9 Blogging Tools That Will Take Your Process to New Heights

Blog traffic increases by 53% when you have 51 valuable posts. The number triples when you have 100 valuable blog posts. Thus, blogs are essential in increasing website traffic.

However, as per the Food Bloggers of Canada survey, bloggers spend 4% of their time creating new blog posts. Because let’s admit, creating blog posts is hard work. 

This guide makes blogging less painful and more rewarding. In the next five minutes, learn about 9 tools you can use to ease your blogging.

1. Sendible

76% of marketers support and improve their SEO efforts using social media. And why won’t marketers use a platform that over three billion people use each month? 

Sendible helps you leverage social media the right way. Here are a few benefits of using Sendible:

• Allows you to manage several accounts at once.
• Allows you to post content on multiple social media channels. Sendible integrates with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest, among others.
• Offers in-depth analytics and reporting to better gauge what your audience wants.
• The user-friendly interface allows you to manage tasks with ease.

2. HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator

8 out of 10 people only read the headline of a blog. Furthermore, readers make 73% of buying decisions while reading the headline.  

If you have a tough time creating stellar headlines, HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator is the perfect tool for you. Enter up to 5 keywords and the Blog Topic Generator will offer a week’s worth of blog topic ideas within seconds.

Furthermore, if you open a free account, you can get a year’s worth of blog topic ideas as well.

3. Fyrebox

Forbes generated 75,000 views and over 1,000 social media shares from their quiz ‘Which College is Right For You?’

Zenni Optical generated over $1 million in revenue along with a 9,665% ROI and 29,410 leads, thanks to their quiz ‘You’ve Been Framed.’

Fyrebox helps you create such quizzes. The tool offers you:

• The ability to create quizzes in over 30 languages including Italian, German, and Arabic.
• In-built analytics to analyze the answers of the participant.
• The option to create mobile-friendly quizzes.

4. Trello

Small businesses lose $420,000 each year due to communication gaps. The number rises to $62 million for large businesses.

With the rise of freelancers and remote workers, the issue intensifies. 88% of remote workers face miscommunication from other team members.

Online project management apps such as Trello offer a solution. Trello offers:

• A visual representation of all your projects, team member roles, and assignments.
• The ability to break down projects with the help of boards, lists, and cards.
• The ability to use the app cross-platform. Laptop, mobile devices, smartwatch — take your projects wherever you go.

5. LinkedIn Pulse

80% of B2B social media leads come from LinkedIn. Furthermore, 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn as a content distribution channel.

Thus, when LinkedIn offers a publishing platform — LinkedIn Pulse — you must pay attention. With LinkedIn Pulse, you can:

• Receive better brand reach. LinkedIn Pulse promotes each post to the relevant people in the niche. Thus, your content won’t just reach more people, but people who are more likely to turn into your clients. 
• Build credibility. A high-value article or post will portray you as an industry expert and increase awareness of your brand.
• Receive better content marketing. LinkedIn Pulse allows you to publish articles without the knowledge of running a content management system.

6. Ubersuggest

Moving up one spot in the search results hikes the CTR by 30.8%. Furthermore, the top listing in a Google search receives 33% of the traffic.  

If you’re struggling to improve the SEO of your blog, Ubersuggest is the perfect tool for you. With Ubersuggest, you can:

• Find long-tail keywords based on your preferred keyword.
• Receive data in each keyword such as SEO competition, monthly search volume, average CPC, and PPC competition.
• Find keywords in the forms of questions, comparisons, and prepositions. 

7. Evernote

How many excellent blog post ideas have you lost because you didn’t (or couldn’t) write them down? With Evernote, you’ll never have such issues.

Evernote allows you to:

• Create text notes, store images with texts in them, upload PDF files, and record audio notes. Furthermore, you can even clip content from the web.
• Search and find text on images, thanks to Evernote’s Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature. If you have a premium account, you can search PDF file content with OCR as well.
• Manage your content cross-platform as the app supports Windows, Android, and iOS.  
• Divide notes into separate notebooks. Furthermore, you can create ‘stacks’ by joining multiple notebooks as well. 

8. Squirrly

Each day, the internet is flooded with over 27,000,000 pieces of content. Squirrly offers your blog a chance to stand out in this sea of content. Over 3 million people have downloaded the plugin. The number alone should tell you something.

Squirrly offers:

• An accurate, real-time ranking for your keywords
• An SEO green light for publishing your content
• A detailed SEO audit for first-page ranking
• Auto content recycling
• A rank tracking tool to monitor your competitors

9. Grammarly

Every time you make a spelling mistake or grammatical error, you miss out on brand opportunities. The solution? Grammarly. Over 10 million people worldwide use Grammarly.

Grammarly offers you:

• Over 400 types of checks and features
• Real-time grammar correction
• Ways to strengthen your blog such as removing adjectives and adverbs
• Easy-to-understand explanations
• The ability to customize the features including your preferred language

The tools will help you create new blogs in half the time

You’ll need up to 2 hours to create a 500-word blog post. However, with the above-mentioned tools, you can cut down the time by up to 50%. You’ll be able to concentrate on other essential aspects of your business such as perfecting your product or service and promoting the same.

