2019 New Dentist Conference features innovation experts as speakers

Posted on February 17, 2019 by mytechmanager_njccno

The Bay Lights on the Bay Bridge

San Francisco — Two are better than one.

Two keynote speakers will grace the stage at the New Dentist Conference during the ADA FDI World Dental Congress in San Francisco this September, aiming to inspire new dentists to new heights.

New dentists — dentists who graduated from dental school less than 10 years ago as well as dental students — who register for the two-day conference will hear Dr. Miguel Stanley on Sept. 5 and then Marko Vujicic, Ph.D., on Sept. 6. The conference, which allows attendees to network and discuss practice issues in a small-group environment, will also include the ever-popular New Dentist Reception and other special opportunities.

Dr. Stanley’s address, titled “Are Consumers and Technology Driving the Future of Dentistry?,” will explore how consumer expectations and digital dentistry, along with the sharing economy of our profession, are shaping the future of dentistry. Dr. Stanley will share his philosophies on the global community of dentistry, dental artistry versus profit and how dentistry is changing lives. He is the host of the first National Geographic documentary on dentistry.

Dr. Vujicic’s keynote, titled “The Generational Shift: 5 Things Dentists Need to Know About the Changing Dental Patient,” will bring attendees the latest and greatest data showing the shifting paradigm young dentists are going to grapple with in their practice careers. Dr. Vujicic is chief economist and vice president of the ADA’s Health Policy Institute, where he is responsible for overseeing all policy research activities. Prior to joining the ADA, he was with The World Bank, where he directed the global health workforce policy program.

The rest of the New Dentist Conference will provide participants an ideal opportunity to network and focus on issues that concern them as new dentists, while allowing them to take advantage of the overall ADA FDI World Dental Congress experience.

The registration fee of $250 includes:

Customized new dentist continuing education track.
Two keynotes.
Ticket to the New Dentist Reception.
Networking opportunities and meals.
Access to the ADA FDI 2019 Exhibit Hall and free CE on the exhibit floor.

New Dentist courses include Breakthrough Digital Marketing: Growing the Modern Dental Practice; Pediatric Oral Diseases: The Times They Are A-changin’; Social Media and Other Electronic Communication in Dentistry; and Medical and Dental Collaboration: Working in the Community, among others.

Conference details and a schedule are at ADA.org/ndc. Registration will open Feb. 13 at ADA.org/meeting.

4 Reasons to Rethink Your Influencer Marketing Strategies

Posted on February 17, 2019 by mytechmanager_njccno

Veex / Pixabay

If you’’ ve hesitated to exceed meddling the influencer marketing video game believing it’’ s simply a trend, reconsider. Influencer marketing projects have actually been around for a number of years now, and their appeal just continues to grow.

This increased focus remains in response to information that conventional advertising campaign merely aren’’ t as effective as they as soon as were. 30 percent of web users anticipated to be utilizing advertisement blockers by the end of 2019. Things sanctuary’’ t altered much because a 2015 Nielson research study exposed the most relied on sources of marketing to be individuals you understand. Branded sites, customer viewpoints published online and editorial material ranked greatly with advertisements unfortunately near the bottom of the list.

The concern effective business are asking themselves is no longer “ Should we use influencer marketing? ” But “ How much of our resources will we commit to it? ”

Out of 158 brand names surveyed by the ANA, 75 percent make use of influencer marketing , with almost half of those brand names preparing to increase moneying the list below year. Another research study by Linqia revealed that a bulk of online marketers prepare to invest$ 25,000 to$ 100,000 on influencer marketing in 2019.

Still reluctant? Think about these 4 factors to change your influencer marketing technique:

. Customer acquiring routines are progressing.

Generation Z and millennials have actually altered the video game. They hesitant customers looking for social evidence prior to purchasing– and not from stars backing items. Grow Social discovered that 71 %of individuals describe their social media networks for instructions prior to acquiring.

Modern customers choose relationships with brand names that provide a genuine voice, and trust is a vital precursor to acquire.

Consumers are now most likely to react to the recommendation of an individual they see and follow daily than to an advertisement ’ s claims. Peer suggestions normally bring more weight than company-run marketing channels.

To be effective in this brand-new landscape, we need to silence our inner resistance to alter and adjust our techniques, as influencer marketing offers a prime chance to reach target market throughout various media platforms.

.The most significant names aren ’ t always the greatest influencers.

Businesses that are brand-new to this design of marketing typically incorrectly presume that influencers with more fans will bring more success, which ’ s not constantly real. Information analysis is exposing that micro-influencers( those with usually less than 10,000 fans) and mid-level influencers typically create more engagement than stars, who wear ’ t engage as much with their fans and can appear less friendly.

A Markerly research study of Instagram engagement revealed that varieties of fans and varieties of likes and remarks from fans are inversely associated after about 1,000fans. Users with less than 1,000 fans produced likes 8% of the time, whereas users with 1-10 million fans attained likes simply 1.7% of the time.

Finding the best individuals to represent and move your brand name needs to exceed basic varieties of fans and likes to more cautious vetting procedures to identify real audience engagement levels. In addition to prestige, business ought to think about a prospective influencer ’ s proficiency, demographics, engagement and genuineness of connection to the product/brand. As kept in mind above, the doubtful customer will rapidly translucent artificiality, and protecting authentic advocates of your brand name will turn into more powerful, longer-lasting relationships.

. Quality exceeds amount when it comes to how lots of influencers to utilize. When picking influencers, #ppppp> Less can in fact be more. A handful of thoroughly chosen influencers can bring you more success than a lots created, and with the increasing power of micro-influencers, this method can assist reduce budget plan stress too. In the ANA study pointed out above, roughly 58percent of participants reported dealing with less than 25 influencers.

Smaller-scale influencers are viewed by their fans as more relatable and regular, like friends and household. You wish to pick for those who develop distinct material and are exceptional writers, specifically through video and livestreaming which can produce a more genuine feel. Advertising agency Hill Holliday performed a research study revealing that consumers most likely to purchase from a brand name with an excellent story and most likely to pay a greater cost per product.

The look for a quality choice in a sea of influencers can appear frustrating, as they vary from reporters and blog writers to market specialists and prominent consumers. By looking at existing brand name fans and utilizing engagement metrics and social analytics to examine influencers ’ previous posts, you can assess the degree of various people ’ reach.

. ROI increases with tactical strategies, collaboration needs and efficiency steps.

A strong influencer marketing project needs mindful preparation and upkeep to guarantee success. Just like other marketing techniques, worth needs to be put on education efforts to comprehend best-practices.

Clear project’ objectives and influencer expectations should be set to improve and safeguard brand name track record, consisting of material shipment requirements, modifications and approval procedures.As discussed above, thoughtful influencer choice is essential to producing real brand name ambassadors that construct customer self-confidence.

Many organisations aren ’ t sure how to determine the success of this sort of project. It ’ s possible– and essential– by developing KPIs, utilizing engagement metrics, evaluating information and reviewing objectives. You ’ ll most likely see the concrete benefits of your efforts if you ’ re consistent and extensive. An Influencer Marketing Hub 2017 research study revealed that organisations are making $7.65 usually for every single$ 1 invested.

–.

In a market filled with loud viewpoints at every turn and making use of phony fans to pump up social networks status, it ’ s not surprising that customer trust is so vulnerable. Purchasers require genuineness and engagement, and you will make their trust not just by developing collaborations with effective influencers however likewise if you plainly and properly reveal those relationships when promoting or backing items on social networks. This openness and assistance will develop client commitment and enhance your brand name ’ s image.

From real-time item unpacking to engaging Q&A s, reliable influencer marketing projects in action– as part of a more comprehensive digital marketing strategy– can provide your service an active voice in the long-sought-after purchaser ’ s inner circle.

Digital Marketing for Retailers: 5 Online Marketing Tools to Drive More Traffic To Your Store

Posted on February 16, 2019 by mytechmanager_njccno

By Abby Heugel

One of the biggest mistakes that brick-and-mortar retailers can make is to dismiss online marketing.

In an increasingly competitive marketplace filled with change and innovation, small businesses are now having to compete with larger organizations like never before. It’s no longer good enough to rely solely on word-of-mouth for increased business and new customers. Retailers must now provide an omnichannel shopping experience that brings people in and brings people back.

What does this have to do with online marketing? More or less, everything. If you want to achieve retail success, you need to have a strategy that leverages not only social media and email, but one that also gets creative and makes good use of new forms of marketing.

According to Statista, retail e-commerce sales worldwide reached $2.84 trillion in 2018 and are expected to reach 4.9 trillion in 2021. Translation: the Internet isn’t going anywhere.

But while customers are shopping and pricing things online, in-store sales still accounted for 91% of all retail sales in the US in 2017. And according to one study, 58% of US consumers hate paying for shipping, and 34% think product return process is difficult when shopping online.

So while online sales are important, brick-and-mortar isn’t going anywhere, either.

What this means is that in order to compete with larger stores and survive in 2019 and beyond, retailers have to provide a seamless and consistent customer experience across all sales channels — both online and off. Give them what they want, when they want it, and how they want it.

Easier said than done? Perhaps. But with consumers increasingly relying on digital tools and channels to aid their shopping journeys, you have no choice but to keep up.

Here’s how online marketing tools can help to drive traffic to your store.

Tool #1: Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (BOPIS)

“Buy online, pick up in store” is just what it sounds like. Customers shop your online store, make their purchases, and then physically come into the store to pick them up. According to a survey from JDA Software, 50% of consumers had used BOPIS in the past year, which is a 43% increase over two years ago.

Almost every major retailer offers this service now, with 44% of retailers surveyed viewing BOPIS as a competitive imperative, with another 38% saying BOPIS was key to bringing shoppers into the store where they make additional purchases.

But it’s not without challenges, as retailers have to focus even more on logistics and inventory tracking, all while training and managing staff with new responsibilities. But the end goal of BOPIS is something retailers are focusing on already — providing a memorable customer experience.

Here’s how to make sure the BOPIS experience is as convenient as possible for both shoppers and staff:

Integrate your online and offline sales channels

Use a multichannel integration platform that gives you insight into both your physical store and website inventory — the what, where, and how quickly an item can get to the store where it’s needed.

One example of a retailer doing this right is Hop Burns & Black, a craft beer, hot sauce, and vinyl records retailer in London. Hop Burns & Black uses Vend and Shopify to sell both in-store and online. Since the two platforms are tightly connected, they’re able to offer services like BOPIS without having to manually update their inventory system.

Vend and Shopify are able to “talk” to each other, so whenever Hop Burns & Black sells something online or offline their sales and products sync automatically.

Overcommunicate with BOPIS customers.

When shoppers place an order, send an immediate confirmation, along with details about when the order will be ready, where to pick it up, and what kind of identification is needed.

Macy’s does this really well. In addition to sending you a confirmation email AND text message when you complete the purchase Macy’s notifies you when your order is ready for pick up. It sends you a detailed message both via email and text, containing:

The store address
The pick-up area within the store, including a detailed description of where to go
A list of things to bring when picking up your order

Stay on top of staff training

The concept of BOPIS is easy enough to understand, but executing it in-store isn’t as simple. Depending on your processes, you may need to conduct additional staff training when it comes to:

Fulfilling online orders and preparing them for pickup. As DigitalCommerce360 points out, “order fulfillment training needs to be passed down the employee chain – from the regional manager, to the store manager and to all store associates. Retailers must ensure all employees are familiar with the necessary POS tools to ensure a seamless checkout process, whether through regional training events or user guides.”

Upselling and cross-selling. Nearly half of people who opt for in-store pickup end up making a purchase when they head to the store. This means that you and your staff have a solid opportunity to increase the basket sizes of BOPIS customers. Dont’t miss your chance to convert them.

Train your team on the art of upselling and cross-selling without being sleazy. Encourage them to connect with customers and make sure they have the knowledge and tools they need to further assist shoppers.

Tool #2: Email marketing

In 2018 alone, more than 218 billion emails were sent — every single day. That number is expected to increase to more than 333 billion daily mails in 2022. When it comes to email marketing, the average return on a $1 investment is $44, and email marketing is used by 82% of B2B and B2C companies.

Smart retailers know they can’t do it alone, which is why millions of people use email marketing to create engaging newsletters that encourage conversions.

For example, with MailChimp, there are multiple customization tools to make your content look and feel professional, and they offer sign up forms to specifically match your brand. They also make it easy to add merge tags and offer subscriber profiles. This helps you see exactly how engaged each customer is, and what their website activity has been.

ConstantContact allows you to create email marketing campaigns with drag-and-drop customizable templates that you can personalize, send to your contacts, and track the response. And if you’re looking for an email marketing platform with more than 700 mobile responsive email templates to automate your email marketing, AWeber might just be what you need.

As for how you can use email marketing to drive traffic in-store, consider the following:

Announce free gifts in-store

Dealing with excess stock? Got additional store swag that you can to give away? Use those items to drive in-store traffic. In September 2018, for example, Kate Spade offered complimentary tote bags to their in-store visitors and then used email to spread the word.

