linkedin

How to maximize LinkedIn and convert connections into relationships?

LinkedIn is an online professional networking platform that can be easily used by a person to create more contacts in their professional world and find interesting jobs for themselves as well. Furthermore, LinkedIn is a professional site that can be used by anybody to reach out to other companies while searching for their own interesting job or workplace.

LinkedIn is a perfect zone to expand your LinkedIn networking and help yourself reach the top by connecting with others. So, it’s important for a person to know that they should be using LinkedIn excessively to expand their contacts reach the ultimate top zone in their job, and become a huge success.

There are different ways and techniques that a person can follow to become more successful and increase their networking while building strong relationships with different people through LinkedIn. Here are some good and strong reasons that can be used by you to increase your connectivity on LinkedIn with others and build strong relationships as well, which shall lead you to success.

Creating a detailed and powerful profile is the first step that has to be done by you should be to create a detailed and full of content profile of yourself, which should show others that connecting with you would be beneficial for them as well. The more work and detail you can add about yourself in your profile, the better it would be as it would give the reader/another person more information on your background and your work history. Your profile should clearly show how much value you hold for others as well. So, start doing work and building up your CV, so that your LinkedIn profile would foreshadow how much important you would be as an asset to others and it would be good for them to connect with you.

Personalise connection requests – It’s important for you to connect with people who can help you to go ahead in your career and become more successful than before. So, you should target those people who have similar interests and are in the same field as you. So, personalise your LinkedIn connection request, so that the site connects with you the right people for you. Especially those people who will help you to move ahead in your career and advance faster towards success. Furthermore, the more you connect with people according to your benefit, the better it’ll be for you as well.

Post often and publish articles that demonstrate expertise – On LinkedIn, faster connections will be built if you are active on the site. So, you as a common user of the site should aim to publish articles that show your expertise and post other articles or stories often. This will ensure that you become an active member of the site, and then the site’s program will advertise you to others. While others will see your stories and articles often, they will be eager to connect with you as they will understand that you are a valuable and powerful asset to connect with and your connections will grow on the site.

Always Reciprocate respectfully – People should know that you are a considerate person and will help them as well. So, when people connect with you, you should follow them back. You have to show warmth and respect to grow your connections. So, whoever it might be, have a respectful conversation with them which shows the other person that you are a down-to-earth being and are a good person to connect with.

Follow other people and like their stories or articles, report them – these types of activities will show that you are an important person to be on the good side of, and people shall then connect with you rightfully while having a good image of you in their mind. This shall grow your relationships with others as well.

Overall, it can be concluded that there are many different ways and methods by which a person can grow their connections and build strong relationships on LinkedIn. Some of them were mentioned in this article such as LinkedIn networking tips, Professional networking on LinkedIn, LinkedIn profile optimisation, LinkedIn success strategies, Building strong LinkedIn connections, and Growing LinkedIn relationships, etc. This shall help a person to maximise the usage of LinkedIn and convert strong connections into good relationships while providing others with benefits as well, so to benefit from them as well.

Pratyush Mishra

instagram

How to grow organically Instagram following from 0

5 things you must do if you want to grow fast on Instagram:

1) Highly Valuable Content:

If you do not have any content nobody’s gonna follow you. If you have good content some people will follow you. But if you have Great content every second person who comes to see your page will follow you. 

Take it this way: Imagine a page where you can see just two posts and in bio written “follow me for more”, Are you gonna follow that page?

No, right? Then why would someone follow you if you don’t have any value to share with them? Share value and see your Instagram grow exponentially!

2) Optimize your bio:

Your ideal audience must understand what you do in just 10 sec when they see your page. And you can do it when you write a clear bio of what exactly you do! (What they will get on the page, how it will help them)

Use keywords of your niche so that you are searchable as well and your ideal client understand what you do and what you can help them with!

3) Engage with your followers:

You may have just 100 followers, just engage with them. Make a genuine connection with your ideal audience. Ask what they want to see more on the page. Reply to every comment and try to build a genuine relationship with your audience.

4) Story Posts:

Feed posts are great but story post helps in building the connection. You can post 1-2 stories daily to stay connected with your audience. Ask questions in your story, use polls, do everything you can to interact with your audience and build connections.

5) Consistently is the key:

I know it’s a cliche, but it’s the most important part of growing anything in life, stay Consistent, even if you do not see results, experiment, do change your content, see what’s working for you, and repeat. I have seen my page blow up when I just stayed consistent with posting and engaging with my audience. So don’t ever underestimate the power of consistency.

Shivani Verma

tiktok

How to use TikTok in Business?

TikTok is a recent social media platform that has been able to attract many people from around the world to use its platform. This social media platform has become a worldwide social media platform where billions of people exist and see different types of fantastic and unique content.

TikTok has slowly become a huge platform competing against big social media areas such as Instagram, Twitter & Facebook, etc. That’s why it is a fantastic platform where a company can sell their goods or service. It is also good to advertise as much as possible, to attract these billions of users from all around the world to their organisation.

A company should aim to create a TikTok and advertise themselves on the platform as much as possible by using different methods and trends that are going around. The company can even start their own trend to attract consumers to their product. Some of the different ways that an organisation can use to expand their business in TikTok are-

  1. Trying Different Types of Content

There are always going to be different types of trends or content going around in platforms such as TikTok to keep the audience engaged in the platform. The company can use this for their benefit and try these different trends and create different content on the site. This will help them to attract more followers on the site and also cause them to be moving towards the company’s products as well.

Doing these trends and creating content will show the audience that the company is active on the platform and will constantly becoming in front of the customers. So, they will keep knowledge of the product of the company, attracting them to the company’s product.

  1. Add music & effects to your own content

TikTok is a good place for the company to create its own different content and challenge audiences with different trends as well. This will cause the company to be able to reach the customers in friendly ways and methods, to interact with them in style and make them attracted to the company’s good or service.

Furthermore, adding music &effects will ensure that the content made is strong & powerful, so that customers are attracted to the product and help in making the company’s profit.

  1. Add Hashtags

Adding hashtags will make the trend more successful and reach out to more people. This will ensure that the content of the company reaches out to as many people as possible, so to make them attracted to the company’s goods and services. This will ensure that the sales and marketing of the product increase, leading to an increase in the customer base and increasing profit of the company.

Adding hashtags will be an awesome and amazing technique for the customers to be attracted and lead to more company’s profits.

  1. Advertise on TikTok

In the end, TikTok would be the perfect area to advertise for a company. Furthermore, a company using TikTok is the biggest advertising platform for the company, so that they can reach out to as many customers as possible.

Additionally, using this platform in different ways to foreshadow their goods or services on the customers as much as possible. Additionally, it’s important for the firms to be active on the site as well and be prepared to make profits on the site as well.

Overall, it can be stated that TikTok is an ideal platform for businesses to advertise themselves and be active on the platform. It’s important for the firms and organisations to understand to take this opportunity of branding themselves as much as possible on TikTok, so to advertise and ensure that the company reach a profitable part and reach t more customers as possible.

Pratyush Mishra

motivation

3 Aces of motivation: Neil Patel, Simon Sinek, Gary Vaynerchuk

It’s important in today’s world to understand that staying on top of your work and ensuring that you work hard in life to reach the top. This is a necessity in today’s world to be absolutely successful and make your company big. However, sometimes there are moments where you seek failure and it feels like things aren’t going your way. These are the low points when a person needs to motivation to keep moving ahead and keep trying until they achieve success.

That’s why there are people to motivate others, that’s why the journeys of someone’s success helps in motivating others. People tend to have an idol, someone who they absolutely respect and want to be like.

3 Aces of motivation

In marketing, motivation is required. People tend to forget about their long-term goals after a short-term failure and won’t feel like trying again. Furthermore, people sometimes drop the idea of pursuing their passion and take up something which is normal and not unique. Here are some examples of people to motivate you to get moving to your destiny and reach the success that you’ve always dreamt of.

Neil Patel

“Create Content that teaches. You can’t give up. You need to be consistently awesome.”

This amazing quote was told by Neil Patel. Neil Patel is known for his work in the field of marketing. Co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar & KISSmetrics, Neil Patel helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP & Viacom to grow revenues.

A critically acclaimed author as well, Neil Patel has been recognized by Wall street journal as a top influencer and Forbes states that he is one of the top 10 marketers.

Today, Neil Patel is a very big and famous person in the field or marketing, as he teaches many others marketing tactics and fundamentals. Achieving different feats like this was hard for Neil Patel.

Neil Patel also ensured that he keeps working hard and stays to achieve his dream of becoming a top member in the field of marketing. By sheer dedication and knowledge of the market, Neil Patel was able to help major companies grow their revenues and ensured that the companies reach a successful outcome.

He also did many extra jobs such as writing books on how to target customers using marketing skills and opened his own businesses as well. All his hard work helped and in the end, President Obama recognised him as a top 100 entrepreneur in the world under the age of 30.

Here are three points that Neil Patel advises every entrepreneur to follow to be successful:

  1. For entrepreneurs, entering a partnership could be difficult. If you get an uncomfortable partner, the business will fail. Work with people, see who works ideally with you and who are you comfortable with and have maximum chemistry with, then choose your partner wisely.
  2. Mistakes are inevitable and will lead to failure, then learn from them. Learning from mistakes separated the best from the average.
  3. Fixing your weaknesses can be a waste of time. As an entrepreneur, if you focus on making sure your strengths foreshadow your talent, then you will stay in the business as a successful entrepreneur.

Simon Sinek

A British author and inspirational speaker, Simon Sinek is known for his books and TedTalks for motivating people and teaching different leaders about leadership skills. Simon Sinek has helped many people and provides one-on-one sessions on his own site, where people can book time with him and he’ll be able to teach them about leadership skills or motivate them to reach success in life. Furthermore, he also provides information on markets as well, which helped people to be successful in marketing campaigns. However, Simon Sinek’s life shows a lot of situations where he himself was tested as a leader and he struggled as well.

Here’s a quote from Simon Sinek, that would motivate you:

“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”

According to Simon Sinek’s TedTalks, the 3 most valuable leadership skills are:

Selflessness, Empathy & Guide under the Fire.