Guest author: Nevilson Christian is the founder of SeekThem, a creative design agency which helps businesses with all of their design support.. Nevilson thrives for business growth and is always excited for all things digital.

Gravatar ID – nevilson@seekthem.com

The post 9 Blogging Tools That Will Take Your Process to New Heights appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

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12 Steps To Build A Successful Employee Advocacy Program

It’s common knowledge that people don’t trust brands – they trust other people. All too often, digital marketing can come across as cold and lifeless. But it’s not hard to warm up your digital marketing, and win the trust of prospects and customers.

Why? Because your company consists of people: people who probably have a healthy appetite for sharing their thoughts via social media.

At the risk of lowering the temperature, I shall now introduce one of those frigid-sounding marketing terms: employee advocacy.

But really, it’s a term with a lot more warmth and appeal than you might imagine.

In a nutshell, employee advocacy is the promotion of a company by its people. It involves them talking your business or brand up on social networks because they want to… and it helps boost your company’s visibility and credibility by showing you have a strong relationship with your employees.

Many brands don’t encourage employee advocacy, but they should. If you’re not empowering employees to advocate for your company, you’re missing out on a huge PR opportunity. The conversion, retention and engagement potential is huge.

Check out just some of the benefits companies claim they’ve experienced from employee advocacy, courtesy of a study conducted by Hinge Marketing and Social Media Today.

Data from Smarp, an employee advocacy software company, indicates the average employee advocate has approximately 420 Facebook friends, 400 LinkedIn contacts, and 360 Twitter followers. It’s easy to see how getting them to give you a shout-out on social media has the potential to dramatically amplify the reach of your company’s messaging.

Here is Smarp’s formula for estimating potential reach boost via employee advocacy. It makes a compelling argument.

“Employees who share company content on social media… and spread the good word around can do wonders for your employer brand,” notes Smarp’s Content Manager, Annika Rautakoura. “Employees who feel empowered and in charge of their work will gladly advocate their work and the employer to their social networks.”

Smarp’s platform helps marketers promote internal communication and employee-driven content sharing with features such as a gamified leaderboard and data-rich analytics that can help calculate advocacy-based ROI.

Employee advocacy also overlaps a great deal with employee engagement. “When employees become brand ambassadors, they feel a vested interest in the company’s success and are therefore engaged in exceeding the stated requirements of their job,” writes Sapir Segal on the Oktopost blog. “And the more employees feel engaged, the more they want to continue talking and promoting the company’s brand.”

Providing an end-to-end solution for enterprising B2B social media marketing, Oktopost’s employee advocacy tools enable marketers to post content to themed sharing boards which aggregate to dedicated mobile apps as well as the employee’s web browser. Marketers can easily browse through the platform’s content curation and social listening modules to find the most relevant and fresh content to push to these boards.

Oktopost’s “Social Advocacy” mobile apps make it easy for employees to find relevant suggested content to share, which marketers can organize by topic.

But team members aren’t necessarily going to share content about their employers without a dedicated employment advocacy program to encourage them to do so. “[Employment advocacy] requires proper training, a significant time investment, and the appropriate software tools,” the authors of Understanding Employee Advocacy on Social Media point out.

“The most effective way to motivate employees to advocate the brand on social media is to explain why they are being asked to do so. Both managers and advocates agree that this communication is the biggest motivator, more so than gifts, monetary incentives, or public recognition of performance.”

So what’s a marketing organization to do to foster participation in its employee advocacy program? The following 12 steps are bound to give it wings.

1. Gain buy-in from the top

You want to begin by securing organizational buy-in from C-level executives. LinkedIn’s Sean Callahan recommends that you:

• Convey the importance of employee advocacy and emphasize the low up-front costs and increased ROI.
• Present how employee advocacy can increase engagement resulting in higher productivity and customer satisfaction.
• Show how it will lead to increased revenue.

2. Create a strategy

You need to create a program with some degree of structure. That is, you want to document your goals and a framework for measuring them. One of the best things about employee advocacy is that it’s scaleable. Goals might include:

• Increased website traffic
• Increased social shares
• Lead generation
• Event registrations

However, you don’t want to dictate exactly what, when, where and how your employees share content on social media. Just give them encouragement and a healthy dose of latitude.

3. Create a policy

Obviously, there are risks involved with employee advocacy. As such, you’ll want to document a policy outlining acceptable protocol. The idea is to provide direction regarding social etiquette and tone, not iron-clad rules.

4. Appoint a leader

Designate an employee advocacy leader who you believe can help generate favorable results. The leader might be given specific responsibilities such as:

• Generating interest in the program
• Sharing ideas with employees
• Helping you understand the employees’ point of view
• Collaborating with employees to come up with new ideas for employee advocacy and ways to improve the program

The ideal person will encourage and guide employees, not boss them around. Employee advocacy relies on goodwill and trust.

5. Use alphas as guinea pigs

Rather than roll out the program to every employee at once, start with specific employees who have demonstrated that they are interested in participating and in providing feedback.