Talk about events nearby

When you’re running in-store events, don’t forget to notify your email list. Pro tip: If you have multiple stores, segment customers by location, so you can email them with events closest to their location.

Total Wine & More, for example, regularly sends out “Events Near You” emails that contain a lineup of in-store classes and workshops happening at the recipient’s neighborhood stores.

Encourage people to bring a friend

Get your email subscribers to visit your store and bring friends along with special promotions.

Check out what cannabis retailer MedMen are doing. They ran a “BFF deal” that awarded shoppers 20% off their purchase when they bring in a new customer. The email had a clear call to action (i.e., Find Your Store”), which let people find the nearest MedMen location so they can plan their visit.

Tool #3: Social media management platforms

In order to survive, retailers have to not only have a presence in-store and with a website, but also on social media. That means you have to put time and resources into Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest depending on the nature of your business. But that’s a time-consuming task. How will you find enough time to share and manage various social media accounts?

The answer to your problems is to use a social media marketing platform like one of the tools listed below.

Buffer helps small businesses schedule social posts on various social networking platforms. It allows you to manage all your social media accounts in one place, schedule social media posts for your preferred times, review your analytics to see how your posts are performing, and add multiple team members and set access levels.

With Hootsuite, you can quickly find and schedule social content, then measure its impact. You can keep your social presence active 24/7 by automatically scheduling hundreds of social media posts at once, across your social accounts and then measure the impact of your social media campaigns through comprehensive reporting.

Sprout Social understands that 80% of consumers are more likely to do business with a brand that offers a personalized experience, which is why they help you “create real connection by understanding your consumers’ needs and meeting them there.” You can extract real business value out of social media through effective engagement, publishing, and analytics.

Tool #4: Mobile promotions that are redeemable in-store

Mobile users spend more than four hours a day on their phones, and according to Statista,
mobile accounted for 52.5% of worldwide website traffic in 2018. Not only that, but while email has an average open rate of around 24%, the rate of text message open rate in the US is a whopping 82%.

What this should tell retailers is that while email marketing is necessary and still very effective, you should also be optimizing the use of mobile in your marketing efforts. Just as you collect email addresses, start to collect phone numbers, as well.

Once you have a decent list, use SMS to start sending coupons and gift codes that can only be redeemed by coming into the store — where you can hopefully entice them into more purchases.

Snowflakes, a dessert shop in Cerritos, CA does just that. They occasionally reach out to existing customers via text who haven’t stopped by in a while with an offer they can redeem in-store.

Tool #5: Local inventory ads

According to a study from Kibo Software, 80% of consumers are less likely to go to a store if they can’t view available inventory levels online in advance, so why not give the shoppers what they want?

The first step is to make sure shoppers can easily find your local store and all the necessary details, like phone numbers, email, hours, and address. Then provide local inventory availability information for each item at each store location.

Does that sound daunting? Enter Google Local Inventory Ads.

With Google Local Inventory ads, online shoppers have an easy way to identify products available in stores near them. For example, say someone is camping and wants a new pair of sunglasses. All they have to do is take out their phone and type in “womens sunglasses near me” and a list of stores with available sunglasses will pop up.

If they click on the ad, they’re brought to a Google-hosted web page of the store (known as the local storefront) which provides the sunglasses available, and also the distance to the brick-and-mortar location and store hours.

That’s truly an omnichannel shopping experience.

According to Google, in order to qualify for local product ads, you must meet the following requirements:

You must have a local brick and mortar business location where customers can physically visit, view, and purchase the desired item.
Sell physical goods that shoppers can buy without an additional purchase (like a membership).
Protect customers personally identifiable information (PII).
You must be physically located in the country for which your ads are targeted.

How to Write Blog Posts that Boost Your Email Newsletter

Posted on February 16, 2019 by mytechmanager_njccno

A well-strategized blog site is among the most effective tools in your toolbox for driving natural online search engine traffic to your site. If you’’ re like many online marketers, you release a brand-new article and rapidly schedule it to your brand name ’ s social networks accounts.

It might get a couple of likes, clicks, and shares however the traffic usually fizzles out quite rapidly?

From there, your well-researched blog sites make their method into the archives till you pull them out to fill a time slot on social networks once again.

Break the cycle by including your blog site and e-mail newsletter. This method will assist your material reach audiences that in fact value what you need to state.

In this post, we’’ ll review what function post ought to play in your e-mail marketing efforts and total material marketing method. We’’ ll likewise offer you some ingenious suggestions for consisting of blog site material into your e-mail projects.

.What function should post play in your material marketing method?

TL; DR: Blog posts ought to play a main function in your material marketing method. They drive traffic to your site from numerous sources and teach individuals about your brand name’’ s worths.

Everyone ought to understand by now that your site is the most important piece of the digital marketing puzzle for your brand name. Why? Since you own your site—– algorithms can’’ t pry it far from you.

Blog posts are the ideal response. If you aren’’ t developing a technique for your brand name ’ s blog site, you ’ re losing out on these essential advantages:

.Ranking in hundreds or countless Google searches.Showing brand name authority by flaunting your market understanding.Addressing client concerns prior to they’’ reasked. Offering your clients something to share on social networks.Supplying considerable material (more than sales pitches) for your e-mail newsletter.

Your About, Services, Contact, Homepage, and other areas are vital for driving sales, however they most likely won’’ t get in front of numerous eyes unless you can produce something else that draws leads into your site.

.And what about your e-mail newsletter technique?

Everyone has that a person buddy from high school who arbitrarily appears in your DMs every couple of years. Do they wish to capture up? No, they wish to offer you something.

Without an appropriate blog site to intensify your e-mail projects, your brand name can end up being that pal.

Think about it. Are you most likely to provide your hard-earned loan to somebody who listens to you, responses your concerns, and offers you with education, or somebody who just sends you sales pitches? The response is quite clear.

You understand a blog site is necessary for driving traffic to your site and producing conversions, however why should you concentrate on e-mail marketing over social networks?

The reality is, the typical click-through-rate for Facebook posts is simply 0.9%, yet the typical cost-per-click is $1.72. Every dollar invested on e-mail marketing will produce a typical $ 38 in profits .

Social media is very important and online marketers need to utilize it tactically. Your clients will likely be more responsive in e-mail due to the fact that they’’ ve really picked to hear from you.

.How to effectively consist of post in an e-mail newsletter.

One of the very best channels for promoting your blog site is the e-mail newsletter. This offers you an opportunity to develop authority and trust with your audience while supplying them with top quality material they in fact wish to check out.

What have you got to lose?

Let’’ s review some tips and suggestions for flawlessly combining the 2 channels into one digital marketing powerhouse.

.1. Choose the proper format.

Most industry-leading e-mail company use gorgeous design templates you can tailor any method you please to fit your requirements. Prior to you get going utilizing e-mail to promote your article, choose a format that fits your brand name and customers.

Should you pick a range of blog sites separated into various classifications? Possibly you wear’’ t have the resources to release lots of posts every week. Because case, possibly promoting a single post would be best.

This e-mail from ezTaxReturn utilizes a format that gathers links to a lot of pertinent and fascinating post. Perk points here for the ICYMI area.

.2. Buy premium graphics.

You wear’’ t need to employ an expert photographer for every single blog site in an e-mail newsletter. In most cases, stock pictures and customized graphics with some tactical branding will work simply great.

The concept is to trigger your customers’ ’ interest with something crisp and fancy. You invest a lot time composing and establishing your blog site and e-mail newsletter—– ensure you pick an image that shows what’’ s inside.

Also, top quality graphics with some branding such as colored frames or a logo design will assist establish brand name authority when they read your material—– even if they wear’’ t click over to your blog site.

. 3. Plan with various styles.

This part is enjoyable due to the fact that it’’ s time to get innovative. Brainstorm various material styles for numerous e-mail newsletters.

If you’’ re running a shop that offers kitchen area devices, for instance, November and December would be a great time to run a series of post including vacation dishes, ideas for cleaning your items, and tips for handling tension.

Working in tandem with your e-mail marketing, this can assist you establish appropriate and distinct material for your blog site’’ s content calendar. Plus, you ’ ll currently have content prepared to go when it comes time to arrange social networks posts.

This e-mail from Kid &&Coe is created to highlight article about different locations in a best-of format. Plus, it includes premium graphics that plead to be clicked.

Image Source: Really Good Emails

.4. Send studies to keep the discussion going.

If you desire genuine responses about what your audience anticipates and desires from your brand name, e-mail is the method to go.

Use your e-mail newsletter to ask customers what kind of material they like and what issues they have. This will assist you develop fresh concepts for your blog site.

You can likewise send a welcome e-mail asking brand-new customers which kind of material they’’d like to get from you and how typically.

Trust in paid advertisements on Facebook has actually decreased quickly. Since they have a much better level of control, individuals choose e-mail marketing. Why not offer customers as much control as possible?

This will assist develop rely on your brand name and you’’ ll have the ability to please your consumers. Win-win.

.5. Keep a constant voice throughout all your copy.

If you utilize a caring tone in your blog site, utilize the exact same tone throughout your e-mail copy. Not just is disparity upsetting when you’’ re attempting to check out a brand name ’ s material, however it can likewise harm trust.

Imagine you have a buddy who has 2 various characters: one when they speak with you and one when they speak with a group of individuals. You most likely wouldn’’ t trust them? Consistency is essential to producing outcomes.

.6. Thoroughly choose curated material.

As an online marketer, you’’ re most likely extended thin adequate currently. Unless you’’ re working for a substantial business, you wear’’ t have the resources to release numerous post every day.

That’’ s completely great. Utilize this as a chance to share curated material with your customers.

Instead of entirely concentrating on your blog site, an e-mail newsletter must consist of material from several sources (as proper).

Develop a method. Discover other market specialists you’’d love to get in touch with and share their composing with a brief bio. Discover material that responses your audience’’ s concerns.

Sharing material from sources besides your own site will show that you really appreciate the market and assisting individuals, instead of promoting yourself.

Pinterest totally controls the video game with customized and curated e-mail material. They send numerous e-mails a week with appropriate material based upon your activity on their app.

.7. Do not forget social share buttons.

While e-mail is important for getting your blog site in front of a great deal of eyes, it’’ s still causes a dead-end street if you wear’’ t motivate readers to share.

The concept is to keep the material streaming. Include social share buttons to your post and embed them straight into your e-mail copy.

.8. Enhance your CTAs.

Keep your reader’’ s click-through journey in mind when you compose your CTAs.

Consider your reader’’ s mindset when they reach completion of your blog site: They’’ ve clicked through from their e-mail while they were on the bus heading house from work, they read your blog site about the very best bars in the DC location. What do you desire them to do next?

.Finish up.

Blog posts are an outstanding tool for increasing natural online search engine traffic to your blog site however they can do a lot more. It’’ s essential for online marketers to establish a material method for their blog site with an e-mail newsletter in mind.

By taking a couple of crucial actions, you can produce material for your newsletters that your customers can’’ t wait to share and check out with their pals.

Before you start with some e-mail projects, check out our ideas on utilizing an e-mail newsletter to motivate client commitment.

The post How to Write Blog Posts that Boost Your Email Newsletter appeared initially on Campaign Monitor .

6 Digital Transformation Trends for 2019

Posted on February 15, 2019 by mytechmanager_njccno

6 Digital Transformation Trends for 2019

Digital improvement is not a buzzword. I duplicate. Digital improvement is not a buzzword.

Digital improvement is a lot more than ““ business speak ”, and we need to not discount its authenticity . Yes, ““ digital improvement ” has actually been excessive used and watered down by specialists and executives to represent all elements of digitalization in every aspect of a company. When you study it, without predisposition or programs, a crucial pattern in service modernization is taking shape.

In Altimeter’’ s most current research study, “ The State of Digital Transformation , ” we observed that the most progressive companies are focusing on client experience financial investments in short-and long-lasting digital change roadmaps. And, not just do consumers straight gain from these efforts, however business are likewise speeding up the modernization of cross-functional operations and organisation designs to much better complete in quickly-evolving markets.

.1. The Battle Between CMOs and cios Course-Corrected Digital Transformation.

The continuous tug-of-war in between CIOs and CMOs over digital improvement has actually ended, and it is clients who eventually win.

For the much better part of 10 years, digital improvement was, unsurprisingly, about ““ digital ” and how and where CIOs and IT leaders were purchasing next-generation innovations. Cloud, mobile, social, apps, IoT, et al., represented considerable updates and upgrades to technological facilities focused on scaling and enhancing operations and efficiency. CIOs weren’’ t the only chauffeurs. CMOs acknowledged the quick adoption of the exact same innovations amongst clients and how they were drastically improving results, choices and habits.

This resulted in a historic tug-of-war in between CMOs and cios, the 2 early adopters and leaders of digital improvement, regarding who ““ owned ” digital change. While CIOs concentrated on facilities, CMOs set their sights on refurbishing client touchpoints and supporting back-end systems. According to our research study , that supposed war appears to lastly be over.

Digital Transformation Ownership

.2. The 2018-2019 State of Digital Transformation.

