. Now it’s your turn.

What are your ideas for creating content that is absolutely not boring?

Want to spice up your content marketing? Sign up for the free daily or weekly CMI prescription to grow your skills and program.

Cover by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post 15 Things to Try When Your Content is a Mind-Numbing Wall of Text appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

5 Must-Have Ingredients for Any Online Marketing Strategy In 2016

If you are new to internet marketing, you may not know where to begin. It may sound complicated, but all you require is to have your strategy in check. You need to know the crucial ingredients for a successful marketing strategy. Remember it is s new terrain which you are not used to. Also, if you only have an online marketing campaign which is poorly performing, then you might be doing everything all wrong. A good strategy will have all the ingredients and track the progress of each when you launch the campaign. It is essential to know how to incorporate all those strategies into your aim to achieve the desired objective for your business.

Statistics show that small businesses will spend more than 15% to pay their SEO team as compared to large businesses, which brings the point of what you need for your small business. An effective marketing strategy will thus have to be cost effective especially for internet marketing. A successful marketer will try to find a gap in the market before they can set up a cutting edge strategy to fill that gap. This is how they achieve the objective of luring customers from their competitors. There are a couple of ingredients which are a must have if you want to be a successful online marketer.

Search engine option

There are numerous SEO strategies that will focus on different search engines. You have to optimize your content or business to a search engine that provides results. When it comes to Google search engine, it is the biggest concerning the searches conducted by people online. You have to build your SEO strategy around this search engine. Although other major search engines like Bing are proving to be reliable in the market, you cannot afford to sideline Google when developing an online marketing strategy. Google should thus be your priority search engine where you build your marketing campaign around. This is the case if you want to build a large customer base and increase traffic to your site.

Social media

It is the desire of every marketer to find marketing resources pooled together. It is what social media has to offer. With more than 400 million subscribers on Instagram only, you can do a lot with such a number. However, you need to single out your target market as not all will be buying what you are selling. You have to set your social media marketing strategy in a way that your target audience will find your message. Facebook can prove to be the most reliable depending on what you are selling. It is the best regarding the number of subscribers as it commands about 1.5 billion users.

Keyword research

Google analytics will help you discover what is trending regarding keyword research. You have to know the keywords to optimize, and this is achieved by researching on the keywords that your target audience is researching on major search engines. Let’s say; you have selected Google as the search engine to build your SEO strategy around. You can research the keywords that your target audience is using on search engines at the moment. After you have the highly searched keywords depending, you can optimize those keywords to increase traffic to your site. It makes it easy for your site to rank at the top on search engines like Google.

Quality of content

Scrapped or unoriginal content will choke your SEO efforts. The latest updates and SEO rules on Google will require that you have quality and relevant content. Original content will improve your SEO while relevance will impress your readers. You have to give interesting and up to date content if you want to engage your readers in a positive way. The best marketers will look for content that is relevant depending on your business and also maintains a proper SEO strategy. In short you have to optimize for both the search engines and also the readers. This is how you achieve quality. The number of views will help improve the online presence of your site and increase sales on the same. Social media marketing gives your business the needed attention to your target audience on social media.

Backlinks

They are aimed at improving traffic on your site. You can link your site to high traffic sites like news sites to increase the number of visitors. Backlinks work well when you have quality content. If you desire to improve your SEO, then you need to develop a site that gives your readers relevant and quality content. All these ingredients will help you launch your online marketing strategy.

This post was a contribution from ShoutAgency.com.au. Visit their website for more information on how you can optimize your site in 2016 and beyond!

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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This post is courtesy of: http://www.dailyblogtips.com

The Seductive Power of the Dark Side [Rented Land]

For years, John Battelle, entrepreneur, technology innovator, and the founder of Wired, drilled into media and marketing professionals the idea of NOT building your content house on rented land.

As recently as two years ago, he clearly stated that “if you’re going to build something, don’t build on land someone else already owns. You want your own land, your own domain, your own sovereignty.” Why? Simply put, once you publish on someone else’s platform, you do not own the subscribers or assets associated with that content. Even if you build followers or fans on that platform, it doesn’t give you the right to communicate with them.

