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  • Ideas for social media posts that will help your brand

    Ideas for social media posts that will help your brand

    Marketers must manage multiple social media profiles and update them with new posts. It’s tough. It’s hard. Your followers want new content, so you must keep up the excellent work. Your social media feeds can feel like Groundhog Day if you keep republishing the same posts over and over.

    Brands should have several social media options in their back pockets. Below are 23 social media suggestions for small and large brands. These posts are all good options for anyone who wants to keep their social media feeds fresh.

    For quick inspiration, check out the video below. It contains nine ideas. Three methods are shared to help you brainstorm social media ideas all year.

    Download our content strategy checklist if you are already stuck in a content rut or need new ideas. This piece will help you identify the issues and create high-quality content.

    Every day of the week, plan social media posts

    You want your social media feed to feel more like an event than a collection of random posts.

    To give your followers and fans a chance to interact on a weekly basis, start a series each weekday. You can create a routine among your followers by providing valuable content on a regular basis. They will look forward to receiving specific content from you.

    Regular schedules inform your community about what is expected and give you something to look forward to. It’s also easy to create and maintain because it provides a guideline for your team.

    To help you determine the best time to publish your content, you can also use Sprout’s best time to post tool

    These are some ideas for social media posts to help you fill your content calendar between Monday and Sunday.

    What to post on social networks on Monday

    With some Monday inspiration, you can help your followers start their week off on a high note. Share a video or motivational quote that is relevant to your audience.

    We published a Stories series called Sproutouts on our Sprout Instagram. We would share inspirational and useful social media content every Monday.

    A video or photo can also be posted. Use Monday content to share something good!

    What to post on Tuesday

    Tuesday is for #TransformationTuesday. To show how your brand helped customers transform, post a before-and-after photo or video. This idea works well for personal trainers, salons, contractors, and other service-based industries, but it could be used by any brand if they think outside of the box.

    The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has posted the story of an orphan warthog’s journey:

    What to post on Wednesday

    Hump day content is something everyone loves. Consider Wednesdays a chance to give a social boost at the end of the week.

    What to post on Thursday

    You can use Thursdays to educate and inform your audience with useful tips and tricks. You can provide general advice relevant to your industry, or you can concentrate on your brand.

    What to post on Friday

    Engaging posts can be a great way to end the work week. Your weekend is approaching, so let your followers have fun with it. To get your followers engaged, include a call-to-action in your caption or a sticker on your Instagram.

    What to post on Saturday

    Keep in line with the weekend trend and post lighthearted, entertaining content on Saturday. Show customers how you can help them enjoy their weekends by sharing product imagery or how your social media team enjoys theirs.

    What to post on Sunday

    #SelfcareSunday has become a very popular hashtag. Share inspirational content such as a quote or link to a resource with your customers.

    Ask your audience questions

    Engaging with your audience is a great way to increase your engagement. One example of a very popular Instagram idea is to use question stickers in Stories. A caption can be used to ask a question, as Crumbl Cookie did below. Anything is fine.

    Get influencer content

    You might consider working with influencers to produce sponsored or collaborative content. How do you identify the right influencers to represent your brand? According to The Sprout Social Index(tm), authenticity is the second most important quality for creators working alongside brands. So focus on influencers with a similar audience to your brand.

    If you see videos featuring your brand that are shared by influencers, please ask permission to share the content on your brand profile. This is a quick and easy way for your audience to see who else loves your brand.

    Support a cause

    Post your support for a cause to show your brand values. The North Face shared this tweet about their 15-year-old partnership with several breast-cancer prevention organizations.

    This tweet also links to the Pink Ribbon Collection which is funded by North Face’s Explore Fund. It’s a great way for your brand to show support online. Don’t be afraid to support causes that matter to you.

    Do a social media takeover

    Sometimes, refreshing your social media feeds requires that someone else takes over.

    Takeovers give you control of your social media accounts, usually for 24hrs.

