I was reading my Facebook feed and a US based content marketer of my acquaintance posted this request.
“OK, we write blog posts every month for a beach client. We’ve been writing for him for several years and the team is getting a little brain dead trying to drum up fresh ideas. Would love your help. They are a family-friendly vacation rental company (houses for a week, no weekends). Please leave your brilliant suggestions below & thanks!”
I couldn’t resist the challenge – but first, I started to read the answers she’d already garnered from her community.
What did I find out?
That there are a ton of creative folks whose minds are happy to help out when asked.
And so instead of stunning you with my amazing insight, I’m going to reproduce below the long list of suggestions made about what content to write about for a beach client. And show you how you can adapt and learn from this list for your own business content marketing.
How to use this content insight for your business
First, print out this article onto paper (old-fashioned, but helpful for this exercise).
Pick up a writing instrument (mine’s a fountain pen with liquid ink).
Draw two columns alongside the list of articles.
Go though the list and in the first column write down the underlying theme of the article title.
Then in the second column write down what an equivalent theme would be for your business.
Lastly, brainstorm 3-5 topic titles for each theme you write down for your business.
Have you got over one year’s worth of content already?
Here’s how to make the most of your archive and to lock good content into strong keywords and hashtags that convert.
The goal of content marketing is to get your website found, your brand recognised and aligned with the reasons people buy from you. Creative Agency Secrets does local marketing. I have many local marketing keyword phrase-laden articles on our website. So when the local “grease monkey” in Pukekohe (don’t try to pronounce that if you’re not fluent in Maori) searched online for a local marketing agency, we showed up in the list, he called us; we’re meeting on Friday. This is a marketing tactic that works and starts dialogue. And you can do it.
But if you think that ‘build-it-and-they-will-come’ is the tactic, you’re wrong.
You must understand why people buy, what attracts them and then double down on the tactics and topics that already work for you.
Get canny with advanced content marketing
Make a keyword theme map with a few hundred keywords you’re probably not targeting. The keywords should dictate the content you write. Use an independent, non-Google, non-Bing keyword discovery tool like SBI (we have an account and can do this for you).
Now you have that keyword theme map, which of the keywords are on page 2 of search results that could benefit from relevant, internal backlinks on your site?
Also, does your business-model actually need new content? What does any single, new piece of content do for the business? Instead, how about focusing on the 20% of content that is already producing results and instead of writing more – promote that content more aggressively?
Re-purpose the content that converts and share each piece more often also put it into every format (i.e. image square, image rectangle, video, audio, cinemagraph, infographic, ebook, slideshow, podcast guest) to maximise both its impact and its re-useability.
If the location is a very small place that is not overly commercial use the social content which is already being shared by visitors by searching “nearby” or local name hashtags. The smart folks at from Socialize.co.nz demonstrated this to the Paeroa Chamber of Commerce members. They brought up content on social media that tourists and visitors were sharing. This already had the place name tagged on photos and other socially shared content. If local business owners re-shared that content, while tagging each other, they could build up some serious momentum around the town name on social media. And all this without creating any original content at all.
So thanks to Karen, she has helped us write your masterclass on advanced content marketing.
46 Content Article Suggestions for a Beach Client
What to pack (by season, by age of child, when Grandma is staying)
Activities for road trips
Kid friendly restaurants/ attractions
Road trip checklist to make sure your vehicle is road ready
Beach fashion
What to do when the weather is less than perfect
First aid tips
Disaster relief while on vacation at the beach
Books to read on a beach
Local beach walks
Easy meals
Meals using local ingredients and where to buy them
Newest spots to check out this year… There are always new restaurants opening
A feature on Oregon inlet fishing charters… My next door neighbor will be on the newest edition of wicked tuna, on fishin’ frenzy.
The history of the area is also very interesting… And there are a wide array of topics, from casinos to shipwrecks, to boat building.
The different types of architecture you can find out here is neat, too… Flat top houses (there is a tour each year), nags head style cottages (what do each of the different ornamental elements on them mean?), life saving stations, etc
Beach nourishment is coming to the northernmost beaches this year, too. What is beach nourishment? They are dredging sand from the ocean and pumping it onto the beach to widen them.
Top reasons people didn’t go to the beach, but should have
How to make the best sand castles
Top 5 reasons not to bury a sibling in the sand
Food that goes best with sandy fingers
Beat the heat with these 3 things
How to avoid sand spurs
Top 3 things kids really want in a beach vacation
Top 3 things adults really want in a beach vacatio,
Don’t leave___ until you have eaten the____
What NOT to do when you’re at the beach (leave the work and technology at home)
What to do when you want to sit on the beach and your spouse doesn’t
Fun stuff off the beaten path
Volunteer options when you’re staying at the beach (relax and do good at the same time)
Best place to get coupons to save money on local attractions
Do this, not that (places to go, places to avoid, etc.)
