Content Marketing

Content Marketing Blog Archives | Crackerjack Marketing Blog

Since we specialize in Content Marketing here at Crackerjack Marketing, it should be no surprise to see that many of our blog posts focus on this topic. It was once said that it doesn’t matter what industry you are in, we are all publishers now. This couldn’t be more true than it is today.

There’s a lot of noise on the internet and if you want to be heard and seen by your target audience, you need to be delivering relevant and engaging content. This means blog posts, white papers, eBooks, infographics and so much more.

Why and how does this work? This works for a few reasons. First, it helps with your search engine rankings. Secondly, it gives your audience a reason to come to your website, other than your product or service (after all, if they don’t know about you, how will they know to look for you)? This also gives previous customers or clients a reason to continue to visit your website, keeping your brand top of mind.

If you’d like to find out more about how working with a social media agency can help your brand, please feel free to contact us through the chat window (down there, in the lower-right corner of your browser) or contact us by filling out this form.

Are you currently using buyer personas in your marketing and business strategies? If not, you should be! Creating buyer personas can be the difference between marketing that works and marketing that doesn’t.

Buyer personas help you understand who represents your target audience. They define certain characteristics that you can then use in your marketing efforts to generate lead generation. It’s more than just demographics. It’s about really understanding who your buyer is, how they think and what they feel. Buyer personas help you tailor messaging and creative elements across your marketing content and assets.

One question I would pose is, how diverse are your buyer personas? Are they “truly” reflecting an accurate representation of your target audience? By creating a diverse set of buyer personas, you open up opportunities to a wider audience and foster business growth.

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depiction of the customer journey

depiction of the customer journey

What’s a Customer Journey and Why Does It Matter?

Anytime you secure a new (or recurring) customer, how much do you think about how they arrived at that decision? Getting a sale is a well-deserved victory, to be sure. Yet, there’s great opportunity in paying attention to how those customers ended up coming to you—and how they decided to buy. 

This is what’s known as the customer journey. 

Now, if you’re thinking, “this is just one more thing I need to add to my never-ending list,” don’t worry. Understanding the customer journey isn’t some complicated matrix you need to absorb in order to understand your customers’ and prospects’ tendencies. In fact, with just a few simple steps, you can optimize your business and marketing efforts—and convert more customers as a result.

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AB Testing

AB Testing for marketing

A lot of people cringe at the word “test.” Whether it reminds you of your days of schooling when you simply weren’t prepared or a medical scan, tests typically aren’t people’s favorite thing to do.

Of course, tests are important. In marketing, testing allows us to understand what is working, or not working, and why. A common approach to this is A/B testing for marketing optimization.

What Is A/B Testing for Marketing, Exactly?

In simple terms, A/B testing is putting forth, to your audience, two different versions of something—whether it is a subject line, piece of content on your website, or even an entire marketing campaign. You might also test the time of day you deploy an email.

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email subject line best practices

email subject line best practices

If you’ve read any of my recent blog posts, you’ve probably noticed that I’m a big fan of analogies. When looking at your email marketing subject lines, and the best practices that make them great, I often think about it in this way…

Let’s say you’re a contractor who builds houses with the intention of then turning around and selling them. You’ve put so much effort into designing the layout of the structure, choosing the perfect elements (paint, flooring, cabinetry, etc.), creating a beautiful landscape, and getting everything in tip-top shape to put the home on the market.

You’re all set to have an open house, but your signage is confusing. Or inaccurate. Maybe your attempt to attract potential buyers is so blasé, they simply skip over your house and go on to the next.

So, let’s think about this in respect to email marketing. It’s important to do everything you can to invite your audience into your email. To “tour your home” so to speak. Otherwise, what’s the point?

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Better Writing for Content Marketing

Better Writing for Content Marketing

Small and mid-market business owners wear a lot of hats. Besides the day-to-day of running a business, you are often tasked with the (perceived) burden of writing content for your website, email communications, ads, social media, and more.

“But, I’m not a writer!”

I’ve heard that sentiment more times than I can count. Even if you do have experience with the written word, taking on the content marketing responsibility can feel overwhelming.

