Saturday, April 30, 2016
MTX Dose Can Be Kept Low When Combined With Enbrel in RA (CME/CE)
Athlete's Foot
Category: Diseases and Conditions
Created: 12/31/1997 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/29/2016 12:00:00 AM
Friday, April 29, 2016
Hospital Bombings Highlight Challenges Health Care Providers Face In War Zones
NPR's Kelly McEvers talks with Jonathan Whittall, head of humanitarian analysis for Doctors Without Borders, about how bombings of hospitals affect relief organizations in war zones.
Marketing Day: IAB's LEAN scoring, Echo/Alexa sales & LinkedIn's earnings report
Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.
Psoriasis Tied to Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes
Category: Health News
Created: 4/27/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/28/2016 12:00:00 AM
#SocialSkim: What Facebook's Algorithm Change Means, Plus 12 More Stories in This Week's Roundup
The $100,000 Challenge: March Update
We finally finished the last month of the $100,000 challenge. March was an awesome month for Nutrition Secrets. Not only did the traffic grow to 218,811 visitors, but revenue did too-it went up to $121,492.65.
It wasn't hard to hit the revenue goals as we had enough fish oil in stock, plus we started to generate money from affiliate sales.
So let's dive right in…
Traffic
Compared to February, the traffic went up to 218,811 visitors and 269,814 pageviews. The increase was only 18,102, which isn't much.
But considering that the popularity of nutrition and fitness sites is cyclical (January and February are most popular) and that Mike didn't blog much on NutritionSecrets.com in March, it wasn't too bad.
Overall, Mike has slowed down on the blogging front. Over the next few months, he wants to try a few fun content formats such as infographics and wants to see what happens if we were to dump a few hundred grand into the blog. It won't be much of an experiment at that point, but we are just curious to see if we can get the blog to a million visitors a month.
Nonetheless, the traffic isn't performing too badly. Even in April, the traffic has been on an upward trend while little to no effort has been put into the blog since the challenge has been over.
Revenue
The revenue is a bit more complicated to breakdown as it is coming from two sources now: Amazon and affiliates.
In March, revenue from Amazon hit $112,573.30.
There are a few key elements to growing Amazon sales:
- Reviews – the more people you can get to leave a review, the better off you are. Most people don't even read the reviews, but if they are high in ratings and you have tons in quantity, you are in good shape. If you have a blog that's driving sales, a great way to get more reviews is through marketing automation. You can promote the product to your email list, and then after a few weeks of promoting your product to those people, you would send an automated email asking them to leave a review. You won't really know who bought the product, but you would still put the review email-applicable to a portion of your list-in your sequence.
- Keywords – with Amazon, you can add keywords. Most people add basic ones like “fish oil,” but as you know, it is all about the long tail. Amazon opened it up so you can stuff hundreds of keywords now, and with the use of Google Keyword Planner, you can come up with popular variations. You'll then start ranking for tons of keywords on Amazon.
- Combating negative Amazon reviews – similarly to what happens when people employ negative SEO, competitors sabotage your Amazon listing by taking up your front page with terrible reviews. They do this to tank your sales so they can generate more income. You fight this by building up your email list on your blog and continually blasting out to your list when you have bad reviews, asking your readers to up-vote the positive ones.
- Ads – Amazon allows ads on its platform. Whether it is profitable or not, ads help you generate more sales. And if you can increase your sales velocity, you'll find that your listing climbs up higher and starts to stick-it stays up there even after your ads stop showing. Sure, other people can do the same thing, but most don't.
As for affiliate income, we started to push stuff by the Truth About Abs guys. We started doing email blasts to our list in order to generate the sales, and it has been working out well. The copy isn't too bad, but there are two reasons it's working out well.
- We collect a lot more emails – we are generating 300 to 400 email sign-ups a day. It's much larger than our previous numbers for one reason: we turned off double opt-in. Aweber usually requires double opt-in when you use third-party software to collect emails, but Mike called Aweber and got them to disable double opt-ins.
- Good copy – our copy converts well. You can see an example email below. And we have many more emails like this in the sequence. So, we continually send you affiliate offers over time, which helps.
Here is the email copy we have been testing:
Email – This plant food HARMS your metabolism & heart
Hi {!firstname_fix}
Sometimes it's not the enemy you know that's the problem, but the friend you think you know.
In this case, I'm talking about nutrition in foods. It's common knowledge that stuff like sugary drinks are just plain bad for you. The best you can say is that your body can absorb the bad effects if you only have them occasionally.
But what about foods you thought weren't bad, and you heard were actually good for you?
I have some bad news, and some good news. The bad: some so-called “healthy” foods may be the cause of why you work so hard to eat healthy and haven't seen the results you expected. The good news: There's a solution I read about from best selling author Mike Geary. Read on… (removed affiliate link)
Email – 2 Simple steps to REMOVE visceral belly fat (the DEADLIEST type)
Hi {!firstname_fix}
People often refer to past times as “the good old days” with a nostalgic tone. At least when it comes to many nutritional and health practices, I think of them more like the “bad old days.”
For example, people thought the wonders of science had delivered new, healthy products called “trans fats” that were featured in margarine, to replace that nasty butter. We now know that trans fats are about the worst thing you can coat your innards with.
People also thought they could do “spot reducing” of unattractive belly fat by using those jiggling-belt machines, or some other gimmick.
Well, belly fat certainly is still unattractive, and research says it's also a danger sign. But research has also identified more-effective ways of getting rid of that spare tire. Here's how. (removed affiliate link)
Email – 7 “fatty” foods for a flat stomach
Hi {!firstname_fix}
I spend full time on nutrition- and health-related activities. That's the business I'm in.
I'm also an improvement junkie, always looking for the latest, best information. So you can imagine that I've pretty much seen it all: Every product, every supplement, every type of exercise.
Most of them are underwhelming. Yawn.
I'm writing you today because I recently came across something that made me sit up and pay attention. It's a short-term blueprint for eating the right foods to burn substantial fat, and it's all explained here… (removed affiliate link)
You can find high converting offers on sites such as Clickbank. They even sort the offers by popularity. I need to get a screenshot of our Clickbank revenue and our other affiliate income sources from Mike as he created the accounts and has the logins. Once I do, I will update the post with a screenshot (we use three networks).
The total affiliate revenue was $8,919.35.
Profit
As for monthly profit, it was high…but for a different reason than you might think. When you sell tangible products, you buy tons of inventory and then sell it over the following few months. We didn't want to be out for our last month, so we spent a good chunk of money in the previous month, and, of course, we bought more in March.
