The importance of engaging content

Content marketing is quickly becoming one of the most important factors in today's digital landscape. If you're not creating content, you're not doing digital marketing. With digital marketing channels so closely integrated, it's important that customers and prospects get the answers they're looking for.

Let's take a look at the benefits on engaging content in three important areas:

Social Media

Engaging content in social media should be a given. When it comes to social it's all about the content and not the channel (Facebook vs. Twitter vs. Pinterest etc.). Think of content as social currency and the better the currency, the more likely it's going to be shared. Your customers should be your biggest brand ambassadors and you must give them tools (great content) to be able to evangelize for you.

When you are developing your social content strategy keep in mind that you don't need different content for each social channel, but you can repurpose content to make your budget stretch further.

Search

It's likely that most of the traffic to your site is going to come from organic search. Engaging content will get shared and, more importantly, linked to so it shows up in search results. Knowing the keywords that are important to your company should be strategically inserted. Content that educates and interests your customers and validates your industry knowledge are critical.

An article on Social Media Examiner titled "How Search, Social Media and Content Accelerate Your Business" that talks about this specific topic. One of our favorite lines in there is:

You must publish, you must tell stories and you must become interesting to your customers so that they find, like and trust you.

That has never been more true because creating great content and ranking high in search will lead to an increase in...

Customer Acquisition

It's important to know which channels are driving the most direct conversions, but it's also to know which channels are assisting in those conversions. For example, let's say most people may convert the most when they come directly from paid search, but they may need 4 visits to your site before converting. It's critical to know where people are coming from the three times before they convert.

Search and social media may not be the last touch for someone before they decide to purchase, but they will most certainly play a role in the decision making process. You need to be where your customers are (Social) and show up when they have questions (Search).

There's a new tool in Google Analytics called "Multi-Channel Funnels" and it shows the tops paths people take before they make a conversion. 

Keep an eye on where people are coming from so you can make strategic decisions on where to be and where to put your great content. 

3 easy steps to determine your campaign effectiveness

Your website is the digital hub of your online marketing initiatives. It's the place where you educate, engage, sell and grow your brand online. In addition to your website you have a strong social media presence, some PR and some paid advertising that is driving traffic. But do you know which one of those is helping - or hurting - you achieve your objectives?

You need to pay attention to the numbers that are helping to drive your business. Not the "feel good" or "Vanity metrics". KISSmetrics defines vanity metrics simply and perfectly:

Vanity metrics are all those data points that make us feel good if they go up but don’t help us make decisions. 

Here are three steps to help you determine what is working and increase effectiveness:

Step 1: Understand where all your traffic is coming from

In Google Analytics, click "Traffic" and then "All Traffic". This gives you a detailed snapshot as to where people are coming to your site from. 

 

Be sure that you are tagging your links properly so you can each traffic source is getting the credit it should (and so you can see if that traffic source is driving people who are doing something on your site).

Step 2: Use advanced segments to gain insights

Now that you know where your visitors are coming from, it's time to see what the people that come from each of those sources are doing. Create an advance segment in Google Analytics so you see what content people, from social media for example, are interested in.

If you are running a few different social media campaigns, drill down to the campaign level (i.e. Twitter or Facebook) to get further insights such as "Which traffic drivers have high bounce rates?" or "Where is the majority of purchases coming from?" or "What content are these people most interested in?" 

This will help you more effectively engage with people on these sites if you know what they're interested in.

Step 3: Test, optimize and kill campaigns (if necessary)

Now that you know what is and is not working, it's time to optimize. Data doesn't lie, and an much as you like linking your Twitter to your Facebook account for status updates, it's not driving any incremental traffic. It's probably time for a switch in strategy. Or maybe it's time to double down on email because now you know it drove 25% more sales than your PR did.

Also utilizing simple and effective A/B testing tools such as Google Website Optimizer, Unbounce or KISSmetrics will allow you to test different ideas you have. Test copy, images, landing pages in different channels to see what helps your business.

These are three simple steps that help determine campaign effectiveness and can help prioritize your budget.

Let us know in the comments what are other useful tips and tricks you use. 

