Content Strategies for B2B. The Proof is in the Pudding.

http://blog.eloqua.com/modern-marketing-stats/

Understanding Motivations and Needs: The Key to Any Successful Online Marketing Program

A person who is online is looking to satisfy a need.

Whether it is a product, information, entertainment or just wasting time, people online have motivations for their actions.

Let's look at the quintessential analysis of a person's needs, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:

Although online users aren't regularly on the internet to fulfill the basic human needs above (though you could make an argument for that) they do have specific things that they are looking to satisfy, some of which curtail with Maslow's model:

Your marketing likely centers around the bottom level of the pyramid shown above, but the motivations for many users don't sit within that single layer.

Unless someone is specifically looking for your product or service, it does no good to offer it to them. Their motivation simply isn't there.

One might argue that you can convince someone to buy, even if their motivation hasn't manifested itself. However, if you think about what really motivates these sales/actions, it likely falls in a different category. For example, you may be able to capture sales by offering a promotion or special offer, but were you really answering a need for the product or were you actually appealing to someone's desire to feel good about saving money and getting a deal? If you think about it that way, you're actually appealing to their highest form of need, self actualization (saving money makes the user feel good, and saving money helps their ultimate goals).

Too often online marketers get caught up in making something that sounds catchy, looks good, or simply shouts their own message without taking into account the users' needs and motivations.

If you're an online marketer, your audience falls somewhere within this pyramid. The question is, does your product, service or message fulfill any of these needs beyond just selling? Even more important, do you understand your audience motivations, and are you responding to them?

Questions you need to ask yourself when planning online marketing:

What are my targets audiences' possible motivations? 
Why are they online and why would they be interested in what I'm saying? 
Why would they click on my ad? 
What can I give them or say that satisfies their needs throughout the hierarchy?
How can I translate their motivations to build results?

Understanding and responding to your audience's needs and motivations online will reveal new opportunities for success from your online marketing and web channels.

Do You Need Paid Search? Probably, But Not Necessarily. How to Determine if PPC is Right For You.

Weekend Inbound Marketing Links: November 11, 2012

With winter bearing down on many of us, days getting shorter, and holiday music already blaring, what better way to escape the doldrums than by perusing some enlightening and educations inbound links? Let's get started!

IAB: Search Still On Top, Accounting For Nearly Half Of Interactive Ad Spending

Online ad spending is growing, and search is number one. Shocking, indeed.

On Social Media, Authenticity Always Wins

Why your personality should shine in social media, even for business.

20 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Likes and Engagement

With Facebook ad spend growing and targeting capabilities become more powerful, these 20 tips may help you generate better results.

7 Companies That Totally 'Get' Their Buyer Personas

I love buyer personas, or really building a persona for anyone you are marketing to. This article shows some stellar examples of how companies can use these characters to improve their messaging, user experience, and brand strategies.

How to optimise products for Google Shopping and Product Listing Ads

Any company with products that can be sold online should heed this advice for how to improve product listings in Google. 

Google Product Listing ads deliver higher CTR than search ads

And why would you want to optimize for product listings? Well, looky here.

New Study Reveals: Content is King… Not Social Media

Too many companies launch social media and just...talk. Building valuable, interesting content is still the most effective form of social media. If you build it, they will come.

14 Tips To Source and Create Great Content For Social Media

But how do you build great content? Check out these tips.

Double Vision – Global Trends in Tablet and Smartphone Use while Watching TV

Are you neglecting second screen experience in your marketing? Are you avoiding building that mobile-friendly website? You might want to reconsider.

Optimized for Unique Program Challenges: Why There is No "One Size Fits All" Paid Search Optimization Plan

often think there is one simple equation for making paid search advertising programs work.

Small clients: need to think about budget all of the time. Lowest CPC. Highest gain. More awareness?

Larger clients: Can afford slightly higher CPCs to get volume at efficient costs.

Geotargeted - need more localization?

B2B

etc

A 10-Step System to Setting Up Web Reporting for Business Success

Next stop: results-ville.

How often are you looking at your web results? I mean, really looking at them?

Chances are not enough, and not as deeply as you should be.

Many businesses hang their hats on driving leads or sales through their website or other online channels such as Facebook or Twitter, but few people in these businesses seem to actually know what's going on with those channels. Even fewer businesses use web channels to inform real business strategies.

As we move into a more singular notion of online user experience, branding, media mixing, and offline business results, your team should be living in online results. Those results should be constantly analyzed, reviewed, mulled over, and squeezed for every drop of meaning. Why? Because they are real-time, real-life focus groups that can lead to invaluable insights about your audiences, messaging, content, strategies, products and more.

So how do you produce an efficient reporting system where online results effectively inform business strategy?

