Category: Marketing

Making mistakes is a part of life. We all make them and eventually learn from them if we’re lucky. The same truth applies to businesses and their efforts to grow their brands.

However, some mistakes can be more costly than others. And in the world of content marketing, there are a few faux pas that you want to avoid at all costs if you’re going to be successful.

This blog post will discuss the top 10 content marketing mistakes you don’t want to make and how you can avoid them.

1. Producing Low-Quality Content

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in content marketing is to put out low-quality content. This can include anything from blog posts that are poorly written and researched to videos that are poorly edited and have poor audio quality.

Low-quality content can damage your reputation, and it’s less likely that people will come back to purchase from you again. If you’re not a great writer but have something important to say or share with the world, hire someone who is! Your audience will thank you for it in the long run.

In addition to hiring or training writers, make sure they understand basic SEO principles. So that what they produce is optimized correctly. The proper use of keywords and phrases will ensure readers find your high-quality content online through search engines like Google and Bing.

Remember: every piece of content represents your brand, so be mindful about what you put out there into the world! Take pride in everything you do by producing well-researched, high-quality content.

2. Publishing Without a Plan

Another common mistake is publishing content without a plan. This can result in blog posts that are all over the place, videos that don’t make sense, and other types of content that are difficult to follow.

When you publish content without a plan, you’re not only doing your audience a disservice but also yourself. It isn’t easy to produce high-quality content when you don’t have a roadmap to follow. Not to mention, it can be frustrating for readers (and viewers) when they can’t make sense of what you’re trying to say.

Before hitting the “publish” button, take the time to map out your ideas and organize them into outlines or storyboards and a publishing plan. This will help ensure that your content is easy to follow and provides value for your audience.

3. Failing to Create Value

Another mistake you want to avoid is creating content that doesn’t provide any real value. This can include blog posts, videos, and other types of content that are filled with fluff or don’t answer the questions your audience has.

When you’re writing a piece of content, think about how it can help your reader after they’ve finished consuming it.

Do they have more knowledge? Do they feel inspired to take action or are better equipped for something? If not, there’s probably some room for improvement in how you craft your message.

The same principle applies to videos and other types of content. Think about the value you can provide your audience with each piece of content that you produce, whether it be a blog post or video tutorial.

Nowadays, people have short attention spans and are bombarded with an excess of daily information. So if they’re going to read something or watch a video all the way through, it needs to be worth their time.

4. Not Promoting Your Content

Promotion is an essential part of the content marketing process and one that many people overlook. If you don’t promote your content, there’s a good chance no one will see it or know about it. Unfortunately, that means all the time, effort, and money you put into creating it were for nothing.

Take the time to share your new blog posts on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. Use relevant hashtags so they can be found by others who may search those terms online. Social media can be an excellent way for people to find your content in real-time and share it with others. However, it’s important to remember that building a social media brand presence can also come with risks.

Organizations should be mindful of the type of content they associate themselves with on social media and how it can affect their reputation. For example, if you share a post related to your industry but filled with profanity or offensive language, people will associate those qualities with your brand.

5. Being Inconsistent In Your Messaging

If you want to build a loyal audience, you need to be consistent in creating and publishing new material. While posting frequency might be different from one company to the next, it’s crucial to establish a dependable format of content generation.

When you’re inconsistent with your messaging, it signals to your audience that you don’t really care about them or are not serious about content marketing. This can lead to people unsubscribing from your email list or, worse, turning away from your brand altogether.

The key to being consistent is to develop a publishing schedule and stick to it as closely as possible. That way, your audience knows when new material is coming out, and they can plan accordingly.

6. Not Targeting Your Audience

When you produce content, it’s essential to target your specific audience. This means creating content that is relevant and interesting to them. If you create content that isn’t targeted, it will be difficult for people to find it, and they may not stick around long enough to see what else you have to offer.

When creating content, think about your ideal reader and what type of information they are interested in. Create brand personas and then produce content that caters to their needs.

Some organizations may also make the mistake of not being inclusive enough in their messaging. For example, suppose a business only writes articles that appeal to a particular group of people, but a much more diverse group of readers also follow the organization on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. In that case, those audiences may feel left out by not having content directed towards them. Releasing content without measuring the various sensitivities of the different cultures, races, and ethnicities that absorb the material can lead to devastating public relations consequences.

8. Not Measuring Results

Another one of the biggest mistakes content marketers make is not measuring their results. If you don’t measure your results, you won’t know if your efforts are successful or not. It can be beneficial to track things like website visits, social media shares, leads generated, and other vital metrics.

By measuring your results, you can determine what content is working and what isn’t. You can then make changes to your content strategy based on the data you collect.

9. Not Optimizing Your Content

If you’re not optimizing your content for search engines, it’s unlikely to be found by people looking for it. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making sure that all elements on a webpage are optimized to rank higher in search results and receive more web traffic.

SEO is one of the most critical parts of content marketing. If you don’t know what people are typing into search engines when trying to find something specific, getting the results you’re looking for can be challenging and costly. Therefore this step needs attention first before moving ahead with creating content that could potentially be useless if not targeted towards your target audience.

10. Not Using Visual Content

Finally, visual content is a great way to get people’s attention and make your point. But many organizations don’t take advantage of this opportunity or do it poorly.

For example, if you’re writing an article about why you should use infographics in marketing campaigns. That would be a perfect opportunity to include an infographic with statistics related to the same topic. This gives readers the ability to quickly scan over numbers at a glance rather than having them read through paragraphs of full text, which may not always hold their interest.

