Content marketing: how to create better content

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Content marketing: how to create better content Posted: 06 Aug 2015 01:25 AM PDT Over the past few months I’ve had some hands on experience with content marketing and have spent time delving into articles and blogs around the topic. I have also had the benefit of attending a content marketing workshop with General Assembly London. The workshop was very beneficial and I have taken away new tips and techniques that I will definitely be using in the future. Based on all of this, I wanted to share some of the processes and techniques I have learnt to help create better content. So, let's get started… Where do I start? Ever been sat at your desk with a blank screen in front of you wondering where on earth to begin? You are not alone, it's a frustrating process creating relevant and engaging content for your readers. The content marketing workshop at General Assembly London has been particularly helpful in opening up my mind to a new way of thinking. I have created a simple 3 step process developed from my key takeaways of the workshop displaying how I generate content ideas, beneficial for both work and my personal blog and hopefully for you too. 1) Source Firstly you will need to decide on how your content will be sourced. You may want to recycle or curate your content, this is the easiest option if you are pushed for time. Creating original content can sometimes be time consuming but definitely worth the results. Here is a list of different sources you can use when generating content ideas: 2) Purpose Before you begin writing your content you will need to define a clear purpose to make sure your content is targeted and reaches your ideal audience. You'll also want to determine your end goal, ask yourself what you want to achieve from developing content. Are you wanting to build and sustain trust? Do you want to attract new visitors/sales? Are you looking to create customer loyalty? All of these are great reasons to invest in content marketing, here are just a few more ideas you may want to consider when purposing your content: Your content should provide answers Your content should also aim to solve problems and offer solutions by providing answers that are of value to the user. Avoiding the hard product selling is all well and good but it's vital not to go off track, your story should always have a purpose and avoid becoming too general and bland. Provide answers and give your readers a reason to stay and to return in the future. 3) Format Now that you have defined the source and purpose of your content you are ready to dive in to the next step. There are many different ways you can format your content, you will need to decide what fit is best for your business but also what is best for this particular piece of content. To help you along here are just a few of many ideas that you can use for formatting next time you are creating a piece of content: The power of storytelling Storytelling is important when creating thought provoking content. It creates a relatable and engaging experience for the user, therefore having a higher likelihood of leaving a lasting impression on the reader. Connecting on a rational level is not enough, stories spark emotions and this allows brands to connect with their customers. The fact is everyone has a story to tell and all stories have a core message. By telling stories it allows for open interpretation enabling the reader to explore, learn and discover. Focus on creating strong headlines Headlines are the first thing that people see but are often neglected. Headlines are essentially what drive people to your content, increasing click-through rates. Your headlines will need to spark interest, to do this you can use trigger words such as 'what', 'why', 'how' or 'when'. Numbers in headlines also work well to capture the reader's attention; e.g. '12 ways to create strong headlines'. Using strong adjectives such as 'essential' and ''creative' and other words that elicit an emotional response such as 'secrets', 'lessons' and 'principles' also work well to attract the user's attention. Connecting your headline to your content is just as important. If the user cannot find what they are looking for, they will simply leave your page. Tip: Create your headline after you have created your piece of content to ensure your content and headline are aligned with one another. Summary Overall, creating good content can be a challenge but with the right strategy in place it can ease the process. Content creation is definitely something that takes time, you also won't see results immediately. However, if you are consistent you will definitely start to see traffic increase over time. Do you any specific techniques that you use to help you when creating content? I'd love to hear from you. The post Content marketing: how to create better content appeared first on White.net.

The Science Behind PPC – A Chemist’s Introduction to Digital Marketing Posted: 04 Aug 2015 12:00 AM PDT Three weeks ago, I joined the PPC team at White. Let me be the first to put my hand up and say I never expected to end up in digital marketing. I recently graduated from Oxford University with a Masters in Chemistry. But, having hung up my lab coat and specs, I began my foray into the world of digital. Now, three weeks in, having passed my AdWords qualifications and already been given the opportunity to do some hands-on work with a number of our clients, I'm loving it. A question I've recently been asked is "Why digital marketing? Isn't that a strange choice for a chemist?" Well, No. Whilst the beauty of PPC is that it lends itself as a great career for people from a number of different backgrounds, for me PPC is a science. But instead of turning up to a lab on Monday morning, I'm logging into an AdWords account. From there, however, the thought process is much the same… Here's my take on the science behind PPC. Step 1: Understanding your Goals Before beginning any science experiment it's important to have thought about what you are trying to achieve. The same is true with PPC. What is the goal of my campaign? Am I trying to increase brand awareness, drive conversions or traffic to my website? Which Google network does my campaign best lend itself to? Will a text ad suffice or will a visual display have a greater impact? More importantly, how will this goal effect what I put into and take from the experiment? In the same way the product of a chemical reaction affects the type of spectra you are going to collect, the goal of your PPC campaign will determine the way you will bid and also how you'll monitor its progress. You will receive a lot of data from AdWords so it's important to think ahead of time about which statistics define your progress towards your goals. With the goal decided, next comes… Step 2: Background Research We used to use a motto in the lab – "A negative result is still a result" (normally as an antidote to a particularly bad day!) – but, as anyone who has worked any length of time in a lab will tell you, getting it wrong costs money. Whilst inevitable at times, it's something you're going to want to minimise in the long run. The same applies to PPC. Every time someone clicks on your ad you are going to be charged, so you want to ensure that the majority of those clicks are producing positive results for your campaign. How can we ensure this? Well it begins with careful background research. It helps to consider the what, where and how of your target audience. What? What is my target audience interested in? What terms are my customers using to describe the product or service in my campaign? What's the search volume and competition for related keywords? Where? Where are my target audience? Both geographically and online? Are they spending a lot of their time on search engines or browsing blogs and other websites related to certain topics? How? How are my audience accessing this content online? What devices are they using? It's likely you won't know the answer to a lot of these questions yet, but stopping to consider the answers you do know can help get your campaign off to a good start. In the lab you also need to consider the cost and availability of your raw materials. For PPC your raw materials are your keywords. For each keyword we need to consider the relevance (to both your campaign and your audience), popularity and cost, and then weight each factor with the keywords likelihood of delivering a good ROI. Finally, like combining your raw materials with your catalyst, solvent and conditions, how will I combine my keywords with my bids and ad creatives to create that winning combination? Step 3: Setting Up the Experiment and Analysing the Results With your goals decided and your background research completed it's time to set up your experiments and start collecting data. It's helpful to use a systematic approach to setting up campaigns – grouping your products (landing pages on your website) and keywords into categories or 'ad groups' and then writing individual ads and ad extensions with those keywords in mind. Along with improving overall tidiness, this also gives you a good shot at securing that all important good quality score straight off the bat. When monitoring your results, pay careful attention to those areas that are related to the goals you've previously decided. As your campaign progresses you'll also be able to piece more information together about your target audience answering the what, where and how questions in more detail. Step 4: Optimising – Testing Variables If I can pass on just one thing gleaned from the world of science it would be this: When optimising your experiments be careful not to change too many variables at once. You're going to want to use the data you've collected from step three to improve your campaigns performance. This is best achieved through a measured temperament and a series of small changes. There is no point going all out and adding some more keywords, changing match types, altering your bids, placements, ad text, landing pages and targeting options. With this method, you'll be unable to determine the cause of any subsequent change to your performance, good or bad, and as a result any future optimising, will be guess work. And there you have it. Four steps straight from the lab applied to the world of PPC. Not such a strange place for a chemist after all! The post The Science Behind PPC – A Chemist's Introduction to Digital Marketing appeared first on White.net.

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