Take a breath. I’m here to tell you that better writing for content marketing is just a few tweaks away. You might choose to incorporate all of these tips, or just a few. But, remember, however much you invest in your content marketing will be returned to you in kind.

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Winning content formula infographic

Remember 9th grade chemistry? Trying to learn all those formulas and hoping an unfortunate experiment gone wrong might cancel the rest of class?

Well, that was my experience. I’m not “science-minded” by any stretch of the imagination.

But, I do understand that when things come together in the right combination, something magical can happen. Even the most basic, elemental components are capable of producing groundbreaking results.

In marketing, there are also the “basics.” For example, marketing channels: email, social media, your website, paid advertising. Another essential component is SEO.

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email marketing for lead generation

Does email marketing for lead generation really work?

In business, marketing experts caution against putting stock in a “magic bullet” solution or anything that sounds too good to be true. Well, at least if those experts are on the up-and-up.

But, there’s a bit of a secret weapon that you likely already have at your disposal: your email list.

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Oscar winner Colin Firth could be the perfect person to ask about finding his voice – his virtuoso portrayal of a stuttering King George in The King’s Speech so cogently highlighted the frustrations of not having a clear way to communicate with a community. Some brands are equally tongue-tied, unclear about what the brand should sound like, leaving them either silent in social media or sounding haphazard and unrehearsed.

Get over your brand speech impediments by considering the following concepts, all of which play an important role in a well-rounded social media brand voice.

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Is it possible to go a whole day online without seeing a meme? Wherever you look on social media, you find those amusing combinations of images and text sending a short, sharp message. Marketers can use memes in marketing, too.

Originally a meme was simply “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture” (Merriam-Webster) but now it can be a piece of content – usually visual – that spreads quickly and may even go viral. A case in point: all the memes around Donald Trump, many of which focus on his hair and fake tan.

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Your brand story is so much more than a collection of facts about your business. It’s even much more than how you feel about your company and what makes it tick. It’s a unique, complex combination of the facts about your brand blended with the emotions your brand stimulates in its customers. Essentially, it’s a human-to-human representation of your business. Fans are already posting to Instagram and Facebook, why not empower them and harness their user-generated content for brand marketing?

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newsroom
newsroom

Creating remarkable content can be a great way to generate inbound media coverage for your business. In fact, we’ve seen many businesses successfully use this very tactic, conducting studies and publishing reports using industry statistics to attract the attention of media publications and bloggers. Heck, at HubSpot, we do it, too!

But once you’ve put that great, PR-worthy content out there into the online world, are you making it easy for interested media folks and bloggers to contact you about it? What if they have a question about a certain statistic you mentioned, or they want to interview one of your business’ executives? Would they be able to easily find and get in touch with the right person at your company? Could they gather all the information they’re looking for if they decided to write more in-depth coverage of your business?

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How to Improve the Success of Your Marketing Campaigns with Analytics

How to Improve the Success of Your Marketing Campaigns with Analytics

It’s only a small snippet of code, but it’s the difference between knowing whether your marketing is working or failing miserably. I’m talking about analytics software, which packs a powerful punch in terms of helping you to understand your website, social media profiles and customers and letting you know whether you’re succeeding in getting attention for your brand and making your business better known.

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How to Hire the Right Writer for Your Content

How to Hire the Right Writer for Your Content

Never underestimate the value of great content to your business. Companies that get content right get more attention and more leads, and if their marketing funnel works right, that usually translates into more sales. But in order to get those benefits, you need to have the right writer for your content. Since the writer is creating content to represent your business, you can’t afford to leave it to chance. Here are some tips on finding the right writer to deliver on your content strategy.

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blog editorial calendar

blog editorial calendar

You are the social media Jedi, and your editorial calendar is The Force. Use The Force, my young Padawan. Use it well.

Making your blog or social media into an effective marketing tool is a challenge, and so many people get lost along the way. It’s harder than it sounds to not only post regularly but also post content that attracts the right type of traffic and keeps it coming back for more. Even harder is getting your audience to engage by commenting on your content and sharing it. When the going gets rough, though, you’re not at the mercy of fate. Here are three ways your blog or social media editorial calendar can make your job easier.

