Think Like a News Editor for Content Marketing Success

Blogging and social media offer marketers the opportunity to publish their own content to attract customer attention, as well as pitch the media.

This strategy requires a balance of content that provides fresh news while also covering ‘evergreen’ topics.

For best results, think like a news editor. Create a regular mix of current events, original research and timely commentary for all-round reader engagement.

Here are three key elements you need.

Monitor and anticipate trends

Use social media to participate in larger conversations beyond just pushing out your company news. The more your brand interacts with timely content, the more people will see the brand, and its digital offerings.

Monitor trends in the news, pop culture, and the lives of your customers. Map out how your brand can participate in these conversations, via social media, blog posts, or other appropriate media. Don’t get involved in every conversation. Instead, focus on stories that relate to your overall brand strategy and messaging.

Create evergreen content that your customers need

Know your customers’ pain points, busy seasons, challenges and strengths. Create ‘evergreen’ content and address long-term issues that don’t go out of date.

When your customers search topics that regularly impact their lives, you already have relevant content out there. Customers and reporters alike will come to rely on your brand as a resource for their research, they’ll become more engaged with your timely content as well.

Leave room for real-time

24-hour news is your brand’s opportunity to offer instantaneous commentary. Remember the Super Bowl blackout? Oreo’s social media team was on standby and capitalized with timely humor. No one could have anticipated the blackout, but they seized the opportunity as it happened.

For maximum effectiveness, create an editorial calendar. Consistency is key: by regularly publishing quality content, you can drive more traffic, more leads, and more revenue as you nurture those leads into customers.

Turning Customers into Brand Ambassadors.

You know that social media has the power to amplify everything you say about your business. But there's a flipside: it also amplifies everything your customers say. While this lack of control might seem like a cause for concern, it's actually a great opportunity to leverage your customers as brand advocates.

Some of the most effective marketing you can do is good old word-of-mouth. When happy customers spread the word about your business, new customers will soon be knocking at your door. 

Thanks to the speed of social media, word-of-mouth now works faster than ever. Here are four ways to generate it from your customers.

Reward loyalty.
Make sure your customers know that you value their business. Even a simple "Thanks for your business" can make a difference. Tactical tools such as loyalty cards or discounts are great, but they're even better when offered in conjunction with face-to-face gratitude. If you're feeling confident on social channels, try recognizing your most loyal customers on Facebook or Twitter with a special "customer of the week" feature and discount just for them.

Embrace the good and the bad.
People tend to share extremely positive or extremely negative customer service experiences. However, some of the most compelling stories arise from companies responding to bad customer experiences effectively. If someone shares a negative story about your company online, respond to their complaint, do everything possible to remedy the situation, and communicate what you're doing. Think of complaints as opportunities to improve customer relations and earn more word-of-mouth.

Get more social.
Apps like FourSquare, Yelp! and Open Table to name a few, allow customers to leave real-time reviews about your business. Make sure you know what people are saying about you on these forums, and respond appropriately. Better yet, become an active presence yourself, thanking people for positive reviews, responding to concerns, or even offering discounts or promotions for users. To encourage reviews, you can add buttons to your website which link directly to these sites.

Give customers something to talk about.
Neutral sentiment does nothing to further your brand. Customers don't talk about 'average' experiences with brands. What they'll remember—and share with others—is how your company goes above and beyond to make customer interactions easy and pleasant.
 

By managing relationships with your customers effectively, you can turn them into marketers for your brand, as well as keeping them happy and satisfied.

Spring Clean Your Marketing For Success

Just like closets and cupboards, marketing strategies and assets can accumulate clutter over the course of the year – It’s time for some spring cleaning.

Here are three ways to make sure your marketing is current, polished, and efficient:

Clean up your lists

Bounced back and duplicate emails are ineffective and can damage your goodwill with customers, journalists and other stakeholders. Go through your lists to verify that names, email addresses and other information are still current. Delete inactive addresses as well as duplicate or incomplete entries.

This is especially important for your media list. Journalism is a fast-changing world and writers move to different outlets and cover different topics. Ensuring that you’re contacting the right people with your news is critical when it comes to generating publicity for your business.

Revisit your social strategy

Take stock of how you are using your social media channels and content. If you’re neglecting certain channels or networks, consider deactivating them until you have the time and/or resources to maintain them regularly. Focus on cultivating the channels that serve your business best.

Check that your content still aligns with your overall marketing goals.

• Has your strategic message changed at all?
• Have your social media goals changed?
• Do your analytics show any weak areas that need improvement?

Answer these questions to evaluate whether you need to update your social strategy.

Update your boilerplate and website

It’s easy to forget about your company boilerplate. Take stock of your accomplishments and milestones from the last year and update your boilerplate accordingly.

The same goes for your company website. Have you hired new team members? Secured killer press coverage? Launched a new product or service? Now is the time to update your website to reflect your recent growth.

Don’t let out-of-date information and content weigh down your marketing. Spring-cleaning your strategy is crucial to long-term success.

Lead Generation - Getting to the perfect world

In the perfect world, your sales reps would only speak to prospects ready to buy.  This is how you got to work towards that perfect world.

Develop a nurturing program
Many leads are still in research mode, so emails and offers should provide best practices, statistics, research, etc. to help the customer frame their research.

Progressively understand your prospect’s needs
Every campaign the prospect responds to tells you about their interests. Every page they visit on your website tells you about their interests. Every link they click, and every piece of information they fill out on a form, tells you more about them.

Track anonymous visitors and tie their data to new leads
Simple code on your Web pages help you track prospects, whether anonymous or known. As anonymous prospects complete forms on your website or landing pages, any previous web visits can be automatically attributed to the new lead.

THE THREE C's Of Facebook

THE THREE C's Of Facebook 
No online marketing strategy is complete without Facebook. The world's largest social network can give your campaigns enormous reach, especially when you integrate it with your other marketing tools. According to the latest stats, 96 percent of small businesses now have a company Facebook page. If you're in that 96%, fantastic – but are you getting the most out of it?

Effective Facebook marketing comes down to three key points: Customer Service, Content and Connections. 

Customer Service
Having a Facebook page where customers can post reviews, comments and even complaints is essential to building a rapport. Over time, that rapport will turn into brand loyalty. It also inspires word of mouth, as customers/fans encourage their friends to "like" your page, and try your product/service. Try to monitor your company page for a few minutes a day and respond to customer comments within 24 hours or less. You can also sign up to receive an email alert whenever someone posts to your page. 

Content
Your Facebook page is a face for your business. Keep it fresh. Share news, offer promotions, link to outside content and thank customers for their feedback. They're all great ways to keep customers engaged. Think for a second about how you use Facebook to check out your friends' news and click through their photo galleries. Customers want to check out your business the same way. Facebook is an ideal platform to share product photos and for customers to post their own photos of your products in action. 

It's not just about engagement. There are several apps available that let you add "buy now" buttons to photos, taking customers straight to your website. Other apps let you create customized coupons for your fans, and host customer sweepstakes on your Facebook page. Whether you use apps or not, aim for one update, post or promotion per day. 

Connections
Social media is a vital publicity tool, which makes it an integral part of effective marketing. Getting "likes" and fans is how companies build connections on Facebook. Got a special event happening? Send a message to your fans. Need feedback on a new product? Create a quick survey using a Facebook survey app. The more you connect with your current fans, the more likely their friends are to see your page and become fans (and customers) themselves.

Remember that growing a fanbase on Facebook isn't a popularity contest. It's about building loyalty for the long-term, one interaction at a time.