“Our research found that 77% of those employees who do advocate is a manager or above, so clearly brands have not yet figured out how to tap their broader base of individual contributors.”
~ Ed Terpening and Aubrey Littleton, Altimeter

6. Incorporate social media training

Don’t assume your employees know how to use social media effectively for business purposes. Deliver training and learning resources. Make them engaging and fun.

Potential topics to address in training may include:

• Reasons to participate
• Social media guidelines, and do’s and don’t’s for your company
• How to use a specific social media dashboard
• How to engage on specific social media networks
• Tips and tactics to build relationships on social media
• Techniques for personal branding and influencer marketing
• Best practices for effective copywriting in digital media
• Success stories and testimonials

7. Support personal development

Your employees may enjoy positioning themselves as subject matter experts. Support this idea. Serve employees by helping them raise the status of their personal brands and/or development.

8. Recognize achievement

Reward participants in your employee advocacy program with the recognition they crave. Create programs to showcase and reward the accomplishments of your leading advocates. Consider running contests. Top participants can be rewarded with money, gift cards or a day off.

9. Provide top content to share

Obviously, sharing useful content is central to your employee advocacy program. You want your employees to spread the word about your company’s blog posts, eBooks, infographics, videos, podcasts and more.

Marketers can work toward encouraging the sharing of relevant content in a variety of ways:

• Create an employee advocacy hub where approved content can be easily discovered and shared.
• Provide employees with a link, image, and suggestions regarding what to write.
• Share examples.
• Recruit key employees to participate in the content planning and creation process.

The list of content types you can use in your employee engagement program is long. Need ideas? Here you go:

• Company blog posts
• Company news
• Media mentions
• Promotional offers
• Industry developments
• Industry research
• Behind-the-scenes photos
• Client work and success stories
• News about specific employees or company leaders
• The company’s community activities

These are the most common types of posts shared by employees, as reported by Altimeter in Social Media Employee Advocacy: Tapping into the power of an engaged social workforce.

10. Get the right tools

There are several social sharing tools you may want to consider equipping your employees with. Consider free and/or subscription-based platforms such as AgoraPulse. Highly effective tools that are dedicated to employee advocacy include the aforementioned Oktopost and Smarp, as well as GaggleAMP, LinkedIn Elevate and Social Chorus.

Smarp’s analytics reporting can demonstrate impact per content item or per team member.

11. Host events

Give employees something fun to share with their followers and they will, so take them out to the ballgame! Host theme parties! Bring in speakers or entertainers! Do whatever you can to make sure they are quite literally a part of the party.

12. Offer cool swag

Give employees some cool branded swag such as shirts, water bottles, backpacks, etc. You might want to throw a custom hashtag for sharing it on social media as well. Just sit back and watch what happens.

In conclusion

Your employees are the human face of your brand and they have valuable connections across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Plus, because they’re real people rather than a faceless brand, they’re more trusted than anyone in your C-suite or marketing department.

Marketing leaders should no longer think of social at the department level only, and recognize the company’s workforce as a tremendous asset for social media marketing.

Reaching new levels of achievement in employee advocacy comes with numerous challenges, including: winning buy-in from leaders and the workforce; managing risk; building skills; making content available; and using metrics to prove value.

Overcoming these challenges takes a systematic approach to employee advocacy. And now is the time to take action, build a strong employee advocacy program, and inspire employees to share content regularly.

Guest author: Barry is the author of The Road to Recognition and  SEO Simplified for Short Attention Spans. Barry operates Feldman Creative and provides content marketing consulting, copywriting, and creative direction services. He contributes to top marketing sites and was named one of the 25 Social Media Marketing Experts You Need to Know by LinkedIn. To get a piece of his mind, visit his blog, The Point.

The post 12 Steps To Build A Successful Employee Advocacy Program appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

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How to Use Instagram Stories Effectively for Your Business (Updated)

Instagram Stories are one of the most addictive features of this social media platform. They are little 15 second commercials that, if used correctly, can yield benefits that no other Instagram marketing strategy can.

In fact, Stories have become so popular among brands that every third most-viewed Story on Instagram is posted from a business account. Creating a strategy for Stories is not just important at this stage; it is indispensable.

Stories are the most personal and interactive feature of Instagram. You can utilize them to improve your brand’s ad recall and influence the purchase intent of potential customers. Leveraging them the right way can help viewers connect with your brand’s story in real-time.

Instagram Stories have opened the possibility of utilizing convenient and easily consumable content formats that were not possible to use with regular posts.

You can now post a plethora of content that will only last for 24 hours. This means that you can post content on Stories without the commitment of having it on your feed for long.

Let’s take a look at how you can effectively use Instagram Stories to grow your business.

1. Feature Stories on Highlights and your website

Who doesn’t hate to see the content they put their time and effort into deleted after 24 hours?

It is true that a lot of content posted on Stories is only relevant for that day, but there are many Stories that you may want to save for other followers to see.

You can do this in two ways:

Add the Story to Highlights

Instagram provides a handy feature called Story Highlights. This is a great option for those who want to keep their Stories on their accounts longer.

You should visit the Story controls in the privacy and security settings, and turn on the “Save To Archive” option. This will save all of your future Stories in archives and enable you to feature them as Highlights.