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content marketing worth it

content marketing worth it

“What’s the point of content marketing, anyway?” It’s a question many in-house marketers hear from those higher up the chain. It doesn’t matter that YOU know it’s worth it; the question is how to convince your C-level colleagues that this kind of marketing is worth their investment. My experience of doing this shows that there are four areas you need to cover to show what content marketing can achieve.

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Chatbots for Business - Crackerjack Marketing

Chatbots for Business - Crackerjack MarketingIf you know anything about science fiction, you know that there are two types of bots in the world: good bots and bad bots. Good bots, when implemented by businesses, can be a semi-automated way to talk to visitors on your website. Businesses, of course, want to take advantage of good bots while avoiding the bad. Since 2018 seems like it will be the year for using chatbots for business, let’s investigate how your business can use chatbots in your own marketing efforts. To start, let’s take a look at what bots are and how they got to where we are today.

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The B2B Content Marketing Survival Guide

The B2B Content Marketing Survival Guide

You’ve read it in all the influencer articles, you’ve heard it at conferences and in meetings, and you’ve listened to it through podcasts for ages now. Content is king. And, it doesn’t matter if you’re a business- or customer-facing industry, you must have content because it reigns supreme for the Google. But not just any content will do. It must be high-quality content that solves the user’s issues. The majestic, sparkling unicorn of all content. Even when that user is another business. So, how is this done? How can you compete in a world with content that is for a business, by a business? That’s where we come in with our handy-dandy B2B Content Marketing Survival Guide.

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best tools for small business growth featured

best tools for small business growth featured

In every niche market, the desire for growth among small businesses is ever present. Most people prefer to experience measurable growth as constantly as possible. However, if your daily activities are misaligned with the long-term goal of growing your business, that growth will continue to elude you for a long time to come.

Depending on the size of your business, you are probably wearing too many hats already. This means that with each passing day, you could have multiple responsibilities in management, leadership, marketing, accounting, customer support and many others. Consequently, you feel helplessly trapped in busyness.

There is a limit to how many hours you can work each day. Add to this the reality other limited resources, especially money, and then your small business growth potential will remain untapped. This is where these tools for small business growth come into play. Beyond what is possible with your working hours, these tools help business owners like you to grow brand awareness, generate more leads, and increase sales volume and ROI.

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how-to-humanize-your-brand

how-to-humanize-your-brand

Whether your objective is to grow an audience for your blog, sell a product, or provide a service, you first need to build trust. If you want people to come to you for your travel tips or sign up for your online course, you need to give them a reason to choose you over the sea of other options out there. It sounds like this could be quite the difficult task, huh? Well, that’s not necessarily the case as long as you’re willing to put in the effort.

If you’re ready to open up and be transparent, not only about your brand but also the person or people behind the brand, you’re going to have a lot more success.

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How To Structure A Great Blog Post

How To Structure A Blog Post

Even if you’re a great writer, you may struggle now and then with how to structure a blog post that’s certain to get your key points across.  In the nearly ten years blogging and helping clients with blogs, I’ve learned a few tricks on how to structure a blog post along the way which may help you.

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Recently, I had the honor of giving a presentation to some of the smartest people in social media. Hosted by the Social Media Association of Michigan, sponsored by Tech Town Detroit, I was asked to “cram everything I know about blogging into a one-hour presentation.”

Well, it’s pretty difficult to condense 12 years of experience into one hour. Knowing that these are savvy marketers, I thought presenting the tools and systems for keeping the content engine turning would be the most helpful since this can be a daunting task for even the most well-seasoned content marketers.

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Video Captions: Not Just for Watching CNN at the Gym

Top Reasons Why You Should Be Using Video Captions

Top Reasons Why You Should Be Using Video Captions

These days the idea of making your content “mobile friendly” is top-of-mind for many of us in the content-generation business, but are you also thinking about making it as “people-friendly” as you can? You probably already know that as a best practice you should strive to make sure that your content is accessible to as many people as possible, but you may not be considering captions as part of that accessibility strategy. Here’s why you should.

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Blogger-Outreach-All-About-The-Followthrough

Blogger-Outreach-All-About-The-Followthrough

“You gotta follow through all the way.” That’s what my dad, and later numerous softball captains, said over and over again every time I stepped up to the plate. (Mind you, I was no star softball player – just a casual work-league player who mostly warmed the bench.) I’ve taken that notion to heart in business, particularly, and try to be really diligent with followthrough on projects.

