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Lead Liaison

Facing the Challenge of Content Creation

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Content Creation is KingThe demand for intriguing and informative content is constantly rising and it is challenging for most businesses to consistently fill their website, blogs, newsletters, social media networks, and other lead nurturing campaigns with new and exciting content. They need to generate multiple pieces of content per day and every piece must be relevant, informative, and original.

Challenge of Content Creation

Thanks to the current Panda update from Google, content has to be more than just compelling words in an article. Search engine rankings now take into consideration images, videos, and the amount of responses you receive on social media sites. To keep up with the demand of visitors and search-bots, content must come in a variety of different mediums, be interesting enough to inspire Facebook users to “like” and “share” the information with others, educational enough to brand your business as an industry leader, and unique enough to pass copyscape. This is a tall order and incredibly challenging for most businesses.

Here are four effective ways to face the challenge of content creation:

1.      Hire a Content Specialist

There are many different ways to hire someone specifically to handle your content creation. There are online freelance writers who will work from home on a per-basis assignment. You can hire a social media strategist or community manager as a part-time or full-time employee. You can also re-assign existing personnel in your marketing department to focus solely on writing content.

2.      Invest in Marketing Automation

Most professional marketing automation experts will include high-quality content creation in their extensive list of services. A marketing automation company can provide your business with a complete online marketing strategy. It strategically guides leads throughout their entire buying process. Marketing automation software generates leads, captures leads, profiles leads, nurtures leads, and then converts them into customers. Please click here to learn more about how marketing automation can benefit your business.

3.      Reference the Competition

You are not the only one facing the challenge of content creation. All of your competitors are scrambling to post enough content to attract and retain online followers. Check out what other leaders in your industry are posting and see if you can improve on their articles.

4.      Offline Research

Not every great content idea will come from the internet. Newspapers, magazines, and television are all great resources for content creation. You can also ask friends and family that suit your target demographic what type of content they would appreciate.

Content is a necessity of doing business online. If you are facing the challenge of content creation, start by either hiring a content specialist or by investing in marketing automation. If you prefer to face the challenge on your own, you can research content ideas by reviewing your competitor’s content, offline sources like newspapers and television, and by asking people you know personally. Better yet, use Lead Liaison’s content creation solution to help automate your content creation needs.

Lead Liaison

Is Your Website Conversion Optimized?

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Is Your Website Conversion Optimized?We all want a conversion optimized website. Solidifying your sales pathway allows clients to not only buy from you, but to become repeat customers. A good experience starts should start the first time a customer visits your website and continue throughout the life of your relationship with the customer. Many small business owners don’t truly realize how much they’re getting in their own way when it comes to a giving customers a conversion optimized experience. Scrimping money by designing a site yourself or using a designer who isn’t familiar with the conversion optimization process is a common problem. For some business owners, an outdated website creates navigation and sales problems. Let’s talk about how to make your website conversion optimized for better sales and overall client engagement.

Tell Them What to Do

Your customer should be able to know exactly what you want them to do within 10 seconds of visiting your website. Identify the first step in your funnel and don’t mince words. If you’d like your potential customer to fill out a lead form, make sure that form is front and center on your website. If you’re selling products, make sure the path to those products is clear. In the case of a web cart, customers should be able to easily sign in, view the items in their cart and check out. A 10-step checkout process that over collects your customers’ personal information does nothing to keep the trust you’ve already built with your customer. Take a look at your sales process – can you simplify it in any way to make buying time shorter and more convenient?  Focusing on making everything simple is part of having a conversion optimized website.

Conversion Optimized Site Tracking

Navigation exists to help your clients figure out where to go on your site if they want more information. If you’re not getting an idea of how clients are using navigation to get what they need – and at what points they’re exiting your site – you could be missing valuable data that would lead to results-generating modifications on your pages. If you don’t have tracking on your site, now is a good time to think about looking closely at what your users are doing on your site.  Having a conversion optimized site isn’t going to do too much for you if you have no way of interpreting the data that’s coming in. Are you getting more sales after a conversion optimization? If so, why is this happening – or if it’s not happening, what can be changed to ensure there’s a difference in the future? If you’re looking for an information dashboard that’s easy to use and tracks data at a granular level, Lead Liaison is for you. Talk to use about tracking for your conversion optimized website today – or let us help you find out how to start your optimization.

Lead Liaison

Creating Business Content Through Segmentation

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Creating Business Content Through SegmentationAs you’re reading this, small businesses are out there creating business content. Many of them are harvesting content that’s been contracted to external sources. Some are repurposing content that’s been written before, or using automation services to reimagine content from another business. Some are developing a careful content strategy that uses available business resources and a calendar. Some aren’t worried about their content strategy at all.

