Content Marketing - Express Writers

The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Content Plan For Your Content Marketing

February 7, 2024June 20, 2017 by Adam Oakley

Benjamin Franklin once said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Mr. Franklin was a smart man. In the world of content marketing, attempting to move forward without a plan is a recipe for disaster. There are tens of thousands of stories about businesses that have heard content marketing works and decided to give it a try. They create 1 or 2 500-word blog posts a week, post them to their blog and social media pages for a few months, and hope for the best. And then, after a little while, nothing happens. So they give up. They stop creating. They stop posting. Why didn’t it work? They were shooting at a forest, instead of a target. To avoid falling into this trap, you need to know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. But how do you do this? By creating a bulletproof content marketing plan. And this guide is going to help you do just that. Let’s get started. [bctt tweet=”In the world of content marketing, attempting to move forward without a plan is a recipe for disaster. Learn more about building your best #contentplan yet for #contentmarketing results” username=”ExpWriters”] Why Do You Need a Content Marketing Plan? [bctt tweet=”Marketers that have a documented #contentmarketing plan have more success. @JuliaEMcCoy ” username=”ExpWriters”] Take a look at this infographic from the team at Impact: As you can see, 89% of B2B marketers and 86% of B2C marketers are using content marketing. But only 37% of B2B marketers and 40% of B2C marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. Not surprisingly, the percentage of B2B and B2C marketers that have documented strategies is almost identical to the percentage of marketers that say their strategy is extremely or very effective. This isn’t a coincidence. Having a documented plan is crucial to content marketing success. The 6 Steps to Developing a Rock Solid Content Marketing Plan You know you need a plan. Now we’re going to show you how to develop one. 1. Know Your Goals and How to Measure Them One of the most important aspects of developing a content marketing plan is to determine the actual goals that you’re trying to achieve through your efforts. There are essentially five goals that content marketing can help you achieve: Develop Brand Awareness Drive Traffic to Your Website Generating Sales Leads Converting Leads into Customers Improving Customer Retention and Driving Upsells But knowing your goals isn’t enough. You also need to know if what you’re doing is helping you get closer to reaching them. My three-bucket goal strategy can help with that. In this strategy, I teach the usage of three main content marketing goals that lead to profits, and what types of content you can put in each bucket to get there. Learn more here. Measuring content marketing success, as one would imagine, can be difficult. In most cases, it will require a fair amount of tools to cover the measurement of all of your identified goals. For example, measuring website and blog metrics requires the use of Google Analytics. Keyword research means using tools like Mangools or SEMrush. 2. Identify Your One Reader and Where You’ll Find Them As you probably already know, marketing doesn’t work very well if you attempt to target several different audiences. Instead, you need to identify exactly who you’re targeting and then find out the best place to target them with your content. CoSchedule’s Ben Sailer said it well: there are three main reasons to define your target audience. They include: But, how? In this guide to creating a detailed target persona, we cover more on this subject. Here’s an example of a well-developed persona: Need more help? Here’s the top 9 demographic areas you should know about your persona: Once you’ve deconstructed your persona, psychographics helps give you an understanding of how to talk to your target market. Personality, attitudes, values, interests, hobbies, lifestyle, and behavior are all important things to identify here. The easiest way to do this is by taking a look at the social behavior of people that fit your basic demographics. What do they share, tweet, pin, and like? As you generate this information, you can begin to shape your content messaging in a way that resonates with the audience that you’ve identified. Once you know the demographics and psychographics of your target audience, simply find out where those people are spending their time. And then publish your content there. Avalaunch Media put together a fun infographic that identifies the personalities of users on different social media platforms that can help with this: 3. Perform a Content Audit Content audits are important for many reasons. They help determine a variety of things about your website, including: Moz says that performing a thorough content audit of your website involves quite a few steps: Crawling all indexable URLs. Screaming Frog’s free SEO Spider Tool is a great way to do this. Gathering additional metrics. In addition to URL and on-page metrics, you’ll want to gather info on things like internal and external links, traffic, content uniqueness, etc. Putting your information into an easily digestible dashboard. The optimal option for this step is Excel. Understand your dashboard. Sizemore mentions that, “a good place to start would be to look for any content-related issues that might cause an algorithmic filter or manual penalty to be applied.” Write up a report. This report should summarize the findings, provide recommendations, and examine next steps for improving the site’s search rankings. While this process may seem a bit intensive, it’s necessary to ensure that your new content marketing plan is put together in a way that it can be successful. What If You Don’t Already Have Content on Your Site? If you don’t already have content to audit, you can perform a content audit of your competitors. And while doing this is important, you don’t want to get caught up spending hours and hours mulling over every single detail of a competitor’s website and content. Use these … Read more

How a Freelance Copywriter Can Seriously Boost Your Content Marketing Campaign (And Save You Money)