Simon Sinek had to lead his team and had to focus excessively to reach where he is today. The books written by Sinek were absolutely sensational and achieved huge success. His books were the first steps to success and then he became a motivational speaker as well. Sinek’s books and articles have helped people in marketing as well.

Simon Sinek states that there are 5 rules to follow in life to be successful and achieve anything in life:

  1. Go after the things we want- Go after what you want in life and break all those things that come in your life
  2. Sometimes we are the problem- It’s good to accept your mistake and understand that sometimes you are the one creating issues. You have to own it up and back out or work on it.
  3. Take care of each other- It’s not about how fast, smart or intelligent you are. Take help when you need it and provide it when someone else needs it. This will ensure you grow your connections.
  4. Learn to be the last one to speak- Hold on to your opinions. Listen to others; what they think about you and why they do what they do. Then, speak your points as that’ll help you to be clearer.
  5. It’s not meant for you but for your position- Learn humility. Success will be achieved as you move ahead, by your position. Don’t let success get to your head, don’t be arrogant at all.

Gary Vaynerchuk

 

“I put zero weight into anyone’s opinion about me because I know exactly who I am. Can you say the same? When?”

The question is being asked to you by Gary Vaynerchuk himself.

Gary Vaynerchuk is a Belarusian-American entrepreneur, author, speaker and internet personality, who has given many motivational talks as well.

Co-Founder of Resy & Empathy Wines, chairman of VaynerX and CEO of VaynerX subsidiary VaynerMedia. Vaynerchuk is now more famous for his work in digital marketing and social media.

He has grown his business excessively. Vaynerchuk is a true example of a person who wants more and isn’t going to stop after achieving one achievement in his life. The hunger for achieving everything and being on top is what makes Vaynerchuk work harder, even when he’s at the top and could just slack like others.

Vaynerchuk’s talks and motivational speeches have shown how much he has struggled in his own life to reach the top. To achieve success in life, Vaynerchuk worked a lot and kept on trying even after failing.

Opening and working in all different businesses led him to achieve success, not just in one zone but in different sectors. Vaynerchuk has motivated many other people in his life and by his speeches so that they can achieve success by working hard and work even when they have a small or big achievement in life to stay on top at all times.

Gary Vaynerchuk believes success can be achieved by following some pointers. Some of them are:

  1. Value patience- Patience is a very virtuous trait. Nobody becomes successful overnight. You will have to work hard and remain patient for a long time in your life, so to reach success.
  2. Age has nothing to do with ability- Till the time you work hard and are determined to stay on top, there’s no power in this world that can stop you from being on top. Whatever be your age, your talent will take you to places and ensure you stay on top, not your age.
  3. Prioritize your happiness- Give without expectations. Being selfish is the gateway to selflessness. This will help you to take care of your personal needs first and then help others. So, that you can truly help others.
  4. Value the perspective you bring to the table- Opinion of others about you does matter, but equally, your opinion about yourself matters as well. Keeping others above you is the single biggest mistake that you can make and it’ll make it hard for you to find happiness & confidence in who you are. Have respect for yourself.
  5. Have an open-door policy- Ideas can come from anywhere and from anyone in your team. Respect and make judgments from everyone in your team, as you never know which idea can help you to succeed. Respect others and their idea, to build a positive work environment and good chemistry amongst your peers and teammates.

Conclusion

Overall, staying on top is always tough and difficult. Examples of Neil Patel, Simon Sinek & Gary Vaynerchuk show that to reach the top with full success and popularity, it’s very important to constantly work hard and stay on top of your work. Furthermore, it shows that to strive to be on top and be successful, it’s very important to fail and keep trying as it’ll teach you to stay humble and work harder than before as well. Be motivated and work harder, that’ll ensure you’ll reach success for sure. Go for it.

Pratyush Mishra

social media

10 tips on how to write engaging social media posts

When writing a post, documentation, marketing content, or training materials, keeping the Social Media Content Writing audience in mind is an important step in producing effective content. By writing engaging posts, you can build trust and brand loyalty. Readers want to be entertained, but they also want to be educated. Statistically, people want to benefit from what they do, read, and consume. It is important to provide them with content that brings them Audience Engagement value! Having a Content Strategy and action plan based on your business goals, resources, and time is essential to any business success. You need to create social media posts and content that speak to your target audience and inspire them to take a Call to Action (CTA).

In this article, I’ll share my social media content writing tips for creating posts that will get the attention of your potential clients and inspire more Audience Engagement.

1. Do your Research

You need to take the time to truly understand your audience and make your posts highly relevant to your target group. The best place to start is by understanding what needs, obstacles, or challenges they have. Pick a need or challenge that might be a high priority for them right now, then develop content and social media posts that provide them with a solution to said issue. Also, it is beneficial to share success stories from your satisfied customers via case studies, interviews, or reviews. This will help your target audience to envision their own success as a result of using your product or solution and already put them in a positive mindset about what you offer.

2. Use appropriate lingo

Understand and learn what language your ideal clients use to communicate their needs or challenges. Use this language when writing your posts to ensure your content resonates with your audience. This will help to show them that you truly understand them and their challenges thus you will be able to cater to their needs. For example, a post you write on LinkedIn for senior-level executives will read very differently from a post you would write on Facebook for new moms. These two groups of people have different challenges and points of view, also their language. The exact phrasing they use to speak about their needs and challenges varies significantly.

3. Get to the point

In short—keep it short! Write your posts in a way that is simple and quick to read. I came across an interesting study about writing at an eighth-grade level. What this means is that you should reduce the complexity of your writing as much as possible. Not to worry, you won’t lose credibility by doing so, and your readers will comprehend and retain your ideas more reliably. As a result, you have a higher likelihood of reaching more people. Another great way is to use captions, bullets, and lists where possible to make your content easier to take in and try to keep the paragraphs to two or three sentences.

4. Headline

Studies show that you have on average 8 seconds to catch your readers’ attention. Many people don’t generally read beyond the headlines, so it’s extremely important that your headline draws attention and makes readers want to know more. They should be short and hit the sweet spot with carefully selected wording. To write a clickable headline, try this:

A/B test your headlines

The value of doing this is that you learn very quickly what headline formats work well for your target audience. Use numbers. Numbers work, and big obscure numbers work the best. Why? Because it promises more value, and hopefully delivers on that promise. Note that using digits outperforms the use of words. Structure your headline by placing the number at the start. Create a sense of urgency by adding the words ‘now’ or ‘today’ at the end of your headline. Alternatively, you could increase urgency by implying the effects of ignorance, for example, «10 Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make When Writing a Post». Use interesting adjectives to add emotions. Ask a question. Our brains are programmed in a way that we are left unsatisfied when we see a question mark but don’t know the answer. The instinctive reaction to seeing a question mark is to find the answer, this often results in the reader clicking.

5. Call to action (CTA)

At the end of your content, consider encouraging your audience with what action you’d like them to take next by including a Call to Action (CTA). Without one, most people won’t take any action after reading your content, even if they enjoyed it and gained value from it. CTAs come in different forms and have different purposes, use one that fits your desired results most:

  • Send them to a landing page
  • Direct them to your website
  • Get them to subscribe to your newsletter
  • Subscribe to a free trial
  • Download content
  • Ask them to connect with you on other social media channels
  • Ask them to like or share your social media posts
  • Ask a question they can answer in the comments
  • Direct them to another piece of content

6. Keep it positive

Don’t be afraid to share your opinion or take a stand on something important to you and your brand. But there’s a difference between taking a stand and attacking or criticizing others. Whatever you do, avoid finding fault with anyone or any business publicly. Criticizing others is not only unprofessional but such actions can hurt any trust or credibility you’ve built with your existing followers and will damage your brand reputation.

7. Promote your posts

You can write the most engaging blog post in the world, but it won’t matter if people don’t see it. Try these tactics to reach your audience:

  • The most obvious way if you have a strong email and social media following is to share your posts on all your platforms
  • Take advantage of, for example: Facebook, Google Plus communities, and LinkedIn Groups to promote your posts among your peers. Being active within those groups will help generate activity in your post-outreach
  • Use web tools to get the word out and increase Audience Engagement
  • You can also pay to promote a post on Facebook sponsor a tweet, or a LinkedIn post

8. Write on different topics

You want people to value what you have to offer and trust you as an expert in your field, so writing about your industry is vital, but if you only cover topics related to your products or services, you’ll miss out on opportunities to connect. Share tips that will be useful to your target audience, post about valuable lessons you’ve learned and take advantage of the news of (non-controversial) current events. You can creatively personalize your story, so it loops its way back to your brand or industry.

9. Use images, infographics, or videos

It is a fact that visual content is more engaging, no wonder there’s a saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words”. An image or video can often stand alone in social media posts while still delivering the full message to your audience. For best results, customize each piece of Visual Content for the platform you’re posting it on to ensure your message is being shared.

10. Flow

Make every sentence count as you work toward creating flow in your posts. Try to change smoothly from one section to the next, working in crucial keywords and phrases naturally. The best way to test your flow is to read your post aloud when it’s done. If anything feels distracting to you, it probably will be distracting to your readers as well.

The most important piece of advice when it comes to social media is to be authentic. That is the key that will help your content connect with your Social Media Content Writing audience. When in doubt, remember that ‘short and sweet’ tends to perform better than long-form content on most platforms. Experiment with your posts to find what your audience responds to best. Try posting different lengths and forms of content at different times of the day and with persistence and a methodical approach, you’ll find what works the best.

twitter

How to increase Twitter engagement in 2023: 4 Steps

Twitter is an absolute great platform where a business can interact more with customers and ensure that they get more engagement from the site. Just a bit of hard work and following some steps, any type of business can attract more customers towards itself through the help of the Twitter platform. Recently, when there were issues on WhatsApp, Instagram and Snapchat, every person started moving to Twitter. The users on the site have increased rapidly and people are trusting the site of Twitter more than before. At this point, many businesses can enter the site and use specific tricks to ensure they attract more consumers and get more engagement.

