A few days ago Google announced removing sidebar ads from search results and introducing 4 ads on top of organic results.
While this change has been met with much skepticism and critique by brands which have been working on improving their organic search positions for ages, is it really time for despair?
Definitely no and here are our arguments:
1. More people are likely to scroll down to organic search results now
Let’s face it: Relevancy of paid results is staggering, simply because it’s managed by people bidding on keywords & crafting a copy instead of the algorithm aiming at satisfying the user’s intent.
It’s too early to say but the change might mean that more people will just scroll more!
The average U.S. Internet user sees about 50 ads per day, but the bulk of these are not relevant to their search for content or information… Some 60% of survey respondents said they didn’t find traditional ad units relevant
2. PPC competition is likely to go up; organic competition might go down
Consider that the overall number of ads is now going to go DOWN, with just 4 top ads and 3 at the bottom. 11 total ads on Page 1 now shrinks to 6 or 7. The CPCs are going to rise across the board, particularly for the most competitive commercial queries.
If you’re not a Big Brand, you probably aren’t even going to be able to compete for the top ads based on the bids Google will see now for these terms.
And it’s not just what you’re willing to bid. Quality Scores are going to become even more important (although they were already), as Google is going to want to ensure high CTRs on the Ads, so that means only the really well-oiled and efficient PPC campaigns are going to show up there.
Brands will have to invest more and more into bid optimization software, A/B testing, and entire teams of PPC Specialists who do nothing but paid search. If you’re thinking of just moving most or all efforts to PPC, you better bring your wallet and you better have an experienced PPC team on hand already.
On the other hand, if bigger brands with bigger budgets start shifting effort from organic to PPC, organic competition might go down! The opportunities are likely to increase!
3. It’s not the first and definitely not the last change to Google SERPs
Google is constantly tinkering with how the SERPs appear, balancing what they think users want and what will generate them revenue.
In fact, they removed the sidebar ads once already in winter of 2012, and the ads were put back. From Knowledge Graph to Carousels to News results and Local Packs, the SERPs have changed more in appearance over the last 3-5 years than they did in the 10 years before that.
We stopped thinking about the SERPs as just “Ten Blue Links” years ago, so why the sudden shift in outlook here? This change is just one of many, and I wouldn’t deviate from long term strategies and marketing plans just because of this one change.
It could get rolled back or replaced at a moment’s notice! Investing in long-term stable rankings has always been the best marketing strategy and it still is!
What are your thoughts?
[Huge thanks to IMN team and especially Daniel O’Leary for help writing this post]
Traditional advertising pretty much had its way with the 20th century.
Big campaigns with big budgets from big companies influenced the things we did, said, and thought. And it’s safe to say that influence continues into the 21st century.
What are the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of both? When should you use advertising, and when should you use content marketing?
And which method is better?
We’ll answer those questions and more in this article.
What is advertising?
Advertising is a direct form of marketing communication where companies, political parties, religious institutions, government agencies, and interest groups build awareness of their products, services, events, and ideas.
To accomplish this task, advertisers run campaigns with a limited, but focused, use of media that may include:
Billboards
Banner ads
Radio spots
Television commercials
Print magazine ads
Pay-per-click ads
Infomercials
Pop-ups
Skywriting
Product placements
Email
The job of advertising media is to convince people that a product, service, or idea will solve their problems or satisfy their wants.
Here are four ways you could look at advertising:
A company runs a six-month advertising campaign announcing the launch of a new product through a series of television commercials, banner ads, and staged product demonstrations in select cities.
A political party launches a tour of lectures, public service announcements, and emails to inform voters about where their candidate stands on the issues.
A city government purchases newspaper ads and mails out flyers to announce a new recycling program.
A start-up sponsors content on BuzzFeed, purchases an advertorial on Gawker, and budgets money toward a Google AdWords campaign.
However, traditional advertising has some notable disadvantages (and notable differences with content marketing).
For most of us, even the bare bones Apple: Get a Mac campaign is out of our reach, never mind something like the complex production behind BMW’s The Hire.
It’s built around a campaign
Instead of a long-term effort, advertising campaigns usually run for a short period of time, say three to six months depending upon campaign objectives and budgets.
Because of their expensive production and short shelf life, advertising campaigns put the product front and center.
In Budweiser’s iconic Whassup commercial, where a group of friends go around asking each other “Whassup,” two of the friends mention that they are drinking a Budweiser.
In Volkswagen’s The Force, a young Darth Vader attempts to use The Force on a Passat, which is front and center.
There’s a limited window of exposure because the media is not owned
Traditional advertising is a combination of three entities: the publisher (television, radio, magazine), the company/advertiser (often companies hire an ad agency to create and manage the campaign), and the audience.
The company/advertiser buys space on the publisher’s media property for a limited time to get exposure to their audience. Once that time expires (once a month in a magazine, a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl), the advertising campaign media is removed, and the audience doesn’t see it again, which means …
The media is gone once the campaign ends
As I mentioned above, the digital age has changed this in many ways since commercials are often published on YouTube. But they still may be eventually removed from a company’s official channel.