June 19, 2024June 14, 2017 by Adam Oakley

88% of marketers are now engaging in some form of content marketing. And why wouldn’t they? Businesses across the globe have consistently proven just how beneficial a focus on producing content can be to driving revenue. But while there are plenty of readily available resources and courses on content marketing, 60% of organizations still say that producing engaging content is a major challenge. Another 57% say that they also have difficulty producing content consistently. And if you think about it, this all makes sense. After all, content marketing is hard. You can’t just throw together a couple keyword stuffed articles a month and expect ROI from your efforts. If you’re going to win with content marketing, you need to produce engaging content and you need to do it consistently. But, other than hiring a large and expensive team of in-house marketers, how exactly are you supposed to do that? The answer…personal, brand-fitted freelance copywriters. [bctt tweet=”Learn how to win with your #contentmarketing by teaming up with talented writers ” username=”ExpWriters”] Why Freelance Copywriters for Your Content Marketing? Well, for one, because they’ll save you tens of thousands of dollars. While there are a lot of variables that go into the exact cost of hiring a content specialist, the team at InTouch Marketing estimated that it would come out to about $88,123/year. But what about the cost of a highly skilled freelancer? At EW, the price of blog content from one of our vetted freelance copywriters comes out to right around .10/word (that includes editing and formatting). Since we know that companies that publish 16+ blog posts per month generate almost 3.5x more traffic than those that publish 0-4 monthly posts, let’s assume you want to produce 16 posts per month. And, since long form content generates a higher ranking in search results, let’s also assume that you want your posts to average about 1500 words. Now let’s do some easy math: 16 Blog Posts x 12 Months = 192 Posts Per Year 1500 Words @ .10/word = $150/Post $150 x 192 Posts = $28,800 versus: $88,123 (Cost of In-House Content Marketer) – $28,800 (Cost of Freelancers) = $59,323 So, by hiring a team of freelance writers to handle a year’s worth of content, you’re saving approximately $60,000. That’s a pretty convincing argument in and of itself. And that’s without taking into consideration the time and resources that you would have to spend training an in-house staff. But that’s not the only reason that hiring freelance writers is a good idea. 3 Case Studies Showing How Freelance Copywriters Can Boost Your Content Marketing Efforts The other reason? Because there are plenty of businesses that have proven that freelancers have the ability to seriously boost your content marketing campaign. Let’s take a look at three examples. 1. Case Study: How Express Writers Uses Freelancers to Win Through Content At Express Writers, we know a thing or two about working with freelancers. Since launching the company in May 2011, I’ve worked with dozens of freelancers that I’ve personally vetted to help ensure the delivery of high quality work to our clients. Without them, there’s very little chance that we’d be able to handle anywhere near the type of volume that we do today. In addition to client work, I’ve also employed freelance copywriters to handle some ghostwriting for both the EW blog and a portion of the guest blogs that I do. And why would I do that? Because I know firsthand the type of ROI that can come from one impactful piece of content. For us, the life cycle of a great piece of content looks like this: This cycle played itself out after publishing one of my many guest blogs on SiteProNews. Let’s take a look at what went down. Jan. 21, 2015: My guest blog, How to Create Shareable, Likeable and Organic Content, goes live on SiteProNews. 2:25 PM on Jan. 21, 2015: We receive an email from a potential client who mentions that he is interested in our services after reading my guest blog. Jan. 26, 2015: After several email conversations over a five day period, the client decided to purchase our expert copy and content planning services. The combined price of the projects came out to over $5,000. $5,000! All in just a five day span and from a single piece of great content. That type of ROI, about 100x the investment, in that short amount of time is unheard of with almost any other marketing method. And it’s exactly why I’ll be one of the first to tell you that a freelancer that can deliver great content is worth their weight in gold. 2. Case Study: How Zapier Uses Freelance Writers to Dominate Content Marketing Zapier is another example of a company that uses freelance writers to win with content marketing. The SaaS company earned over 600,000 users in just three years by using a combination of partner co-marketing and content marketing. And while they do have a team of in-house content creators, a sizeable portion of their blog’s content is produced by freelance writers. Jeremey Duvall, a freelance writer who also has a full-time job with Automattic, has written several successful articles for them. His article about 10 Content Strategies to Rapidly Build a Larger Audience, for example, has generated over 1,000 shares to date. Duvall also wrote a chapter for Zapier’s massively successful guide to remote work. Hiring Freelancers to Become In-House Team Members Zapier’s head of marketing, Danny Schreiber, has said that the freelancers they’ve worked with are one of the first places they look when hiring new people. Of the first three employees he hired for his marketing team, “Two started freelancing – one for three months, another for six – before they were encouraged to apply to work at Zapier and then hired.” And, as would be expected, having these existing relationships with the people Schreiber hired helped lower turnover rates while limiting the risk of bringing on new employees. 3. … Read more

Yoda, Content Marketing Inspirations From: How One of the Most Iconic Film Figures Can Inspire Your Marketing