Apparently, many people who do blogger outreach and influence marketing do not adhere to the same concept.

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Why The Best Agency For You Might Not Be A Social Media Agency

Why The Best Agency For You Might Not Be A Social Media Agency

Do you know who Danny Kaye is?

Danny Kaye - Jack of All Trades

I think I can be appropriately curmudgeonly in saying that most kids today don’t know who Danny Kaye, the great 20th Century entertainer, is (was).

For those of you who are unaware, he was a huge star of his time, incredibly well-rounded, with a career that worked through stage, screen, television, records, and food. He died in 1987, after giving us the classic films such as “The Court Jester,” The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” and “White Christmas,” as well as a variety show and a handful of special TV shows. Kaye was a classic comic, too, always pushing the envelope even in serious situations.

A huge part of Kaye’s appeal was his incredible well-roundedness. No matter the situation, he was able to bring something to it: a little soft-shoe, his lovely singing voice, his wide variety of foreign accents, or his in-depth knowledge of food (especially Asian cuisine).

Kaye was a real, old-fashioned entertainment jack of all trades.

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Role of Images in Content Marketing

Role of Images in Content Marketing

There’s no denying that visual content has taken over our generation. With more than 3.7 billion internet users in the world and smartphone users expected to reach 2.32 billion by the end of 2017, from Snapchat to Facebook to Instagram, there is practically no end to our appetite for visual content.

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This post was co-authored by Christina StricklandCori Jacobs, and Lesley Lloyd.

If you’ve attended any of our social media training sessions, you’ve heard us compare growing social media presences to building a house before. We’ve talked about how you need to build a solid foundation and then the right layers on top of that.

Because construction analogies come easily to me, let’s just roll with, shall we?

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How to Use YouTube for Content Marketing

How to Use YouTube for Content Marketing

When you hear the phrase “content marketing,” chances are written text comes immediately to mind. However, blog posts and articles aren’t the only types of content you can use for content marketing. You can also create, publish and share your content in video format. YouTube provides a fairly easy-to-negotiate and definitely well-known platform for doing just that.

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Do You Really Need a Business Blog

Do You Really Need a Business Blog

Any business can create a blog, and as you know, many, many of them do. But when the time comes to plan your own, you may be wondering whether you really need one at all. After all, you probably have a website, and you should be making your mark in social media. So how do you decide if you say “Hello World!” with a blog or just stick to your already traveled Internet terrain? Here are some questions to ask yourself when making this important decision.

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21 Secrets to Getting More Blog Comments

21 Secrets to Getting More Blog Comments
Are your brand’s blog posts getting enough (or any) comments?  Do you wonder if anyone is actually reading your posts? More than likely, your posts are getting read, but you might not be getting the amount of interaction you’d like. While Facebook likes and shares are great, blog comments are the highest expression of social media love. Of course, we’re not talking about the weird “Buy these awesome name-brand shoes!” comments, but even comments that may disagree with your point of view tell you that people are paying attention to your brand.

Blog comments also have a bit of a snowball effect. Once one or two people respond to your post, other people start to jump into the conversation too.

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3 Ways to Deliver Successful Content

3 Ways to Deliver Successful Content
Content marketing is the bridge between you and your target audience – it connects you to people you otherwise might never reach. The goal of your content is to get the audience so interested in your content that they can’t help but cross the bridge to your side. However, we all know that sometimes our content misses the mark and our audience isn’t interested for very long, or even at all! What’s keeping readers engaged? Your story is! What makes up your story? Your content!

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8 Simple Ways to Breathe New Life Into Your Content Marketing

8 Simple Ways to Breathe New Life Into Your Content Marketing

8 Simple Ways to Breathe New Life Into Your Content Marketing was authored by Sharon Hurley Hall and Christina Strickland.

If you’ve been at content marketing for any length of time, you’ve discovered that it’s all too easy to become comfortable or even complacent. You know what you’re doing, you’re no longer a newbie, and things are running like clockwork, but are you doing all you can do? Could doing a bit more improve your results?