1.   Come up with a measurement strategy: This doesn't mean going to Google Analytics and placing some code. This means sitting down, maybe even across departments, to figure out how to best tackle measurement of all online channels through to the primary campaign objectives. Get some poster paper, a big white board, or some post it notes and map out every single channel, asset and user experience step tied to your online business, then determine how each one will be accurately measured. When this process happens up front, it creates a streamlined roadmap that identifies proper tracking mechanisms, steps and potential holes or opportunities within that system. Additionally, revisiting your measurement strategies at least once every 6 months will ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

2.   Assign responsibility: Someone must own analytics. Someone who can jump in on a daily basis or even more frequently; someone who has the time and the wherewithal to spend a good amount of time "deep-diving" into the results, putting together trend charts, making acute assessments, and interpreting data for everyone else. Most of all, someone needs to be responsible for the implementation, analysis and follow ups related to reporting. Unfortunately, many companies think it's enough to have a marketing manager peruse website stats once or twice per week, or an intern jumping in and out of results and sharing a "hits" dashboard, but what is that doing other than wasting everyone's time and massaging some egos? If you don't have anybody in the organization who has the time to truly spend time with web reporting and analysis, hire someone who has the analytical chops to make sense out of number sauce. You won't regret it, and neither will your bottom line.

Set your goals, and your goal celebrations

3.    Set quantifiable objectives: One of the biggest pitfalls I see in reporting and analytics is the lack of quantifiable benchmarks. Setting numeric goals before doing any reporting or campaign planning helps to solidify the "why" while also assigning additional responsibility to the program. Don't let your teams get away with vague goals. If the goal of the program is "awareness" or "engagement" ask, what does that mean, numbers-wise? A certain time on site? Impressions? How will those numbers positively impact the leads, sales or ROI of the program? Presenting these challenges early creates an environment of accountability, since no one wants to proceed with a plan that doesn't improve the quantifiable results. Moreover, having numeric goals that EVERYONE agrees to and understands means that the entire team (whoever is looking at the results in some fashion) agree on the direction and expectations of the program. When it falls below goal, everyone knows, and there is a concerted effort to improve with a distinct objective in mind. On the other end, when the program exceeds goal, everyone can be involved in the celebration.

4.   Set up all of your goal and media tracking (and keep documentation): Setting up the tracking should be easy, but if you are working across platforms or with unique actions or goals in mind, it can prove quite difficult. My biggest recommendation is to document each piece of code along with naming convention, placement, reasoning, vendor, etc. so that anybody can view and understand the direction for tracking. This also helps when something doesn't work properly, falls off, or has questions around it.

5.   Install a reporting system: Set the expectations for who, how and when reports will be created and delivered. Find a balance between "templates" or easy to update reports and those that include a fair amount of custom data or deep analysis. You may want to consider more frequent reporting that touches on key data and trends (the "need to know" information) while less frequent, yet still scheduled, reports provide more in-depth and customized analysis and results. Map out your reporting schedule and responsibilities and make sure to stick to them. Additionally, use excel macros, custom dashboards, platform APIs or report scheduling tools on hand to automate as many numbers as possible, so the analyst can focus more on the "why" and less on pulling numbers

Schedule your web reports

6.   Set up regular results status meetings with key team members: A good way to keep reports on schedule is to set up regular status updates with people that matter. This way the reports manager understands that others are expecting and depending on the results, and the importance of the reports themselves are heightened. You'd be surprised at how much interest these numbers garner once everyone is sitting down and going through them, not to mention how many important takeaways and action steps can be hashed out.

7.   Measure to cost: At some level, all results should boil down to cost; more specifically, cost per acquisition/lead and ROI or profit margin. These will be the numbers that drive true action, since everyone should be invested in the bottom line of the program, and there's no better way to get buy-in or prove success than focusing on the monetary value.

8.   Follow the 80/20 reporting rules: 80% of an analyst's time should be spent analyzing, while just 20% should be spent doing actual reporting. Unfortunately these numbers are often swapped and most of the time is spent running reports, finding numbers, and doing calculations. If this is a concern of yours, do an audit of the time spent for reports - is your team spending an inordinate amount of time pulling data or formatting? If so, revisit the reporting system in place, find out where you can automate or template-ize, and identify what the key performance indicators should be regularly. Then, discuss the most efficient method possible of pulling and formatting these numbers on a regular basis so that more time can be spent figuring out what they mean, instead of what they are.

Connect the results dots or we'll never
know who this is

9.   Connect the dots: Reporting in a silo is useless. The results that your team measures and analyzes should cross departmental, paginal, and user experience bridges in order to get the full picture. After all, you wouldn't be able to solve a jigsaw puzzle with just 33 of the 100 pieces, right? Your reporting system not only should have measurement solutions in place, but your KPIs should take into account all channels and your reporting team should understand how they interact with each other. An obvious example of this is offline media and website traffic; when media was running, how was website traffic impacted? Did behavior or quality of traffic change? Did website leads increase? Going even further, how did social media channels and/or conversation react to the influx of messaging? None of these brand and web channels live alone, they work together in complex, interconnected system. Your reporting should understand that entire system and take inventory of how each channel is influencing the others. Whether that is through user surveys, trend analysis, or cross channel attribution, connecting the dots in reporting is essential.