    If you are struggling to find ideas for social media posts, it is worth entrusting your social presence to a celebrity or influencer with a large following. To give your account some personality, you can let another employee take control of it.

    Look into potential business partners or industry relationships that might be a good candidate for a takeover. Takeovers are meant to increase exposure. Ideally, you should choose someone who is in your target audience.

    Pin, share, retweet, and program

    Do not be afraid to share your thoughts with your followers, fans, and peers.

    You don’t have to share all the content on your social media feed. Promoting relevant articles, brands, and photos from your audience is a great way to show you are part of the industry conversation.

    Sprout shared a New York Times article recently about Gen Z using TikTok to search for information. It’s relevant for followers who are interested in the world of social media and marketing.

    Our best times to post to social media have highlighted that brands should follow the 80/20 rule for promotion. Your feed should contain 80% entertainment and 20% promotional content. Your feed will not feel like a sales pitch.

    Regram and Retweet are quick and simple. When you repost, use user-generated content to add a caption like Mejuri did with this TikTok.

    Make short video clips

    Modern brands must have a video content strategy. Many people see video investment as too expensive, complicated, or beyond their reach.

    According to the Sprout Social Indice, short-form video is the most popular type of in-feed content. Short-form videos are 2.5 times more popular than long-form videos, according to consumers.

    These stats should encourage brands to seriously consider creating social media strategies that include video.

    Short-form video clips are obviously the bread and butter for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and TikTok, but they also work well on Twitter and Twitter. YouTube Shorts is also available. These short clips are easy to share and require little editing.

  • Social Media Tips for Boosting Your Marketing Strategy

    Social Media Tips for Boosting Your Marketing Strategy

    Social media marketing has become the norm with more than 4 billion active users. No matter what niche they are in, businesses are constantly improving their social media marketing strategy to drive quality traffic and customer engagement.

    Marketers need to scale quickly and get mass visibility in a tough market.

    You can still be a huge hit on social media. It has a global penetration of 57%.

    This means that social media is used by more than half of the world’s population. The only problem is that you need to use the right strategies to make your social marketing plan.

    We are here to help you find the best social media marketing strategies for businesses to bridge the gap, and close the loopholes.

    Social Media Marketing Tips to Increase Your Traffic

    Keep watching as we give you each tip on social media!

    These social media statistics will convince you that this is not worth it.

    Did you know that social media is the most used daily activity in America? The average American spends 38 minutes a day on Facebook. It’s no surprise that 92% of marketers consider social media platforms important for their business.

    Every year, social media networks continue to grow. It is essential to develop a social media marketing strategy. You will miss out on customers who are valuable and can offer rewarding results.

    Let’s start with the top 15 social media marketing tips to help your business boost its branding and make your life easier.

    Find out more about your target audience

    Let’s now look at your audience. Your strategy won’t be successful without the support of your audience.

    It is essential to build your social media strategy around the people you serve. The target audience will guide you in all aspects of your social media strategy, from which social media platforms to use to the content you create.

    You must know your audience’s most pressing concerns in order to craft messages that resonate with them.

    It is important to identify their concerns, questions, and problems. Connecting with the right audience is a major challenge for most businesses. You need to identify your target audience and the social networks they use in order to find them.

    Choose your social media platforms wisely

    While it is not essential to be present on every social media platform, what is important is to make an impact on the ones you are. This is one of the most important tips in social media marketing.

    Let’s say your brand’s Insta marketing strategy is the best. Instead of trying to reach everyone on every platform, you should be focusing your efforts on that one platform. It’s better to master one platform than to try to master them all.

    It’s not the quantity of content that is important, it’s quality! Substandard content will only make matters worse. Instead, do your research and plan your social network presence to meet your goals and appeal directly to your target audience.

    Your target audience will prefer the platforms that you choose. This is especially important when creating social media marketing strategies that are suitable for small businesses. Small businesses can’t waste their time on ineffective activities.

    Social Media Marketing: A winning strategy

    Multiple research shows that marketers who have a strategy documented are 538% more likely to succeed. This calls for immediate action!

