Category: Content Marketing

Any good marketing campaign dreams of an amazing word of mouth marketing where people are left talking about your brand.

Are you a digital marketer?

Well, then I have a secret for you.

User-generated content is your best shot to make this dream come true. It is the most trusted form of marketing that there is at present.

Creating relevant and original content for your brand is really important, and if it is created by your users themselves, then nothing could be better than that.

It’s like you are making your customers do marketing for you.

But it is not as plain and simple as said. Certain tactics and tricks are required that allows you to employ and utilize user-generated content to it’s full potential.

This article throws light on such interesting ideas that let you leverage UGC for your digital marketing campaigns.

Come, let’s have a look how.

Run UGC Campaigns And Hashtag Contests

One of the best ways to collect user-generated content is through hashtag contests and UGC campaigns.

As a brand, you could host a UGC inspired hashtag contest on social media. For that purpose, you may create brand dedicated hashtags. Thereafter, you may ask your users, customers, and followers to contribute to the hashtag campaigns.

It is actually interesting because it taps into the creative sides of the users. Also, the perk of getting displayed as part of brand content is too rewarding for the users. And if you are rewarding them with giveaways, then that just ensures more engagement by the users and followers.

Promoting your UGC and hashtag campaigns spread a word about it, engages more and more users, thus making it a trend. Nothing could be better than that. A trending UGC campaign naturally attracts immense user engagement and interaction.

Creating a perfect brand hashtags is really important for making your UGC campaigns really successful. Your hashtag must be trendy, simple, short, and catchy. It must resonate with the idea of your UGC campaign and brand simultaneously.

Display UGC Through Social Walls At Events And On Websites

Another amazing way of employing user-generated content for your brand promotion is by displaying it your users in a really interesting and engaging manner.

Now, how do you do that?

A social wall is a perfect answer to that question. A social wall is one of the most interesting, attractive, and engaging ways to display user-generated content.

You could employ a social wall to display user-generated content to your audience at an event, to your potential customers outside your outlet through digital signage or even your website visitors by embedding the social wall into your website.

A social wall is generally accompanied by a social aggregator which comes with powerful moderation, curation, and analytics features. So, you are not just limited to the displaying feature of a social wall.

Best way of doing so is by embedding Instagram feed on your business website.

The moderation and curation feature helps you to maintain your content quality and health while the analytics feature helps you get a deeper insight into customer behavior and sentiments associated with the user-generated content that you are displaying.

Collect And Display User-Generated Reviews

User-generated reviews that are posted online by genuine customers have a great impact on the minds of aspiring customers.

Most of the users before making any online purchase look for reviews of customers who have already bought that same product.

Customers always trust user-generated reviews and peer recommendations more than branded content. It’s like in the form of these reviews, your loyal customers are vouching for your the quality of your services and products.

Now, these online reviews may be both positive and negative. You should know how to deal with both positive and negative online reviews.

When a positive review is posted about you online, as a marketer, it’s a matter of joy for you. You can proudly display that to your other users through a social wall, digital signage, or by embedding it on your website. Always thank your users for a positive review. This makes them feel acknowledged and they are prompted to review you positively even in the future.

Negative reviews, although unwanted but are really necessary. Obviously, you cannot display it as your digital signage or embed it on your website. But you can surely learn from it. Negative reviews bring out those aspects of your services and products that you might have initially ignored or skipped. Remember to leave a comment that pacifies your unsatisfied customers and makes them believe that you will do your best to improve your services and products in the future. Don’t leave them unanswered.

Display User Stories Through Videos And Ad Campaigns

When you run ad campaigns for your brands online, just remember one thing-

“Your users are smart. They understand the difference between real and fake. They will know if what you are showing is genuine or produced by your marketing team.”

So, try to incorporate real user experiences and stories as a part of your ad campaigns.

Try showing your real users sharing their stories in the videos you incorporate as part of your video marketing strategy.

You could also support a cause in that direction while promoting your ad campaign.

That helps you create a personal link with the users. It presents the humane side of your non-living brand entity.

It also helps you target users that are generally not under your target audience radar but they resonate with the cause you are supporting.

Over To You

These were some of the major and interesting ideas that could help you leverage user-generated content for your marketing purposes.