It was brilliant because it appealed to the rogue streak in men — that drifter bent. The campaign said, “Smoke Marlboros and everyone will think you’re cool.” What man doesn’t want to look cool?
Yet, like most advertising campaigns, it was a barrage of images and messages. There was no conversation. No relationship except “buy our product.” No space for feedback.
The disadvantage of putting the product “front and center”
Let me pause for a minute and explain why putting the product “front and center” in traditional advertising is a disadvantage. The truth is, when the product is part of the message, we understand right away that it’s a sales message.
That’s not a terrible thing — any reasonable person will understand that a company is in business to sell their products and services.
But this is where content marketing comes in because this hard-sell approach has gradually weakened traditional advertising. If we’ve learned anything about advertising and marketing in the last 20 years, it’s that customers want to be heard.
Content marketing means creating and sharing valuable content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell. In other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you.
The types of content companies use include podcasts, blogs, social media, videos, white papers, infographics, SlideShares, and research reports.
Like advertising, content marketing aims to convince people that a product, service, or idea will solve their problems or satisfy their wants.
However, there are some important differences with content marketing.
You own the media and the content
The main difference between traditional advertising and content marketing is that with content marketing, the company becomes the advertiser and the publisher. Instead of selling your products or services to someone else’s audience, you build your own audience — and then determine what to sell.
That’s the story behind our company, Rainmaker Digital, which started as a blog and blossomed into six distinct product lines.
The product is not the focus of content marketing
With content marketing, you may spend roughly 90 percent of your budget on creating content that educates, inspires, and entertains — and only 10 percent on selling a product.
Ten percent may seem small, but the trust, relationships, and authority you build during the other 90 percent really does a lot of the selling for you.
Since content marketing focuses on solving customers’ problems, keeping the audience engaged, and inspiring them to overcome challenges, the practice becomes a long-term game.
Heck, most of us don’t have the brand equity, authority, or pocketbook of a company like Apple, Dove, or Budweiser … so we can’t win with the one-off nature of traditional advertising (particularly if it flops). We can win, however, by consistently publishing quality content.
You open a two-way conversation
In many ways, content marketing was built to satisfy the consumer demand for a voice.
Blogs invited replies and questions through the comments section. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook tore down the walls that separated consumers from companies, allowing people to talk directly to businesses.
This two-way conversation promotes a better business and better product when the company listens and adjusts.
Content marketing helps you build a media asset
A great example of a company that built a business around content marketing is Buffer, the popular social media app. During their early years, they first outfitted their blog with outstanding content and then the team started driving traffic to their website through guest posting and content syndication opportunities.
There’s another important issue I need to point out very clearly here: Companies who invest in content marketing should avoid building on other media properties. This is called digital sharecropping, and it exposes you to the whims of the property owner and prohibits you from capitalizing on the value of a media asset. Let me explain.
When companies invest in content marketing by publishing content on a property they own (their own website), they build a media asset that may be worth money down the road. For example, Brian Clark has been offered seven figures for the copyblogger.com domain — just the website, not the products that actually generate revenue.
People understand the immense value that driving a ton of traffic brings to a company. Content marketing helps you build those traffic streams.
When to use advertising
Let me make this clear: Here’s what I’m not doing. I’m not recommending that you should never advertise. When you think about the benefits of both advertising and content marketing, you’ll realize that one is not better than the other. You just need to figure out which one will help you meet your specific goals.
So, when should you launch an advertising campaign?
One of the biggest challenges new businesses and freelancers face is exposing their products or services to prospects. Think of advertising as a mechanism that quickly closes that gap.
Of course, advertising is expensive — from the planning and production of the media to the buying of ad space. But if done right, it can result in a quick flood of visitors to your site.
Another benefit of advertising, particularly online advertising, is you can get immediate results.
In the early 2000s, I was in control of a $250,000 Google AdWords campaign — and I loved it. Within 24 hours of writing a text ad and a landing page, I could see results, adjust, measure, and repeat.
It was a fast-paced, accurate way to learn about what worked and what didn’t.
Of course that was not my money, and you may only be able to budget $200 a month toward Facebook ads, but the cost may be worth the results.
When to use content marketing
Copyblogger built an audience through content marketing (two blog posts a week for a few years) before we sold anything from the site. Once we had an audience clamoring for a product, and they told us what that product should be, we built it and sold it to the audience.
So, when is the best time to use content marketing? All the time. Here are some specific examples.
Build a community. This is the goal of just about every business in the world (whether or not they realize it), and content marketing helps build relationships over time as you solve customer problems, inspire them to overcome certain challenges, and entertain them with your personal stories.
Get found in search engines. You increase your chances of ranking higher in search engines when you have consistent, up-to-date, quality content on your site.
Take on a Goliath when you have a small budget. Canva (the design software firm I mentioned earlier) didn’t have the resources to compete with a Goliath company like Adobe. How were they going to get attention? Publish mega posts with highly valuable content. It worked.
Cut through the clutter. Like most small companies, Crew (an agency that manages creative projects) didn’t have a chance standing out in a world awash with technology start-ups. How were they going to compete? By launching Unsplash, a website loaded with free, high-resolution images.
Now that we’ve covered the differences between content marketing and advertising, let’s test your knowledge with a little quiz.