    It is crucial to create a social media strategy that will help you realize your goals.

    As you are preparing your strategy, think about the social media platforms that you will be posting on. Be sure to appeal to your target audience by aligning your posts with your goals.

    Create a Social Media Content Calendar

    No matter what your business is, you need a solid social media content strategy. Use social media calendars to organize all your content and publish it promptly and efficiently.

    Additionally, content calendars help to distribute resources efficiently, improve team collaboration, and provide a deeper understanding of what works and doesn’t.

    There are many templates available online that can help you prepare your calendar. To plan your content calendar, you can use SocialPilot or any other social media scheduling tool.

    It’s great because you can upload images and set timings for posts on multiple social media platforms from one dashboard.

    SocialPilot makes it easy to create and update the publishing schedule once per week. You can also set workflows and make last-minute changes all in one place with SocialPilot.

    The Art of Storytelling

    Stories are what sell, not products! Humans connect with stories. Brands create emotional bonds with their audience through the emotional connection they make. Stories are a source of inspiration and encourage interaction.

    This example of Airbnb will make you feel emotional. This animation is amazing and executed flawlessly. You can see how they communicate their message.

    This isn’t the only way to tell your story. You can also move your audience in simpler ways. To build excitement and connect the entire story, you can share successive posts.

    Here’s a sample of a tweet from Nike to grab their attention.

    Humanize Your Brand

    Despite all the digital advances making communication easier, it is still the emotion we are missing.

    We mean to humanize your brand beyond what is displayed on digital screens. Let your audience know what happens in your office. Introduce them to your employees and let them know who your brand is.

    Brand stories aren’t sales pitches or ads. These stories help your audience connect with your brand. They help them connect to your brand.

    You can share your Friday plans and the team-building activities. Allow employees to take control of your social media and connect with the audience.

    Use the tools to empower your strategy

    Social media tools will be your salvation. Imagine posting on 8 different platforms, each time manually, 3 times per day.

    To auto-post updates to your social accounts using social media scheduling software such as SocialPilot, you can then analyze the results using their analytics.

    The whole point of tools is to plan ahead. You can plan, create, schedule, and publish posts to your content calendar. Scheduling tools include a built-in content calendar, which makes it easier for you to keep track of your posts.

    You can schedule your tweets, tweets, and posts for the month in one place. This will help you save time and allow you to be more productive.

    Embrace Your Mistakes

    Humans make mistakes. This is particularly important in today’s fast-growing social media world. Accept and apologize for your mistakes instead of trying to ignore them. Your customers should hear about your mistakes and work on them. They will be delighted to learn that you learned from your mistakes and are now providing better services.

    If you make a mistake in grammar or miss a comma, don’t delete your post. People will likely like your post and notice your constant re-posting.

  • Social media marketing tips for each platform

    Social media marketing tips for each platform

    Both established and new brands use social media to increase their followers, generate leads, and increase sales. Building a brand might seem daunting with all the social media platforms at your disposal. It’s easy to use social media to build your brand organically and connect with others.

    There’s always room to improve, whether you’re new to social media or an old hand at it. Each platform has its own uses.

    This article will cover the best social media tips and tricks to optimize your marketing strategy. 

    Develop a strategy for each social media platform

    You need to prepare a plan for each platform, just as you do for other elements of your marketing strategy. Every platform is different and each one has its own best practices. While your brand doesn’t necessarily need to be present on every platform, it is important to create a strategy specific to each platform.

    These questions can be difficult to answer. It might be worth digging deeper into the reasons you are investing your time there. These questions can help you create a strategy for the platform.

    When you are just starting out, it is important to prioritize quality content over quantity. Most businesses, especially small ones, find it difficult to implement a new strategy across five social media platforms. This results in poor results and mediocre work.

    Focus your messaging

    Each platform will have its own demographic. While there will be overlap between the platforms you use, it is important to know your demographic so that you can tailor your message for maximum impact.