10. Make it matter: The most important part of reporting and analysis, and probably the most overlooked, is that these reports should mean something. What's the point of spending all of this time building a system, pulling numbers and analyzing data if its only purpose is to tell people that website traffic went up or down a few percentage points, and guess how much time they spent on that page? Every piece of data and every bullet point needs to refocus itself on the "why", as in, why should anyone care? After that, the question is begged: "what can we do from here"? Make sure each report ends with recommendations, next steps, timing, and key discussion points that are all intended to improve those KPIs so that the next report's results look even better. Furthermore, important trends and information should be earmarked so that future strategies, whether they be media, web content, product, messaging or anything else can be informed by historical results. In the end, the results are the only true measure of web success.

When to Consider Yahoo/Bing for Search Campaigns

How to Use Google Adwords Keyword Automation for Success.

Why Regularly Scheduled Results Reports are Essential for Success.

They may be boring. You aren't a "numbers person". It's the same information every time. You only care about sales. You have better things to worry about.

I've heard all of the reasons why you think regular web results reporting isn't necessary, and I'm here to tell you you're wrong. Web results or analytics reporting is ESSENTIAL to your success both online and for your business.

Finding the Right Online Marketing Mix for Your Budget

Big Data vs. Advertising: Is Strategy Being Consumed by Data?

Content Marketing Series: How to Plan and Develop an Effective Piece of Web Content

Audience Paths and Advertising: Are You Alienating Your Website Visitors?

Content Marketing Series: How to Build a Content Marketing Roadmap

Low Quality Scores? No Problem! Five Quick Tips to Improve Quality Score Today

Five quick tips to improve paid search quality scores

Quality score is a thorn that we may never be able to remove completely from our sides. Though Google gives some information regarding why quality scores are low, sometimes the explanations just don't make any sense. How many times have you had keywords that seemed perfectly relevant, with high CTRs and matching landing pages, yet you still have quality score issues? It can be a mystery.

So the thorn remains, itching, stinging and making it's uncomfortable presence known.

I've attacked the quality score plague before, but many of those fixes deal with larger outbreaks. What about individual keywords or ad groups? What are the quick fixes or test you can implement for fast quality score improvement?

Here are five solutions that you can implement today that should help improve low quality score, and at least make that thorn a little less of a nuisance. 

Pause or revise your worst performing ads.

Click through rate is likely the most important factor for quality score, so a number of these recommendations focus on improving that particular stat.

The first place you should look are your ads themselves. How many are you running? It should always be more than one, and should realistically be 2-4 at one time, but that doesn't mean these ads should stay the same. Depending on how long your ads have been running or how many impressions/clicks they've accumulated, you'll be able to determine which are the "winners" and which are not. When you have low quality scores in certain ad groups, take a look at the ads you are running and either pause or revise those with the lowest click through rates (note: DO NOT DELETE ADS; this will make your quality scores worse!). Take the successful elements from your best performing ads and test new variations or messages, or work in completely new ads that you think will drive high response. 

Insert more keywords into ads.

Ad relevancy plays a big role in quality score itself, but again it is the CTR that is most important. Go through your ads, especially in your top volume ad groups and those with low quality scores, and make sure there are at least two instances of high-relevancy keywords in the ads themselves (preferably in the headline and body). 

Dynamic keyword insertion in headlines is an obvious tactic to drive higher CTR and ensure maximum relevancy in headlines, but how often do you use this method in the description lines? Depending on your ad groups and keywords, implementing keyword insertion into ad text may result in additional CTR gains.

Finally, check your display URLs in ads. Many people are not aware that your display URLs do not need to exactly match destination URLs - in fact, they don't even need to be real! As long as the root domain matches and is live, the directories can say just about anything they want. This means that your ad display URLs can uniquely match ad groups and keywords, resulting in additional keyword quality as well as more bold-text opportunities.

Restructure Your Ad Groups

Low quality scores are often a result of ad groups and keywords that are just too broad and are not focused enough. Cut ad groups down to less than 20 keywords a piece, and make sure they are extremely targeted around specific keyword head terms and phrases. This means if you have one keyword using "cheap" and others using "best", split them out into separate groups. All head terms and phrases should be in unique groups, followed by groups that are separated by qualifiers. The result of this will be highly focused ad groups that can be reflected in ad text, which will end up with higher CTRs and a more concise structure.

Well-organized groups will also help with success measurement and will assist in determining low value keywords and ads.