Top movies to watch on netflix while you’re at the beach
How to tell if you shouldn’t wear a bikini or speedos
Top reasons to visit in seasons other than summer. There are lots of events in the spring and fall
Sea glass and shells are best found in the winter months
The Secret to finding the best shells and sea glass
Best places to take your kids out to eat
Which restaurants are best for a date night
Art projects for the beach
10 things to bring with if driving to save $$
What to do in the rain
Playing card games for 5-8 year olds
Camps or other activities they can do
Fun community activities if you want to meet others
Where to shop for food
Best source of local restaurant discounts
No related posts.
https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/light-bulb-984551_960_720.jpg540960Rebecca Caroehttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgRebecca Caroe2017-03-08 17:09:502017-03-10 15:19:02A Masterclass In Content Marketing - When You’re Out Of Ideas.
In the world of Digital Marketing, there is a constant need for innovation to stay ahead of competitors and create the next novel experience in order to sell to customers. We saw it first with the use of email marketing communications in the 90s which was a bandwagon – everyone jumped on board and our in-boxes got swamped with newsletter.
Nowadays there are a plethora of services available to the digitally savvy, but how effective are they, and are they likely to oust the tried and tested methods?
So our thesis is that email newsletter subscriptions are falling because we get too many of them. EdgeRank removes the free postings by businesses on Facebook and Twitter is too crowded.
BUT people want high quality content.
So how can we deliver content from our website without using a newsletter or social media?
To answer this question, let’s look at a relatively new service to enter the market, Push Notifications –and how they compare to our most powerful channel at present, the good old fashion email/newsletter subscriber list.
So before we go any further, what exactly are Push Notifications?
Push notifications are simply alerts that pop up on your computer or mobile, on demand when the publisher releases something of interest to you.
“Hmm well this sounds kind of invasive though…“
I hear you. Pop-ups generally are annoying and frustrating, however these alerts only appear when you opt in to the list. A cookie is placed in your browser and each time the publisher wants to send out a notification, every browser containing that specific cookie receives the alert, regardless of whether they are browsing the web or not. In some ways they are less invasive than the hassle of having to enter your contact details to download an eBook.
To find out if Push Notifications were a worthy substitute or indeed even a necessary supplement to our tried and tested marketing methods, we asked ourselves the following questions:
Are consumers growing weary of newsletters and email marketing?
I recently unsubscribed from at least 5 different brands’ emails because of the constant bombardment of marketing material. If others are finding themselves doing the same, does that pose a risk to the future of email marketing communications? And if so, are Push Notifications a smarter way to engage?
Are people still interested in content?
The old adage that ‘content is king’ may have held weight in the past, but do customers actually want to receive endless articles and information related to products they might purchase? With every brand under the sun fighting for your attention as a consumer, how much is too much?
My answer is yes. Emphatically. Good content gets liked, shared and commented upon.
Will people actually engage with these invasive interruptions?
My initial thoughts are yes, if used sparingly. Too much of anything can be bad. I feel the key to making the most out of Push Notifications is moderation. Subscribers aren’t going to respond well to being pestered several times a day while they browse the web. But they may be interested in what’s been going on if it is restricted to once a week, for example. Similar to SMS notifications, users must interact with the push notification in order to view it or close it. Compare this with email, where readers can simply delete, filter, file or ignore without having to open the message at all. Push notifications by-pass this barrier to opening email by displaying the message title straight away.
You have to respond one way or another!
Would Push subscribers never have joined the email list anyway?
Perhaps. Even if there is no clear preference for one over the other, having both allows your brand to capture your audience’s attention in a medium that works for them. Without having to provide an email address, we may never know who has opted in to Push Notifications, which makes communicating outside of Push challenging unless we can cross-match against other subscriber actions.
With email and push running simultaneously, which one performs better?
We ran Push Notifications for the second half of February on a client website.Our provider of choice was OneSignal – a service that promises to remain free forever! An interesting claim, but what’s the REAL cost? I suspect Edward Snowden would fall off his стул (chair) in frustration – let’s save it for another day.
Results from Push Notifications test
At the beginning of February, we had 5,334 email subscribers. At the end of the month, that figure had risen to 5,426 – a gain of 92 subscribers.
Push Notifications began on February 15th. Two weeks later we had 63 push subscribers.
Our Push Notifications were promoting the same material as our emails, so which one performed better?
Our blog article “Plan, Develop and Write – Content Training Workshop” was published on both. The newsletter received a respectable open rate of 30% and a Click Through Rate (CTR) of 1.4%. The Push Notification received a surprising CTR of 21.43%!
The Push list is much smaller than the email list; that is a significant difference.
This was obviously only one campaign and we have not yet built up a data set large enough to draw significant conclusions.
So do we think Push could supersede email? Well the jury is still out on that one, we’ll continue to test them both and come back with our conclusions in the future.
In the mean time, what do you think about Push?