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Not meeting user expectations [Example]

Seasonality and holidays are great drivers to drive incremental sales. Mother's Day is just around the corner and as you would expect offers for jewelry, gifts and flowers are everywhere online. Today on the Yahoo! homepage - which roughly gets 30 million unique visitors per day - is no execption and can be a great place for direct response advertising

But is Pro Flowers (one of the advertisers today) missing an opportunity with their current ad and landing page experience? Let's dig a little deeper:

Step 1: Driving traffic with online advertising (OLA)

The OLA is done well. They have three different flower arrangement that have their own price points and Free giveaway. This allows the user to see different options and let's them "shop" within the ad (note the add is a 300x600 unit, so a bit larger than standard banners). Let's choose the $19.99 option.

Notice the call-to-action is "Buy Now." This assumes that you have chosen the flowers you want to purchase and the next logical step would be to give them your money.

Step 2: The landing page

The landing page that the user goes to is not a checkout page or a product page for the specific flowers you picked. It went to a page that had 48 flower arrangements on this. To me, this is like saying "are you're ready to give us your money, here's another chance to drop off?"

If the ad unit had a "See all options" or "See more" or "Shop now" button, then this would be a great place to send them.

However, the user expectation was not meet when the "Buy Now" button was clicked on the online advertising.

Takeaways

First, we're not saying that this approach is wrong or isn't working for them at all. This is simply an observation on our end. If Pro Flowers can afford a Yahoo homepage buy, then they're doing just fine.

What can we learn from this? Some things to keep in mind:

1. Have the CTA and landing page be in concert - If the CTA is buy now, perhaps it would make sense to send them to the checkout page.
2. The landing page should be simple and serve one purpose - 48 product options on one page is simply too much. Keep it simple.

Are they any other suggestions for this ad unit and landing page experience? Let us know in the comments!

More validation for mobile as viable marketing channel

Today, Nielsen released "America's new mobile majority: A look at Smartphone owners in the U.S." that reveals that the majority of the US population has a smartphone (50.4%). The report goes further and breaks down the operating systems these 50.4% are using:

More importantly it gives stats on WHO is carrying and using these devices (in terms of ethnicity):

We can takeaway 2 things from this report:

Takeaway 1: You need a mobile strategy

A mobile strategy does not mean you need a mobile app. In more cases than not, you don't need an app. What you do need (most likely) is a mobile friendly website.

When people are on the go and want information their default move is still going to be Googling what they're looking for. Your priorities should be mobile SEO and making sure your site is formtted for 3.5 to 4-inch screen and your content can be read easily. A few other things to think about:

• Mobile friendly email campaign templates
• Claim your business on local places (i.e. Foursquare, Google, Yelp, etc.)
• Mobile only PPC campaigns
• Mobile payments

Thinking mobile first is critical to the future. The need for a mobile strategy is now.

Takeaway 2: Not all demographics use mobile the same, budget accordingly

Rich information such as 67% of Asian American mobile users have a smartphone can help a brand find funds for a mobile campaign pretty easily. A test campaign towards one of these demographics can validate mobile as a viable channel. You should be tracking your results and attribuiting sales to each specific campaign you have out there. If mobile is working, then budget accordingly.

2012 is the year of mobile and businesses of any take advantage of this unique and medium.

Hit a roadblock? Just look for the answers. They're begging you to find them.

We wrote in our last post about how the proliferation of cloud-based, cost efficient tools can help marketers and entrepreneurs everywhere succeed. Another topic that we have seen in our Twitter feeds and inboxes: how to use freelancers.

This adage article talks about how Madison avenue uses freelance depending on the amount of new business coming in. Not that this is news to anyone - freelance has been around forever. This article from Under30CEO.com  gives advice on how to bootstrap a startup using freelancers. Both really awesome articles from really smart people.

The common thread with these articles isn’t that they’re ground breaking journalism, but that they are dispensing knowledge. Knowledge that first time entrepreneurs can take advantage of. 

Lean start-ups (no, not these types of lean start-ups) are getting odds that start-ups before them never got. Free storage, free analytics, free access to your ideas from anywhere, getting customers inexpensively. And if you look in the right places (and are on a never ender search for content and knowledge), it’s out there. Hell, I even thought I heard some inspiration from a Chrysler commercial yesterday that aired during Mad Men.

So how can marketers and entrepreneurs increase their chance of success? Just look and you may find it.

PS - You might want to follow us on Twitter. We tweet cool stuff.