Every business wants more website visitors — more visitors equates leads, and leads generate sales. But how is your website giving value to your customers? Blogging should be a cornerstone in your content marketing strategy to help drive steady traffic to your website.
Of course, if your blog content is engaging and provides something to a potential customer, they’re more likely to value your business. By combining valuable content with search-engine best practices, businesses will see steady growth online.
If your business doesn’t blog, it should start. What a lot of businesses don’t realize about blogging is the potential for growth and online visibility that they offer. Even a few blog posts a month can increase your web presence, engagement and improve your SEO.
Not convinced yet? Here are the three main ways blogging can benefit your business.
Search engines love new content, and blog posts are a great way to create fresh content focusing on your brand and what you're all about. Use your blog posts to inform your customers about the products and services that they love, give them how-to's, and help them connect more deeply to the value you bring to their lives.
In doing this, you'll naturally incorporate the keywords and phrases they are using online when searching for this information. As a result, you will align your content with what they're looking for, improving your SEO and increasing your visibility on the web.
In turn, you have more indexed pages — or pages that can be found in search engines. And all of them relate back to your business. You can also power up on that SEO with quality links, with related posts or other pertinent information.
With a content plan in place, you can distribute your blogs on social media channels to get the word out and drive even more traffic to your site. Essentially, information and bits of content from your blog can be reshared across social platforms to keep social feeds fresh and updated.
In addition to an evergreen timeline, new potential customers can begin to find and interact with your brand through various social channels.
Earlier we touched on helping your customers connect more deeply with your brand. That's how great relationships are built.
Your blog can help you strengthen the connection you already have with loyal customers, and also build new connections with potential customers. As you share your business expertise and inform them of upcoming trends, specials and news, you will be letting them know that you care about them personally.
The number one rule here is: Be helpful. Your business blog is not all about salesmanship — it's about providing something of value to your audience. To be successful, you should always write with your audience in mind.
Blog for your customers, and don’t be afraid to keep them on their toes! Ask them for feedback on a topic, share funny stories, and celebrate holidays and events with them.
Blogging gives your business a voice and is the perfect place to let your company's culture and personality shine through.
This is your platform with which to share your expertise and set your business apart as a leader in your market. Blogs are a place to show what your business is made of and shout out your successes.
How do you want people to think of your business? Your blog provides a place for your brand, creativity, enthusiasm and vision to be heard. Make sure your message is loud and clear, so people will understand and remember you when the time comes to make a purchasing decision.
Business blogs are a wonderful way for your company to interact with your consumers, improve your SEO and build your brand. And best of all, it’s not only a very profitable form of marketing, it’s also one of the cheapest available.
Blogs can stay online forever, so they will continually create new traffic even as you create new ones. So now, your business has no excuses to avoid blogging any longer. Create an editorial calendar or talk to us and get blogging!
Post updated: May 18, 2020, 12:10 p.m. EST
As the cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) continue to rise and social distancing remains a recommendation, much of world is shut down. Many businesses are at a standstill or close to it, many are left wondering, "Do I need a coronavirus marketing strategy?"
Never in the digital age has a crisis so abruptly changed the way businesses operate. But marketing doesn't stop, even for a global pandemic.
While some of these changes may be temporary for businesses, many of them are going to influence marketing for years to come.
The businesses that use this time to adapt through the crisis in their marketing, rather than stand still, will be in the best shape to survive a downturn in the economy. Thus, they'll be able to thrive in the long term.
As social distancing remains in place, consumers are shifting from in-person purchases to digital. 89% of consumers say their shopping behavior has been affected by COVID-19. Businesses should shift with them, investing more into SEO, website and online learning management systems, virtual connection with customers, and online marketing channels. If at all possible, sell your product or services through your website via an online store.
Some industries, like restaurants and bars, have been hit much harder regardless of the actions they've taken. Others, like home furnishings and fashion, have exceeded their 2019 revenue marks. Businesses should continue to shift to online delivery and click-and-collect services when possible to attract new customers, among other marketing shifts.
Up to 40% of many marketing budgets are focused on in-person trade shows every year. Compare that to 8% on average spend on online marketing. The near future of large in-person gatherings is in question, with conferences into May already getting postponed. With those marketing budgets slashed, now is the time to shift those dollars into content for your digital footprint. This should include online lead generation, social media, and content marketing to sustain business growth and interest new customers.
Especially now, consumers want to connect to the brands they trust and see how they're reacting to a global pandemic. Consumers want to see that brands are there for them and how they are embracing community. This is a huge opportunity for brands to increase loyalty, especially those that are already positioned for online success.
Trade shows are especially important for business-to-business marketers. With no face-to-face interactions, marketing teams should take time to move their online marketing strategies forward and redefine their online marketing messages.
Whether that's a website refresh, new lead magnets, improving website SEO, or general content marketing — there are countless ways to start the shift and invest more in your content plan. This is a time when B2B marketers must find new paths keep their sales pipeline flowing. Fresh content is a primary source to generate traffic for your business.
You content plan should be simple but effective in reaching the audiences that are important. In turn, this shift will pay long-term dividends even when things do return to a level of normalcy.