Can you tell the difference between content marketing and advertising?
Here are the rules: Below you’ll find five real-world examples. Your job is to guess which ones are content marketing and which ones are advertising.
Then I’ll explain the answers.
1. Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” videos
Answer: advertising.
The Blendtec YouTube channel displays many of the classic features of content marketing — consistent publishing, entertaining format — but this video is advertising because the product is the main focus of the content.
2. Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
Answer: advertising.
Wieden+Kennedy, the advertising agency behind this campaign, originally launched two or three commercials on short rotation, but soon discovered their popularity and spun out more than 100 minute-long YouTube videos.
That’s certainly content marketing, right? Again, no, because the product was front and center, and they are no longer making similar videos. It was a limited-time campaign.
3. GE Reports
Answer: content marketing.
As Contently’s Joe Lazauskas said, GE is the new Red Bull when it comes to content marketing.
“Tomas Kellner, a former ‘Forbes’ editor, crushes his reporting, and the stories on GE Reports regularly go viral on Reddit. Brands usually go viral on Reddit for ruining the world or releasing really bad lip-syncing videos, not for their content marketing.”
4. Madden NFL 16 | Madden : The Movie
Answer: advertising.
Can you guess why? While the product isn’t really front and center, it is central to the plot, and the storyline drives this movie trailer.
It’s a one-off commercial announcing the launch of Madden NFL 16, which makes it more of an advertorial than traditional content marketing.
5. Rainmaker.FM podcast network
Answer: content marketing.
While the title of the Rainmaker.FM podcast network refers to Rainmaker Digital, our company name, none of the shows explicitly discuss our products except for a short ad bumper at the start or end of each show.
And each show — 24 and counting — consistently publishes useful, compelling content for a growing audience of people who are interesting in digital commerce, content marketing, writing, editing, podcasting, LinkedIn, self-publishing, SEO, YouTube, public relations, entrepreneurship, and more.
Your turn
So, how did you do on that short quiz?
Do you feel like you have a better understanding of the differences between advertising and content marketing? Do you feel like you know when to use one rather than the other?
Let me know in the comments if you have any outstanding questions or thoughts. I would love to hear from you.
This week’s edition of Rainmaker Rewind features our own Sean Jackson and Mica Gadhia on The Missing Link.
The dynamic duo welcomed John Nemo, bestselling LinkedIn author and trainer, to discuss calls to action on LinkedIn Pulse.
John Nemo is not only personable and an absolute pleasure to listen to, he also knows LinkedIn inside and out.
John is a bestselling LinkedIn author and trainer who helps small business owners, coaches, consultants, trainers, and sales and business development executives use LinkedIn to generate more sales leads, clients, and revenue for themselves.
He takes Sean and Mica through the step-by-step process of giving readers everything they need to take the action you want them to take.
Have time for a couple more? Check out these great episodes …
In this episode of Youpreneur, Chris and Brian talk about what it takes to be a digital entrepreneur and what that means for brand-building business owners.
In this episode of Hit Publish, Amy asks the question: “When it comes to marketing, what’s in a name? Does it really matter what you call your products and services?” Well … yes it does. And Hit Publish is here to help.
Online courses are one of the most popular forms of web-based business today.
They’re in-demand, which makes them easy to market
They support premium pricing, so they can quickly become profitable
They’re a smart way to leverage the time you put into product creation
Those are all great reasons that developing a digital course might be a smart idea for you and your business.
But if you start from there, you’re going to have a hard time.
Because, just like any business (online or off), your business needs to serve the needs of your audience and customers if it’s going to survive … and thrive.
The best online courses have their success “baked in.”
Start with thoughtful preparation to craft the exact educational experience your audience wants to buy. And then, of course, deliver that experience.
You might be tempted to skip these planning steps. But if you do, your digital education business will take much longer to get traction.
Pave the road to a successful course with these five steps.
Step #1: Find your market of hungry learners
You may be familiar with the old marketing “riddle” that copywriter Gary Halbert liked to ask:
What’s the most important success factor for a restaurant?
No, it’s not the menu, the service, the quality of the chef, or even the location.
It’s a starving crowd that will show up to buy what’s being sold.
Finding that “starving crowd” will make everything about your business so much easier.
The same is true for all businesses. Your online course needs to find its “hungry learners” — the starving crowd — that will make it a success.
Too many digital business owners skip past this step because they think they have a killer idea. They jump right into developing a product before they really understand the market.
Sadly, that’s a recipe for expensive failure.
Some ways you can find your market of hungry learners include:
Serving a market you already know well, because you’re a part of it
Using your existing knowledge about an existing audience to uncover what they want to learn
Partnering with a subject-matter expert (ideally one who already has a good-sized audience)
Looking for a niche (paper) magazine — if there are enough enthusiasts to support a physical magazine, there will normally be a big enough audience for an online course
Choosing an “evergreen” topic, such as fitness, nutrition, crafts, dating, beauty, finance, or any type of vocational training
What you’re looking for is an audience of potential learners that is:
Big enough to make for a commercially viable business
Interested in spending money on this topic (you can find out by observing which products or services are already being sold)
Step #2: Uncover your unique positioning with your audience
Once you’ve identified that “starving crowd,” it’s time to figure out how to position yourself with that crowd, so they choose your business instead of another option.