The problem is that many organizations don’t know how to create visual content that looks professional and appealing. They may rely on the use of poorly formated images or graphics, making content look unprofessional and damaging to the brand image. 

It’s also important not to forget about using video when creating blog posts. Video has become a popular medium for spreading messages. People spend hours per day watching videos online from platforms like YouTube or Vimeo, along with many other sources. This means there’s an opportunity here for brands if they’re willing to invest some time into creating quality videos instead of just relying solely on text-based articles only.

In Summary

Content marketing can be a great way to promote your business. But if you’re making any of these common mistakes, you’re not going to see the results you want. By avoiding these common marketing faux pas, you’ll be well on your way to creating successful content marketing campaigns that will help grow your business.

You may have the most skilled people in the world on your marketing team, but does that equate to a productive team? Surprisingly, many leaders in marketing will tell you no, that skill alone won’t improve the productivity of your marketing team. 

However, there are some things you can introduce into your skilled marketing team to ensure peak performance and a more cohesive unit. 

On-point management, a diverse team, and healthy company culture can aid better productivity on your team. Let’s explore these and go over ten tips in total for improving the productivity of your marketing team. 

Revisit Marketing Goals and Measurements for Success 

One of the first things you can do to improve the productivity of your marketing team is to revisit your team’s marketing goals and measurements for success. 

How do you measure productivity on your team? How do you measure the success of your marketing efforts? If your marketing campaigns are successful, does that mean your marketing team is also? What are your marketing team’s goals? 

It’s essential to revisit the above questions when your team’s productivity is lacking. If you find that you don’t have solid marketing team goals, measurements for success, or ways to gauge productivity, solidifying these things can give you a clear pathway to better productivity. 

Ultimately, revisiting your team’s marketing goals and measurements for success can give you things to track to ensure your team is trending toward improved productivity. 

Better the Management of Your Marketing Team 

Next, you can improve productivity by bettering the management of your marketing team. Many people leave their jobs and companies because of management. Unfortunately, even when employees complain about managers and present evidence of unhealthy behaviors and interactions, many company leaders fail to take action. 

Don’t be one of those company leaders. Instead, improve the management of your marketing team to increase productivity and keep team members there for the long term. If you need to replace a manager, do it. 

Otherwise, encourage your marketing manager to take their skills to the next level. Empower them with the support and resources needed to improve their decision-making, communication, and relationship-building skills. Also, challenge them to take on management opportunities outside of their regular duties to learn more about top-notch management through experience. 

Overall, better management will ensure marketing team members are well taken care of and supported, which, in turn, motivates them to perform at their highest at all times. 

Solicit and Encourage Feedback From Your Team 

Another tip for improving productivity is to solicit and encourage feedback from your team actively. One of, if not the best, way to find out how to get better performance from your team is to ask them. 

Don’t just ask for feedback at the end of the year. Instead, ask for your team’s input throughout the year and encourage them to share their honest feedback on the following:

• How the team is collaborating 
• Describe any recurring issues among the team 
• If they have concerns with specific team members 
• If updating team tools and technology is necessary 
• How you can help the team be more productive
• How to personalize the team’s workflow 

By encouraging feedback from your team, you’ll have an opportunity to learn exactly what your team needs to be more productive and get guidance on implementing those suggestions. 

Assess Your Current Team 

You may need to assess your current team to improve productivity. For instance, are they a cohesive unit? Is everyone getting along and willing to work together for the greater good of the marketing team? Are they able to solve conflict among one another?

Also, examine the skill sets each member has. Do the skills each team member possesses cover all that you need to deploy successful marketing campaigns? Are you missing a particular skill set, expertise, or personality that would enhance your marketing team?

To sum up, assessing your current team will give you insight into what’s missing to improve overall productivity. 

Consider Bringing New Team Members on Board 

In assessing your current team, you may realize that it’s time to bring new team members on board. If you consider getting new team members on board, be sure to take pride in diversity and inclusion. 

Putting a diverse team together gives you a leg up in productivity because you have access to varying perspectives, solutions, and skills that will ultimately improve the way your team works together and how they’re able to serve your customers. 

It’s best to outline a recruiting strategy to bring new team members on board. Then, look for top talent on social media, job boards, job fairs, and by asking for referrals. 

Once you’ve chosen a few quality candidates, interview them. Use the interview to vet the candidate, learn more about their skillset, and gauge whether their personality will be a good fit for your team. 

Finally, choose the best candidate, guide them through onboarding, and connect them to your team. 

Bringing new team members on board can improve your marketing team’s productivity by bringing on personalities that encourage a positive team spirit. Hiring new employees also helps you fill specific team needs, so people don’t have to wear many hats.  

Recognize When it’s Time to Let Someone Go 

In addition to bringing new team members on board, it’s also vital to recognize when it’s time to let someone go. Of course, letting someone go is difficult. But, at the same time, it could be necessary to keep your team healthy, collaborative, and communicative. 

If you’re experiencing the following with someone on your marketing team, consider letting them go: 

• Their performance continues to decline after already discussing it with them 
• They aren’t interacting with the other team members in a positive way 
• Their negative behaviors and presence is disruptive to the rest of the team 
• The marketing projects they’re a part of are suffering 
• They’re not meeting deadlines consistently
• They refuse to take feedback and adjust 

Although it may be challenging to let someone go, doing so may be the key to improving productivity on your marketing team. 