No related posts.
https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/webpushnotifications.jpg330520Creative Agency Secrets Teamhttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgCreative Agency Secrets Team2017-03-02 17:06:532017-03-30 15:10:41Push Notifications: Is this the death of email newsletters?
Marketing Assistant specialising in Digital Marketing and Copywriting.
Creative Agency Secrets provides digital marketing services for brands and businesses. We are a leading agency innovating with marketing techniques like social media, community building, direct response and advanced blogging.
Working with us you will learn how to run a website, ecommerce shop, blog, email marketing, database management and social media marketing.
This position is suited to an applicant with 1+ year experience in a similar role who wants to accelerate their learning and move up towards being a Marketing Manager.
An interest in the internet is essential and a marketing, communications, business studies degree is optional. Some prior knowledge of websites, blogs and online marketing is needed. Excellent written communication is required and a writing test in English will be part of the application.
Send your CV and one page describing an event you ran (party, event, gig, trip to the beach etc) what you did to market and promote it. Include a list of the tools and techniques you used, what worked and what didn’t work and the outcomes.
This is a full time job based at our Eden Terrace offices. Pay is from $40,000 per annum plus 20 days holiday.
The age of Artificial Intelligence is here and it’s powering up the simplest things in our daily lives. In a nutshell, Machine Learning is the science of giving computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. Kinda like showing it pictures of kittens until it creates enough patterns to identify another kitten by itself from new images. It’s very similar to how our human brains learn while we are kids. A few companies already have this type of technology running (and evolving by the second), like Facebook and Google. Every day we input more and more content online as check-ins at favourite restaurants, search queries for hotels for our next vacation, pictures with friends and peers. The list goes on.
Big Brother is watching and he can help sell your stuff
This is a bit of a futurology exercise, I know. But don’t get it confused with any supernatural nonsensery, I’m certainly not writing this article on an Ouija board. It’s pure (computer) science that you don’t have to understand completely, just harvest its potential.
Taking advantage of the massive quantity of data stored online is incredibly useful to pinpoint your target audience, facilitating conversions. Because we blindly “agreed to the terms and conditions” of most online services, social media platforms can freely record information and trace it back to your profile for future use. In a world where virtually everyone is connected 24/7, this is actually a cool thing from the marketing perspective (if you ignore the obvious user privacy issues of having every move tracked online).
Ever noticed how Facebook shows (mostly) spot on sponsored content on your timeline? By analysing everything you like and share, Facebook creates a detailed persona of each user to target ads in the best way possible. And it’s not only what you do on the platform, they can track your footprint in other websites thanks to their Facebook Pixel.
Machine Learning helps predict your client’s future actions
As you probably know, we humans are creatures of habit, which makes recording our behaviour a simple task to the machines. Knowing that, Amazon and Netflix have mastered how to give the best “related products” suggestions you can find online. Their state of the art database is taking advantage of Machine Learning to predict your next clicks offering highly tailored content. Forget one-size-fits-all. To thrive in the current market, companies must pay attention to User Experience like never before.
A simpler (and free) way to implement something a lot less fancy as that is two tools called Content Analytics and Heat Maps, both part of the SumoMe suite. They record data of how far down your readers are getting in your articles and what links are generating more clicks on your pages. With this information, you can make very good educated guesses regarding what’s working and what to change on your website. This is not the “machine learning” approach, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
Forget that “beep-boop” bullsh*t R2-D2 has been feeding us for decades
Artificial Intelligence is also being used to write texts without human supervision. For example, the biggest Wikipedia contributor, Sverker Johansson, with more than 2.7 million articles published, is actually using a bot called Lsjbot to create all content.
If you think it would be obvious to differentiate between human or computer generated articles, think again. According to a study from Karlstad University, Sweden, “the readers are not able to discern automated content from content written by a human“. The researchers used two sports articles (these tend to be more factual and analytical) one written by a journalist and another by a software previously called Statsheet (now called Wordsmith). Big media outlets as Los Angeles Times and Forbes already use similar technology as a base for some articles, with humans later improving the content before they hit publish.
And what if I told you that the previous paragraph wasn’t actually written by me, but by software?
Well, I would be lying.
But for one second you actually thought about the possibility, right? Welcome to the future.
Get creative, experiment, innovate
And how can you take advantage of this in your business? There are a few services (like the IBM Watson) that offer the power of “computer minds” to businesses.
One experiment that I believe is worth the try is applying “robot talk” to your images SEO. Using a free tool like Microsoft’s CaptionBot you can let their machines determine the Alt tag for your image in your website. With Google giving more autonomy to RankBrain and relying more upon machine learning to deliver the best search results, it’s not about how you describe an image anymore. It’s how the machines see it.
No related posts.
https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning.jpg456810Creative Agency Secrets Teamhttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgCreative Agency Secrets Team2017-02-16 17:05:082022-12-19 11:57:21Machine Learning Impact on the Future of Content and SEO
Low prices and stellar customer service will not make up for poor marketing. Though each industry is different, these tips are universal for entrepreneurs to make it easy for prospective customers to reach them.