    Focused messages will result in higher-quality content that resonates with your audience and is consistent with your brand. You can be sure that your social media posts will always platform for your target audience if you have a consistent message.

    Sprout Social offers great social networking targeting feature which allows you to control who sees your posts on social media. You don’t target your posts based on location, language, and other criteria, depending on which network you are using.

    Let’s suppose you want to share a post via LinkedIn that targets the finance industry. It might not be relevant to your IT or health industry followers. You can limit the content you show to finance industry members, rather than filling your stream with irrelevant content.

    Keep track of what’s hot

    Once you have established your key messaging, be aware of the trends that are emerging on each platform. If you see a trend or strategy that aligns with your messaging and rises in popularity, it’s a good idea to capitalize on it for engagement.

    Don’t jump on every internet trend that you see. It’s easy to let your target audience by creating posts that are not in line with your overall message. It doesn’t matter if you see others doing it.

    It is therefore important to establish a clear message to use as a benchmark for all your future social media posts.

    A list of websites in your industry tSprout’side high-quality, current content is onewhat’so ensure you have constant access to popular content. You can add them to an RSS reader such as Feedly. You’ll then have a dashboard with the most recent posts from trusted sites. This will let you it’s you have valuable content that you can share witDon’tr your followers. You can integrate Feedly into the tIt’sprout Social dashboard.

    You can use this content to inspire original posts that you create for your brand.

    doesn’t-video content

    video content has been booming. Social media users consume more video content thanks to the rise of IGTV, YouTube, Facebook Live, and other social media platforms.

    Over 99 percent on YouTube and 258% on Facebook have seen video views increase in the last three years. A tweet containing video is six times more likely that it will bYou’lleeted than a tweet with just text or a photo.

    Here’s an example showing how Warby Parker used a video tweet to inform their followers they were hiring.

    Video content is more engaging than text content. Networks like LinkedIn and Facebook give higher priority in the algorithm to video content. The result is that brands using video get more attention and reach than brands that use text and image posts.

    A/B testing whenever is possible

    Many professionals use A/B testing as a social media marketing tip. Split testing or A/B testing involves testing multiple headlines on the same piece to determine which one generates more responses.

    Marketers often use A/B testing to create landing pages and sales pages. Here, split testing can be used in social media posts. Instead of posting a Tweet or Facebook update once and forgetting about it later, schedule the link to go out multiple times. Change the headline with each post.

    A/B testing is essential because people react differently to posts depending on how they are written and CTA phrases.

    Low-quality content could be the reason a piece is not successful on social media. Your headline in the Tweet or Pin, or Facebook post might not have caught your followers’ attention. However, you won’t be able to determine the exact reason a post isn’t performing well if it’s not compared against other factors.

    Sprout Social’s posting planning tool allows you to set up posts for sharing throughout the week, and to test different headlines. You can then determine which one gets the most engagement.

    Get involved in communities

    Smaller communities are becoming more important in large social networks. There are many ways to connect with people and companies in your niche, whether it’s through Facebook Groups or Twitter Chats.

    Find communities that are related to your industry and join them. Then, start actively participating in these groups. To cultivate a community with common interests and become brand advocates, you can create your own groups.

    Interact With Your Audience

    Social media users want to have real interaction with the brands they follow. You must ensure that you are it’s only posting relevant, high-quality content but also engaging with your audience on every platform. Answer any questions you receive via your handles, hashtags, or posts.

    You can add value to conversations that you see between users about your brand and product. Users want to feel that there’s someone on the other end of the computer, not just a robot sending out links every day.

    Your social media strategy should include answering any questions that are posted to each platform. Respond promptly to anyone who mentions you. Thank people for sharing your content, and add value wherever you see your brand mentioned.

    It is also possible to start conversations with your audience by asking them questions, then replying or adding to the conversation. Many platforms allow you to ask questions and then respond in the comments.

    Your social media presence should be a two-way channel of communication. Engage with people, not just talk to them.