Positioning is a blend of art and craft.
You want to come up with a promise you can make to your audience. You’re looking for something that’s significantly different (or that feels different) from the promises made by your competitors.
If positioning is new to you, start by thinking about:
The beneficial improvement you make to your customer’s life
The unique approach or angle you use
A memorable difference you can communicate
The remarkable element of your business
The timeless aspect to the promise you make
There are, as you can imagine, lots of ways to come to an effective, memorable position in your market. A few include:
Putting timeless principles into a new context: When I created my first online course, I put proven marketing principles into a softer context that was fun and digestible for a somewhat marketing-phobic audience
Leveraging experience of an industry insider (you or someone else): Publishing expert Michael Hyatt makes good use of this one, using his background as a high-level publishing executive to teach aspiring authors how to build a promotion platform
Telling a better story: Enterprising folks have been setting up pet-sitting businesses for decades, but Josh Cary (one of our students) told a better story around professionalism and entrepreneurship, and created the successful Petsittingology course and live conference
Step #3: Build an effective learner profile
So: You’ve got a starving crowd, and you’ve identified a compelling promise you can make them.
Now it’s time to craft your plan to deliver that promise in a memorable and useful way.
Most marketers have heard of “buyer personas,” which are also sometimes called avatars.
The learner profile is a very similar exercise. But the focus shifts to who this person is as they come to your course.
It starts with empathy — putting yourself in the emotional shoes of your learner. You want to understand what they’re thinking, feeling, doing, and feeling as they approach your topic and move toward their goals.
You can get started by building an Empathy Map — this article walks you through how to do that:
The Empathy Map exercise is interesting and enjoyable — and it’s also a potent tool for making any product or service more marketable.
An underused tool for uncovering the needs of your learners
Want to take advantage of a powerful but underused tool for finding out exactly what your potential customers want?
It’s social media — too often used as a “megaphone” by businesses who want to shout about how great they are.
“You have two ears and one mouth. Listen twice as much as you talk.”
– DCI founder Brian Clark
Now, there’s nothing wrong with getting into conversations with potential users — that can be a smart and rewarding business tactic.
But it’s also incredibly useful to just keep your (virtual) mouth shut and listen.
Keep an eye out for these “power questions”
What (and who) are people complaining about in your topic?
What’s frustrating them?
What are they worried about?
What are they dreaming of doing?
How do they feel about what they’re doing now?
Social media conversations are free-form and unscripted — and that’s why they’re such a great way to get business ideas. Listen in to discover how people really feel about products and services in your niche.
To do this effectively, find the popular social gathering spots for your topic. These might be Facebook pages, LinkedIn groups, the comments on a popular blog, or any other spot where people can congregate and share their thoughts.
Then spend some quality time in those spots just listening, without jumping into the conversation. Watch for the “power questions” above, and capture them for your ongoing analysis and business thinking.
Step #4: Identify the benefits of knowledge
Wise marketers know about the difference between features and benefits.
Features are what your product or service does.
Benefits are what your customer gets out of it.
When you’re structuring your online course, the features are elements like:
The curriculum — what’s in the course
How the course is delivered
Bonus elements, like Q&A calls or a member forum
All of the course materials, including workbooks, tutorial videos, PDFs, etc.
And, of course, they all have to be there in order for you to have something to deliver.
But the benefits, and more specifically, the “benefits of knowledge,” are what your learners are going to gain by investing their time and money in this course.
Positive: What will they be able to become, have, or do as a result of your course?
Negative: What will they no longer have to deal with (expense, hassle, discomfort) when they’ve completed the course?
By the way, don’t assume that positive reasons are more effective.
In fact, the human brain has an innate bias for negativity — it’s often easier to capture our attention with the negatives we can avoid over the positive elements we might gain.
When you understand the meaningful benefits of knowledge that your course will deliver, you can structure the course so that it works better for learners — and you can market the course more effectively, so that more learners will be motivated to buy.
Step #5: Structure your course for success with learning objectives
Once you know what learners want to get out of your course, you can craft learning objectives that help them attain those benefits.
Instructional design expert Robert Mager pioneered the use of these explicitly stated objectives, as well as a three-step process for crafting them.
Each learning objective needs to be a manageable “chunk” that the learner can readily envision herself completing. Typically, each lesson will have a learning objective.
You’ll also have an overarching learning objective for the entire course.
(Tip: If you have a lesson that seems to require more than one learning objective, or a learning objective that feels overwhelmingly large, break it down into smaller objectives and more focused lessons.)
To craft a learning objective for each lesson:
#1: Figure out the behavior
For each lesson in your course, you need to understand what real-world behavior your learner will be able to do at the end of the lesson.
What will she be able to do differently, that she doesn’t know how to do today?
#2: Figure out the conditions
What conditions or context is this behavior going to take place in?
In other words, specific conditions like:
At work or at home?
In how much time? A day? An hour? A month?
How much focus and dedication will this take? Will the learner need deep commitment, or can this be done in her spare time?