Open Up the Lines of Communication
Even the greatest small business is only as successful as its ability to engage and communicate with prospective customers. Finding the best toll free number for business can be a great place to start. These are time-tested lines that allow for customization, ease of marketing, and a complimentary option for people trying to reach a company. In addition to a dedicated phone number, social media sites and applications are important places for a robust online presence. Many people now communicate almost exclusively through these channels, so being accessible and responsive here could result in new leads and loyal customers in the future.
Understand What Your Customers Demand
Each unique industry comes with its own demands and complexities. Beyond that, different regions have specific challenges impacting the ways in which business can be conducted. Perhaps the most important variable, however, involves what it is a company’s customers actually want. Through feedback, surveys, or some other metric, savvy entrepreneurs are constantly monitoring whether they are providing exactly the experience that their clientele is requesting. If one business falls short, those customers are sure to start shopping around for another option more closely aligned with their desires. Of course, it is impossible for any endeavor to please everyone at all times. Coming as close as possible to checking all the boxes, though, is a great way to remain in an advantageous position for the future.
Identify Key Industry Trends
Since tastes, technology, and much more are constantly evolving, it is vital for any business owner to know precisely what competitors can offer above and beyond the standard fare. Whatever the industry, there are likely multiple factors at play in any given time period. Make sure not to neglect any significant improvements in speed, quality, or cost. Maintaining the best product or service for the fairest price around are the quintessential standards of quality and long-lasting business model.
Much planning and research goes into launching any successful small business. As all entrepreneurs know, however, the hard work does not stop on opening day. Instead, new obstacles arise and must be cleared by those tasked with keeping the operation afloat. Remembering the three tips outlined above can take some of the guesswork out of this nonstop pursuit.
No related posts.
https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpg00Rebecca Caroehttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgRebecca Caroe2017-02-05 13:27:492020-02-05 13:29:40Here Are 3 Ways You Can Make It Easier For Customers to Find and Contact Your Small Business
You have a product or service, and create fantastic content, but you’re receiving no engagement. Without clients or consumers, your business will be stagnant. Boosting traffic to your website is the key to building a community and, ultimately, gaining new clients.
Don’t expect conversions overnight. You’ll need a solid and consistent marketing strategy to open the flow of traffic. There’s no single tactic that will be completely effective. Instead, multiple tactics, implemented together, will give you a significant influx of new viewers. These five strategies will increase your website engagement and help you build a loyal community.
1. Link-Building
Google loves links. Implementing quality links through-out your content will help it rank higher on search results. Also, if your website is linked via an external source, it will boost your rank on search and raise your authority as a site. It can take time to reach out to other online sources and convince them to link your website on their page. Consider using a link building service to do it for you and see a massive increase in relevant traffic to your site.
2. Use Social Media
Social Media is one of the most valuable marketing tools you have at your disposal. The best part is, it’s totally free and relatively straightforward to use. Connect with your target audience using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
Join Facebook groups in your niche and engage with the community. Don’t be spammy but offer up your website as a resource at appropriate times. You can use hashtags on Instagram to locate people who are interested in your product or service. Engage with them by following and liking their content, which will encourage them to check out yours as well.
3. Advertise
Using ad platforms is a great way to get your website in front of your target audience. Google Ads and Facebook Ads are both comprehensive platforms to launch your advertising from. You can choose which demographic you’d like to target, which will deliver a better return on investment. The ads will only appear to those people who are most likely to engage with your content and brand. Yes, you’ll need to spend a bit of money on advertising, but it’s a surefire way to boost your traffic quickly.
4. Use SEO
Optimizing your website and content for online search is essential to driving traffic your way. Search relevant keywords to determine what your target audience is searching for. Then, integrate them into your content so you’ll rank in search engines.
Use relevant keywords in headlines, subtitles, image descriptions, etc., to see the most benefit. SEO is a bit of a rabbit-hole, but learn the basics to make your content relevant to your niche.
5. Create an Engaging & User-Friendly Website
How many times have you arrived on a website that’s bland, confusing, word-heavy, etc. and left straight away? Design your website with your consumer in mind. It should be visually stimulating, with fonts that are easy to read, and have a balance of written and visual content. It should look attractive, organized, and represent your brand. Make sure it’s user-friendly and easy to navigate around. Confusion will lead your potential customer to click off the site as quickly as they clicked on.
No related posts.
https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpg00Rebecca Caroehttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgRebecca Caroe2017-02-05 13:12:182023-03-24 18:06:005 Ways to Boost Traffic to your Website
Direct mail is a highly effective marketing technique that delivers sales revenue in a short time frame.
Some direct mail is poorly conceived and so does not achieve its potential.
[WARNING – this is not always true].