Follow these points to increase engagement through Twitter

  1. Tweet Consistently

Being active on Twitter and consistently posting about your business or company will ensure that users actively look at the news of your company. Users will get to know more every success story or any sort of details of your company through consistent tweets and they shall believe that the company is doing great at their business. So, they will be attracted to the company, increasing engagement. Also, if any customer wants to talk to the company or point out any complaints, they can directly do it on Twitter to the company as well, creating a better ordeal between company and the customers.person holding black android smartphone

  1. Use Hashtags and @your name everywhere you can

The more customers hear about you, the more curious they will be about your company. This will make them feel more about your company and they will be attracted to your company easily. That’s why, using hashtags in your tweets will ensure that consumers will see your posts way more than usual. Furthermore, using @your name and adding it wherever you can will put the name of your company in the minds of the people. This’ll lead people to be constantly be listening about your company and curious to check out your company. Furthermore, when they will check out your company, they will know everything about you, leading you to gain customers and increase engagement through Twitter.

  1. Promote openness & reply, retweet, tag people

The more your company is open with customers, the more customers will be able to trust you and buy your product. Furthermore, on the platform of Twitter, your company should ensure that they communicate with the customers directly. Your company should focus on ensuring that any complaints, comments or points made by the customers are heard by the company and are answered by the company through the medium retweets, replying them back and tag people who made any specific points. This will let the consumers think that the company listens to it’s customers and are there to answer all sorts of problems and questions of the customers. This will set an example in front of people and will help the company to attract more consumers as well.

  1. Boost brand-consumer connection through follower’s campaignperson holding silver iphone 6

Running a follower’s campaign will lead to helping a company target its audience and even those consumers who don’t know about the company. As a company, you have to consider running short campaigns to boost momentum or an always-on campaign to create a consistent stream of new followers. Furthermore, ensure that you are consistently making a good amount of connection with the consumers of your company, so to increase the global strength of the company. This will eventually lead to you boosting the brand-consumer connection for your company and increasing the engagement coming to your company through the platform of Twitter.

Conclusion

Overall, there are 4 simple steps that you shall follow to ensure that your company tops the engagement attraction through the site of Twitter. It’s important to understand that the more honest and simple a company comes across as to a consumer; the more trust people will have over the company. The 4 steps mentioned above will ensure that your company attracts as many consumers as possible and lead to increased engagement from the platform of Twitter for your company.

Pratyush Mishra

podcast

How to Start a Podcast in 7 Steps

Podcasting is still a big thing these days! So I decided to look into how to start a podcast for myself and for my business. There is a lot of information on the world wide web and it is overwhelming at times to go through all of it to find some useful answers. To keep things nice and simple I kept notes and prepared 7 steps you have to follow to get on with your podcast idea without getting a headache!

Choose a topic

The first step in learning how to podcast is to choose your topic. This can be anything and everything – news, a specific topic, a niche interest. Whatever you’re passionate about can be made into a podcast.

Get the right support

One step to help manage all the tasks is to separate the roles of each person involved. Producers record the conversation and edit the sound. Writers produce the script and key talking notes, while the host will be the voice of the podcast. Remember to edit the podcast to make it sound polished and put together.

What tech is required to podcast?

Worried that you need high-tech equipment to produce a high-quality podcast? Don’t stress, all you need to podcast is your phone and a computer. There are several recording apps you can download for your smartphone, as well as ones already on your phone like “Voice Memos” for your phone that can record your audio. When interviewing someone, hold the phone a few inches from their face to get the best sound. Once you have all the audio you want you’ll need to mix it. This means editing various audio clips to make it sound natural and well thought out to the listener. There are many computer software and websites that will allow you to edit and mix all the audio, such as Audacity. Regardless of the type of podcast, the final result should be coherent and polished.

Plan your content

Think about the style of the podcast you want to produce. Is it informational, a story or an interview? Whatever style you choose, there needs to be a structure to it. Plan out the order of speakers, order of topics or questions, the order of audio clips and whatever other non-speaking sounds you want to include to round out the story. If there is a host, a written out script can help keep the host focused on the topic without veering off course. This will keep you on track and organised once it’s time to compile the audio.

Prepare for that interview

If you are interviewing someone, here are a few things to keep in mind. Have a list of questions you want to ask. However, the list does not need to be rigidly followed, let the conversation flow naturally but guide them towards questions you want to ask or topics you want their take on. Get their permission to record, you want them to feel comfortable talking to you. Choose a quiet place, one with minimal background noise. Record the entire conversation, you want to hear what questions you’ve asked in order to follow the track of the discussion on your finished podcast.

How to speak on your podcast

When recording yourself speaking, speak up, be confident and speak clearly, not too fast. This is where a script can come in handy, you can follow along and not stumble so much over your words.

Follow these guidelines and you’ll become a pro podcaster in no time!

Podcasts have become a new way to tell a story. Whether you want to share news of what is happening in your town, or you want to share your passions and create a community, podcasts are the way to go. No fancy cameras or movie editing equipment are needed. Just an idea, a recording device and a laptop can turn your idea into reality.

digital marketing

Top 5 Reasons Why You Need Digital Marketing to Succeed

First of all, what is digital marketing? 

We can describe digital marketing as the part of marketing that utilizes the internet and online activities such as search engines, websites, social media, email etc. to reach consumers and develop businesses.

Especially right now, it represents a fundamental part of many companies strategy.

Why? Let’s have a look at our top 5 reasons.

Reach people in the right place

Nowadays, where are people shopping most of their time? Online, online, online.

According to Storm (2020), 7.7 billion people use the Internet across the globe, and the number keeps growing. Again, 22% of the global population is on Facebook (62% of people in the US). 76% of Facebook users and 51% of Instagram users are on the platform every day and 37% of people’s time on social media is spent interacting with brands (Sean, 2019).

Your customers are online, every day, looking for reviews, exchanging opinions, purchasing products and services.

Reach the right people in the right place

One of the biggest assets of digital marketing is the ability to precisely target your audience. Once created your buyer persona, you can easily input their characteristics on social media ad campaigns. In this way, you are sure to only reach relevant people interested in buying your products and services.

You can also segment your audience to deliver a more customized and personalized experience that will result in more and more leads and conversions.

Out-compete with your competition

Having a digital presence means that you will be able to reach a wider audience and spend less money. If you manage it in the right way, with SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click) techniques, and you are able to read analytics, you will be able to make the right decisions in order to optimize your spending.

Moreover, SEO works by relevance. The more relevant your ad is, the more chances you have to appear first in Google Search. This gives many small businesses the opportunity to be “close” or even “above” big companies whose ads are not as relevant!

(Tip: remember that optimizing SEO is always the first thing to do.)

Your competitors are already doing it and they are reaching customers that could be yours. Can you do better?

Digital marketing will give you measurable results

Another one of the greatest advantages of digital marketing is that it is measurable. It is easy to monitor your campaigns and optimize them by reading data and insights. How many people did I reach? Are people engaging with the content?

You can easily answer these questions by looking at metrics such as clicks, likes, follows, shares, comments, conversions, impressions and so on.

Your strategy will of course depend on your goal. Once your goal has been set, you can start deciding priorities in order to understand which media to use and which metrics to focus on.

Tip: have your goal always in mind first!

Digital marketing will give you a huge ROI (return on investment)

Online marketing strategies can result in a huge ROI. Taking the example of email marketing, do you know that for $1 spent, you can earn up to $44 in return? (Storm, 2020).

It is a huge (and cost-effective) opportunity for your business. Compared to traditional methods, it is much cheaper to run a PPC campaign, also considering that you only pay-per-click (which means a potential customer).

Are these 5 reasons enough? Of course, there’s a lot to add and consider, and you will find more and more detailed information on Expert Circle’s articles, but for now one thing is sure: digital marketing is the key!

What are you waiting for?? Check out our guides to digital marketing strategy and effective email marketing, which will help take your business to the next level!

Clara Perina

podcast

How to start a podcast for business

Why are podcasts important?

Businesses must find new ways to transition their operations and create outside-the-box strategies to maintain their relevance. With these turbulent times, old habits will not be a major help. It’s time to open a space for innovation and creativity, which is why podcasting has become a big part of our 2020 lives. Podcasts have become a great way to remain connected to your customers and supporters. That means it’s incredibly important to keep them up to date on your progression and cultivate relationships.

How do you start?

In the very beginning, you might have doubts about creating a podcast. What are you going to discuss? Who is going to be listening? Do people actually care? The answer to all those questions is simple: no idea! You will never truly know until you genuinely give it a go and try it. Think about what your customers and supporters care about. Think about why they are supporting you. Think about how you can add more value to their lives and connect with them further.

Since most of the world is still recovering from the negative impact of coronavirus, individuals still have more time now to actually listen to podcasts and pay attention to them. You may also find it useful to invite others to join your podcast, perhaps an employee or an industry leader. Get their perspective in as well to make the listening experience more enjoyable and valuable.

But what about this…? and what about that…?

The biggest mistake when it comes to starting a podcast is overthinking it. The more time you spend on overthinking and finding excuses as to why you shouldn’t, is more time your competition has to succeed and take the lead. You’ve got to have confidence in yourself and start sharing your knowledge. Check out this detailed how-to guide at the Podcast Host and our very own how to podcast guide!

It is important to produce quality sounding segments; however, the cost of a microphone shouldn’t be a deterrent to start podcasting. Most smart phones have decent microphones to start recording with. There are also very affordable professional microphones online. Listeners are going to value the quality but also the consistency of content.

Take the plunge into podcasting!

Starting is the hardest part. Get going with that first one, and then focus on building out an Instagram account for marketing purposes to really get your name out there. As the podcast gains momentum and more traction, you can then start investing in professional equipment and video production. There is a multitude of applications that distribute podcasts to all the major podcasting platforms.

Once you’ve started creating, share your podcast with more people in your sector through Expert Circle. It’s a great platform that lets you target potential customers and industry experts who follow your area. All you need to do is upload your podcast!

