Digital Marketing

Storytelling
  • Marsh Williams

Great Marketing is About Storytelling
Great Marketing is About Storytelling 840 1120 Marsh Williams

Once Upon A Time...

We met with a prospective client recently on another disaster recovery project, our term for someone who hired an unprofessional organization to help them create a website. 

All the usual suspects were present in the form of the story: great company, great brand, incredible product and an unbelievable, crappy, digital presence.

But here’s the part we want to get into…

The owner has a friend who they referred to as, “a programmer who said that they could build the website.” Now at first blush, there may not seem to be anything wrong with that but after cogitating (word of the day) on that for a while it hit me. Websites are not about programming; period. They’re about storytelling.

So embrace that fact and think about the people you would want to create and tell your story; think about your reaction to someone who says I’m a programmer and I can build your website. Let us clarify right here that there are programmers who are great storytellers, but the primary skill for developing a great marketing program of any kind is the storytelling capability. That trumps technology of the delivery mechanism every time.

So to help if this happens to you we’ve put together a small list of things to ask anyone who says they can “build your website.” Top five things to ask someone who wants to help with your website.

What Does Building A Website Mean?

Building a website is a technical process, but designing a website takes a very different skill set. Designing a website takes the ability to ask you questions then package the answers in a compelling and engaging manner. Once that is done it’s time to “build the website.”

What Do You Think The Website Should Be About?

Any great story has a hero, whether it be you, your product, your passion for excellence in what you do, any of these items should be featured in your website.

What Should I Expect From A Good Website?

Interest, the purpose of most websites is to create enough interest on the part of a visitor to engage and learn more about an organization as a precursor to purchasing.

How Do I Know You Can Do This?

Listen to what the person/company tells you. Are they immediately jumping into demo mode showing you a series of projects, or are they talking with you about their ability to gain an understanding of your story and retell it using all of the capabilities of the Internet? If the person or company you’re speaking with doesn’t take the time to ask questions and “get it” they will not be able to tell it to others.

I want to see some of your work and talk to at least five of your past clients.

Yes, this may be a predictable step in the process, but do it. Talk to several clients and see what they say about both the end product but as importantly the process.

  • Was the company responsive?
  • Did the company regularly communicate with you about project process and approval stages?
  • What’s the best thing you can tell me about your experience with them?
  • What’s the worst thing you can tell me about your experience with them?
  • What’s the one thing I need to make very clear to them before hiring them to tell my story?

Think About It

To measure the success of a storytelling approach in marketing, focus on engagement metrics such as increased time on site, social media shares, and comments, along with conversion rates indicating a direct impact on sales or inquiries. Successful storytelling examples span industries, from Nike’s inspirational athlete stories to Airbnb’s customer experience tales, showcasing brand identity and customer connection. 

Common pitfalls include losing the brand’s voice in an attempt to tell a story, making the story too complex, or failing to align the story with the audience’s values and interests. For a more in-depth exploration, consider looking into marketing and storytelling best practices, case studies, and expert advice on effective storytelling strategies.

As a final point supporting our position, read this quick Blog entry from our friends at Oxford Academic.

So let us ask, does this change your perspective on the task of creating a website or digital marketing program?

Photo credit: Jim Pennucci

Breaking Bad Marketing Header
  • Nathaniel Seevers

Breaking Bad Marketing Habits
Breaking Bad Marketing Habits 1920 703 Nathaniel Seevers
Updated 9/13/23

 

We get it; you have goals to meet, there’s a lot to do, and there are only so many days in the week. The boss wants to see strong numbers in the next report. You’ve heard, “we need to move the needle,” among other trite business phrases. That sense of “do what it takes” urgency can, over time, instill bad marketing habits that are based on a short-sighted view of progress.

Despite the best of intentions, a large number of companies are using new technologies with old methodologies. From tactical to philosophical, here are 7 marketing bad habits every company should break if they want to see better results. read more

Simple Messages Header
  • Marsh Williams

Why Simple Marketing Messages are So Darn Effective
Why Simple Marketing Messages are So Darn Effective 1920 703 Marsh Williams

Well, well, well. It turns out that all those fancy marketing techniques, buzzwords, and jargon that you learned in your MBA program aren’t so effective. According to some painfully obvious statistics, simple marketing messages are actually the most effective way to reach customers. Who knew? Let’s take a look at some of these stats.

Attention Span

Attention spans can range from 2 seconds to over 20 minutes, but the average human attention span is mere 8.25 seconds. Oh, and it’s getting shorter. The average human attention span decreased by almost 25% between 2000 to 2015. Humans currently have shorter attention spans than goldfish (9 seconds). So, it makes perfect sense to cram as much information as possible into those precious few seconds, right?

Wrong. In fact, a study by Google found that ads with simple messaging performed better than ads with complex messaging, even when the latter had longer viewing times. So, it seems like customers actually prefer a clear, concise message over a convoluted one. Who would have thought?

simple sign

Clarity is Key

Another study, this time by Nielsen Norman Group, found that users on the Internet tend to scan content rather than read it in full. In fact, they typically only read about 20% of the words on a page. So, if you want to get your message across, you better make it simple and easy to scan.

But why stop at clarity? According to the same study, users also prefer websites with simple, clean designs. So, if you want your marketing message to be compelling, just make sure it’s easy to read, easy to scan, and easy on the eyes. Simple as that.

People Like Brands They Understand

Communications firm, Edelman, found that customers are more likely to trust a brand if they understand what it stands for. In fact, 89% of consumers said they would stay loyal to a brand that shares their values. So, if you want to build a loyal customer base, make it easy for your audience to connect with who you are as an organization.

simple shopping

Let Me Tell You a Story

A guy enters a store to buy a sweater. The shopkeeper starts telling the customer all about the ranch where the wool comes from, how well cared for the sheep are, and the fact that the wool is transported by electric vehicles charged by energy from wind farms. The shopkeeper is thrilled to tell him all about what differentiates his sweater from all the others.

After five minutes, the customer walks out. The shopkeeper follows him and asks why he left. The customer responded, “I don’t care about your sheep. I just want a f*cking sweater.”

The next shopkeeper simply says, “our sweaters are great quality. What size and color would you like?”

Whether by stories or stats, it’s pretty clear that simple marketing messages are more effective. The goal of marketing is to increase awareness of your brand or generate leads; it’s to get the conversation started. The actual conversation is where the marketing handoff to sales takes place. So many companies have so much to say that the tendency is to try to tell a person everything in marketing. So, just stick to the basics, keep your messaging concise, and understand where sales and marketing meet.