Printed direct mail promoting a printer
I received three mailers from a printing firm which serve as a great example of a campaign that could have been much more effective with some pre-planning working with an expert in direct mail campaign structure such as us.
Direct Mail campaign structure
Using a mailing list of marketing agencies, three print pieces of DM were posted out.
The copy promoted “digital by nature” and a new world of digital printing.
The positives
Each card had a number to show where it came in the sequence
Each one showed different paper colours front and back
Each card had the print specifications for the front and back detailed which was cute
All print was beautifully executed
The 3rd card showed how to set up artwork to work with digital White Toner
The 4th card showed how to set up artwork to work with digital Clear Toner
The negatives
I did not receive the first card so the campaign opener was lost
My agency does not buy print or do graphic design, we are not a good prospect for this service
When I first visited there wasn’t a mention of the campaign on the homepage, there is now.
This goes to a landing page which has the wrong link in the contact us button.
Wrong link – testing would have showed this up
How I would have improved the campaign
Combined telephone canvassing with direct mail
Checked the database by phone first asking one question “Do you design for print?”
This would have reduced the downstream print and mailing costs, focused the campaign
Published a landing page URL on the collateral
Tested all the links so the contact us URL was correct (it currently references the same page it’s on)
Included a “behind the scenes” video to show the inside track of the skill Valley Print used to create the mailers and the challenges they faced e.g. printing white on black for the envelope
Used a courier delivery not NZ Post to improve delivery success
This is particularly important for a posted print direct mail series
Followed up by phone with
an invitation to watch the video
stay in touch
subscribe to news updates
further qualify for future work opportunities
This would have built a mailing list, fully up to date and ready for in-house new business sales team to continue to work in the coming months
Planned follow up campaigns including more of the excellent tutorials for designers
Ready to talk direct mail with us?
Give us your challenge and let the creative team loose!
No related posts.
https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/IMG_6999.jpg20161512Rebecca Caroehttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgRebecca Caroe2017-02-02 10:00:002019-04-23 10:53:57Preparatory work for direct mail lowers costs
A Masterclass In Content Marketing – When You’re Out Of Ideas.
/0 Comments/in B2B, B2C, Content Marketing /by Rebecca CaroeI was reading my Facebook feed and a US based content marketer of my acquaintance posted this request.
“OK, we write blog posts every month for a beach client. We’ve been writing for him for several years and the team is getting a little brain dead trying to drum up fresh ideas. Would love your help. They are a family-friendly vacation rental company (houses for a week, no weekends). Please leave your brilliant suggestions below & thanks!”
I couldn’t resist the challenge – but first, I started to read the answers she’d already garnered from her community.
What did I find out?
That there are a ton of creative folks whose minds are happy to help out when asked.
And so instead of stunning you with my amazing insight, I’m going to reproduce below the long list of suggestions made about what content to write about for a beach client. And show you how you can adapt and learn from this list for your own business content marketing.
How to use this content insight for your business
Have you got over one year’s worth of content already?
Here’s how to make the most of your archive and to lock good content into strong keywords and hashtags that convert.
The goal of content marketing is to get your website found, your brand recognised and aligned with the reasons people buy from you. Creative Agency Secrets does local marketing. I have many local marketing keyword phrase-laden articles on our website. So when the local “grease monkey” in Pukekohe (don’t try to pronounce that if you’re not fluent in Maori) searched online for a local marketing agency, we showed up in the list, he called us; we’re meeting on Friday. This is a marketing tactic that works and starts dialogue. And you can do it.
But if you think that ‘build-it-and-they-will-come’ is the tactic, you’re wrong.
You must understand why people buy, what attracts them and then double down on the tactics and topics that already work for you.
Get canny with advanced content marketing
Make a keyword theme map with a few hundred keywords you’re probably not targeting. The keywords should dictate the content you write. Use an independent, non-Google, non-Bing keyword discovery tool like SBI (we have an account and can do this for you).
Now you have that keyword theme map, which of the keywords are on page 2 of search results that could benefit from relevant, internal backlinks on your site?
Also, does your business-model actually need new content? What does any single, new piece of content do for the business? Instead, how about focusing on the 20% of content that is already producing results and instead of writing more – promote that content more aggressively?
Re-purpose the content that converts and share each piece more often also put it into every format (i.e. image square, image rectangle, video, audio, cinemagraph, infographic, ebook, slideshow, podcast guest) to maximise both its impact and its re-useability.
If the location is a very small place that is not overly commercial use the social content which is already being shared by visitors by searching “nearby” or local name hashtags. The smart folks at from Socialize.co.nz demonstrated this to the Paeroa Chamber of Commerce members. They brought up content on social media that tourists and visitors were sharing. This already had the place name tagged on photos and other socially shared content. If local business owners re-shared that content, while tagging each other, they could build up some serious momentum around the town name on social media. And all this without creating any original content at all.
So thanks to Karen, she has helped us write your masterclass on advanced content marketing.