Yes, you are putting effort into producing compelling content, but there is always room for improvement. Why should you bother? Well, the bottom line is that even small improvements can prevent your audience from growing bored and losing interest while also providing your current followers with a reason to keep coming back for more. And you want new visitors, right? Taking the time to refresh and reinvigorate your content also encourages sharing and helps to draw new visitors in your direction.

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Building and Protecting Your Brand Voice on Social Media

Building and Protecting Your Brand Voice on Social Media

“Building and Protecting Your Brand Voice on Social Media” was co-authored by Stephanie Schwab and Christina Strickland

Every brand needs a strong brand voice. What is brand voice, you ask? Essentially, it’s the tone and style you use when communicating with your audience. Your brand voice not only tells your audience who you are and what you have to offer, but also proves critical in engaging your audience members and motivating them. Your brand voice gives your audience a feel for your brand’s personality, and since the explosion and rapid growth of social media marketing, it’s become more important than ever before.

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Ways to Generate Blog Post Ideas

“Surefire Ways to Generate Blog Post Ideas” was co-authored by Stephanie Schwab and Christina Strickland.

Ways to Generate Blog Post Ideas

Sometimes the hardest thing about having a blog is figuring out what to post on it each week. Maybe you started with a bank of grand ideas, but as you used them up, your blog started to feel, well, a lot less fresh. Perhaps you’ve struggled for ideas since the very beginning. The good news is you can stop liberally applying your forehead to your desk.

Here are some of the best ways to generate blog post ideas:

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how-to-use-live-video-to-marketing-your-brand

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so what does that mean for live video broadcasting via tools like Periscope, Meerkat, Snapchat, Facebook Live, and Blab? I’m going to say live video is worth a million words. Why? Well, as far as content marketing is concerned, we all know how important it is to educate and inform your audience in a way that is also entertaining. We also know how important it is to reach your customers where they spend time and encourage them to connect with your brand. Live video makes this easy.

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What Is Content Curation

What Is Content Curation

Content is king, right? But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to write every word of it. After writing blog post after blog post and article after article, with an eBook or white paper thrown in, you may feel as if you’re penning the Great American novel rather than marketing your business. The good news is you don’t have to type until your fingers fall off. Original content is certainly good, but content curation helps get the job done too.

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10 common content marketing mistakes

10 Common Content Marketing Mistakes was co-authored by Sharon Hurley Hall and Christina Strickland.

10 common content marketing mistakes

Promoting your business with content is an excellent strategy for raising awareness of your brand and getting your customers’ attention. But some businesses don’t get the benefits they should, because of easily avoidable errors. Here are some common content marketing mistakes you should avoid.

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10 ways to increase blog traffic

Co-Authored by Sharon Hurley Hall and Christina Strickland

10 ways to increase blog traffic

Creating blog content is one of the best investments you can make in promoting your business. The stats are clear:

  • Brands that create 15 new posts monthly average 1200 new leads each month.
  • Blogs increase the number of pages in the search engine index by 437%.
  • You’ll get 55% more visitors by having a company blog.
  • Whichever way you look at it, blogging for business is a good thing.

Many brands build a blog and expect the traffic to roll in simply because it’s a super awesome piece of web real estate. They’re in for a rude awakening when their launch day comes and goes with hardly a couple of stragglers stopping by to read what you’ve written.

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Creating blog content is one of the best investments you can make in promoting your business. The stats are clear:

  • Brands that create 15 new posts monthly average 1200 new leads each month.
  • Blogs increase the number of pages in the search engine index by 437%.
  • You’ll get 55% more visitors with a company blog.

Whichever way you look at it, blogging for business is a good thing. But not everyone will read your blog, so to get more from content marketing, use your blog content in other ways so that more people will see it and interact with your company.

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content marketing value

Everybody wants a magic bullet. And if you’re using content marketing to promote your business you may want it more than most. There are so many sites and types of content out there, so how do you find out what really works to you get great performance and return on investment, and content marketing value for your efforts?

The good news is, you don’t have to look far to find the answer, because Buzzsumo and Fractl have done it for you, analyzing 220,000 articles over a 6 month period from June to November 2014. The infographic is published on Hubspot. Here are some of the key findings, along with the lessons to learn about your content strategy.