Levani Shalolashvili

marketing

Introduction to Account Based Marketing and simple overview how to implement it in your business

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy that focuses on identifying your “ideal customer profile” (ICP) and then targeting companies that match your created ICP.

By engaging with decision-makers at different levels (be that the CEO, Financial Director or Group Commercial Director etc.) across your ICP with personalized messaging that will match their problems and goals, you can engage with each account to best support them and their future growth by helping to resolve their issues.

Work closely with the Sales team to understand your ideal customer profile. It is so critical to this form of B2B outreach. Once you’ve defined your ICP and their problems and goals, you can begin researching which accounts match up with your ICP the most.

Rather than launching a broad marketing campaign that targets thousands to take care of only the few that express their interest, ABM targets specific companies in an offer to engage with key decision-makers and then build on that relationship to open new sales opportunities in the future (also known as “land and expand”).

Although account-based marketing has been used as a strategy for more than 15 years, it’s only now that businesses are starting to realize the huge potential for delivering highly personalized and relevant campaigns to their target audience.

With ABM, the goal is to close a single account, which means both teams (sales and marketing aka The Taskforce) stay focused and work towards the same business goal. Account-based marketing is about tailoring campaigns to specific accounts, here’s a simplified breakdown of steps to take as a part of your Account-Based Marketing campaign:

  1. Identify a list of key accounts.

  2. Research each account by:

  • Market: industry, company size, competitors
  • Company: revenue, marketing share, history
  • People: management, buying power, key roles, influencers
  • Relationships: organizational structure, reporting, buying teams
  1. Create personalized and relevant content.

  2. Distribute content to the right people.

  3. Measure your campaign success

    • Look at sales cycle length, deal size and total revenue from any new sale that resulted from your ABM campaign, and then you can compare these figures with the customers you acquired from your non-ABM activities. (It is important to keep track of campaign success for tracking your ROI, to see if your campaigns have had the desired impact).

 

The bottom line is to understand issues your customers face, even predict issues they may come across in the future, address them and offer appropriate solutions to support their and your own growth forming healthy relationships along the way for further successful collaborations.

digital marketing

3 steps to succeed digital marketing strategy

Do you have a clear digital marketing strategy for 2023? After a rocky 2020 and very uncertain 2021 businesses are uncertain of what’s coming next and are struggling to find the right strategy to face the future in the right way. In the last 6 months, we’ve experienced a huge amount of innovation and change. People adapted their lifestyles thanks to the latest technologies, studying and working remotely with shared clouds and virtual meetings. At the same time, businesses adapted to the new trends, and some of them even increased their market share by digitalising their traditional model.

Because where there’s change, there’s opportunity. And 2022 is full of opportunities!

We drafted 3 simple steps that will help you create the best digital marketing strategy for your business. Check them out.

1. Strategic communication

Adapt your communication to the moment and modulate the message to today’s new needs. For instance, many brands are now offering virtual try-on, virtual mirrors, real-time chatbots, and so on. They are addressing customers’ needs in a new and agile way in order to satisfy them as quickly and professionally as possible. Define your target audience and carefully analyze their needs and wants, and then you will be able to draft the right message to deliver at the right place at the right time. With this, email marketing will still be a key component of your strategy, so check out our guide to effective email marketing.

2. Digital presence

Right now, it is crucial to adapt your activities every day as the digital world is more and more agile. For instance, again, companies are investing in AR, e-commerce, customer care, interactive content and cross-communication technologies, and they are accelerating their digital transformation. They provide useful information, give assistance and gain data all at the same time.

Social media are the first place to consider being present in. Why? Because people have more spare time, they are connected online 24/7 and search for information not only to address their needs but also to improve themselves.

3. Digital data analytics

Today, everything happens online. Reservations, activities, meetings, spreadsheets, clouds, classes, transactions. And all these activities generate meaningful data. If you are able to leverage these insights, you can be many steps further and be prepared to lead in a different way in the future. Define what impact you want to make and select smart KPIs to achieve, and you will be successful in the long term.

Because data don’t lie.

How can you collect meaningful data, though?

Start by mapping your customer journey, and then you will be able to see what’s going on in their path to purchase: what’s preventing them from buying? What motivates them to buy? Where are the holes? And the opportunities?

These are the 3 staples on which to base your 2023 digital marketing strategy. Do you want to bulletproof your company? Trust the process and be ready to create the strategy that will make you successful in the long run!

Clara Perina

Expert Panel: The BEST marketing tools professionals can’t live without

Marketing tools are essential on the way to the success of every marketing campaign and marketing effort in general.  They are used by businesses as means of communication to inform the audience of their products and services. Marketing tools help to create market awareness which in the long run can make your business lucrative. For example, a marketing slick is used by businesses to give customers a product overview, product snapshot and its uses. Some use blogs to show their expertise about this particular product and give consumers tips and advice about it. We collected some great insights from experts on which tools help every day!

Aimee Treasure

Head of Marketing at Templeton and Partners

HubSpot is essential to our content marketing. In addition to allowing us to host content through a blog and gated high-value content such as reports, HubSpot provides the automation tools that enable us to deliver real ABM. We can target individual customers with bespoke campaigns, providing them with helpful content and nurturing them down the funnel with niche content that solves existing, real-time problems.

HubSpot allows us not only to see which content is most popular with our customers but also in which format, on which channels, and with which audience segments and which exact customers our content is most helpful for. The insights HubSpot delivers are easy to understand and share with our Board, meaning we can utilize HubSpot’s tools to continually improve and enhance our content strategy and continually grow leads, conversions, and ROI from content marketing – rare and vital for a B2B, service-based industry like recruitment.

HubSpot also enables us to host our website: we’re about to launch a new site that we’ve created from scratch (drag and drop with some CSS and HTML coding) which will personalize the customer experience for each individual customer by showing only the most relevant, interesting and helpful content and guiding each customer towards the right content for them.

Lydia Huang

Founder & Marketing Career Consultant at Awaken Career

I can’t live without Grammarly when it comes to content creation. Since English is my second language, Grammarly has helped me ensure the quality of my content by constantly reminding me of misspelling or grammar mistakes.

With their premium account, you will receive weekly writing updates to help you learn about your top 3 writing mistakes and ensure the tone matches the brand voice you want to focus on. The tool also helps you with sentence flow and better word recommendations to increase reader engagement.

If you want to improve your writing skills and produce quality content, then you should consider using Grammarly’s premium account.

 

Andreea Westenberg

Head of Paid Traffic at Semrush

Lots of great content marketing tools out there and my favorite is the Impact Hero tool by Semrush. Impact Hero is an AI tool that breaks down your content by buyer journey stages, detects the most impactful copy, and gives tips on reinforcing your efforts.

Matthew Stylianou

Marketing Tech Lead at IRIS Software Group

If the content is king then distribution is Queen. The core automation platform and CRM (the martech spine) is the most important part of content marketing. In my opinion, the most important and powerful tool is Marketo, when it’s used correctly it is a hugely powerful product that lets you distribute your content in a scalable fashion but can also provide a lot of insight on your customer base and how they interact with content. When distribution and engagement are properly tracked and measured you can reach your customers in a much more structured and engaging way allowing you to scale and do incremental improvements to get amazing results.

Nina Young

Managing Director at Watership Surveyors

The best contenting marketing tool for me is Canva. I have used this for over 3 years and it is invaluable. It is user-friendly and intuitive. You get so much for your money with a Canva subscription although the free version is brilliant too. I can create social media posts that look professional and engaging in a matter of minutes. I use Canva for my clients as well as my own business. I really like tools such as the auto-resize for different social media platforms and you get an impressive array of templates and images to work with. I always recommend Canva to my network.

Ali Raza

Co-Founder and CEO of Knowledge Shout!

Google Analytics is one of my personal favourite tools Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.

You’ve created a great content strategy, launched a great website, and are blogging regularly. But how do you know if it’s really working?

If you want to keep track of data such as conversion rates, website visitors, clicks, and SEO performance of your website – and you absolutely should – getting an analytics tool such as Google Analytics is essential to track your website’s growth.

Google Analytics provides valuable data about how visitors are interacting with your websites, such as traffic, session duration, bounce rate, conversions, and more. By keeping an eye on your data, you’ll be on the right track to adjust and pivot your content marketing strategy to make sure it works.

John Russell

UK Managing Director & CMO at Staffing Future

Paiger.co sources content, sources new business leads, drives engagement and community engagement for all our staff, best of all is 2nd highest traffic source for our website that converts traffic.

Fabulous ROI in month 3 for year one.

Joan Lockwood

Head of Growth at Huggg

The best content marketing tool that I cannot live without is SEMRush. Their end-to-end Content Marketing Platform helps you to build a data-informed content strategy focused on your audience. needs: you can combine data from Google Analytics and Search Console to make informed decisions and research keywords that boost content and ads. It helps to generate leads and conversions in many ways when used properly.

Gioia Gottini

Business strategist

A newsletter: it’s the best marketing tool because it allows you to reach a targeted and committed audience in a personal, 1:1 way. Also, you have access to vast analytics on users’ behaviour and engagement, which are vital for your marketing strategy

Tobias de Bont

Managing Director / Partner at de Bont Consultancy Global

I am making use of a sales navigator to direct my content strategy to the right audience, besides that, I automated my content distribution with Hubspot, I have sometimes a creativity boost and sometimes simply no time to distribute myself. Next to that, I have a person who helps me in selecting the conversations I have to participate in myself. The simple conversations are all with that person. So that’s how I do it, would love to hear from others as well.

 Oleh Vertinskyi

SEO and PPC Team Lead at QArea

The Classics — Google Search Console & Analytics + Ahrefs

Our team uses Google Search Console and Google Analytics in conjunction with Ahrefs in a hypothesis-testing workflow. Our SEO and content team pitches ideas based on trends we see around the web and then creates an SEO strategy around the topic using Ahrefs. After a cluster of content is published, we use data from Google Analytics and Google Search control to optimize articles and push them higher up the SERP.

While there are many tools that can automate this workflow, nothing beats the precision of tracking specific goals with tools that were built to accomplish one specific goal and do it well.