#3: Figure out the standard
How well will your learner be able to do this behavior when she’s mastered the lesson?
Will it be at a professional level? Elite level? Or is the course designed to learn a skill at an enjoyable hobbyist level?
How well should the learner be able to implement the behavior to say she has mastered your course material? That’s your standard.
The quick version
To get a jump-start on crafting your learning objectives, fill in the blanks for this statement:
After completing this course or topic, you will be able to [SPECIFIC, REAL-WORLD BEHAVIOR] in [DESCRIBE THE CONDITIONS OR CONTEXT] in order to [DESCRIBE THE STANDARD THE LEARNER WILL ACHIEVE].
This sample sentence will need to be massaged to make sense for your individual context, but it will get you started.
Would you like some help with that?
Rainmaker Digital’s founder and CEO, Brian Clark, created a complete course around how to structure and build profitable online courses that your audience will want to buy.
The course is called Build Your Online Training Business the Smarter Way, and it’s part of Digital Commerce Academy.
You can now join Digital Commerce Academy for free, and when you do you’ll immediately receive the first four lessons of Brian’s course. View them as many times as you want, whenever you want. With these four lessons, you will learn five key concepts that all online education entrepreneurs need to understand, and how to find a market of hungry learners.
Plus, as part of your free Digital Commerce Academy membership, you will also receive access to a dynamite 90-minute case study hosted by Jerod Morris and featuring Danny Margulies — the creator of the renowned online course Secrets of a Six-Figure Upworker.
The case study is called “How Danny Margulies Turned His Freelancing Success Into a Powerhouse Paid Course,” and it tells the story of how Margulies quit his “soul crushing” job, taught himself how to earn six figures as a freelancer, and then leveraged that experience and knowledge into building a simple online course that netted him over $25,000 in January 2016 alone.
If you’re interested in creating an online course, activating your free membership to Digital Commerce Academy is a no-brainer.
Do you want to build an amazing business and lifestyle? Well …
Listening to theorists, rather than practitioners, isn’t going to get it done.
Reading a few articles isn’t going to get it done.
Daydreaming, without actually doing, isn’t going to get it done.
If you want to build the business and lifestyle of your dreams, then you need to take the first step.
You need to take the first step toward learning from people who are actually out there building amazing businesses and lifestyles through the scalable power of digital products and services (and not just talking about it).
Which is why we’re inviting you to come take one very easy step with us over at Digital Commerce Institute, to get a sample of how we’re able to help you build the business of your dreams.
Although, if it does surprise you, then you might have not been paying attention to our decade-long philosophy of sharing great content for free.
What’s included
Here is what you’ll get instant access to with your free registration:
4 free lessons from the paid course “Build Your Online Training Business the Smarter Way”
3 free lessons from the paid course “How to Create Automated Marketing Funnels that Work”
2 Case Study webinars on building a digital business
1 “Cutting Edge” webinar on using Periscope for content marketing
Plus, one new episode every week of The Digital Entrepreneur — the new podcast I’m hosting with Brian Clark about building a business around digital products and services
In addition, you’ll get valuable “how to” articles and case studies of successful digital entrepreneurs, plus all of the Digital Commerce Academy content we designate as free in the future.
Also, the Early Bird offer for the inaugural Digital Commerce Summit (happening October 13–14, 2016) is about to disappear. You’ll want to register for a free DCI membership and grab your event discount before this deal flies away.
All you have to do is click here, enter your first name and email address, and you’ll have instant access to everything described above.
You know those blog posts that share 267 topic ideas for your next piece of content?
This is not one of those posts.
There are lots of posts with topic ideas. But how — and where — do you keep track of those ideas?
That’s what today’s post is going to cover. Because what’s the use of saving content marketing ideas for a rainy day if you can’t find them when the storm starts?
The cursed cursor
We’ve all been there. It’s the day before your post is due. You’re staring at your screen as sweat beads on your upper lip.
“What should I write about?” you wonder.
Those “topic idea” blog posts are only partially useful when you need something to write about, because random blog post ideas may not resonate with your audience.
In other words, make sure your approach to the information you’ll share will resonate with the readers you’re trying to attract before you blindly adopt a topic idea.
It usually works better to generate ideas yourself. There are a handful of dependable sources for post ideas:
Read comments on social media platforms. Study your own company accounts or accounts that belong to close competitors. Comments there will reflect the general questions your market is mulling over.
Speak directly to readers. Take advantage of conferences to speak to readers in person. Or consider running a small focus group and speak to them by phone. Seek out the people who are in the audience you write for.
Expand on your most popular content. Review your analytics to pinpoint the content that draws the most people to your site. Brainstorm ways to expand on the original topics — just be sure to link back to older articles in the new ones.
As promised, we’re not going to go into detail about how to brainstorm content ideas (although you’re welcome to share your favorite techniques in the comments section below).
Today, we’re going to cover how to capture ideas, tame them, and put them into a form you can reliably use.
Pick one method — only one
Here’s the most important piece of advice from this article:
The method you use for saving your ideas isn’t as important as this: use one method only. Don’t stash ideas in several places. Experiment with various systems, then pick one and stick to it.
It might be helpful to take a moment now and answer a question for yourself: are you a tactile learner or a digital learner?