January 1, 2021May 4, 2017 by Adam Oakley

May the 4th be with you! It’s Star Wars Day! What if I told you that one of the biggest marketing geniuses in the world was small, green, and featured copious amounts of ear hair? Yoda, the beloved sage of the Star Wars series, is more than a source of infinite wisdom. I’ll admit I’m a total fangirl of this amazing (*cough* best *cough*) character in the undying classic that is Star Wars, but today I’m here to share that Yoda is also one of the most profound examples of marketing genius anywhere in the world of film, content, or television and an inspiration for any content marketer. How, you might ask, did Yoda achieve this iron-clad status as one of the most recognizable figures in the world? The answer is simple: through a series of intelligent, calculated marketing moves that can be applied to content marketing just as well as they can television and film. And I’m here on the blog ready to break it down today. Nerds, read on! [bctt tweet=”What if I told you that one of the biggest marketing geniuses in the world was small, green, and featured copious amounts of ear hair? Learn how #Yoda has inspired great #marketing ” username=”ExpWriters”] Inspirations from The Greatest Story Character: The History of Yoda Known for his funky style of speaking and quiet yet wise presence, Yoda is one of the most beloved global figures in all of film. In fact, if you said the word “Yoda” to any person anywhere in the world, it’s likely that the person would at least be able to conjure an image of a small, wise green man wearing long robes. This is no accident. Yoda is iconic because he’s been designed to be iconic. Throughout the last 40 or so years of his existence, the people behind Lucasfilm and Disney (the new owner of Lucasfilm) have groomed the little green guy to be unforgettable, viral, relatable, approachable, and highly quotable, all of which have led to his widespread popularity. #StarWarsDay #MayThe4thBeWithYou Retweet you will, yessss. pic.twitter.com/D6jc5gfmer — Yoda (@notrealyoda) May 4, 2016 To understand why the character of Yoda is so genius, you first need to know exactly what’s gone into making Yoda who he is. Here’s a brief history of Yoda’s existence and appearance in the Star Wars movies: A ripe 900 years old, Yoda is a member of a mysterious species that nobody fully understands. Yoda serves as a Grand Master of the Jedi Order and has dedicated his life to teaching young Jedi the way of The Force. Before the epic Battle of Endor takes place in the series, Yoda joined the Jedi Order and mastered lightsaber battle. After dedicating most of his first 100 years to studying with masters of the Order, Yoda became a master himself and began to pass on what he had learned to younger Jedi. For the next 800 years, Yoda dedicated himself to training more than 20,000 Jedi to fight for good and live their lives on the Light Side. While it may not seem like there’s much marketing wisdom to be gained from a far-out story of a small green warrior, every piece of Yoda’s construction was deliberate, and it’s been one of the biggest things that has allowed Disney and Lucasfilm to enjoy shockingly high ROIs year after year. A Timeline of Yoda’s Original Appearances In constructing an 800-year storyline for our wee green friend, the Star Wars franchise secured dozens of appearance possibilities for all of their characters, Yoda especially. Yoda’s major appearances include the following (scroll past infographic for timeline + film clips): Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back: The Death Star has been destroyed, and Luke travels to Dagobah to train with the infamous Yoda, a renowned Jedi master. This is the first time audiences are introduced to Yoda and the episode in which his quirky yet wise personality is laid out. Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi: The Empire is planning to use a Death Star to destroy the rebellion and Luke finally confronts his long-lost father, Darth Vader. Yoda dies, but not before proclaiming that Luke must face Darth Vader to become a fully recognized Jedi. It is perhaps one of the saddest scenes in cinematic history: Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace: In this prequel, Yoda returns as a younger Jedi master. Set approximately 35 years before The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda foresees incredible danger in Anakin’s training as he leads the Council. Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones: Broadcast in 2002, Yoda appears for the first time as a CGI character. In this episode, Yoda is the Master of the High Council and arrives just in time to save Anakin and Obi-Wan and defeat a former apprentice gone bad – Count Dooku – with his powerful (and astonishingly, almost hilariously, quick) lightsaber moves. Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith: In 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, Yoda pioneers the Jedi Council as they pursue the Sith Lord and helps guide Anakin when he has realistic visions that someone he loves will lose their life. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In 2003, Cartoon Network released an animated television series called Star Wars: The Clone Wars in which Yoda gets to work saving Jedi knights and protecting Coruscant from the Separatists. Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles: A seven-part series that debuted in 2013, The Yoda Chronicles stars Yoda and follows the beloved Jedi through a series of adventures with his trusty Padawans. Yoda’s Subsequent Appearances in Film, Books, and Clothing One of the greatest things Disney has done with the blockbuster Star Wars series is to release specific character films, several of which are predicted to star Yoda. While Yoda didn’t appear in the most recent The Force Awakens, the number of times he has appeared in household and lifestyle products throughout the last several years is downright impressive. It is amazing how accessible Yoda has become and how this character has been integrated into our daily lives. For example, you can: Purchase a Yoda backpack for your child Decorate your home with an inflatable Christmas-themed Yoda lawn ornament Stand out at the coffee … Read more

10 Proven Ways to Create An Unforgettable Presence in Your Content Marketing

December 31, 2020April 25, 2017 by Adam Oakley

When it comes to content, nobody wants to be “decent.” Decent is boring. Unremarkable. It doesn’t stand out. When it comes to your content, you want to be much more colorful. You want people to describe the material you write as exciting, unique, amazing, and memorable. But how do you get from Point A to Point B? The answer is simple: When you learn what separates incredible content from decent content, and which tricks you can use to create more of the former, it’s easy to stand out as one of the most skilled content marketers on the web. Here’s your step-by-step guide. The Boring Content Marketing Epidemic There’s an epidemic going around, and few people are talking about it. No, it’s not the bird flu or the dreaded selfie “duck face.” Instead, it’s something much, much more serious. It’s boring content. In a world where more than 2 million blog posts are published daily, it’s safe to say that easily 90% of them are duplicative, boring, and unoriginal. It’s safe to say that most of them are crap. Cloned from other blogs, regurgitated from prominent sources, or modeled on the 30 other blogs already written on a topic, these posts don’t do much but clog up the web and make it harder for truly unique content to stand out. In some ways, this isn’t even the fault of individual writers. Instead, it’s the curse of an entire industry, which sometimes focuses on things that are viral and flashy more than it does on things that are unique and relevant. In other cases, the boring content epidemic is perpetuated by the fact that everyone can be a publisher today, and this leads to the web being flooded with material that’s poorly written, poorly researched, and not worth reading. If you subject to this boring content epidemic, it’ll have a real and dramatic impact on your content marketing. Fortunately, this fate isn’t inevitable. When you commit yourself to avoiding boring content and shooting for something bigger and more lasting, you can succeed in being one of the few content marketers that manages to develop unique content people remember. Why Epically Amazing Content Matters I know what you’re thinking. “Come on – epically amazing content? Isn’t that just showing off? Or unforgettably impossible?” The answer is no. Not by a long shot! Today, it matters more than it ever has mattered for brands to be unique, creative, and standout. Here’s why: today’s consumers don’t just want an earful. They’re not looking for flashy promises, empty content, or regurgitated thoughts. Instead, they want real value. They want originality, and they want excitement. In fact, they base their purchasing decisions on these things. According to a recent NewsCred study, 62% of millennials report that their brand loyalty is directly related to the type and quality of content a brand produces. When you consider that millennials have an annual spending power of about $200 billion annually, this quickly becomes an important statistic. Today, it’s not enough to just churn out boring content so you have something, anything, online. Instead, you’ve got to dedicate yourself and your brand to creating truly EPIC content that supports brand loyalty, builds your reputation, and helps people remember your company the next time they need a good or service. Epic content is the only way to do this, which is why it’s emerged as the content format of the present and the future. What’s more, the role of content is continually growing, and effective digital communication is more essential today than it’s ever been before. Here are a few facts to illustrate my point: [clickToTweet tweet=”78% of CMOs report that content marketing is the future of marketing. @JuliaEMcCoy” quote=”78% of CMOs report that content marketing is the future of marketing. @JuliaEMcCoy”] Today, epic content is the only way to go for brands who truly want to make an impact on the web. Enough of this wishy-washy crud. Enough mediocre articles and blog posts. Enough low-paid, low-researched material that doesn’t do anything but clog up the search results. In an environment where it’s harder than ever to earn attention online, the only way to succeed is by creating superb material that outshines everything else with its levels of quality and relevance. The Benefits of Epic Content The first and most obvious benefit of epic content is that it helps your brand stand out. While few people talk about boring content creators, everyone talks about content marketers who break the mold and do things nobody else is daring to do. Here are a few of the other benefits of truly epic content: It’ll earn you more online shares It provides more actionable, relevant, exciting information for your followers It lasts longer and remains valuable for longer than ordinary content It helps people trust your company It makes you stand out as a thought leader Beyond that, brands that create epic content can rest easy knowing that their content creation efforts are worth something. When you’re not beating yourself against a wall, struggling to come up with boring topic after boring topic, and then being devastated when they don’t produce the results you’d hoped they would, content creation gets much easier and much more satisfying. Unfortunately, creating content that’s consistently memorable can be tough, and many brands struggle to develop a formula for doing it. 5 Tips to Create Epically Awesome Content “Epic” is a high standard, but it’s totally attainable. You just need to know where to start. Here are five steps to get you closer to the goal of unforgettable online material: 1. 10x Your Research One thing that separates the wheat from the chaff when it comes to online content is research. Think about it: writing is easy enough, for a lot of people. Almost anyone can put together an average blog post. Heck, a prolific writer can easily crank out more than 1,000 words an hour, so even long-form material isn’t that hard to create. When you look at … Read more