Nicholas Burrage

Managing Director at The Ambitions Agency 

Favourite Tool: ‘They Ask, You Answer’ methodology

My favourite Tool is ‘They Ask, You Answer by Marcus Sheridan. As a Forbes Top 10 business book, I find this is invaluable as it has revolutionized our new business results and made the whole thing so much more enjoyable. Assignment selling where our prospects do a huge amount of work before they meet us is my absolute favorite section.

Luke Rees

Head of Digital at AccuraCast

My favourite (free) content marketing tool would have to be a visme.co’s map-generator. It allows you to create really beautiful map designs that represent the custom data you’re trying to show. As we do a lot of international link building, this is a great tool for showing country comparisons in a visually compelling way. It makes our research look really professional and has gotten us featured in top-tier international publications.

Elliot Zissman

Founder & Director at Phase 2 Growth

I can’t live without Grammarly when it comes to content creation. Since English is my second language, Grammarly has helped me ensure the quality of my content by constantly reminding me of misspelling or grammar mistakes.

With their premium account, you will receive weekly writing updates to help you learn about your top 3 writing mistakes and ensure the tone matches the brand voice you want to focus on. The tool also helps you with sentence flow and better word recommendations to increase reader engagement.

If you want to improve your writing skills and produce quality content, then you should consider using Grammarly’s premium account.

 

 

storytelling

5 Tips To Get Started with Storytelling

Storytelling is an amazing method for correspondence and it’s likewise an incredible method to draw in new clients to your business! You can utilize stories to acquire trust, and to associate with imminent clients, making them substantially more willing to work with you.

Helpful tips to get started with storytelling:

Pick a focused message

An incredible story normally advances towards a focused message. While creating a story, you ought to have a positive thought of what you’re working toward. On the off chance that your story has a solid good part, you’ll need to manage audience members or perusers to that message.

Never Shy

As a storyteller, you should avoid shyness. Incredible storytellers make stories that have a wide range of obstructions and difficulties flung in the way of their heroes. To be happy with a cheerful consummation, crowds need to watch the fundamental characters battle to accomplish their objectives. It’s OK to be pitiless to your principal characters—truth be told, it’s vital. Convincing plots are based on struggle, and it’s basic that you embrace conflict and show to improve as a storyteller.

Have a clear structure

There is a wide range of approaches to structure a story, yet the three fixings a story should have are a start, centre, and end. On a more granular level, a fruitful story will begin with an impelling occurrence, lead into rising activity, work to a peak and eventually sink into a wonderful goal.
There are numerous books and online assets that can assist you with bettering these terms and familiarize you with other storytelling methods. Extra bits of knowledge into story construction can be gathered by presenting yourself to extraordinary storytellers in writing and film and working on spreading out your own accounts on paper so you can notice their shape and design.

Share your personal experiences

Regardless of whether you are recounting a genuine story straightforwardly dependent on close-to-home insight, you can generally seek your life for motivation when concocting new stories. Consider significant encounters in your reality and how you could possibly make them into accounts.

Engage with your audience

You need to engage with your audience to become a good storyteller, however, quite a bit of how you enamour your crowd relies on the method of storytelling you’re utilizing. In case you’re perusing a short story before a group of people, you should mess with bringing your look off the page from time to time to visually connect with your crowd. In case you’re recording an account digital broadcast, so much relies on the expressiveness of your voice and your capacity to pass on feeling with your tone. Notwithstanding, you decide to recount your story, try to think about your crowd.

Now you are ready to get started with storytelling!

About the author

Ayush Mishra

I am a Blogger, Affiliate Marketer and Content writer. In 2019 I started freelancing as a content writer. I have a blog named Bloggers Desire to help people who want to learn and become professional bloggers and make money online.

storytelling

Sell to the heart and brain will follow- How does storytelling help with winning clients?

Every happy relationship consists of many moments spent together, shared experiences, and adventures, the best of which become stories to tell your grandchildren. Likewise, stories are the best way to create and develop your brand. People will not remember facts, numbers or features. But they will remember exciting and moving authentic stories. Or, as American poet and singer Maya Angelou says, “They will remember how you made them feel.”

Stories speak

Neuroscientists believe that listening to stories enhances people’s neuro-cognitive abilities. When people are emotionally involved, they can identify better with your brand and understand your values. Stories speak to your customer’s feelings and create an emotional affinity, allowing the more rational arguments to be heard. Emotion is what really drives our purchasing behaviours and buying decisions are always the result of a change in the customer’s emotional state. When you connect with customers’ emotions, the payoff can be huge. So if you want to win your customers, start talking to their heart.

One of the most powerful tools for creating emotions in your customers is storytelling. In an era of information overload, the only thing that truly sets you apart is your story.

Stories are powerful tools

Storytelling provides a human face to a brand and helps create an emotional relationship with it. Stories are powerful tools for attracting attention, and storytelling is a notable business skill, which enables you to interact with your customers on an emotional level, offering inspiration, motivation, as well as an opportunity to educate yourself. In addition, storytelling makes potential customers subconsciously choose products and services that tell such stories which fit their lives, dreams and wishes.

A story of how your brand came to life, your customer’s real stories, exciting stories in product development are more valuable than a well-crafted advertisement.

But the story alone is not enough. It also needs to be told and shared.

Stories can be told and developed on different platforms, but it is essential to think about the experience of the people who are told the story and whether and how they can tell it to others and add to it.
Good storytelling skills have never been as vital as they are today. Storytelling is a great way to stand out, communicate your brand, introduce it to others, and build emotional bonds. The purpose of the story is to appeal to your target group and convey your values and goals through it.

One of the most critical qualities in sharing your story is authenticity and relevance. Still, it is also important to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time. Once you have created the story, developed it and thought about sharing it, your next step is to plan how to keep it updated. When working on this task, be sure to think about possible user-generated content. Then, when you find a way to make it work for you, it offers you an incredible amount of opportunities.

Content plan

Last but not least, you have to create a strong content plan to produce engaging content. In the information society where a tremendous amount of different content is consumed, it is crucial to find the format, place and time that appeal to your target groups. It must match the image you are creating and be appropriate for the channel you are using. You need to offer real stories and real value to your followers, not bombard them with your product or service all the time. Also, don’t keep to one type of media – use pictures, videos, graphs and other styles and do it consistently.

Storytelling is the ultimate tool of persuasion. You can create an iconic brand by designing and constantly developing your unique story, telling it and adding to it and keeping it updated. Brands, as well as individuals who tell stories –emotional and genuine stories- connect with their customers on a far deeper level than their competitors. So what your story would be? And how would you make your customers fall in love?

About the author

Olesija Saue

A business strategist at a multiple-awards winning social media agency, certified executive coach, personal branding expert, and co-author of the book on personal branding The Brand Named You.

Design

Imagine a world of unlimited designs

Finding the best design tool

Although it is a bit hyperbolic to say there’s a tool we cannot live without, there is one that we view as an indispensable tool. Before we say what it is, explaining the context might shed some light on its truly useful qualities.

Although it’s not difficult getting acquainted with the basics of design tools such as Photoshop, it’s not as if you magically learn how to edit or create photos well in the same way that if you just passed your driving test, it does not make you a Formula One racer.

Aside from lacking familiarity with the more advanced features of such programmes, casual users are also not so invested in the bigger world of graphic design. Knowing some colour theory to understand what colours to use, what contrasts well and suits the theme of the message of the content you’re designing, and plenty more go into being good at graphic design. Moving layers around isn’t going to do it.

Canva

Canva has made all of us amateur dabblers with editing software suddenly look like professionals. That is why we love it! Although we are an advertising agency and not a design agency, when we need to quickly mock up content for adverts, Canva is a godsend!

Now, you would hire a designer or use proper design software for anything big, but for work that you need to turn around fairly quickly without it costing a lot of time and resources, this is the one.

First and foremost, it has templates and designs that were made by professionals so you don’t need to worry about whether your font, images etc look okay. It shows you the best version of something and then you just understand almost intuitively what you should do next to customise it.

The second thing we like about it is that It has almost anything you can think of! Want some designs for a dentist’s social media posts? Sure. Something for a bike shop? Of course. It has so many features that even on the free version, you can get so much out of it. And for such a powerful (but still lightweight enough to run on a mobile phone) app, the monthly cost is also quite minimal.

Of course, the best thing about it is that it’s one of the easiest apps to use. It’s quite intuitive and can produce both images and videos out of any design. All in all, this is one of the best apps that we have come across in the digital marketing space when you consider value and ease of use.

You probably already know about it as it’s quite ubiquitous but if you don’t, it’s time to check it out and see what it might do for your marketing.

About the author

Nur Haji

Entrepreneur, Digital Marketer, Londoner. Always looking to connect with like-minded people. Worked with all types of companies from restaurants to accountants and online brands

Digital Marketing Specialist with a focus on helping brands gain visibility and generate leads and sales using digital advertising (Facebook/IG & Google/YouTube Ads), email marketing, social media, SEO & content.

Wordpress

Best WordPress Plugins for Better Google Rankings

Different hosting platforms allow marketers to create websites and publish their content online. But merely publishing blogs/articles will not be sufficient if your content isn’t reaching your target audience. You must improve your SEO rankings to communicate with your niche. Smart marketers find the right keywords to target, optimize the images’ file sizes, and make their content readable for better results. And a WordPress plugin permits even amateurs to organize their websites like an experienced search engine optimization expert. You can find many best WordPress plugins online that have distinct features and diverse functionalities. But let’s talk more about the different benefits of these add-ons first.

Reasons For Installing A WordPress Plugin

You might’ve installed different extensions on your Chrome browser to perform various functions. These “add-ons” or “extensions” enhance a browser’s capabilities and enable it to execute tasks. For instance, you require an extension to watch videos on Chrome without supporting this format.