46 Content Article Suggestions for a Beach Client
No related posts.
Push Notifications: Is this the death of email newsletters?
/4 Comments/in Case Studies, Content Marketing, Direct Marketing, Lead Generation /by Creative Agency Secrets TeamIn the world of Digital Marketing, there is a constant need for innovation to stay ahead of competitors and create the next novel experience in order to sell to customers. We saw it first with the use of email marketing communications in the 90s which was a bandwagon – everyone jumped on board and our in-boxes got swamped with newsletter.
Nowadays there are a plethora of services available to the digitally savvy, but how effective are they, and are they likely to oust the tried and tested methods?
So our thesis is that email newsletter subscriptions are falling because we get too many of them. EdgeRank removes the free postings by businesses on Facebook and Twitter is too crowded.
BUT people want high quality content.
So how can we deliver content from our website without using a newsletter or social media?
To answer this question, let’s look at a relatively new service to enter the market, Push Notifications – and how they compare to our most powerful channel at present, the good old fashion email/newsletter subscriber list.
So before we go any further, what exactly are Push Notifications?
Push notifications are simply alerts that pop up on your computer or mobile, on demand when the publisher releases something of interest to you.
“Hmm well this sounds kind of invasive though…“
I hear you. Pop-ups generally are annoying and frustrating, however these alerts only appear when you opt in to the list. A cookie is placed in your browser and each time the publisher wants to send out a notification, every browser containing that specific cookie receives the alert, regardless of whether they are browsing the web or not. In some ways they are less invasive than the hassle of having to enter your contact details to download an eBook.
To find out if Push Notifications were a worthy substitute or indeed even a necessary supplement to our tried and tested marketing methods, we asked ourselves the following questions:
Are consumers growing weary of newsletters and email marketing?
I recently unsubscribed from at least 5 different brands’ emails because of the constant bombardment of marketing material. If others are finding themselves doing the same, does that pose a risk to the future of email marketing communications? And if so, are Push Notifications a smarter way to engage?
Are people still interested in content?
The old adage that ‘content is king’ may have held weight in the past, but do customers actually want to receive endless articles and information related to products they might purchase? With every brand under the sun fighting for your attention as a consumer, how much is too much?
My answer is yes. Emphatically. Good content gets liked, shared and commented upon.
Will people actually engage with these invasive interruptions?
My initial thoughts are yes, if used sparingly. Too much of anything can be bad. I feel the key to making the most out of Push Notifications is moderation. Subscribers aren’t going to respond well to being pestered several times a day while they browse the web. But they may be interested in what’s been going on if it is restricted to once a week, for example. Similar to SMS notifications, users must interact with the push notification in order to view it or close it. Compare this with email, where readers can simply delete, filter, file or ignore without having to open the message at all. Push notifications by-pass this barrier to opening email by displaying the message title straight away.
You have to respond one way or another!
Would Push subscribers never have joined the email list anyway?
Perhaps. Even if there is no clear preference for one over the other, having both allows your brand to capture your audience’s attention in a medium that works for them. Without having to provide an email address, we may never know who has opted in to Push Notifications, which makes communicating outside of Push challenging unless we can cross-match against other subscriber actions.
With email and push running simultaneously, which one performs better?
We ran Push Notifications for the second half of February on a client website. Our provider of choice was OneSignal – a service that promises to remain free forever! An interesting claim, but what’s the REAL cost? I suspect Edward Snowden would fall off his стул (chair) in frustration – let’s save it for another day.
Results from Push Notifications test
Our Push Notifications were promoting the same material as our emails, so which one performed better?
Our blog article “Plan, Develop and Write – Content Training Workshop” was published on both. The newsletter received a respectable open rate of 30% and a Click Through Rate (CTR) of 1.4%. The Push Notification received a surprising CTR of 21.43%!
The Push list is much smaller than the email list; that is a significant difference.
This was obviously only one campaign and we have not yet built up a data set large enough to draw significant conclusions.
So do we think Push could supersede email? Well the jury is still out on that one, we’ll continue to test them both and come back with our conclusions in the future.
In the mean time, what do you think about Push?
No related posts.
Plan Develop and Write – content workshop training
/0 Comments/in Content Marketing /by Rebecca CaroeThere’s a training event run by The Online Academy coming up next Friday 3rd March in Auckland.
Learn more at The Online Business Academy – how to Plan, develop and Write content that will rock your brand.
No related posts.
We’re hiring – Marketing Assistant – Digital Marketing
/0 Comments/in Marketing /by Rebecca CaroeMarketing Assistant specialising in Digital Marketing and Copywriting.
Creative Agency Secrets provides digital marketing services for brands and businesses. We are a leading agency innovating with marketing techniques like social media, community building, direct response and advanced blogging.
Working with us you will learn how to run a website, ecommerce shop, blog, email marketing, database management and social media marketing.
