Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 took an unexpected, albeit unwanted, turn for most of us. Suddenly, health and safety awareness became a top priority, and daily life changed significantly. As a result, it’s easy to get caught up in the tragedies and statistics posted by news outlets, not to mention the political, healthcare and financial implications associated with the pandemic. But as we move to the “new normal,” a focus on positivity will pave the way for success.
Is It Time to Revitalize Old Content?
For some marketing teams, it’s easy to get caught in a hamster wheel of content production. We’re constantly searching for ideas for the next blog, white paper, newsletter, video or webinar. To add to the frenzy, marketers spend time researching the best ways to optimize content, mastering the latest trends and technologies, and identifying the newest outlets that are attracting their target markets. But what about all the old content that already exists?
Using Authentic Conversations to Find the New Normal
For much of the United States, the stay-at-home order is expected to be lifted next week. While the re-opening will look different depending on individual states, governments and the private sector, companies and individuals are still trying to understand exactly what this change will mean. But, one thing we can agree on is there will be confusion, challenges and conversations.
How to Optimize Your Website to Attract and Engage Visitors
Company websites are a vital platform for business interactions. In previous blogs, we’ve talked about how to continually revitalize your website and use KPIs to measure success. Yet, with so many working parts, there are still simple (yet essential) websites elements every company can assess, address and implement to optimize the user experience.
Increase LinkedIn Engagement With Their New Features
Similar to other marketing outreach initiatives, LinkedIn is not a one-and-done tactic. To get the most from it requires constant time, attention and learning to keep up to date with its newest features, algorithms and technologies. Here are some recent LinkedIn engagement changes that will give you more and better ways to take advantage of this powerful platform.
Energize Your Marketing With Content Curation
When the subject of content strategy comes up, most people think about generating content. Creating content is essential to maximizing your marketing efforts. A broader perspective focusing on engagement with other content creators takes content marketing to the next level. The name of this process is content curation.
Technology and Its Impact on Communication
It’s circular in nature. Societal needs dictate the technology we develop, and at the same time, emerging technology can also shape our society. When it comes to communication, technology is responsible for how we connect and interact with each other on many levels. It unites families with each other, students with their instructors and businesses with their target audiences.
A How-To Process to Evaluate Your Content Marketing Strategy
To evaluate your current content marketing strategy, consider three key areas: types of marketing content, messaging and frequency of contact. By evaluating your efforts in each category, you will discover which areas are strong and which ones could use a boost. You might also see opportunities you didn’t recognize previously and get energized about expanding and modifying your current programs.
The Importance of Practicing Business Ethics
In business, we tend to obsess over the bottom line. As a result, we focus on strategies and tactics to improve skills, generate more revenue, expand marketing outreach, and boost performance and productivity. While those actions are vital to business success, what’s lacking is a discussion about how optimizing our values and the resulting ethical business practices contributes to success as well. The reality is these verbal and non-verbal cultural principles are important to employees, customers and other stakeholders.
21 Resources to Help You Stay Educated and Engaged
As our recent blog mentioned, many of us are working remotely during the current COVID-19 environment. For some, that may mean fewer projects, reduced hours or simply more time spent at home. While we engage in social distancing and work away from the traditional office setting, now is a good time to catch up on your reading and expand your knowledge of the marketplace. Today’s blog is a compilation of our favorite informative resources for marketing, business and entrepreneurship.
Expanding Telecommuting in the COVID-19 Environment
Escalating concerns about the impact and spread of COVID-19, colloquially called Coronavirus, are causing major changes in the way businesses and society operate— nationally and internationally. As a result of major anxiety about health safety, businesses are taking precautions as they cancel large events, allow employees to work from home (telecommuting) and encourage all to practice good hygiene. While remote workplaces are nothing new to us, the importance of effective, consistent communications in this environment is essential to maintain productivity. Here are seven ways to boost remote communications.
In Case You Missed the Content Marketing Webinar …
Trade Press Services and SmartFinds Marketing recently hosted a content marketing webinar as part of a “Learn from the Pros” series. The educational webinar, “How to Increase Sales with the Power of Content Marketing,” was created to help businesses discover how to use content marketing as a valuable marketing tool to increase sales, establish credibility and boost marketplace visibility.