  • Deep-Dive into the Attract Stage in Inbound Marketing Methodology

    Deep-Dive into the Attract Stage in Inbound Marketing Methodology

    No longer are “impressions” the only way to measure the success of your marketing campaigns. Extreme measures how many people have seen your ad or viewed your email. It does not measure engagement. It would help if you did not allow an agency or marketer to provide impression data. Instead, find a partner or team member who can help you. It is not enough to have anyone engage with your brand. Revenue is not just about getting more people to your digital channels. To ensure qualified leads in your sales pipeline, you need the right prospects to visit your website and digital channels. How can you achieve this? It is about creating the right content at the right time and delivering it right when your prospects want it.

    The Attract stage in inbound marketing focuses on bringing new visitors to your site in quantity and quality. This stage is essential to your inbound marketing strategy. It will help you get found by potential customers. You must share the information your prospects search online to launch an effective inbound marketing campaign. You must also ensure that the content is relevant and helps them make decisions. Your online presence will grow as more people discover and benefit from your content.

    You can communicate with prospects by creating a content strategy that works across the buyer’s journey. It’s about convincing your prospects that you can solve their problems. This is done through content marketing, which provides useful information that aids decision-making.

    The Attract stage has several tools:

    • Blog Articles The first step to creating meaningful content is a blog. A blog is an extremely powerful tool to share useful content with prospects and drive website visits and conversions.
    • Videos Video has become a hugely popular medium. You can engage your prospects by creating short and long-form video content. This will allow you to create content that they are more likely to share online.
    • Podcasts are similar to videos but have seen a rise in popularity. You can share your leadership knowledge in a digital format that is easier to consume.
    • Social media: This is an essential tool for every business. Social media allows you to engage in meaningful ways with your customers and prospects by sharing images, videos, podcasts and blogs.
    • Search Engine Optimization It is essential to optimize your content for search for your content to be found online by people searching for it, either on your website or YouTube.

    Inbound marketing is about creating the right content to tell your brand story and educate your prospects. You can do this by using the “Attract” stage to provide the channels and tools to share your valuable content across different platforms and mediums to reach the right people at the right time. 81% of people will search for products online before they make a purchase. This content will help prospects decide which companies to choose. Keep checking out our Mastering Inbound Marketing Series for future blogs that will provide details about each tool and how to maximize its effectiveness.

  • Maximizing the Engage Stage in Inbound Marketing Methodology

    Maximizing the Engage Stage in Inbound Marketing Methodology

    Engage is the final stage in inbound marketing. It’s all about building lasting and meaningful relationships with prospects who have signed up to receive information from your company. This can be done in various ways, including email marketing, personalized web content, marketing automation and live chat. These prospects are now eager to get more information and have signed up.

    You can also take your inbound marketing one step further to determine where someone is on their decision-making journey. You can customize your marketing journey with integrated Customer Relationship Management tools and marketing technology.

    • tracking which pages the prospect has visited on your website
    • Identifying the source. They originally came to your site online
    • How engaged prospects are with your digital channels

    If a prospect has visited your pricing page, they will be further along the buyer’s path than someone who just viewed your homepage. You can tailor content for these prospects using marketing and sales technology based on their specific needs.

    These are the top tools you can use in the Engage stage.

    • Email Marketing Remember that prospects want to hear from your company. Companies that only focus on new leads are often what I hear. Email marketing is a great way to keep your prospects interested and build your sales funnel. Email is a great way to reach your prospects with relevant blogs, downloadable content, invitations for webinars, and other information.
    • Marketing Automation: Using your automation tool to maximize your team’s effort will make it easier. You can think about what content someone would like to receive when they enter your funnel based on their buyer persona. Automate several emails to them, and also automate reminder tasks for your sales team to follow up with prospects.
    • Lead Management: Your CRM gives you every detail about your prospect. You can automate your marketing efforts using the information your sales team has entered into the CRM. This includes the prospect’s lifecycle stage, lead status, and responsiveness.
    • Personalized Website Content: With the right information in your CRM, you can tailor the content of your website to suit the prospect. Let’s say you know that your prospect works in the healthcare sector. You can personalize your home page and create downloadable offers to target the healthcare industry. This can be very powerful as it will reduce prospects’ search time and increase their chances of reverting to sales.
    • Chat Bots or Live Chat: Most people have used chatbots or live chat on websites at one time or another. It is a great way to allow prospects to communicate with you whenever they visit your website. They don’t have to wait for a form. Instead, they can chat with a bot or live-chat their questions. This allows organizations of all sizes to get these contacts, especially if engaged with your content.