Put an Emphasis on Improving Communication 

Improving your marketing team’s productivity could just be a matter of improving communication. If your team isn’t communicating effectively, their production is most certainly suffering. 

Sit down with each team member and explore their thoughts on the team’s communication. In addition, find out their preferred communication method and style. Understanding how each person views communication can give you insight into how to construct communication expectations that suit the entire team. 

Emphasizing communication will help you define a blueprint for the best way to connect on your team.  

Reevaluate How You Do Meetings

In examining your team’s communication, you may find that your team doesn’t see the point in team meetings every week. Of course, it’s essential to meet with your team, reconnect, and ensure everyone is on the same page. But, maybe not every week, maybe not for as long as you’re putting them on for, and maybe not with every single person on your marketing team.  

It may be best to change the frequency of your meetings and examine how to make your meetings more productive and relevant. 

For instance, retrospective meetings may be all your team needs. Experts define retrospective meetings as “meetings that occur at the end of a project to help teams pause and think about improving future performance.” 

You can check in with your team as needed, but only enforce a team meeting requiring everyone’s attendance when a project is complete, and it’s time to evaluate what worked, what didn’t, and how to be better in the next project. 

In short, reevaluating how you do meetings can help you stop interrupting your team’s workflow with unnecessary and irrelevant meetings. 

Offer Professional Development Opportunities 

Another way to improve the productivity of your team is to offer professional development opportunities. Some people lose motivation, and their performance declines because their job responsibilities don’t challenge them. In other words, their role is predictable, mundane, and just plain old boring. 

You can reignite their dedication to your company, role, and responsibilities on the marketing team by equipping them with professional development opportunities. For example, you can make mentorship available to them, offer to cover part of their expenses if they want to go back to school, or award internal upskilling training opportunities to best-performing employees. 

In the long run, your marketing team members will be more enthusiastic about work when they know you’re willing to help them get to the next step in their careers. 

Revisit Your Company Culture  

If your marketing team’s productivity is declining, it may not be because of the actions of your marketing team. Instead, it may be a result of toxic company culture. 

Revisiting your company culture and evaluating its health is crucial to ensure your marketing team walks into a positive workplace environment that incites growth and productivity. 

Help build a healthy company culture by: 

• Prioritizing employee well-being
• Encouraging a healthy work-life balance  
• Offering mental health resources 
• Offering flexible work schedules 
• Make sure workloads are manageable 
• Putting people-centric management in place 
• Being transparent and authentic at all times 
• Emphasizing ethical workplace practices 
• Implementing employee suggestions for improving company culture 

Ultimately, revisiting your company culture is an excellent idea when determining how to improve the productivity of your marketing team. 

Conclusion: Improve the Productivity of Your Marketing Team 

Improving the productivity of your marketing team requires intention, strategy, and an openness to learning about what’s best for your specific team. 

Start the process of improving productivity by revisiting your team’s marketing goals and measurements for success, bettering your management team, and encouraging feedback from your marketing team members. 

You can also assess your current team, bring new team members on board, and let some go if necessary. Be sure to emphasize improving communication and reevaluating how you do team meetings. 

And finally, offer professional development opportunities and turn your attention toward your company culture when it’s time to better your team’s productivity. 

You’ve succeeded in your marketing efforts, yielding high levels of traffic on your website — and yet, you still aren’t making the number of sales you’d like. This situation indicates a problem with your drop-off rate, and reducing it is key to reaching your customer conversion goals. 

No matter what product or service you’re marketing, understanding drop-off and why it occurs is a necessary step towards preventing it and maximizing your sales strategies. Let’s explore the steps you can take now to mitigate drop-off in your e-commerce ventures. 

What is the drop-off rate?

First, we must define what we mean by the drop-off rate and what it entails. 

Drop-off occurs at any point in the customer journey in which the customer has garnered some interest in what you have to offer, but for whatever reason, they stop short of making a sale. These customers “drop-off” by abandoning your landing page, product information, or online cart. Suddenly, the traffic you generated just disappears, leaving you with a lower ROI on your marketing investment. 

Google AdSense defines the drop-off rate as “the percentage of ad responses that did not result in an impression.” This simply means that your marketing efforts came up short. The process failed, and customers left without completing their purchases.

Unfortunately, determining why a drop-off occurs is not exactly straightforward. The world of digital commerce is a rapidly developing one, and a wide variety of factors can play into a customer’s decision. But businesses across industries recognize the need for a comprehensive analytical look into their sales procedures and are using digital tools to help them determine problems in the process.

Now, even 38% of manufacturing companies are turning to e-commerce investment as a means of improving customer experiences through more direct interaction with customer data. E-commerce naturally yields data, which can in turn be applied to understanding where and why drop-offs occur. From there, customer journeys can be analyzed to produce better results.

How can you keep drop-off at a minimum?

Preventing drop-off is all about creating value for customers and giving them experiences that they don’t want to turn away from. This starts at the planning and development stage of your e-commerce venture and doesn’t end with a successful purchase. Instead, your customer experience should be designed around promoting customer success across every stage of the journey to keep buyers engaged and satisfied. 

As a digital marketer, you need to apply data and analytics in the creation of narratives that inform the sales funnel. From here, you’ll be able to craft specific customer profiles and action statements that produce a smoother customer experience. In turn, your drop-off rate will … well … drop.

You can start by mapping the customer journey to potential problems with your marketing platform. These are the stages to consider:

Awareness

This is the stage of the customer journey in which they find or become aware of your company. We wouldn’t consider a failure at this stage to be a drop-off, per se, since prospective customers don’t even know who you are. However, there are still important factors to consider at this point that will impact your sales down the line. 

