We have all been there, someone at work says a term you have never heard of, you nod your head in agreement and then make a b-line for your desk when the meeting is over, Google it as soon as you know no one is watching you, and feel relieved once you know that the heck they are talking, and celebrating the fact that no one asked you to contribute to that conversation because you wouldn’t have known ANYTHING!
This often happens to marketers! As buzz words constantly change, new products are being developed, even newer platforms are then shut down, and the world of marketing just keeps spinning. But what do you do for those BIG answers everyone is looking for in the marketing world…
If I could just figure out X then everything would be so much easier.
No matter how many Google searches you do, blog posts you read, or podcasts you listen to the answer just isn’t coming to you!
Well, below we have the 3 biggest questions we have seen floating around and the best answers we could come up with. The good news is that most of us are struggling with the same exact things (so there really is no wrong answer,) the bad news, it is still going to take some work on your end to help figure it out.
Click Here To Download Your E-Book: How Marketing Will Change In 2017
1. How do I get my social media contacts to join my opt-in email list?
I think if this is a question you have you might be looking at social wrong. Like mentioned in last week’s post, Are You Ready For 2017? I talked about how social is going to stop living in the silos. Social will be seen as a partner to everything we are creating in marketing rather than a part of the marketing funnel.
So I am not sure you should be counting on social as a way to just get more email subscribers but I do know you should using social to highlight everything you are creating within your marketing team.
Whether you are creating posts to link people back to your blog, publishing an AD to get people to download your lead magnet, hosting a webinar using a live video feature or using social to share product and team updates- social should be what links all your marketing efforts together.
Social can’t be counted on to do just one job, like increase your email list, but it can help, share, integrate and track everything you are doing to market your product better.
2. What are the differences in engagement rates between video and picture content?
Engagement on video and picture content is measured differently.
For videos, engagement is the percent of a video that a viewer watched- it gives you an idea of the quality of the video. If people thought the video was relevant then they are going to keep watching the video, if a large part of people drop out of the video after 3 or 10 seconds you have some questions to ask.
- Did your video have a slow hook?
- Did you give them the information they needed too soon?
- Was the video too long?
- Not clear or meaningful enough?
It’s important to note where people drop off so you can figure out the why! Especially if you have a CTA at the end of your video, you want people watching it all the way though and can’t really justify the drops off.
Now, there are different ways to measure video’s engagement on Facebook and for Facebook Live because viewers can interact with these videos differently. Facebook now has metrics for reactions, comments, and shares thought-out the Live broadcast so publishers can analyze viewer sentiment during every second of the video which can be used to answer all the above questions as well.
For picture content, engagement is not measured in length of time, it is measured by interactions. How much and how often someone interacts with your image versus how many people were reached. Engagement metrics include: likes, comments, shares, re-posts, replies, favorites, re-pins, and re-blogs.
Pictures get higher engagement rates than a post without pictures and as many platforms push for the web to become video first, you will continue to see video engagement number beat those of images.
However, engagement means nothing is you don’t stimulate your audience to take action. High engagement numbers can’t be more important than targeting and reaching your right audience. It is more approbate to measure and compare conversion to actions based on content shared on social rather than just using engagement data to make marketing decisions.
3. How do you know if you are creating enough content?
I know this has been debated for a while now but as brands stat realizing they have to use content to reach the right audience rather than the masses the contact brands are producing will become more focused. Content will be used to answer specific questions potential consumers have. Content is truly going to become about quality, not quantity.
Part of content marketing is about becoming a trusted source in the eyes of your readers, people don’t have time to read through the fluff anymore. Think about it, you use content marketing to help your potential consumers, so you can build credibility, so when your readers are ready to make a purchase they remember you. That is why it’s about creating helpful content not a certain amount of content.
Whether that means that there is so much information surrounding your industry you can produce multiple pieces a week (or even a day) or if you’re part of a more complex industry, maybe selling B2B and the answers people are looking for requires longer pieces that can’t be produced as often. You have to do what’s right for you!
The key is that your content should always be providing solutions for your customer base. Your content marketing should be like a tool box, filled with the missing parts and tools your potential audience is looking for and is what keeps them coming back to your site before and after purchases are made!
Click Here To Download Your E-Book: How Marketing Will Change In 2017
Wrap It Up
Are these questions you already have answers to? Or topics you want to dive deeper into the next year?
Did they make you think about other concepts you may not have totally grasped in marketing yet?
Either way, they are important questions to know and grasp as they are the foundation of many things we are working on with our marketing teams!