Just click on the “+” button below your profile picture and add any old Story that you want to Highlights. You can be creative and make various Highlights folders to segregate different types of Stories.

Here’s an example:

Image Source: Instagram

Feature Stories on your website

Before Instagram launched the Highlights feature, EmbedSocial discovered a similar function to help you save important Stories and feature them on your website. Many brands still use this feature to engage users and build trust.

There are various formats to showcase your Instagram Stories on your website. You can add a Stories Gallery or run an Inline Slideshow on your site. You get access to multiple customization options.

Image Source: EmbedSocial

2. Be a storyteller

Instagram Stories are called “Stories” for a reason. You should keep in mind that the content you post on Stories should not be overly promotional. It should be original and should have the ability to trigger emotions.

It is recorded that 1 out of every 5 organic Stories receives a direct message, and that is an excellent ratio.

Telling original stories can help you connect with your audience on a deeper level. You can use Instagram Stories to build strong relationships with your followers. You can build trust and drive purchase intent with content that helps viewers form personal connections with your brand’s story.

You shouldn’t be afraid of exposing your quirks because they are what make you unique, and that’s what people want to see. They are likely to consider you as more authentic if you show them both sides of the coin.

Image Source: Instagram

3. Interact and engage with users

One of the best parts about Stories, as we discussed, is their ability to increase user engagement. You can not only track the number of likes, comments, and shares, but also get actionable insights about your followers’ preferences and opinions.

There are many features like polls and reaction bars that can help you record responses and gather insights about user behavior in real-time. You can ask any question in Instagram Stories and create more Stories based on the answers you get to boost engagement.

Image Source: Curalate

This is one of the best ways to keep users engaged and collect actionable insights. These insights can help you understand which types of content are working well with your audience.

4. Use Stories data for your marketing strategy

The data collected through Stories can help strategize your next marketing moves. You can identify more about your audience’s preferences and interests.

You can use these insights to optimize your marketing strategy for social media and other marketing channels like emails, blog posts, and paid ads.

You can determine the kind of content that your followers engage with the most. Then, include those content formats and topics in your overall marketing strategy to get a positive growth curve.

Image Source: Out of the 925

Focusing on omnichannel marketing can help you showcase that your teams are well-connected. The more integrated and user-centric strategies you use, the better it will be for your brand.

5. Improve your influencer marketing database

Influencer marketing is a booming industry with a majority of businesses relying on this tactic. It is also estimated to become a $5-$10 billion industry by the end of 2020.

Instagram Stories are one of the prime ways influencers use to communicate with their audiences. You can utilize their strong relationships to promote your brand and get their followers to purchase from you.

However, you need to regularly update your influencer marketing database to make the most out of your influencer campaigns. You should remove influencers who didn’t drive any significant results in the past and add new ones who show good potential.

The first part seems easy, but the second one looks like a lot of work, doesn’t it?

The good part is that you can get help from influencer marketing agencies to identify authentic and reliable influencers in your niche. They can help you find influencers who are directly relevant to your business and have the potential to increase your social media marketing ROI.

Use this influencer agency database of more than 700 agencies to connect with influencers who can help you generate revenue with their Stories. You can filter results by country and city to find more suitable influencers.

6. Run cross-brand collaboration campaigns

Collaborating with another brand may come at a price, but it can prove to be one of your most successful social media marketing moves.

You should find a brand from the same niche as yours, but not a direct competitor. Call them up or visit them to discuss the possibility of a beneficial collaboration on Instagram Stories.

One way is to take over their Instagram Stories and showcase your brand, your office, and your day-to-day activities.

HopperHq’s team was working remotely from Thailand for some time and saw a great collaboration opportunity. They featured a series of Stories about “A Day in the Life of a Remote Team” on Quuu’s profile.

At the same time, Quuu’s team prepared a series of video tips about how to stay productive while working remotely, which Hopper Hq posted as their Instagram Stories.

Both brands benefitted from the collaboration.

Image Source: HopperHq

This can be a two-way effort for brands to increase their reach and showcase their business to an entirely new audience.

You can also do an Instagram takeover with an influencer in your niche by asking them to showcase a day at your office in their Stories. They can also post about their experiences of using your products or services.

You should ensure that you ask them to tag your Instagram account in their Stories and use your branded hashtags. This will help you get more reach and generate more engagement.

Wrapping up

The social media market is saturated, but 15-second Stories offer brands and marketers immense possibilities to explore.

Many people spend hours looking at Instagram Stories, one after another without even realizing how long it has been.

You should use this addictive feature to your advantage to stay on top of your audience’s Instagram feed. This will help you increase your brand’s mindshare through engaging Stories and generate more revenue on Instagram.

Guest author: Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant who specializes in influencer marketing, content marketing, and SEO. He is the co-founder of Attrock, a digital marketing agency. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, influencers with digital products, and a number of A-List celebrities. Find Shane on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Linkedin. 

The post How to Use Instagram Stories Effectively for Your Business (Updated) appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

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B2B Lead Nurturing: The Foolproof Guide to Building Trust

Billy Joel didn’t know it when he sang “Matter of Trust”, but he was singing about B2B lead nurturing.

