The CMO Council and NetLine have conducted a study (Better Lead Yield in the Content Marketing Field) that reports 87% of B2B buyers saying online content has a moderate or major impact on vendor selection. The most trusted BtoB content comes from professional associations, not vendors. The most trusted and valued types of content include:
- Papers from industry organizations – 50%
- Customer Case Studies – 48%
- Analyst Reports – 44%
- Independent product reviews – 41%
Even though BtoB marketers spend about 25% of their marketing budgets (and $16.6 billion overall on content marketing) on content creation, most companies lack effective content marketing skills. “And very few have content performance measures and metrics in place to scorecard effectiveness and calculate ROI.” Story: CMO Council. Image: Demand Gen Report
In Other Online Marketing News…
Facebook Says Technical Flaw Exposed 6 Million Users. Facebook has inadvertently exposed six million users’ phone numbers and e-mail addresses to unauthorized viewers over the last year, blaming the leaks on a technical flaw. Story: NY Times
All new Yahoo! News. After substantial jumps in usage after redesigns on other web properties, Yahoo News Revamps: “Today, Yahoo! News is unveiling a more personal, intuitive and modern design, and it may look familiar – this new design is one step towards creating a more consistent feel across Yahoo!.” Story: Yahoo! Blog
FTC Updates Search Engine Ad Disclosure Guidelines. Search engines are advised to make ad disclosures more prominent. Story: ClickZ
Organic tops paid search and social. A study by predictive analytics platform, Custora, finds that organic search performs one and a half times better than PPC for ecommerce customer acquisition & customer lifetime value. Story: MarketingCharts
Now You Can Check Your Friends In On Foursquare. Apparently the most requested feature for FourSquare is to be able to check in your friends – with their permission. Story: FastCompany
Vine use on Twitter up almost 100% in last two months. A study by video tech company, Unruly, shows a boost in the Twitter video service Vine. The addition of video to Facebook owned Instagram must be a matter of “a rising tide lifts all ships” since most short form video formats are gaining popularity. Story: paidContent
Multitasking College Students Keep Multiple Screens on Hand. The most popular activity students engaged in while watching TV was using Facebook or Twitter (63%) surfing the web (58%) or playing games (50%) . Story: eMarketer
List all your belongings and share your hoarding habits on Google+ with Google Mine. Apparently letting Google have access to every other aspect of your digital life is not enough. Google is testing internally a service that enables users to inventory the things they own as well as create a wish list – for your friends to see. Story: Digital Trends
Twitter is Developing Geo-Targeted Ads for Retailers. Twitter is planning to let brands show promoted tweets to people who open its mobile apps within close range of their stores. Story: AdAge
From The Online Marketing Blog Community
Here’s our favorite comments from this week’s posts:
Build Credibility and Trust For Your Business With This Blogging Template
Cat Fyson
Great article Lee. The problem sometimes with having a template is that your content can become quite restrictive and not particularly inspiring. I think you can overcome this by carefully considering some of the points you raise (for example how they will resonate with the target audience), but also think about shaking up your intros/conclusions to your content to capture the reader’s imagination. It can be tough to engage someone in your content, but the pay off is great when it gets shared and commented on.
Madison Woods
I find myself naturally following this sort of template, but I don’t pay enough attention to the closing paragraph and forget to invite interaction. I also forget to include keywords when I can. These are things I want to try to remember regularly. I do have an editorial calendar plugin for my WP blog and I love it but have fallen behind in posts. I’ve noticed my readership has fallen along with my increased irregularity, too. Thanks for these good reminders.
7 Ways Small Businesses Can Integrate SEO, Social Media & Content Marketing
Patrick McFadden
These are some great tactics when paired with the right strategy. And thanks for covering newsletters and whether a small business should be on all social platforms. I personally have a newsletter and also think it’s a great way to connect directly with prospective customers offering tips and other content.
What’s Your Take?
When Google Mine is launched, will you be listing everything you own for your friends to see? What about Facebook – did they get off too easy in the press for their data oops? How about Vine or Instagram Video – are you a fan?
Have a great weekend! From the team at TopRank Online Marketing.