Or, you know, don’t. It’s your business, after all.

sheep
PostHeaderForTargetingChanged
  • Shout Out Studio

Targeting Has Changed – And So Should You!
Targeting Has Changed – And So Should You! 1920 703 Shout Out Studio

The Most Effective Way To Connect:

For marketing to be effective, a business must target.  This isn’t a new concept; but why is it important? Consumers don’t want companies to make broad assumptions and treat them like the masses. Consumers want brands to dive deeper, and make an effort to speak to them in unique and meaningful ways. Targeting is a careful, measured approach to finding your preferred client.  Ideally, we want consumers to know that we want to understand them, and want to connect authentically.

In many ways, targeting hasn’t changed: we still want to pinpoint an archetype.  But there’s another, highly significant layer now: connection.  That variable, connection, used to be a cherry on top of a metaphorical ice-cream sundae, but now it’s the expectation.  However, the return on investment of consumers who appreciate our significant and genuine connection with them, is invaluable.

festivallawn

Calculating… Targeting Refined

So how should we alter our approach?  When consumers are successfully targeted by a company, they feel like that company cares about who they are individually; that they’re more than just a number or email address in the database.  This is because, when done right, the way we target should discover more than demographics data.  We want to aim to consider all of the pertinent information of the group we wish to pursue.

For example, if you’ve determined that a group of the population has an unmet need for kitchen knives you could immediately begin with an age demographic (independent adults perhaps), combined with location, and possible gender needs; standard targeting.  In addition to that, let’s start with questions to understand our consumer better. We might ask something like:

  • Why do they need or want sharp cutlery?
  • What do they intend to do with their cutlery once received?
  • What other household products might they also be buying?

With this, maybe we discover that the consumer doesn’t just want cutlery, they want a faster, easier way to prepare their vegetables.  We may come up with a product that can create this effect instantaneously – a knife that steams vegetables as it slices.  The important thing is that we’ve humanized our consumer more than the collective demographics could. We care about the what and the why.  Now we can garner the additional pieces of information we need. That’s how we connect.

cnnbuildingplaza

Adjust Your Aim Like Scotts Did

Scotts Miracle Grow
Targeted Segment:

  • Male
  • Homeowner
  • Limited product knowledge *
  • 27 – 35
  • Earning 50,000 + per year
  • Sports enthusiast

When the 2016 earnings reports came across the desk of retailers, many were panicked, struggling to determine how to continue reaching their existing target audiences in the ways that matter.  A lot of millennial bashing occurred, because frustrated companies could not understand what had changed.  Instead of adjustments, judgements were made.

Not Scotts.  In fact, since 2006, Scott’s reported yearly earnings have been consistently above 2.6 million in annual revenue.  That is, with the exception of the period between 2014-2016 where revenue hovered around 2.5 million or lower.  Scotts was not impacted quite the same way some other retailers were, but there was a clear, industry wide consensus that “reaching millennials,” was imperative.  Scotts was no different.  They effectively had two choices.

They could have chosen to change their formula entirely by choosing a different target.  Instead, they chose to keep their existing formula, but tweaked it so that it embraced the parts which were now different.  In 2015, they likely asked themselves:

  • Are all our criteria for our target market still relevant?
    • Yes except for age.
  • How are 27 year old’s different now than they were 10 years ago?
    • Many grew up in an environment not prioritizing lawn care and maintenance.

It’s no secret that millennials have presented a uniquely complex set of obstacles for most retailers. After researching the parameters it had once set for itself, Scott’s understood at least one of the very distinct differences – the lack of product knowledge.  Thus, they made it a point to incorporate instructional videos for all things lawn-care related, right down to the mulch calculator.  As of 2019, Scotts enjoyed its record high revenue of 3.15 million for the year.

movingtargetshot

Aim True

Your target can be the same, but the variables required to hit the target may change.  Any marksperson who participates in trapshooting knows that you can’t ignore the wind.  For that matter, any sailor trying to reach land on a sailboat must acknowledge the same variable.  Whether the target is a skeet, an island, or a person, variables will shift, and you have to be accepting of that.  You still want to strive to hit the target, of course, your business depends on doing just that. It’s fine if it’s the same target every single time.  Just don’t expect to be able to hit the same target in the same way when the wind changes.

Your consumers are people after all, and people change.

Photo of person shopping on iPad
  • Shout Out Studio

Remarkable Marketing
Remarkable Marketing 1920 703 Shout Out Studio

For the average consumer, basic needs and wants are only a few clicks away or ready for pick-up, maybe even delivery. Brands are constantly wanting to be a part of this transaction and so they storm consumers with marketing noise in an effort to do so. The constant noise blurs together and most consumers have become quite skilled at tuning it out and scrolling past. To succeed in a loud world, cluttered with new ideas a company’s brand and marketing must be, not only unique but truly remarkable.

Lemonade

Lemonade is a company that has taken something boring and turned it into something remarkable. With the growing number of millennials moving into their own apartments and homes, Lemonade developed a brand of homeowner and renter’s insurance that speaks directly to that demographic. Starting with the visual brand, Lemonade communicates to target customers with bright colors, fun graphics, and an easy to navigate website. They seek to educate and engage quickly. Once they have initially engaged their audience they promise a hassle-free, 90-second sign-up, and to top it all off they ensure that any money left over after claims get sent to good causes. They make the benefits easy to understand and they make it fun and easy to buy.

Billie

Billie is a women’s razor subscription service that seeks to empower and ease minds all at the same time. Billie not only sells a product that functions better than others on the shelves, but does so with a lower price point, a convenient subscription option, and a meaningful message. Billie products are made without parabens, sulfates, GMOs all while costing half of what the competition charges. Billie’s bright colors and strong female empowerment message push this product into the remarkable realm and keep customers coming back for more while activating customers to spread the word through Billie’s referral program.

Photo of Billie product lineup
Photo of Billie Razor and Blade refill

Warby Parker

For years the creators of Warby Parker watched as large companies cornered the eyeglasses industry and up charged their oftentimes aesthetically outdated products because of their control over the marketplace. Warby Parker’s founders knew there must be a better way and by bypassing traditional channels and communicating with customers directly they were able to create high quality, fashionable products at a better price. But how are they remarkable? The message they have built behind each purchase. Warby Parker understands that without glasses people are unable to effectively learn, work, or go about their daily lives, so they set out to do something about it. In addition to stylish, accessible glasses, Warby’s Buy One Give One business model means for every pair of glasses the company sells, another pair is distributed to someone in need through non-profit organizations.

Model showing off Warby Parker frames
Close up shot of Warby Parker frames

Now let’s recap. What can make a business remarkable? Lemonade does it through their bright-colored young-looking brand, fast-paced enrollment, and charitable donations in a traditionally dull industry. Billie does is through their strong values, extremely low prices, and convenience. Warby Parker sets itself apart with creative logistics, low prices, strong message, and a charitable business model that makes the world a better place every single day. The beauty about being remarkable is that it can (and should) mean something different for every business out there. How can your business make a shift toward being remarkable?