Try Modified Broad Match

Different match type variations will impact your quality scores, so the first thing you want to test out are quality score differences between all three match types. You may end up with a quality score of 6 or 7 for an exact match keyword that is 3 or 4 for the same broad match keyword.

But sometimes there are keywords where volume is significantly affected or where exact/phrase match doesn't make sense, but where broad is resulting in low quality scores. In these cases, test out modified broad match keywords (learn more here). This match type works in between broad and phrase, so you have more control over your broad match, but keywords do not have to come in the exact order as in phrase match. Using MBM keywords will refine the scope of your keywords, possibly resulting in higher CTRs and quality scores.

Negative Keywords

This might seem obvious, but aside from ads themselves negative keywords are the best way to increase CTR (again helping with quality score). Negative keyword lists should constantly be growing. Each week or so should consist of a search query report scan and negative keyword list expansion. Over time this effort will lead to continued CTR growth and quality score improvements.

Making these simple improvements to your paid search programs will have benefits to both your click through rates and your quality scores. Although there may be larger account history, keyword relevancy, landing page or structural issues at hand, optimizing your campaigns using the recommendations above may lead to incremental and immediate quality score gains.

Bounce Rate is Overrated. There I Said It.

That felt so good I'm going to say it again.

Bounce rate is overrated. 

For some reason, people LOVE bounce rate. Maybe it has to do with its fun, catchy name, or that it's a percentage (everyone love percentages!), or that Avinash Kaushik talks about it a lot. Regardless, analysts and data-folks put too much stock in this one statistic, often making it the sole narrative in their web results assessments without looking at the whole story. I have countless anecdotes where colleagues or clients hone in on a high bounce rate and promptly freak out, even after seeing other objectively successful results.

This isn't to say I hate this particular statistic, it's just that the number doesn't say nearly as much as most people think it does. I find that this is often caused by a gross misunderstanding of the term itself.

Just so we're all working from the same textbook here, my definition of bounce rate is this: Bounce rate is the % of visitors that entered a website and left from the same page, without visiting any other pages during their visit. It [mostly] doesn't have to do with time spent on the site, and it doesn't mean that the users puked on their keyboards. It means what it means; they came, viewed, and left.

Bounce rate is just an indicator, just like any other statistic. A high bounce rate doesn't mean your landing page sucks (but it could!) and a low bounce rate doesn't mean your landing page is great (because it might not be!). It's just a piece of the puzzle. Looking at bounce rate any differently is just lazy.

The idea of bounce rate is best explored when considering specific scenarios.

Scenario #1: High bounce rate from a paid search campaign

You have a paid search campaign and you're driving users to various pages on your website. However, you've noticed that one particular page has a 74% bounce rate (gasp!). Surely, this means that this landing page needs to be blown up and completely redesigned, re-planned, and redeveloped.

But wait, your keywords driving to this page are highly relevant to the page's content, and the time on page is pretty high. Doesn't that count for anything?

What if your paid search visitors got to to that one page, found what they were looking for and left satisfied? What if they watched the video you wanted them to watch, or downloaded the brochure you wanted them to download? All of these factors must be taken into account when looking at bounce rate. In this way, bounce rate is more about the audience experience. Are the experience results what you expected? That is a question you should seriously consider before becoming enamored with one statistic.

Scenario #2: Low bounce rate from a paid search campaign

Now, what would have happened if you sent those clicks to other pages on the site instead? Perhaps your bounce rate dropped to 50%, but also consider that many users may have simply clicked from page to page trying to find the information they needed, ultimately leaving unsatisfied after a poor user experience. All they needed was the information on that one page in the first place.

This particular scenario may have multiple outcomes: For example, you may need to change your landing page URLs to be more relevant to user needs (like the first page), or perhaps your website has some confusing navigation.

Bounce rate can be a powerful metric when used correctly. In the end, bounce rate "success" comes down to a few key points:

• Was the main site objective fulfilled?
• Was the audience objective fulfilled?
• Did the visitor have a positive site experience?
• How does the bounce rate play into the entire narrative?
• What are the other metrics that play into the story?

You will only understand the answers to these questions by putting yourself in the audience's mindset and internalizing their goals and expectations before reviewing results.

In lieu of blowing up your landing page, ask yourself those questions first - better yet, ask the users themselves with a survey - and make sure you are putting the right resources in the right places to improve your bottom line results.

Does Paid Search Ad Headline Length Matter? A Study.

Does paid search ad headline length impact clicking?

It often occurs to me that searchers take very little time when deciding whether or not to click on a paid search ad. 

Heck, when I search I normally just scan headlines and look for the one that is most appealing and/or relevant, and I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case for most other searchers as well.

This is why Keyword Insertion Headlines work so well, and why headlines are widely regarded as the most important piece of the paid search ad anatomy.

Recently Google made headlines even more important by adding descriptions and URLs into headlines for high-scoring ads.

