Five Mistakes That are Holding Your Content Marketing Back

Content marketing can be an extremely effective and powerful marketing tool when it’s used right. But for many businesses, content marketing ends up draining marketing funds without producing any measurable results. If you’ve started content marketing and have yet to see results from it, chances are you’re making at least a few of the following mistakes.

You’re not using the right tools

If you have a smaller business and you or an employee is trying to create and share content all alone, you’re not going to be as effective as you could be without the right tools. Platforms like HootSuite, Zoho, Buffer, Active Campaign, MailChimp and BuzzSumo are easy to use and can help content marketers automate some of the processes involved in creating and sharing content. They can also give additional insight into the effectiveness of various content channels and what competitors are doing.

You’re not promoting it

The disembodied voice in Field of Dreams that tells Kevin Costner’s character “If you build it, they will come” clearly didn’t have any experience in marketing. Business owners of all people should know that simply having a great product or service doesn’t guarantee success. The same goes for content marketing. First-time content marketers often think that if they’re publishing good content, people will come seeking it. While some might accidentally stumble across it while searching for keywords that are in a particular blog article or YouTube video, most potential content consumers will never see your content if you don’t promote it. Your existing customer base is a great place to start. Use existing marketing channels like SMS or email that you’re already using to stay in touch with your most loyal customers and encourage them to check out your company blog or your YouTube channel or your Facebook page or any other platforms you’re using to share content. They in turn can share your content with their friends and family that they think might be interested and they can be excellent (and free) advocates for your content.

You’re not testing and adjusting

If your content marketing efforts aren’t working in their current form, it’s not the end of the world. You can make adjustments. But you won’t know which adjustments are working and which ones aren’t if you aren’t keeping a close eye on the metrics as you experiment. Create multiple landing pages and see which ones lead to the best conversion rates. Do some A/B split testing with different headlines to see which ones attract the most clicks.

Write up a few different versions of opt-in forms to see which ones get you the most SMS or email subscriptions. Getting permission to text or email people directly gives you another channel for sharing content with those people. Never stop testing and adjusting; your content strategy can always improve.

You’re not striving for high quality content

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that people aren’t going to keep reading/viewing the content you’re sharing if it’s not particularly good. Every single minute, another 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.

Every day millions of new blog posts are published online. Most of that content is mediocre or flat-out terrible. You can greatly increase your chances of people following your content channels if you take a lot of pride in the creation of content. Promotion of content may get you a lot of unique visitors but it won’t get you a following unless you’re publishing content that is high quality. High quality is a difficult term to define but the easiest way to put it is that your content should be offering real value to people who view or read it.

You’re not studying the competition

The effectiveness of your content marketing will depend in large part on what your competition is doing, and more specifically, what you’re doing to differentiate yourself from the competition. However niche your industry, there are other companies that are in it and doing content marketing and their audience and your target audience probably have a lot of overlap. Keeping an eye on your competition can help you see what they’re doing content marketing-wise to be successful and it may give you some insight into something they’re not doing that you can do to entice some of their audience to follow your brand.

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Source: entrepreneur.com/article/293197

Four Benefits of SMS Marketing

Of the dozens of mobile marketing channels to choose from, SMS might be the only absolute must. Some channels may work for some and not others depending on their mobile strategy but an SMS marketing campaign needs to be a central part of every company’s mobile strategy. SMS has been around since the early 90s, well before smartphones, mobile applications, QR codes, push notifications, and banner ads were even thought of. But even though it’s ancient compared to other channels, it’s not outdated. It’s still the most cost effective way to reach consumers through their mobile devices and there’s no reason that every brand shouldn’t be investing in SMS. Here are four reasons why.

Immediacy

Consider this incredible statistic: 90% of all text messages are read within three minutes of being sent. That can’t be said about any other marketing channel. About 80% of emails are deleted unread, and for the 20% that are opened, less than 10% of those will be opened within an hour of being received. How about a mobile channel like push notifications from a mobile app. Less than half of people will agree to receive push notifications from the app in the first place. Of those that do receive push notifications, they ignore 90% of them.

To understand the incredible open rate and average time between message sent and message read, look no further than how text messages work. Unless recipients’ phones are on silent, there will be an audible or tactile notification that’s hard to ignore. With most phones, this notification will repeat several more times until the text message is opened. There’s no better way to send time sensitive information than through SMS.

Intimacy

There’s a great deal more trust in giving out your cell phone number than your email address. Unwanted emails are easily ignored or sent in bulk to the spam folder either by the user or by spam filters. People are a lot more selective about who they give their phone number to. It’s usually reserved for friends and family and perhaps a few professional contacts. When businesses are granted permission to send texts directly to a customer’s cell phone, it’s a big deal. All of this means two things: it’s harder to gain access to customers through this channel but there’s much to gain when you are able to gain access to it.

Loyalty

SMS marketing is a very regulated channel. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) sets forth strict guidelines for businesses sending text messages to customers. While this presents mobile marketers with a challenge, it also means that the audience for this particular channel are going to be very loyal. Every time you send out a text message to your SMS subscribers, every single recipient will have given you their phone number and permission to send them texts. And every recipient will have refrained from opting out, when all it takes is replying to a text with a single word: “stop.”

Simplicity

Crafting a text message to send out via SMS is far easier than writing and shooting a TV or radio commercial. It’s easier than designing a print ad or publishing a blog article. Text messages ha ve a 160 character limit. It’s this simplicity that makes it so effective. A one- or two-sentence text concisely worded and complete with a direct call-to-action is all it takes to drive results. Getting started with SMS marketing is also a breeze.

It’s just a matter of choosing a bulk SMS provider, registering a shortcode for your business, and selecting the keyword that customers will need to text to opt-in. Finally, just advertise the keyword and shortcode in-store and across other channels to start building your SMS subscriber list.

Mobile Technology News brought to you by biztexter.com

Source: augustafreepress.com/benefits-sms-marketing-business