Ask yourself the following questions: Where do your ads lead customers? How are audiences finding you? What interests align for prospective customers that might lead to them engaging with your products or services? 

At the awareness stage, explore audience demographics, markets, and paths to build a customer profile. Analyze what type of purchasing habits match this profile and utilize this information to build a better purchasing experience for this target customer. By building a shopping experience with the customer in mind, you will ensure higher conversion rates later on. 

Consideration

Then, explore the consideration stage. This is one of the most important aspects of the sales funnel when it comes to promoting greater conversion rates. You need to sell your products and services while making the case that you have something to offer that none of your competitors do. 

Ask yourself these questions: What challenges are users experiencing? What value do you offer? What do customers need? 

Once you analyze how your product or service adds value to the customer profile you developed earlier, you can fine-tune your marketing message to emphasize this value. Exploring the connection between your value proposition and the customer profile will help you catch problems like poorly targeted ads or a lack of perceived value that might be turning customers away.

Purchase

At this point, customers know what you have to offer and they’re ready to buy. The only thing that might be standing in their way and creating drop-offs is the shopping experience you provide for them. This is where you explore your user interface and web store functionality to ensure a seamless process.

Ask yourself these questions: At what point in the purchasing process are customers abandoning their carts? Is your checkout procedure fluid and intuitive? Are there any surprises for the customer as they attempt to make a purchase?

Customer frustration is the number one cause of drop-off at the purchasing stage of the customer journey. Go back to the customer profile you developed and personalize the purchasing journey for your specific target market. Find your problems through extensive testing and feedback gathering. Then, organize a bug bash with your development team to promote engagement while knocking out issues as quickly as possible.

Retention

Finally, your ability to retain and satisfy customers is instrumental in preventing drop-offs. Customers will explore what other people are saying and could be turned away by any reports of bad experiences. This is why the software and web development processes do not end at launch but rather move into in-depth testing and maintenance procedures to find and fix problems as they occur.

Ask yourself these questions: What is your customer satisfaction rate? What percentage of customers come back for another purchase? Where could you create more value for your customers? 

Retaining customers requires you to make their comments and concerns feel heard. Be sure to have a solid customer support team ready and developers who can implement the requested feedback. All these considerations are essential when improving conversion rates. Gather customer feedback and utilize all the tools available to you to streamline the experience.

Utilize all your tools to improve conversions

Fortunately for digital marketers, there are plenty of tools and resources at your disposal for creating a more efficient sales strategy. This entails conducting data analysis and gathering information through every available platform to better ensure success. As you move through the customer journey mapping out potential drop-off points, consider these resources:

• Google Analytics and social media insights pages
• Keyword research tools for content marketing and ad building
• Email marketing and surveys
• A/B and user testing
• Accessibility evaluation tools

Create a comprehensive approach to your marketing strategies, exploring every possibility for where and why drop-offs occur. Data and customer feedback can be your best friends in this process, so gather all your tools and resources now to build a seamless digital commerce experience. 

Content marketing is more competitive than ever. Now that most businesses understand the importance of producing their own digital media and the basics of content generation are second nature to most marketers, standing out takes more than simply knowing the process or having the budget to launch a few campaigns.

Successful content requires a team to push it to its highest level of quality. That team also needs to have a well-rounded skill set to handle whatever challenges stand in their way. This article will explore those necessary skills, explaining why they are beneficial and how they serve your overarching marketing goals.

Understanding Content Marketing Roles and Their Associated Skills

To understand the skills that a content team requires, we need to cover some basic content marketing roles. The specific job titles might vary depending on who you ask. But nearly every content marketing team covers these responsibilities in one way or another:

Content Strategy and Leadership

Every marketing team needs a leader. They may be called a content manager, chief content officer, or content marketing program director. Rest assured almost every case the role boils down to that of a seasoned marketing manager. 

It’s the leader’s responsibility to think strategically about content generation and direct the efforts of the team. In order to be successful, they must possess the following skills:

• A grasp of the content creation process: Leaders should have a working knowledge of writing, designing, and editing content themselves. Although they won’t always take a direct role in the process, having some proficiency lets them relate with the team and understand their challenges better.
• Strong marketing instincts: To strategize, identify target audiences, and hone in on what kind of content the team should be creating, the leader needs to have a firm grasp of marketing concepts and an ability to connect a product or service to the target audiences at which they are aimed.
• A mind for analytics: In the modern marketing landscape, metrics and analysis play a large part in guiding the direction of a team. The team leader, therefore, should be capable of understanding what the data means and how to right the course based upon metrics, KPIs, etc.
• The ability to organize: A good marketing leader needs to delegate tasks to the team and run the show. He must also have the ability to stay organized and understand how the parts of a whole can work in unison.

Using these skills, content leaders will usually perform the following duties:

• Research topics of interest, compile keywords, create outlines, and handle other elements that set the stage for the team to create great content.
• Set the marketing goals for the team and measurements for success.
• Communicate responsibilities to the rest of the team.
• Help maintain consistency of brand and tone for all marketing content.
• Monitoring the stages of content production and managing the team where required.

A good leader is essential to the content creation process, but it’s not nearly as daunting as you might suspect. Just as crucial (and arguably more difficult) are the team’s content creation and quality assurance roles, which we’ll cover next.

Content Writing

Without content creators, your content marketing team produces nothing, so roles like content writer are almost always in constant demand. 

