Do you spend much time in the garden? Is it a chore or therapy? I am an avid gardener. Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep at night, planning my gardening activities for the weekend. Or, I wake up EARLY Saturday morning and am unable to fall back asleep, anticipating the day ahead. This past weekend, I got to play in the …
Psychographics: 4 Pointers for Content Marketing
If you plan on expanding your business through your marketing, and I know you do, then you need to know about psychographics. At first blush, the word itself sounds like something a serial killer might develop in a darkroom, but it is nothing so ominous as that. In marketing terms, psychographics are a collection of data regarding the behavior of …
Flat Design: Millennials and Technology Impacting Web Design
© Thinkstock You have got to see this! I am going to ask you to do something that breaks all the rules of good blog writing. I’m going to suggest you whip out your cell phones and take “scroll” through this site because this IS the future…Just make sure you come back and finish reading 😉 What Millennials Want Millennials …
Romancing Customers with Compelling Content
I can picture in my mind’s eye the exact moment I met my husband. It was love at first sight, really. While his good looks and towering height certainly made an impression, I was ensnared by his charm, kindness, carefree attitude, and unrelenting inquisitiveness. Within days of first meeting, I was talking excitedly with him about my first significant job …
Tech 13 and Social Organizations: Day 2
A few years ago, when I was just beginning to dip my toes into the social media space, Chris Brogan made a statement about loving the serendipity of social media. I remember thinking, ‘What was a strange choice of words to use to talk about social networking.’ Now that I’ve been engaged in Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook for the last 3 years, …
Editorial Calendar: Content Marketing Step 4
I’ve always dreamed of just getting into the car with a wad of cash and setting off on a vacation with no particular destination in mind. A serendipitous foray like that sounds like the perfect vacation. But would you do that with your marketing efforts? I bet not! CONTENT MARKETING OVERVIEW When we started this series, we said that there …
Mapping Content to Buyer Behavior: Content Marketing Step 3
Did you know that 70% of customers say they would rather learn about a company through articles rather than advertisements? This is particularly important in the B2B world of organizations that are offering their services as products. Purchases that range from hundreds to thousands of dollars are not going to be made after two visits to your website. The savvy …
The Marketing Communications Audit: Content Marketing Step 2
What is it that a sports coach and her/his team are looking for when they review past game tapes of next week’s opposing team? At first glance, that could seem like an incredible waste of time! The answer is holes. They’re looking for holes—holes in the opponent’s offense, holes in their defense. Where are the gaps, what are the weaknesses, …
Content Marketing Step 1: Know Your Audience
Know your audience. Having pulled together four weddings in the last three years, please understand that I’m still in recovery mode. So the best analogy I can come up with about knowing your audience is related to wedding analogies. When you’re putting together your guest list, travel arrangements and seating at the reception you have to take all kinds of …
10 SEO Tips to Enhance Your Content Marketing Strategy
Our Sales Coach takes a pretty hard line—any business that doesn’t have a sales strategy is pretty much dead in the water. Not hard to agree with that position! So if you’re in the B2B category of business, here’s an interesting statistic for you: according to the Content Marketing Institute’s recent 2013 Benchmarks, Budget, and Trends—North America Report 91% …