This year we saw a notable drop (-77%) in marketing’’ s executive management of enterprise-wide digital improvement efforts (5%). While it appears that CIOs might have won the contest, the reality is that the competitors is benefitting clients and companies alike.

In the past, marketing was a rational beginning location for digital improvement efforts, as CMOs intended to upgrade how business engage consumers and improve consumer touchpoints. Now that objective is a lot more important. New gadgets, apps and on-demand services are driving brand-new consumer habits and expectations. At the very same time, mobile, huge information, AI, artificial intelligence and digital impact represent enablers for development beyond marketing, broadening the function of CMOs to now consist of consumer engagement, experience , commitment and life time worth.

.3. Digital Transformation Drives Business Performance and Growth in the Name of CX.

Upon more research study, we found out that the increase in CIO ownership does not suggest that CMOs are losing stature in digital improvement management or impact.

In the past, marketing was a sensible beginning location for digital improvement efforts, as CMOs intended to upgrade how business engage clients and improve consumer touchpoints. Now that objective is a lot more vital. New gadgets, apps and on-demand services are driving brand-new client habits and expectations. At the exact same time, mobile, huge information, AI, artificial intelligence, digital impact, et al represent enablers for development beyond marketing, broadening the function of CMOs to now consist of client engagement, life time, experience and commitment worth.

As digital change develops, the province targets total organisation modernization to drive development and efficiency. Client experience, as an outcome, ends up being the driver in unifying the business. CIOs are looking beyond facilities, ending up being service partners to crucial functions throughout the company. CMOs, in collaboration with IT, are sharpening their concentrate on the digital improvement of the conventional marketing function as an entire, improving it for CX, for sales force partnership, and for direct-drive profits.

.4. Digital Transformation Aims at Modernizing Touchpoints to Enhance Customer Experiences.

Over the years, the leading chauffeurs for innovative digital improvement efforts have actually regularly focused on 2 things: 1) updating innovations throughout the business and 2) investing in contemporary consumer experiences.

Now, completing for brand-new market chances likewise ends up being critical. Over half of the business (51%) we surveyed reported that they are buying development chances in brand-new markets, making it the leading motorist for digital improvement efforts. Studying developing consumer habits and choices rank 2nd at 46%. The 3rd leading chauffeur is increased competitive pressure (41%).

The truth is that consumer touch points should be upgraded constantly as fractured, outdated, or unintuitive ones hinder the client experience and present cracks into client relationships and commitment with time. CX-focused efforts represent a substantial cluster of long-lasting and brief digital change concerns to allow a more customer-centric and real-time facilities.

.5. Short-Term and Long-Term CX Priorities.

Integrating all social, mobile, web, commerce, service efforts and financial investments to provide an incorporated, smooth, and omnichannel consumer experience:

.54% short-term.57% long-lasting.

Investing in more instinctive, integrated e-commerce and mobile commerce platforms and procedures in the long-and short-term respectively:

.36% short-term.37% long-lasting.

Overhauling client service to fulfill the expectations of linked customers:

.54% short-term.57% long-lasting.

Further research study into our client’’ s digital touchpoints and consumer journey:

.54% short-term.57% long-lasting. Digital Transformation Priorities 6. With Meaningful Digital Transformation, Customers Win.

CX financial investments represent instant locations of chance, however likewise reveal that business are concentrating on keeping consumer touch points pertinent and updated in the long term. As consumers end up being increasingly more comfy with mobile and emerging innovations, CMOs are intending to comprehend these linked consumers’ ’ moving choices and expectations much better through real-time information and analytics. Furthermore, CMOs are using brand-new programs and services that regularly fulfill the requirements of their linked consumers as times and patterns develop.

Customer experience will just continue to act as a main driver for digital velocity and maturity. As an outcome, elite CMOs are moving the function of marketing to develop a service development engine concentrated on CX, efficiency and development. This might minimize the existing requirement to take part in organization-wide efforts. In due time, nevertheless, this important front-line experience and knowledge will put marketing back in a management position as companies significantly position consumers at the center of their digital improvement efforts.

Please download Altimeter’’ s 2018-2019 State of Digital Transformation for a total take a look at the progressing business.

The post 6 Digital Transformation Trends for 2019 appeared initially on Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting .

Using STAT for Content Strategy – Whiteboard Friday

Posted on February 15, 2019 by mytechmanager_njccno

Posted by DiTomaso

Search results are sophisticated enough to show searchers not only the content they want, but in the format they want it. Being able to identify searcher intent and interest based off of ranking results can be a powerful driver of content strategy. In this week’s Whiteboard Friday, we warmly welcome Dana DiTomaso as she describes her preferred tools and methods for developing a modern and effective content strategy.

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Video Transcription

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Whiteboard Friday. My name is Dana DiTomaso. I’m President and partner of Kick Point, which is a digital marketing agency based way up in Edmonton, Alberta. Come visit sometime.

What I’m going to be talking about today is using STAT for content strategy. STAT, if you’re not familiar with STAT Search Analytics, which is in my opinion the best ranking tool on the market and Moz is not paying me to say that, although they did pay for STAT, so now STAT is part of the Moz family of products. I really like STAT. I’ve been using it for quite some time. They are also Canadian. That may or may not influence my decision.

But one of the things that STAT does really well is it doesn’t just show you where you’re ranking, but it breaks down what type of rankings and where you should be thinking about rankings. Typically I find, especially if you’ve been working in this field for a long time, you might think about rankings and you still have in your mind the 10 blue links that we used to have forever ago, and that’s so long gone. One of the things that’s useful about using STAT rankings is you can figure out stuff that you should be pursuing other than, say, the written word, and I think that that’s something really important again for marketers because a lot of us really enjoy reading stuff.

Consider all the ways searchers like to consume content

Maybe you’re watching this video. Maybe you’re reading the transcript. You might refer to the transcript later. A lot of us are readers. Not a lot of us are necessarily visual people, so sometimes we can forget stuff like video is really popular, or people really do prefer those places packs or whatever it might be. Thinking outside of yourself and thinking about how Google has decided to set up the search results can help you drive better content to your clients’ and your own websites.

The biggest thing that I find that comes of this is you’re really thinking about your audience a lot more because you do have to trust that Google maybe knows what it’s doing when it presents certain types of results to people. It knows the intent of the keyword, and therefore it’s presenting results that make sense for that intent. We can argue all day about whether or not answer boxes are awesome or terrible.

But from a visitor’s perspective and a searcher’s perspective, they like them. I think we need to just make sure that we’re understanding where they might be showing up, and if we’re playing by Google rules, people also ask is not necessarily going anywhere.

All that being said, how can we use ranking results to figure out our content strategy? The first thing about STAT, if you haven’t used STAT before, again check it out, it’s awesome.

Grouping keywords with Data Views

But one of the things that’s really nice is you can do this thing called data views. In data views, you can group together parts of keywords. So you can do something called smart tags and say, “I want to tag everything that has a specific location name together.”

Opportunities — where are you not showing up?

Let’s say, for example, that you’re working with a moving company and they are across Canada. So what I want to see here for opportunities are things like where I’m not ranking, where are there places box showing up that I am not in, or where are the people also ask showing up that I am not involved in. This is a nice way to keep an eye on your competitors.

Locations

Then we’ll also do locations. So we’ll say everything in Vancouver, group this together. Everything in Winnipeg, group this together. Everything in Edmonton and Calgary and Toronto, group all that stuff together.

Attributes (best, good, top, free, etc.)

Then the third thing can be attributes. This is stuff like best, good, top, free, cheap, all those different things that people use to describe your product, because those are definitely intent keywords, and often they will drive very different types of results than things you might consider as your head phrases.

So, for example, looking at “movers in Calgary” will drive a very different result than “top movers in Calgary.” In that case, you might get say a Yelp top 10 list. Or if you’re looking for “cheapest mover in Calgary,”again a different type of search result. So by grouping your keywords together by attributes, that can really help you as well determine how those types of keywords can be influenced by the type of search results that Google is putting out there.

Products / services

Then the last thing is products/services. So we’ll take each product and service and group it together. One of the nice things about STAT is you can do something called smart tags. So we can, say, figure out every keyword that has the word “best” in it and put it together. Then if we ever add more keywords later, that also have the word “best,”they automatically go into that keyword group. It’s really useful, especially if you are adding lots of keywords over time. I recommend starting by setting up some views that make sense.

You can just import everything your client is ranking for, and you can just take a look at the view of all these different keywords. But the problem is that there’s so much data, when you’re looking at that big set of keywords, that a lot of the useful stuff can really get lost in the noise. By segmenting it down to a really small level, you can start to understand that search for that specific type of term and how you fit in versus your competition.

A deep dive into SERP features

So put that stuff into STAT, give it a little while, let it collect some data, and then you get into the good stuff, which is the SERP features. I’m covering just a tiny little bit of what STAT does. Again, they didn’t pay me for this. But there’s lots of other stuff that goes on in here. My personal favorite part is the SERP features.

Which features are increasing/decreasing both overall and for you?

So what I like here is that in SERP features it will tell you which features are increasing and decreasing overall and then what features are increasing and decreasing for you.

This is actually from a real set for one of our clients. For them, what they’re seeing are big increases in places version 3, which is the three pack of places. Twitter box is increasing. I did not see that coming. Then AMP is increasing. So that says to me, okay, so I need to make sure that I’m thinking about places, and maybe this is a client who doesn’t necessarily have a lot of local offices.

Maybe it’s not someone you would think of as a local client. So why are there a lot more local properties popping up? Then you can dive in and say, “Okay, only show me the keywords that have places boxes.” Then you can look at that and decide: Is it something where we haven’t thought about local SEO before, but it’s something where searchers are thinking about local SEO? So Google is giving them three pack local boxes, and maybe we should start thinking about can we rank in that box, or is that something we care about.

Again, not necessarily content strategy, but certainly your SEO strategy. The next thing is Twitter box, and this is something where you think Twitter is dead. No one is using Twitter. It’s full of terrible people, and they tweet about politics all day. I never want to use it again, except maybe Google really wants to show more Twitter boxes. So again, looking at it and saying, “Is Twitter something where we need to start thinking about it from a content perspective? Do we need to start focusing our energies on Twitter?”

Maybe you abandoned it and now it’s back. You have to start thinking, “Does this matter for the keywords?” Then AMP. So this is something where AMP is really tricky obviously. There have been studies where it said, “I implemented AMP, and I lost 70% of my traffic and everything was terrible.” But if that’s the case, why would we necessarily be seeing more AMP show up in search results if it isn’t actually something that people find useful, particularly on mobile search?

Desktop vs mobile

One of the things actually that I didn’t mention in the tagging is definitely look at desktop versus mobile, because you are going to see really different feature sets between desktop and mobile for these different types of keywords. Mobile may have a completely different intent for a type of search. If you’re a restaurant, for example, people looking for reservations on a desktop might have different intent from I want a restaurant right now on mobile, for example, and you’re standing next to it and maybe you’re lost.

What kind of intent is behind the search results?

You really have to think about what that intent means for the type of search results that Google is going to present. So for AMP, then you have to look at it and say, “Well, is this newsworthy? Why is more AMP being shown?” Should we consider moving our news or blog or whatever you happen call it into AMP so that we can start to show up for these search results in mobile? Is that a thing that Google is presenting now?

We can get mad about AMP all day, but how about instead if we actually be there? I don’t want the comment section to turn into a whole AMP discussion, but I know there are obviously problems with AMP. But if it’s being shown in the search results that searchers who should be finding you are seeing and you’re not there, that’s definitely something you need to think about for your content strategy and thinking, “Is AMP something that we need to pursue? Do we have to have more newsy content versus evergreen content?”

Build your content strategy around what searchers are looking for

Maybe your content strategy is really focused on posts that could be relevant for years, when in reality your searchers are looking for stuff that’s relevant for them right now. So for example, things with movers, there’s some sort of mover scandal. There’s always a mover who ended up taking someone’s stuff and locking it up forever, and they never gave it back to them. There’s always a story like that in the news.

Maybe that’s why it’s AMP. Definitely investigate before you start to say, “AMP everything.” Maybe it was just like a really bad day for movers, for example. Then you can see the decreases. So the decrease here is organic, which is that traditional 10 blue links. So obviously this new stuff that’s coming in, like AMP, like Twitter, like places is displacing a lot of the organic results that used to be there before.

So instead you think, well, I can do organic all day, but if the results just aren’t there, then I could be limiting the amount of traffic I could be getting to my website. Videos, for example, now it was really interesting for this particular client that videos is a decreasing SERP for them, because videos is actually a big part of their content strategy. So if we see that videos are decreasing, then we can take a step back and say, “Is it decreasing in the keywords that we care about? Why is it decreasing? Do we think this is a test or a longer-term trend?”

Historical data

What’s nice about STAT is you can say “I want to see results for the last 7 days, 30 days, or 60 days.” Once you get a year of data in there, you can look at the whole year and look at that trend and see is it something where we have to maybe rethink our video strategy? Maybe people don’t like video for these phrases. Again, you could say, “But people do like video for these phrases.” But Google, again, has access to more data than you do.