John went on, “Trouble is, so much of the choice land – the land where all the ‘people’ are – is already owned by someone else: by Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Apple (in apps, anyway). These platforms are where … the people are, after all. It’s where the headwaters form for most of the powerful streams on the Internet. It’s tempting to build your brand on those lands – but my counsel is simple: Don’t. There’s plenty of land out there on the Rest of The Internet. In fact, there’s as much land as you want, and what you make of it is up to you as a publisher.”

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It’s tempting to build your brand on land someone else owns, but my counsel is simple: Don’t via @johnbattelle
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Rent is skyrocketing

We’ve seen the effects of building on rented land. Brands of all sizes built their content houses on Facebook, amassing, in some cases, millions of followers. Where Facebook once allowed brands to reach their audiences directly, organic reach has now plummeted to all-time lows.

In this chart from Jay Baer, Facebook organic reach continues to spiral downward while Facebook’s stock price continues to jump.

Jay says, “Facebook encouraged businesses to build and reach audiences for ‘free’ on their platform (until that free ride ended), and that should be no surprise whatsoever. Clear-eyed business observers have been raising the alarm about building your house on rented land for years, but Facebook has still been able to pull off the greatest Gillette scam ever (you give away the razor, and then sell the blades).”

Once Facebook “decided” to make money, it squeezed out direct communications to your fans in the hope that you would pay to reach them. Facebook executives were 100% correct on that notion.

And it’s not just Facebook. The case can be made that we have been slowly moving back to the television era, when CBS, ABC, and NBC owned the majority of the access to the audience. Today’s networks are now Facebook, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Instagram (part of Facebook), and Twitter. Simply look at the changes the folks at LinkedIn and Twitter are making to their algorithms. They are deciding what your followers see, and in most cases, it’s not your “stuff.” Either you can sit back and watch as nothing happens, or try to reach your audience by paying a larger portion of rent (advertising).

The rent was once free, and all was right with the world. The new networks want to make more money (and it’s their prerogative to do so). The question is, can you afford to make rent payments or is there a better way?

Seduced by the dark side

Medium, another growing “network,” is making the case for becoming THE publishing platform on the web. Its beautiful interface and easy-to-use back-end tools have enabled companies to move their blogs permanently over to Medium like Basecamp did with its Signal vs. Noise blog.

David Heinemeier Hansson, founder of Basecamp, said that the move from “owned” to Medium provided Basecamp with a solution to ongoing IT issues, as well as the ability to reach a new sphere of influence in the Medium community.

But the real sell, according to Hansson, was that with Medium “offering custom domains, we’re ensured that no permalink ever has to break, even if we leave the platform. By committing to never showing advertisement, unless the publisher consents, we can remain with Basecamp as the sole commercial sponsor of Signal v. Noise. Between these two facts, we feel confident about owning our content and our legacy, regardless of where Medium-The-$82M-VC-Funded-Company goes.”

To the content marketer, this sounds too good to be true. Now I:

• Don’t need my IT department for support
• Reach a larger possible audience
• Am assured that there will be no advertising except for my own
• Can keep “ownership” of content if we switch platforms since the permalinks won’t break

Yeah … and I’ll be over 6 foot in height someday.

Heck, I’ve been wrong before (just ask my wife and kids), but how do we know that Medium won’t change its rules? If Medium goes out of business, will the platform continue to be supported? Are we positive it won’t offer advertising on our platform?

It is likely that YouTube and even Facebook didn’t know their future direction would include squashing organic requested (opted-in) content as they evolved their business models. Can Medium make significant revenues and stay true to these promises?

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Anakin Skywalker or Darth Vader?

Now let’s go back to our friend John Battelle – our fearless leader of all that is good and earnest with publisher-owned assets … I know we can count on him as our guiding light.

A few weeks back, Mr. Battelle used Medium to announce the launch of his new company, NewCo Shift. It’s positioned as a business media property covering the business model transformation in technology. NewCo’s new home? Medium.

Yes, that’s correct. Our leader is launching his new publishing platform on someone else’s land.