Media sources: Lemonade | Billie | Warby Parker
CJJackets
  • Marsh Williams

The Real Impact of Poor Digital Marketing on a Company’s Value
The Real Impact of Poor Digital Marketing on a Company’s Value 1900 720 Marsh Williams

Every morning I spend about an hour catching up on news and events. Most of this effort is business-related, and there are always a few “nuggets” I can use. Recently I found one… I read an article about downgrading for a company’s stock, partially due to its digital marketing.

“We see a recent slowdown in both Google trend search and Instagram engagement over the holiday quarter — most notably in December — as somewhat concerning for a stock that currently relies heavily on momentum and robust growth to keep their premium valuation justified.”

Let that sink in a minute. In January, Canada Goose was downgraded by analysts because of their digital marketing analytics from the preceding month. Wells Fargo lowered Goose’s price target from $80 to $68; that’s 15%, and they took an immediate hit in the market of over 10%. That translates to a loss in market capitalization of hundreds of millions of dollars. Partially over their digital marketing results.

Maybe I’m overreacting to this news, but the only time I’ve had a similar revelation was in 1985.

Digression—But Relevant Digression

My wife and I were both working for Warner Communications and involved in the launch of QUBE. Many things spun out from QUBE, including MTV, Nickelodeon, home shopping channels, travel channels, and Pay-Per-View television. At that time, there was still a little bit of uncertainty about how these entities would fare until one day when we were sitting in the car and heard “Money for Nothing” the first time. That was the moment we both knew MTV was going to be bigger than we had ever imagined.

I had the same realization this morning reading the article about Canada Goose. Maybe this has been going on a while, and I’m just ignorant of that fact, but this is the first time I’ve seen it in black and white. A company’s net worth diminished because of digital marketing analytics.

To bring this down to Earth… “so what and who cares, how does this affect me?”

Digital marketing is an essential part of any company’s revenue generation efforts: it matters, and we should all be paying attention. We’re in the business, so we do, but what do we measure and why.

Essential Digital Marketing Metrics Every CEO Should Care About

It’s’s easy to get caught up in likes, followers, and visitors, but in our opinion, forward movement every month is more critical, so here is what we measure for ourselves and our clients, month-over-month.

Website Analytics

Visitors: When we track this number, we remove “bounces” and only focus on traffic in the geographic areas in which we are interested. The resulting metric will give you a real picture of the visits that matter to your strategic growth.

Pages Per Visit: The average number of pages visited by each visitor in each session. By working on your content strategy, you should be able to increase this metric over time. It reflects how relevant your content is to visitors.

Length of Session: A simple metric showing how long visitors spend on your site for the average visit. Again this can be used to measure the effectiveness of content and how relevant it is to the audience you are attracting.

Conversion Rate: Whether it’s’s sales, getting people to register for an event, or fill out a contact form, track this number. Once you have established a baseline, work on improving it through different “Calls to Action,” improved copy, or page layouts.

Traffic Sources: There are a lot of possibilities here, but for executive summaries, we focus on four key areas or channels: Organic Search, Direct, Referral, and Social.

Social Media

First, not every organization should be on every platform. Choose the best platforms for your organization and use each one differently, but all in a coordinated effort. We focus on overall growth and engagement.

Growth is pretty apparent; how much is your audience increasing over time.

Engagement is the most critical factor for us. It directly measures how well your messaging is resonating with the audience. Engagement includes several factors, and they are a little different on each platform, but essentially it measures how well you are hitting the mark.

Original Article

helping small businesses with digital marketing
  • Shout Out Studio

What Small Business Can Learn from Big Brands in Digital Marketing
What Small Business Can Learn from Big Brands in Digital Marketing 1920 600 Shout Out Studio

Editor’s Note: Shout Out Studio has partnered with students from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) to mentor, research and write a series of blog posts for shoutoutstudio.com. The authors are members of student-led group, East Bridge Consultancy, an affiliate of Alpha Kappa Psi, a professional business fraternity.

By: Grant Smith & Kristian Jennes

With the release of new technologies such as augmented reality over the years (or months) and the proven business usability of social networking platforms, the landscape of marketing strategies has evolved from cold selling to the use of digital channels. This new method provides a new experience for the customer, while contributing meaningful insights for organizations to utilize. A study done by Adobe interviewed a large group of marketing professionals from all facets to gain an understanding on best practices. One finding: Sixty-six percent of all marketers think companies won’t succeed unless they have a digital marketing approach. While larger organizations have multi million dollar budgets to invest in a digital strategy, small businesses feel left behind. There are many lessons that small businesses can learn from larger brands that can be implemented on a smaller scale to generate compelling content for consumers.

Although virtual reality is the more mainstream of the two, augmented reality has been embraced by the masses this past year with Pokémon Go, a mobile application which let’s users see characters in their own reality through their phone. This comeback of the 1990’s cartoon game shows businesses consumers are ready for the AR experience. In fact, over the past year, make up, furniture, and drug store organizations have heavily invested in AR to provide their customers with a new channel to view products. Walgreens has a mobile app called ‘Aisle411’ which immerses customers in new promotions and usually unseen products/deals while walking around the store. IKEA introduced an application that allows buyers to see what a certain piece of furniture would look like in their home. Sephora (cosmetics) now allows customers to see how a certain style of make-up would look on their faces simply by using their front facing camera. Within 8 weeks of the launch, Sephora’s application was bought over 1.6 million times.

Of course, larger brands like Walgreens have the resources to fund augmented reality style marketing strategies. But what about the small town brick and mortar shops- how can AR be utilized without breaking the bank? What they can learn from this craze is this: consumers are ready for a shopping experience that incorporates exploration through different channels other than walk in’s. Simple changes to websites such as including products that are not on the shelves or at a particular location can spark more time on your website and increased awareness of your brand. Augmented reality use by larger brands will also bring a vast amount of insights of consumer trends. Although actual augmented reality applications for organizations require heavy investments, the results and teachings that can be captured online are always free for small businesses to utilize.

Implementing a strong digital marketing strategy is crucial to any successful business, but in today’s cluttered online marketplace, providing consumers with an unforgettable experience can vault a company to the top of its industry. WestJet took the experience a step further, by blending a digital sharing element that guaranteed a large scope and huge awareness for years to come. By posting a video of employees granting passenger wishes, WestJet created a viral sensation that has racked up 41+ million views to date. The combination of an experience shared on a digital platform maximized reach while resonating emotionally with viewers, showing the value of taking a mixed approach to marketing.