In a nutshell, this means building relationships of trust and cultivating them over time, and it is the essence of doing business.

Forward-thinking companies focus on building trust with the end customer, and you should, too.

Why is trust so important? Because the end-user needs to trust you before deciding to buy your product or service.

No trust, no buy.

In this article, we will analyze the most effective B2B lead nurturing strategies that build the deepest trust. Let’s get started!

What is B2B Lead Nurturing?

B2B lead nurturing is about converting a prospect into a customer. To do this professionally, focus on creating specific content that builds trust with that prospect. Content is at the heart of a successful B2B lead nurturing strategy because that’s what prospects consume before they become customers.

Image Source: Hubspot

The journey from prospect to customer is through your content. Here’s what your content can do:

• Create an educational process based on ad hoc content. Potential customers need to know your brand, the products, and their benefits.
• Eliminate all objections and minimize “purchase frictions” (hesitations). You can build trust in prospects and reduce their hesitancy by showing them successful case studies and testimonials.
• Raise awareness with prospects. Creating ebooks, white papers, and blog articles will reach as many prospects in as many ways as possible.
• Let the customer help you. If you build awareness in the prospects, they will buy from you more often. In fact, they will recommend you to their acquaintances and they will generate referrals at no cost. Make it easy for them to do so.

The result? A personalized and professional customer experience.

Practical examples of B2B Lead Nurturing

Targeted content is the key to bringing new customers into the company. In other words, follow a content strategy that focuses on what the target wants to know. Each customer will get the proper nourishment to trust you and buy your products.

To build a B2B lead nurturing strategy, consider creating:

• Lead magnets. Offer freebies such as ebooks, checklists, or templates that prospects can download from your site in exchange for their email address. This helps them develop an interest in your company and gives you a way to follow up with them.
• Landing pages. Promote your product by eliminating distractions, arousing interest and curiosity, and focusing on the call to action (CTA). An example of valid CTA would be to fill out a query form to be contacted or request a free quote. Use a time-tested formula to increase conversions from your content.
• Segmentation. This is the first step in personalizing content. Once you have the customer’s email address, you can add them to a list in your customer relationship (CRM) software or app. A carefully crafted email series helps nurture and strengthen the bond with the prospect. It increases awareness and builds a desire to buy your product or service.
• Web content. Research and understand what content your audience wants to receive and discover. Then, write it.
• Reports and case studies. These increase your brand’s authority by demonstrating expertise and instilling trust in potential customers.

These strategies position your brand as “good” and “valuable”, reduce customer hesitancy and make them eager to buy from you.

Image Source: Hubspot

Inbound Marketing and B2B Lead Nurturing

Inbound marketing is the first step to building trust and converting the prospect. It refers to all your efforts to pull potential buyers to your website. Once again, content that shows concrete results without using annoying persuasive techniques is key.

With inbound marketing, you can:

• Introduce new customers (who actively are seeking information online);
• Educate new inbound leads; and
• Retain those who are already customers.

So, how can you develop an inbound marketing strategy for a company in the B2B sector?

Think like the customer.

First, pay attention to keywords that are most relevant, so you can rank higher in search engines for the words they use when searching. Create all your content from an SEO perspective, thus facilitating mutual interaction between the brand and its customer both when they search and when they land on your page. Use the technical terms of the sector, keeping in mind the questions that customers would ask themselves, the language they would use, and the answers you want to provide.

Second, pay attention to timing. People need different content at different points in the sales funnel. Aim more informative content at people who are still far from ready to buy. Provide more product-related content to contacts who are weighing a purchase.

Once the customer (the company in the B2B sector) has learned to recognize how your product can solve their problem, everything else will follow.

8 Steps to create lead nurturing Content

Winning content should be personalized and designed to generate feedback.

Here’s how to create professional, lead nurturing-focused content for B2B:

Step 1. Pay attention to personalizing your content. Create targeted messages that respond to the real needs of the target. Analyze at which point in the customer journey you should send them the content.

Step 2. Videos are dominating the internet. They are a fresh form of content and can show the human face of the company. Plus, they increase engagement and become a must-watch for customers. Live shows induce people to interact with the host. Would you like to engage prospects? Open a channel on YouTube to offer targeted content. You can collect questions, food for thought, and feedback.

Step 3. Test which version of email works best. Do A/B testing between text and video, between long copy and short, between technical talk and plain English.

Step 4. Build trust and increase desire through a calibrated email sequence. Provide any helpful information and anticipate any objections. Each email is an arrow in your bow to win the prospect’s mind and convert them into a customer.

Step 5. Capture the big idea in the email headline before feeding your sequence to the email automation software. Think carefully about what emotion you want to trigger in the prospect – the big idea is always an emotion packaged in logic.

Step 6. Nurture relationships with old customers. Provide an exclusive and genuine value promotion. An inactive (presumably satisfied) customer could become a repeat customer or even recommend you to a friend or colleague.

Step 7. Don’t neglect commercial phone calls to establish a relationship with the prospect as soon as possible. Give them helpful information by showing competence, understanding, and trustworthiness. Calls personalize the customer experience and increase the authority of the brand.