Upon first glance, the businesses that are leveraging zero to minimum new content in their businesses are the ones that appear the least competitive. However, the effort it takes to create business content does not always guarantee success. If you’re not segmenting you content to match the buying cycle of your users, your content could be deleted, passed over or generally disregarded each time you get a site visit or send a newsletter. And as most business owners out there know, wasted effort is wasted money.

Creating Business Content that Works

According to Social Media B2B, only 30% of companies generally categorize the content they have to offer based on their customer’s average buying cycle. This means that regardless of what buying stage customers are in, they’re getting the same content as everyone else.

Ask yourself this – does someone who’s already purchased need to be convinced to become a first-time customer? Wouldn’t it be better for customers who’ve made a purchase to get new offers or ‘returning customer’ specials? What about referrals?

If you haven’t segmented these different ways of looking at how your customers buy and what content they’d like to see, now is a great time to start.

The Benefits of Segmentation

Creating the right business content based on your customer buying cycle is about first understanding your cycle, then knowing how to segment your audience. If you don’t understand your cycle, marketing automation is a great way to get acquainted with how people are finding you and how to address each audience’s different needs.

Once you have that base set up, take a look at how you can break your customers into different audiences based on how and when they buy. Do you find that customers choose to go with you 8-10 days after you begin advertising? Then you should start sending customized emails to a deciding client segment within a week of initial contact. What about email marketing? If new clients don’t ever seem to open emails, segment your email list into a ‘returning’ or ‘current client’ list that gets special offers and information about your business.

If you don’t know how to begin the buying cycle definition or segmentation process, marketing automation services can help you. At Lead Liaison, we strive to help you understand your buying cycle with advanced tools and marketing data. Talk to us today about how we can help get your business to the next step!

Lead Liaison

How to Make Video Marketing Work For You

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How to Make Video Marketing Work For YouVideo marketing can be a useful tool for promoting interaction in your business – but if your company isn’t using Youtube, Vimeo and other networks correctly, you could be hurting your stats more than you’re helping.

First things first – when considering your video marketing plan, the images aren’t the only thing you should focus on. Your video marketing script or verbiage must engage your audience and compel them to subscribe to your channel, find out more about your site and state explicitly what you’re about and can offer.

Additionally, your videos should contain keywords that explain your products and services. It’s also a good idea to speak the name of your business or URL during your video. Believe it or not, Google indexes speech in Youtube videos as well as the text you type in for your title and description. If your voiceover is clear and your keywords are relevant to your business, this could contribute to your site indexing over time.

The Power of Video Marketing

According to Social Media B2B, 73% of B2B marketing agencies or contractors believe Youtube is an efficient way to manage and transmit content to a selected audience. In addition to the ability to showcase content in a multimedia way, Youtube videos are shareable and you can set coding parameters to match the look of your site. If you’d like to place video marketing assets like Youtube videos in a blog sidebar, there are WordPress plugins that can do this. You can also change the dimensions of videos and embed code anywhere on your site.

Because the share factor is there and the dimensions are customizable, using Youtube to share content on your site is a great way to communicate your message without taking up extra bandwidth on your own server.

Never Set Your Videos to Auto-Start

Strictly B2B speaking, auto-start can be your worst enemy and get an immediate bounce on your pages. It’s important to make sure you have a grip on your audience before you start video marketing. If you’re trying to sell your products to other businesses and visiting your website means watching a video without any way to disable the audio, you could lose potential clients quickly.

Think of it this way – many B2B employees, whether decision-makers or regular staff, are working in an open office environment during the day. Some are in meetings or working in office spaces with open doors. If your video auto-starts and an employee’s phone or laptop isn’t muted, your website’s video could be the cause of embarrassment or interruption. This isn’t a great way to sell your product. It may seem like getting your message out there immediately is a good thing, but giving your users the opportunity to decide whether or not to play your video is good video marketing. Putting the control in the hands of your audience helps build trust.

If you’re looking for video marketing tools that can take your B2B to the next level, consider Lead Liaison. We have a suite of video marketing tools you’ll have to see to believe – and we’d love to set up a consult to discuss your B2B needs.

Lead Liaison

How to Continuously Create Compelling Content

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How to Continuously Create Compelling ContentI came across this clever infographic on 22 ways to create content when you don’t have a clue and I started contemplating the most successful ways to continuously write high-quality marketing content. Lead Liaison’s marketing automation services are based on constantly generating new content for a variety of businesses and industries, but occasionally even I get stuck when I am trying to come up with new ideas.