Small businesses have not missed this trend and have already begun to take advantage of experiential marketing. One of the biggest ways that small businesses are capitalizing on this trend is by partnering with other small, local companies to provide consumers with a joint event that promotes both businesses and gives consumers a destination that will help the brand resonate with them. A common pairing is often micro breweries with local restaurants, both huge startup trends in large cities that a young demographic will flock to for live music, drink specials, or other events. Companies are utilizing their social media platforms as well as websites to help promote these experiences and gain brand awareness in the community.

One of the biggest hurdles faced in digital marketing is finding a way to resonate with consumers, while reaching the widest range of consumers as possible. When used effectively, contests can be a great way to address this challenge. Dove held an extremely successful contest that instructed users to post a picture of their friend with why their friend “represents real beauty” by filling in two reasons why they find them beautiful alongside their name.  This user generated content not only built the brand’s goodwill, but was free marketing material posted on millions of Facebook walls for viewers to see.

While larger brands often use Facebook as the host for their contests, small business often don’t have the name recognition or following to get these types of promotions to go viral. However, one good way for small business to take advantage of this tactic is to sponsor contests for local sports teams or at large local events. This demonstrates community involvement, spreads brand awareness, and allows consumers to connect on a more personal level. While this takes a much more experiential approach, it can be promoted and marketed using social media and web platforms, blending the two marketing plans into one actionable strategy.
Adobe’s research on digital marketing presented another eye opening result: ‘less than half (48%) of professionals who consider themselves primarily digital marketers feel highly proficient in digital marketing.’ Although the digital strategy has shown success, it is a task that consists of significant resources, time, and constant change. Small businesses cannot be intimidated by this fact, with a clear direction for obtainable goals,consistent strategy, and the desire to constantly learn about consumers trends, one can implement a meaningful marketing campaign that models those of big businesses. While a new technology such as augmented reality can add value to an organization, it is unrealistic for smaller firms to have the ability to research and develop something this expensive and time consuming. Instead, small businesses can position themselves to learn. By gaining insight, one can change the layout of their store, add trending products to their shelves, and provide features on the their website catered to consumer needs while being cost effective. One of the most important aspects of digital marketing is sending a consistent message to consumers, regardless of how they are viewing content.  This means that a small company needs to ensure that mobile applications, web pages, and social media accounts are offering the same features, same information, and same usability. To grow a small organization into one with resources to fund large scale digital marketing strategies, owners/managers must stay up to date on trends and take advantage of the strong customer relationships that a small organization can establish. By truly understanding the target market one can decide which digital strategy to model.

Trends in Video Content Marketing
  • Gretchen Ardizzone

4 Emerging Trends in Video Content Marketing
4 Emerging Trends in Video Content Marketing 1920 703 Gretchen Ardizzone

There’s no question that video content over the years has become a huge phenomenon and marketing tactic for businesses. 78% of people watch videos online every week and 55% of people watch videos online every day.* Those are some compelling stats when it comes to creating awareness and online engagement for brands, but what type of video will capture the attention of today’s consumers? Here’s a look at four emerging trends in video content marketing that will set a precedent for video marketing.

An Extended Script

Whether it’s the brand you love or the ambassador who represents, as a fan you often follow the stories they tell. Instead of micro moments, we can expect for longer scripted plots to carry out over the seasons, with unique pieces of content dispersed to various platforms. One brand that has put this approach on the map is Kate Spade. In the winter of last year they began with their missadventures campaign following around the ever adorable, super fashionable Anna Kendrick.

The trendy, upbeat womenswear and accessory brand is now in their third series of short films. The first series “The Waiting Game” showcased the stylish celebrity locked out of her Soho pad with shopping bags filled with Kate Spade goodies. And with time to kill what else is there to do but revel in the purchase. Anna turned an unfortunate situation (aka #missadventure) into a brand marketer’s dream as she then spent her time stooped on the stairs casually playing dress up. The video was not only entertaining but also interactive; viewers could shop the product featured in the video, a truly innovative add-on to the experience. The following series “The Great Escape” and “The Best Company” continue to showcase the quirky antics of Anna and cleverly highlight the brand’s product.

Supporting Roles

So often commercial advertisements are overbearing in their approach, trying to sell you on the product that you otherwise can’t live without. Meanwhile, Kimberly Clarke has been subtly focusing on the moments—those that bring tears of joy and tears of sadness—and remind you that Kleenex will always be there when you need them. In their “Someone Needs One” campaign, a dog gets a second chance at life after being paired up with someone who similarly fights the challenges of physical disabilities. The tear jerking video is uplifting and gives hope.

Another campaign series looks at a young girl’s first day back to school as she sits on the bus filled with anxiety letting out a quiet little sob. Before stepping off the bus a young boy takes notice to approach her to debunk what she might think about boys not caring about feelings. He hands her a tissue and tells her it’s not true, and your heart melts with his sweetness. It’s not about how soft that tissue is or how many years its been around, Kimberly Clarke has focused on the moments in life when Kleenex are there, because “Someone Needs One.” The future of successful video content will take a secondary role to selling product and instead focus on sharing related stories.

Raw Footage

Transparency is an important brand attribute for today’s consumers. A few years ago, during a brand overhaul, Domino’s debuted a commercial that gave us an exclusive look at what consumers were saying about their pizza. They took an honest look at themselves, heard what customers were saying, and communicated it was time for change. It was one of the first times that a brand said, “We hear you.” Since then, consumers have begun to expect a more genuine approach. As a result, you can expect that we’re going to see more of an honest video dialogue, where scenes that might have otherwise got left on the cutting room floor end up being the raw moment that makes it all real.

Most recently, Mattel launched a campaign “You Can Be Anything” with the support of San Francisco agency BBDO. And while the creative powerhouse is known for their exceptional abilities to create compelling campaigns, the beauty in this one came through in the raw moments that they managed to capture. Sans script, BBDO used hidden cameras to capture little girls playing professionals (positions of their choice) in a real life setting. Not only are you captivated by the cuteness of the little girls, but also you get to see the real reaction to those witnesses of these little girls acting out their dream jobs.

VIP Access

Nowadays you can access video content on a variety of devices from TV to desktop to mobile phone, and brands put it out there for you to seek out. Times are changing though and one brand has adopted an innovative way to not only release their content, but also make it feel exclusive. With the launch of their bold new 3D tortilla chips, Doritos wanted to give consumers a 3D video in every bite. Instead of just making the content available anywhere online, the brand made it exclusive to those that purchased. Unique to each flavor, consumers scanned the 3D chip to unlock and access unique mobile-only content. It not only encouraged the purchase but also made you want to see what the other flavors had to offer. Moving forward, expect to see more brands create exclusive content that is unique. Think about product lines; people want information that is specific not broad in general terms.