This article is contributed by Anne Griffin, Digital marketer and Technical writer — Embed Instagram Feed on website

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Each year, the Content Marketing Institute conducts a survey to find out how various companies are using technology to market their content. On a positive note, there has been an increase in the attention companies pay to content marketing strategies.

This year, 76% of companies reported to be taking content marketing more seriously compared to last year’s. In fact, 59% of businesses have a documented strategy for their content compared to last year’s 43%. Such an increase should also motivate you to come up with a content marketing strategy of your own seeing as how many others have benefited from it.

On the other hand, this means that there is a lot more competition among businesses within the same space. As more companies begin to employ effective content marketing strategies, it is paramount to rise above the rest. To do so, you will need a superb strategy unlike any other.

Make no mistake, this will be a bit daunting at first, but once you get in the groove, you will appreciate the returns from your business but also. To make it simple, we have trimmed down everything you need into five complementary strategies that can be used by any business.

Establish a goal for your marketing strategy

It would be pointless to launch your strategy before first establishing what you want to achieve. Everything else that comes afterward will be merely to achieve the goal, without which you can’t really direct your strategy. Can you imagine, say, a football team walking onto the field without a goal?

Even the best tactics would be useless without it. The same is true with marketing your business, where you must determine what you want to gain in the end. Not only will this help you to improve your business, but also to keep track of the progress made. Otherwise, it would be like sailing without a compass.

Obviously, the goals for different businesses will vary, but ultimately it’s all about growing your business by increasing your customer base. The actual, specific goal may vary a bit, but ultimately that is what it’s all about.

For example, you may be looking to increase your online sales to complement your running physical business or expanding into new territory. However, your goals must be very clearly defined because then you have a specific target. SEO Joel House Adelaide helps you establish a goal that is achievable and beneficial to your business.

Get to know your audience

This is one of the few situations where you are actually encouraged to be biased — you have to be. After all, you wouldn’t give the same speech you would at a dinner party as you would a kid’s birthday party, would you? Knowing your audience will help your strategy to be more effective and also less costly.

Politicians are the perfect illustration of good marketers, and it’s easy to see how well they know their audience, which is why they don’t even visit areas they don’t expect much support. This is the same thing you should be doing with your business instead of wasting valuable energy and resources.

The most straightforward way of doing this is by visualizing your ideal customer. For instance, it wouldn’t make sense to market a high-end restaurant to university students. Sure, some of them may visit on occasion, but for the most part, the effort would be a waste.

Consider what kind of business you run and who would be most likely to visit. Then find out how you can reach them in particular. It the case of a high-end restaurant, consider a location such as a business district. It also won’t hurt to know your competition. Remember that you won’t be the only one competing for business, so it is also important to know what the competition has to offer and seek to beat them.

Reach as many of them as you can

You now know what kind of person would be most likely to need your business, but how do you reach them? Once again, you need to be very specific about this to save your resources for other purposes.

Continuing with our example of the high-end restaurant with gourmet meals situated in a business district, how do you reach your target audience? Strategies like online marketing may not work very well as the targets are, let’s face it, not too technologically adept.

These would be the kinds of people to read the paper rather than log into their Instagram.

The hardest thing to do in business is getting a new client. Moreover, you only get a few moments to keep that customer. In order to reach out to people and have them visit your business or even your online page, entice them with offers, discounts, etc. Since people tend to spread the word by mouth, you may find even more customers this way.

Analyze the performance of your strategy

Just like you can’t become complacent on the business side, neither should you be in your marketing. Periodically check to see the progress of your marketing strategy and be ready to make modifications whenever necessary.

If you had perhaps expanded into a new area, look at the progress you have made that far and compare it with your goal. If the goal has not been achieved, then it may be time to revise the strategy.

Keep it consistent

Do you know why companies like IBM, Blackberry and Nokia went down the gutter compared to, say, Apple? They could not keep the quality of their products consistent.

You too have to be consistent, which does not mean resting on your laurels, but keeping up with the demands of your customers. This means constantly modifying your goals and adapting to change as it happens.

This article is contributed by Joel House, CEO and Founder of SEO Joel House Adelaide.

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Whether you run a gym, daycare facility, bank or design firm, you need customers. If there is anything all small businesses have in common, it’s wanting clients. You know you need to find prospects and build an audience if you’re going to be successful, but how? If you can afford to choose only one marketing strategy, what should it be?