How to Not Be Repetitive & Redundant: Standing Out As A Contrarian Content Marketer

June 19, 2024April 17, 2017 by Adam Oakley

If you’ve spent any time in content marketing, you’ve probably already seen this phenomenon: most of the content out there is simply a copy of something else. While this might seem odd, in an industry that’s so focused on individuality, relevance, and value, it’s true. Much of the written material in our niche has gone stale. Instead of being groundbreaking, it’s repetitive. Instead of being fresh and exciting, all it does is place a slightly new spin on an old topic. Copycat content doesn’t do anything to further the industry, and some would argue that content marketing is stagnating because of it. Today, more than 90% of B2B companies use content marketing in their digital strategies. But while many of these cloned blogs are produced to populate platforms with content at a high quality level, others are written by wannabe, beginning bloggers who think it’s easy to model after industry leaders and become one. Fortunately, being a dull content marketer doesn’t have to be your fate – just so long as you know how to avoid it. Today, we’re talking about the power of contrarian content marketing and how you can use authenticity, strategy and controversy to be a standout marketer. Keep reading! [bctt tweet=”If you’ve spent any time in content marketing, you’ve probably already seen this phenomenon: most of the content out there is simply a copy of something else. Learn @JuliaEMcCoy’s tips for standing out as a contrarian content marketer ?” username=”ExpWriters”] Diving Into Contrarian Content Marketing: The Secret of Controversial Content Contrarian simply means having a controversial or standout opinion. From Dictionary.com: The adjective sense fits what we’re talking about today: going against current practice. Quick, answer this question: True or false: Creating controversial content is the last thing you want to do as a marketer. While you might be inclined to stay safe and believe the answer is true, you’d be surprised to learn it’s false. Today, people don’t talk about things that are old and familiar. If you create another “10 Shocking Ways to do the Thing Everyone Already Knows How To Do” post, you’re not going to break the internet. Nobody is going to go to their grave with the name of your blog post on their lips unless you develop a real knack for identifying controversial, interesting, legitimately useful topics your customers love. Today, controversial content causes customers to sit up and take notice. When people are piqued emotionally by something, whether it makes them feel awe-struck, angry, happy, or inspired, they’re much more willing to share it with their friends, initiate conversations around it on social media, and comment on it, which leads to a greater discussion around your topic. This isn’t just speculation. In fact, there’s been lots of research done on the power of emotional content to start conversations. According to a 2014 Buffer study, there’s a significant correlation between the number of views a blog post gets, and the number of positive feelings (like interest, trust, anticipation, and joy) it evokes. You don’t have to create purely positive content to reap these benefits, though. The same study shows emotionally complex content and surprising material both earn the same results. Here are just a few benefits of controversial content: 1. More Traffic. People love being surprised, and controversial content can draw in far more views than a run-of-the-mill post. What’s more, once you create a surprising post, people will come back again and again to read it, boosting your views even further. 2. More Links. Surprising material goes viral, so it’s in your best interest to create it. When people link to your material and share it with their friends, they’ll start conversations and build a community around your content. 3. Shares. Be they on social or in an email, people will share controversial content at a higher rate than boring content. This can drive more traffic back to your site and increase the number of conversions you earn. 4. Comments. Comments are one thing virtually all bloggers want and few get. Because controversial content becomes a hotbed for comments, it’s a great way to start a dialogue around a new or unfamiliar topic and keep it fresh. What does a content marketing strategy look like that includes contrarian content marketing? Let’s delve in. Contrarian Content Marketing: 3-Step Recipe for an Anything-but-Ordinary Content Presence In the world of content marketing, being ordinary is one of the worst things that can happen to a marketer. [bctt tweet=”In the world of content marketing, being ordinary is one of the worst things that can happen to a marketer. @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”] In addition to annoying your readers, being ordinary makes it exceedingly easy to get lost in the sea of other voices, shifting from a place of prominence and notice to a prison of solitude and minimal traffic. Luckily, creating truly unique content is possible, you just need to follow a formula. Our content marketing has brought in over 98% of our clients and sales. Here’s what we do to stand out in content marketing. (For the full version, see our case study.) 1. Creating A Ton of Consistent, In-Depth, Long-Form Content Consistency wins – and long-form, in-depth content wins. In addition to the fact that long-form content ranks better than short-form content, it’s also harder to create, which means few people are doing it. If you want to zig while everyone else zags, dedicate yourself to writing super-exclusive guides or crafting five word compilations that will remain valuable long past their publish date. Trust me, it’s worth the extra work. We do it all the time – and results happen. More on this subject: An Argument for Long-Form Content And by “a ton,” I mean a ton. Here’s what our content publishing schedule looks like, per our case study – volume is around 40-45 unique posts a month: 2. Building Effective, Highly-Engaged Communities Today, even the best content is only as good as the community you’re building day by day and sharing it with. The more you share your content and engage with real people on your social platforms, and the harder you work to create communities, … Read more