Step 8. Create a real presence on social media. To take your first steps safely, try LinkedIn, especially for B2B. Consider an outreach strategy to attract influencers to share your content. Social media is the ideal way to engage prospects and pull them into your website.

Image Source: MarketingCharts

B2B Lead Nurturing Campaigns

Try these types of lead nurturing campaigns.

• Educational. You educate prospects with your vision and your entrepreneurial approach. The goal is to get them to accept your expertise and desire your solution. Helpful tools are emails, social networks, blog posts, and industry interviews. Looking for a gem? Try setting up a private Facebook group.
• Product. It would help if you showed the product benefits by creating explainer videos and tutorials to increase customer awareness. Display how to use it, or even better, show how actual companies are using it. Storytelling almost always works, even in B2B sales. Helpful tools are reviews, social media testimonials, blog posts, and in-depth emails.
• Promotional. Provide an economic incentive such as discounts, bulk pricing and time-limited offers. Email marketing is a powerful tool to drive promotions.
• Focus on a specific event. Create a need in the customer by instilling some FOMO (fear of missing out) into the customer. The goal is to jump into a more advanced segment in CRM and shorten the sales process Tools suggested are social media, webinars, email marketing, and private corporate groups.
• Reactivation. Entice dormant users to enter – or re-enter – your sales machine. This campaign is beneficial also for generating referrals. Examples of tools that you can use are email marketing and a phone call from the sales department.
• Authority perception campaigns. Becoming an expert in the eyes of prospects is useful in the sales phase to increase the authority of the brand. For instance, you can use YouTube videos, blog articles, advertorials or interviews in sector publications.

Conclusion

Content is the beating heart of B2B lead nurturing. Content increases prospect awareness. Content educates. Content engages. And content sells. In fact, content fuels your inbound marketing, introduces new customers, and can help you reactivate former and dormant customers.

Follow the eight steps above to create compelling content. From personalization to landing on social networks, the goal of these eight steps is to generate trust by showing your company’s expertise.

Guest author: Erik Emanuelli is a pro blogger and internet marketer. He’s been dabbling in online marketing since 2010, and he loves it. In his spare time, Erik enjoys exploring new places and cultures. He’s a man of many interests, and he loves learning new languages, including Japanese.

The post B2B Lead Nurturing: The Foolproof Guide to Building Trust appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

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5 Surprising Ways NFTs Can Be Used For Marketing

Published on the BBC, the first tweet by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was worth $2.9 million (£2.1 million) as a non-fungible token. Sounds surprising, right?

Today, the digital web is full of hype regarding NFTs. Costly virtual art and collectibles, peculiar in-game items, and digital fundraisers – are some examples of how NFTs are being used for marketing.

Up until recently, companies primarily relied on tried-and-true marketing tactics like paid advertising, affiliate programs, and social media marketing.

Now, we are on the verge of exploring a whole new universe, metaverse to be precise, that presents a plethora of marketing possibilities. And one of those possibilities is NFTs.

But what exactly is an NFT and how can they be used for marketing?

In this article, we’ll cover what NFTs are and how companies are implementing NFTs in their marketing strategies.

What are NFTs?

NFT, short for the “non-fungible token,” is a hot topic globally. To understand what exactly NFTs are, let’s break down the term:

Non-fungible

Fungible means something that is exchangeable without impacting the individual value. Here, the mutually interchangeable goods are swapped out for another identical item in a fungible term.

Knowing this clarifies the meaning of “non-fungible” – the goods cannot be swapped out since the value they offer isn’t the same. You cannot swap an American Football Card with another, given they both have their unique value.

Similarly, Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” cannot be replaced with Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.” They both are paintings but unique works of art which cannot take each other’s place.

Thus, NFTs are non-fungible – digital assets that cannot be exchanged but sold and bought. 

Token

In literal meaning, the token is a symbol, an emblem, an indication of something. When it comes to NFTs, the token means “ownership” of peculiar NFT items. You can tokenize many NFTs simultaneously, but one NFT can have only one owner.

Also, tokens work as virtual currency. Like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and other digital currencies, the token also refers to a type of virtual currency.

Also, these tokens in NFTs are protected by the Ethereum blockchain to protect an NFT’s ownership record from illegal modification and copying/pasting of another NFT item.

Combining the terms non-fungible token, NFT means an un-exchangeable, unique item protected by the Ethereum blockchain. An NFT cannot be copied and has only one owner at a time.

5 Surprising ways NFTs can be used for marketing

Let’s now learn more about NFTs and the five surprising ways you can use them for marketing.

1. Gaming

Image Source: The Hustle

Modern-day games are one of the top areas to market NFTs. This is because popular games like Fortnight involve detailed graphics and skins/outfits for their avatars.

This means you can create and sell NFTs in the form of digital pets, avatar skins, and other virtual stuff used in gaming.

Also, because games like Fortnight accept cryptocurrency to buy this apparel or other virtual merch, gamers are likely to invest in these NFTs. Thus, you can market your NFT within the game and even create an NFT-based business model to take it up to a notch!