Similarly, Flash allowed users to watch animated videos online. These “plugins” also work for WordPress users by adding certain features marketers need for producing engaging content. It doesn’t matter if you can’t even write a single line of code. You have to install a plugin, and your content shall become readable, keyword-rich, and SEO-friendly. Here are some of the benefits from the best WordPress plugins 2021:

Plugins take over the development responsibilities while saving you time and money. WordPress has an all-embracing library of extensions that provides you with different functions, ranging from more minor updates to larger utilities. These plugins are as easy to install as they’re to remove. And they give you enhanced flexibility to change/modify any feature you want. For instance, you can choose to turn some settings on/off, including sizes, fonts, styles, and colors.
You might’ve heard about PHP, the language in which WordPress is written. Other platforms such as Joomla require a certain level of programming skills in PHP. But, unlike its rivals, WP empowers beginners in programming to also establish a website.

WordPress happens to be a self-updating platform. It notifies content creators whenever a new update is ready for installation. It is also open-source, so the code is visible to the public. Therefore, just the basic know-how of PHP allows you to program these plugins.
Lastly, an entire community uses WordPress to promote their content. You can contact these people or acquire study material regarding the working of WordPress plugins for SEO. If you question how these plugins operate, there’s no shortcoming of online support available to you.

Best WordPress Plugins You Should Try

Your content requires to get optimized for search engines without which your niche wouldn’t discover it. That’s why marketers employ the services of third-party developers for link building. The sort of techniques they implement is similar to what WordPress extensions offer to you. These plugins help your website excel on Google and elevate its position on SERPs. So, if you’re wondering how to improve your WP content, here are some fantastic add-ons you should try in 2021:

1. Yoast

When it comes to improving your SEO efforts, websites tend to trust the Yoast plugin. Besides SEO, this tool also enhances your content’s readability. Checking your keyword density helps you evenly distribute the link juice in your writing. This extension is also helpful when it comes to writing your meta title and description. The SEO analysis by the Yoast plugin teaches you which problems hamper your content’s readability and what improvements can be unhelpful. It also ensures that each article is 300-worded at least. Moreover, Yoast also ascertains that your focus keyword is present in the first paragraph and meta title/description.

2. W3 Total Cache

Users are attracted to your platform when pages respond quickly to their commands and data access is made convenient. When users frequently access information, the computer stores it in a temporary portion called “cache memory.” This memory enables browsers to load websites faster, and W3 Total Cache improves this “caching” process. It helps your site save some bandwidth and integrate smoothly with CDN while contributing to reduced download times and better server performance. That’s why many WordPress content creators rely on W3 as their ideal cache plugin. Since, with reduced load time, your platform gets an elevated position on SERPs.Rank Math

Some experts recommend using Rank Math instead of Yoast. Since Rank Math has a better and more user-friendly interface, you can also add more than five focus keywords. Yoast doesn’t provide you instant indexing service. But we believe that the main advantage you’ll have with Rank Math is a faster website since it’s three times lighter than Yoast.

Moreover, it provides you a built-in 404 monitor for resolving errors. Also, you can pick and choose between different features for not letting the site become too crowded with unnecessary functions. Besides advanced SEO auditing, Rank Math permits you to create an XML sitemap of your website.

3. Squirrly

What if you’re not an SEO expert? You hire an outside professional. But Squirrly serves as your non-human SEO consultant! This extension gives you recommendations for elevating every web page’s position on SERPs. You will enter your article’s title before punching some keywords in and then start writing.

This add-on shall optimize keywords for you while you’re busing producing the content, unlike Yoast, where you save the article from getting suggestions. This tool will also warn you about any possible competition. If you wish to understand search engine optimization, Squirrly is your digital buddy. And, mixed with WordLift, Squirrly makes your content unbeatable.

4. WordLift

What does your content need to attain a better position on SERPs? You’ll respond by saying visibility, readability, and internal linking. Well, WordLift happens to assist you in excelling in these disciplines. This tool utilizes NLP (natural language processing) for enabling search engines to discover your writing since it can translate simple text into machine-friendly content.

Meanwhile, it makes your blogs/articles engaging for your target audience. That’s how a brand can boost organic traffic to their domain. A company can leverage the power of AI in its favor via extensions such as WordLift. No wonder Airbnb and Greenpeace have become users of this fantastic plugin.

5. Optimole

Bulky images can slow down your page. Statistics show that two-thirds of online shoppers (64%) expect your site to load in four seconds at max. Moreover, around 80% of consumers become “dissatisfied” if your page is slow. The ideal amount your webpage should take for loading is three seconds. And a significant contributor to a slow-loading website is bulky images.

Therefore, this amazing plugin helps to optimize these pictures for making your website faster and more responsive. As it’s cloud-based, you don’t have to worry about straining your server. Now, you can reduce the file sizes of your PNG/JPEG images. And this tool is also compatible with Elementor.

6. Elementor Pro

Popups are essential for attention-grabbing and lead generation. Elementor Pro – an extension of Elementor – allows you to create many kinds of popups. You can make fly-ins, slide-ins, and even top/bottom notification handles. Similarly, Elementor Pro lets beginners make buttons, timers, and forms of different varieties. So, you can make log-in, contact, registration, and opt-in email forms.

It gives you over one hundred themes to choose from or the option to innovate an idea for that theme. These forms enable customers to subscribe to your offers and become loyal consumers. Another one of the best WordPress plugins would be OptinMonster that also contributes to effective form-making.

7. OptinMonster

If you want help in your brand’s lead-generation endeavors, OptinMonster can help you out. This plugin creates opt-in forms for your websites. These forms allow your audience to give their consent so brands would contact them in the future. Now, you can turn random visitors into email subscribers and communicate with them via email marketing.

OptinMonster’s website claims that they provide lead-generation services to over 1 million WP websites. Even a beginner can attract new leads and enhance his/her site’s conversion rate. This extension tells you crucial info about your visitors, including scroll, inactivity, time spent, and click-through rates.

8. WordFence

Cybersecurity isn’t a trivial matter. Your website’s security remains constantly vulnerable to external attacks from hackers and blackmailers. That’s why you need to install this WordPress security plugin. WordFence – essentially – is a WAF (web application firewall). It recognizes malicious attacks and prevents hackers from infiltrating your platform.

You can experiment with its free version by switching to the premium package. No wonder WordFence has over four million installs due to the real-time protection against malware it provides. This add-on also sends daily email reports to keep you informed regarding the status of your website’s security features.

9. Revive Old Posts

This plugin was formerly known as Tweet Old Post. But, as you can guess, it doesn’t work exclusively for Twitter now. Instead, this extension now shares your old and new posts on different social media platforms. That’s how you resurrect your forgotten blogs, repurpose dead articles, and keep your content evergreen.

The fantastic feature of this add-on is to incorporate automation with social media marketing. You can also schedule your next Facebook post, Instagram status update, or tweet. Revive Old Posts enables you to include links and hashtags in your publications. You should try its free version before switching to the premium one if you like.

Conclusion

It won’t be an exaggeration to describe WordPress as one of the marvels of the 21st century. This technological innovation has become ideal for the content management system for non-blogging platforms. You can also manage your website from every geographical location without any FTP/HTML expertise.

Not only does WordPress give authors complete authority, but search engines also find it convenient to crawl and index the content published on it. Statistics show that around 40.7% of websites utilize WordPress, giving it a CMS market share of 64.6%. Some 58,167 extensions – or plugins – allow you to modify your site as per your wishes. These best WordPress plugins help you perform numerous functions. You have add-ons for SEO optimization, adding the option for live chats, or regularly scheduling a backup for your content.

You don’t require technical know-how or hiring a website developer to include these functions. Even non-paid versions help you reach your desired outcomes. Even paid versions have proven to be cost-effective for small companies. Downloading the best WordPress plugins 2021 is easy; you have to visit the dashboard and add the desired plugin. In short, these add-ons have changed the way people used to run their websites by offering flexibility with more-than-expected outcomes.

 

Expert Panel: The Power of Storytelling in Content Marketing

“Marketing is storytelling. The story of your product, built into your product. The ad might be part of it, the copy might be part of it, but mostly, your product and your service and your people are all part of the story. Tell it on purpose.” 

Seth Godin

Storytelling as a way to connect with the brand, with the business or with the individual has been there for hundreds of years. However, only in the last decade marketing professionals have taken it to the next level. Teams of people are working on strategies finding ways to connect with clients and make them trust, believe in and become loyal to the brand using storytelling for content marketing as their go-to technique. 

What story to tell? What is important to say? How to connect? Where to start? These were just a few from the long list of questions running through my head when I had my very first project on building a Recruitment Technology brand. Finding a tone of voice and correct narrative specific to the Recruitment Industry was a great challenge when I first started and it took months to get this going with confidence and bringing results. I will be honest, we are still working on it, perfecting our message, thinking of better ways to bring value to the industry and to the clients.

So here at Expert Circle, we thought why don`t we ask the experts for advice and to share their experience and knowledge in how to use storytelling for content marketing. We assembled a great collection of answers and we are delighted to share them with the world! 

Enjoy the read,

Larysa Chaplin

What is Storytelling?

Neil Patel

Storytelling is the art of communicating your idea, message or event, by creatively weaving words, images, and sounds into a narrative. Visual stories, written stories, and verbal stories – this is the content we love.

When you tell a true story, your message is perceived as authentic. In the same way that live events get more retweets than general tweets on social media channels, your content will impact the lives of your target market, and improve your credibility.

Why should you use corporate storytelling in content marketing? We breathe visual stories. Even in the Stone Age, humans understood how to tell stories that evoked interest and made that emotional connection.

And, it’s one of the most effective ways to engage and persuade your audience.

Humans are born storytellers and adore visual communication. Storytelling gives life or meaning to a scenario and makes that emotional connection, provoking feelings of ecstasy, sorrow, or peace, and captivating your audience. This is exactly what you need when it comes to your digital marketing strategy.

It is little wonder that posts with visual stories and visual communication generate more Facebook and media channel shares than any other content type.

As it turns out, visual stories and communication (e.g., infographics, videos, memes, screenshots) get widely shared on major social media channels.

Your potential customers aren’t looking for another sales pitch or a proposal that sounds too good to be true. They’ve heard enough of those.

For example, when you write, use relevant images and great visual stories that pique people’s interest.