The never ending demand for content makes it hard for anyone to keep up. Most digital marketing and SEO strategies revolve around the need to constantly create fresh and relevant content that informs and connects with potential consumers. Content is a business’ best chance to demonstrate their industry knowledge and educate consumers about what there business has to offer.

Every article, newsletter, and webpage must be original, informative, and interesting to your target audience. This can be incredibly challenging for businesses that don’t have the time to constantly create compelling new content.

Here are a few helpful hints on how to continuously create compelling content:

1.      Research Your Competitors

Every online business is regularly posting new content, including your competitors. You can’t copy their articles word-for-word, but you can use the content they post to generate new ideas for your own company’s content. Try to focus on any vital information that is missing from your competitor’s articles or things that your company does differently.

2.      Research Offline Articles

Your daily newspaper, local magazines, and television can all be great sources of new ideas. Every time you come across something relevant to your target audience, brainstorm ways to convert the concept into new content for your blog or social media networks.

3.      Hire Professional Content Writers

Content marketing specialists and marketing automation gurus have built their careers on continuously creating compelling content for a variety of difference businesses. They know how to tap into your target market, create the right reaction, and maintain a reader’s interest. If it is too difficult to constantly create new articles, hire a freelancer or a professional marketing automation business to handle the content creation on behalf of your business.

4.      Ask Your Followers

Not everything you post on your blog or social media site has to be an article. It is important to request feedback from your followers to see what questions or concerns they have about your industry, products, or services. Every time you get stuck, send a tweet or update your company’s Facebook status asking your followers what they really want to know.

5.      Rewrite Past Articles

There are some industries where it will be impossible to constantly come up with new ideas for content, especially if your business or industry hasn’t changed much over the years. You may need to repeat previous topics that haven’t recently been addressed. Make sure to come up with some new information that will enhance the existing information and to change it enough that it will pass as original copy.

Continuously creating new content is not easy, but it is possible. If you are struggling to keep up with the massive demand for new content, try hiring a professional content writer. It may be more cost-effective when you consider the time you spend brainstorming and writing new content, plus you will know the content is worthy of your online audience.

Lead Liaison

How to Use Content to Enhance Your Digital Marketing Strategy

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How to Use Content to Enhance Your Digital Marketing StrategyContent is the backbone of every digital marketing strategy. It is used to attract new followers, prove your expertise, and build relationships with potential consumers. Content can come in many different forms and needs to be regularly promoted to increase brand awareness and improve your search engine ranking.

Here are a five effective ways to use content to enhance your digital marketing strategy:

1.       Make it Newsworthy

Create content that keeps your followers updated on the latest developments in your industry or recent changes to your business. Newsworthy content is more likely to be read and shared by people who are actively interested in your products or services.

2.      Make it Visually Appealing

Most people think of content as only the words on the page. Content is everything you use to make your webpages, blogs, and social media profiles more valuable and interesting to your visitors. Content creation also refers to videos, infographics, and slideshows that inform readers using pictures instead of text. Visually appealing images and videos will attract more attention and enhance your digital marketing strategy. If you are focusing strictly on written content, you can add an eye-catching image or two to the text to make it stand out. Just make sure the image is relevant to the content.

3.      Make Sure it is Relevant

Consistency is critical to your digital marketing strategy. Every piece of content should be relevant to your industry and pertinent to your target consumer. Trying to cover too many topics or posting content that doesn’t suit your brand will drastic from your core message. Always keep in mind what truly matters to your potential consumers every time you create new content.

4.      Make it Socially Acceptable

Content should be regularly promoted on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to attract new followers. Although businesses use these sites for marketing, it is still a social platform. Social media followers expect the content on these sites to be easy to read and simple to understand. Don’t try to impress them with fancy words and complex concepts. Create content that sounds more like a conversation than a boring business brief.

5.      Make Sure it is Unbiased

Content that is filled with obvious sales pitches and boastful statements will not enhance your digital marketing strategy. Today’s savvy consumers will recognize the insincerity behind it and lose trust in your brand. Focus on the buyer’s need and cover all possible remedies, not just your own. You can make your product or service sound like the best solution, as long as it is not the only solution you offer.

If your content is still not effectively enhancing your company’s digital marketing strategy, you can always hire a professional content creation team. Lead liaison’s marketing automation services include high-quality content creation. Our experts specialize in creating original, relevant, and appealing content designed specifically to enhance your digital marketing strategy.

Lead Liaison

How Often Should I Blog for My Business?