While they may have some general marketing knowledge, SEO ability, and aptitude for devising keywords, that’s not their main focus. The writer’s job is exactly that — to produce amazing written content. Thus, they should possess these characteristics:

• High-level research skills: To go on at length about various topics, writers need to know how to properly track down information from reputable sources.
• Excellent command of the written word: Essentially, the writer must know how to write. This means, in addition to understanding how to string together interesting sentences, they can do so without making them overly complicated and still getting their point across.
• An ability to adapt for tone: Different audiences may require different writing styles. Good writers can adapt their words to match the expected tone of their audience.

The writer’s responsibilities are straightforward:

• Researching topics and finding a unique point of view.
• Creating written content that is easy for readers to navigate.
• Engaging readers by making topics simultaneously interesting and informative.

Writers may or may not be an official part of the team. In many cases, they’re brought in as freelancers and contract workers. Nevertheless, the role of writing is integral to content marketing efforts, so no matter who, someone has to do it. 

Content Design

Strong visuals often accompany the written elements of content marketing. Your designers are the ones who are responsible for their creation. 

They may specialize in website creation, data visualizations, visual branding, or some other niche. In most cases, they’ll come with the following abilities:

• An eye for design: Per their roles, good designers will know both what’s aesthetically pleasing and what’s best at getting the point across. They’ll be able to balance both to create simple-yet-elegant imagery.
• A knack for design software: Most designers know how to use the programs in Adobe Creative Cloud for various purposes. Or they may even have a few of their free alternatives under their belt as well.
• An ability to work within brand constraints: As talented as they are, the best designers know how to reign in their imaginations and stick to what’s brand-appropriate when need be.

Throughout their duties, content designers will:

• Create visual assets for the team’s content marketing efforts.
• Update website and other digital platforms with visual assets.
• Keep visuals and imagery consistent with brand tone.

Like writers, designers may be in-house employees or outsourced additions to the team. The same isn’t usually typical for this next role, however, which is often closely tied with management and strategy.

Content Editing

While most content creators can do some self-editing, a well-rounded content marketing team needs individuals who are focused solely on making sure everything is up to the appropriate standard of quality. By and large, editors will have:

• Excellent grammar and spelling: Editors will need to review the work of your writers to make sure that spelling and grammar are in order.
• Knowledge of the content marketing team’s style guide: That style guide is what content will need to be checked against, so editors must know it inside and out.
• Competency within the industry: Editors need to make sure that content matches up with what’s true about the industry your team works within, so they should at least be knowledgeable about industry trends. In more advanced fields, it may be advantageous to hire someone with a level of technical competency as well.

You’ll want your editors to cover these core responsibilities:

• Ensuring content reads well and is factual.
• Editing content for grammar, logical consistency, and style.
• Optimizing content for your site and other digital platforms.

On many teams, the role of editor is sorely underutilized, yet it is integral to ensuring your content is of a high standard of quality. They’re also the final stop before content goes out the proverbial door, via this final content marketing role.

Content Promotion

Your content promoters are there to make sure that the right audiences see your team’s hard work and effort. They’ll utilize social media platforms, essential for promoting digital commerce, and other outlets to spread the word, relying on their array of PR-focused skills:

• Ability to make connections: Promoters have to leverage their network to help your content proliferate, so they need to be skilled at making professional acquaintances.
• Adept at social media: Social networks are central to all manner of promotional activities now, so your content promoter will need to know their way around.
• Skilled at building hype: Your content will perform better when there’s excitement around the topics, so your promoter should have some skill at generating it.

Like the other members of your team, they’ll have a straightforward set of duties:

• Taking content and boosting its reach via promotional techniques.
• Creating hype surrounding upcoming pieces of content.
• Forging relationships with influencers and other key personalities who might help spread your content even further.

Remember that content promotion requires an ability to interact with others. So you might not want to seek out any introverts for this particular role.

Wrapping Up: Assembling Your Team, Training Skills, and Moving Forward

You must have all the essential content team roles covered. Otherwise you’ll run into a situation where your team is hampered, because only a few people are trying to cover the wide range of skills you need to function. 

What’s more, a well-rounded and cohesive marketing team is key. To create the best content possible, nail your goals, and scale your content marketing campaigns. It’s not something you should overlook, if you want to achieve sustainable business growth.

You can and should recruit for the skills that your team is currently lacking, but keep in mind that hiring new employees isn’t your only option and that training your current team members is a great way to help them grow while meeting your team’s needs. 

For example, you might have designers who are great when it comes to web work but need some brushing up on their video editing skills. In cases like these, getting them to take a few classes and building their skill set might be the best option.

Whatever you decide, remember that it won’t do you any good to skimp on talent. Make it a priority to assemble a team that can meet whatever challenges dot the road to great content creation.

According to Statista, Email users are set to grow to up to 4.3 billion in a coming couple of years. That is about half of the world population here. 

For comparison’s sake, Facebook’s user base is about 2.7 billion and that is the world’s biggest social media outlet. So forget Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and even TikTok for that matter.

At this point, everyone with access to the internet pretty much has an email address. Billions of people around the world check their emails on a daily basis.

Hence, there can’t be any doubt of Email Marketing’s popularity, which is a boon and curse in the same breath.

Boon, because it is super accessible, takes less effort, money, and time. Curse, because everyone already knows this and which is why we all get tons of emails every day.

Tons of emails vying for your attention, vying for your one look and click that will make all the difference.

To successfully pull off this feat, you need a good…nope, GREAT Email Marketing Campaign.