Was John Deere the First Proponent of Content Marketing? The Story that Started in 1895

January 2, 2021April 12, 2017 by Adam Oakley

Quick: what do you think of when you hear John Deere? If you answered “big green tractors,” you’re on the same page as most people. If you answered “content marketing genius,” you’re privy to a rare secret. The truth is that John Deere was nearly as good at content marketing as it was at tractors, and marketers looking for some inspiration on how to make their marketing strategies better need only to look backward about 120 years. We’re here on the Write Blog today, sharing everything you wanted to know about this intriguing story. Read on to learn more! John Deere: The Marketing Prowess You Probably Didn’t Know About John Deere is a well-known, household-name farming equipment company that was originally founded in 1837. While the brand was well known within its community in the years between the 1830’s-90’s, John Deere took a big step in the late 1890’s that ultimately defined the trajectory of the brand: it started a news magazine. This news magazine was called The Furrow, and it was meant to cater to farmers with “practical information devoted to the interests of better farming.” Here is one of the earliest recorded images of The Furrow back in the 1890s: The look evolved throughout the years, reaching an incredible peak in 1912, with over 4 million consumers avidly reading its pages. It’s still being published today, reaching about 2 million readers worldwide, in an ultimate testament to the power of incredible content. Could this be the longest form of content marketing that’s been around? It very well could be. The magazine was distributed to customers at no charge, and the only sign that it came from a John Deere dealer was a small inscription on the cover that recounted that the magazine had been sent “with compliments of your John Deere Dealer.” With the exception of the small inscription, however, there was virtually no indication that John Deere published the magazine. The company ran no ads, and the articles included within the little magazine didn’t focus on John Deere’s products. Instead, they covered topics ranging from how best to address various farming challenges to trends in the agricultural community as a whole. In 1912, at the peak of The Furrow’s subscriber quantity, John Deere actually purchased its first electric printing press to publish the successful magazine. It could print in two colors and publish 50,000 copies in eight hours: and back then, the cost amounted to what would be $850,000 in 2013 dollars. What an investment! Look at the artwork on this edition: And the classic look of the 1960 spread: Here’s a look at a recent 2015 edition: The magazine was a huge success and, today, it stands as one of the earliest and most durable examples of great content marketing. The Furrow still exists today and has since also been digitized into an e-version. What John Deere Got Right John Deere knew something very early on that many marketers are still struggling to learn: the best content is informative content. Suggested Related Read on the Write Blog: Stop Selling, Start Helping Even in the late 1890’s, customers didn’t want big, splashy advertisements and “listen to how great our company is” rhetoric. Instead, they wanted helpful information that would assist them in addressing their problems. The Furrow focused entirely on editorial content meant to be informative and helpful. Pieces ranged from scientific breakdowns to funny editorial pieces about the difficulties of living a farmer’s life. Throughout the magazine, John Deere’s name was interspersed on a rare occasion, encouraging customers to build an association between the helpful, informative content and the John Deere brand itself. Successful content today is no different than successful content back then. Here are the top six things that John Deere got right in The Furrow: The content was engaging The content was valuable The content shared farming culture and information The content built brand loyalty The content positioned John Deere as a passionate, engaged brand The content developed relationships between farmers and John Deere Today, marketers who want to increase the effectiveness of their content marketing need only to look back to The Furrow and take some lessons from John Deere. 10 Content Marketing Lessons You Can Learn From John Deere Despite the fact that John Deere was founded more than one hundred years ago, the company’s first big content marketing move still has a lot to teach today’s modern marketers. Here are the top 10 lessons to take from The Furrow: 1. Address pain points Before The Furrow hit the scene, farmers didn’t have an organized place to see their challenges, hopes, and community-specific knowledge reflected at them. What The Furrow got so right from the get-go is that it addressed farmers’ pain points. By offering actionable information about how to cope with difficult farming situations and address various issues in the community, The Furrow proved it understood its audience. What’s more, it offered truly valuable information that increased the quality of their lives. To bring this into your content, one of the most critical things you can do is address your customers’ pain points. While this requires a background of plenty of target audience research and exploration, learning to hone in on your readers’ difficulties is one of the most active steps you can take toward great content marketing. 2. Focus on informative content The Furrow did something else that no magazine before it had done – it brought scientific, editorial content to consumers, and it didn’t try to sell them on anything in the process. While the magazine was published by John Deere, a casual passerby couldn’t have picked up on that, and this was one of the magazine’s greatest strengths. By focusing first on informing consumers and leaving all of the sales pitches and product placement out of the equation, John Deere created a brand of trust, loyalty, and mutual benefit with its consumers. 3. Build a community In addition to farming insights and instructional content, The Furrow also offered peer insights. By building a farming community that focused on the magazine itself, The Furrow managed to establish itself as a meeting place … Read more