It’s time to think outside of the box, throw away scripts, be authentic, and think about personalized content. In order to engage your audience you can’t just do what you’ve always done in the past. When it comes to video content it IS time to recreate the wheel.

*Source: Groupon Works

 

DMarketing
  • Marsh Williams

Marketing vs. Digital Marketing
Marketing vs. Digital Marketing 1920 700 Marsh Williams

A few weeks ago one of our clients asked us to comment on why they had not been able to cross the marketing/digital marketing divide on their own. Certainly a provocative question and one that really required some thought on our part.

This particular client has a very productive marketing department delivering traditional marketing activity: conferences, press releases, pr placement; however, they just felt they had never been able to capitalize on the power and promise of digital marketing.

Here’s how we responded to our client’s question…

It’s easy to look at marketing and digital marketing and assume they are the same. Most companies with a marketing department treat social media and other digital communications efforts as just another distribution outlet for the content they are already producing.

This is the genesis of the problem.

Traditional marketing is about creating a presence in the marketplace, establishing knowledge of an organization within the market, building awareness of products and services as well as the company’s value proposition. All great efforts that are absolutely required as part of an overall marketing equation.

Digital marketing is about creating an engaged audience and there are significant differences between the two.

First, mindset. Engaging an audience means thinking about information that has value for them. What questions do they have that you can address? What are they already talking about and how can you make a contribution to the conversation? In simple terms it means putting aside what you want to tell them and giving priority to what they want to know or how you can help.

When you go to a party or event, who is the person everyone wants to speak with? It’s the person who engages in conversation, who listens before sharing information, and who is as interested in your point of view as you are in his. That approach to digital marketing works. Every single time you add content to your website, post on social media or send out an email marketing piece ask: does anyone care about this? Will people see this as valuable and be more informed as a result of taking their time to read it?

The second difference of digital marketing is the ability to target an audience with precision heretofore unavailable. For example when posting an article on LinkedIn, you can target individuals by industry, job title, seniority level, and geography. On Facebook, you can target people down to the level of who they follow, their demographic information and even a zip code.

A third differentiating factor is the ability to measure your success with a high level of precision. Once you’ve established systems and set up the right tools you will know — down to an individual respondent — how many people are following you, how many people actually read or respond to your message and the types of success your efforts lead to over time. We developed a standard digital marketing dashboard that allows us to track all digital marketing efforts on a month-over-month basis to see our results.

Certainly we do not advocate abandoning traditional marketing, but we do recommend that digital marketing, with its additional capabilities and benefits, be treated as a separate discipline requiring dedicated staff, tools, and processes to generate the maximum benefit for your organization.

White Paper
  • Gretchen Ardizzone

Beyond the Blog: Benefits of a White Paper
Beyond the Blog: Benefits of a White Paper 1920 700 Gretchen Ardizzone

There’s no denying the power of a blog, in fact it’s one of our most valuable communication tools and one that we recommend for our clients for a multitude of reasons. But the reality is that just about everyone has a blog these days, and the criteria for content creation and who’s creating is sometimes loose. Beyond the blog though there are other content formats that can provide additional value and have higher levels of expectation like the white paper.

A white paper is intended to be an authoritative, in-depth piece that educates the reader on your unique point of view. Some might tell you it’s an old-school technique that has lost its luster. Don’t be quick to judge. If crafted properly the return on investment can be valuable in terms of generating new leads, creating brand awareness, and establishing an expert reputation.

Where Do You Start?

Start by creating a creative brief. This will help outline all the necessary details you need to establish from the beginning, as well as provide a great resource to share with internal stakeholders to get everyone on the same page, and make sure it fits within the company’s overall positioning. Here’s a quick look at what the creative brief should include:

  • Describe the initiative
  • Outline what is the focus or big idea of the piece
  • Highlight what are the supporting themes
  • Identify the primary audience
  • Establish what is the benefit for the reader
  • Identify what you want to gain
  • Determine what action you want the reader to take
  • And lastly establish a timeline

Content Quick Tips

Capture attention. Much like a blog post you’ve got to create a captivating title that’ll attract readers. Make it powerful and intrigue them to give a little whether it’s their contact information or just the time it takes them to read. Consider an active verb suggesting the need to take action.

Tell them something they don’t already know. Share some secret sauce or exclusive insight that they might not have otherwise known unless they read your white paper. Make it thought provoking.

Build credibility. Consider co-writing with other industry experts or simply including a relevant quote from an influential individual that supports your content.

Do your research. White papers shouldn’t just be an opinion piece. Do your homework to compile supporting information and stats or interview subject matter experts.

Make it visual. Yes, the primary focus here is the content, but a bunch of words on a blank white page is going to be a total snooze to the reader. Use compelling photography and embrace colors and fonts as a way to highlight or call out key points within the piece.

Don’t focus on length. White papers vary in length from several to double-digit page numbers. What’s important to remember in the ideal length of the piece is that it should be long enough to convey your point effectively—period. Don’t make it too short that the reader feels disappointed that they didn’t get much out of it, but don’t add fluff to reach an arbitrary page length.

To gate or not to gate, that is the question. There are benefits on both ends of the spectrum. By gating the white paper you gain valuable contact information and can help you build email lists and provide an opportunity for follow up. On the flip side there’s also hesitancy amongst most individuals to want to provide that information. Consider not gating the information with the belief that the content will be powerful enough to ignite the reader to need to contact you. You can also try gating the white paper for a period of time, and then opening up after it’s been out in the public for a bit.

Plan for Promotion

There’s no sense in creating a great piece of content if you only intend to put it up on the website in hopes that someone will come find it. That’s like publishing a book and putting it in the library with the hope that it gets discovered one day. Establish a promotion plan the beginning.

  • Consider creating a few blog posts on the subject in advance to further position credibility around the point of view.
  • Develop a tiered approach to distribution. Establish a segment of customers that you can provide exclusive access to before you officially make public to everyone else.
  • After that, utilize social media channels for additional distribution, and consider both organic and paid promotion.
  • Add calls-to-action in other logical places of the website where visitors might see it, or add a link in the bottom of your email to help spread the word in day-to-day communications.
  • Share with online resources and publications that might be interested to feature the piece.

While it may take days or weeks to produce a long-form piece of content like a white paper the benefits can outweigh only focusing on short-form content pieces like a blog post as a part of your overall content marketing strategy.

Photo Credit: Dan Taylr

knowing versus believing
  • Nathaniel Seevers

Knowing versus Believing
Knowing versus Believing 1920 703 Nathaniel Seevers

Our job as marketers, communicators, brand builders isn’t so much helping people to understand as it is helping people to believe.