     

  • Optimizing the Delight Stage in Inbound Marketing Methodology

    Optimizing the Delight Stage in Inbound Marketing Methodology

    Companies often find the Delight stage the most difficult concept to implement. Many companies believe that the customer becomes the end of the journey. However, this is incorrect. Customers are your most loyal advocates, so creating a content strategy for them is essential. Happy customers will recommend you to other prospects. Unhappy customers will refer others to you. Inbound marketing’s Delight stage allows you to keep in touch with customers through valuable content that is customer-focused. It also provides seamless channels for customers to contact you with questions or concerns.

    These are the tools you can use at the Delight stage.

    • Email Marketing Keep your customers informed by email every so often. Keep them updated with new product information, service offerings, and a quarterly newsletter.
    • Marketing Automation To automate onboarding for new customers, you can use marketing automation. Marketing automation is a great tool if your product is SaaS and you want your customers to use your tool. You can also get them connected with a Customer Success manager to help them. Additionally, you can send them automated emails with reminders and tips to keep them interested during this first window of their customer journey.
    • Personalized Website Content: When you use a CMS like HubSpot to build your website, you can make content that is only available to customers. You might want to share certain content with customers but not with prospects. You can personalize your website to deliver unique content to your customers and keep them interested.
    • Chat Bots or Live Chat: In a similar way to the previous, customers can have their chat experience customized if they use a chat tool that integrates with their CRM. This technology can connect customers with the right team quicker and provide exclusive content for customers through the automated chatbot experience.
    • Videos If your video content is great, you might consider creating videos exclusively for customers. These videos could include tips videos and training videos. These would be content that you wouldn’t share with prospects. However, your customers can access more detailed content.
    • Customer Ticketing system: Think about how you serve your customers when they have questions or need to submit support tickets. Use a customer ticketing system to automate your customer’s process of submitting questions to your support team and how you assign tickets internally to help your customers get their questions answered quicker.
    • Surveys To determine what areas of your business deliver the best customer service, it’s important to survey customers. A simple Net Promoter Score survey can do this. You can also set up a survey with a few questions to get more detailed feedback. You can then automate the survey responses and send them to the right team based on the customer’s responsibility.

    The Delight stage is about making it easy for customers to communicate with your company and share your content with others. You make your customers happy and allow them to share their stories about your products and services with friends and family. This will help you grow your brand organically via referrals.

  • Inbound Marketing: How Does It Work?

    Inbound Marketing: How Does It Work?

    Inbound marketing is a holistic approach that helps prospects to convert into customers through your sales and marketing channels. Inbound marketing can be scaled to make your digital channels a 24/7 salesperson constantly bringing in new prospects for your sales team and engaging with existing customers.

    Inbound marketing can be a great tool for your company if used correctly.

    • Attract the right prospects for your company by creating qualified leads.
    • Build inbound and social media links to help drive brand growth.
    • Allow prospects to find you by using search engine optimization. Use unique content that you create and share through your digital channels.
    • Turn prospects into qualified leads for your sales team.
    • Allow customers to communicate with you whenever and wherever they are most convenient. This will increase customer retention.
    • Make your brand promise and influence customers’ future purchases based on their experiences with your company.

    Prospects are empowered and consume content faster than ever before. Organizations must ensure that all channels are covered in their content marketing efforts. Prospects will visit many digital platforms to find the right information. Your company must be accessible and active on these channels to answer prospects’ questions and connect with them when and where they are most convenient. Marketing departments are shifting to inbound marketing because it gives power back to consumers. To help your buyers make informed decisions, think about the following:

    Inbound marketing is a strategy that aims to achieve three things for organizations.