10 Ways to Boost Your Copy With Engaging Visuals in Your Content

September 5, 2022March 20, 2017 by Adam Oakley

Quick: what’s black and white and sad all over? Online copy with no visuals! Today, great visuals are everything to engaging, readable online copy. In addition to making your material more exciting, they also help pull readers through your text, making it easier for them to engage with and connect to it. Without visuals, content is just a sad shell of text, and won’t make it far. Here’s everything you need to know about why visuals matter and how to use them in your online content. What the Numbers Say About Visuals in Your Content When you were a kid, you loved books with pictures, right? The illustrations just added something to the text, and you enjoyed learning about new worlds and people through colorful images. Today, it’s no different. While it might be true that we’re older and that the visuals in question now aren’t so much illustrations as they are graphics, screenshots, and infographics, visuals are just as important as they’ve always been, and adding them into your marketing copy can take it from “blah” to memorable. The reason is simple: visuals tell a story, and that story helps enhance your online content. Without visuals, the words must stand on their own, which makes your material less compelling and exciting for readers. Here are some visual marketing statistics on the power of visuals in your content: 37% of marketers report that visuals are their most valuable marketing asset, second only to their blogs 74% of social media marketers add visuals to their social updates While people only remember 10% of the information they hear, they remember an average of 65% of what they see, making visual information the way to go for companies that want to encourage brand recall. In 2016, 51% of B2B marketers were prioritizing the creation of visual assets. By the end of this year, experts are predicting that 74% of all web traffic will be dedicated to video content. Infographics earn 3x as many likes and shares on social media as any other type of content. Tweets that have images in them receive 150% more retweets than text-only updates. Facebook posts with images earn 2.3x the engagement of text-only posts. With these numbers in mind, it’s clear that visual marketing is here to stay, and that engaging in it can be the most productive thing you do this year. 10 Ways to Use Visuals in Your Online Copy New to the world of visual marketing? Don’t fear. Start by using these top ten visual tricks: 1. Add Images To Every 200-300 Words in Your Blogs & Create Social Shareworthy Inset Images This is one of the easiest and most straightforward ways to incorporate images into every blog you publish. But don’t just “add images.” Here are some rules of thumb: Add a screenshot per every 200-300 words. By nature, the brain responds more to visual stimulation than text, so you’ll want to break up your content with a lot of visuals. Screenshots work well to illustrate points. Design (or have designed) a beautiful blog topic image, sized for optimal social sharing. Things to consider: theme it to the color code of your logo, have a custom artist design it. Here’s an example of a couple creative blog headers our designer has put together that gained a good deal of traction on social media: Need custom image creations? We can help! 2. Create A Custom Infographic Check out this crazy stat about infographics: Source: MassPlanner One of the most valuable things you can do for your marketing is to create a custom infographic. It’s seriously worth the investment. We create one every quarter (sometimes more): and to date, this content type has been our most-shared. The header of one of our many infographics, 10 Blogging Resolutions. Unique because it’s designed specifically for your company and helpful because it addresses the concerns and interests of your target audience, this form of visual content will help to differentiate your brand online and help you stand out from the crowd. Infographics perform better on social media than other types of content, so you’ll earn a solid ROI from your infographic. If you’re looking for a team to create infographics for you, look no further than our creative infographic services! 3. Create Custom Blog Headers that are Themed In Your Colors Custom blog headers can give your content a unique look and help your blog feel more cohesive. This is the “featured image” section of your blog. Ideal for brands of all shapes and sizes, custom blog headers are some of the most useful things you can create for your brand. For best results, create headers that use your company’s colors, utilize your logo, and incorporate a streamlined and cohesive design. Check out how we do this for our content on The Write Blog. The end “blog roll” look is visually engaging: We’ve been experimenting with drawing “visual story steps,” too. As of late 2016, we added unique, storytelling imagery to our content shop, which is a new variation in our visual products. Here are a few examples from our Process Page, to give you an idea of what these look like. 4. Screenshot Everything that Has a Visual Explanation If you’re writing a tutorial, how-to, or instructive post, you need to be including screenshots. Visually explain what you’re talking about. Screenshots help your readers understand what you’re saying and synthesize your post accordingly. This, in turn, makes it easier for them to connect with your content and absorb the meaning of your posts. It also helps your content be more useful to your readers. Be sure that if you’re going to include a screenshot, to add one that’s in-depth and detailed, not a broad overview that won’t help your readers or that they could just as easily find on their own. One tool I love is the Full Page Screen Capture, in the Chrome app store (free). I use Chrome daily, and to get a full-length screenshot without zooming and messing up the focus, the Full Page Screen Capture … Read more

A Data-Driven Answer on Where to Publish Your Content, & the Downside of Being Everywhere