If Google has decided that for these search phrases video is not a thing they want to show anymore, then maybe people don’t care about video the way that you thought they did. Sorry. So that could be something where you’re thinking, well, maybe we need to change the type of content we create. Then the last one is carousel that showed up for this particular client. Carousel, there are ones where they show lots of different results.

I’m glad that’s dropping because that actually kind of sucks. It’s really hard to show up well there. So I think that’s something to think about in the carousel as well. Maybe we’re pleased that that’s going away and then we don’t have to fight it as much anymore. Then what you can see in the bottom half are what we call share of voice.

Share of voice

Share of voice is calculated based on your ranking and all of your competitors’ ranking and the number of clicks that you’re expected to get based on your ranking position.

So the number 1 position obviously gets more ranks than the number 100 position. So the share of voice is a percentage calculated based on how many of these types of items, types of SERP features that you own versus your competitors as well as your position in these SERP features. So what I’m looking at here is share of voice and looking at organic, places, answers, and people also ask, for example.

So what STAT will show you is the percentage of organic, and it’s still, for this client — and obviously this is not an accurate chart, but this is vaguely accurate to what I saw in STAT — organic is still a big, beefy part of this client’s search results. So let’s not panic that it’s decreasing. This is really where this context can come in. But then you can think, all right, so we know that we are doing “eeh” on organic.

Is it something where we think that we can gain more? So the green shows you your percentage that you own of this, and then the black is everyone else. Thinking realistically, you obviously cannot own 100% of all the search results all the time because Google wouldn’t allow that. So instead thinking, what’s a realistic thing? Are we topping out at the point now where we’re going to have diminishing returns if we keep pushing on this?

Identify whether your content efforts support what you’re seeing in STAT

Are we happy with how we’re doing here? Maybe we need to turn our attention to something else, like answers for example. This particular client does really well on places. They own a lot of it. So for places, it’s maintain, watch, don’t worry about it that much anymore. Then that can drop off when we’re thinking about content. We don’t necessarily need to keep writing blog post for things that are going to help us to rank in the places pack because it’s not something that’s going to influence that ranking any further.

We’re already doing really well. But instead we can look at answers and people also ask, which for this particular client they’re not doing that well. It is something that’s there, and it is something that it may not be one of the top increases, but it’s certainly an increase for this particular client. So what we’re looking at is saying, “Well, you have all these great blog posts, but they’re not really written with people also ask or answers in mind. So how about we go back and rewrite the stuff so that we can get more of these answer boxes?”

That can be the foundation of that content strategy. When you put your keywords into STAT and look at your specific keyword set, really look at the SERP features and determine what does this mean for me and the type of content I need to create, whether it’s more images for example. Some clients, when you’re looking at e-commerce sites, some of the results are really image heavy, or they can be product shopping or whatever it might be.

There are really specific different features, and I’ve only shown a tiny subset. STAT captures all of the different types of SERP features. So you can definitely look at anything if it’s specific to your industry. If it’s a feature, they’ve got it in here. So definitely take a look and see where are these opportunities. Remember, you can’t have a 100% share of voice because other people are just going to show up there.

You just want to make sure that you’re better than everybody else. Thanks.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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Why Email Marketing Newsletters Are Making a Comeback

Posted on February 13, 2019 by mytechmanager_njccno

I’ve remained in the marketing world for rather a long time and over the previous couple of years, I have actually viewed e-mail marketing go through a transformation.

Email newsletters utilized to be a cent a lots, and after that there came a time (2017? 2016? I’m not truly sure) when it appeared like they were backburnered while online marketers concentrated on checking out brand-new patterns.

Now the dust appears to have actually settled, and I’’ m finding that the OG of digital marketing is rebounding.

through GIPHY

Here’’ s the scoop on why online marketers are reversing to email marketing newsletters and how you can develop a newsletter that your audience can’’ t get enough of.

.Why the Comeback?

While there appear to be a limitless stream of headings announcing the “death of e-mail,” I personally eagerly anticipate getting my preferred e-mail newsletters each time I examine my inbox.

There are a variety of factors that email newsletters are rebounding, consisting of:

.The Social Media Honeymoon is Over.

Given the frequency with which social networks platforms such as Facebook and online search engine like Google alter the guidelines of the video game, the very best online marketers guarantee that at the core of their method is developing out an “owned” audience.

Email marketing enables us to do simply this. You manage your capability to link with them when you gather and save your audience’s e-mail addresses in your CRM or database.

By contrast, the fans and fans you get on your social networks channels are not an OWNED audience. Users can silence your efforts by unfollowing or unfriending you, and social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can have a direct influence on what your fans see by altering their algorithms.

.Email Provides Instant Gratification.

We hear time and time once again that our culture yearns for pleasure principle. This suggests that individuals desire things succinct and quick when it comes to material.

A great newsletter has the ability to provide this to its readers.

While newsletters tend to head out when a week or perhaps simply when a month they can still provide whatever a user requires.

For example, LinkedIn has a brand-new blog site called The Water Cooler where they share a regular monthly report on the leading short articles released on their website. Individuals are not getting updates on these short articles in genuine time, they are able to examine all of the finest blog sites quickly in one area.

The bottom line – they do not need to do the work. The report shares whatever they require to understand in one location, as soon as a month, in a clear, to-the-point report.

Great newsletters have the ability to do this too.

.Active Personalized Content.

Digital marketing is altering at a lightning fast lane, however something that has actually constantly applied is that individuals wish to seem like they are being spoken with as a specific in a tailored and genuine way.

A really great newsletter has the capability to talk to the private and make them feel that you are bought them.

By concentrating on material that includes worth to your audience, you are revealing them that you understand who you are speaking with, appreciate their interests, and know what they wish to become aware of.

The brand names that do this well develop themselves as go-to, relied on resources.

.More Value, Less Content.

Email newsletters enable business to share important material and updates, and in doing so, develop trust with their audience.

Given the incredible volume of e-mail that we are challenged with every day, how can you stick out instead of contributing to the sound?

The finest newsletters conserve their readers effort and time by handling the heavy lifting of discovering what is essential and providing it to them in such a way that provides included value.Last September, the marketing group at IMPACT chose to simply that when it introduced our brand-new thrice weekly e-mail newsletter, The Latest . Prior to that, our customers might choose into a day-to-day blog site absorb, which just provided readers an automatic feed of our newest blog sites.

Now, our newsletter surpasses simply short articles to include can’’ t-miss brand-new videos, podcasts, design templates and tools, live and on-demand webinars, details and highlights from market occasions, and unique material customers will have access to.

.Newsletters We Love.

When we chose to develop our own e-mail newsletter, we took motivation from these best-in-class e-mail newsletters that our group enjoys to see in their inboxes.

.Overall ANNARCHY.

Ann Handley’’ s Total ANNARCHY is an amazing example of an extremely individual newsletter.

Ann is a legend in the marketing world. She is the Wall Street Journal very popular author of Everybody Writes and Content Rules, a Partner at MarketingProfs , and an in-demand marketing keynote speaker.

Her newsletter takes an innovative technique to its bi-weekly shipment. Instead of an easy collection of updates and short articles, it is a letter from Ann herself. Whatever exists with a conversational tone. As the recipient, I seem like I am getting the scoop from a pal – and I enjoy it!

.The Daily Carnage.

The Daily Carnage pumps out important marketing material to your inbox at the start of every day.

The newsletter itself is broken down by classification, such as news, check out, tools, and watch, with links to dig much deeper into each piece of material if you have the time and disposition.

The Daily Carnage’s conversational tone makes you seem like you’re getting the scoop from a buddy or coworker.

This newsletter is rocking it – important material that readers will anticipate getting.

.What IMPACTERS are Searching For In A Newsletter ….

When I connected to my colleagues to ask what a fantastic newsletter appears like to them, they rapidly reacted with no doubt.

Here is what a few of our employee needed to state:

““ One of the factors I enjoy e-mail newsletters tbh is that I do not need to respond. Due to the fact that I desire to, if I do respond it’s. most e-mails I get need a helpful and thoughtful action. this is a lower pressure scenario. Excellent newsletters are satisfying to check out and keep me up to date on things in the market””

– Stephanie Baiocchi, Director of Audience Engagement &&Community

““ The newsletters I enjoy’aren ’ t roundups. they’offer worth. they’’ re focused. If they ’ re from a single individual or have a distinct, conversational tone, I actually like them, since it feels individual. I seem like I’’ m knowing and learning more about somebody or if they are roundups I put on’’ t understand. everything feels purposeful.””

– Liz Murphy, Director of Web &&Interactive Content

One secret aspect driving the resurgence of the e-mail newsletter is a restored concentrate on quality over amount, and a dedication to removing ““ marketing speak ” in favor of conversational copy and a more customized technique.

.How You Can Take Advantage Of This New Trend.

If you’re considering beginning an e-mail marketing newsletter – or merely wish to enhance an existing newsletter – here are a couple of suggestions to bear in mind:

Make it important: A standout newsletter offers readers with material that matters. Think of this when choosing what is entering into your newsletter and take a “less is more” technique. It is likewise essential to think about that important material does not just can be found in the kind of composed copy. Check out video, images, and even podcasts to be shared in your newsletter. Include it if your audience would benefit from it.

Keep it succinct: Keep your newsletter well arranged and highlights your bottom lines. The Daily Carnage is an ideal example of how you can do this by structuring your newsletter into areas that are plainly identified

Make it individual: Great newsletters have the ability to make the reader feel personally invested. Some methods we have actually seen this carried out in consist of sending out the e-mail from an individual (instead of a business) or utilizing a conversational tone.

Today, newsletters are a lot more than a list of business updates. They are an important element of any digital marketing technique and need to be dealt with.

The next time you go to produce an e-mail newsletter, ask yourself – are you offering your readers with included worth, are you talking to them and not at them?

We can’’ t wait to see what you develop!

“10x Facebook Ads ROI with Messenger Bots Ft. Moby Siddique of RedPandas” (Inbound Success Ep. 77)

Posted on February 13, 2019 by mytechmanager_njccno

How can you reduce your Facebook ads cost per click by 90% and increase lead conversion rates?

Moby Siddique

This week onThe Inbound Success Podcast I spoke with Moby Siddique of RedPandas Digital, a Sydney, Australia-based inbound marketing agency and HubSpot partner, about some innovative Facebook ads approaches he’s taken that have dramatically improved his return on ad spend (ROAS).

Some of Moby’s most successful Facebook ads campaigns actually connect Facebook users to a Facebook Messenger bot, which can then offer them discount codes or other offers and opportunities for conversion. The cost per click on these campaigns is 10x lower than it is for others, and the conversion rates average 30% or more.

This week’s episode of The Inbound Success Podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, IMPACT Live, the most immersive and high energy learning experience for marketers and business leaders. IMPACT Live takes place August 6-7, 2019 in Hartford Connecticut and is headlined by Marcus Sheridan along with keynote speakers including world-renowned Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith and Drift CEO and Co-Founder David Cancel.

Inbound Success Podcast listeners can save 10% off the price of tickets with the code “SUCCESS”.

Click here to learn more or purchase tickets for IMPACT Live

Some highlights from my conversation with Moby include:

Moby Siddique is the Head Strategy Panda with RedPandas Digital, an inbound marketing agency and HubSpot partner based in Sydney, Australia.
Some of Moby’s most successful campaigns have run over Facebooks ads connected with Facebook Messenger bots.
Facebook Messages have a 90%+ open rate.
For one restaurant ad campaign that Moby and his team developed, Facebook users see an ad with a picture of a pavlova (pastry) on it. The ad tells them to type the word that describes what they feel when they see the picture, and when they do this, it triggers a messenger bot (via Facebook Messages) that offers them a discount code.
Moby uses MobileMonkey to build his Facebook Messenger bots.
Encouraging users to comment on the ad serves another purpose of improving the ad’s quality score.
Once a user is engaged via Facebook Messenger, the business can then continue to nurture them through subsequent Facebook messages.
Moby’s Facebook ads to messenger bot combination has resulted in a cost per click that is 10% of what is was with more traditional Facebook ads.
The coupons that he offers via the messenger bot have a 30% redemption rate, on average.

Resources from this episode:

Save 10% off the price of tickets to IMPACT Live with promo code “SUCCESS”
Connect with Moby Siddique on LinkedIn
Follow Moby on Twitter
RedPandas Digital website
Listen to Moby’s Inbound Buzz podcast
MobileMonkey website
View IMPACT’s webinar with Larry Kim on “10 Hacks to Master Chatbot Marketing to Stay Ahead of Your Competitors”

Listen to the podcast to learn exactly how Moby structures his Facebook ads campaigns, how they’re connected to Facebook Messenger, how he’s building his messenger bots and more.

Transcript

Kathleen Booth (Host):Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I’m your host, Kathleen Booth and today my guest is Moby Siddique, who is the Head Strategy Panda at Redpandas. Welcome, Moby.

Moby Siddique (Guest): Thank you, Kathleen. It’s great to be here.