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resurrect a blog

resurrect a blog

No matter how motivated you were about starting your blog way back when, it’s all too easy to let it slide. It starts with a day of posting missed here or there. Then you start missing weeks, telling yourself it’s no big deal and you’ll get back on track…er…soon. Before you know it, your blog has gasped its laugh breath and you’re faced with deciding whether to bury it or try to perform a modern miracle of resurrection.

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content marketing investment

content marketing investment

Many people don’t trust advertising any more, especially millennials. That’s why you need content marketing. If you create content that speaks directly and personally to your target customers, they are more likely to trust you. And if their friends also recommend your content, you will win their trust and loyalty and they are more likely to buy into your offer.

Content marketing lets you reach your audience in lots of different ways and helps your search rankings and online authority. But to get the benefits, you have to see content marketing as an investment. Not everyone does, even if they should.

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guest blogging

guest blogging

Co-Authored by Sharon Hurley Hall and Christina Strickland

So you thought guest blogging was dead? While Matt Cutts initially suggested that, he later clarified that he was talking about guest blogging for SEO link building. Guest blogging for reach and authority is alive and well, but you have to do it right. That means getting a professional to handle your guest blogging campaign. 

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5 Ways to Use Google Analytics

5 Ways to Use Google Analytics

You’ve probably heard plenty about the importance of tracking and monitoring in your online business. And while there are many tools designed to help you collect and analyze data about your online audience, Google Analytics is one of the most well-known.

Here are 5 ways you can use it in your business:

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7 types of content

7 types of content

In my last post, I looked at the importance of including long form articles, data rich infographics and online video in your content strategy. Now here are four more content types to round your strategy out.

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types of content marketing

types of content marketing

When creating content, a good rule is to make it deep and wide. That’s why you have to think beyond the blog when developing your content strategy. Don’t get me wrong; blogging remains one of the most important ways to increase your influence and authority and to grow both trust and traffic, but why stop there? To get the full benefits of inbound marketing, you need to create shareable content.

So how do you determine what’s sharable? BuzzSumo is a tool that tracks what content performs best on your site or your competitor’s site. (It’s a powerful tool!) When I performed a recent search there, I found that the most shareworthy content included articles, infographics and video.

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What Brands Can Learn About Social Media From Game of Thrones

What Brands Can Learn About Social Media From Game of Thrones

Social media doesn’t just emulate life. In some ways, it emulates television too, especially good television like Game of Thrones. If you’re a fan, read on to learn what Game of Thrones has to teach those of us who work with brands who strive for social media success. Not a fan yet? There’s still plenty to learn here. Read up, avoid the spoiler (towards the end), and then start watching.

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Content Marketing: 5 Goals for Your Business

Content Marketing: 5 Goals for Your Business

When using content marketing for your business, you probably have one, very clear main goal in mind: making more sales. However, there are a bunch of other goals that help you achieve this one. Having a firm idea of what they are will help you gain perspective and make sure your content marketing efforts are moving in the right direction.

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4-Steps-to-Creating-a-Content-Marketing-Engine

4-Steps-to-Creating-a-Content-Marketing-Engine

Once you’ve decided that inbound marketing is right for you, what’s next? As enthusiastic as you may feel, it’s only natural to puzzle over how you’re supposed to go from being an traditional, advertising-heavy company to a creator and distributor of content that attracts, engages, and moves your audience through the marketing funnel. The answer? You need to create a content marketing engine so that content creation becomes easy and seamless. Here’s how.

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Creating Content for Inbound Marketing

Creating Content for Inbound Marketing

Content is at the core of what inbound marketing is – it’s what attracts people to your brand, product or service, versus you needing to go out and find them. Think of content as the honey which attracts the flies!

Because it’s easier to start something new when you have a process, I offer you this method of creating content.

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Critical Twitter Lessons to Aid Your Marketing

Critical Twitter Lessons to Aid Your Marketing

Twitter is one of the big boys when it comes to social media marketing. If you’ve yet to begin using it for your business or don’t know how to use it well, this post is for you! The following articles will get you up to speed and help you use your Twitter account as an effective marketing tool.