This position is suited to an applicant with 1+ year experience in a similar role who wants to accelerate their learning and move up towards being a Marketing Manager.
An interest in the internet is essential and a marketing, communications, business studies degree is optional. Some prior knowledge of websites, blogs and online marketing is needed. Excellent written communication is required and a writing test in English will be part of the application.
Send your CV and one page describing an event you ran (party, event, gig, trip to the beach etc) what you did to market and promote it. Include a list of the tools and techniques you used, what worked and what didn’t work and the outcomes.
This is a full time job based at our Eden Terrace offices. Pay is from $40,000 per annum plus 20 days holiday.
No related posts.
Machine Learning Impact on the Future of Content and SEO
/27 Comments/in Marketing /by Creative Agency Secrets TeamThe age of Artificial Intelligence is here and it’s powering up the simplest things in our daily lives. In a nutshell, Machine Learning is the science of giving computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. Kinda like showing it pictures of kittens until it creates enough patterns to identify another kitten by itself from new images. It’s very similar to how our human brains learn while we are kids. A few companies already have this type of technology running (and evolving by the second), like Facebook and Google. Every day we input more and more content online as check-ins at favourite restaurants, search queries for hotels for our next vacation, pictures with friends and peers. The list goes on.
Big Brother is watching and he can help sell your stuff
This is a bit of a futurology exercise, I know. But don’t get it confused with any supernatural nonsensery, I’m certainly not writing this article on an Ouija board. It’s pure (computer) science that you don’t have to understand completely, just harvest its potential.
Taking advantage of the massive quantity of data stored online is incredibly useful to pinpoint your target audience, facilitating conversions. Because we blindly “agreed to the terms and conditions” of most online services, social media platforms can freely record information and trace it back to your profile for future use. In a world where virtually everyone is connected 24/7, this is actually a cool thing from the marketing perspective (if you ignore the obvious user privacy issues of having every move tracked online).
Ever noticed how Facebook shows (mostly) spot on sponsored content on your timeline? By analysing everything you like and share, Facebook creates a detailed persona of each user to target ads in the best way possible. And it’s not only what you do on the platform, they can track your footprint in other websites thanks to their Facebook Pixel.
Machine Learning helps predict your client’s future actions
As you probably know, we humans are creatures of habit, which makes recording our behaviour a simple task to the machines. Knowing that, Amazon and Netflix have mastered how to give the best “related products” suggestions you can find online. Their state of the art database is taking advantage of Machine Learning to predict your next clicks offering highly tailored content. Forget one-size-fits-all. To thrive in the current market, companies must pay attention to User Experience like never before.
A simpler (and free) way to implement something a lot less fancy as that is two tools called Content Analytics and Heat Maps, both part of the SumoMe suite. They record data of how far down your readers are getting in your articles and what links are generating more clicks on your pages. With this information, you can make very good educated guesses regarding what’s working and what to change on your website. This is not the “machine learning” approach, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
Forget that “beep-boop” bullsh*t R2-D2 has been feeding us for decades
Artificial Intelligence is also being used to write texts without human supervision. For example, the biggest Wikipedia contributor, Sverker Johansson, with more than 2.7 million articles published, is actually using a bot called Lsjbot to create all content.
If you think it would be obvious to differentiate between human or computer generated articles, think again. According to a study from Karlstad University, Sweden, “the readers are not able to discern automated content from content written by a human“. The researchers used two sports articles (these tend to be more factual and analytical) one written by a journalist and another by a software previously called Statsheet (now called Wordsmith). Big media outlets as Los Angeles Times and Forbes already use similar technology as a base for some articles, with humans later improving the content before they hit publish.
And what if I told you that the previous paragraph wasn’t actually written by me, but by software?
Well, I would be lying.
But for one second you actually thought about the possibility, right? Welcome to the future.
Get creative, experiment, innovate
And how can you take advantage of this in your business? There are a few services (like the IBM Watson) that offer the power of “computer minds” to businesses.
One experiment that I believe is worth the try is applying “robot talk” to your images SEO. Using a free tool like Microsoft’s CaptionBot you can let their machines determine the Alt tag for your image in your website. With Google giving more autonomy to RankBrain and relying more upon machine learning to deliver the best search results, it’s not about how you describe an image anymore. It’s how the machines see it.
No related posts.
SEO For Growth – Breakfast Training Event
/0 Comments/in Marketing /by Creative Agency Secrets TeamNo related posts.
No related posts.
Here Are 3 Ways You Can Make It Easier For Customers to Find and Contact Your Small Business
/0 Comments/in Marketing /by Rebecca CaroeLow prices and stellar customer service will not make up for poor marketing. Though each industry is different, these tips are universal for entrepreneurs to make it easy for prospective customers to reach them.