June 19, 2024March 15, 2017 by Adam Oakley

From the moment we wake up, we consume a crazy high amount of content. It’s nuts. In just one minute: 7 million Snapchat videos are posted. Over 2 million Instagram posts get “hearted.” Facebook gets over 4 million likes. Nearly 350,000 tweets happen. Google translates 69 million words. (Contently) In one day: almost three million blogs are posted. So it only makes sense that you should share your awesome content on all of those platforms in order to have the greatest reach. In a world of endless options for publishing content, we should publish anywhere and everywhere, right? (FOMO!) Not necessarily. Let’s keep talking. Where to Publish Content: Why The Answer Starts With Where NOT to Publish One of the challenges we face as content marketers is the rise of social media platforms and the fact that readers don’t just start there – they never have to leave. We use social media for news, to keep up with trends, to connect with other people, and to follow our favorite brands, which means we’re more engaged than ever before. But we also run the risk of getting stuck in a rut with the billions of others who are plugged in worldwide. From Statista Your content may be magnificent, praiseworthy, and top-notch. But that doesn’t mean you should utilize every blogging and social media outlet known to the internet in order to share it. The more content you publish, the better, but where should you sink all your valuable content marketing efforts into? Here’s Where to Publish: 3 Areas of Focus We Recommend When you are ready to share amazing content, here are three of the best places to create and publish on. 1. Your own blog and site Honestly: this is your real best content publishing real estate. Upkeeping a blog is key. Look at these stats: 1) B2B marketers that use blogs receive 67% more leads than those that do not. 2) Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI. 5) Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website. 6) Blogs have been rated as the 5th most trusted source for accurate online information. Hubspot Treat it like your #1 content hub. Grow and expand it, weekly if not daily. Here at Express Writers, we publish the majority of the content on our site. The combined abilities of our experienced writers allow us to create quality content that brings in revenue while also helping our audience. We post once a week minimum, with posts between 1,500 and 4,000 words. Once a month, a Twitter chat recap in our dedicated chat section is also created and shared. Our content is consistent, well-researched, and published following a specific timeframe. Topics are planned and thought out with care. Our branded content has ended up being a major, major source of our entire company revenue (to the tune of 99%). More on that in my case study. Your blog content can be an amazing resource for your audience. Here’s why: Blogging can increase your search engine optimization (SEO), especially when you use keywords in the right way and create content in long form. Blogging gives you content to promote across social media channels. Blogging allows you a space to put valuable calls-to-action, which have the potential to generate leads and grow conversions. A. How to write a strong blog post? Hubspot offers some simple tips on how to write a blog post that begins with understanding your audience and ends with choosing a catchy title. You can read more about that here and grab some free blogging templates while you’re at it. The best blog posts always have a clear topic and engaging title; the audience is drawn in and stays engaged because they have been captivated by the introduction. The content is well-organized and relevant to the issue being addressed. Experts across the industry craft quality blog content for their sites, including: Neil Patel – co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and KISSmeterics Barry Feldman – speaker, author, and creative copywriter Seth Godin – author and founder of Squidoo B. How often to post? You may be wondering how often to publish on your company’s blog. While every company is different in size, strategy, and industry, there is some research that can help us answer that question. In one study from HubSpot, the results showed that B2B companies that published over 16 blog posts per month received more than 3 times the amount of traffic as compared to companies that only published 4 times per month. For B2C companies, those 16-times-per-month rate saw over 4 times the amount of traffic. In another study, over 90% of Hubspot’s blog leads and more than 75% of post views came from old posts. Posting quality content multiple times per week may be just what your readers are looking for, and if it’s awesome content, they will keep coming back for more. Read more about how to write content for a blog over here. The time, effort, and work put into your own content makes your blog site YOUR real estate. [bctt tweet=”Why publish your best on someone else’s real estate? – @JuliaEMcCoy” username=”ExpWriters”] 2. Guest blogging in your niche Before you decide where to guest blog, you should set a goal for your blogging. These goals could include anything from setting yourself up as an authority in your industry to driving readers to your own site. Check out how we achieve results from guest blogging: my content, for example a column I keep with 2 posts/week on SiteProNews, has netted us a lead worth $5,000. When you begin with this sort of focus, it can help narrow your scope as you write. Guest blogging in your niche is a great opportunity to share your authoritative view on a number of topics, but you must find platforms where your audience is already located. You may find opportunities by searching for blogs that invite guests to post – just do a keyword search using words from your industry combined with “guest … Read more

Why Brand Honesty & Authenticity in Content Marketing is Key to Building Customer Trust

December 31, 2020March 9, 2017 by Adam Oakley

How much do you agree with this thought: “Honesty is something you can’t wear out.” – Waylon Jennings Here’s another question. Is it possible to be too honest? Over-transparent? Everyone has at least one person they know who says too much. It can be irritating. But in content marketing, brand honesty and authenticity are the opposite of off-putting. In fact, these virtues are necessary to build trust for your efforts. Maybe Waylon Jennings was onto something. Let’s explore my data-driven research on this important, perhaps critical, marketing topic of today: brand authenticity and honesty. (You’ll also see why I believe in it so much. I put it all out there when it came to an issue I faced in 2016.) Consumer Reviews in an Age of Content Marketing Did you know that 90% of consumers read less than 10 reviews before already forming an opinion about a business? In an age of ever-advancing technology and communication, online reviews remain an important part of consumer research and decision-making. Why is this? Because online reviews are honest. And we need to know that the product we are purchasing, the realtor we are working with, and the pizza place we’re thinking about for dinner are both trustworthy and worth our time. The same is true for our content. If our brand’s integrity and honesty shine through, we are setting up an environment where our audience will trust us and keep coming back for more. But while consumers want honesty, not all feel like it’s present. According to Chon & Wolfe, 75% of consumers surveyed across 14 markets believe that companies are not open and transparent. While this may seem like a negative statistic, it actually opens up the door for us to engage in the type of practices that will close this gap. Ready to jump in with us? How Brand Honesty and Authenticity Build Serious Trust for Your Content Marketing There is tremendous power behind authentic and honest messaging. When the story resonates, the audience listens, and when we hear what they are saying and respond with thought, the conversation continues and we all benefit. Brand honesty and authenticity build trust for your content marketing efforts not because you are saying what they want to hear, but because you’re saying what’s real. Did you catch that? It’s not about throwing out a catchy sales pitch or trying to be something you aren’t. When we are real, all of a sudden, we feel less alone. We find that someone else “gets” us, makes mistakes like we do, and finds it in themselves to move on in spite of it. Here are three ways brand honesty and authenticity build trust in your content marketing efforts. 1. Honesty adds value Presenting an honest front adds value because it sets you up as an authority. Would you take parenting advice from someone who’s never had kids? Would you take your car to someone who’s never popped a hood and trust him with your engine? Probably not. But maybe you notice your neighbor working on cars every weekend and then you talk to him, and he mentions that he’s been a mechanic on the side for 20 years. In this case, maybe you would consider asking him why your car is making that funny noise. Why is that? Because you have seen him act as an expert. You can now take a step forward in trusting him with your own vehicle. When our content marketing is backed by personal stories and experiences because we’ve been there, it adds value to what we’re saying. We are moving ourselves from an advice-giver to a credible source of information and real solutions. We are adding value to our brand. 2. Honesty shows you care. Genuine interest in the midst of a busy life isn’t as difficult as it seems. At the same time, failing to communicate authentically leaves an empty space that leaves your audience wondering where everything went wrong. It is true that customers want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly, no matter what. Silence begets distrust and suspicion, openness builds trust. (Forbes) Honesty in your brand’s message communicates to your audience that you care enough to tell the truth, even if it isn’t pretty. As an authority in your field, you are looking beyond your own reputation and moving into an attitude of transparency with your readers. 3. Honesty clarifies who shouldn’t invest in your brand. HubSpot recommends that in our attempts at insane honesty, we tell the world who should probably not buy our products. Really. Why is this? Because it clearly identifies those who should purchase and alienates less likely customers, those mismatches and time-wasters. And contrary to what we may think, people won’t walk away mad or turn against us. They’ll just keep looking until they find a good fit. It’s less about wasting their time and more about attracting the right audience for your message. What Makes a Brand Authentic? 2 Factors The Cohn & Wolfe survey cited earlier found that among consumers, authenticity from brands would earn them more loyalty. Consumers would also be more likely to: Refer to friends and family Invest in the company Consider working as an employee for the company What makes a brand authentic? 1. Reliability Your audience expects you to be reliable. Social Media Examiner reminds us that instead of just talking about our products or services, the key to drawing in an audience is to create reliable content that they can easily relate to. Each time we provide authoritative content in an honest way, we are building a foundation for our current readers and potential future connections. One example of a reliable brand is John Deere. From building the first polished plow back in the 1800s to the publication of The Furrow, which attempted to educate farmers on new technology and how to be more successful business owners, Deere & Company has proven itself to be a reliable brand for its customers. Graphic from Contently The current art … Read more