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How to Use Content Marketing for B2B Lead Generation

How to Use Content Marketing for B2B Lead Generation

Content marketing is a primary lead generation tool. In fact, close to 70 percent of marketers use content marketing for lead generation. Why? It’s been proven over the years that it’s effective and beats out many other efforts at attracting leads. For example, studies demonstrate that many consumers are unimpressed with the plethora of ads they see each day, say “no” to telemarketing calls, and trash carefully crafted marketing messages sent through the postal mail. If 86 percent of potential customers skip ads, you need another way to reach them, and compelling content consistently performs in this area.

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blogging for brands

blogging for brands

Co-authored by Stephanie Schwab and Christina Strickland

Your brand blog should be the cornerstone of your content marketing efforts. Yes, Facebook, Twitter and the rest are essential too but they shouldn’t be your only home on the web. It’s what both practice and teach here at Crackerjack Marketing. (You can read more about why here.)

If you’ve been reading our blog for a while, hopefully you understand the benefits of blogging for your brand. Whether you are new to blogging or a long-time content creator, you may have some questions.

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Media Kits for Bloggers
Last night I was a guest of the Philly Social Media Moms, presenting to a great group of bloggers on how to create media kits. Jo-Lynne Shane hosted and my friend Cecily Kellogg helped answer questions and get everyone get into the trenches creating their own media kits right there at the workshop.

Here’s the presentation – I hope that bloggers who complete their media kits will send them to me so I can include them in my database for future blogger outreach. (My contact info on the last page of the presentation.) Read more

ghostwriter

A ghostwriter provides written content without requiring a byline or taking credit for the work. When you need written content, a ghostwriter can help you with everything from tweets and blog posts to articles and full-length books. But how do you know if you should hire a ghostwriter? Here are some hints to help you decide.

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blog commenting

It’s likely you’ve read a lot of passionate blog posts about the importance of an effective Facebook page, active Twitter account, and optimized profile on LinkedIn as well as why it’s essential to have a corporate blog. I don’t disagree at all. Each of these is a critical component to your social media strategy, but one piece that’s often overlooked is commenting on other blogs.

Leaving comments on blogs is like the piece that belongs right in the middle of your puzzle; without it, you’ll have a hole in the middle of the bigger picture. If you’re wondering why your social efforts aren’t gaining enough momentum, consider some of the following reasons for incorporating commenting into your strategy.

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As a further extension to my series on editorial calendars, let’s talk about Facebook.  If you’re running a Facebook brand/fan page, you’ll want to create an editorial calendar for that, too.Given how many friends people have, and how quickly status updates get pushed down on people’s home pages, Facebook recommends that brands post status updates at least twice per day in order to capture the greatest audience for your brand content.  That means creating (and posting) 10 to 14 updates per week (depending on if you include weekends – which Facebook recommends but most brands don’t do).  That’s a lot of content!

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blog calendar template

I’ve had a couple of requests for a copy of the spreadsheet I’m using to track my blog editorial calendar, so I’ve created a Google Docs version that anyone can view and download.

In the spreadsheet I’ve included what I consider to be the most important fields that you should fill out while creating your calendar, as well as some columns for tracking your results afterward.

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program blog content

Hopefully now you’ve got a structure for your editorial calendar.  But it’s empty.  How do you determine what content to include in your blog?

The first place to start is to listen.  I’ve said before that I’m a huge proponent of social media listening, as that’s where you’re going to find the topics that are of interest to your audience.  You’ll want to also understand how you’re telling your brand story – what’s your voice, who’s speaking on your behalf.

So assuming that you know who your audience is, you know what you want your voice to be, and you know who’s writing (if it’s a multi-author blog), let’s look at some of the various ways to flesh out your editorial calendar for your blog.  These may not all be appropriate for you, just pick and choose to get the right balance of content for your brand.

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brands working with bloggers

While I was busy last week getting my new site up and running, a major conversation was happening in the blogosphere about compensation for mommybloggers. This is a topic that I’m pretty passionate about, having recently moderated a panel about how PR and bloggers can work together, and as a long-time liaison between brands and bloggers.

From the brand side, there is certainly a great deal of confusion (and, dare I say, ignorance) about how to work with bloggers (of any type, not just moms). Here are the issues from my perspective.

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