Moby and Kathleen recording this episode

Kathleen: Yeah, you know, I occasionally have guests that I get particularly excited to interview because I always ask people at the end of my podcast who’s doing inbound marketing really well. And it is the people that get mentioned in the answers to those questions that I then think immediately, “I need to interview that person.”

Your name has come up a few times both in the podcast as well as with people that I am friends or colleagues with. I’ve heard your name so many times. People say, “You have to interview Moby,” and was finally like “Alright. I’m just gonna reach out to him and see if he’s game.” So I’m super excited that you’re here today.

Moby: Oh no, pressure. All good, all good. It’s great to be here, Kathleen.

Kathleen: And not only are you here today, you’re actually here tomorrow because you are across the world in the next day. It is Wednesday my time and it is Thursday your time. Even better, I think you’re the guest I’ve had from the furthest away, so you get the badge for that.

Moby: Sweet, just don’t interview anyone from New Zealand. No, I’m kidding!

Kathleen: There you go.

Moby: We have a good rivalry with them.

About Moby and RedPandas

Kathleen: Tell my listeners a little bit more about yourself and your company and where you’re from. Paint the picture for us.

Moby: Yeah, awesome. I’ll try to say something a little bit different from, ’cause at the end of the day inbound marketing agencies, how different are we really? We all try to achieve the same problem.

Three, four years ago I was working at an agency. I didn’t like how it was being done and I thought, “Hey I can do this.”

Then fast forward a year or two I ate some humble pie. I realized it’s a lot harder than you think it is, and that was actually a really good awakening for us because it’s like, “Okay cool. We really have to get back to inbound marketing.”

At the end of the day marketing is all about trust. We built our agency on a lot of trust and on giving away a lot of information. That’s really where my speaking passion came from, as well, so I do a little bit of speaking. I just started breaking the international, I guess got my first paid international gig this year which is cool. Didn’t have to do them for free anymore.

Kathleen: Congratulations.

Moby: Thank you, thank you. That was really cool. But yeah, so I guess my day job is essentially Head Strategy Panda at Redpandas Digital. Clients come in and our job is to translate their offline problems into digital solutions. We’re a HubSpot partner, as well, and yeah. I guess we do the best we can.

Kathleen: Based in what city?

Moby: Sydney, Australia.

Kathleen: Alright, excellent. I’ve never been to Australia. So if you need a speaker at your next HUG and you can pay travel fees, you know who to call.

Moby: Yeah, awesome.

Kathleen: That would be a nice world that we would live in if the HUGs would pay travel fees transatlantically or transpacifically, I guess in this case.

Moby: Oh yeah, we also run Sydney HUG, too, by the way. I know you guys.

Kathleen: Yeah, so I have heard so much about you guys and you must be doing inbound well because you seem to be one of the more well liked agency owners within the community of agency owners. The nice things about the HubSpot community, at least in my experience, is it’s not super competitive. But still to be the most well liked guy within a group of guys and girls who are about likeability and trust is a high honor.

I’d love to know some of what you’re working on with your clients and what you’re doing to find success with them.

Moby: Yeah, really at the end of the day the inbound playbook has been so, I guess, just cookie cutter. And that’s been fine for a number of years.

It depends on what type of client we have. Often when we have a client for the very first time, there’s some very basic fundamentals that are missing. Sure, they’re not really looking at personas and their messaging. Even their value proposition, so in terms of what makes them different? You only really know that once you know your personas, know what they care about. You have a whole augmented package of value so you can actually say, “Yeah, this is our value proposition. This is where we stand in the market.”

We do these two or three things very, very well for you. Often in the start, clients are … When we meet clients that have maybe grown organically that had a lot of referrals, but now they’ve kind of hit a plateau. For them it’s actually quite easy.

But then you have clients on the other spectrum who’ve been doing things for a while or clients we’ve been working with for a long time, and then we’ve just gotta think about at a channel level, what do we do to get them to that authority level?

On one side it’s like how do we actually … What are our basics? What do we actually stand for? And then let’s think about the type of content and videos we need.

Usually they don’t have that stuff, it’s very simple. But on the other side, once they’re actually quite mature, how do we take them to a real authority level? ‘Cause it’s easy to say that at any level, but it’s really the brands that are a little bit mature and have the ability to do things like podcast, to do things like webinars. Things that are hard.

So really it really is that. And then of course you have things that are a little bit kind of left field. So trying to combine different technologies together.

I know you guys do a lot of bot marketing on your side. We do a lot of that, as well, but one thing that very few people, particularly in our market, are doing anyway is using Facebook ads to go to bots and then use bots as forms and for filling their funnel that way. As opposed to taking them, let’s take them to a landing page that takes three seconds to load and then take them to something else and then pay for another ad to keep them in the funnel.

So always just trying to shorten the funnel. I don’t know if that answers your question but I guess it depends on where they are in their life cycle, and we can act accordingly.

Kathleen: Yeah, that’s interesting that you brought up working with clients on their value proposition because I don’t think that there’s many inbound marketing agencies particularly that do that. Part of that is symptomatic of this cookie cutter approach that HubSpot espoused for so many years of attract, convert, close, delight. Their methodology was the playbook and it didn’t have a piece that was about positioning or value proposition or differentiation.

I know we’ve run into the same thing where we’ll have clients come to us and if we just ran the traditional inbound playbook, we’d probably be very successful at generating leads for them. And this has even happened, but they would be the wrong kind of leads.

We actually got into doing messaging for clients for the same reason because if you wanna deliver the right kinds of leads, you really have to understand not only the personas but how to message to those personas so that it resonates with the right people. Not just any person. So that’s so important.

Facebook Messenger Ads + Bots

Kathleen: I’m so intrigued by what you just said about Facebook ads. I would love to dive a little deeper into that. You talked about using Facebook ads to drive people to a bot. Tell me more.

Moby: Yeah, so that’s … And there’s very clever ways to do it now and the thing about Facebook is almost any channel, but very specifically on Facebook, you’ve gotta do it before they change and they make it hard for you.

All marketers, I’m sure you’ve had this conversation with others, all marketers we lament the fact how Facebook at first is like, “Hey, use Facebook for your brand.” This is seven, eight years ago. Then people start putting their logo on bus boards – Literally advertising for Facebook on TV and billboards and whatever – and they’re like, “Oh we’re gonna take that away from you now.”

I guess anything we talk about, if you’re listening to this a year later, it might not even be around anymore. You have to be very fast.

To that point really quickly, I know with subscriptions, so with Facebook you can treat it like a form of email blasting and they call them chat blasting, bot blasting or whatever. Where once you get people, I guess, subscribed to your messenger, you can blast them with messages like gifs and videos and really cool stuff.

At the moment I think they have open rate, I don’t … This might be a month or two old now, but I think their open rates are 90% plus.

Marketers haven’t ruined Messenger messages yet, or Facebook Messenger yet. So if you send them one, they’re more likely to open it. It’s very, very close to text messaging and a lot of users don’t really differentiate between text … The way they react to text messages or Messenger messages because it’s so ubiquitous. We’re just personal messaging.

That’s one thing to keep in mind. But in terms of what Facebook is doing with that technology, they are looking at tightening what you can do. So that’s definitely one thing to keep in mind.

Just to give a quick example, because I know if you kind of talk in theory, people really don’t get what I’m talking about. But there’s an example we’re running at the moment with a bunch of restaurants.

How that works is it’s a nice image of a pavlova or something. It’s targeted right, which is a separate discussion. Essentially all it says is, I think “In 10 words or less, describe the first thing that comes to your mind.”

Obviously the image is good. It’s not on an iPhone, it’s shot with an SLR.

As soon as a person types, I don’t know, “scrumptious” or “delicious” or whatever it is, it takes their Messenger opens … Sorry their Facebook Messenger opens and they get an automated message that says, “We’re really glad you like what you see. There is a coupon code available. Simply click on discount or type the word ‘discount’ and you’ll get that coupon code.”

Then they type that and they can redeem this code. Then they can save it or whatever. Then after that it actually, it’s almost like a mini, it’s almost like a micro site within Messenger. You can almost build full scale websites in Messenger now.

After that, let’s go back to this example. I’ve typed in “discount,” awesome. I may use that discount, I may not, but as a marketer if I’ve done my job right I’ll probably remind this person to use it again.

Then they’ll almost get a “while you wait,” or “before you come in, check out our menu.”

Then you get the cards, like the carousels, and then you can actually swipe and you can see what else …

Kathleen: In Messenger?

Moby: In Messenger. Yeah?

Kathleen: Okay, I have a million questions that I wanna ask you before we get too much further. The first being, when you talk about Facebook Messenger, let’s walk through this from the standpoint of the actual user experience.

So I’m a person and I’m on my Facebook. I could be on my mobile phone, I could be on my desktop, wherever I am. Where do I first come across this? What is my first touch point with this experience?

Moby: Yeah, good point actually. You may … In many, many ways, but one example.

Say in this example that I mentioned, it could be an ad. It might be an ad in your newsfeed. You’re scrolling. It could be carousel ad, it could be a newsfeed ad, video ad, doesn’t really matter. Any format.

You’re scrolling, we targeted you because you’re a particular demographic, you live in a certain radius within say that restaurant and you see this image.

What normally happens is, so many things can happen. Either you can just have the image and just leave it there. But the thing is we want a call to action, right? We don’t want to just friend zone our people all the time.

Not that boosting content on Facebook is bad. When people first get into Facebook advertising, they just boost posts. Not that it’s bad, and it should be part of your mix, it needs to be, but you can’t only do that because where are they gonna go? Are they gonna go to your website? Are you gonna give them the link? What are you going to do?

So with Facebook, you can send people to destinations. For those of you, I’m sure your listeners know this already, but for those you don’t you can send them either to a landing page and you can just send them to a Messenger conversation.

Kathleen: So I see the ad, in this case the picture of the pavlova that you talked about, and the ad is coming from the actual Facebook page of the company or the restaurant in this case.

Moby: Yes.

Kathleen: I see that ad. In this case it’s telling me to click on something to say what words I would use to describe it. Is there a button on it and the button then opens up Messenger?

Moby: Yeah, good question. So this is where, when you said what are some hacks and stuff, this is where my mind went to right away. It is a little bit of an advanced tactic that I’m talking about, and not many advertisers are using it.

To break it right down, your first step, say you wanna give this a go, would probably be just to try to run an ad to Messenger. Then you click on yep, open conversation and then it opens the user’s Messenger. It opens the brand’s Messenger. Obviously that relies on a human going there and interacting with the person.

Kathleen: Right.

Moby: That’s normally the first thing.

Kathleen: A human on the brand’s side, you mean?

Moby: A human on the brand’s side, yeah.

Kathleen: Okay.

Moby: The next sort of, I guess, evolve from that would be to send someone to … There’s still a button. There’s still absolutely a button. You click on the button to start a conversation and then that goes into Messenger and then you use MobileMonkey, which is the tool we can talk about a little bit later. You can use a whole bunch of tools out there that are tools that will help you build a Messenger bot.

Kathleen: Okay.

Moby: And you know, if someone says yes give them this, if they say no give them that and they can design the flow.

The example I gave is actually a level even above that in terms of advancement, if I can call it that. How that works is you just put in a word in the post. I only know of one other person who’s doing this who is a friend of mine. That’s why I stole the idea and I started doing it with our clients. But I haven’t seen this anywhere else.

If we understand that logic, currently cool most people understand I can click on a button in Messenger and it will take me to a Messenger conversation. But what you can now do is you can actually ask them to comment.

Kathleen: Comment on the post itself.

Moby: Yes, comment on the post itself. And that opens up … We have the ability now … It is a little bit advanced but know that it is possible that if you comment, that’ll do the same thing. That’ll trigger the bot to open. You don’t have to click on a button.

Now, this is great and I probably didn’t even mention why you’d want to do this. There’s a couple of reasons.

Firstly, one of the, as we can talk about a little bit later, one of the things that determines how much you pay in Facebook ads is your quality score or relevancy score, sorry.

Quality score is an AdWords term, relevancy score is the Facebook one. How they determine that is a number of things like are you getting engagements? Are people liking it? But one of the biggest factors, to cut it short, one of the biggest factors is comments, as well.

So if you put out an ad and you’re going to garner a lot of comments, Facebook is gonna say, this isn’t salesy, this is facilitating conversation and momentum. This is what we want. This is what we like. I’m gonna make your cost low advertiser.

So that’s one of the biggest things that’s done, Kathleen. Sure the results have been good, but one of the first things that impressed me before the results even started rolling in were the costs per click because it took me back to yesteryear.

I remember when we started doing Facebook ads, when I started doing Facebook ads, they were 20 cents, 15 cents, they were so low, and I saw those numbers again.

I’m like, “Oh my God. How are we getting these numbers?” It’s because Facebook sees the comments. We’re driving the comments, obviously because we’re incentivizing the comments. We’re saying comment on this and you can get a coupon code. So you have to offer them something.

You don’t have to depending on what you’re showing them, but it’s nice to offer them something. That drove down our scores.