Here is a breakdown of the expenses:
- Fish oil – $68,492.52 (including Amazon fees, shipping to Amazon for Prime, coupon-related expenses, and producing more inventory)
- Aweber – $149
- Designer – $375 (continually tweaking the site)
- Hosting – $249
- Mike – free (Mike doesn't get paid, but he owns a percentage of the blog)
- Accounting – $290 (we are now paying a bookkeeper to help out with the books)
Total expenses came out to $69,555.52.
That brings the total profit to $51,937.13.
Of course, to maintain the growth, we would have to keep buying fish oil, but after awhile, we would cap out on sales, and our margins should be a healthy 30% plus. As for March, I didn't spend much on buying tons more inventory as I wanted to show that selling supplements can be profitable.
Conclusion
Overall, the $100,000 challenge was fun, but I wouldn't do it again. It's just too much work with everything I have going on.
It was still a good learning experience. One thing I realized is how much harder it is to rank on Google today compared to 5 years ago. Almost all of my sites are old, so it is much easier for them to rank.
And although NutritionSecrets.com generated good traffic, if it were 5 years ago, the blog would have been at a million visitors a month with the same amount of effort.
So, what do you think of the $100,000 challenge?
How to Build Rapport With a Physician Recruiter
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Five Examples of How Publishers Have Used UGC to Grow
How a GREAT Marketer Befriends an Influencer
Have you ever watched a reality competition? You know, one of those Survivor-style shows that puts strangers in a stressful situation to battle for a last-person-standing prize?
Don't be ashamed if you have. I'm a pop culture snob, but still found myself transfixed by ten seasons of America's Next Top Model. On that show, amidst the freak-outs and tantrums, I noticed one recurring line of dialogue:
“I'm not here to make friends.”
You'll hear it on almost every reality competition. There's always one person who alienates everyone else with that specific phrase. Usually it's followed by, “I'm here to win.”
The funny thing is, in all the hours I wisely invested watching would-be models snipe at each other, no one who said that ever won. Not once. In fact, they tended to get kicked off earlier than anyone else.
It's easy for marketers to feel like we're not here to make friends. Even in influencer marketing, it's all about that ROI. Influencer, you get me what I need, we'll compensate you, and that's the end of it. We're here to win.
But just like the models and aspiring pop idols of the world, you'll find that putting effort into building friendships pays off in the end. If you want influencers who are excited about working with you, creating work they're excited to promote, it pays to cultivate a friendship. Not just from a, “it's nicer to work with people when you're nice” angle, either-it's better for the business side, too.
Here are three ways you can cultivate friendships with your influencers.
#1 – Consider People outside of their Interaction with Your Business
This is a piece of advice I've given to marketers thinking about their customers, but it applies to influencers as well. Yes, you're vetting the influencer for the size of their audience and if their audience aligns with your message. But while you're doing that, consider what they do when they're not answering your email.
What are they like? Do they have a good sense of humor? What are their hobbies? Do they talk about their family, their pets, their collection of vintage chainsaws? What kind of music are they into? What movies do they love? It's worth doing a little digging to find out. And I don't mean just social media stalking, either. These questions can start a conversation you might not have had otherwise. We all love talking about ourselves-give them a chance to share interests you might have in common.
#2 – Take – Don't Fake – A Personal Interest
Last December, I got a greeting card in the mail. It had my name and addresses hand-written on the envelope, but no return address. Intrigued, I opened it to read: “Best holiday wishes to you and yours from your friends at [Insurance Company].” I looked at the envelope again, and this time could tell their hand-written address was just a handwriting font. Just like that, any illusion of personal interest they were trying to create was gone.
With your influencers, it's worth taking time to express a genuine personal interest. Let your correspondence show that you have taken time to learn something about them. Send a meme that made you laugh, that you know they would love. Send them a vintage chainsaw to add to their collection. That thoughtfulness goes a long way.
Just make sure you do your homework under point #1, so you're not faking the funk. You wouldn't want to send chocolates to a diabetic, or a vintage chainsaw to someone who collects old Happy Meal toys. That's just a waste of a good chainsaw.
#3 – Strive for Genuine, Enthusiastic Co-Creation
At TopRank, we try to involve influencers in the creation process as actively as possible. We make sure influencers know exactly what project we're working on, why we would love their input, and which other influencers are already on board. We keep the enthusiasm up throughout the process with progress reports. We show them the finished project before we publish it so they can make final edits. And we always make sure to message them right before the project posts, to make it easy for them to promote it.
Compare that approach to simply saying, “Hey, can we get a quote about Happy Meal toys for a blog,” followed by…well, no follow-up at all. There's no comparison.
How a GREAT Marketer Befriends an Influencer
Let's face it: We are here to make friends. In marketing, as in life, friends make good things even better. So to help you cultivate lasting friendships with the influencers in your life, we created this cute-but-serious storybook with some key points to keep in mind. Read it to your kids before bed tonight…or to your significant other while you're binge-watching America's Next Top Model.
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© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2016. |
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The post How a GREAT Marketer Befriends an Influencer appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
U.S. Doctors Prepare For Arrival Of Zika Virus
NPR's Kelly McEvers talks to Dr. Umair Shah, executive director of public health and environmental services in Harris County, Texas, about what they're doing to prepare their community for Zika, and how they're paying for it.
Walking Program Helps New Moms Shed Pounds (CME/CE)
Thoughts, Ideas, Quotes, and Insights from MME16
We have come to the end of another successful Modern Marketing Experience. Brands, CMOs, Modern Marketers, and vendors gathered for three days in Las Vegas. Below are some of the things we heard, learned, and thought about.
It Really is All about Customer Experience
Sometimes it is easy to cynical about Las Vegas, especially if you are not into the whole party all night thing, but there is something they do very well. Customer Experience. Every major hotel has one simple goal. Let's provide everything you need on your vacation so that you never have to leave the property. Fine dining, shopping, extravagant shows, lounging by the pool, late night partying, and games of chance.