3 Reasons Why Your Content Marketing is Failing

December 31, 2020March 7, 2017 by Adam Oakley

Does the following sound familiar? Send out a newsletter, Update your social media, Check search engine rankings, Try to engage with your audience and respond when needed, Put some effort into blogging. Is it getting you somewhere? Or do you fit the more common mold: unhappy, the results aren’t what you had hoped, and it’s A LOT of work to get all of this done. It should be easier than this, right? Shouldn’t the product, as amazing and worthwhile as it is, sell itself? Unfortunately, this scenario happens a lot in content marketing. We hate to break it to you, but it’s kind of like paying for McDonald’s and expecting Panera – or P.F. Chang’s. Why Your Content Marketing is Failing: You’re Not Doing Anything Different What is your favorite fast food joint? Before you go touting your love of all things organic and kale-based (I’m a clean food freak, myself) – keep in mind that fast food restaurants in America serve millions of customers every day, even while we claim to understand the health benefits of all things green. So why do those greasy, salty chains still do so well? Why are seven out of the top ten chains marked by fried food, calorie-laden sodas, and “unclean” food? Graphic from QSRMagazine Because somewhere along the way, they set themselves apart and became different from the competition – and made a permanent impression upon their target audience’s mind. When it comes to content marketing, you get what you put into it. There’s a reason your content marketing efforts are producing Happy Meal-sized results when what you really want to serve is a delicious, home-cooked meal with a side of conversions and authentic engagement. [clickToTweet tweet=”If you’re not doing anything different than the competition, you’re not going to stand out. @JuliaEMcCoy” quote=”If you’re not doing anything different than the competition, you’re not going to stand out. @JuliaEMcCoy”] The good news? You can change that, and we’re here to help you. Ready to chew on it? Creating Compelling Content By Using the Right Approach Joe Pulizzi reminds us at CMI that what we are creating must be valuable, useful, compelling, and different. This means we have to step aside from the time we spend worrying about the process and approaches to content creation and move toward being more concerned with the actual content we create and the difference it makes for our audience. Which means it actually has to make a difference. Why post to social media? Why send out a newsletter? Why should your readers step away from their fried greasy plate over to your buffet of deliciousness and take a bite? After all, there is a fast food joint on every corner. There are 300 hundred hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute in addition to over 4 million Facebook “likes” and 347,222 Tweets. Graphic from Contently So – what’s so great about you? 3 Ways to Take Your Content Marketing from Greasy to Great Our content marketing is failing not because we aren’t trying, but because we all look the same. There are some ways to change that and take your content from greasy, drive-thru fare to take-a-seat, dive in greatness of the finest of meals. Are you ready to begin creating quality content with the maximum amount of engagement? 1. Be okay with changing course & diving deeper No one likes to be in pain, but changing course and diving deeper usually means pain: More investment/money More time on your part More hassle But there is good news! This effort and time will give your content marketing so much more of a return on investment. Have you always done a blog post, social media post, and e-newsletter, right on time? Switch it up and do a podcast, experiment with Facebook Live, or move toward something more interactive. It’s okay to pass up that burger place and keep driving for something more satisfying. This is the number #1 trait that goaded me to work harder and achieve greater results since early 2016. Before that, I was a mediocre blogger. But today – I care. Check out the case study I wrote last year on where we’re at: and for an example of a “more time/investment” post, check out the big spend infographic we did. Content like that isn’t cheap, but it’s worth it. Don’t do anything less. 2. Turn your focus back to your audience Are you confident in the voice you are developing as an authority in your field? This requires effort on your part and takes some investment in understanding the readers and staying current on the content you are offering. One way to turn the focus back on the audience – where it belongs – is to create a list of the biggest and best blogs in the niche you are in, and then analyzing the good, the bad, and the ugly. No matter the subject matter, if it isn’t different, the audience won’t care. They will keep looking until they find the relevant and interesting solutions for their needs. Remember that you aren’t writing to the whole world. [clickToTweet tweet=”Find your niche, get to know it, and write/publish/create for the people in it. @JuliaEMcCoy” quote=”Find your niche, get to know it, and write/publish/create for the people in it. @JuliaEMcCoy”] 3. Use only the best tools Let’s say you are looking to market your new business, which sells custom-made home décor. Besides the obvious competition from the big names, you have a host of smaller shops on sites like Etsy that will be selling similar products as your own. How do you even begin to market to your audience and set your brand apart from the others? Here are a few tools we love. Quora: This collaborative information-sharing and learning site connects the information needs of real humans (your target audience) with solutions provided by real people (you). Answer the Public: This site finds and maps keyword suggestions and predictions that users see when they search on Google. Here, you can … Read more