locally.co.uk

Tag: 2015

  • Top trends in Content Marketing 2015

    You know all those blogs you write and stuff you create that is content?

    People are reading it but, do you know how many? Do you know why? Who are you aiming for…?

    There are many challenges in creating content but, it is an activity that many businesses are now spending a little more time, effort, money and thought on creating. With social media channels now even more prevalent in our lives – and the lives of our consumers – local, online businesses have even more outlets through which they can distribute their content.

    Content is everywhere…

    And it seems that more and more people are creating content and so, how is it faring? A recent survey, conducted annually by marketing and IT company Spiceworks, found that there were some significant changes in the ‘why?’ of content creation.

    And, as always, we have trudged through the data and statistics and pulled out the ones that show how we are really using content in the larger field or marketing…

    WHY content is created

    Back in the day, content was created because… well… everyone else was doing it. Sort of. And we all followed suit. If you were not creating and publishing content, you were not making an attempt to bag your fair share of consumers.

    However, it seems that times are changing; ‘customer acquisition’ through content marketing is no longer hogging top spot.

    We have long talked about content being the door to your business and company, through which consumers and fans will step. And so, of those surveyed 59% were using content as lead generation, whilst keeping a keen eye on becoming leaders in their field (43%) and 40% of those questioned using it as part of their raising brand awareness. Customer acquisition had dropped to 28%…

    Content strategy

    A content strategy is where you have pre-planned blogs and other content: who is writing, where it is being posted and how it is being distributed. This survey found that those companies who did have a documented content strategy on average had content that performed better than those businesses without one.

    Having said that, only 30% of the companies surveyed actually had a content strategy documented – in other words, written down – but overall, three quarters of those surveyed said they did have some kind of plan (verbal, written on a napkin, that kind of thing…)

    The lesson – thinking about your content strategy and writing it down produces results and thus, spending some time getting it down of paper, sticking with it and reviewing it can reap rewards.

    What kind of content?

    Content is a BIG word, that covers all kind of information, produced in a variety of formats and thus this survey produced a series of results that show what companies are producing and sharing…

    • Blogs – 65%
    • Social media posts and statuses – 64%
    • Case studies – 64%
    • White papers – 55% (unlikely to be used by consumers, but important to other businesses…)

    There were all kinds of other content formats named but some of the fastest growing content marketing formats – video, podcasts and the like – were fairly low down on the list. When you remember that this survey also questioned companies about how they content market to other businesses, it seems that there is a divide growing between business-to-consumer marketing and business-to-business.

    Content Marketing Challenges

    But, as with many aspects of business, there were many challenges that businesses said they faced in terms of content marketing, with the biggest hurdle being lack of time.

    And it seems that this time hurdle is now a serious enough challenge for content creation to, at last, be figuring in the marketing budgets of companies; creating and sharing content is something we have always known is important but, this fact alone has not always been enough to act on it. The time has come that businesses can no longer be failing to act!

    The lesson – businesses need to be paying considerable attention to the possibility of portioning part of their budget to outsourcing content creation if they do not have the skills and/or time to do so ‘in-house’.

    Development

    And we all know that, in business, nothing really stands still for long… and content creation and sharing is one aspect that is not static. Ever evolving, it is now time for the micro business to the huge global corporations to take a fresh look at not only what it is producing, but who is doing it and why…

    Of those businesses surveyed, 54% put content marketing in with the marketing division of their business or company. Of these marketing people, half of them created all the information, blog, analytical reports etc. themselves; a staggering 92% of information and content creation was developed in-house.

    In terms of budgets however, the survey raised an interesting conflict; if a business relied on content marketing as its favoured form of marketing, the production of material in-house raised concerns about how the value of the content (the return of investment, or the ROI – what you get back from the effort you put in) was being measured… and in most cases, it wasn’t. In other words, some very well paid were producing content that maybe wasn’t quit hitting the spot. Are you spending hours poring over blogs and articles? Is it paying off?

    The future

    The survey asked companies how and what they intended on producing in the future in terms of content creation and marketing…

    77% of those surveyed said that content creation within their company was going to increase, with a third of these companies saying they expected this increase to be ‘significant’. NO ONE said they were going decrease their content marketing efforts.

    What is this survey REALLY telling us?

    • Content marketing to customers is essential.
    • Content marketing from business to business is essential.

    The format only varies slightly and many businesses put a lot of time and effort into creating content, but not many are able to pinpoint its value in terms of return of investment.