There is a simple lesson here for any business. Think about serving your customers in a new way. Imagine that you could provide everything they need, so they didn't need to go anywhere else and work with any other company. It may not be entirely realistic, but how does it work scaled down to your industry or product category? Can your offerings be so complete in their needs to serve your customers that it generates a level of loyalty that you just haven't seen before? Remember, in Vegas, the house always wins. They must be doing something right. - Jeffrey L. Cohen, Director, Content Strategy, Oracle Marketing Cloud
❤️ the iconic brands being featured in #MME16 keynote. The "you may think you know them" theme is very relatable for many established brands
- Alison Pruett (@alison_pruett) April 27, 2016
"We wondered, could we fundamentally re-imagine how we do this? We knew we needed to change the way we talk to consumers. And in walked technology." – Eric Reynolds, CMO, Clorox
Via @CloroxCo #digitaltransformation is incredibly hard. But don't let fear get in the way. This is where the future is #MME16
- Shelly Kramer (@ShellyKramer) April 27, 2016
"If we don't disrupt ourselves, we're going to be disrupted." - Nick Cerise, CMO, Western Union
@Sears already asked for social sharing in the analog world decades ago...@OracleMktgCloud #MME16 pic.twitter.com/RFHJ4R2m8x
- Sander Arts (@Sander1Arts) April 27, 2016
"Personalization at scale is the biggest challenge at Sears." - Ryan Deutsch, DVP, Digital Marketing, Sears
Digital Transformation and the Modern Company
I'm in Vegas this week, as a guest of our friends at Oracle, for their Modern Marketing Experience event focused on the Oracle Marketing Cloud. The event is all about digital transformation and how companies of all kinds – B2B and B2C – are making the leap to digital transformation and a focus on customer experience. Read more - Shelly Kramer, Co-founder, V3*Broadsuite
Lessons for CMOs
There were two panels specifically for CMOs: The Age of Brand, Agency, & Customer Collaboration: How to Make It Work and The CMO Solution Guide for Building a Modern Marketing Organization. In the former we learned that the roles of key players in the brand/agency relationship have shifted greatly over the past 2 years, while data and how to disseminate it was identified as a key component in making the relationship work successfully. In the latter the panel spoke to the need to strike a balance between having the right people within a given organization with the right technologies. Two words at the heart of each of these discussions were people and technology.
Despite the rapid (and ongoing) proliferation of new technologies and the functionalities they deliver - organizations must never lose sight of the fact that it is people, their employees and customers, who ultimately make the difference. - Steve Olenski, Senior Content Strategist, Oracle Marketing Cloud
"People have a responsibility with what they post on social media." - Zach King
My new go to for digital marketing innovation @FinalCutKing #MME16 #killingit pic.twitter.com/zlpaOj7H2i
- Kate Stannard (@KSStannard) April 27, 2016
It's lights, camera, #action at #MME16! The camera's rolling with @John_Bara & @OracleMktgCloud pic.twitter.com/vUxDnCbH1Z
- Mintigo (@mintigo) April 26, 2016
Basking in the Glow
Modern Marketers spend so much time heads down in their jobs and they don't often step back to acknowledge the great work they are doing. And the Markie finalists are doing some great work. It really is an honor to be a finalist with these other companies, but to win a Markie is something special. It's great for our work to be recognized by the Oracle Marketing Cloud. - Nikki Candito, Marketing Manager, Eaton
"You can't fall off the floor." -- Troy Carter's grandma advice. Taking a risk with @ladygaga @atomfactory #MME16
- Victorria Wytcherley (@VWytcherley) April 27, 2016
.@Oracle CEO @MarkVHurd "companies with happy customers get 5X the return in stock performance" #MME16
- Zari Venhaus (@zrtalebi) April 27, 2016
Millennials are resetting expectations,similar values to older generations, just easier to provide feedback & complain to biz now #MME16
- Meagen Eisenberg (@meisenberg) April 27, 2016
"This is the beginning of the end of advertising as we know it." - James Cooper, Editorial Director, Adweek
"When you're in digital you never hit the finish line." #MME16 #realtalk
- carrie hawkins (@owch) April 27, 2016
"Now the right message to the right person at the right time also has to come in the right place and in the right context." - Rebecca Lieb, strategic advisor, research analyst, keynote speaker, author, and columnist
Looks like @jaybaer is trying to make FOMOSO happen instead of only FOMO! (Fear Of Missing Out on Software Opportunities) #MME16
- Stephanie Carls (@stephelisecarls) April 27, 2016
"The next big trend is doing yesterday's big trend, better." @jaybaer via @cnmoody #MME16
- Lee Odden (@leeodden) April 27, 2016
"Focus less on what product you should be selling, and focus more on what customer need you're fulfilling." - Andy Kennemer, VP, Omnichannel Marketing, Abercrombie & Fitch
People Want to be Involved
They want to feel like they are part of something. Let them in. Include them. From conferences like this one, to written content, to video, involve your customers, fans, followers. Don't focus on product. Focus on creating experiences that people will remember. - Lauren Harper, Sr. Manager, Global Social Marketing, Oracle Marketing Cloud
@llcrowe being interviewed on how marketers are leveraging #videomarketing at #MME16 @Brightcove pic.twitter.com/7CyW2i8SOt
- Matt Childs (@MattyChilds) April 28, 2016
Put Content Where the Business Is
"I am not who I say I am. I am who YOU say I am." - Tyra Banks
@tyrabanks speaking on marketing, branding and building a business #fierce #funny #engaging #badassery #MME16 pic.twitter.com/c4h6uyw6mR
- Swati Harish (@swati) April 28, 2016
Just found my new business role model here at #MME16 - @tyrabanks thanks for you authenticity & sass. Be my mentor?!
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Bed Bugs Drawn to Red and Black Colors
Category: Health News
Created: 4/25/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/26/2016 12:00:00 AM
Facebook's mobile ad revenue grew by 76% to $4.26 billion in Q1 2016
Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.
The 4 Steps to Keyword Analysis: How to Prioritize Your Resources
Don't you love that feeling that comes with keyword research?
You're left with hundreds, often thousands, of opportunities you can target to grow your business.
If you do your keyword research well, you can even identify several relatively easy keywords to go after.
I know you're excited.
But there's a problem…
Which one do you go after first?
Which one do you go after second?
For the vast majority of blogs and business websites, you'll be able to create only a few really great pieces of content a month.
That means you'll never get to every single keyword you dug up in your research.
In fact, you may never get past 10% (but you can still be incredibly successful). So, what do you do?
You prioritize.
Some keywords are better than others to go after for your business.
I'm going to show you a 4-step process you can follow to analyze the keywords you came up with and decide which keywords to pursue.
Step 1: Organization is key
Keyword research and analysis is not something that can just be thrown together.
You can't randomly input keywords into tools and sporadically analyze them-it's impossible when you have potentially thousands to go through.
That's why organization is critical. Take the time upfront to get all your keyword research into one area.
In this case, I recommend using a spreadsheet. Once you have a list of keywords to consider, put them in a single column.
Next, get the search volumes for each keyword if you haven't already. Just copy and paste them into the Keyword Planner if you have to.
This step isn't hard, but it could take some time.
By the end, you should have a spreadsheet like this, with all your keywords:
Step 2: It's time to take stock
Before you even look at your keywords, you need to decide what you're willing to invest to go after them.
For example, if you have a $500 monthly budget, you cannot target highly competitive terms such as “home insurance” because you'll get zero traffic. Instead, it's better to target more realistic terms and get a steady trickle of traffic.