Email Marketing Services are an important aspect that we’ll discuss later in this article, including what to look for when choosing one.

But before you go digging around the internet for email metrics & secrets, there are a few things to know before launching an email campaign to ensure its overall success.

So let’s take a look at 5 things an amateur email marketing campaigner must prepare before launching: 

Set Goals

(source: pixabay)

Everything that you would ever do in your life will require you to have a set objective, target, mark, endgame, or a goal in sight so you can organize strategies around it.

Similarly, your emails are supposed to serve a fixed purpose as well. That way you can plan out your future emails more efficiently.

For example, if you are:

• Welcoming New Subscribers: New subscribers will expect an introductory email that tells them more about your business and values. You can introduce yourself, your patterns, or the rest of your team if you’re going to a lot of back & forth with the user.
• Hyping Your Engagement: These are the basic run-of-the-mill emails that you send once or twice a week to promote an initial sale, sell a course, seminar, or basically anything new that can require the user’s attention.
• Preaching To Your Regular Subscribers: Keeping users on a daily drip of any kind of content helps engagement. It doesn’t even have to be that special. You can simply share an idea, thought, or a wishful message as you’d send to a friend.
• Surveying Your Subscribers: These emails can be used to ask your subscribers a few coverts (or overt) questions about their taste, hobbies, interests, etc. that you can use to target them with a specific niche.
• Re-engagement: Very often, users get bored of seeing you in their inbox frequently but not motivated enough to unsubscribe completely. Hence, you can start ending up in their spam. To combat this, you need to check up on them and find a way to regain their trust.

Identify Your Target Demographic

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Knowing your target demographic is pretty much half of the game. Of course, you can target people who would follow and like your niche but your main goal should be to actively seek out people through social media and other networks to join.

Word of mouth is always great because it initiates a snowball effect once you send your first email out. As people learn, they share, and this way you collect user data that you can use to further increase your audience.

Google Analytics is a great tool to accurately understand your demographic. You can source your data through their ‘Analytics’ tab (which lets you add multiple sources by the way) and then you can use the ‘Audience’ tab for demographic stats.

With the right implementation, you can track your audience’s interests, gender, locale, and even hobbies to a good measure. Facebook Insights is another great tool but considering Facebook’s fading popularity, it’s better left out.  

Kinds of Emails

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Yes, there are different kinds of emails for different kinds of purposes. It is important to prioritize them as required. For example, Product Update emails would be more preferable over Information emails because you’re trying to make a sale.

Everyone knows about promotional emails that they probably get on a daily basis and emphasize sales and promotion. Some people may tell you that there are 3 kinds of emails but we have 4 for you: 

• Information Emails – Basically emails related to more of the technical nitty-gritty stuff about your company a.k.a rules & regulations, policies, etc.
• Digital Newsletter – A news feed of topics and links about subjects related to your niche.
• Product Update – Products announcements, lineups, improvements, betas, prototypes, concept art ideas, courses, seminars, etc.  
• Transactional Emails – Signup confirmations, welcome greetings, checkout confirmations, or information regarding changes in user policy.

You can structure these according to your business’s trajectory. For example, you can send weekly newsletters while hinting at a new course or ebook you’re working on. 

Know Your Tools

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We hinted at marketing services earlier in the article. These services have teams that can help you work out the specifics much easily while you also maintain control.

And yes, you are still on your own even with these services. At the end of the day, they are just tools. The way you use them makes all the difference.

Now we can’t teach you how to use these tools but here are a few tips that could help you out:

• To save time, try getting a hold of templates and preset workflows
• Integration with other apps that you might already use or input useful data into like WordPress or Google Docs/Sheets
• Social Media sharing capabilities
• Mobile support shouldn’t be here but considering how many people actually open emails on their phones, it’s worth it
• Lastly, real-time performance tracking and analytics  

Future Planning

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This is what we hinted at in the first point. Once you’ve cleared up your goals, demographic, email language, attracted enough eyes using tools, the next big thing is how to keep it up. 

A very good example is to look at how SaaS companies handle their inducement process. 

You first get a welcoming email, you get information about the features, you get product update notifications, and then somewhere in the future, you get an upgrade recommendation.

Similarly in your case, you need to figure out a few things:

• How often do people would like to see you in their inbox?
• What kind of email do they enjoy most?
• Create a rough sketch of your content
• Then in the future, how to make them a customer?

One thing that you can figure out for certain is the frequency of emails. How? Simply ask them! After all, communication is key. Ask them what time is the most convenient for approaching them.

Probably even give them an option to minimize the frequency of your emails.

This can also help create a healthy relationship between you & your user base and not to mention, avoid spam. 

For example, My Emma is a great email marketing service that lets you be dynamic with your subscribers with a separate set of demands. You can feed user collected data into My Emma to personalize future emails accordingly.

A Word

Congratulations! You’re prepared to launch your email marketing campaign now. But let’s discuss something first. Email marketing is at the end of the day…marketing.

It is continuously growing and changing day-by-day. You will meet a lot of competition along the way and it could get serious. For times like those, try and be patient with your strategy.

Even the most tightly done campaigns could fall flat with a dwindling growth rate and your newsletter emails hitting the spam frequently. So, initiate a bond with your subscribers to try and understand their needs.

For now, it’s your turn to tell us what you think. Did you like preparation tips? Do you have any of your own? Do you use any email marketing services we might not know of?

Whatever your thoughts may be, please comment down below and let us know. 