Headlines are so important, in fact, I often get stuck when developing new ones. What will work best? Which messages will create the best response?

So many questions. And yet, I always come back to these few: Does the length of the headline make the most impact? Are scanning users more likely to click on short, succinct, east to read headlines or those with more words?

To find out the truth for once and for all we conducted a small study using long-term paid search programs. We pulled ad results from three distinct paid search programs and grouped headlines together based on character length, ultimately splitting the headlines into 4 groups: Long (25-23 characters), Mid-Long (20-22 characters), Mid (17-19 characters) and Short (<16 characters). Ad results came from search network campaigns only and did not include KWI headlines. Below are the results:

Paid Search Ad Headline Length Effectiveness Index Study

Longer headlines for this paid search program were far less effective than others. Headlines between 20-22 characters generated the highest CTR.

For this paid search program, headlines with short character counts worked best, while longer character counts resulted in lower CTRs.

Program #3 saw the most success with headlines that hit the character limit, while shorter headlines were less effective.

Results Analysis

Based on the results, there is little or no correlation between headline length and average click through rate. In fact, each campaign's results was drastically different from the last, with some programs seeing shorter headlines working best, and others recording more effective long headlines.

What are we to conclude from this? Well, this study was a very small sample, but headline length apparently doesn't matter to users. Ultimately, it's all about the content of the headline, not the length. 


At least we got that out of the way.

When developing headlines, forget about trying to keep them short and sweet, but instead focus on making them as relevant as possible to the search keywords used, use keywords in the headlines themselves, and test, test, test. The only true way to find the best performing headline is to constantly test new messages against existing.

Once again it all comes back to relevancy and testing. Shocking, I know!

The Top Types of Online Content for Your Content Marketing Strategies (Now with More Cats!)

You know who loves online content? CATS.

Today we'll be further exploring the depths of online content, so get your wet-suits on and prepare for the plunge.

In our most recent post, we introduced the Content Marketing Blog Series and started the conversation about why content marketing is so important in today's web world.

Now we're taking this a step further and discussing the top prevailing types of content that drive "buzz" (question: is "buzz" now a "buzzword"? I say yes), traffic, and engagement with your brand online.

Before we do anything, let's define "Online Content" in the context of this blog in the least scientific way possible - Content Marketing is any material that is not a distinct web page and is consumed, interacted with, and shared on web platforms and via web channels.

Phew, now let's get on to the most prevalent types of content...

Top 8 Types of Online Content (in no particular order)


Blogs

Look kids, we're blogging! 

You should really know what a blog is. It is short for "web log" and is essentially a frequently updated and less formal version of traditional web content. Blogs were once known to incite traditional authors/journalists into fits of rage due to their "newness". Nowadays, your grandmother probably has one.


Videos
The other ubiquitous form of online content. Videos are everywhere online, whether or not you love stupid things that waste your time and fill your inbox. They can also be educational, entertaining, engaging, you name it. Duh.


Podcasts
Podcasts are downloadable or streaming online audio, which usually come in the form of "shows" similar to a radio show. The difference is these shows are highly specialized and cover everything from the world of sports to DIY knitting to Roman History and back to everything (supposedly). They're great for downloading to phones/portable devices and listening on the go, or in the background at work if you want to constantly jumble words and screw up because of distraction.

Photo Collections/Galleries/Slideshows

What's that? You haven't seen enough
cat pictures online? For shame.

I'm not including individual photos because they are essentially everywhere and don't really have legs on their own (unless, of course, they are pictures of cats. It's an internet thing, apparently). When grouped into collections, however, photos become highly engaging, mainly because they're easy to sift through and digest. Also, cats.

Infographics
Infographics are creative ways of visualizing data or other usually-quantifiable information. Again, they are easy to understand and don't require deep thinking or interpretation and, as we know, less thinking is usually a winner for online audiences (seriously. Just ask Steve Krug). Here are some fun examples of infographics.

Webinars
Webinars are informative presentations that are played online. Great for expert and specialized content for industry people who are already interested or invested in what the webinar is expounding upon.

Downloadable Guides (etc.)
All-in-one downloadable or otherwise viewable guides, maps, brochures or other information. I tend to think of these like "what is easily printable and useful to an audience who is just passing through"? These are very effective ways of getting someone to take action on your site without "going all the way" (wink wink). Plus they often serve as a gateway to capturing audience information or email addresses.


Games or Other Interactive Features
Interactivity on websites is becoming more and more important, especially since everyone and their mother has a website nowadays. What is going to set your brand apart and make it memorable? Having an engaging feature that the audience can "play" with provides an invaluable experience advantage over other sites, gives unique content presentation, and develops a strong brand impact that will last.