Since keyword research is usually tied to SEO at least a bit, you need to give yourself a fighting chance at ranking #1-3 for each keyword you target.
But put aside the competition aspect for now, and make sure you know exactly how much of the following three factors you have available.
Factor #1 – budget. To target a keyword, you'll need two things: content and promotion (mainly backlinks).
Many businesses hire someone (or a small team) to produce content and do the promotion.
Right here, you need to be able to answer these questions:
- Do you even want to spend money on targeting keywords?
- Alternatively, do you have to spend money to do it (because no one on your team has the skills or time to)?
- If so, how much can you reliably afford to commit on a long term basis (at least 6 months)?
To get the most out of your content, you need to think long term. It takes months of consistent, high quality work before traffic starts to pick up.
That's why it's not enough to invest a lot upfront and then pull funding when the results aren't amazing immediately.
If you are going to employ that approach, divide that upfront money into at least six portions, and plan your content and promotion accordingly in the future.
Factor #2 – manpower. If you don't want to spend money to hire people to produce content and promote it, you need to do it yourself (or assign it to an employee).
Or you might want a mixture of the two options.
Either way, determine right now the maximum amount of time you, or someone on your team, can commit to working on a specific keyword.
Again, this needs to be an amount of time specifically carved out for this work. You need consistency.
Factor #3 – expectations. When I refer to expectations, I mean answering this question: How well do you need to rank in order to be happy?
Or a better question might be: How much traffic do you need if you spend a certain level of resources on your marketing and SEO?
If you're starting from scratch, getting just 100 organic visits a day might justify the work you're going to put in, at least for now.
But if you're heading up this work at a large website, getting an extra 100 visits a day might be only 1% more traffic, which isn't good enough.
The point here is to see if there's any misalignment between the first two factors and your goals.
If you're expecting big things with a small budget, you're doomed before you even started. At this point, you need to revisit your budget and manpower available-or tone down your expectations.
Alternatively, if you're expecting to get an extra few thousand visitors a month after 6 months of work with a budget of a few thousand dollars a month, that's achievable, and you can move on to the next step.
Step 3: Competition will dictate desirability
All right, now we can get back to your list of keywords.
This step is about one thing: determining the level of competition for each keyword.
This competition level refers to how hard it will be to rank in the top 3 listings for that keyword in Google.
That being said, if you have another distribution channel (social media, forum, etc.) that you know you can get a ton of traffic from for content on a specific keyword, classify that as easy.
Essentially, we're looking for an overall measure of how easy it will be to get a reasonable amount of traffic from each keyword.
Option #1 – assign each keyword a competition value manually: Create a column on your spreadsheet to assign a competition value in either of two ways:
- General categories - competition isn't an exact science. You may opt to simply label each keyword with something like: easy, relatively easy, average, hard, very hard, etc.
- Specific numbers - you can also use a scale of 1-5 or 1-10, where low numbers indicate low competition and high numbers are the toughest.
I recommend the second way because we'll be using it later on.
Here comes the hard part: figuring out the competition level for each keyword. This can take a lot of time, especially if you're doing it all yourself.
Basically, you need to get the top 3 results (or more) for each keyword, and then look at the following factors:
- How relevant is the content? (i.e., is it clearly optimized for the keyword?)
- How impressive is the content? (can you make something significantly better?)
- How many backlinks point to the page? (only count high quality ones)
- How authoritative is the site? (e.g., Forbes is highly authoritative, potatoesarethebest.com is not)
You could also look at factors such as mobile-friendliness and page load speed, but you'll never be able to analyze all your keywords if you include too many factors.
This doesn't need to be a perfect analysis, but it should be at least a good estimate of what you're up against.
Put all those together to come up with an overall competition score.
Option #2 – use a tool to gauge competition: I know I don't have time to do the above for thousands of keywords.
The good news is that many signals can be checked automatically with tools. You can find a bunch of options in the keyword competition section of this guide.
These tools look at the above factors and then use a formula to calculate an overall competition value (usually out of 10 or 100).
This can take this step down from several hours to just minutes, which is obviously a great thing.
The one thing you sacrifice is control.
You have to trust that the minds behind the tool are weighing the factors correctly and generating a relatively good competition estimate.
I suggest trying out a tool and then manually going through a dozen keywords to see whether the tool's competition assessment matches yours.
Step 4: It's time to turn to math
“Oh crap, I don't remember calculus…”
Don't worry, you'll need only very basic math here.
This is the final step of our analysis, where we create a score that will tell us which keywords to prioritize.
Let's recap what we've done so far and, more importantly, what we're looking for in a great keyword.
Ideally:
- We want keywords with low competition.
- We want to get a lot of traffic if we rank highly for it (more is better).
- It must be realistic-if a keyword has competition that clearly exceeds your budget, it should automatically be the lowest priority.
- We need a minimum amount of traffic to make it worth your time.
Part #1 – filter and eliminate: Those last two points are the easiest to start with. If a keyword doesn't meet those conditions, it should be assigned low priority and removed from consideration.
Start with the minimum traffic level.
You've already decided the minimum return you need, and we'll use that here.
If your minimum was 100 visitors per day, or 3,000 per month, a keyword with a monthly search volume of 50 will not be worth it.
Your cutoff will probably be 500-1,000 for that example. With 7-15 pieces of content, you could hit your goal, which is reasonable for most. Keep in mind that you will get only about 30% of the monthly search volume as #1 these days.
Filter out all the keywords below that monthly search volume.
Next, based on your predetermined budget and manpower, along with SEO experience, determine what competition is too high.
If you have a small budget with very little manpower or SEO experience, eliminate all keywords that are above average in difficulty.
You'll have to judge this for yourself.
Part #2 – calculate a priority score: Now you're left with a list of keywords that would be both good and realistic to rank for.
They should all be keywords you would target if you had enough time.
This is where the math comes in.
We'll use the following formula:
(A*Traffic) / (B*Competition) = Priority Score
A and B are both constants that we'll figure out in a second. Traffic and competition both come from your earlier numbers.
A high priority score is a good thing. The higher the score, the sooner you should target it.
The constants can be anything, but they mainly depend on two things:
- Risk tolerance - if you're willing to take a risk and go for high volume keywords (that require more resources to target) make “A” larger. If you want more reliable results (small wins), make “B” larger.
- Skill level - if you're an expert SEO, you can decrease “B” because competition isn't as scary. If you're not as experienced, make “B” larger.
Before you do this, I'd advise to normalize your traffic numbers. You should do this since competition is already normalized from 1 to 10 (or to 5).
