Category: Content Marketing

Visual communication is one of the least frequently explored areas within the content world, possibly because it’s so easy to lump in with UI design, aka Not Our Problem. But many forms of visual communication clearly are content, part of the muscle of a website or other project. In the hands of a skillful communicator, visual content conveys information and ideas with extraordinary efficiency. In the content world, we pay lip service to non-textual content—and we do work with photographs, screenshots, and video—but how often do most of us get to employ custom illustration, diagrams, illustrative animation ...

Here's ten quick ideas on how to sprice up your blogging and other such content. People love images! Due to the popularity of visually appealing platforms, businesses need to heed the growing demand for visual content. Let this infodoodle inspire you to think visually.

A few months ago we published a fairly popular blog post called,The 14 C’s of Content Marketing. While many inquired how we came up with so many C’s, we felt 14 wasn’t enough, resulting in the development of seven additional content marketing C’s. Armed with 7 more content marketing C's, you’ll be able to deploy more powerful and efficient campaigns that solve problems and entertain.

“Let’s say this is your first day at Urbanspoon and I show you the following data. We’ve just launched an A/B test of that I’d like you to evaluate. [The example can be almost anything you want to test different results for – from almost any search element, PPC campaigns, email subject lines etc. In this case, I’m using a PPC example.] Imagine you are running two different ads on a campaign with 50 kewords. We’ve been running Ad A for a while and have 17,235 impressions and 272 clicks. I started running Ad ...

Have you noticed that everyone around you now seems to be an expert at something? How your boss gives you unsolicited career advice, based on his own (self-proclaimed) stellar career? Or how your annoying colleague emails you stock tips after reading the morning news headlines? Welcome to the age of the Everyday Expert. In the past, if you were a career adviser, relationship counselor, strategic business consultant, or financial planner, you had to spend years acquiring specialist skills or knowledge in a particular field to be recognized as an expert.

The folks at CMO.com have put together a good analysis of various social media platforms from the perspective of i) Customer Communication, ii) Brand Exposure, iii) Traffic to your site and iv) Impact on SEO. Here's a link to a .PDF of the report:http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/images/2012/03/SocialMediaCheatSheet2012.pdfAnd, the CMO.com site has the original data, which is updated from time to time ... you should Pinterest it, fer shure: http://www.cmo.com/social-media-guide/2012/

"Leadership" has changed when a decentralized group of people can take down a government. "The Value Chain" has changed when the customer is no longer just the "buyer" butalso a co-creator. "Human Resources" have changed when most of the people who create value for your organization are neither hired nor paid by you.

I love Ben Affleck's first scene in the movie "Boiler Room." I always felt that the quote above perfectly relates to companies and press coverage. The ones who don’t get coverage will quickly dismiss it as useless and a waste of time and money to pursue, while the ones who regularly get coverage just smile and hope that you keep thinking that way. Over the last 12 years, I have been featured in hundreds of major newspapers, magazines, websites and blogs (everything ranging from the NY Times, USA Today and CNN to TechCrunch, Entrepreneur and so on), and ...

2012 State of Inbound Marketing. Businesses that use primarily inbound marketing strategies for lead acquisition consistently report lower cost-per-lead (CPL) rates than those using outbound-centric strategies. Among companies with outbound marketing-dominated strategies—those that spend more than 50% of their lead-generation budgets on outbound marketing channels—the average CPL was $346 as of January 2012. By contrast, among inbound-centric companies (those spending over 50% of their lead-generation budget on inbound marketing) the average CPL was $135—61% less than the CPL of outbound-dominated businesses.

It’s the holy grail of digital marketing: the viral ad, a pitch that large numbers of viewers decide to share with family and friends. Several techniques derived from new technology can help advertisers attain this. In our research, two colleagues and I use infrared eye-tracking scanners to determine exactly what people are looking at when they watch video ads. We also use a system that analyzes facial expressions to reveal what viewers are feeling. These technologies make it possible to isolate elements that cause people to stop watching and to find ones that keep them engaged. In addition, they ...

Two years ago, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shaw identified key criteria (DARC) for hiring inbound marketers (Candidates should be Digital, andAnalytical, and they should have extensive social media Reach along with the ability to create Content). Times have changed. We now look at CARE as the 4 criteria for hiring (Content, Analytical Skills, Relationship Building, Enthusiasm).

An detailed timeline infographic featuring the history of marketing from 1450 to 2012. Ever since people have had something to sell, we’ve been marketing. But the effectiveness of those marketing methods have waxed and waned over thousands of years, and as consumers and their technologies advanced at a more and more rapid pace, marketers have had to change their game.

by Brooke Howell on February 7, 2012 in Social Media, Understanding Your Audience This guest post is by Brooke Howell, SmartBrief’s small business editor. Follow her on Twitter at @SBStartup, and sign up for SmartBrief on Small Business for more great news and advice to help build your small business. You put a lot of effort into writing each of your blog posts. Then you Tweet it and put it up on Facebook, LinkedIn and your other social networks, only to find no once clicks through.

Inbound marketing is hard work and no gimmick or secret formula will change that. Don't be one of these personas. Over the years Kuno has seen a plethora of objections, reasons why not and push back from people who generally don’t believe in the principals of inbound marketing. Many of these folks have unrealistic expectations and want cheap gimmicky tricks to rank them well in the search engines, produce leads and accelerate their brand. After some thought, it’s clear that most of them fall in one of the 11 personas.

Three in Five accountants are using LinkedIn regularly to advance their careers. LinkedIn is #1 social platform. I think it's indicative of how social media is creeping into B2B vertical markets and how smart marketers can take advantage of those trends. Cheers! S.D.K. --> Article can be found at http://cpatrendlines.com/2009/02/23/survey-results-cpas-join-the-online-social-networking-party/

I’m pleased to welcome Heidi Bullock, Sr. Director of Marketing at Ingenuity Systems as a guest blogger. She discusses thought leadership and how she developed a successful campaign to overcome the challenge of accurately measuring her thought leadership efforts. For b-to-b organizations, thought leadership is a critical component for driving awareness, sparking excitement, and creating [...]

No doubt about it: 2011 was a big year for content marketing. Twice the number of marketers implement content marketing vs. the number of those who use print, television, and radio advertising. But what's in store for 2012? Read the full article at MarketingProfs