Or, if you’re recording a podcast, you could use emotion-triggering music and sounds. For video creation, you can use words, images, visual stories, and sounds at the same time.

A study conducted by Forrester Research found that 88% of executives and organizational decision-makers long to have conversations, not pushy sales presentations.

With visual stories, you can create and promote infographics, which have collectively generated over 2,500,000 million visitors and 41,142 backlinks for me, over a two-year span.

You can also create visual stories and content and submit it to authoritative media sites and platforms, such as Slideshare, Vimeo, and Animoto. This helps you gain a new target market and potential customers for your business.

Great Storytelling on Social Media

Gary Vaynerchuk

In a world where there’s an enormous amount of social content, if you don’t make someone stop what they are doing and create a response, you are going to lose. Whether that’s an action or an emotion, the true test of storytelling is how you feel or what you do after you consume it.

A few months ago I bought flowers for the entire NYC VaynerMedia office. It wasn’t a holiday and therefore it was entirely unexpected so it evoked a feeling of surprise and delight. People were pleased and the reaction was a mix of happiness, positivity and a boosted morale. If that day was Valentine’s Day it might have been a little bit more expected and the story would have been more cliche and therefore wouldn’t evoke as much of a response. It’s all about the setup, the punchline and hacking people’s expectations.

In a sea of a million stories, a great one is going to make you react.

When I sit here and evaluate the differences between blockbuster Hollywood and social media, I think about context. The actual story can be quite similar but you have to consider the room you’re telling it in.

If you’re telling a story from a park bench to three old guys playing chess you’re going to present it a little differently than you would share that same story in an auditorium at Radio City Music Hall. It all depends on the room you’re in and the context with which it lives.

Do people want fireworks and embellishments and fancy set design because they have paid $190 a ticket and dressed up and went to Broadway or are they willing to accept the 60-second story on social media in between checking emails or walking to lunch?

Storytelling in Marketing

Dennis Shiao

Most brands are poor at brand storytelling. They take the “brand” component too literally and make it all about them. Or they create content without a real story.

Done well, brand storytelling can be not only a differentiator but a memorable opportunity to draw and engage an audience.

Six questions to draw out brand stories by Debbie Williams:

  • What’s your reason for being?
  • What’s your history?
  • Who are your main characters?
  • What’s your corporate mission?
  • How have you failed?
  • Where are your gaps?

For a brand story to work, it must go beyond a brand’s products and services. “You have to create something that they [members of your audience] want to be a part of and show that you really ‘get’ who they are and what they need,” 

Why Is Storytelling Important for Marketing?

Joydeep Bhattacharya

Successful businesses are built on effective stories. People love to see, read or hear stories because it creates a human connection based on empathy.

The best marketers in the world leverage the power of storytelling to improve branding and conversion rates. What do stories have to do with marketing?

A good story should be:

  • Contagious
  • Easy to understand
  • Emotive
  • Believable (unless it’s a fairy tale or a Quentin Tarantino film)
  • Useful
  • Inspiring
  • Inclusive

From oral storytelling in prehistoric times to hieroglyphic storytelling in Ancient Egypt to our modern-day movies, stories have always found a special place in our lives. When there are sufficient details and authentic emotions in the tale, the listener or reader is able to connect to a story easily – and brands can use this device to make people understand how their products add value to their lives:

Here are some of the primary reasons why storytelling is an absolute necessity for marketing:

  • It helps to build a deeper and stronger connection with the audience.
  • It adds a human element to your content and, thus, brand.
  • Storytelling goes beyond advertising; it makes people trust your brand much more easily.
  • It lets businesses engage with customers in a fragmented media world.
  • Stories helps bind your content together which otherwise might seem scattered.
  • Stories help share your brand vision in the most pleasant manner.
  • A business with a great story is able to defeat its competitors easily.
  • Stories are the most successful weapon to create brand loyalty, which means that people are much more willing to promote your product or brand by word-of-mouth marketing, which is the best way to popularize a business.

The essence of B2B storytelling

Amanda Sparks

The process begins with one crucial question that you have to answer:

What would the world look like without your product/service?

Although it may seem like an easy question to answer, chances are you’ll find it a bit hard to do that because we tend to take everything we have for granted.

Take a moment and imagine how your customers would live if they didn’t have computers, smartphones, or the Internet.

Then, think about the challenges they would have if they didn’t have your product or couldn’t use your service.

For example, if they didn’t have the invoicing software, they would have to use the expensive services of an accountant or a billing clerk, which would also take a lot more time.

Once you answer this question, you can become a storyteller.

Every organization can have a unique story because it has a unique mission, vision, and strategy to achieve them.

Sell to the heart and brain will follow- How does storytelling help with winning clients?

Olesija Saue

Every happy relationship consists of many moments spent together, shared experiences, and adventures, the best of which become stories to tell your grandchildren. Likewise, stories are the best way to create and develop your brand. People will not remember facts, numbers or features. But they will remember exciting and moving authentic stories. Or, as American poet and singer Maya Angelou says, “They will remember how you made them feel.”

Neuroscientists believe that listening to stories enhances people’s neuro-cognitive abilities. When people are emotionally involved, they can identify better with your brand and understand your values. Stories speak to your customer’s feelings and create an emotional affinity, allowing the more rational arguments to be heard. Emotion is what really drives our purchasing behaviours and buying decisions are always the result of a change in the customer’s emotional state. When you connect with customers’ emotions, the payoff can be huge. So if you want to win your customers, start talking to their heart.

One of the most powerful tools for creating emotions in your customers is storytelling. In an era of information overload, the only thing that truly sets you apart is your story.

Storytelling provides a human face to a brand and helps create an emotional relationship with it. Stories are powerful tools for attracting attention, and storytelling is a notable business skill, which enables you to interact with your customers on an emotional level, offering inspiration, motivation, as well as an opportunity to educate yourself. In addition, storytelling makes potential customers subconsciously choose products and services that tell such stories which fit their lives, dreams and wishes.

A story of how your brand came to life, your customer’s real stories, exciting stories in product development are more valuable than a well crafted advertisement.

But the story alone is not enough. It also needs to be told and shared.

Stories can be told and developed on different platforms, but it is essential to think about the experience of the people who are told the story and whether and how they can tell it to others and add to it.

Good storytelling skills have never been as vital as they are today. Storytelling is a great way to stand out, communicate your brand, introduce it to others, and build emotional bonds. The purpose of the story is to appeal to your target group and convey your values and goals through it.

Authenticity and relevance

One of the most critical qualities in sharing your story is authenticity and relevance. Still, it is also important to deliver the right message to the right people at the right time. Once you have created the story, developed it and thought about sharing it, your next step is to plan how to keep it updated. When working on this task, be sure to think about possible user-generated content. Then, when you find a way to make it work for you, it offers you an incredible amount of opportunities.

Last but not least, you have to create a strong content plan to produce engaging content. In the information society where a tremendous amount of different content is consumed, it is crucial to find the format, place and time that appeal to your target groups. It must match the image you are creating and be appropriate for the channel you are using. You need to offer real stories and real value to your followers, not bombard them with your product or service all the time. Also, don’t keep to one type of media – use pictures, videos, graphs and other styles and do it consistently.

Storytelling is the ultimate tool of persuasion.

You can create an iconic brand by designing and constantly developing your unique story, telling it and adding to it and keeping it updated. Brands, as well as individuals who tell stories –emotional and genuine stories- connect with their customers in far deeper level than their competitors. 

So what your story would be? And how would you make your customers fall in love?

5 Tips To Get Started with Storytelling

Ayush Mishra

Storytelling is an amazing method for correspondence and it’s likewise an incredible method to draw in new clients to your business! You can utilize stories to acquire trust, and to associate with imminent clients, making them substantially more willing to work with you.

Helpful tips to get started with storytelling?

Pick a focused message 

 An incredible story normally advances towards a focused message. While creating a story, you ought to have a positive thought of what you’re working toward. On the off chance that your story has a solid good part, you’ll need to manage audience members or perusers to that message.

Never Shy 

 As a storyteller, you should avoid shyness. Incredible storytellers make stories that have a wide range of obstructions and difficulties flung in the way of their heroes. To be happy with a cheerful consummation, crowds need to watch the fundamental characters battle to accomplish their objectives. It’s OK to be pitiless to your principal characters—truth be told, it’s vital. Convincing plots are based on struggle, and it’s basic that you embrace conflict and show to improve as a storyteller.

Have a clear structure 

There is a wide range of approaches to structure a story, yet the three fixings a story should have are a start, centre, and end. On a more granular level, a fruitful story will begin with an impelling occurrence, lead into rising activity, work to a peak and eventually sink into a wonderful goal.

There are numerous books and online assets that can assist you with bettering these terms and familiarize you with other storytelling methods. Extra bits of knowledge into story construction can be gathered by presenting yourself to extraordinary storytellers in writing and film and working on spreading out your own accounts on paper so you can notice their shape and design.

Share your personal experiences 

 Regardless of whether you are recounting a genuine story straightforwardly dependent on close-to-home insight, you can generally seek your life for motivation when concocting new stories. Consider significant encounters in your reality and how you could possibly make them into accounts.

Engage with your audience

You need to engage with your audience to become a good storyteller, however, quite a bit of how you enamour your crowd relies on the method of storytelling you’re utilizing. In case you’re perusing a short story before a group of people, you should mess with bringing your look off the page from time to time to visually connect with your crowd. In case you’re recording an account digital broadcast, so much relies on the expressiveness of your voice and your capacity to pass on feeling with your tone. Notwithstanding, you decide to recount your story, try to think about your crowd.

Now you are ready to get started with storytelling.

How does storytelling help in winning clients? What are the helpful tips to get started with storytelling?

Ekta Swarnkar

I think one of the best ways to sell products is storytelling. Storytelling is a great technique to walk a random browser visitor from a problem to a solution and turn him into a customer. Of course there is a lot of planning to be done but when a story is told in such a way that it connects with your visitors they are ready to buy.

I think the best way to get this done is to start your story with a problem, probably something that your product solves, and then how life would be after using your product, this is to tell visitors they can live a stress-free life after using your product, and then you introduce your product as the only solution.