To do so, take the logarithm of each number. For example:
- log(1,000)=3
- log(50)=1.69
Then, multiply each of these numbers by a scaling factor that is equal to 10 (or 5) divided by the largest number you have. If you only had the two examples above, the scaling factor would be equal to 3.33 (10 divided by 3).
Now all your traffic numbers are out of 10, and you'll get a more reasonable set of priority scores.
Sort your list and get to work: You've done all the hard work. The last step is to sort your final list by the priority score, highest to lowest.
Now, plan your content and promotion schedule according to this list. Start at the keyword with the highest priority score, and work your way down.
Conclusion
As you can see, keyword analysis isn't incredibly difficult, but it takes a lot of work.
While you may want to take shortcuts, don't.
Getting your analysis right will save you from chasing the wrong keywords and wasting hundreds of hours, and it will help you target keywords that will give you the quickest results.
If you have any questions about keyword analysis, just leave me a comment below.
That Surgery Might Cost You A Lot Less In Another Town
You may be paying $38,000 more for that knee replacement than someone in another state, or even a few hundred miles down the road. And there doesn't seem to be any method to this madness.
Portrait of a Content Marketer: More Than a Marketer [INFOGRAPHIC]
Being a successful content marketer isn't just about writing snappy blog posts.
Modern-day content marketers need to have their fingers in many, many pies.
It's true: the best content marketers are multifaceted and multitalented folk.
Just ask our friends over at Uberflip who put together this infographic that shows how good content marketers are essentially full-stack marketers.
Modern day Renaissance (wo)men, if you will.
Embed this infographic on your site
New Medicare Rules Would Increase Bonus Opportunities, Ease Reporting
Newly Released Innovations for Oracle Marketing Cloud Has Something for Everybody
When you attend digital marketing conferences, it's hard to avoid Scott Brinker's Marketing Technology Landscape, an intentionally chaotic PowerPoint visual that curates the more than 3800 marketing technology vendors. While the continued expansion of this ecosystem ensures strong innovation, it also provides complexity for modern marketers looking to develop a cohesive digital strategy.
This morning, Oracle Marketing Cloud announced new enhancements that help marketers reduce the complexity of this chaotic ecosystem. Specifically, new innovations and integrations across our stack help marketers connect their audience data, orchestrate cross-channel interactions and optimize the customer experience.
Because we have cross-channel platforms tailored to both consumer marketers and B2B marketers, we made sure this launch had something for everyone.
B2C Marketers Improve Audience Quality and Optimize the Customer Experience
Back in August, we announced the acquisition of Oracle Maxymiser, the industry's leading platform for online optimization and testing. Today, we're announcing that Oracle Maxymiser is now integrated with Oracle's Cross-Channel Orchestration solution (Oracle Responsys) and the Oracle Data Management Platform.
As marketers connect audience data in the Oracle DMP, they can use that data to optimize the experience with their Oracle Maxymiser campaigns, helping them convert their most ideal customers. Once they become a customer, and marketers seek to retain and grow that relationship using Oracle Responsys, they can orchestrate the web campaigns they build in Oracle Maxymiser right alongside their email, mobile and display messages.
Finally, we're also announcing key innovations that help consumer marketers reach their ideal audiences on digital media channels. With the addition of Oracle Data Cloud's AddThis Audience Discovery tool, marketers can build audiences based on their engagement with keywords on billions of web pages across the web. With new look-alike modeling capabilities, they can then model that against offline purchase data from Oracle Datalogix.
Learn more about new releases for Oracle Responsys
Learn more about new releases for Oracle Data Management Platform
B2B Marketers Target and Nurture Key Accounts More Effectively
The modern B2B sale is getting increasingly more complex and involves more stakeholders. According to data from CEB, the average B2B deal involves 5.5 stakeholders. And while 64% of executives still have final sign off on a deal, a large number of non C-suite employees (81%) have a say in their executives overall decision.
Given this trend, we're excited to announce Oracle Marketing Cloud's solution for Account-Based Marketing. The new Oracle Marketing Cloud Account-Based Marketing capabilities provides one of the industry's largest sets of curated B2B account audience data for targeting on paid media through a new direct integration between Oracle Marketing Cloud and Oracle Data Cloud. Oracle Data Cloud has data on more than one million US companies and over 60 million anonymous business profiles. B2B marketers can now use this data within the Oracle Marketing Cloud to prospect for anonymous users based on account, online behavior and offline data such as past purchases or other behavioral data.
In addition, to empower B2B marketers to execute account-specific campaigns that increase conversion rates and decrease sales cycles, the new capabilities include unique account-based messaging that enables communications to be personalized at scale. Marketers can also easily append account data to new and existing leads, eliminating the need to present long forms for lead capture, while significantly improving data quality. The new account scoring and nurturing capabilities are powered by integrations with Demandbase. It can be administered directly inside Oracle Eloqua, the Oracle Marketing Cloud's marketing automation solution.
Learn more about new features for Oracle Marketing Automation's Account-Based Marketing.
We'll be discussing these integrations and more at Modern Marketing Experience 2016 this week, so stay tuned.
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Only Human: A Birth That Launched The Search For A Down Syndrome Test
After Stanford scientist Lee Herzenberg gave birth to a son with Down syndrome, she and her husband worked to find a noninvasive test that would help mothers learn about the health of the fetus.
Why the CMO Is So Vital In the Brand/Agency Relationship
A simple definition of the word relationship is "the way in which two or more people, groups, countries, etc., talk to, behave toward, and deal with each other." Every single one of us have been in and are currently in a relationship. Could be a relationship with your significant other of course or with your dry cleaner or the guy who cuts your grass.
In the business world, however, the relationship between a given brand and its agency is incredibly important and is changing dramatically, according to the findings of a new global study of over 250 executives across a range of industries and functions conducted by Forbes Insights and Oracle Marketing Cloud.
How dramatic is the relationship changing? Well consider 60% of brand and agency executives say their roles and responsibilities have changed significantly over the past two years while another 48% of marketing executives who say evolving brand and agency roles are making successful collaboration more difficult.
Enter the CMO
As if the CMO doesn't have enough on his or her plate, they need to be fully cognizant of this ever-shifting dynamic between their brand and their agency(s) and the effects it can and is having on the entire organization.
While forward-thinking agencies are ready to serve a higher purpose than just being “idea factories” for individual campaigns as Jeff Cheong, president of Tribal Worldwide Asia says "Maybe the solution to this problem is not an ad, maybe it's new packaging or a shift in distribution, or a shift in how you sell the product." - progressive marketing leaders within brands are embracing new and closer working relationships.
“Whether it's the digital agency that's helping us drive our acquisitions or the creative team, each is immersed with our internal marketing team,” says Patrick Adams, head of consumer marketing, PayPal, North America. “I often don't delineate between my full-time employees and my agency people. They're all seen as one and the same as the relationships become tighter and more significant.”