Facts are good. They can be tough to digest at times, but all in all, facts help us to make informed decisions. Facts are the basis for logic and reasoning. They are things we can be definitive about – data that helps to remove internal debate. And yet still, facts won’t always win out over gut reaction.

Need doesn’t always supersede want.

If you put the facts sheets together for the latest iPhone and latest Samsung smartphone it’s quite possible that the Samsung phone has longer battery life, runs apps faster, more storage, better price, better this and that. And yet still, people will buy the phone they want more often than they will buy the one that’s the most logical to purchase.

Why is this?

Logic doesn’t always win in the battle with intuition. Even when all the facts are on the table our minds work to justify our gut reaction; to make it feel okay to want what we want. Psychologists call this Confirmation Bias.

According to a recent BBC report:

“…your logical, slow mind is a master at inventing a cover story. Most of the beliefs or opinions you have come from an automatic response. But then your logical mind invents a reason why you think or believe something.”

Our beliefs put our logical mind to work confirming our want.

How does this impact consumer communication?

Facts are important. We as consumers use facts to validate. But we don’t instinctively use facts as a path to desire. We use facts to justify desire.

If you’re marketing a product that is factually backed as being superior and you’ve spent time educating your audience with those facts but still few people are buying, you could be missing the mark when it comes to creating belief.

How to foster belief

Be genuine and speak authentically – this is where being in touch with your brand is crucial. Speak from a voice that is confident and reflective of your brand values. Understand the persona that represents your company and how you need to carry those traits through website copy, packaging and social media in a way that allows your audience to connect and relate.

Put your benefit foot forward –how does your product or service work to better aspects of the consumer’s lifestyle? Someone buys a drill to create a hole, sure, but the decision to purchase is not always that cut and dry. A need to feel prepared could be the driver or a need to complete a collection or an emotional thread of tradition (my granddad used that same drill) could be the underlying reasons that ultimately complete the purchase. What’s the emotional connection behind the stats?

Create Brand Ambassadors – get the community involved. 77% of people say they are more likely buy a product that comes recommended by a friend or colleague. Brand ambassadors help spread belief.

 

photo credit: Ben Rea

Blog
  • Gretchen Ardizzone

5 Simple Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Blogging
5 Simple Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Blogging 1920 700 Gretchen Ardizzone

Blogs are the most valuable type of content, according to more than one-third of today’s marketers (Source: ContentPlus). I could go on and on about the benefits of blogging from establishing authority to building trust to educating your audience, but the key though is effectively blogging. And let’s be honest though, while it may be the most valuable type of content, we know it takes a good amount of work to do it well. Here are 5 simple tips to get the most out of your blogging efforts.

Write for Your Audience Not For You

Creating great content always starts with focus, and that comes from understanding the audience you’re writing to attract. It’s easy to get excited about a topic and see something new and be tempted to write a post about it. I’ll be honest I’ve done it on occasion too. But the content that will provide the greatest value is a piece that is written for the intended reader and not you. Remember, you are not the target.

Having a content strategy in place will help you benchmark the audience you’re writing for and be a guide. For example, this post is geared to helping businesses improve their blog writing skills with a few simple tips and tools.

It’s never too late to implement a content strategy supported by an editorial calendar. Having an editorial calendar will keep you organized of course, but also help to monitor your keyword use and topic balance to ensure that you’re reaching your defined target with a variety of post topics. There’s a ton of free tools out there for editorial calendars from HubSpot and Content Marketing Institute, it just depends on your personal preference. Find one that works for you and get your content ideas documented. If all else fails you can even create one yourself with a simple excel sheet making sure to track authors and due dates, titles and content details, keywords and target personas, and lastly, your call-to-action.

Be Creative With Titles

Creating a great blog post may not matter if you don’t put as much consideration into creating a great title. By creating a title that will grab the attention of your audience you can help improve your click through-rate.  When thinking about using common vs. unique adjectives in your title, go for unique. Adjectives that aren’t used as frequently in other posts will help make your title stand out more. By adding more emotional words to your post title you can also increase interest. Positive emotional words promote a better chance of being shared as well. Use social promotion as a way of testing your headlines. Tweet the content using different headlines to test which preforms better.

You can even try using a tool like CoSchedule’s Blog Post Headline Analyzer. Once you plug in your post title the tool will analyze the overall quality and rate its ability to result in social shares and SEO value. I even used it creating this post title (feel free to check out how I score).

Make it Easily Shareble

If your reader is challenged to find a way to easily share your article you can bet they won’t spend long trying to figure out how. Make it easy for them. Hopefully you’ve already incorporated social sharing buttons on your blog, but beyond that you can utilize “Click to Tweet” to highlight key points or powerful stats in your post.

Create a custom post graphic. You’ve heard it probably a million times a picture is worth a thousand words. Well it may not be worth a thousand words but, it may just make the difference between a post getting read or shared. Posts with images get 94% more total views than those without (source: Jeff Bulas).

Custom graphics resonate even more with readers than stock photography. If you’re like me and you read a lot of blogs, you’ve maybe even started to notice the same stock photo trending over other posts. Be unique and utilize imagery, fonts, and colors that relate to your brand.

Spelling, Grammar or Language Misstakes

We’re all human, and occasionally make typos or you might find yourself using the wrong tense of a verb. Heck you might even find one in this post (hopefully not). But a post that is poorly written or laden with grammatical errors is going to lose your reader real fast. There are a few things you can do to prevent this from happening though.

Start by having someone else read your post. Chances are you’ve read your post over and over and aren’t likely to catch simple errors because you know what you’re trying to convey. If you’re using a CMS system like WordPress, you can also consider starting your blog post in a word document. Typical spelling errors and awkward sentence structures are bound to be identified.

If you really want to get technical though, try a web app like Hemingway. Paste your text into Hemmingway and it’ll identify hard to read sentences, complex phrases, adverbs and passive voice. Each one is highlighted with a different color to help you identify what you might need to change. Beyond just sentence structure and analyzing the types of words used in the post, Hemmingway evaluates the readability of the post and identifies what grade level is needed to understand the text. The best content is written at a middle school level, so take that into your readability consideration.

Track Your Post Performance

If you write it, they will come. Not exactly. There are a lot of variables that go into getting your content discovered— content promotion for example—but if you’re not monitoring your blog traffic at all, you can’t begin to understand what’s working and what’s not. And of course you want to understand the results of your efforts.