No doubt you’re on the hunt for a marketing strategy that will help your brand reach new heights in 2021. There are a lot of different techniques and approaches to choose from, ranging from tackling social media, incorporating video, maybe even tapping into traditional cold email outreach techniques. You need a marketing strategy that’s highly effective without requiring a lot of effort or money. The answer is a plan that capitalizes on user-generated content.

Across industries, brands of all sizes are incorporating user-generated content (UGC) into their marketing strategies and seeing big results. Imagine being able to cut back on your own content creation while still building trust with your target audience and driving sales. UGC is growing in popularity due to its effectiveness and reach among key demographics.

According to a Cloudinary UGC study, 78% of millennials and 70% of Gen X and Gen Z respondents said they rely on user-generated content when weighing a purchasing decision. It’s a no-brainer: seeing what other customers have to say about a product makes many consumers more inclined to buy. If you see the value in letting your most loyal customers authentically rep your brand, then it’s time to incorporate user-generated content into your marketing strategy.

What Is User-Generated Content?

First, you need to understand what exactly user-generated content is. For your current marketing strategy, you’re likely familiar with sharing content that you yourself have created. UGC is content that real consumers (usually your most loyal customers) have made about your products and services. It can include images, text, videos, and reviews. These users are not the same as influencers, not even micro-influencers. There are clear differences between the two:

User-Generated Content

“User-Generated Content is content from customers, users, and people. These people interact with your brand. The content can include video, images, social media posts, and reviews. Today’s marketing is not limited to social posts either. Therefore, user-generated content is any time a person makes content related to your brand.”

Influencer Marketing Content

“Influencer Content is a more specific segment of user content. It is still a person providing content and the content still relates to your brand. However, an influencer is different because they have an identifiable audience that they are sharing with. It is this audience that sets influencer content apart from the rest of the user-generated content on the internet.”

One popular way for customers to share UGC with their favorite brands is via social media platforms. Cultivate relationships with your customers who are already doing this organically. For example, Instagram app features like mentions and hashtags make finding UGC fast and easy. Then, you can take that content and repurpose it for your own marketing goals. It used to be difficult to share content created by others. Instagram now makes it easy for users to share each other’s posts. 

Sharing Insta Stories used to be even more difficult. You needed to be tagged in them in order to share them. However, you can now share Stories you’re not tagged in. With the legal permission of the owner using just a few simple steps. That little paper airplane icon sure comes in handy.

Marketing experts preach that the best marketing is customers who will promote your business to their families, friends, and colleagues. UGC is the result of customers loving your business so much that they are inspired to create content and share it with the world. Even if the content you’re creating for your brand is killer, it still doesn’t hold a candle to UGC. According to a 2019 Stackla survey, consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view user-generated content as authentic compared to the content brands create themselves. Stackla notes:

“ 92% of marketers believe most or all of the content they create resonates as authentic with consumers. 51% of consumers say less than half of brands create content that resonates as authentic.”

Thus, UGC becomes critical to your marketing efforts, and you can get big results without putting in a lot of effort when you make user-generated content part of your strategy.

Tips to Make UGC Part of Your Strategy

Now that you understand what user-generated content is and how it can grow your business, you need a plan for incorporating UGC into your marketing strategy. Your social media strategy is the easiest place to get started. Forget vanity metrics for a second: any boost UGC gives to your social performance is a bonus. The real goal with this digital marketing tactic is lead generation:

Social Media is a crucial way to reach your customers. However, instead of focusing on more likes, concentrate on the quality of the content you share. Through your social media posts ensure that:

• You build a memorable and engaging brand across your social media platforms
• Invest in quality content that is informative, creative, and entertaining. 
• Develop a social media plan that reflects your brand voice and message and aligns with your business goals. 
• Enhance your sales funnel through posts that convert your followers into leads. 
• Execute promotional campaigns for your products that foster lead generation.  
• Reach your target audience through social content syndication platforms like Medium, Quora, Scoop it, etc. for better brand recognition.”

On Instagram, you can search hashtags related to your business to begin curating your collection of UGC. If accounts have tagged or mentioned your brand, be sure to look through those posts in search of UGC that matches your marketing message. When you find an image or video that you want to reshare to your grid, make sure you get that legal permission from the original content creator to avoid any copyright issues.

To help you build your content library faster and more efficiently, you can approach your customers. Ask for the type of UGC you’re most likely to share. Establish a campaign to encourage customers to create content about your products and services. Create and promote a branded hashtag so all the UGC is in one place. Not sure where you’ll share all this UGC? Social media channels, your website, email campaigns: anywhere you currently share your own content is an opportunity to share UGC instead.

Why Your Business Needs Gen X, Gen Z & Millennial Consumers

There’s a good chance your business is already targeting Gen X, Gen Z, and millennial consumers since they account for such a large part of the market (bonus points if you’re going after all three). Disposable income isn’t the only thing these generations have to offer. Gen X, Gen Z, and millennials are most likely to create content about their experiences with products and services, according to the Cloudinary UGC study.

Cyclically, as noted by the same study, they are attracted to reviews that mirror their own:

“The younger Gen Z and Millennial generations reported being more drawn to reviews that include photos and videos. Fifty percent of Gen Z and 49 percent of Millennials found pictures and videos (47 percent of Millennials and 52 percent of Gen Z) to be helpful in making purchasing decisions. This could help explain why Gen Z respondents surveyed name visual platforms such as Instagram (88 percent) and YouTube (85 percent) as their favorites compared to older generations that prefer Facebook.”

