One last roundup of this weeks’ best bits. Everyone else is doing roundups of the whole year, and we’re rounding up those roundups… it’s roundupception. Have a good read before you stuff yourself so full of turkey/sprouts/wine/whatever that you can barely function as a human being. We here at Resonance HQ wish everyone in the industry (and everyone who isn’t, grudgingly) a very happy holiday and we look forward to seeing your smiling faces again in January. And not a moment before.
Curating Content or Creating It: Which Drives More B2B Conversions?
As a B2B marketing monkey, what is it you want to achieve? Most will lead with some variation of ‘generate high-quality leads’, but how? Some prefer the creation of unique and useful content to establish the brand as a thought leader and to showcase the talent of their staff. Others prefer to curate existing content to make the business a go-to destination for other professionals, and to demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of the state and direction of the industry. Rachel Foster thinks that in order to succeed, you should consider doing both!
– 75-80% of marketers main objective is the ‘generation of high-quality leads’.
– Top three reasons behind a curation-focused strategy: SEO, thought leadership, brand visibility.
– A combination of approaches can yield the best results.
How Many Content Pieces Can You Create With $1000
Old-style, outbound marketing has always been about money. More money buys more exposure, and that was essentially the totality of the equation. However, now that more companies are looking at inbound, content-based marketing strategies the equation has changed completely. An effective content marketing campaign can cost relatively little, and is much more contingent on the talent and work ethic of individuals within the company. Conversely, a company can throw money at the problem without really knowing what it is doing and achieve very little. Debbie Steigerwald of Vology spends no more than $1000/month on content, and gets great results!
– Take advantage of partnerships, make use of co-branding.
– Leverage free content/services, especially from those partners.
– Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty! Ms Steigerwald doesn’t simply delegate, she puts in ‘more than her share’ of time and effort.
All About You: Results of the Moz Blog Survey
In what will likely make very interesting reading for everyone in our industry, Moz reveals the results of their reader survey with some profound insights into the state of the industry and the people in it that you won’t hear from anywhere else. You will read that SEO is still critical, with many respondents stating that it takes up a significant amount of their time, and that the ever changing nature of the industry is chief among their concerns. And less ‘ultimate guides’ please!
– SEO is the largest in the word cloud of respondents’ job titles.
– More than two thirds rated themselves 3/5 or 4/5 on SEO expertise.
– 92% prefer to work and read via a desktop/laptop, less than 20% make major use of a tablet.
Forget The Content Marketing Backlash, It’s Still A Valuable Tactic
When content arrived in the modern marketplace it was accompanied with an astonishing and perhaps unseemly amount of hype, with many ‘industry experts’ climbing over each other to be to loudest one to shout praise and herald the coming marketing revolution. Their mouths wrote a very large cheque that to some, content as a concept wasn’t quite about to cash. Over the last year there was a pushback from those who disagreed about the virtues of efficacy of a content-led marketing strategy. Now the dust is beginning to settle, eConsultancy.com has spoken to a few leading lights to find out their thoughts.
– Content isn’t dead, it is still an effective tool and the numbers bear that out.
– Those who tell you so are likely just marketing managers whose own content strategies were poorly executed and thus failed.
– Now that the hype is dying down, the industry can treat content as ‘business as usual’, which is the way it should be anyway.
25 Must Read Content Marketing Presentations of 2013
Do you like presentations? Do you really like presentations? Well then, Merry Christmas!