All this change comes against the backdrop of the most fundamental need of all: increasing sales and attracting new customers, goals that 80% of respondents across all geographic regions rank at the top of the list of strategic goals for marketing programs in the year ahead.
The fact that increasing sales and getting new customers is #1 in the need department should surprise no one, of course for as much as things change, the bottom line will always be the bottom line. Working in new, more collaborative ways is one way to reach this goal. Closer brand and agency collaboration will become even more important in the coming year, according to 60% of the respondents.
For their part CMOs must work very closely with their agency counterparts to overcome the roadblocks that will prevent successful collaboration, such as ensuring all key program metrics are shared with key players both internally and externally and improving the training and skill development for fully utilizing marketing technologies.
Download The Age Of Brand, Agency & Customer Collaboration to learn how to overcome these roadblocks plus learn the 4 keys to success in translating marketing visions into more engaged customers.
New Guidelines Issued on Breast, Genital Plastic Surgery for Teen Girls
Category: Health News
Created: 4/22/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/25/2016 12:00:00 AM
Show Me The Money: Attribution and Campaign-Driven Analytics
Let's increase our spend. Let's spend more money - now.
Does this statement induce some mild anxiety? A slight clenching of the jaw, perhaps, or a furrow of the brow?
Every performance marketer has heard this phrase at least once. If you haven't, you will - at some point, soon.
If you're anything like us, you're using a slew of different marketing tools to inform your business decisions. You have tools for customer service, email, social, lead generation, paid, SEO and the list goes on.
These tools come with reports and insights. But this data doesn't tell you when to turn on the tap on the marketing initiatives that matter most.
Tracking “all the things” doesn't necessarily give you a clear picture of what is actually delivering the most value or conversions because you're focusing on metrics, not campaigns.
What do we mean by campaigns? We like to define a campaign as:
“A series of marketing activities designed to achieve clearly defined goals within a specified time frame. Whether the ultimate goal is to acquire new customers, launch a new product, promote brand awareness or generate leads, smart conversion marketers think in terms of campaigns.”
So when your boss innocently nudges you to increase spend, it's okay to scratch your head. Let's face it: spending money is easy, but knowing where to spend it can be hard.
It's critical to understand how to attribute conversions to the most effective marketing campaigns, because spending money blindly can seriously hurt the growth of your business.
To help you avoid the 'mo-money, mo-problems' scenario, I'm going to:
- Explain the limitations of tactic-driven attribution.
- Illustrate how a campaign-driven approach will let you spend your time and money on marketing campaigns that will grow your business.
Cha-ching.
What you're missing with the tactic-driven approach
The truth is that most marketing teams and companies are stuck in a tactic-driven phase. I like to lovingly call this the one-trick pony phase of attribution because you're focusing your efforts on one key metric.
Marketing attribution at this phase means you're likely looking at:
- Metrics like cost-per-click, new subscribers or new leads
- Multiple platform-specific reports and insights
So, you have a ton of data that doesn't communicate across platforms. Each report offers insights on metrics that are specific to those platforms, but they don't connect with each other. This type of reporting doesn't provide you the understanding you need.
As Unbounce's performance marketer, Duane Brown would say:
“You've got 99 problems, but data ain't one.”
What you need is to get these platforms to talk to each other and show you the whole picture.
The limits of Google Analytics
You're probably using Google Analytics to gain perspective on your efforts. The thing is, Google Analytics is necessary, but not sufficient.
Each of the different attribution models in GA focuses on metrics that cover one part of your conversion funnel - none gives you the holistic perspective you need.
Google Analytics gives you insights into aspects of your marketing initiatives, but it's not an oracle.
Even with Google in your corner, it's still very hard to answer higher level questions like:
- How do email clicks translate into revenue?
- What revenue does paid contribute to the company?
- What's the LTV of customers that sign up from my ebook campaign?
So how do take your spend to the next level when your marketing team is stuck in a tactic-driven rut?
How do you start focusing on marketing campaigns that will let you grow your business without spending blindly on metrics?
The benefits of campaign-driven analytics
Moving beyond a tactic-driven approach opens the door to campaign-driven analytics. A campaign-driven approach allows you take a step back and see how all those data points work together throughout your funnel.
You know your team is at the campaign-driven phase of attribution the moment you begin using:
- Spreadsheets from multiple sources
- Frequent campaign reporting and assessment
- Clear ROI benchmarks
- Developers or an analyst to run reports
It's a step in the right direction: you're able to run reports that inform your ROI. You can now focus efforts on campaigns that are increasing revenue, not just fluffy metrics like engagement or bounce rate.
With a campaign-driven approach, you can begin answering those complex questions you couldn't answer above.
The bad news is you're still drowning in data. You may still need a developer or a dedicated analyst to access that information.
Don't despair; there is a solution, and it's more straightforward than you might think.
Our marketing team is currently using what we like to call the Occam's Razor approach – which means that the simplest solution is usually the correct one. To gain a campaign-level perspective on where our paid marketing fits into the larger picture, we use multiple excel sheets where we pull data from a half a dozen different sources. This gives us a better point of view on what is driving conversions for the company.
At the campaign-driven phase, we know Google Analytics doesn't have all the answers. Don't get me wrong. It's not that last click or first click aren't great attribution models, it's that they don't give you visibility into which campaigns will help grow your business. And that's what driving conversions is ultimately about, isn't it?
Sometimes, the simplest solution is the correct one. We realize that “use a spreadsheet” isn't the sexiest advice, but it's helped us tackle a complex problem in an effective way – and that's why we're sharing it with you!
Pulling from lots of data sources and putting them into multiple spreadsheets can be tedious and labor-intensive. However, the beautiful part is that even two or three spreadsheets empower you with a deeper understanding of which campaigns are most valuable.
Not sure how to spend your PPC dollars?
More to the point, taking a campaign-driven approach helps reduce your anxiety when it comes to spending money.
Now you can spend money on the marketing efforts that are truly driving the most value for your company- which is an all-around good feeling.
Asthma More Common in Obese Women: ConsultantLive & Rheumatology Network
Twitter misses revenue estimates as brand advertising biz weakens
Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.
38 B2B Content Marketing Case Studies for 2016
When you're not viewing the world through the lens of a cynic, it's amazing what you see. Marketers at companies all over the world are planning, implementing and optimizing customer and content centric marketing programs that are achieving results.
For example, each year at the Content 2 Conversion conference, the Killer Content Awards recognize B2B marketers implementing effective content marketing campaigns. And each year, we highlight many of those examples here.
