by  Kelsey Libert Many companies today rely on content marketing and native advertising to gain visibility for their brand — after all, 70% of people say they’d rather learn about products through content rather than through traditional advertising. But is either content marketing or native advertising a surefire way to boost brand awareness? And which one offers more bang for the buck? To answer this question, we at Fractl, a content marketing firm, collaborated with Moz to survey over 30 agencies specializing in content marketing about content formats and the metrics they use to track ROI. And I’ll get to what we found, below. But first, let’s remind ourselves how each approach is different, and what each approach aims to do. Content marketing agencies produce campaigns for brands (this is an example) and then pitch these to multiple top-tier publishers for coverage. Each time a publisher writes about a campaign,…

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This week, via Twitter’s Small Business Blog, a new post was released which provided an overview on how to use Twitter’s advanced search parameters to maxi Which is great – Twitters never all that good at communicating the inner workings of their system and how to use their tools effectively, so any information on this front is helpful. But the detail provided was a little too basic and didn’t go into the full depth of what’s possible through the platform’s advanced search features. So we decided to put together our own – a listing of how you can utilize Twitter’s search functions and qualifiers to make the most of the network’s stream of real-time conversation. And what’s more, we’ll also go over how to use those search parameters to set up constant monitoring to keep your brand on top of the latest news as it happens, via tweet. Twitter search basics By now, everyone pretty…

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The general consensus among marketers is that the average conversion rate for an ecommerce site is around 2-3%, meaning that most website visitors don’t become customers immediately. According to Digital Information World, 72% of online shoppers abandon their shopping carts before making a purchase, and only 8% of them return to complete their transactions. The best way to increase the number of purchases is through retargeting (also known as remarketing)—a form of online advertising that helps businesses recapture lost customers. Digital Information World has discovered that website visitors who are retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to convert. If you don’t know how to drive conversions with retargeting, take a look at some of our best practices: 1. Refine your audience segments Start by segmenting your visitors based on the way they interact with your website. For instance, people who visit your shopping page are more ready…

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Captivating audiences with the right content is one of the biggest challenges in marketing. In fact, according toLinkedIn Technology Marketing Community, successful content leans heavily on audience relevance (58%), followed by engaging and compelling storytelling (57%) that triggers a response (54%). To make sure your content drives results, its format needs to be just as well-researched as the information contained in it. For instance, if you’re trying to explain a complex mechanical process to an engineer, then a comprehensive white paper would work better than a short blog post or an infographic. If you’re not sure which content formats will resonate with your audience, then use the following tips to identify them: 1. Pinpoint your audience You can’t captivate an audience without understanding it first. Start by identifying your key customer groups. For instance, if you sell complex machinery for automotive plants, then you may already know that your…

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What is SEO and why it’s important to your business SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s how your website gets traffic—for free—from the results pages on major search engines. When someone does an online search, you want your business to list as high as possible on the search results page so you can get more clicks and get more customers. SEO is the key to making that happen. This guide provides: A landscape overview: Information about how Search Engine Optimization works A checklist: A list of practical tips for getting started with SEO Best practices: Helpful advice for achieving great SEO results for your business This guide will give you the tools you need to help your business appear better in search results.  Since most consumers research online before making any purchases, it’s essential that your business’ online presence is optimized for search engines Most web traffic…

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An effective way to engage your audience on social media is to create social campaigns. These come in a variety of forms such as contests, special offers and sweepstakes. Below are some tips on creating a successful social media campaign. 1. Have measurable goals The first question to ask when it comes to planning your campaigns is, “What are my goals?”  You might have a general idea why you should create a campaign, but it’s essential to identify specific goals so that you can assign a measurable value, also known as a key performance indicator (KPI), to help determine the success of your campaign. If your goal is to raise brand awareness about your product on Facebook, then your KPI might be the number of comments, shares, and likes. On the other hand, if you want to drive more traffic to your website, then you might want to track…

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Customer Lifecycle, Sales Funnel, and Content Strategy This article will walk you through the customer acquisition funnel for SaaS companies. The primary goal is to help you design, analyze, and optimize your customer acquisition process. The secondary goal is to present different perspectives on moving customers through the lifecycle stages and to show how marketing, sales, and customer success teams should collaborate and where each team’s responsibilities lay. Hopefully, everyone will find at least one useful idea to try or to test. The effectiveness of your customer acquisition funnel can be tracked by metrics that measure leakages when moving prospects from one stage to the other. The process of handing over prospects from the marketing to sales team and from the sales to customer success team presents higher than average risks of losing prospects, missing data, or miscommunication between teams about responsibilities, definitions, and success metrics. Content strategy is one…

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