That last point is most important, no matter what type of content you are employing on your site:

The entire purpose of online content is to engage your audience and give them something they WANT and NEED, ultimately generating a valuable brand experience and raising the likelihood of desired action being taken. Sounds easy enough, right? 

Now that we know what some of the most prominent types of online content are, how the heck do we choose the right ones to use? Fret not, our next post will explore the right approach to choosing content types for content marketing strategies. Stay tuned!

If I forgot something, which I probably did, for the love of God please let me know (in a most friendly fashion) below. Feel free to share other thoughts and feedback as well!

Content Marketing Series: Why Good Content is the Best Inbound Marketing Strategy

Content Marketing. Is your website as
entertaining as a one-man band?

When most people think of online marketing they immediately turn to online banner ads, paid search advertising, email marketing or maybe even search engine optimization.

More and more, however, the most significant source of valuable online visibility and inbound website traffic originates from great content. 

The debate is long-standing at this point; some live by the standard of "content is king", while many others believe that simply building website traffic en masse will result in success. But where we may once have been able to float by without any sort of "valuable" content, the nature of the web and the average user's expectations are evolving.

People expect to be entertained or informed on the web, no matter what they are doing. There's just too much good stuff out there.

So, unless a user is specifically looking for something and are ready to buy, if you haven't put thought, effort and resources behind consistently building good content, chances are your website and web presence are falling short of these expectations. In fact, even when a user is looking to buy, it's more likely that the company with interesting content will get the nod over your website.

In the Content Marketing Blog Series, I hope to outline all of the ways companies can plan, build, and distribute great content for sustainable online results.

What do I mean when I talk about great content and content marketing? Well, great content can be just about anything that holds some value to your online audience. Videos, articles, blogs, downloadable guides, white papers, interactive tools, charts, infographics; the list goes on.

But  first, why do you need Content Marketing?

Add great content and
encourage sharing

1. Let's start with what we've already discussed: users love great, entertaining or otherwise informative or valuable content online. A website should do more than just drive sales and have an "about us" page. It should give users something of value and provide a memorable experience. Without interesting or entertaining content, your website is forgettable.
2. Great content builds sharing. With good content, your paid advertising becomes less essential, and your inbound marketing portfolio becomes much more diversified and reliable. This happens because  of sharing. Resonant content is content that your audience wants to share with others, thereby building rich, qualified organic traffic. Content also gives your audience something to talk about, thus developing a deeper brand awareness online for your audience niche.
3. Valuable content builds return traffic. A forgettable website is just that - forgettable - which means the likelihood of users returning is low. If your website can drive return visitation, you are bringing qualified users back to your website, presumably for free, likely resulting in sales or follow up actions.
4. Search engines love content. It's no secret that Google and company love deep, rich, and frequently updated content, which is why a content marketing strategy can have positive impact on your search engine results.
5. Engaging content means a more powerful brand impact. Visitors that view your content will be more likely to spend valuable time with your brand, resulting in stronger, more positive brand experience. This could result in a higher brand favorability and memorability, even outside of the web.
6. Great content can position your brand as a leader. If your competitors aren't already incorporating content marketing into their online strategies, your efforts can help establish your brand as the online thought leader in your category. This type of credibility increases the position of your company in users' minds, resulting in more leads and sales due to credibility.
7. Content drives sales. In addition to everything else, great content can boost sales, leads and actions by helping to inform your audience on important related materials. By giving users valuable information you are more likely to capture email addresses, encourage downloads and drive prolonged interest, especially for longer consideration sets.
8. Give your brand some creative freedom. Many times companies view their website as a space to explain who they are and what they do in the driest way possible. New content strategies provide creative freedom to break down those walls and give your brand some new avenues to build your brand.

It's easy to get visitors into your site - all you need are some paid search ads or banners, and a media budget. But great content and a content marketing strategy will build low-cost, long-term traffic that will result in greater sales/leads and a more positive website brand experience. 

In part two, we'll discuss the different types of content, and how to select the right ones for your brand.

Deco Dig Weekend Link-Fest! March Madness Edition

Welcome back to your favorite part of the weekend, the Deco Dig Weekend Link-Fest Extravaganza!

Join these folks for the Link-Fest Extravaganza!

We have an extra-awesome version of the fest this week, since we haven't done one in a while, which means you should probably carve out a couple of hours to soak in the knowledge that is about to be bestowed upon your head.

With that, let's get the links crankin'.

1. 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages (jeffbullas.com)

Looking for ways to improve engagement and interaction with your brand's content? Check out this list of ideas. Now you have no excuses.

2. Why Your Computer is Becoming More Like Your Phone (cnn.com)

And the march towards computing singularization continues...

3. Spotify Launches an iPad App for Social Media Storytelling (mashable.com)

I love Spotify, so anything that makes it even more engaging and accessible sounds good to me.