While there are those vested in “being right” and debating the merits of the 4 P's, there are companies creating useful information customers are looking for every day. Information that educates and helps buyers lead themselves to the conclusion to buy (60-90% of the way at least).
For examples that you can actually learn from, here are 38 B2B content marketing campaigns from major brands including American Express, Dell, Waste Management, Cox Media, Optum, Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, SAP, IBM, NASDAQ, Glassdoor, Demandbase, Oracle, LinkedIn, Thermo-Fisher Scientific, Salesforce, Zendesk, Comcast and more, each including: an approach, a link to the creative / content assets and provided results.
American Express Global Corporate Payments
Project: American Express partnered with the Global Business Travel Association to create a research report on the satisfaction of business travelers. Through the development of a content hub featuring original research, blog posts, listicles, infographics and event presentations, the goal was to educate companies and suppliers about expense management and technology.
Results:
- Reach of 100 million publications
- 1,500+ page visits
- 100% higher engagement rate on LinkedIn than Financial Services benchmark
Magnetic (PDF)
Project: A survey of 100 retailers and 200 North American consumers provided data to create an ebook: Closing the Gap Between People's Expectations and Retail Realities that uncovered how retailers engage with consumers across channels and how shoppers respond.
Results:
- 67% of all content downloads from the Magnetic website
- Media coverage in 5 major industry publications
Qualtrics (PDF)
Project: To position itself as a thought leader of VoC solutions, a white paper was developed helping to define and validate VoC with research, offering how-tos and tips for lowering costs.
Results:
- 2,500+ leads generated
- $1,000,000+ in net new pipeline generated in the first 30 days
- Largest attribution source for leads in 1H2015
- Cost per conversion of less than $1.30/each
Dell (PDF)
Project: Dell developed a nurture program supported by more than 18,000 global module content elements featuring over 1,200 assets. The assets supported 22 solution topics across 10 global programs. All of this was designed to stand out against competitors, align content to customer journey stage and focus on decreasing end-user time investment.
Results:
- 35% higher average order value for nurtured vs. non-nurtured contacts
- 300% more contact engagement with nurture emails
Waste Management (PDF)
Project: To reach small businesses, monthly nurturing emails were created along with landing pages and microsite where interactions with content determined placement in an accelerated nurture with top 10 lists, how-to guides and other resources.
Results:
- 2% to 4% content adoption in first 3 months
- Onsite visits and trial offers scheduled by customer service reps
Clean Harbors (PDF)
Project: A content-based drip campaign including thought leadership content, industry trends, challenges and lessons learned was developed to cross-sell services to an existing customer base. Content types included: Articles, Fact Sheets, Podcasts, White papers, Infographics, Interactive checklists, case studies and real-world events.
Results:
- The cross-sell campaign connected the brand with a niche, target group of prospects
- Improved positioning of the brand as a knowledge leader in the Chemical and Petrochemical markets
Cox Media
Project: To increase engagement amongst prospective clients, a holiday advertising “countdown calendar” was created to help local businesses plan their marketing. Content types included: checklists, workbooks, videos, infographics, and graphic ebooks. Content was amplified with social ads and blog posts.
Results:
- Increased traffic to its web properties a
- 60% increase in client inquiries
- Top 10 assets for 2015
- Interactions and shares up 10% or more over prior month campaigns
YouEarnedIt (PDF)
Project: Exploring how companies can better engage employees a multi-touch campaign was launched including several guides, lists, and a SXSW panel. Amplification occurred through a blog, landing pages, social channels, emails, and guest blog post CTAs. Follow up content was automatically delivered based on reader behaviors and segmentation.
Results:
- 270 new sales-qualified leads (SQLs)
- 11% contact to SQL conversion rate
- 2,458 new contacts
- 18% view to contact conversion rate
- 13,939 views
Blackbaud
Project: To show their target audience the potential benefits of the offering, a campaign including email, Uberflip, webinars, case studies, infographics, tip-sheets, videos and interactive content powered by SnapApp: calculators, quiz and a survey that worked with existing content.
Results:
- Warmer leads filling the pipeline
- 800 qualified leads for sales (141% of quota attainment)
- Sales can now use content collected through interactive channels as tools for the sales process
Optum
Project: An interactive content experience was created to help healthcare execs and sales people easily find the information they needed to understand changes in the health system. Assets included a web-based tool guiding virtual discussion, and a navigational infographic.
Results:
- 1,800 contacts have visited the site,
- 3% of site visitors have contacted Optum to engage further
The Mosaic Company
Project: To create awareness of a new offering, The Great Yield Mystery, a 10-episode fictional serialized audio drama (podcast) was created exploring causes of issues that the company's offering solves. Prizes were given away to listeners.
Results:
- 1,586 podcast episode downloads
- 1,764 sessions on GreatYieldMystery.com Average of 2.13 pages per session Average two-minute session duration Total reach of 197,377 people
Booker (blog, videos)
Project: A series of 6 humorous videos were created featuring dogs using the company's software 's show SMBs how to grow their business.
Results:
- 500 inbound leads
- 100+ closed deals
Cisco
Project: A mock movie trailer called, Fast Innovation and the Slow Waiter, featured CIOs and tech leaders from major companies discussing how they are leveraging technology to grow revenue with a “dim-witted waiter” aka Tim Washer. The humorous trailer linked to the full interviews with the executives.
Results:
- Video earned 1,331 views (5X the average)
Alcatel-Lucent
Project: A series of sitcom-styled videos discussing customer problems followed by a series of ebooks mapping out solutions used plain language to engage buyers' attention.
Results:
- 600,000 views of the video series
- 25 leads converted
Networked Insights/Walker Sands
Project: To monitor brand sponsors of the World Cup and those that newsjacked the event, reports were created to highlight winners and losers, hidden audiences, and how media habits changed during the event.
Results:
- 16 major media placements 71 million impressions
- 3,500+ social shares
- Attracted $1m+ in inbound leads from potential World Cup advertisers
SAP/gyro/Forbes Insights
Project: An information hub was created for CMOs to support their role in an entertaining and compelling way. Content types include research and interviews with 300 senior marketing executives, white papers, articles, infographics, SlideShare decks, webinars and videos. Continued engagement via social media, blog posts and emails extended the dialogue with CMOs.
Results:
- 2,000 site visits
- 1,400 unique users
- 435 leads
Bottomline Technologies (PDF)
Project: To create demand for a new solution a best practices guide was developed along with email promotions to the customer and prosper database.
Results:
- 1,476 emails opened
- 708 total clicks
- 48% click-to-open rate
IBM Security
Project: A website was developed to provide the target audience with original news and analysis that could provide an authentic understanding of the target audience challenges.