    • Attract qualified prospects to your company.
    • Connect with prospects in a meaningful, scalable manner
    • Treat your customers and prospects so that they become brand advocates

    Tip: To learn more about the Attract and Engage stages of inbound marketing, visit the blog posts.

    These three stages allow marketers and business owners to build brand loyalty and ongoing engagement with prospects and customers. You can use many tactics and tools to engage prospects and customers at these stages. Your primary goal is to guide prospects through the buyer’s journey to assist them in making the right decision to become loyal customers.

  • 5 Tips for Creating B2B Content People Trust

    5 Tips for Creating B2B Content People Trust

    Your prospects will only buy from trusted brands. PwC discovered that trust in a company is the number one reason potential buyers choose to do business in the future.

    Your website is your main source of communication with customers. You must use it to tell your customers who and why you trust them. Telling prospects to trust you is not as effective as showing them. Content marketing is about showing rather than telling. According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), 96% of top-performing B2B marketers said that content has helped them build customer trust. How can you start creating trustworthy, helpful content that creates a relationship?

    Focus on Helping over Selling 

    One of the fundamental tenets of a successful content marketing strategy is not to make it all about you. CMI’s research revealed that 90% of successful businesses put the needs of their customers first when creating content. This is not about creating content that sells but content that helps.

    Make content that shares both the pros and cons.

    Although it may seem counterintuitive initially, creating content that reflects who you are is not a good fit for buyers can be incredibly beneficial. This is especially important in B2B. It builds trust by being open about it. This content is time-saving for both your prospect and your sales team. You don’t have to follow up on prospects who are not a good fit.

    Compare Content

    You can save your prospect time and provide the information they need to decide. You can, for example, write a blog about your company vs a competitor’s brand. Although it may appear that you are promoting your competitor’s brand, it is helping the buyer.

    Demonstrate your Expertise

    People seek after experts. Building trust and showing your expertise is key to standing out, especially if you’re a B2B marketer. Share your thought leadership content, industry tips, or ways to make prospects’ lives easier. These things will make you a thought leader within your industry and help build trust with your prospects.

    Talk about the Negatives

    Everybody wants to know why something doesn’t work or why they don’t like you. It’s time for you to share that information so people can find it easily. When I meet with prospects looking for inbound marketing services, they often ask me which situations this program will not work for. I am open with them and tell them exactly what situations inbound marketing would not work.

     

  • Content Enhancement Strategies to Make You Work Smarter, not Harder

    Content Enhancement Strategies to Make You Work Smarter, not Harder

    Do not try to work harder, but smarter. Marketers tell us that it is difficult to produce high-quality, downloadable content. This is understandable. It takes planning, research, interviews and writing to create quality content. It is impossible to imagine that one marketer could create a piece of new content every week. Consider the possibility of content amplification. You can use your downloadable content to create fresh content for your website, blog, social media, email, and other platforms.

    What is content amplification? Content amplification can be described as a multichannel strategy that uses owned, paid and earned media to distribute and promote content. Content amplification is a multichannel approach that increases brand reach and encourages your audience to move seamlessly through your sales funnel. How do you use your whitepaper or eBook to build a multichannel marketing strategy that will generate new content for months?

    Eight ways content amplification can help you work smarter and not harder. This blog uses a 22-page eBook. It covers five content sections. This assumes you have created your landing page and created a form to allow prospects to download your eBook.

    1) Make each section a blog

    It cannot be easy to create new blog content each week. If you’ve spent months creating a new eBook, you can have fresh and new blog content at your disposal. You can create five blogs for each of the five sections of the eBook. You already have the bulk of your blog content. You will likely need to add an introduction, a conclusion, and a call to action button to direct the visitor to the landing site to download the entire eBook. This is how the whole thing comes together and allows you to generate new leads and website visitors by downloading the eBook.