Open Up the Lines of Communication
Even the greatest small business is only as successful as its ability to engage and communicate with prospective customers. Finding the best toll free number for business can be a great place to start. These are time-tested lines that allow for customization, ease of marketing, and a complimentary option for people trying to reach a company. In addition to a dedicated phone number, social media sites and applications are important places for a robust online presence. Many people now communicate almost exclusively through these channels, so being accessible and responsive here could result in new leads and loyal customers in the future.
Understand What Your Customers Demand
Each unique industry comes with its own demands and complexities. Beyond that, different regions have specific challenges impacting the ways in which business can be conducted. Perhaps the most important variable, however, involves what it is a company’s customers actually want. Through feedback, surveys, or some other metric, savvy entrepreneurs are constantly monitoring whether they are providing exactly the experience that their clientele is requesting. If one business falls short, those customers are sure to start shopping around for another option more closely aligned with their desires. Of course, it is impossible for any endeavor to please everyone at all times. Coming as close as possible to checking all the boxes, though, is a great way to remain in an advantageous position for the future.
Identify Key Industry Trends
Since tastes, technology, and much more are constantly evolving, it is vital for any business owner to know precisely what competitors can offer above and beyond the standard fare. Whatever the industry, there are likely multiple factors at play in any given time period. Make sure not to neglect any significant improvements in speed, quality, or cost. Maintaining the best product or service for the fairest price around are the quintessential standards of quality and long-lasting business model.
Much planning and research goes into launching any successful small business. As all entrepreneurs know, however, the hard work does not stop on opening day. Instead, new obstacles arise and must be cleared by those tasked with keeping the operation afloat. Remembering the three tips outlined above can take some of the guesswork out of this nonstop pursuit.
No related posts.
5 Ways to Boost Traffic to your Website
/0 Comments/in Marketing /by Rebecca CaroeYou have a product or service, and create fantastic content, but you’re receiving no engagement. Without clients or consumers, your business will be stagnant. Boosting traffic to your website is the key to building a community and, ultimately, gaining new clients.
Don’t expect conversions overnight. You’ll need a solid and consistent marketing strategy to open the flow of traffic. There’s no single tactic that will be completely effective. Instead, multiple tactics, implemented together, will give you a significant influx of new viewers. These five strategies will increase your website engagement and help you build a loyal community.
1. Link-Building
Google loves links. Implementing quality links through-out your content will help it rank higher on search results. Also, if your website is linked via an external source, it will boost your rank on search and raise your authority as a site. It can take time to reach out to other online sources and convince them to link your website on their page. Consider using a link building service to do it for you and see a massive increase in relevant traffic to your site.
2. Use Social Media
Social Media is one of the most valuable marketing tools you have at your disposal. The best part is, it’s totally free and relatively straightforward to use. Connect with your target audience using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
Join Facebook groups in your niche and engage with the community. Don’t be spammy but offer up your website as a resource at appropriate times. You can use hashtags on Instagram to locate people who are interested in your product or service. Engage with them by following and liking their content, which will encourage them to check out yours as well.
3. Advertise
Using ad platforms is a great way to get your website in front of your target audience. Google Ads and Facebook Ads are both comprehensive platforms to launch your advertising from. You can choose which demographic you’d like to target, which will deliver a better return on investment. The ads will only appear to those people who are most likely to engage with your content and brand. Yes, you’ll need to spend a bit of money on advertising, but it’s a surefire way to boost your traffic quickly.
4. Use SEO
Optimizing your website and content for online search is essential to driving traffic your way. Search relevant keywords to determine what your target audience is searching for. Then, integrate them into your content so you’ll rank in search engines.
Use relevant keywords in headlines, subtitles, image descriptions, etc., to see the most benefit. SEO is a bit of a rabbit-hole, but learn the basics to make your content relevant to your niche.
5. Create an Engaging & User-Friendly Website
How many times have you arrived on a website that’s bland, confusing, word-heavy, etc. and left straight away? Design your website with your consumer in mind. It should be visually stimulating, with fonts that are easy to read, and have a balance of written and visual content. It should look attractive, organized, and represent your brand. Make sure it’s user-friendly and easy to navigate around. Confusion will lead your potential customer to click off the site as quickly as they clicked on.
No related posts.
Preparatory work for direct mail lowers costs
/127 Comments/in B2B, B2C, Direct Marketing, Sales /by Rebecca CaroeDirect mail is a highly effective marketing technique that delivers sales revenue in a short time frame.
Some direct mail is poorly conceived and so does not achieve its potential.
[WARNING – this is not always true].
Printed direct mail promoting a printer
I received three mailers from a printing firm which serve as a great example of a campaign that could have been much more effective with some pre-planning working with an expert in direct mail campaign structure such as us.
Direct Mail campaign structure
Using a mailing list of marketing agencies, three print pieces of DM were posted out.
The copy promoted “digital by nature” and a new world of digital printing.
The positives
The negatives
Wrong link – testing would have showed this up
How I would have improved the campaign
Ready to talk direct mail with us?
Give us your challenge and let the creative team loose!
No related posts.