The other thing to think about here is how great progressive programs are integrating social media into their usability. It's not just about adding "like" buttons, it's about fundamentally changing the system, or developing brand new features that doesn't add obstacles for social sharing, but instead makes sharing easier by integrating social capabilities into how the programs are used. Spotify has done this from the beginning, with automatic Facebook updates and shared playlists, and they continue to push the social music envelope with this app.

4. Windows on the iPad, and Speedy (nytimes.com)

Very cool new app that brings Windows programs such as Powerpoint and Adobe Reader to the iPad at astonishingly fast speeds. See, I knew Windows and Apple could one day set aside their differences and hold hands.

5. Google Glasses: Frightening or Fantastic? (npr.org)

We were promised hoverboards. I don't want to ask again.

I haven't yet decided if this is frightening or fantastic, as the title of the piece asks. What I do know, however, is that it is cool.

But seriously, if we can develop these Google Glasses, where is this?

6. TED 2012: New Browser Add-On Visualizes Who is Tracking You Online (wired.com)

I've discussed online privacy before. You know where I stand.

With that said, there is a pretty cool new tool, called Collusion. It's a Firefox add-on that shows you a neat little visual map of who is tracking you and how everything is connected. I'm more interested in whether they can make one of these to show audience demographic and behavioral information for better online ad targeting. But hey, that's just me.

7. Google+ Trending Down? Data Suggests Users Only Visit the Site Three Times a Month (theverge.com)

Is anyone surprised? Let's face it, anyone that has entered the Google+ world knows that it's just lacking a certain "je ne sais quoi".

I still there there is a place for it, I just don't think anyone knows quite where that place is. Will Google+ ever get its foothold? Who knows, but it's not looking good right now.

8. Need Ideas for Your Business Blog? Here Are 50 (entrepreneur.com)

50 ideas! That's a lot. Where does "Link-Fest" fall?

Seriously, if you can't think of something to write about for your blog, again, you really have no excuses.

9. 10 Strategies for Non-Profits on Pinterest (mashable.com)

Darn, I thought I could make it through an entire Link-Fest post with only one link to Mashable. Oh well.

Anyway, according to everything I'm hearing, Pinterest is going to take over the world. I, for one, welcome our recipe and knick-knack oriented overlords.

Luckily, now non-profits can now enter the Pinterest frat. That's a relief.


Fun-time Link-Fest link of the week!

10. What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now? (Esquire.com)

In case you needed some baseball-related material to remind you that the baseball season is right around the corner, here's a fantastic piece about The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived. I'm a biased Red Sox fan, but this article is really good; it humanizes a baseball legend, making him at times seem more like your curmudgeonly grandpa than one of the best players of all time. Still, we understand the idiosyncrasies of a sometimes misunderstood, eccentric baseball legend. Plus, baseball!

And that's our link-fest for this week. Until next time, Cheers!

Is Google Tricking People Into Clicking On Paid Ads?

Short answer: Yes.

Look, I work with paid search advertising, so I might be gnawing a bit on the hand that provides my kibble, but have you seen paid search results lately?

To the average consumer, search engine results pages are just that - results for a search. They provide links that the user presumes are the most accurate source of information, services, products, or any other content they have stated a need for. And I would guess that many users would claim it doesn't matter which result they click on, as long as it serves their need. This makes sense.

However, if you work with or are even just aware of the system and how Google serves organic and paid search results, you had to have noticed the ever-so-subtle shifting in paid ad display lately. Lately, even I've mistakenly clicked on a paid ad result thinking it was the top organic result.

How did this happen, and why?

Well, the "why" part is easy; the more paid clicks Google gets, the more money they get.

Here's the dirty secret of Adwords (from Google's perspective): There are only so many ways someone's going to search for a particular thing. This means that there are only so many keywords that are going to provide value and volume to a paid search advertiser. This also means there are only so many impressions and clicks that a given campaign can achieve before realizing diminishing returns. (Note: one other thing this means is more competition and higher CPCs as more marketers enter the arena and strive for top 4 positioning. This actually could lead to lower margins for advertisers, and less likelihood of Adwords use).

Google knows this. They can't MAKE people search more or differently.

What can they do? For one, they can find ways to make people click more on the results that make them money.

Ultimately, this isn't a huge deal. Heck, for my Adwords programs it could mean higher budgets and better/higher results. SEO clients, on the other hand, especially those on the first page or number one listing, it may be a bit of a nuisance. But the prevailing question when dealing with Google (or any search engine) should always be this:


Is the user getting what he or she is looking for?

Paid results are great for everyone involved, but they aren't always the most relevant for a user. Let's face it, there is usually a sale or offer on the other end of a paid search click by nature. Organic results aren't normally so closely tied to commerce.

Back to the question: Is Google tricking people into clicking paid search ads versus organic?