The next thought that I had when I was impressed by that was, “Oh crap. Facebook is going to stop this soon.” You know what I mean? They’re not gonna let us get away with this for too much longer, because they weren’t.

If the average of cost per click is a lot higher, depending on what industry a dollar or 80 cents or two dollars, three dollars, even five dollars we’ve seen it in some industries now, they’re not gonna let us get away with this loophole for too much longer.

Yeah, I guess that’s the difference in the example I said as opposed to a button which is very easy to do. The comment triggers the Messenger app to open up or the Messenger interface to open up and then you can have a bot have an automated conversation with that person.

Kathleen: And is that functionality native to Facebook or are you using some kind of a third party tool to bridge the gap between the comment and opening Messenger?

Moby: Yeah, so the last part, that more advanced example, we are using some more advanced third party tools.

Kathleen: Can you say which one?

Moby: Actually I don’t know because I am not the technical guy. I’m just the talker strategy guy and then I have other people do that stuff. But I can find out with our team and see if there’s anything we can share.

Kathleen: Yeah, if you can share it, send it to me after we talk and I’ll put it in the show notes. So there’s a good reason to go visit the show notes. This is the “I don’t know if the answer will be there or not right now, but I’m gonna try.”

Moby: Yeah, at bare minimum, at bare minimum, we’ll share some screenshots in terms of what this flow looks like. It’s just so new. There’s no actual tools that do these out of the box. You may have to use a tool and then get a code or do stuff on top.

But I don’t want that to scare people or turn people off. The fact is that if you’re not even running Messenger ads to send to a bot, that’s what you should be worried about.

Kathleen: Right, right, right.

Moby: That should be your premier concern. It may not even be worth your time and investment to develop the stuff that I’m talking about. I think it will be, but I want people to prove that to themselves.

Kathleen: Yeah, and by the time this airs, Facebook may have already shut this functionality down. You do never know, especially given all the drama with Facebook these days.

Moby: That’s right.

Kathleen: So somebody comments, that triggers Messenger to open, and then they begin interacting with the bot. And you’re using Larry Kim’s MobileMonkey, you said?

Moby: Yeah, for most cases, with the coupon, with this example that we mentioned for the comments to Messenger, no.

But for 95% of the cases, we do use MobileMonkey because I don’t think MobileMonkey can do what we wanna do from a comments to Messenger point of view. It may, by the time this airs that may change, as well. But we like Mobile … If I’m honest with you, because I’m a little bit, do you have the word “stingy” in the States, which means you don’t like to spend money?

Kathleen: Yes we do. Yeah.

Moby: Stingy, I got MobileMonkey purely because they had an Appsumo lifetime code. That’s why I jumped on it in the start. We went down that sort of path and it’s good, it’s easy.

It’s very easy to build and speaking about trust, Larry Kim comes from obviously founder of WordStream. I knew whatever this guy touches he’s going to invest time and money and get it right. It’s a very good first start for people looking to get into bots.

And mind you with mobile Messenger you don’t just use it for what I’m saying for ad context. You can use it just as your bots on your Facebook page. It’s not new anymore but people also take their Facebook messenger and they install it on their website as well. The benefits of that are reducing over time as Facebook is gonna start restricting what you do with it. But you can still do that sort of stuff.

Kathleen: Yeah, Larry Kim is very passionate about what he’s doing with MobileMonkey. He did a webinar for us last spring and we got, at that point obviously the product wasn’t as far along as it is now, but I just love his passion for what he does. I would agree with you. If you’re gonna place your bets on a great platform to build this on, that’s a good bet ’cause he’s done this kind of thing before and he’s really smart.

View our on-demand webinar on “10 Hacks to Master Chatbot Marketing to Stay Ahead of Your Competitors” featuring Larry Kim

Moby: Absolutely.

Kathleen: Alright. So somebody clicks on this, they go to Messenger, the bot appears. What kind of a bot flow … You talked about offering a coupon. Is this a short interaction where they get the coupon and then they’re done? Are you using this to then continue to nurture these folks over time?

Moby: Initially, and it depends on the context as well, like B2C examples are going to be very different to B2B examples in an example of a restaurant. It is a short interaction because people just want what they want.

If the hook was a coupon code, for example, then cool let’s make it easy. Let’s make it automated, let’s give it to them. The system will generate it, they’ll get a screenshot, they can do whatever they want with it. We can track that, as well. Cool.

But then after that, the beauty of using Messenger or Facebook Messenger bots or whatever, is they’re in your Messenger now. So they’re just like another friend, the brand is just like another friend.

You know how we all have friends on Messenger and then they’re in your … Once you connect with them, they’re there. They’re on the left hand side or on the mobile they’re wherever, and you can message them anytime.

That’s the same thing. It’s kind of like permission marketing in a way, ’cause now that they’re in you can then chat blast. Yeah, you can chat blast them.

You can actually send them almost little mini coms, it’s like mini newsletters where you can send them. HubSpot does a lot of this over, I don’t know, I find it’ll be annoying because it’s always the same things. It’s like a gif or something, but you can send them gifs, you can send them images, you can send them video, you can send them special offers.

You can gently sometimes maybe nudge them to your website, and then at the same time you have to allow them to opt out. So if you want to stop receiving this from us, type “no,” for example. Yeah.

One last thing I’ll say before I forget. I think the beauty of this whole thing is, is a human can jump in at any time.

Just like bots on a website, chat bots on websites that aren’t Facebook related, a human can jump in and take over anytime.

Someone’s noticing a lot of interest or and you find this, even when bots are … You won’t find a perfect Facebook bot. You’re just not gonna find it. We’ve had ones for four or five months now and even just yesterday there was a flow … I was chatting to one of our account managers and some poor prospect who was chatting to the clients Facebook bot kept getting the same auto responder all the time. And they were just getting so frustrated. It was like six, seven things that they said and the bot just kept saying the same thing again and again. I’m like, “Oh my God, this poor person.”

You can jump in and the thing is you’re going to have to jump in – either because the bot makes a mistake which is probably our mistake because we probably didn’t think about our flow – or you notice someone’s very, very interested like that person who bothered to message five, six times isn’t just doing it for the fun of it.

They’re interested, so let a human jump in and take over, as well. So sorry, side note but I think that’s important to mention for people thinking about doing it this way are hesitant about doing this sort of stuff.

Kathleen: Yeah, this is something I’m really interested in because I am on the receiving end of some of these. I do get Larry Kim’s Facebook messages, I get Growth Bot from HubSpot, I get a couple of different things.

You definitely see a wide variety of approaches that organizations take when they Facebook Message people, and my feeling about it has been that this is like a tightrope that you have to walk. It’s an incredible opportunity but you also have to really be careful because until now, until very recently Facebook Messenger was an entirely private domain. It has been open to organizational messages for awhile but so few are taking advantage of it that I think for most Facebook users, they still haven’t mentally made the adjustment that that’s a different kind of a space now.

Kathleen: I think if you’re not careful as a brand, you could easily tip the scales and really annoy somebody who’s used to having Messenger only be the domain of their friends or family et cetera.

So I’d love to get your thoughts on that. How do you strike that balance so that you’re not annoying people?

Moby: Yeah, I think you gotta be careful. It’s funny, even though Larry Kim MobileMonkey killing at what they do, they get it wrong too.

To give you an example, they have ’cause you can follow Larry Kim and you can also follow MobileMonkey. I think they’ve actually learned actually, I’ve probably made a mistake but I think they’ve learned. But I remember up until recently, I’m following both of those properties so I would get a chat blast from Larry Kim and then I’d get a chat blast from MobileMonkey three seconds later. It was so annoying.

Kathleen: You’re like, “Guys, I heard you the first time.”

Moby: Exactly, right? And when you say it out loud it’s like, “Oh my God, we’re so petty. How petty am I, I get annoyed?” But we do. That’s how we are.

I heard an analogy a couple of years ago online, and this sounds crude but it’s kind of true. Online we are dumb, stupid idiots, so by that we mean we’re impatient, we want things right away. Even the little petty things annoy us.

I’m like, “Guys, I know it’s automated but at least have a different message or at least wait a week and send it on the other platform.”

But I think the tightrope thing I know we can’t ignore the fact that if you have a brand and if you’re a bigger client, there is a lot more brand protectionism you need to think about. Smaller brands can kind of get away with it. You can almost get away with almost anything because you’re not gonna have a huge backlash. Someone’s not gonna put up a post that I don’t know, Jim’s Fishing Supplies sent two messages a week as opposed to one message a week.

Kathleen: Right.

Moby: Right? In terms of striking that balance, the offer that you put out, because you may need to advertise to get them on board, should dictate what type of content you need to send.

Then the frequency thing is something you just need to test. I’d probably say maybe once a month is too far, but once every two days is probably too often. And I think it is just a matter of testing things as well, and also asking them.

Because with Messenger you can ask them. If we’ve been on the receiving end, you would have noticed that with Messenger little menus will come up where it will say, “Okay, what size company are you?” For example. One to five, six to 10, 50 plus or whatever.

You can ask them periodically as well, what types of content do you value from us? And of course you always have to have that opt out.

Testing different content, like whatever content that seems to be working with your audience on Facebook already in your normal coms already, is probably a good bet to talk about. Then the frequency is just a trial and error thing.

Kathleen: I feel like there’s also something to this that relates to the type of organization you are and the reason your audience wanted to connect with you on Messenger in the first place.

So like when you first said you’re using this with restaurants, I used to have some restaurant clients here where I lived in Annapolis, Maryland. I think that’s actually a really interesting use case because restaurants run specials. Some of the restaurants I worked with had events. One of them actually had a venue space where they would have bands or they would have a poetry reading night.

I think if you have things like that and you have somebody who’s local and close by and interested, that’s a great use case for somebody who wants to stay up to date on what’s happening in your business.

Or I can imagine if you’re a B2B brand and you’ve got somebody who’s interested in your webinar series and they wanna be notified if a new one comes up.

I think where I’ve seen it poorly used at least from a user standpoint is for what I would call lead nurturing for a single product. Where you’re constantly getting reminders of, “Hey, schedule a demo. Check out our product.”

After a while, you’re like “It’s been four months and I haven’t checked your product out. If you don’t have anything new to say to me, stop.”

That’s just something that has struck me as a user, but I’d be curious to hear from you. What types of businesses do you think this is right for?

Moby: Yeah, so it’s kind of funny because when you think back to even a couple of years ago people used to say Facebook isn’t for B2B. There’s so many user cases that proved that’s wrong, so I know there is a context for B2B.

But to be completely honest with you, Kathleen – and it’s funny most of our clients are actually B2B – but we’ve only done this so far with our B2C clients. We’ve done this with restaurants, we’ve done this with childcare, we did this with a martial arts company. A company that is kind of like a little bit of MMA where you can sign up to these programs.

They’re the ones that we don’t, so if I’m completely honest with you I don’t know.

We found it worked very well with all those consumer type brands and I think with B2B, if we look at examples that have been marketed to us with, it’s like you sort of said. Why do people connect with us in the first place?

There’s hockey examples where … There’s bad examples where people were just sort of saying schedule a demo. That’s probably also indicative of a bad content marketing strategy as well because if you’re always going for the sale, particularly in the B2B world, you’re not gonna get anything.

I think there is a context for everyone on the B2B side. What did they actually sign up with you for? What’s working? If you don’t know what’s working that means maybe you don’t have a content strategy. Maybe you don’t have lead nurturing magnets already or you’re not putting out content, you know?

You guys put out a lot of content, so you have a very good indication of what’s resonating relative to other stuff. In your context or your industry rather, some of those things are gonna work quite well in Messenger.

And then I think another guideline to keep in mind is where you can be careful of sending them away from Messenger too much. Don’t always be blasting things like “Here’s a link to our eBook, here’s a link to our eBook, here’s a link to our eBook.”

They’re in Messenger so they’re used to a conversational flow. If you wanna give them the eBook, firstly don’t do it every month or every week. Spread it out with your other types of content.

But if you do want to give it to them with Messenger you can have forms. So what’s your name? Can I get your name? That’s … The user can’t tell but that’s a form fill. That’s saving somewhere in a database somewhere as a name.

Okay, awesome. Can I get your email address? Cool. Oh by the way, do you mind me asking now that I’ve got your email address, I don’t care if you don’t answer the next part, do you mind asking me what your budget is? For example, if you want. If you’re feeling really brave. That’s all saved somewhere now.

So the other mistake, and I see these one of the first mistakes that brands will make with the bot, and I don’t blame them because we’re just all learning this stuff, is I’ll say, “Can’t we just send them to a landing page?”

This happened to us just yesterday where a client said, “We’ve got these programs,” so this martial arts company, we’ve got 10 launching across the world, “Can’t we just give 10 links depending on what they give?”

I’m like, “You could, but why are we doing this in the first place? We have those links. We have ads that run to those links and those landing pages anyway. They’re working in the one capacity.

This is a different strategy, so ask them for their name, email address, whatever. Try to kind of keep them there as much as you can.” I think that’s another, I guess, good little pro tip as well, if you’re trying to use this stuff.