Some people prefer absorbing information by interacting with physical objects. Capturing your ideas on paper can work great, and we’ll cover that later in this article.
In the next section, we’ll briefly review software and apps for capturing ideas. If you prefer the availability and flexibility of digital tools, this section is for you.
Digital tools for saving your content marketing ideas
The big advantage of digital tools is they’re available across many platforms, which makes it easy to note an idea whether you’re on a laptop, a tablet, or a phone.
Try Trello
The editorial team at Copyblogger uses a Trello board to track content ideas. We assign writers to our post ideas and add notes and links to the cards where they live. Trello allows you to easily add to-do lists and assign people to work on tasks. Here’s Trello’s look at their own editorial calendar system.
Save ideas in Evernote
One smart way to save blog post ideas is to create an Evernote notebook and stash them there. Evernote’s extensive tagging features allow you to cross-reference post ideas. (Some people prefer using tags over notebooks in Evernote.) You can even link between one note and another with the “Copy note link” feature.
Create an idea board on Pinterest
We’re all trying to use more images in our posts, so why not look for blog post images and save them to a private Pinterest board with ideas for the post you want to write? Some people even create whole Pinterest boards filled with blog post ideas. So meta!
Use a notes app on your phone
If you prefer to make quick notes on the device most likely to be in your pocket, consider using the notes app on your phone. Most notes apps give you access to their information through a computer as well, which makes it easy to move your ideas to your writing platform.
Set up a spreadsheet
If you’re the spreadsheet-type, they can be a handy place to store ideas. They’ll be easy to sort by whatever parameter you prefer: date, category, writer assigned, etc.
“Before I created my blog, I mapped out my ultimate goal and the content I would need to write to accomplish it. I created 300 post topics and planned how they all would eventually link to each other.”
Katie doesn’t say what she used, but I’m betting it was a mind map. Mind maps make it easy to note ideas and see the connections between them.
Tactile methods for saving your content marketing ideas
Whether it’s a leather-bound Moleskine or a 3-for-99-cents spiral-bound pad, carrying a small notebook for jotting down ideas is a great way to capture them when they happen. Here’s how you can make your paper notebook easier to search.
Use index cards
Libraries existed for hundreds of years using a card catalog system based on paper index cards. If it’s good enough to catalog thousands of books, it’s good enough to use for your blog post ideas. Consider using this system for keeping your cards organized.
How to attain content marketing peace of mind with a system for storing your ideas
No more sweaty upper lips for you.
Choose one of the methods above for capturing your content marketing ideas. Use it for a few weeks, and explore the links shared to ensure you’re using it efficiently.
Once you’ve found a system that works, embrace it and stick with it.
Honor your ideas, wherever they come from. Grab them when they hit you and get them down in your system of choice.
Saving your ideas frees up brain space — you don’t have to try to remember that content idea when you have a safe place to save it.
And that will clear space so you can have even more new content ideas.
What’s your favorite system for capturing ideas?
I know I’ve only scratched the surface.
What’s your favorite tip for capturing content ideas? Let me know in the comments section.
Haters are the early warning detection system for your business, much like a canary in a coal mine. Haters are not the problem … ignoring them is.
In fact, haters are your most important customers because when they complain, they provide free market research about what you can improve and how you can use content marketing to prevent future complaints.
The real problem for your business isn’t the haters; it is the people who have a poor experience but are not passionate enough about you and your company to take the time to say something about it. They are the “meh” in the middle, and they are what kill businesses.
And the people who love your business aren’t all that useful either. Praise is the most overrated commodity because when someone tells you what you’re great at, it teaches you nothing.
The best business lessons are born from criticism, not pats on the back.
Negativity is a great teacher
One benefit of paying attention to and embracing negative feedback is the ability to glean insights about your business that can improve your operations and processes.
Frank Eliason understands how this works and has captained these programs for very large companies that attract a high volume of customer feedback, including the television and Internet access company, Comcast, and Citi, where he served as the global director of the client experience team. Eliason is also the author of the excellent book @ Your Service.
“The best dollars and cents come when you start to make process improvements based on feedback. It’s harder to do with calls and easier to analyze online. You can start to understand where your frustration points are and fix those. Each of those has a monetary value to them,” he says.
He’s exactly right. And some of those process improvements can actually be turned into content marketing that educates customersbefore they have a chance to complain.
Amazon.com, for example, has an informal corporate edict that dictates that they should never have to answer the same customer question twice.
Because as soon as they get a question, they seek to proactively answer it — with content — so that in the future it never has to be asked again. Brilliant!
Why aren’t you doing that?
Why aren’t content marketers sitting with customer service professionals every week, discussing customer questions and problems, and figuring out how to get in front of those issues with content?
Pay attention to patterns of misunderstandings
Square Cow Movers is a small, family-owned moving company based in central Texas with four locations. They handle long-distance and commercial moves, but the company’s core service is local residential moves, according to managing partner Wade Lombard.
As a small operation, haters hit Lombard hard, and there is a tendency to take complaints personally because he and his immediate family are so intertwined in the business. It’s their life and their livelihood.
Lombard compares the emotional ties he has to his business to how he feels about his children.