Some points to keep in mind while writing a story are

  • Make sure your story connects with your ideal clients.
  • Your product solves the problem.
  • Focusing the customer as the hero of the story is very helpful.
  • Don’t add any distractions like a link to other pages and more.

Precision in storytelling

David Leonhardt

Storytelling is the essence of sales, whether it’s a product, a service or an idea. The most common element of storytelling that marketers need to use is precision.

There are actually two reasons that precision is crucial. The most commonly cited reason has nothing to do with marketing or sales; it’s for credibility.

Simply put, you sound more credible saying that a tool got you 523 sign-ups than saying it got you 500. That is because when people don’t have the numbers at their finger tips, they tend to make up round numbers. If you give a highly precise-sounding number, people assume the number is real, proven, true. It doesn’t sound made-up.

But any storyteller can tell you the importance of precision also to captivating an audience. That’s because a story works best when people feel like it’s real and tangible. Vague words don’t paint vivid pictures. Adjectives don’t work as well as precise nouns. Adverbs don’t work as well as precise verbs. Paint a picture so real that prospects want to reach out and touch your story.

That’s the power of precision in storytelling.

 

content marketing

5 Best Practices to be Ahead of the Game in Content Marketing

2020 and 2021 are the definition of difficult. At least we all were forced to learn, adjust, and improve—the same counts for business practices such as the coined practice content marketing ever since web 2.0. If you work in marketing, you might have noticed that just doing the bare minimum to interact with the targeted audience is no longer good enough.  

Success flows to organizations that inform, not organizations that promote. 

Jay Baer, Youtility

Content marketing plans, creates, distributes, shares, and publishes content to reach your target audience. Brand recognition, sales, reach, engagements and loyalty are all aspects that may benefit from it. 

Learn more on how to build your brand through content.

Content marketing is the only marketing left.

Seth Godin

Here are 5 best practices to improve your content marketing approach to achieve your marketing KPI’s.  

  • Set SMART Objectives and make sure your content fulfils them. 
  • Know your audience, from customer persona to buyers’ journey.  
  • Apply a pillar cluster model 
  • Track and measure, look into your analytics 
  • Repurpose and remarket content    

Set SMART Objectives and make sure your content fulfils them. 

Nowadays, there is a lot of content that can be made and shared through numerous platforms and mediums. Does making it hard to identified the right kind of content in the right kind of platform to reach the ultimate objective. Therefore, setting a SMART objective makes it easier, in the long run, to create the right kind of content and channel to use for you and your targeted audience.   

SMART stands for:  

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound 

Example of a SMART Objective: 

By raising our weekly publication frequency from 5 to 8 articles per week, our blog will experience a 10% increase in traffic by the end of the month. 

Know Your Audience, From Customer Persona to Buyers’ Journey 

This is the core of content marketing. If you do not know your audience, you have no audience. Make it your priority to know who will benefit from your product, service, and content. Knowing your audience will be easier to talk with them about their problems and how you can be a solution to them. After creating a few customer personas, focus on one and their buyers’ journey. By understanding the journey, you can create content to reach them at each critical point to help them find the best solution.  

Awareness Stage  

The awareness stage is when the potential customer realizes they have a problem and is doing some research. This research can be from WOM (word of mouth), search results, reviews, videos with people with the same problem, blogs and more. Here you can create a different kind of content to educate them on possible ways to move forward. This can take different forms and shapes, through video, audio (podcast), picture, blog post and more.  

Consideration Stage 

They have made some research and are now considering to eighter invest in you are your competitors. Thus, it is time to shine and show your potential customer that you have the best solution for them. Remember not just to push an agenda, and this will seem less trustworthy. Try to communicate with them so that you can help them the best way possible.  

Decision Stage  

Congratulation, they chose that you were the best fit for them. Now educate your new customer about your business and make them ambassadors of your brand! 

If you want to create messages that resonate with your audience, you need to know what they care about.

Nate Elliot

Apply a Pillar Cluster Model 

This model is ideal for improving your audience reading experience and SEO (Search engine optimization) strategy. This approach will have a pillar page covering an overall topic, followed by cluster pages that support that topic. Then you interlink these pages to one another, showing that they are inter-related.  

Ready more on SEO: SEO For Startups: Ways To Expand Your Business 

Track and Measure, Look into Your Analytics 

Having amazing content for your reader is one thing; however, it is just a lot of wasted time and money if it does not convert into buying customers. Therefore, it is important to monitor each content that you create and publish. This will give you better insight into what kind of content works for your purposes and what strategy to use in the future. It is also helpful if you are doing to repurpose and remarket your content.  

Repurpose and Remarket Content    

it isn’t easy to constantly come up if knew innovative content. However, it is okay to repurpose and remarket your content. The key is to identify what content to repurpose and remarket and when. Based on Hotspot Academy, content can be repurposed and remarket every two weeks. It is important to analyze the performance of the content during those two weeks and critically choose which content led to more conversions to meet your SMART objective. 

Repurposing your content can be done in numerous ways. One option is to create an eBook out of a blog series. Create an audio version of the same content in a podcast or change it to a video format. Lastly, you can also summarize the content and make a guest blogging to increase your SEO authority.  

Interested to learn more about Guest Blogging? Learn more about it: The perfect place for B2B content marketing and guest blogging? It exists!

Expert Circle is working hard on providing the ideal solution for you to repurpose your content through different formats. Invested in helping you increase your online authority and reach your objectives. For more perks and information, join now and become a member. 

Elisabeth Klingler

B2B

B2B Marketing: Why I should have started with branding

Starting a business is crazy tough but I’ve made it into my fourth year, have repeat customers, am winning new business and seem to be doing OK.  To give some context, this is a UK B2B video production business.

Now I’m at the stage where I’ve moved to brand the business and in doing so, I feel a little sheepish.  Because with all my years of B2B experience including previously starting up a successful business, I simply overlooked branding.  I put it down as something I should get around to once my demand gen was in place.  And the reason I feel silly is I’ve realised that I was completely wrong.  That branding is absolutely critical to a B2B business and in reality is the single most important element in getting a B2B business to take off, especially one that is competing in a crowded market.

Impact of Branding in B2B Business

Branding, especially in B2B, is easy to overlook, even for larger businesses.  Because I’m not talking about the logo or the font.  What I’m talking about is the essence of the solution. For a small business, getting the marketing around this right makes an immediate, massive difference.

The primary reason it makes a huge difference is it makes a business stand out, and in a sea of competition, this is critical.  It also focuses on marketing, so it appeals to ‘ideal’ customers and improves our ability to close sales significantly. Finally, as a business, it assists us in defining what we do, and this focus helps us deliver better solutions to customers.

More than anything else, if branding is done well, it improves every aspect of marketing and sales and this immediately makes an impact on lead generation and closing more business.

To give a simple example, a simple slogan makes us stand out. While everyone else is saying ‘UK Video Production,’ our slogan is ‘Inspire, Educate and Entertain.’ It allows us to differentiate and elevate ourselves. When a prospect is shortlisting 3 different video production houses to choose from, it makes us significantly more memorable in a very positive way. It also really hones in on what we do well and allows us to win more business. Again, as an example, a construction company called us to shoot a health and safety video. So, despite our inexperience in this area, we beat the competition because our customer wanted something that was more than simple ‘education,’ rather they also wanted to inspire and entertain. So, our simple slogan improved our proposition in the buyer’s mind who, let’s face it, can’t tell the difference between one B2B video production outfit and another.

Another example is marketing focus and effectiveness.  Our branding makes it much easier to create marketing, and the collateral itself becomes more powerful.  This is a piece of marketing (among many) that allowed us to create awareness and created incoming enquiries.  The focus becomes evident, and the marketing becomes more powerful: Watch the video. 

So sure, demand gen’s important but if I could go back in time to the start of my business, I would start my marketing with branding and allow everything to flow from that.  Because it makes all the difference to the business, brings tremendous focus and allows us to stand out in a positive way.  Most importantly, it generates sales.  And for a startup, sales is everything.

For more useful content, check out our marketing blog.

Paul Walker

Founder at FnX Media

email

How to get your emails opened and read – best practices

Have you given up on email marketing? You are not the only one; many might even say that email marketing is dead. If not done effectively, your email campaign could show ineffective with low delivery rates, low open rates, low click rates, high unsubscription rates, high SPAM complaints, and limited post-click activities. One might even question why email marketing has a go-to for every digital marketing campaign. However, a clear and simple solution is to create a value-adding email campaign to meet your marketing KPIs.

GetResponse is a marketing automation tool that provides five tips for creating more engaging email marketing campaigns, increasing the open rates, thus increasing the likelihood of the revisers moving one step further into the conversation funnel.

The five types are: Have a short subject line of 10 characters or less.

Over half of the surveyors say they are more likely to open an email due to the appeal of the subject line. To increase that appeal, remember that your readers are people, thus make it personal. Lastly, take into account the time of when the email is sent. In B2B, these types are proven to be helpful, to increase the chances even more of adding keywords such as “money” and “revenue.” By providing more personal subject lines open rather will increase. Nonetheless, there are many more tips given in the infographic below.

Once the email is opened, it needs to be read and foremost clicked on.

Here are five tips on how to increase the number of email readers:

  1. Write a no-nonsense copy answering the who, what, where, when, how, and why for the targeted audience.
  2. Make it easy to read on any device. Out of 144 billion emails send daily, about 46% get opened through a mobile phone.
  3. When sending an email, also be aware of the timing. Send the emails when the target reader is most likely going to read them.
  4. Add personal touches, do not just employ an inside out communications approach. Try to connect with the reader by using an outside-in communication method.
  5. Lastly, do not mislead the readers. This can increase the likelihood for the emails to receive SPAM complaints, thus decreasing delivery rates and unsubscribing rates.

Implement these small tips to improve your email marketing campaign to achieve your next marketing objectives!

Here is a  great infographic by GetResponse to provide you with some stats and tips to make your email marketing efforts more effective:

InfoGraphic - How To Get Your Emails Opened And Read

Elisabeth Klingler