All posts by Peter Marino

5 Ways To Vary Your Content Marketing Campaigns

Most businesses post regular blogs and articles to their website to attract traffic and create authority. But content is about more than just copy. Content covers a whole range of different disciplines, and professional marketers can achieve great results by deviating from the industry norm.

So how can you vary content marketing and develop a more holistic strategy? Here are five ideas that work well no matter what your industry.

1. Involve Your Audience

As you build a following on your blog, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to ask for feedback and comments. In marketing, closing that feedback loop is a great way to develop a campaign.

Try writing a white paper, surveying your readers or using their comments as inspiration for new content.

2. Create Video Blogs

Some marketers are a little daunted by video content because it seems like a complex undertaking, but video’s easier to create than ever. Modern video editing tools make video easy to put together, and faster hardware means editing is less arduous. That means it’s really easy to create a video blog for a site.

Try Camtasia Studio for straightforward video blogs, or WeVideo for web and mobile video creation.

3. Make an Infographic

Blog posts that are heavy with data are difficult to read and digest. Why not create an infographic instead? Infographics give your blog a new dimension, and you can pair them with content for a complete solution to your content marketing needs. Google will index the content, and your readers will enjoy the visuals alongside the article.

Making a really good infographic means engaging a content writer, a researcher and a graphic designer. But it’s worth doing properly. Don’t skimp on the details: a poor infographic won’t attract the likes and shares you’re looking for. Invest time and money in getting everything spot on.

4. Create Mini Marketing Videos

With Vine, Twitter brought short video to social networking and placed it front and centre in many marketing campaigns. The short format and innovative app has breathed new life into marketing campaigns: Vine looks easy, and it is, but you have to plan meticulously to make something really special with such a short amount of time.

If you’re not familiar with the Vine app, the latest version of Instagram offers similar features.

5. Make a Podcast

Podcasting is still a great way to reinforce your brand and promote authority, so it’s a great fit for a marketing assignment. Creating a podcast is easy: you can record audio using an inexpensive USB mic, and distribution is free using RSS feeds and iTunes.

Podcasting is a great way to expand on written content and invite prominent speakers to add their input.

The Value of Content

When it comes to Google search results, written content and quality articles should spearhead any marketing campaign. In your marketing job, you can also vary content to keep your audience engaged. Armed with these tips and suggestions, you can approach your clients with fresh new ideas that’ll promote their brand and give them the edge.

By Sam Wright, a journalist writing on behalf of Brand Republic.

Outsmarting OTA’s: Free eBook for Hotel Marketers

November 4, 2013eBook, Hotel marketing, SEO, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketingebook, free ebook for hotel marketers, hotel marketing, marketing for hotels, OTA'sPeter Marino

Online advertising agency Inbound360 have written a free eBook for hotel marketers in the internet age. The book gives a comprehensive overview of how hotel marketers can use online advertising and marketing channels to drive direct bookings.

The biggest challenge for hoteliers in the internet age is competing for bookings against the enormous klout of online travel mega brands like Expedia, Booking.com and Kayak. This 70 page guide written by John McElborough, the founder of Inbound360 looks at tackling that dilemia head on with stratagies for hotel marketers designed to outwit or outsmart the online travel agents and encourage more guests to book rooms directly on the hotel website – saving hoteliers on commission payments which are typically 15-20% with OTA’s.

Strategies discussed in the eBook include;

Conversion rate optimisation
Search engine advertising
Retargeting
Meta search
Mobile advertising
Search engine optimisation (SEO)
Social Media Advertising
Analytics & Measurement

The hotel marketing eBook [3.9MB] can be downloaded for free from the Inbound360 website. No email address or registration is required.

Four Benefits of Content Marketing for Small Businesses

November 2, 2013Blogging, content marketing, Small Business MarketingPeter Marino

Are you using content marketing to grow your small business? If not, start using it at the earliest otherwise you are likely to lose your customers to your competitors.

Content marketing is important for small businesses because it allows them to build customer relationship as well as create product awareness by providing valuable information to the consumer. Many businesses have already allocated portions of their budget to content marketing and other digital marketing platforms because consumers are spending more of their time online.

According to Content Marketing Institute, 91% of B2B marketers and 86% of B2C marketers are using content marketing. These figures clearly indicate that businesses of all sizes are using content marketing. If you own a small business, you should be taking the fullest advantage of content marketing because unlike print marketing, content marketing is very affordable, and is much more targeted. Here are four ways that small businesses can benefit from content marketing.

1. Educates your customers
As a small business owner, you should take this opportunity of creating content that is informative, relevant and credible to educate your customers on your business, products, services, solutions, etc. It will help customers understand your business better, and they are likely to share your content on social channels with their friends and family. Content that is well put on your business website has chances of getting noticed and likely to help customers in their buying decision.

2. Builds brand awareness through engagement
The content that you publish in your small business website should be related to your business and should be of quality. This not only builds brand awareness and loyalty, but also drives traffic to your site. Content in your website is a reflection of your business, so be creative and post worthwhile content, so that consumers will stay on your site for longer and the chances of engagement will increase.

3. Strong customer relationships
Customers are looking for solutions to their problems and by creating and publishing meaningful content you will be able to solve their problems. Customers will have a good rapport with your business once they see you are honestly trying to help them solve their problems with helpful content. It will help you establish as a valuable and long lasting relation between your business and your customers.

4. Improves your listing in organic search engine results
Quality content in your business website will draw visitors to your site, and in this way your small business can achieve high organic search engine result listings. Content such as white papers, blog posts, case studies, e-books and so forth to educate consumers will earn you a reputation as a reliable source of information and help you in improving your websites search engine ranking.

Content marketing is a must for every serious small business and if you are finding it difficult and don’t have the knowledge to do it in-house, it is better to outsource your content marketing needs to a reputed service provider in order to reap the maximum benefits.

Our guest blogger Nancy R Jones is a writer and blogger for Marvist Consulting LLC which offers small business Internet marketing services. Internet marketing strategy services from Marvist Consulting are aimed to help you build online credibility, generate business leads & enable revenue generation. Since establishment in 2005, Marvist’s SEO services have earned the goodwill of clients with uncompromising commitment to business values while delivering expert services.