    2) Email your eBook Promoting

    Although promoting an eBook via email may seem obvious, you’d be surprised at how many people I speak to who have a new ebook but don’t want their database to see it. It is a missed opportunity to send an email. Your contacts may have agreed to receive your emails. If they have, they would love to hear from us. They signed up specifically for new content. This is a great time to show your thought leadership and send them this eBook.

    3) Share your eBook and new blogs on social media

    Now you have a lot more content. This includes your eBook landing page and the blogs that are associated with it. These can be shared on social media with your followers and encouraged to be shared by your sales team on their channels.

    HubSpot Tip If you are open to it, your sales team can connect their LinkedIn to your HubSpot account to share the posts on their behalf. This allows you to control the messaging and track engagement data.

    You don’t have to share on social media only once.

    4) Create a popup form to launch your new eBook

    Popup forms within your marketing automation tool can be a great way for you to share your eBook with website visitors. Everyone visiting your website might not be aware of your new eBook. Sharing the eBook with your visitors and informing them about the new content is important. Popup forms are a great way to bring your eBook to their attention while browsing your website. To capture their details before they leave your website, you can use a slide-in or exit-intent popup on your service pages. This form will increase the reach of your landing pages or embed the form on the popup, giving you more opportunities for lead generation.

  • 5 Reasons Why Your Inbound Marketing Strategy Won’t Work

    5 Reasons Why Your Inbound Marketing Strategy Won’t Work

    What are the reasons why my inbound marketing strategy isn’t working? Prospects often ask this question. Although it may seem counterintuitive, I share the reasons why the inbound market won’t work. Understanding these reasons is important before investing in the inbound market. These are five reasons why your inbound program might not work. This will help you determine if it is the right path for you.

    Inbound marketing does not require an executive buy-in. This method has been used for over a decade and has proven its effectiveness time after time. For a successful inbound marketing program, key stakeholders and internal executives must understand the importance of inbound marketing. They should also be able to support the initiative from the top. This will allow you to make content a top priority in your company. Content is crucial for the success of your Inbound Marketing Strategy.

    Be sure to ensure that someone internal owns content development.

    Your inbound marketing program is only as strong as the content it contains. Without content, your program will fail, and you won’t see the expected results. Content for the sake of and not for the benefit of content is not a good idea. To stay ahead, your content must be thought-leading, high-quality and industry-leading. It would be best to have an internal subject matter expert responsible for content development and production. Companies often want to outsource content development.

    Use your in-house expertise to become subject matter experts:

    Your internal team is a content mine. Your company does not need to use your internal expertise. Your team can be used to create expert content on the subject matter. Too often hear from internal team members that they are too busy to have a 15-minute interview. This allows the content manager to craft a blog post of expert level. Everyone has fifteen minutes. The executive and key stakeholder buy-in are crucial to this idea of including subject matter experts. Your executive team should support inbound marketing and be able to influence key subject matter specialists to give 15 minutes of their time for a brief interview. This will allow your content team to create great content.

    Quality and Quantity are important.

    It’s usually either quality or Quantity that you hear. That’s true. It’s not a good idea to produce a lot of poor content. You will see inbound marketing work best if you create high-quality content. You will have more content for your digital assets if you produce high-quality content.

    1. – Blog Your blogs can greatly increase your SEO value. Google and other search engines index every page added to your blog. This has a ripple effect on organic traffic.
    2. – Email Marketing: With each piece of content you create, there is an opportunity to send an email to individuals in your database. This thought-leadership content can be added to your marketing automation campaigns.
    3. – Social Media. Every time you create content, you gain unique insights that you can share on social media. Each piece of content can be used more than once. Evergreen content can be used as often as you want to continue reaping social benefits.

    Keep an eye on your analytics regularly: 

    Data is the key to inbound marketing. Many tools can provide real-time information about your inbound marketing performance. This data can identify the best content, the most popular topics, and the best ways to share the content to get the most attention. You can begin to amplify your digital efforts by identifying what resonates with your audience. This will allow you to increase your inbound marketing results.