Results:
- News coverage in The New York Times, BBC and others
- Performance has exceeded expectations with continued growth in readership
iLEVEL Solutions, a division of Ipreo Private Capital Markets
Project: To create awareness, a robust brief that was previously published was condensed into an interactive infographic. A complex topic was made easy to consume on any device.
Results:
- 1,000 views
- 33% sustained increase in web traffic
- 10% increase in returning traffic
- 60% increase in time spent on site per visit
- 70% increase in the number of page views per visit
- 5 new opportunities worth $800,000
- Directly influenced 63 opportunities worth $6.2 million
NASDAQ
Project: To develop awareness of it's technology leadership an interactive infographic was developed using Ceros showing a timeline of innovations and milestones.
Results:
- 2,300 page views 1,630 unique visitors
- 3 minutes average time on the infographic
Event Farm
Project: An online platform was created using industry influencers to answer key questions via video interviews.
Results:
- 1,084 total registrations
- 9,143 contacts added to marketing automation database
- 626 leads with Future of Event Marketing as first point of conversion
- 257 marketing-qualified leads generated
Glassdoor (PDF)
Project: Using a top CEO list, inspirational advice and management best practices were curated into an ebook.
Results:
- 4,493 views on SlideShare
- 87,032 page views on Business Insider
- 70% click-to-download rate from internal email promotion
IHS (PDF)
Project: To support crowdsourcing content from customers a Awards program was developed to leverage customer generated content: case studies, videos, tweets and LinkedIn posts.
Results:
- 80% of candidates who were nominated turned into public case studies
- 100% of drafted case studies turned into public case studies
- 95% of all winners renewed their contracts the following year
- 100% of winners engaged in other brand marketing activities
Demandbase (PDF)
Project: An eBook was developed to educated prospects on Account Based Marketing. The eBook was repurposed to create an infographic, video, blog post and interactive quiz.
Results:
- 950 downloads
- 960% directly attributed ROI
- $8 million in pipeline revenue
Conductor (PDF)
Project: To support the sales team engage retail industry companies, decision makers were identified to receive relevant and timely content delivered through rep outreach, marketing emails, direct mail, a webinar and a survey. The program also included infographics, eBooks, reports and blog posts.
Results:
- 27 new opportunities created
- $600,000 in pipeline revenue
Influitive (PDF)
Project: To reach target accounts, an ABM Wild West themed campaign was developed alongside Dreamforce. A Most Wanted list of their 150 top prospects was created and case bounty given when someone brought the executive to the company's booth.
Results:
- Influenced 22 opportunities worth $367,000
- Sourced 12 opportunities valued at $270,000
- Closed four deals
- Engaged approximately 50 accounts
- Generated 623 mentions across social networks before and during the event
SnackNation
Project: The “Awesome Office Show” podcast was created for CEOs and HR professionals featuring industry influencers.
Results:
- 20,000 downloads
- Top 50 Business Podcast on iTunes
- Featured in iTunes New & Noteworthy
Autotask (PDF)
Project: To highlight solutions and thought leadership a survey was conducted and findings were developed into a story that aligned with the brand's messaging.
Results:
- 134,415 landing page views
- 8,923 marketing engaged leads
- 2,763 marketing qualified leads
Widen
Project: To educated their audience and promote team members as thought leaders, an infographic was developed.
Results:
- 2,333 page views
- 5,000 social shares
AppDynamics
Project: A campaign highlighting the consequences of not using the right monitoring solution was developed featuring a cartoon character, “Franken-Monitor”. Assets included: a comic strip, infographic and research report.
Results:
- 100,000 total views
- 2,000-plus research report downloads
- 5,000 social shares
Oracle Marketing Cloud (PDF)
Project: An annual LookBook highlights the 20 best branding and marketing campaigns of the year across email, mobile, social, web and display.
Results:
- 3,500 downloads
- 1,581 new contacts
- 1,226 new marketing-qualified leads
LinkedIn
Project: Partnering with industry thought leader, Brian Solis and cartoonist, Hugh MacLeod, an eBook, SlideShare presentation, infographic and blog posts combined to highlight the need for remarkable content.
Results:
- 9,200 E-book downloads
- 2,000 SlideShare views
- 1,000 cumulative blog post shares
PGi (PDF)
Project: Partnering with industry experts to discuss social selling and best practices, an ebook was developed, “Join the Social Sales Revolution”. The eBook was amplified through a social campaign and a series of webinars.
Results:
- 5,000 landing page views
- 350 new leads
- 9% conversion rate
Thermo Fisher Scientific (PDF)
Project: To help a new sales effort, a brochure and sales battle card highlighting customers' struggles, questions and concerns were created for the sales team. The sales support material also provided counters to objections, benefits and value points.
Results:
- 217 leads
- $800,000 opportunities added to the funnel
- 5 systems sold
Zendesk
Project: A 3-phased approach was launched to accelerate sales enablement. Phase 1 included research, aligning content and reviewing sales data. Phase 2 focused on repurposing content and developing a framework. Phase 3 involved administering sales enablement training tools and guides.
Results:
- 730% increase in deal closings with 5k companies
- 130% increase QoQ in outbound booking amount
Makino
Project: The company used Facebook to drive traffic to the main website and spark conversations about customer interests. Content assets included: Product demos, customer testimonial videos, customer success stories and awards webinars, infographics and blog content.
Results:
- 515% increase in “likes” 526% increase in stories created
- 78% increase in referrals to Makino's web properties
Salesforce
Project: After losing access to the main blog, Medium was used to host content and reach new audiences. After the main blog access was regained, Medium used continues to engage the new audience.
Results:
- 20,000 followers on Medium added
- 900% increase in visits to the Medium channel since launch
Comcast (PDF)
Project: To highlight the value of their solutions to NASCAR drivers, a video was launched on YouTube and content was promoted to the brand community and social channels. Additional thought leader content including white papers and articles complemented the video content.
Results:
- 10,000 views (70% higher than the average)
- 18,000 organic impressions
Winning is not always about ROI. At least not today. For a group of award winners, the performance of a number of them can seem underwhelming. However, the reality is, not all content marketing needs or should be about lead generation and transactions. Not everyone is ready to buy every day and to expect that out of every piece of content is shortsighted.
A few trends: There are far more multi-format content campaigns being run as well as an increase in technology and data to customize experiences. One of the main missing links overall is the lack of amplification outside of advertising. So many of these programs would see much greater relevant audiences if amplification was: 1. Designed during the content planning 2. Included more than the brand's own networks.
All the same, these are examples with explanations for their purpose and virtually all of them have links to assets so you can see the content either in its native form or as a pdf. That information alone, can be useful to inspire ideas for your B2B content planning into the second half of 2016.
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