Not only do these consumers support your business with sales, but they are also the most likely to help you grow it with authentic UGC and vice versa. What goes around comes around, as it were. Whether your goal is to reach new customers or establish deeper relationships with your current base, organic marketing strategies that rely on word of mouth rather than overt sales pitches are more likely to build lasting awareness and foster genuine engagement. Your business needs gen x, gen z, and millennial consumers because they are the users who are going to create the content that will skyrocket your business.

When used alongside your own branded content, incorporating UGC is a powerful marketing strategy for boosting credibility, building trust, and driving sales. Instead of working harder in 2021 to reach your target audience, you can capitalize on the word-of-mouth recommendations from your most loyal customers to work smarter. Prioritizing UGC in your marketing strategy is a powerful and budget-friendly approach to highlighting your brand’s authenticity.

You have spent a lot of time and energy developing your exciting, new mobile app. Successful tests have been performed on all types of devices, all the bugs have been worked out, and the app has been launched. 

Now it is time to go about marketing the app to stimulate download growth.

If you can get your app in front of users most likely to be interested in your brand and provide them with fresh, engaging content, you will see your download numbers grow.  Marketing your app takes hard work, patience, and an understanding of the unique digital landscape.

Marketing Your App to Generate Downloads

The competition for app downloads is fierce. A comprehensive marketing plan will be needed to put your app in front of users likely to download and use it. A commitment to ASO can be the catalyst for growth, and in Zutobi’s case, a commitment to ASO not only built our visibility but ultimately won us recognition by Apple twice on the Apple store for driving apps. 

Using the same principles of traditional search engine optimization (SEO), app store optimization (ASO) uses relevant keywords to appear in mobile application searches on popular app stores. There are a specific set of strict criteria based on keywords and the app’s download history. It is a painstaking process that takes time and the skills of an experienced digital marketer specializing in ASO marketing. 

Using Research, Analytics to Track, Adjust Marketing Strategies

There is a large selection of research and analytics tools that help create and drive mobile apps’ marketing strategies. Existing and ongoing data is used to track download traffic and user activity to determine the necessary adjustments in strategies that will increase conversion numbers. Analytical information allows marketers to anticipate the needs of app users and implement meaningful updates and actionable incentives.

Monitor the Competition

There is no such thing as an original idea, so you might as well check out your competition to see what is (and isn’t) working for them and apply that information to your app marketing plan. Scan their reviews, break down their price points, and track their marketing plans and successes. Focusing on your competition allows you the perspective to compare your practices and provides more information to make the right marketing decisions for you.

Use Incentives to Get (and Keep Users) Interested

The best way to get and keep mobile app users interested is to offer a variety of incentives. Make them feel like they are invested in your business and that if they fail to return regularly, they will miss out on something of value. Offering time-sensitive, accumulating incentives will make visiting your app a part of the user’s daily digital routine.

Types of App Incentives to Jumpstart Growth

The incentives you use to increase downloads and user engagement can vary depending on the type of business and your overall marketing goals and objectives. The key is to provide fresh, new, compelling content regularly to encourage repeat visits.

App incentives are most successful when they appeal to your target audience, typically based on demographic metrics such as age, location, and purchasing habits. Incentives like additional airtime that are effective in developing countries will not be as appealing to users in areas with unlimited usage plans. Achievement awards like customized avatars, badges, and accumulating reward points are successful in affluent regions.

One incentive that can also be used to generate income is to offer premium versions, features, or content unavailable to other users. The incentives must have significant value to be worthy of the additional cost, or you could lose the user completely.

How to Use Push Notifications

A push notification is a short text or browser message that alerts users of important information or a call to action. The open rate for branded texts is typically higher than other communication channels like email, phone, or social media messaging. Push notifications are powerful marketing tools to compel users and customers to act. While they can be an effective component to help reach specific app conversion goals, overuse risks annoying users and compelling them to uninstall the app instead of completing the requested action.

Consistently Add Fresh Value to App

Unlike web pages of the past, a mobile app is not a static application. Your app must constantly adapt to the market environment to keep users engaged and interested. Use regular app updates to respond to users and keep them engaged and invested in the app and your brand.

Change the app’s appearance and style, add new perks and rewards, and implement fresh, exciting marketing strategies to keep your app in motion and relevant. Offer users a new experience to keep them interested and engaged. You will also need to monitor the app’s performance and functionality, so any bugs or issues are quickly addressed.

To maintain and grow your user base, value needs to be consistently added with ongoing fresh content and incentives. At Zutobi, we constantly survey users and ask for feedback. Our research has found that many of them were getting stumped over “uncontrolled intersections”.

So naturally, we updated our app, learning modules and content to feature a guide on understanding uncontrolled intersections.  Stagnant apps send a message to your users that you are no longer interested in building or maintaining a relationship. Downloads will stop, people will start uninstalling the app, and app stores will drop you from their inventory.

Make It Personal

If your app is on a user’s phone, you are part of their personal digital space. Allowing the user to personalize your app as much as possible will make it feel like it was created just for them. Allowing users to select colors, characters, and other personalized features will make users more likely to continue returning to the app. Feedback options and push notifications can be customized to present a unique experience for each user.

Jumpstart App Growth With Effective Marketing Strategies

An app’s success depends on your ability to attract and retain users with effective marketing strategies and engaging content. It takes hard work and a lot of patience to get app users’ attention and engage them in your brand. Implementing ASO techniques and offering users a worthwhile experience help to increase download and internal conversion rates that foster substantial growth.