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Blogging for your BusinessWhen people ask questions like, “How often should I blog?” or “Should I blog for my business?” they’re typically expecting a concrete answer. Truly, the amount of blogging you do for your business is based on two critical areas. The first is time constraint – as in, how much you’re able to produce for your company site and on what schedule. The second is a question of metrics. If you aren’t able to examine your website and social media data to determine what people want to see from you, this is the first problem you must fix in order to get your site rankings up. Don’t worry about how much you blog if you don’t have the tools to analyze your traffic.

Analyzing the Metrics

If you’re asking yourself “how often should I blog” without any real indicators of what your audience wants to see, you could be wasting your time. You’ll also want to know what keywords people are typing in to find your website so you can evaluable specific opportunities to move up in the Google rankings for those keywords.

For instance, if you run a data analysis business, your website could be popping up for keywords like “risk data analysis” or “web company data analysis.” If you’re ignoring how people get to your site, you could be glossing over information that will tell you more about your core audience. In this case, not only would be losing a valuable opportunity to determine what your content should be about, you’re also losing the opportunity to market on keywords that reach niche demographics.

For this reason, the first step is figuring out whether or not your audience is niched in a way you might not realize – and analyzing your data is the only way to do that.

How Often Should I Blog?

The next factor is time. You have to be realistic here – if you only have two hours of free time a week and you’d rather spend that time drinking coffee and looking out your office window than blogging, you should ask yourself if you’re realistically going to want to devote that time to blogging.

Is blogging important for your business? Absolutely. It gives you something to share on social media, it gives your audience content to relate to, helping you establish trust. It also gives your site an SEO boost if you’re using your keywords properly.

We all have good intentions when it comes to blogging, but if you’re just not going to get 1-2 blogs a week finished – or even a month –it might be time to bring in some reinforcements. Once your site analysis starts to produce some additional data, take a look at what pages or current blog posts your audience is spending the most time on or sharing the most. You can find all this info in your Lead Liaison metrics dashboard.

If you don’t have any content to track yet, create some random content based on your business offerings and track your site visits, social shares and whatever data feedback you can get. If you already know what direction you’d like to go in and can’t fathom creating at least a weekly blog for your business, it might be time to look into some assistance options.

Lead Liaison developed a sophisticated, streamlined approach to content assistance you won’t find elsewhere. Take a look at our content creation services and stop asking, “How often should I blog?” … we’ll take care of it all for you!

Lead Liaison

Article Spinning: Your Content Dinosaur

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Article SpinningRemember those days when you could create an article, run it through an automated article spinning tool or have a writer change up some phrasing, then post that article on your site or the net as an original work? Those were the days before Google’s Panda and Penguin updates, when quantity was often valued over quality. Those days are over, and the right content strategy these days should include original work that is engaging, informative and useful.

Google’s algorithm changes over the past few years have gone into a direction that requires writers to keep engagement in mind. Throwing out piece after piece with the same core messaging just isn’t going to work anymore. It’s better for businesses to approach content creation with more spaced-out, relevant, strategically planned pieces than to throw as much content out there as possible.

Is Article Spinning Google Friendly?

These days, hiring an overseas writer can have its benefits – cost, quantity – but unless a seasoned content writer with English as a native language is creating your content, or your content is heavily edited, you can be assured you’ll eventually face some article monotony and potential Google flags. The days of hiring cheap staff writers to crank out tons of content are over.

Likewise, automated tools that do the article spinning for you are antiquated. It’s suspected that Google’s present algorithms have advanced query strings in mind, so it’s much easier to pick up on spun content.

A Changing Methodology 

Search engine marketers used to say “content is king” – and while this could still be true, we need to elaborate on the expression a bit. Content is king, but useful content that results in user promotion and engagement are truly where it’s at. Hiring a cheap team or grabbing the latest software to use for article spinning just won’t work anymore. A well-rounded content strategy with metrics for tracking engagement and a solid use of your keywords should produce 1-3 blogs a week, rather than multiple articles going all over the internet in the course of a few days.

If you find you can’t meet that content frequency, it makes more sense to produce quality articles over time rather than to crank out the same content over and over again. Part of your content strategy should include targeting. You can post on your own blog or website, but you should also be seeking out social media, guest posting and other content writing opportunities to get a backlink for your site and spread your knowledge.

Interested in content creation without the article spinning? Check out Lead Liaison’s content creation services and receive content creation dashboarding without the hefty cost or fuss today!