This takes me back to the beginning of the importance of having a content strategy plan. In order to track the performance of your content, you need to understand the goals. Is it to increase sales, generate leads, create brand awareness, or establish expertise in a specific category? Depending on what you’ve identified as your goal, you can then start to look at some areas for measurement of success. If your goal is brand awareness, you might look at an increase in social media following and engagement, page views, website traffic and specifically the amount of time spent reading your posts. If your goal is to generate leads, you’ll want to measure email subscription or sign-ups and content form submissions. Evaluating your blog performance will only help make certain that the content you create is getting the recognition it deserves.

Now get out there and go write something!

Goodbye To Google
  • Marsh Williams

Goodbye to Google
Goodbye to Google 776 415 Marsh Williams

Over the holidays I had a chance to catch up with an old friend whom I’ve not seen in months. He is fairly highly placed in the technology sector and of course we wound up talking “geek” ad nauseum. One of the things we discussed was his take on Google. Here is what I got.

There is absolutely no privacy when it comes to Google; there may be some last vestige of anonymity, but there is no privacy. Google knows when you’re in your car, who you communicate with, and now, with the acquisition of Nest, what you do in your home, thus rendering the phrase “in the privacy of your own home” meaningless. The amount of data they collect, examine, and use is staggering and is an absolute assault on the right to privacy.

That being said, yes, I opted in. But now I’m opting out. It will take a while, I’m guessing at least a year, to get away but I’m going to do it. And yes, I’m going to miss the effectiveness of Google as a search engine. Plus I’ll be giving up an email address I’ve had since 2004, but I have to draw the line somewhere and this is it.

While all of what my friend shared is already public, hearing it put together with his perspective, which I greatly respect, has led me to one conclusion: my 2015 resolution is to separate from Google. That means dropping Chrome, Gmail, Google+, YouTube, the whole shebang. Can I actually do it? I don’t know, but I’m going to try.

To get a real sense of what Google does and does not do/know/plan/collect/sell, check out these articles:

“4 Ways Google is Destroying Privacy and Collecting Data”

“Privacy concerns? What Google now says it can do with your data”

“Google concedes that drive-by prying violated privacy“

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks

marketinggoals
  • Nathaniel Seevers

Goal Setting for Digital Marketing
Goal Setting for Digital Marketing 880 461 Nathaniel Seevers

As with personal goals, it’s never too late to start setting digital marketing goals. No need to wait until the New Year or fret if you don’t get them set by the end of January.

Yes, it’s never too late for setting digital marketing goals, though it can be too early. Let me explain; goal setting for digital marketing can benefit from some level of baseline knowledge. How would you know what to aim for if you have no idea what is realistic for your business?

Build a Baseline to Reference

If you’re new to measuring certain aspects of your digital marketing, consider taking 1-3 months to measure and record, developing a baseline from which to create your goals.

If you have been measuring for a period of time these numbers should be part of your goal setting decisions.

What Else to Consider

Well, that baseline number up there of course but also:

  • The platform averages for your industry. For example, comparing Average Reach on Twitter for a Logistics company and a Clothing Retailer may be like comparing apples to alligators.
  • Direct competitor performance.
  • Age and level of awareness of the business
  • Age of the business’ presence on a certain platform

Know what to measure

Each platform/channel/area of effort (whatever you want to call it) will have relative metrics to track but all of this should be feeding into a big picture marketing plan with big picture marketing goals. These are the details, these are the brush strokes that make up your masterpiece for the month/quarter/year/etc.

Let’s use two major social platforms as an example of what to measure:

On Facebook

  1. Engagement – How people are interacting with your content on Facebook
  2. Reach (but be aware that organic reach is tough to come by. Any significant Reach is likely to come from paid promotion, at least to get rolling and build awareness).
  3. Page Likes – Despite some reports, page Likes aren’t just a shallow metric to measure your popularity. Quality Page Likes help to amplify your Reach and increase the effectiveness of your Facebook Advertising.
  4. Negative Impact – Diving into the Page Likes section within your Facebook Insights shows you a Net Likes section. Here you can quickly see a count for Unlikes of your Page. Unlike aren’t uncommon, even for the most popular brands, but if you can correlate any large sections of Unlikes to recent posts, ads and/or frequencies listen to your audience and make adjustments. On the ads in particular, check out this article on reducing ads fatigue.

On Twitter

  1. Impressions – numbers of times users saw your tweet
  2. Engagement Rate – the number of engagements (clicks, retweets, favorites, follows, replies) divided by the total number of impressions. This data is more valuable month over month than say day-to-day.

Depending on your marketing and business development goals you’ll likely be looking to convert that social activity to leads and ultimately projects/sales. That’s where your website goals and data comes in.

Website Metrics to Track (Google Analytics):

  1. Sessions/Users – this is the number of visits to your site and the number of Users (or visitors) making up those visits.
  2. Referrals – where those Users are coming from and what they’re clicking on to get to your site. Tracking URLS for your social media sites can help better clarify those actions.
  3. Exit Pages – unlike Bounce rate which can vary based on page content and the desired outcome from your landing pages, Exit Pages allow you to take a closer look at when your visitors are leaving on their journey through your site. From here you can take educated actions that help carry the visitor closer to conversion.
  4. Conversion Rate – Just like it sounds, how your website is performing based on the number of visitors who reach the desired goal (conversion)
  5. Top 5 or 10 Pages – Look at these monthly to help connect the dots between new content and social media efforts with onsite traffic and behaviors.

Set “Stretch But Don’t Snap” Goals

In the end goals should be aggressive but obtainable – realistic but take some of your best effort to achieve. Seeing your team start to close in on goals can be great motivation. On the flip-side, seeing a gigantic gap between where you are and where you want to get, can lead to a serious case of throwing in the towel.

Tell us about your digital marketing goals or if you have a question fire away in the comments or on twitter. Grab more digital marketing insights here.

Photo credit: Jeff Turner

Marketing Extensiuons
  • Shout Out Studio

Keep Organized With These Small Business Marketing Extensions
Keep Organized With These Small Business Marketing Extensions 1920 700 Shout Out Studio

Marketing for a small business can get hectic, time-consuming, and unorganized. Between the hundreds of accounts, sites, and content resources used everyday, it is easy to get overwhelmed. Luckily there are plenty of browser extensions that can be added to your web browser to help keep your efforts clutter-free. Here are some great extensions that the Shout Out team uses to stay sane:

Awesome ScreenshotAwesome Screenshot:

Screen capturing is nothing new, but Awesome Screenshot is the most versatile and capable screenshot tool I have come across. It allows you to capture either a selected area, the directly visible area, or the entire web page. After you have selected your screenshot, you can annotate it in a variety of ways, and even censor sensitive information. The final benefit of Awesome Screenshot is it gives you the option to email, share the url, or save the image. Showing edits needed on site pages, individual posts or photos has never been easier.