Whether you’re starting out or are fairly established, your small business likely has only so much to invest in marketing. That’s why, when you’re looking for maximum effectiveness, the best strategy you can use is content marketing.

Think about it: People often ignore direct mail, unsubscribe from emails and skip television advertisements. What they pay attention to, however, is that infographic or blog post that shows in online search results. They want to read inspiring articles and find answers to their questions.

What this means for you is when your company can inspire and educate readers about your industry or area of expertise, it has a golden opportunity to attract customers.

What Is Content Marketing?

In a world of nonstop advertising, today’s consumers are looking for real value — and that’s what content marketing offers. Through regular blog posts, infographics, video, social media content and other types of information, you can provide authentic, interesting and useful resources to your audience. This reaps a host of rewards for you. Where advertising talks about a product, content marketing builds a relationship. This relationship is the foundation of more sales. To make the most of content marketing, your goal is to focus on the customers and what they want — in order to make a case that what you sell is the solution.

Top 10 Benefits of Content Marketing for Small Businesses

For a more in-depth look at what makes content marketing so useful for business, check out some of the biggest benefits it provides:

#1. Strong branding. Considering that strong brands outperform the market by nearly 75 percent, according to McKinsey Research, anything that helps you build your brand is worth considering. Enter content marketing. Because it focuses on consistently offering content with your brand personality and image, it helps you build a clearer, stronger company name. Your readers come to know you and what you stand for, and they recognize you more naturally in the marketplace. This lays the groundwork for generating more sales.

#2. Differentiation from the competition. No matter your industry, the Internet makes it more competitive than ever. Other businesses in your field want the same top results in search engines that you do, and content marketing is a big part of that. To stand out from the other guys, you not only need to be creating content, but you also need to be creating better content. In other words, you need a strong voice, a specific style and niche and the creativity to be different from everybody else. Content marketing offers the perfect opportunity to accomplish this. Through your unique perspective and style, you stand out and get noticed.

#3. More credibility with prospects. When it comes to building trust with prospects, content has always been king. Today’s digital landscape has expanded the possibilities for how you can engage your audience, but the basics are the same. So, to build credibility, you need to create content consistently, in your subject area, in a way that offers solutions or inspiration, free of charge. As you do this, prospects will come to trust you to keep providing value in the future, too.

#4. A position as a thought leader in your field. With insightful and useful posts, your business can become a thought leader in its field. Here’s why this matters: Who would you rather buy a house from — the real estate agent who helped you with mortgage options in a thoughtful blog post or the professional who doesn’t have answers? When you post consistently useful information, prospects come to think of you as an authority.

#5. Greater traffic and business exposure. Even without a huge investment, content marketing can consistently generate more traffic and exposure than comparable methods. This is partly because keyword-optimized content can help you rank higher in search engines, and partly because the more quality content on your site, the more reasons someone has to visit.

#6.More shares. Useful, informative content is the kind of content people want to share online. When your business offers valuable resources to its audience, it can help you get more social shares — resulting traffic.

#7. More leads. Content marketing not only boosts traffic, but also generates new leads from that traffic. How much? While it costs 62 percent less than traditional marketing, content marketing generates three times as many leads, according to Demand Metric.

#8. Increased lead conversions. After reading blogged recommendations, a whopping 61 percent of American online consumers made purchases, according to Content Marketing Institute. What does this mean for a small business? If you want people to sign up for your service(s) or buy your product(s), you need to be crafting custom content that makes them want to — this is the essence of content marketing.

#9. Increased sales. You don’t have to ask your prospects to buy from you directly to be showing them, post after post, why you’re worth buying from — this is the beauty of building trust, authority and interest.  

#10. A good ROI. Perhaps the best part of content marketing, at least for a small business with a limited budget, is its effectiveness. In return for time, effort and consistency, you can gain more leads, more traffic and more sales. Whatever you sell, this is hard to ignore.

Even with a small marketing budget, you can’t afford to skip content marketing. It has too much to offer! So, is your business incorporating a clear strategy for delivering value through blog posts, online articles, etc.? If not, you’re missing the perfect chance to grow your company, no matter what you sell.

This article is contributed by Shanna Mallon is a contributing writer for Straight North.