How to Gain Insight into Your Audiences with Behavioral Marketing
Imagine if you could see into the minds of your target audiences and uncover their needs, values, concerns and desires. Fortunately, behavioral marketing allows us to explore those characteristics and the actions that are innate to human nature. This helps marketers develop better targeted and more effective messaging that resonates with your audiences.
8 Top Content Marketing Myths—Busted!
With so many different guides, hot tips, new stats and trends coming at us each day, it is easy to get bombarded, even confused by the plethora of information and misinformation available in the marketplace. To set the record straight, we collected eight common content marketing myths and explain why they wreak havoc on the lives of professional marketers.
How to Get Your Content to the Right Audiences
Creating high-quality content requires a thorough knowledge and understanding of the marketplace as well as the messaging development and writing skills needed to produce engaging copy. But that’s not all. How you distribute your content to your audiences is just as important as the content itself. Without a proactive content distribution plan to share and build traffic, a perfectly good article, blog or white paper will collect dust in the fast-paced realm of digital content.
How to Build a Solid Content Marketing Program
Whether you’re just starting out with content marketing or you’ve been using the tactic for a while, a strategic content marketing plan is critical to make sure your program is on target and delivers on organizational objectives. When you consider that only 42 percent of B2B marketers say they’re effective at content marketing, you can see why strong content can set your organization apart from the pack.
Using Content Marketing to Create a Competitive Advantage
Content marketing is an essential component of a marketer’s toolkit. In fact, 92 percent of marketers reported that their companies view content as a business asset. As such, it needs to be one of the key strategies you use to achieve your marketing goals. Yet while the most successful companies are very committed to producing content marketing, only 39 percent have a documented strategy.
The Top KPIs for Evaluating Your Website Performance
A company’s website is one of its most vital resources. For most businesses, a website is an essential marketing tool. It provides visitors with valuable information that will help convert them from prospects to customers. Additionally, with the increase of digital communication and remote workplaces, a website can also act as a headquarters for business transactions, often more so than a physical storefront or office.
How to Create a Corporate Communications Toolkit
A robust corporate communications toolkit is an essential component of any successful business. Without well-thought-out, consistent communications, how can you expect your audiences to know who you are, what you do and why they should do business with you? Here’s a checklist, divided into internal and external communications, for assessing how comprehensive your inventory is.
Boost Your Marketing With These 17 Digital Resources
As marketing communications strategists who work with a variety of business professionals, it’s important for us to stay current with digital resources to help us learn and grow in order to exceed our clients’ expectations. To accomplish that goal, we participate in industry webinars, listen to podcasts, attend industry trade shows and read a variety of books, magazine articles and internet stories. We believe some of the digital resources we’ve discovered and use can help you expand your marketing horizons and achieve your business goals. Here’s our digital resources list broken down by categories.
Positivity in Productivity: Nettie Owens Shares Her Rearview Vision Technique
Recently, Trade Press Services had the pleasure of talking with Nettie Owens, an entrepreneur and business consultant with expertise in management, productivity, accountability and organization. She is founder of Sappari Solutions and Momentum, companies that help fellow entrepreneurs balance a busy life and grow a business.
Reflections on a Decade: 10 Ways Business Has Changed
The end of the year is a good time to look back on the last 12 months and contemplate strategies and priorities for the year ahead. But as we come to a close of this decade, it’s even more powerful to reflect on the last 10 years and evaluate the amazing ways in which business has changed. Let’s look at some of those shifts and see what implications there are for business growth as we enter the third decade of the 21st century.
Practice Holiday Self-Care With These 10 Ideas
For many, the holidays represent fun, festivity and excitement, but for others, the season creates its fair share of stress too. Impending deadlines, year-end reconciliations, unfinished projects or incomplete goals add to an already long to-do list—this on top of gift giving, holiday travel and family visits. With so much to do, it’s no wonder that many of us feel overwhelmed. That said, the holidays are here to remind us to slow down, take a moment to breathe and enjoy time with our loved ones.
How to Get Better Results from Your Advertising Campaign
Advertising can be one of the most effective channels for building brand awareness, generating leads and making more sales. That said, it also can be one of the most expensive tactics and is often a challenge to get right. At the core, B2B marketers are faced with the task of balancing brand and transparency with concise and attention-grabbing calls to action. Before starting your next advertising campaign, here’s a six-step guide to help you maximize your advertising effectiveness.