“I can go to my son’s baseball game, and he can hit a home run, and I will feel like, man, that is my DNA, that is my offspring, I’m the best dad ever,” he says.
“And the very next day — this hasn’t happened, but it could — I can get a call from the principal who says, ‘Hey, your son’s in the office for disciplinary reasons,’ and I’m so disappointed in whatever action he took to land there.”
“And it’s similar with business,” Lombard says. “One day, I can feel so proud of what we’ve been able to build and what we’ve been able to do. And the next day, one of our guys can do something silly, or a client can call and they can have a legitimate complaint. And I will be so down in the dumps, my emotional spectrum will just plummet. And so I think for responding to complaints the key is to try to take the emotion out of it and say to yourself, ‘What can I learn from this?'”
There are lots of details in the moving business, and much back-and-forth with customers, who are already on edge due to the stresses inherent in any move. Square Cow Movers wasn’t handling those communication details well, a fact Lombard discovered by paying attention to complaints.
“What we found in the reviews was that most of the issues people had with us were when people were unaware of what time we were going to get there, or they were unaware of certain rules or regulations related to moving. And so what we started to do is pick up on patterns. We found these patterns of misunderstandings, and said to ourselves, ‘Okay, because this is a pattern, obviously we’re not doing our part to communicate properly,'” he says.
Lombard and his team changed the company’s policy and procedures as a result, adopting a policy known as “Over-communication is a myth.”
Today, the company goes out of its way to inform and educate customers multiple times throughout the moving process — and negative feedback based on misunderstandings has subsequently plummeted.
Square Cow Movers created content that explains to customers what to expect, thus reducing confusion and dissatisfaction. This not only results in happier customers and better word of mouth, but also saves them real money because they don’t have to field as many complaints.
A catalyst for excellence
When you’re able to categorize and analyze negative feedback from customers, you end up with a treasure trove of potential content marketing topics.
If you’re unsure what to write about, what to create a video about, or what to host a webinar about, start by looking squarely at what your customers are complaining about.
That’s how you use feedback from haters as a petri dish for great content.
Written by Jay Baer, Hug Your Haters is the first customer service and customer experience book written for the modern, mobile era and is based on proprietary research and more than 70 exclusive interviews.
Buy the book directly from Jay now and receive instant digital access (before the book launches officially on March 1), plus get a ton of exclusive, pre-order bonuses worth thousands of dollars. For more information, visit jaybaer.com or HugYourHaters.com.
Social media is the driving force for everything from engagement to content these days. Every marketer is obsessed with keeping ahead of trends and carving out a piece of the market that can be exploited in the long term.
If you have been watching the growth of different networks, you know you have your pick of the litter. It all depends on your goals and what you produce. But do you know the more narrow and important statistics that will help inform your campaign?
Here are some must-read statistics that will be ridiculously helpful when it comes to social media marketing.
Youtube is bigger than cable TV networks (Tweet this)
Traffic to YouTube is global, with 80% of views from outside the US, spanning across 76 different countries (Tweet this)
YouTube Spaces has now expanded to include video production space in Los Angeles, New York, London, Tokyo, Sao Paulo and Berlin. In these production suites independent creators have filmed more than 10,000 videos in the past year alone (Tweet this)
More than 1 billion users visit YouTube (Tweet this)
Facebook Stats
Facebook remains the largest and most active social network, with more than a billion daily active users, and 1.5 billion active monthly users (Tweet this)
The average user spends 40 minutes or more per day on the social network (Tweet this)
A full 91% of the millennial demographic use Facebook in some capacity, many actively (Tweet this)
Canada is the country with the most active users on Facebook (Tweet this)
Twitter
Twitter reported 320 million monthly active users as of October 2015, with 100 million active daily users (Tweet this)
Unlike many networks, Twitter users tend to be active at multiple points through the day, and 29% report checking their account multiple times a day (Tweet this)
Teens are very active on Twitter, and 26% report it as their favorite social network (Tweet this)
Millennials make up a decent proportion of users, at 29% of overall active membership (Tweet this)
LinkedIn
As of October 2015, LinkedIn had 400 million subscribers (Tweet this)
Every second two new people sign up for a LinkedIn account, making its growth steady and impressive (Tweet this)
Unlike some websites that claim a heavy membership but a large chunk of it is inactive, LinkedIn gets 100 million unique visits per month (Tweet this)
Approximately 13% of millennials use LinkedIn for professional connections (Tweet this)
Pinterest
Pinterest has grown to 100 million active users (Tweet this)
The majority of users are still women at 85%, though the number of men who use the site is increasing (Tweet this)
As of September 2015, the number of users outside the US has reached 45%, higher than at any other point since Pinterest launch (Tweet this)
A full 66% of Pinterest users save things that they describe as “inspiring“, making Pinterest the most inspirational of the social networks (Tweet this)
Instagram
More than 75 million users use Instagram every day, and 400 million use it every month (Tweet this)
An impressive 27.5% of the entire US population has claimed to have used Instagram in the year 2015 (Tweet this)
A fairly even split between male and female users exist on Instagram, with 51% being male, and 49% being female (Tweet this)
Almost all Instagram users are under the age of 35, making it a social network that appeals almost entirely to millennials (Tweet this)
Reddit
Since its launch in 2005, Reddit has become the dominant social network for content sharing and individual communities, with 360 million user accounts (Tweet this)
The average Reddit user will have several accounts, including what they call “throwaways“. These are accounts used specifically for a post or community, and then abandoned. Some alternative accounts will remain active (Tweet this)
There are more than 850,000 subreddits on the site, with more being created every day. Tens of thousands of those subreddits are active (Tweet this)
In 2015, Reddit saw more than 73 million submissions, and 725 million comments (Tweet this)
What These Statistics Tell Us
For one thing, that the gap between networks in many ways is widening. Yes, Facebook and Youtube still hold the lion’s share of activity. But the other networks are really neck in neck, maintaining active user bases within similar demographics.