Kathleen: Yeah, I feel like so much of the decisions that marketers make are driven by our inherent desire to make everything so trackable, right? And if there’s a way to … We’re thinking first, “Oh well if I send them to a landing page, then I get them to convert. Then I can track the conversion rate and the this and the that.”

It’s so clean for us but we’re solving for ourselves and not necessarily for the user.

Tracking Results of the Facebook Ad + Messenger Bot Campaign

Kathleen: To that point of trackability, I’m curious, how you are measuring the results of these campaigns? Because it sounds like you’ve got a couple of them running, and I’d love to hear just all the way through like you talked about you’ve seen cost per click go down.

Have you seen … What other metrics are you looking at that you’re using to judge success?

Moby: In the Messenger context?

Kathleen: Yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative).

Moby: Yeah, with the restaurant example it’s fairly simple because the codes obviously are aligned to a particular … They’re at least aligned to a channel. They’re probably even aligned to an actual ad creative as well, if we really wanna get to that level. So that’s definitely the case there.

It’s funny like with the martial arts company, we just launched … They have HubSpot already but we just launched it. We just wanted to get it out there, and then it actually started doing so well we’re like, “Okay there’s two problems there.”

Now, because MobileMonkey I love these tools. They will just send you notifications, they just send you a notification. Then you rely on the client or us to go in and add it manually and say “Okay the lead source was Facebook Messenger.” Which is okay but if this thing starts doing well becomes very problematic. So we ran into this problem recently.

Now we’re like, “Okay, cool.” Now we need to integrated with Zapier or whatever it is.

So we just kind of launched it. We didn’t worry about the tracking at first and the attribution. Then we’re figuring that out with the client.

But yeah, you can if you send them to a link you can use UTM parameters. That’s one thing you can do, but that kind of defies the logic of why you’d wanna do this thing in the first place.

So I think there’s two ways to think about it. Firstly, if we’re especially in a B2B context, if we’re using Messenger to give them a little bit of value, a little bit of value and maybe a little bit of value three times and then start a conversation, that becomes like a sales reps conversation.

Then I guess it’s up to the sales rep to see “Okay cool if this is now an actual real lead, I’m gonna flag it and mark it as a lead in my CRM and I can track it back.”

You’re always gonna have human error. I’m not gonna lie Kathleen. That works because you always have like 15% of the time, it’s like, “Guys, you gotta get your sales reps to use the CRM, use the leads.” That’s always gonna be persistent, that issue.

And on the other side, it’s how you’re going to be integrating with it. So with the ads if you use … We use a tool called AdEspresso to run our Facebook ads, which is a very, very good tool. We’ve been using it now for about a year and a half.

With Ad Espresso, you can link up, you can install the Facebook pixel on your website and then you can link that up with your ad. And eventually if they convert, you’ll be able to tell.

So it is a little bit tricky now. At this point if you’re gonna be using a bot, if you’re gonna be using a Messenger bot, you will need to use some sort of integration piece or rely on the sales reps who have that conversation to attribute it.

The other thing, too, to mention, Kathleen, is often these people will end up converting anyway. They say it takes six to eight touch points for someone to convert, so they may not actually convert with that ad with the coupon code for example. They may actually then go to your website on their second visit and convert that way.

If that happens, if you’ve set up your Facebook pixel properly, then you’ll see that in your tracking and your reporting anyway. So there are a couple of holes.

I think we’re all still trying to figure that out how we do that in automated fashion. But it is possible.

Kathleen: What kind of … With the approach that you’re using with the bakery, or the restaurant rather, what kinds of savings and cost per click are you realizing like on a percentage basis? You mentioned you’re getting down to like 20 cents or something.

What fraction of the previous cost per click does that represent?

Moby: I would say honestly, so I’d probably say about 10% of what we were getting before.

Kathleen: Wow.

Moby: It depends on what context and what country you’re in, but it used to be that if you sent someone to a link, that was very expensive. And it’s still expensive.

Then it was like, “Okay, cool.” If you give them coupon codes and offers, that was a little bit cheaper, but even that’s getting expensive now. Like $1.80, $2 cost per click, you know, just to send someone to a landing page to get them to download a coupon code. It really sounds uncomfortable, you know what I mean?

Kathleen: Yeah.

Moby: So Facebook doesn’t want you to take people off their ecosystem anyway, and the user wants things now and fast and right away.

I think the little hack of trying to use comments to drive the Facebook Messenger really worked as well because Facebook is noticing … Some of these posts have hundreds of comments on them. Hundreds of comments, so we’re running the same posts again and again because there’s all this perceived virality and conversation there. We don’t need to, and only if we really have to or if it’s a new offer or something or a new campaign we’ll create a new post. But we try to actually use the older post for a little while anyway.

And if you don’t have tools like this or you can’t do something that advanced yet, then trying to instill some sort of, even the old school stuff like “Comment in 10 words or less” or “Tag someone who might be interested” or whatever. That’s still going to help, although it’s getting harder and harder to use ads to tag people unless they’re familiar with your brand already.

Kathleen: Yeah, that’s true.

Now any results that you can share in terms of the business impact this has had for your customers?

Moby: I mean, early days yeah. I mean, I can tell you in terms of redemption the cost per click is like 10% of what it was before.

In terms of redemption, in B2C the redemption is always going to be a little bit lower but we know that roughly, and also you have to look at the time as well, the time period when you offer this to someone.

But we’re looking at around 30%, 25 to about 30% redemption on these codes.

We have noticed the redemption is higher than it was before, as well. So if we sent someone to a landing page, I’m almost embarrassed to say we used to send them to a landing page to get a code because it sounds so dumb …

Kathleen: So 1980s.

Moby: Yeah, right? But that was probably around 15% so they’re a little bit higher and I think that’s because they get it higher. And if the average order value of, I don’t know, I guess a meal is $30/$40, that does represent a significant windfall for this client who’s able to get the cost per click down by 10% so you can get 10 times more leads in.

Kathleen: For less money.

Moby: They’re getting … Yeah so whatever the difference between 15% and … So 10% more redemption as well. That’s significant. In terms of how many, I don’t know because I don’t have that value.

Kathleen: I was gonna say, I can’t do that math. I understand it but I can’t do the math ’cause I’m a marketer. But it’s definitely meaningful.

That’s so interesting and it sounds like it’s a fairly not super complicated thing to implement if you have something like a MobileMonkey.

Moby: Yes, yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Kathleen: Very, very interesting, definitely something that I would like to test out. I’m gonna be pursuing you for more information on how you’re doing the comment to Messenger, so we’ll see what we can find out there.

Kathleen’s Two Questions

Kathleen: Before we have to wrap up, I have two questions I always ask all of my guests, and I would love to know your answer to each of them.

The first one is company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now?

Moby: Company or individual who’s doing inbound marketing really well, okay.

What I do … What I have noticed is companies and individuals who don’t have anything to offer or sell are doing it the best. To give you a quick example, with our childcare client … In every industry there’s an aggregator or a directory or whatever and there’s one in our particular industry.

People can Google it, it’s not a big deal. It’s called Careforkids.com.au ’cause we’re in Australia. They don’t have anything to offer, they’re an aggregator, they’re a directory. They don’t have childcare centers or any centers at all.

Because they don’t have anything to offer, all they can offer is content. Like I always … People who are still skeptical of investing in content … Everyone knows that they need to do it, but they’re skeptical to investing to content.

I always point them to these aggregators. I’m like, “Look, they’re doing so well and you know they’re doing well because they’re trying to sell you leads. Alright? And the only thing they have to offer is the ultimate guide to childcare or an onboarding process or they’ve invested three months and $10000 to do a 40 page document. Which probably people don’t read. You’re right Mr. or Miss client. They probably don’t read but look at the authority that they’ve actually built.”

So it’s a boring example, Kathleen, but I think it’s a good example because in every industry you’ll notice these aggregators. They’re doing the best job at content marketing ’cause they have nothing else to offer.

But the proof is in the pudding. They’re selling leads back to our clients and us brands out there. So I think they’re doing a pretty good job. Sorry I don’t have an actual example.

Kathleen: So they’re basically monetizing …. No that is a good one.

Moby: Yeah, I don’t wanna say HubSpot and MobileMonkey. They all do great stuff, right? They’re putting stuff out in webinars and give, give, give et cetera without being friend zoned. But I think in every industry you’ll find aggregators and directories are doing a great marketing job.

Kathleen: No, I think that’s a really interesting observation because essentially those types of businesses are monetizing their audiences, not a product. Their audience is the product.

Moby: That’s right.

Kathleen: So to do well they have to build a big audience, and that’s basically a publisher model. That’s what publishers do, they monetize their audience. It’s just that it’s a different flavor of publisher, if you will. So I think that’s really interesting that that’s what you pointed to. That’s something that we believe in very much at IMPACT because we’ve really shifted our strategy to be more like a publisher for that very reason. I think products almost follow.

Kathleen: Joe Pulizzi wrote about this in Killing Marketing. He talked about how the best way to start a business is to actually grow an audience first and your audience will naturally tell you what the product is that they want. So that when you finally create the product, you already have the audience for it and you already have the demand for it. It’s a no brainer to make it successful.

It’s totally flipping the model on its head, but it’s kind of a fascinating idea.

Moby: Yeah, absolutely. You’re not wrong there.

Kathleen: So my second question is, and this conversation is the perfect example of it. Digital marketing changes so quickly. We just talked about bots and comment to Messenger, all this really interesting stuff that’s very kind of current. With everything changing so fast, how do you stay up to date? How do you educate yourself to make sure that you’re on top of all these latest best practices and new emerging things that you can do?

Moby: Yeah, I mean if you’re in the digital marketing sector or sphere, you have no choice. I only know this not because I’m smart but because we have a client in this space. I don’t just know these stats off the top of my head, but the world economic forum estimated by 2021, all of us, all of us, will need to do 101 days extra training. You can roughly equate that to 25 days training or learning rather, a year, right? So roughly all of us, doesn’t matter if you’re in … Forget digital marketing. That’s probably 45 days a year, right?

But all of us should be investing in 25 days per year in learning. Otherwise I think 52% of our roles are going to be obsolete. They’re saying you need to invest here because 52% of roles are going to require the skills.

Forget about what the skills are. That’s a conversation for another topic. But the point is we need to do this and the way to do it is to do something …

There’s two things. Conducive to the way you learn. So if you’re a social learner then go to events and say, “You know what? I can’t do programmatic learning, sorry programmed learning. I can’t do courses. I’m a social learner. I’m gonna try to do one every three months and learn by conversations.” Maybe audio books are good for you. Maybe videos are good for you, whatever, right? And then do it in a consistent fashion.

Now that’s the answer for people if you just wanna be okay. But to answer your question directly and sorry, Kathleen I’m going …

Kathleen: No, no, no, this is so true.

Moby: I love to blab. But if you truly wanna be the best, and this isn’t for everyone. This actually isn’t for everyone. Not everyone has the desire first or the gumption to do this, is I truly believe you have to be a content creator in digital marketing.

And I think you know this as good as I do, Kathleen. I’ve got a podcast, as well. Inbound Buzz, we’ve been running for two and a half years or so. I noticed at one point there was no more degrees I could do in my field and the podcast is my degree now. It is my “university” now. That is my …

Because everyone sees an article that they like or a something that they like on the web and they save it or they email it to themselves and they never read it. But when you have a podcast you save that at the end of the week and then you create your own commentary around it, for example.

Whether it’s a podcast or you’re more of a writer or whatever, but I think truly, truly to be … If you want to be actually world class and in the top two to five percent of your field in terms of authority and knowledge, forget authority. Knowledge. You have to be a content creator.

“If you want to be actually world class and in the top two to five percent of your field in terms of authority and knowledge, you have to be a content creator” ~ Moby Siddique

Click to Tweet this quote

Moby: For me, I took a couple of months off because some health reasons but I’m gonna get back into the swing of it in 2019.

But for me, that is it. And honestly, Kathleen, now that I haven’t done it for a couple of months after doing it consistently for two and a half years, I feel it. I feel dumber. You know what I mean?

Kathleen: It’s like when you stop exercising and you’re like, “Oh my gosh. I’m out of breath.” Yeah.

Moby: That’s right. I just feel it. I just don’t feel as sharp, you know what I mean? But when I’m doing it and I’m in flow, there’s not a conversation I can have where I feel like I can’t contribute if it’s in the world of digital marketing. Any topic, you know?

But yeah, that’s the way to do it in my opinion.

Kathleen: Absolutely could not agree more. Anyone who listens to this podcast with any degree of regularity knows that I always say I would do it even if nobody listened, which I hope that’s not the case that nobody listens. I don’t think it is.

But I would because I learn so much and I selfishly seek out guests that I think I have something to learn from. In fact one of my recent guests, Val Geisler who’s amazing, she’s this awesome email onboarding expert. She joked on the interview, she was like, “Is this a free consultation in disguise?” And I was like, “Why yes it is.”

Moby: That’s right, absolutely.

Kathleen: You know, it sort of is. It’s great, and these are all people that I would otherwise probably have no excuse to talk to unless I stalked them or something.