NFTs have now become mainstream, and the gaming industry is in a unique position to leverage these digital assets and cash in on the craze.

In fact, it was reported that gaming startup Mythical Games raised $75 million to create a platform that uses NFTs in place of avatars which would allow players to sell or trade their NFT characters on the platform.

NFTs and gaming go hand in hand. And the gaming industry is utilizing NFTs to not only market their games and products, but to grow and foster a loyal user base as well.

2. Sell Tickets

Image Source: Aïda Amer/Axios  

In recent years, there has been a massive shift in how people “pay” for goods. For example, now you can buy a ticket to your favorite concert or a sports event with an NFT using bitcoin.

No matter the type of event – workshops, trade shows, expos, and more – NFTs will serve as virtual tickets.

Not to forget the eye-catching, peculiar content the NFT will reflect, making it one of the best digital items to attract the audience. You can also design an NFT for a musical or sports event and have die-hard fans lining up for a ticket.

For example, Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, sees big opportunities using NFTs and wants in on the action:

“We’re trying to find a good option for turning our tickets into NFTs. We want to be able to find ways so that, not only can our consumers, our fans, buy tickets and resell them, but we continue to make royalty money on them.”

Furthermore, virtual NFT Tickets can also include additional services, like drinks, meals, or t-shirts. And unlike a paper ticket that loses its value the moment the event is over, an NFT will retain its value.

3. Fashion Industry

Image Source: The Fabricant

While the fashion industry and NFTs might not seem like the perfect fit, they could end up being a match made in heaven.

And this is because the fashion industry is currently poised to piggyback off the success of NFTs in the gaming industry.

For example, digital platforms like The Fabricant Studio, will let you create your own digital NFT clothing that users can buy for their digital avatars in the metaverse.

And big fashion brands are also getting in on some NFT action. For example, Gucci partnered up with auction house Christie’s to create an NFT which sold for $25,000.

And Burberry partnered up with game developer Mythical Games, to create their own NFT called Shark Blanco that can be purchased and sold in-game.

NFTs and the metaverse offer fashion brands and designers the opportunity to create, market, and sell digital attire to millions, and potentially billions, of people who want their digital avatars to be adorned in the latest fashion trends.

The possibilities with fashion and NFTs are truly endless. Just imagine, you could be the next Prada, Gucci, or Nike of the metaverse. Anything is possible in the metaverse!

4. Product Pre-orders

Image Source: Gary Vee

Every company and entrepreneur would like to have more pre-orders of their products. This not only helps with cash flow but it’s also a great way to gauge the public’s interest.

An exciting example of how NFTs can be used in pre-orders is with Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary Vee came up with a compelling offer that NFTs lovers couldn’t refuse.

What was his offer? Well, for his latest book, Twelve and a Half, every twelve books that you purchased, during a certain period of time, you would get one of Gary’s highly coveted NFTs.

This strategy was so successful that the presales of his book caused the release date of his book to be pushed back by two weeks.

At the end of the day, Gary ended up selling one million books all by using NFTs. And this also set a sales milestone of one of the largest advance orders of a book in a 24-hour period.

No doubt other companies and entrepreneurs have been inspired by Gary’s NFT marketing tactic and it’s likely that we’ll see more pre-launch strategies like this in the future.

5. Support a Good Cause

Image Source: Ledger Insights

It’s no longer enough for a company to sell quality products at competitive prices. If companies want to win the hearts of their customers, they must support worthy causes and give back to their communities.

In fact, a reported 84% of millennials say they would rather support brands that have strong values and offer transparency.

And companies are finding unique and creative ways to foster trust with their customers. Like Kinetic Sand, which offers a squeezable, moldable sand, that has quickly grown in popularity.

Kinetic Sand collaborated with artist Dan Lam to create and sell NFTs to help raise money for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, so they can grow their arts and creative experiences programs.

Even charities are starting to collaborate with celebrities, musicians, athletes, and other influencers to create and sell their own NFTs.

Conclusion

NFT stands for a non-fungible token – a virtual item, a digital asset designed for selling and purchasing purposes. NFTs only have one owner, and the Ethereum blockchain secures the copyright claims.

NFTs provide companies with a new way to market their business, promote new products, and reach new audiences.

Some of the industries that are implementing NFTs into their marketing strategies include gaming, fashion, and publishing, just to name a few.

Whether NFTs are a viable long-term marketing strategy is yet to be determined, and only time will tell if NFTs are here to stay.

One thing is for certain, there is a lot of attention and interest in NFTs, and some companies are starting to see the benefits of implementing NFTs into their marketing strategy.

Guest author: Luke Parker is the founder of LukeParker.com where he helps entrepreneurs optimize and scale their online businesses. Luke is passionate about entrepreneurship and marketing, and he is always looking for new ways to optimize his life and business.

The post 5 Surprising Ways NFTs Can Be Used For Marketing appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

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How to Integrate Motion Graphics in Your Content Marketing + Examples

When was the last time a YouTube ad or a social media post caught your attention?

What was it about the content or information that stopped you from skipping the post on your feed or clicking the Skip ad button?

