by Brianna Pyne | Mar 13, 2019 | Blog Writing, Content Marketing
Content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing and generates three times the amount of leads. Source: Lyfe And one of the best tools in your content marketing armory are blog posts. Blogging is an essential part of driving conversions in your B2B marketing funnel as the right kind of content can strike a chord with your target audience and effectively cultivate customer loyalty. That’s because well-researched blogs have the potential to drive strong emotional connections with target customers. The more authentic the brand, the stronger its brand recall and loyalty. 91 percent of consumers say they recommend the brands they trust to their friends and family. But before you dive into blogging, it’s important to find blog topics that can drive organic traffic. How do I Find Blog Topics? Source: Slideshare 1. Spend Time Getting to Know Your Customer What’s the point of writing in-depth blog posts if no one’s searching for the them? If blogs aren’t attracting marketing qualified leads, then tracking metrics such as increased page views and engagement won’t do much to enhance your bottom line. One of the ways you can cut through all the noise is to home in on your target consumer and understand their problems. Here are a few factors you should take into account: Biographical information: What’s your consumer’s age, gender, income level, and profession? Life Aspirations: What do they want to achieve in the medium term? Problems: What keeps them up at night and how can you help? Content: What are their go-to sources of information? Before you get started, however, dive a little deeper into business... 
by Klara Vida | Feb 12, 2019 | Content Marketing, Marketing Online
As 2019 gets into full swing, it’s time to refocus your content marketing efforts in order to expand your brand reach. Sure, you’re probably aware of the basic digital marketing techniques – and perhaps you’ve even mastered them. But that doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels. Rather, you need to investigate what’s new in the digital world and use those innovative tools to speak to new audiences. Getting the basics right If you’re just starting out or need a refresher on how to market your business in the digital age, it’s important to master the basics first. Luckily you don’t have to go it alone – there are lots of free marketing tools that can make your life easier. That being said, you will need to understand the essentials in order to take full advantage of online marketing. For starters, get acquainted with: Search engine optimisation (SEO) Content creation Inbound and social media marketing Google AdWords Automation tools Press releases Digital launches These are just a handful of the most common marketing tools and tactics. So rather than taking a scatter gun approach, test a range of different methods, find what works best for your brand, and build your expertise in a few different areas. Here are five to consider. Tip #1 – Schedule Instagram Stories Every business worth its salt should be tapping into social media. These communication hubs are no longer just places where people upload photos and catch up with old friends – they are an absolute goldmine for businesses with the marketing nous to capture their audience’s attention. Instagram’s popularity has skyrocketed in... 
by Klara Vida | Feb 11, 2019 | Business Strategy, Content Marketing
The digital space shapes how we see the world every day. There’s a lot of clutter and a lot of competition, but when you strip it back, it all comes down to human connection. This is all crystal clear to any marketing manager. You work day in day out creating a magnetic brand which shines in all the right ways, and shows up in all the right places. Yet a business brand alone doesn’t cut it anymore – here’s why your personal brand matters. Why good personal branding is vital for marketing managers Click To Tweet 1. You don’t own the company or what you create in it. The company does. It sounds harsh, but hear us out. You should ‘own’ your work – staying accountable and embracing everything in your corner. That great work ethic will build up your reputation. But when you leave, all the work you’ve poured in stays there. You’ll have experience to take to the next job, but the only thing you 100% own is your personal brand. It’s the currency you take away that will open doors in the future. If you think you’re committed to staying in your job, consider this: you’ve spent three years at a company, pouring your heart into everything you do. You’re completely invested in putting out quality work every.single.day. Then one day, someone buys your company out and new management comes in. Their only concern is restructuring to reduce costs, so they can sell for a profit. Suddenly, everything you’ve done in the past doesn’t count towards your future. What you have done though, is built relationships in your industry,... 
by Simon Jones | Feb 11, 2019 | Blog Writing, Business Website Help, Content Marketing, Content Writing, Traffic Generation, Uncategorized
You needn’t be a professional copywriter or experienced marketer to write business blogs. To improve your blog posts, you just need to know how to use them to your advantage. Whether you can knock out a quick article in under 30 minutes, or spend hours agonising over the right opening line to snag your audience, the most important thing to remember is that you know your business better than anyone else. Couple that with these four essential steps, and you can improve your blog posts and increase your chances of converting readers. 1. Choose the right topics Content marketing agency professionals spend years honing the craft of topic ideation and delivery – it’s why they’re so good at taking businesses large and small to the next level. But you don’t have to be a content marketing expert to recognise the importance of choosing the right topics. After all, without an interesting topic, no one is going to read your blogs. And if no one reads your blogs, your online presence will suffer greatly. So just how do you choose the right topics? Start by asking yourself the following: What are you passionate about? If you’re not interested in the topic, or it’s not relevant to your business, that will seep into your writing and turn off the reader. Who’s the audience? As a business owner, you likely cater to multiple demographics and have more than one target audience. Do your blogs appeal to everyone, or are they niche topics where you can drive readers towards a particular product or service? Is it evergreen? An ‘evergreen’ blog is one that has long-term appeal. It’s... 
by Leonie Seysan | Dec 10, 2018 | Blog Writing, Business Strategy, Content Marketing
One of the questions I’m asked most often by SME owners and marketing managers is: “How often should we publish on our blog?” There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to that question. If you’re just starting out, my advice will normally be: publish one or two articles a month until you’re able to see that your strategy is working, and your articles are reaching and resonating with your audience. On the other hand, if you’ve been publishing articles for some time, but aren’t getting the desired results, I’d recommend reviewing your content strategy before you worry about the number of articles you’re publishing. Some people are surprised when I recommend publishing so few articles. Once the decision is made to start publishing, they want to maximise the result, and are often considering a blog publishing schedule of 8+ articles a month. The problem with this, is that if you’re publishing quality in-depth articles and paying a blog writer or a content marketing agency to create them, that’s a substantial outlay. And it will be wasted if your articles aren’t finding an audience or aren’t resonating well with the desired audience. You can’t maximise the result until you know you’re getting one. The good news is that once you are confident your content is working and contributing to your bottom line, you’ll be able to review your content budget and turn up the dial to increase those results. The key to getting results with a business blog There are two key factors I find are often overlooked by businesses just starting out with their blog. When one or both are missed, the... 
by Simon Jones | Nov 30, 2018 | Business Strategy, Content Marketing
If your content doesn’t resonate with the right audience, or if your ideal clients aren’t enticed by your offering, it’s time to develop a content marketing strategy or review your existing content strategy. There’s truth in the saying that without strategy, execution is useless. Even though 91% of Australian marketers employ content as a marketing tool, only 46% of them say their organisation has a documented content strategy in place to manage it as a business asset. To get the most out of your content investment, a solid content strategy could be exactly what you need to turn things around. What is a content strategy? A content or ‘content marketing’ strategy focuses on four key steps: strategising, planning, implementing and reviewing. This type of strategy encapsulates the entire content cycle – the who, what, when, how and why – in order to identify the right audiences, perfect your brand messaging and ultimately create high-quality content that will generate quantifiable results. A strategy can be developed in-house if you have the expertise, but it’s a task often outsourced to a content marketing agency, where an experienced content strategist can manage the project. If your current approach isn’t based on a sound strategy, here are 3 ways it could be costing you a fortune. 1. You’re throwing money at PPC PPC (pay-per-click) marketing is essentially a way to ‘buy’ visits to your site rather than generating visits organically. It’s one form of search engine advertising, where you bid for ad placements in a search engine like Google’s sponsored links. Thanks to its simplicity, it’s highly popular. However, this simplicity can be a...