So I really do agree with what you said. That’s two thumbs up for podcasting.

Moby: There you go.

Kathleen: Great, well I feel like I could talk to you all day, but I know it’s getting late my time, it’s early in the day your time. You have a whole day ahead of you.

Moby: Yeah. We are in the future. We’re in the future.

Kathleen: Yeah, as we’re recording this it’s only like two days before I take off for Christmas break. So I’m feeling more stressed by the day, that I have so many presents left to buy for my family. I appreciate you taking the time at this time of year to stop and spend some time and talk with me about this. So, so interesting.

Moby: It’s been fun, Kathleen. And yeah, I think we’ll have you on, as well.

How to Contact Moby Siddique

Kathleen: Fun. I would love that. Well I appreciate it. If somebody wants to learn more about what you’re doing or even get in touch with you and ask questions about what you just talked about, what’s the best way for them to find you online?

Moby: Probably LinkedIn. All the other channels, a lot of them are automated. Half the time it’s not even me putting out content. Probably the best place is LinkedIn. I’m very … I interact there a lot and yeah, most of my stuff I do on LinkedIn.

Kathleen: Great. And I’ll put a link to your LinkedIn in the show notes for anyone who’s curious about that.

You Know What To Do Next…

Kathleen: If you’re listening and you found this conversation to be valuable or if you learned something new, please leave a review for the podcast in Apple Podcasts or the platform of your choice.

If you know somebody else, as always, doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me at Work Mommy Work because they could be the next person I interview.

Thanks so much, Moby.

Moby: Thank you, Kathleen, love what you’re doing. Cheers.

Kathleen: Thanks. So much fun.

Want to stay updated when the podcast is released?

Drop us your name and email address below and we’ll send you the show notes every Monday!

Five Web Marketing Strategies for Corporate Law Firms

Posted on February 12, 2019 by mytechmanager_njccno

Every business law office requires a strong online existence to be successful, which indicates marketing groups at those practices require to offer their managers strongly. They ought to make list building a leading concern in 2019 by utilizing a persona-based design that’’ s enhanced for regional online search engine. Online marketers at abroad companies should put in additional work to keep and comprehend linguistic subtleties customer info personal in the age of GDPR. That’’ s a lot to manage, however these 5 web marketing pointers will guarantee order in the online court this year.

.Take the Lead.

In any organisation, list building is an important method to bring in brand-new leads and develop relationships with them. It’’ s a specifically crucial ability in the delicate environment of the courtroom. Customers need to feel at ease from the minute they log onto the company site. The homepage needs to include expert images and official headshots to reveal the workplace takes its work seriously.

Make sure to center instructional product on the website in case possible leads are looking for a lawyer for the very first time. That suggests consisting of both basic legal details and particular case research studies that reveal the practice’’ s effective outcomes and knowledge .

Firms ought to likewise get info about their customers through marketing automation tools like chatbots, which boost lead quality and amount by examining what users take in and feeding them comparable material. Artificial intelligence applications can make use of predictive analytics to prepare for customer inquiries and reveal the workplace is prepared to manage any legal concern that comes its method 2019.

. Provide the Website a Persona. When doing service online, #ppppp> A design is as essential as material.A lot of sites still utilize a direct style, where pages are broken down into subcategories, homepages, and entries. This year it will be more reliable to utilize a cyclical, persona-based design that ’ s much easier to browse and integrates associated subjects.

A’mix of marketing and design, this interactive and easy to use design concentrates on customer issues and options instead of internal structures. It leverages thought-leadership material that resolves particular discomfort points in the customer ’ s journey.

Lawyers can support this message on the company ’ s blog site by weighing in on pertinent subjects and integrating calls to action (CTAs) that enable customers to register for e-mail lists. Typically, lawyers get a 4,400% ROI from e-mail marketing and brand name storytelling, so it ’ s an extremely efficient method to create interest.

. Keep Things Local in Search.

Persona-based websites not just look prettier and provide much better details, however they likewise get greater positioning on online search engine. A lot of customers just think about services on the very first page of Google. 55% of all clicks go to one of the very first 3 search outcomes. Law workplaces that wish to remain in this group requirement to establish a constant, localized search method for 2019 and beyond.

Services like Google My Business ( GMB) pull names, addresses, and telephone number from websites, so that details requires to be appropriate online. Usage regional SEO to make sure the practice is at the top of both search and map outcomes for questions like , “ accident attorneys near me. ”

Another crucial tool is pay-per-click( PPC ) advertisements, which appear at the top of Google and are shown on partner sites. They ’ re just released after an individual look for something, which suggests that anybody who sees a PPC for a law office is actively looking for a lawyer.

These advertisements can likewise be remarketed , so possible customers who currently checked out the workplace site or provided contact details through a CTA can discover much more. Pressing that material out a 2nd time is an excellent method to seal the offer.

. Get Rid Of Language Barriers with Tech.

While the majority of the workplace ’ s work will likely originate from the area, effective law practices ought to likewise charm global and nationwide customers this year.One essential however less talked about element of this includes language. When getting in markets with various linguistic customs, companies need to take local subtleties into account. While the word “ attorney ” is typical in the U.S., terms like “ lawyer ” are more regularly utilized in the U.K. “

”.

But lawyers wear ’ t requirement to read dictionaries themselves: there are a number of tech developments that can do the work for them. AI tools like ROSS help with legal research study by equating viewpoints into plainlanguage that finest serves the users in a specific location.

The speech acknowledgment engine Nuance and it’s software application, Dragon, likewise utilize device finding out to examine 20 various English dialects and 66 foreign languages. These services guarantee that if an individual from outdoors America needs legal services from a U.S. company, the attorney and customer will comprehend each other.

. Focus on Privacy.

Language isn ’ t the only possible misstep with abroad customers. Any company that does worldwide company needs to concentrate on avoiding information breaches and abiding by GDPR .

While this personal privacy law forces services to carry out continuous security checks, the real requirements for those assessments are rather broad. GDPR just requireds that business take “ suitable ” action to secure personal privacy, which method differs depending upon just how much information attorneys utilize.

But bad stars are getting more advanced, which suggests every law workplace requires to prepare no matter their information routines. If a hack takes place, lawyers need to safeguard delicate details” and stay certified with existing policies. They require to inform users of a breach rapidly and detail the company ’ s action with assistance from police. Any company that lags in finding out a technique will wind up rushing.

Corporate law marketing groups require to be wise about funneling leads, utilizing a persona-based site design, and enhancing regional search. They should likewise customize language for global’customers and make certain information collection adheres to GDPR requirements. The work isn ’ t simple, however companies that face these concerns head-on will flourish and make it through in 2019.

The post Five Web Marketing Strategies for Corporate Law Firms appeared initially on Law Technology Today .

5 Lightning Fast Ways To Create Stellar Blog Content

Posted on February 12, 2019 by mytechmanager_njccno

I know your type…

You’re just like me. You want fast ways to create blog content—and you don’t have all day to do it.

You’re busy!

But even though you have limited time, you still want to create great content for 3 big reasons…

Keep your email list happy and warm (nothing keeps a list warm like good content)
Make offers from within the content (Native advertising style)
Retarget visitors to your content with relevant offers (More on this here)

Well, I won’t waste any more of your time with this introduction—I know you’re in a hurry.

Here’s 5 fast ways to create blog content your audience will love…

1. The Embed Reactor

This post is dead simple, but the content is fantastic.

Go to YouTube, Facebook, or any other social site and search for a high-quality video from an authority in your niche.

Then, embed it on your blog.

Below the video—write an analysis or a reaction to the video.

HubSpot used that strategy for this post…

Read the entire post here.

After a brief introduction, the post just shows clips from YouTube video ads and then follows them up with a short analysis of why each one is effective.

The cool thing about this strategy is that it gives you something to write about. And as long as you add something meaningful to the content in the video, the video can actually make up the bulk of your post!

And that makes this an extremely fast way to create new blog content.

2. The Content Aggregator

The Content Aggregator is so darn simple because you aren’t creating any of the content.

You’re simply aggregating great content from around the web.

This post works great when creating a list post, like this one from Unbounce:

The post shows snippets from well-designed landing pages, followed by a little bit of text explaining what makes each page effective.

See the entire post here.

This is another strategy that allows you to leverage someone else’s content, making it a fast way to create a blog post. Unbounce didn’t create any of these landing pages—they just found 20 great examples, aggregated them, analyzed them, and linked to the original sources.

That last point (linking to the original source) is a biggie. Make sure you are giving credit where it is due—link back to the source.

(BTW, did you notice that this post you’re reading right now is sort of an aggregator post? Obviously, there is original content, but many of the examples we’re referring to are blog posts created by other people.)

(NOTE: Before you get started, you need to know who your ideal customer is, where they are, and what they will buy. Download our FREE proven Customer Avatar Worksheet now and get clear on who you’re selling to.)

3. The Interview Post

This post type needs little explanation, except to say that you would be shocked at the level of expert that will agree to do an interview with you.

Ask an A-list expert to write you an article and they’ll laugh in your face.

But ask them for an interview, and you might be surprised by the answer.

There’s a big difference between asking an expert to write you something and asking them for an interview—it’s an ego thing.

Here’s an interview post we did with Dennis Yu, CTO of BlitzMetrics and an expert on Facebook marketing:

In this particular case, the interview was conducted via video and then transcribed for the blog post.

But you can also conduct an interview post by simply emailing the questions to your guest. They’ll reply back with their answers, which you can use to craft your article.

PRO TIP: The easiest way to get a busy expert to agree to an interview is via recorded audio over the telephone. They don’t have to write anything. They don’t need a webcam. They don’t even need to comb their hair. You can then take that audio and have it transcribed or converted into a text interview… or you can simply put it on your blog in audio format.

4. The Quote Post

I love the quote post because, once again, it leverages the authority of outside experts while creating outstanding content for your audience.

Pick a topic and find relevant quotes from authorities and arrange them together.

As a bonus, you could write a reaction or analysis of that quote—but it’s not necessary.

Here’s an example of a post made from blogging quotes…

Read the full post here.

Also, notice how each quote is both written out and portrayed in an image. This helps beef up the post and make it look a little more substantial.

The Quote Post can work great as an infographic as well.

Here’s an example of an infographic post made from 10 inspirational writing quotes:

See the full post here.

Organizing your post as an infographic takes a little extra time, but infographics tend to get a lot of social shares and can bring even more traffic to your site.

(Make sure to include your brand name and URL on the infographic itself. That way, if anyone embeds the image on their own site, visitors will still be able to find you.)

5. The Crowdsourced Post

This is one of my favorite ways to create fantastic blog content quickly.

The idea here is to tap into a network of experts or colleagues that can give you their response to a single question. Then, pull the answers together into a single article.

Here’s how to get it done…

Create a quick email that looks something like this and send it to between 5–20 experts or colleagues:

“Dear Russ,

I’ve always been a big fan of yours and I’d like to get my audience access to your way of thinking.

I promise it won’t take more than 10 minutes of your time.

I’m creating an article for my personal finance blog about getting through college without racking up a huge amount of debt and I’d love to get your take.

Could you answer the following question in 3–5 sentences?

‘What is the #1 mistake a college goer makes that lands them in crippling debt after graduation, and how could they avoid it?’

I’ve already got an answer from [RECOGNIZABLE EXPERT or COLLEAGUE] and I’d love to incorporate your answer into this article as well.

I would be truly honored if you would participate.

~ Your name”

There’re a few things I want to point out about this email script.

Feel free to tweak the copy to fit your circumstances and the relationship you have with this expert or colleague
Send this email personally
If you don’t know them well, be sure to flatter them in the beginning and let them know they’ll be getting access to your audience
Ask them 1 question about which you know they’ll have an opinion
If you’ve got other experts or colleagues on board (particularly recognizable ones) be sure to mention that in the email. No one likes to be the first one on the dance floor.
When you get a reply that indicates interest, thank them and give them a deadline that is 3 to 5 days in the future. Follow up with them the day before and the day of the deadline.

Then, repeat. Send this email to as many experts as you like—I recommend 5–20.

Lastly, pull the answers from these experts into a single post.

At the end of last year, we got 17 digital marketing experts to give us their predictions on how digital marketing was going to change in the coming year. Then we turned that into a big Crowdsourced Post:

Read the full post here.

The beautiful thing about the Crowdsourced post is the amount of social sharing you’ll get from these experts. If you notify them when the article goes live via Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc…. they will share it.

If you do it right, you’ll have an outstanding article full of expert opinions that you can put together by sending a few emails.

I love all 5 of these post types because they are a win/win/win…

You win because you didn’t have to spend hours creating a blog post that will keep your list warm, lead readers to an offer, and build your retargeting audiences.
Your audience wins because they get a great piece of content
The expert wins because you embedded their YouTube video, linked to them, interviewed them, or quoted them.

Go forth busy entrepreneur and put these blog post ideas to work for you.

The only thing left to figure out is how you’ll spend all that extra time.

The post 5 Lightning Fast Ways To Create Stellar Blog Content appeared first on DigitalMarketer.