[insert sigh here]

Now, before I get all worked up, let’s look a bit closer at the new business model.  “NewCo’s media offerings also include email newsletters, long-form features, video, and media native to major social media platforms.”

Ah yes, email. Mr. Battelle will be leveraging Medium’s tools and reach, not to build an asset on Medium, but to leverage this “could-be-temporary” platform to build the real, monetizable asset – email. As we look at CMI’s own subscriber hierarchy, email is the pièce de résistance.

To be honest, I’m not sure if Mr. Battelle has lost his mind or if this move is truly brilliant. Based on his past moves, I’m betting on the latter.

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You are in real estate

Like many individuals, my Aunt Patty (currently residing in Florida) wondered what I actually do for a living. As background, Patty was and is a whiz in the real-estate market.

To save time with the answer, my wife astutely answered “Joe is in the real-estate business, but his ‘land’ is on the Internet.” Brilliant.

The point? Renting is fine, depending on what your goal is. But it needs to be known that every successful publishing operation – at one time or another – owns and has access to its assets. As certain networks get larger and more influential, the dark side of the force will continue to reach out to you and pull you in that direction.

I’m all for leveraging as many social media networks as makes sense for you to accomplish your marketing goals, but make sure you know what you are getting into. You should get up every morning knowing that the beautiful “rentals” you’ve created on these networks may have been swallowed up overnight.

If you keep that kind of perspective, you can focus on what you are truly trying to build, and whether there will be something left at the end of the day (or hour or minute).

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Want to see and learn about all sides of content marketing? Make plans today to attend Content Marketing World 2016 – Content Strikes Back – Sept. 6-9 in Cleveland. Use code BLOG100 to save $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post The Seductive Power of the Dark Side [Rented Land] appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

The Importance of Visual Content for Your Blog

When you read an article, either in a paper form or online, do you enjoy the whole process more if you have a long ream of text, or do you prefer to have the content broken up with videos and pictures?

Whilst many people do respond well to the written words, there’s no denying that being able to see some images is the way to get to the heart of most people.

If you’re currently wanting to spruce up your blog, perhaps reach more people and increase your traffic, it’s probably time you should look at how much visual content you have on your site.

Why Is It All About Vision?

Because the human eye and the brain responds in a much more positive way to the things it can see itself.

Think about yourself and what appeals to you. If you were reading a blog and it was a long page of writing, without a picture or GIF to break it up, would you continue reading? And if you read a little more, would you be inclined to act upon the content?

Probably not.

However, if you were reading content and it had writing and visual content, such as photos, videos, and GIFs, would you feel more pulled in, more enthralled, and more inclined to continue?

I’m guessing so.

Our Brains Are Trained to React to Visual Stimuli

There is a statistics that 90% of the information that is processed by the brain in a better manner is visual, so taking advantage of that biological statistics is certainly the way to go in terms of boosting your blog content traffic.

Visual content creates emotions and feelings, it pushes the point you are writing about to the fore, and it allows people to see what you are talking about, rather than just trying to imagine it for themselves. Yes, people like to use their imagination, but sometimes they need to see what you are discussing.

Content such as this is easier to share, and this is another reason why it works so well for your blog. If you embed a YouTube video into your blog, it can be shared on Facebook or Twitter, for example, which pushes your blog content to more and more people, which could then lead to more followers in the long run.

Pictures, videos, GIFs etc, make people want to read, and they make people want to act.

You don’t spend hours writing an article for someone to just read it and think, ‘ok, that was interesting’, and then move on; you write blog posts because you want people to read it and feel something about the content. This could be a formed opinion, an action, or a need to read your future posts later. People can tell friends and family about your blog, generating more traffic this way.

That all can all be achieved with the help of visual content, and it doesn’t have to be anything too complicated. A few nice photographs, a video at the end of your post, or even just a GIF in the middle to drive home the point, these will all work wonders for your traffic numbers, and future action by readers.

The story was contributed by Sunny Dawn, a writer at http://www.freelancehouse.co.uk/.

Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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This post is courtesy of: http://www.dailyblogtips.com