In a digital age, working remotely was starting to become the new normal. But it's becoming a necessity as the novel coronavirus spreads.
As of 2018, more than 70 percent of the global workforce reported working remotely at least once a week. Since 2005, the share of the American labor force that works from home has tripled. The majority of employees said remote work improves self-care, stress, personal health, physical activity, and romantic relationships.
The following months will very likely shape the future of remote work in marketing positions that have the ability to shift to digital.
The digital marketing sector is in an ideal position to benefit from working remotely. Regardless of the indsutry you're in, digital marketers can continue to align your marketing and brand efforts from anywhere with an internet connection.
Forward-thinking marketing agencies have been prepared for remote work for some time now. Marketing teams communicate digitally internally and with clients, giving regular constant updates on the marketing processes and materials. With tools like HubSpot, filestage, and Google Drive, communication and content can be executed seamlessly.
Oftentime with remote work, companies are aiming to increase employee productivity and engagement by emphasizing a work-life balance. According to a Gallup poll, those efforts have been effective, and energyhill has seen success as well.
This is a time to refine these remote work strategies and build on the technology that could make marketing remotely between agencies and clients easier in the long term.
As technology continues to develop, bots and automation can complete mundane tasks (chatting with a customer, for example). However, bots can't interact and connect the same as humans to create emotional responses, from content creation to business pitches.
While every job requires varying levels of developed hard skills, soft skills are the intangibles that employers often seek out when hiring. 91% of talent professionals agree that soft skills are important to the future of job recruiting. To present value to a company, individuals must portray these soft skills that make them indispensable for their business's success despite some shifting to automation.
"While hard skills may get a candidate's foot in the door, it's the soft skills that ultimately open it," said Lydia Liu, head of HR at Home Credit Consumer Finance Co. Ltd.
Research shows that creativity is the most crucial soft skill marketers are looking for in new employees. Creativity is a skill that no machine can replicate. This is especially true in marketing, where creativity is important not only in campaigns but in managing business relationships.
Our marketing team regularly meets for design charrettes to get creative juices flowing and create a dialogue around our marketing strategies for individual clients.
Arguably the most difficult part of remote work is not team-working in-person to craft solutions. Face-to-face conversations can spark creativity and innovation in marketing messages.
However, working from home doesn't change the importance of constant, clear communication that keeps teams on the same page. Putting emphasis on communication between your marketing team and clients is more important than ever to carryout successful sales and marketing strategies.
With technology shifting and improving, fearless team members are important to adapting to the changes and keeping clients on the cutting edge. For many, adaptability is an attitude. It's certainly an important one to have as many marketers shift to remote work and rely on new tech.
Employees who are adaptable show potential to become leaders and embrace the challenges they must overcome. These employees can ask the tough questions, make mistakes, and then learn from them and their peers.
Remaining a work-life balance and prioritizing your health as you work from home is just one form of adapting.
Ultimately, we can't yet see the full scope of the lasting impact the novel coronavirus will have on marketing. However, it's clear that trends in this age of coronavirus are beginning to take shape and marketers and sales teams will have to make adjustments.
energyhill has helped position our clients to embrace the marketing shifts in these unheralded times. To learn more about what energyhill can do to drive revenue for your business, contact us to discuss your business goals, or check out our services page.
More often than not, people think that content strategy and content planning are one and the same. While they share similarities, ultimately, they are very different. The common denominator here is content. And while strategy and planning are crucial, if companies lack remarkable content, then the efforts are in vain. Read on to see the key components of each and why agencies implement them.
Easily put, content strategy is the how and why content is used to achieve marketing and business goals. This is where the brainstorming for compelling content comes in. Also, this part of the process considers audience engagement and action through content. Think of the power of content. So, here are some reasons why you need a marketing agency to establish a content strategy for your brand and its benefits.
As a creative marketing agency, we know that the strategy process is crucial. Strategy leads to planning, which then leads to execution - the fun part. Effective content strategy uses the business goals to guide the marketing goals. Then, the marketing goals guide the content goals. It's a chain that should end in the achievement of marketing goals. Also, it is almost needless to say that content strategy should always keep the audience in mind while including the following:
It's important to measure success when agencies are creating content strategies. For example, what do you consider successful when it comes to the results of content strategy? Defining and measuring success will contribute to the content strategy process.
Both content strategy and content planning need to take into consideration the roles of those participating in the project. However, this does not necessarily refer to who writes the article or who schedules what. Assigning roles highlights who will be responsible for giving input on the big decisions and who assigns roles. Also, this step considers the decision of outsourcing or working in-house.
Here, agencies decide what should be done and when. Basically, determining how the content can produce results. However, even the most well-crafted content strategy amounts to nothing without a clear and transparent plan for setting it into action. Content planning is where you or your marketing agency create topics to address your themes. Furthermore, choosing specific content types and tactics to address your goals and audience’s preferences happens during content planning.
Here are some key elements of effective content planning:
The importance of content planning is that it helps alleviate strategic issues that a lot of organizations face, such as:
At energyhill, we follow rigorous processes of content strategy and content planning to create content for brands. If you are looking for ways to improve your content strategy and planning for your business, contact us today.