Before we evaluate the specific differences, let's do a little I SPY with search results pages now (2012) vs. 2009:

2009 Google Search Results Page:

2012 Google Search Results Page (same search):

Can you spot the differences?

Okay, now look at some of the specific updates in search results listings:

1. Lighter background behind paid search results.
Um, can you even tell where the paid ads and organic listings begin? You'll just have to trust me on this, but that background used to be much more distinct.

New Google Search Results Page. Where do paid ads begin and end?

2. Ads taking up more space.
Again, take a look at the results above. This is the first screen you see for paid search results. How much space is dedicated to paid ads vs. organic? 75% vs. 25%?


3. Ad SiteLinks.
Google recently introduced new links in paid search ads which can drive clicks to different pages while presenting varying calls to action and messaging. Again, pretty great for advertisers. But can you tell the difference between these two listings?

Paid search ad example

Organic search listing example

Note the links below each ad - pretty similar, huh?

4. Extended Headlines.
Here's another example of a new paid search ad. This time the ad is pulling in the first line of copy from the ad and placing it in the headline, making it closely resemble an organic listing page title:

Extended paid search ad headline resembles organic search title

The caveat with a few of these ad features is that the keyword used need to have a high quality score to use them, which is why the features really only happen in top three listings. Despite this fact, the truth remains that most of these paid results are driving towards a business goal, rather than simply providing information or content that a user is looking for.

From an advertiser's perspective, more clicks is great, but at what cost? If more clicks come from less relevant searches because the users are mistakenly clicking on paid ads, that means more wasteful spending, which means higher cost per conversions and lower ROI. In other words, higher click volume is good as long as that higher volume continues to be of higher value.

So, do users click on paid links by accident? Is it off-putting? Does it undermine Google's policy of always giving users the best results? I suppose there's no clear answer, but my guess is yes on all counts.

What do you think?

Weekend Link-Fest! Here are Some of Our Favorite Links from the Past Week.

Link-fest: Read as you are.

It's Sunday, and that means it's Deco Dig Link-Fest time!


(There's actually no correlation between days and link-fests, but you get the point).


If you have some free time today, check out the links below which we've spent hours curating to provide you with the most optimal reading experience. Comments or additional link suggestions are always welcome below!


9. How Pinterest Is Becoming the Next Big Thing in Social Media for Business


Pinterest is pretty new, especially in the masses, but I'll be darned if it's not the hottest trend out there right now.  That means, of course, that marketers are already finding ways to leverage its power. If you've never heard of Pinterest, whelp, there goes your Sunday.


8. Augmented Reality Actually Becoming One (Video)


I love the idea of augmented reality and how technology is being used to optimize our everyday lives. Whether it is through innovated marketing strategies like QR codes or something as simple as having restaurant reviews at your fingertips, we as marketers should always be thinking about ways to leverage technology to find unique and interesting tactics, as this article and video show.


With that said, what ever happened to virtual reality? Aerosmith promised it, therefore I demand it.


7. Mobile Devices to Outnumber People on Planet This Year


Number 7 comes in the form of a fun fact about mobile devices. Basically, if you aren't marketing on mobile devices yet, you've been outnumbered. The rise of the [mobile] machines is at hand!


6. Microsoft launches msnNOW, tracking trends using data from Facebook, Twitter, Bing


Good to know MSN is getting in on the social search game, and doing it in a pretty innovative if not overdue way. msnNOW scours social networks looking for prevailing news stories and trends. Hopefully there are more cat videos involved. There aren't enough of those.


5. NPR Launches An Answer To Spotify On The iPad With Streaming, Concerts, Offline Playlists


How is it that NPR is always living on the cutting edge of technology and ideas? Their newest innovation takes it to the next level by providing radio streams, offline playlists, program downloads and more through mobile devices and tablets. If I could take one media platform on an island, this might be it. The question is, why can't all companies be this forward thinking?


4. How Much do Sports Fans Love Social Media [Infographic]


Infographics are fun!  I also like sports quite a bit, so this one was right on cue. Turns out that sports fans use social media a bunch. The most important stat? Clearly, it's that 58% of sports fans check on sports information in the bathroom. I smell a targeting opportunity!


3. The Fifth Beatle


I've mentioned my appreciation for Seth Godin's work in the past. I don't know how he can make a couple of paragraphs so powerful, but alas, he's done it again.


2. Does Your Company Take a Social Approach?


Quick post that I liked simply because it posed the question: "As a small business owner, are you more of a social company or an anti-social company?"


I thought, well that's a good way of putting it. 


Want to learn more about social media marketing? Check out my recent LiveBlog of the Connecticut Social Media Breakfast which talks about social media strategies and community management.


1. "One 'Mindful' Way to Stay Organized in The Cloud


At Deco Dig we appreciate anything that can help work become more efficient and organized. The new product outlined here supposedly does all of those things. But so did Google Wave, so, yea.