    Despite the online world becoming an even more crowded place, content marketing is far from old-hat or close to dying out, simply because it is still effective.

    It builds authority and trust, as well as promoting brand awareness and recognition. Top quality content will be distributed more and more through a variety of social media channels.

    How do you create content and, more importantly, how do you market and share it? What are you plans for content marketing in 2015?

  • Locally Crystal Ball – what will SEO look like in 2015?

    bigstock-Seeing-The-Future-1679250Following on from our highly successful post about the look, feel and functionality of social media in 2015, we have once again dusted off the Locally crystal ball and taken a look at what search engine optimisation (SEO) could look like next year.

    The online landscape is constantly changing and evolving; just as we seem to get used to one aspect, it changes, morphing in to something new that in most cases proves useful – in other cases, it can be a complete flop.

    There are many predictions in the horizon for SEO. It is one of the fastest-moving aspects on any online business and so here, after much arguing, debating and general discussion, we have come up with our predictions for SEO in 2015…

    “It’s all gonna be mobile!”

    The format in which people are now accessing the web has changed in a way that, years ago, no one could have predicted. The smart phone is here to stay and with it increasing in sophistication on an almost day-by-day basis, you need to be ready for the revolution… in fact, it is already happening but we think that the mobile phone really will become stronger in 2015 as THE way that your customers will be buying on the Internet.

    What you need to do: make sure that your website is mobile ready so that the important aspects of the buying experience is no lost in anyway.

    “We ARE going to be more social!”

    If you are not on any social media sites, then you are missing a trick. No, really, YOU ARE! Even though some commentators suggest that suggest social media will take over the role of SEO, there are other who think this will never really be the case BUT, social media is a marketing channel all of its own and you need to be in on the act in 2015; other people agree…

    What you MUST do: take some time to look at the social media sites, research where your clients are at and develop a solid presence on your chosen platforms through 2015. If you have not already done so, you must contact us to get the various widgets and buttons on your website!

    “Email? Oh yeah, we still use that…”

    If you think email is on the way out, think again! Here at Locally, we predict that email will survive but how we use it will change. People are overloaded with email, data and information… this means that any direct email marketing campaigns need to be spot on.

    What you need to do: check out this blog and then get cracking on an email campaign strategy for 2015.

    “NOW! Now! NOW!”

    As humans, we have always been impatient; from tapping a finger, belying our impatience at how slow the final seconds of the microwave seem to be taking, to counting the days till Christmas, we are just not prepared to wait for some things…

    … and we predict that SEO will start to be in real time, as it happens!

    What you MUST do: develop a strategy that means you communicate with customers, via social media or any other online communication, in real time; in other words, if they tweet you, you respond. This could have big resourcing implications for online, local businesses so you need to be able to manage it!

    “Context is King, not just content…”

    Content is great. We love content. Google and other search engine like new content, and fresh stuff that regularly appears on website BUT, there is going to be an additional sophistication in our view during 2015 and that is context.

    If the search engine cannot understand WHY that particular piece of content is on your website, you may find yourself bounced down to page 10.

    What you need to do: tweak your online content to fit with your other online marketing activities, such as Twitter, Facebook, G+, Instagram etc.

    “EVERBODY is doing it… and that includes YOU!”

    2015 is going to be THE year for making sure that you are not left behind and so if you do not have an SEO strategy, then you website will drop off the teetering edge into the oblivion of lost websites. Sounds dramatic but it may happen.

    What you MUST do: have a content strategy plan, if nothing else, to keep your website on the radar but, if you want your website up there in the top rankings, in front or on a par with your competitors, you NEED to be doing SEO.

    “Streamline your website”

    Is it clunky? Do you have to wait for pages to load? Then before the New Year hits you need spend some time streamlining your website.

    What you need to do: spend some time reviewing your website, sorting any glitches and generally having a clean and spruce up.

    “G+ it!”

    We think that the power of Google will continue to emanate across the web and now that the Google Authorship program is discontinued, we think that the G+ profile will become more important.

    What you MUST do: take a look at Google+ and what it could offer you, and how you would use it. If you do create a profile, complete it in full and then ask us to incorporate a G+ button on your Locally designed website.

    “Content is most certainly not dead”

    We’ll keep saying it until we run out of breath and are navy in the face – content is king, and will still be king during 2015.

    What you need to do: take a second look at hiring a content writer. They will be priceless in 2015.

    “Stay fresh”

    As the saying says, today’s news is tomorrow chip wrapper (or have we made that up?) but freshness in terms of your content need to be current; anything older than yesterday is old news…