Lead Liaison

The Art & Skill of Successful Content Creation

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The Art & Skill of Successful Content CreationCreating successful content is an art form that requires substantial marketing skills. Not every great writer can execute a content marketing campaign that generates worthwhile results. They need to understand the target audience, the brand’s image, and how to connect the two in a meaningful way.

The Creation of a Lead Profile

Successful content creation starts by identifying lead segments, their characteristics, and their current stage in the buying process. Savvy content creation experts will use marketing automation software to monitor and track the online behavior of potential leads. This information is used to create a lead profile and then segment leads into groups with similar needs. Content creation should be catered to each specific group.

The Creation of Perceived Value

Crafty content writers will focus on the potential consumers’ needs and wants, rather than the product itself. They will use the profile generated by the marketing automation software to determine what the lead is actually looking for from the product.

For example, if you are promoting an alarm company, the content should be directed at ways to keep your family safe. Recommending a reliable alarm company can be one of the points you mention, but it should also suggest other effective security measures. This will give the reader added value and show your sincere expertise and guidance.

The Creation of Buzz-worthy Content

Successful content creation should grab a reader’s interest using only the title. Most people won’t read past the title if it doesn’t resonate with them. The art of content creation involves creating unique and compelling titles that inspire people to keep reading. The title has to offer a solution to their problems or clearly demonstrate expertise on a relevant subject.

The Creation of Lasting Relationships

High-quality content is the most effective way to build real relationships with potential leads. Your followers will begin to count on your blogs and content articles for solutions to their problems. If they believe in your expertise prior to making a purchase, they will be more likely to stay loyal once they are a customer.

Content writing is an art form and a skill. Successful content creation requires constant fine-tuning and training, especially since online marketing strategies are constantly changing. I am always looking for new ways to enhance the power of the content I create and promote for my clients. During my recent research I found this fantastic article on; 88 Content Creation Ideas for Better Business Blog, Posts, Images, or Videos. It will give you even more ideas on how to create successful content.

There should be no doubt that your business needs powerful content to communicate with potential leads. Successful content creation can be achieved by first creating lead profiles and lead segments. That priceless information will then be used to create content that builds lasting relationships by offering value that is customized for each segment. These are the necessary marketing skills of all successful content creators. Making it compelling and inspiring a reaction is what makes it an art form.

Lead Liaison

Why B2B Marketers Need to Use Content Marketing

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Why B2B Marketers Need to Use Content MarketingContent is the most important tool a business has to communicate with B2B buyers. Buyers for big businesses know they can hop on the internet and research anything they want to know about a product or service from the comfort of their home or office. They would rather read a helpful article that suggests a variety of solutions to their most recent purchasing needs than listen to a lengthy sales pitch from an eager vendor. That is why B2B marketers need to use content marketing.

Content Marketing Provides Answers

B2B marketers must answer potential consumer questions and offer viable solutions to their concerns on their website pages and various social media platforms. These are usually the only places B2B buyers are looking for information. In fact, a recent CMI and Marketing Profs study proved that 93% of B2B marketers use content marketing.

Content marketing is focused on providing followers with a free and helpful online resource using a variety of different marketing channels. Content creation that includes specific questions and answers will have a better chance of appearing at the top of their search results. Content that is effectively marketed using social media, blogs, and lead nurturing campaigns will also make it easier for B2B buyers to find the answers your company wants them read.

Content Marketing Creates Trust

B2B buyers are too smart to be fooled by online scams and untrustworthy business facades. They will do the necessary research to make sure a company is a legitimate resource. Creating insightful and informative content and then promoting it on relevant blogs and social media sites will strengthen your online reputation. A strong online presence and credible content will build trust with potential clients.

Content Marketing Attracts Followers

Powerful and compelling content will be shared and re-tweeted outside of your business’ current community. B2B marketers should use catchy headline and social media networks to expand your upon your existing audience. Experienced content marketers will ensure every article gets a positive and worthwhile reaction.

Content Marketing Prequalifies Leads

One of the greatest benefits to B2B marketers is the fact that content marketing naturally prequalifies leads. The articles that are posted and promoted will be relevant to your business’ services and products. Leads that show sincere interest in the content are more likely to follow through and make a purchase.

Successful Content Marketing Strategies

Creating informative and relevant information is critical, but it also must be effectively marketed. Successful content marketing strategies must include regular updates on blogs, social media networks, and the use of marketing automation software for lead nurturing campaigns.

Marketing automation software is also necessary for lead generation. It will capture and retain every lead that crosses paths with your website. Once they are captured, compelling and informative content will strengthen the relationship and improve the chances of conversion. That is why B2B marketers need to use content marketing.