If you’re wondering whether our attention spans have shortened as often reported, the jury’s still out. Some say that equating our attention span to that of a goldfish is a myth.

One thing’s for sure, though – the way we’re processing information online is changing.

YouTube UK industry manager Paddy Collins writes that our attention span is like a muscle. With the deluge of data and information, our attention span muscles have developed this reflex of diverting itself elsewhere if it knows what will happen next and doesn’t like it.

In short, your audience has learned to shut off their attention muscle if your information is irrelevant to them.

A survey from Salesforce Research also supports this idea. According to the survey, 80 percent of customers say that the experience a brand provides during marketing and sales interactions is just as important as its products or services. In short, low-quality content could kill your chances of getting new customers.

The good thing is there are motion graphics!

Keep reading to learn why you should start using motion graphics in your content marketing efforts pronto and the different ways you can integrate them into your existing content.

Why use motion graphics in content marketing

Motion graphics, in a nutshell, are animated graphic elements.

Motion designers create rich and vivid images with movement to catch people’s attention. Whether it’s for explainer videos or a Twitter gif, motion graphics make your visual feel more life-like, which engages and delights your audience.

Ryan McLeod writes in Invision’s Animation Handbook that animation is like umami in creating tasty, nourishing food. While a dash of umami can transform bland food into a delicious meal, motion graphics transform content into a more satisfying experience.

Here are 5 reasons you should start using motion graphics as umami for your existing (or new!) content marketing efforts.

1. Motion graphics make your content memorable

As a marketer, you want people to engage with you and share your content. It could be a challenge if you have a lackluster brand recall.

When you see a video that resonates with you, you share it with your friends. It’s human nature.

Adding motion to your visual content aids in information retention and brand recall.

With motion graphics, you can grab your audience’s attention and make it easier for them to recall more details about a topic, a product, an event, or even a brand. As a result, the motion graphics in your content can help prospects consider your product or services.

2. Motion graphics highlight the most important parts of your content

Adding motion graphics to your content marketing arsenal can help highlight your unique value proposition.

Catching your reader’s eyes with animated graphics can also help potential customers decide whether or not your business or service is precisely what they’re looking for.

3. Motion graphics make your content entertaining and easy to understand.

It’s one thing to catch someone’s attention, but it’s another for the person to look at your content and stay interested.

With motion graphics, animators can tell a story in the quickest, most straightforward way possible. The digestible chunks format of motion graphics can pique reader interest, which can lead to more engagement.

4. Motion graphics are versatile pieces of content

Another benefit of using motion graphics is that they’re versatile. Use them in an explainer video to highlight your product’s benefits or use them on social media and encourage people to share your content. From serious, academic topics to fun, lighthearted beats, motion graphics always bring out the best in your content.

5. They can be used more than once

Motion graphics are easy to repurpose. You can cut an explainer video into 10-second gifs or transform an animated infographic into a static infographic.

How to use motion graphics in content marketing

Now that you’re aware of the motion graphics benefits to your marketing campaigns, here are 5 ways you can use them. Give them a try and watch your engagement soar in the next few months!

1. Logo animations

Adding motion in logos is a great way to spruce up your branding materials, event booths, and email signatures. An animated logo will not only pique your audience’s interest, but it’s also a great brand awareness tool. Spotify Live’s animated logo below is a great example!

Source: Michael Brekka

2. Social media GIFs

GIFs, or animated images, have become a huge part of social media and popular culture and it would make perfect sense to add them to your content marketing arsenal.

Not only do they capture attention, but they also come in a form that most people recognize and enjoy. Plus, animated gifs help your brand seem more approachable, relatable, and memorable!

3. Explainer videos

Do you want to share the origin story of your business? Or would you like to highlight how your products are manufactured?  You should consider explainer videos!

Whether you want to upload it on your YouTube channel or have your sales team use it every time they’re interacting with a potential customer, explainer videos translate complex ideas in a fun, more engaging way.

4. Facebook ads

Instead of paying thousands for a full-length video that you can feature on social media such as Facebook, motion graphics for your Facebook ads are a good alternative. The good news is that video content can bypass the text amount restriction on Facebook ads because only the thumbnail image counts.

5. Animated infographics

An infographic is already a great way to present various types of information, but adding motion and movement creates a whole new content experience.

An animated infographic’s moving elements will draw the reader’s eyes to details that need the most attention. Plus, animated infographics are inexpensive to produce in contrast to videos.

The takeaway

From banners to Twitter GIFs to explainer videos to animated infographics, motion graphics in your content are the perfect tool to share an exciting brand story, communicate product value in less than a minute, and engage your audience. Most of all, thoughtful movement and motion in your graphics makes your content more human, authentic, and relatable.

TIP: If you are too busy, you can always hire a motion graphics expert or a freelancer on Fiverr.

Guest author: Kai Tomboc is currently taking care of content at Piktochart, an easy-to-use design tool that helps you tell your story with the visual impact it deserves. She has written for various SaaS brands and publications like G2. When not engrossed in a book, she’s most likely taming tardigrades.

The post How to Integrate Motion Graphics in Your Content Marketing + Examples appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

* This article was originally published here

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