Pinterest is seeing an increasing number of global users joining and using the site. Instagram is even keeled between genders, and has an overall young demographic. Twitter is much less popular than Facebook, and yet has an impressive multi-day return rate.
Reddit is a community focused site with a dedicated user base that comes back again and again to participate through direct engagement. LinkedIn remains a top choice for professionals, especially those already in higher positions that want to connect with other industry leaders.
Social Media Is Hotter Than Ever
It seems like such a trite thing to say, that social media is still popular. It is more than just popular, it is a growing part of our daily lives. How many of you reading this go on a social network right in the morning? It has become the new newspaper and coffee routine!
What social media stats do you know? Let us know in the comments!
So, let’s fix that. Today, content marketer, we’ll help you get a plan in place.
But first we need to clear up a little confusion about content marketing strategy.
Content marketing strategy defined
Some people like to make a distinction between the terms content strategy and content marketing strategy. The distinction, they suggest, is best explained with a Russian doll: a smaller strategy is inside a larger one.
In this case, content marketing strategy is the smaller strategy inside the larger one, content strategy.
Fair enough, but I think this distinction is confusing and needless because we can also talk about content marketing strategy as the planning, creation, governance, and maintenance of content … and not lose any sleep.
I’d like to proceed with a clear definition of a content marketing strategy.
So, if strategy means “a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result,” the specific goal or result for content marketing would be “building an audience that builds a business.”
For our purposes, then, let’s define content marketing strategy like this:
A content marketing strategy is a plan for building an audience by publishing, maintaining, and spreading frequent and consistent content that educates, entertains, or inspires to turn strangers into fans and fans into customers.
Which brings us to the next important question.
Do you need a content marketing strategy?
If you are a small business with a few employees or a one-man or one-woman shop, you may be thinking that your content marketing is so simple that you don’t need a plan.
Won’t a list of things that need to happen written on the back of an envelope get the job done?
Yes, that’s one way to begin, especially if you are typically a perfectionist and just need to start your content marketing rather than waiting until you have the perfect plan.
But at some point you will need to develop a more comprehensive plan — and then document it.
Content marketers with a documented strategy feel more confident in their work.
Content marketing challenges don’t seem as overwhelming when you have a strategy in place.
A documented strategy makes it easier to get buy-in from stakeholders.
It’s easier to chart your success when you have a documented strategy.
And don’t forget to download the accompanying free worksheet.
There is one thing to keep in mind, though. You will probably have to perform some serious research before you can answer those questions.
Your content marketing strategy begins with this person
The person I’m talking about is your customer.
Your customer is the focal point of your content marketing strategy. You need a substantial, deep, and comprehensive understanding of who she is.
When you do, the strategy will write itself. You won’t have to guess or wonder. But a weak, flimsy, or flat-out wrong understanding of who your customer is will sink your strategy every time.
Check out these five resources to help you understand who your customer is:
Once you thoroughly understand who your customer is, evaluate the content you already have.
This exercise will not only help you spot the gaps in your content that you need to fill, but it will also help you see that old content can become outdated and cost you top positions in search engines, cause user-experience failure, and more.
So, here are four resources to help you review your current content:
In this hour-long session, our Chief Operations Officer, Tony Clark, and Chief Content Officer, Sonia Simone, talk about:
Why content creators should have a basic understanding of web analytics
What tools you must use (forget about the rest and focus on these)
The essential metrics you should measure to get the best performance out of your content
What to do with the information once you have it
This is a great introduction to understanding the tools you need to successfully measure your content marketing strategy. Authority members can access the webinar here.
Your turn
So, do you have a content marketing strategy? Is it documented or a plan you keep in your head?
How did you go about creating it? Have any other tips you’d like to share with us to help other readers?
Leave us your thoughts and questions in the comments section below. We look forward to hearing from you.
Sonia Simone, host of Confessions of a Pink-haired Marketer, launched her new mini-series: Things I Love / Things I Hate, and the first episode can’t be missed.
The new mini-series explores things she thinks are awesome and … all the other stuff
Sonia covers the art of finding the right self-promotion balance on Twitter — without turning into a shouty boor. She’ll also give you her thoughts on how to create engaging content that isn’t stuffy or fluffy and focuses on your goals instead.
Plus, she gives advice on choosing and working with editors and copyeditors, and tells you about a place to find super-qualified professional writers and content marketers.