 

HootletHootlet:

If you’re in charge of social media for your small business, there is a good chance you are no stranger to HootSuite. Hootlet is their browser extension which helps you save time and effort. You can post to multiple social media profiles at once, schedule your posts, and find targeted content all without leaving your browser window.

bitly fish logobitly:

bitly is a link shortening/ branding extension that does so much more. After you create custom bitlinks, you can then manage and review their performance from the analytics and reporting from bitly. It keeps your social sharing looking clean, and helps you track click-throughs.

 

crowdriff 2561riffle:

Riffle is the Twitter dashboard you’ve been looking for, assuming you were looking for a Twitter dashboard. Get a Twitter profile’s vitals, influence assessments, top shares, usage and it’s activity rate all in a single dashboard. It’s a great way to learn about your followers or potential influencers.

PocketPocket:

Save the content you find for later with Pocket. This nifty extension will save, categorize and sync content so you can access it later, from any device. Pocket is a great way to curate articles, videos, or photos to share from your brand’s social media accounts.

MozBar1MozBar:

The MozBar browser extension provides free SEO metrics and data. You can search keywords, locations and individual search engines. MozBar also lets you analyze on-page elements with their Analyze Page overlay. It provides you with a break down of social shares and metrics. Save time on SEO research by adding MozBar to your extension arsenal.

Other useful extensions that will save you time and effort:

Check My Links:

As the name suggests, this extension is a link checker that scours through your page or post and will make sure all your links are working. Once it’s done it will highlight working links in green, and it highlights the broken links with red. This is a great time-saver, especially when you’ve been editing content for an entire day.

RiteTag:

It can be hard to know which hashtags to use on your social media posts. RiteTag takes the guessing out of it by grading your hashtags on a three point scale. Updates shared through RiteTag are also monitored for click-throughs, replies, retweets, favorites, and follows.

Check out the extensions above and let us know what you think! We’d love to hear of any extensions you use that have simplified your daily workload.

Click Bait
  • Shout Out Studio

Cut The Crap With Click-Bait
Cut The Crap With Click-Bait 880 461 Shout Out Studio

Let’s all face it – Facebook isn’t what it once was. We are flooded with ad’s, promoted posts, and articles for companies we’ve never heard of. It’s a headache and a daily struggle to dodge these to get to the juicy stuff.

The other day I was scrolling through Facebook when I noticed a little birdie complaining about how misleading titles and descriptions are for articles shared on Facebook. Quite frankly, I have to agree with her. It has become a game for companies like Harper’s Baazer and Huffington Post who post multiple articles on facebook a day. Both add “descriptions” of what they claim lay inside the article…  However, it’s a game of whether or not the description/title is telling the truth.

Here is what my little birdie says on her Facebook post: “Case in Point: The title of this article has no reference or direct correlation to the story. In the article, they make no comment or quote on the people who have too much time on their hands.”Elite DailyPhoto credit: Elite Daily

This new trend is called Click-Bait. According to Amy Porterfield, “Click-bait is when a link is shared in a Facebook post with a title that sparks curiosity but does not really tell people what the article is all about. This essentially teases people to click a link but does not give them all the information so they are not exactly sure what they’re going to find on the other side of that click.”

The good news? Facebook is cracking down. On August 25th on the Facebook Newsroom page, they stated. “We’re making two updates, the first to reduce click-baiting headlines, and the second to help people see links shared on Facebook in the best format.”

Cheers to that, Facebook.

How can you help the cause? The way Facebook determines whether or not something is Click-Bait is by how much time you spend on the article you click on. If you click on an article and read it for a few minutes, Facebook measures that to be something worthy of reading. If you click on the article and immediately click out of it, Facebook recognizes that is an issue.

Click-bait making you crazy too? Drop a line in the comments and share.

Photo Credit: Greg Westfall

break through writers block
  • Nathaniel Seevers

Break Through Writer’s Block by Pre-Writing Your Content
Break Through Writer’s Block by Pre-Writing Your Content 842 452 Nathaniel Seevers

Having a great idea for a post is a huge first step, but then you actually have to write it. Imagine that.

So what happens when you sit down with your great idea, your blog title or ebook subject and you proceed to stare at a flashing cursor for the next several hours with nothing to show for it?

It’s ok. Writer’s block happens to all of us. And it can stem from a number of things like distractions, being tired, being hungry and so on. But so many times writer’s block simply means you’re not ready to write yet. Now, this doesn’t mean you sit and let the idea age like a good bourbon, no.

You can break through writer’s block by pre-writing your content. You address it. You walk up slowly, remove your glove one finger at a time and slap writer’s block across the face and say, “I accept the challenge.”

Here’s how to pre-write your content in order to break through writer’s block:

Talk it out

Tell somebody about your great article. Tell them what it’s all about. No one around? Tell your dog. Tell your cat. Tell yourself in the mirror. The goal here is to make communicating your big idea more casual. To take the pressure off yourself. Plus, sometimes you just need to hear the information out loud.

Write Down the Key Points

After you talk it out you still need to get it down on paper so you don’t forget it. Almost like an outline, quickly jot down the key points of your article. This is the basis for its existence – the what and why. The foundational ideas. For this article as an example I wrote down:

  • The idea that walking away from writer’s block doesn’t have to be the answer
  • A revival of preparation, the old fashion article outline
  • Take the pressure off of the content writing
  • Organizing all those swirling thoughts and giving them purpose

Now, what’s the benefit of the content?

Great, so you have those big ideas down. Consider those the veins for your paragraphs but now they need some life’s blood and some purpose.  This is the big value statement for what you want this piece of content to be to your readers. For me for this post it was:

“To act as a framework and plan of action for not only overcoming writer’s block but creating better content because of it.”

Give It a Voice

We talk about voice a lot here at Shout Out, more in the context of overall brand voice, but individual pieces of content can have variances in voice as well. Almost like accents or dialects. Consider this the best way to deliver your great idea when considering audience and context. For the article, as with almost all of our posts, I’m aiming for: Friendly guide. Semi-professional. Conversational.

So there you have it; pre-writing. Informal, low pressure, yet still making progress. Let us know how it works for you or other steps you might add to the content pre-writing process.

photo credit: Drew Coffman

I Voted
  • Shout Out Studio

Political Marketing, and the New Viral Voter
Political Marketing, and the New Viral Voter 1024 548 Shout Out Studio

Politics is a topic we don’t broach often here at Shout Out Studio. As everyone knows you don’t discuss politics and religion with those you want to stay friends with. But I have been thinking about politics a lot lately. Specifically how some political marketing campaigns are and will be marketing to reach their target demographic in regards to this upcoming mid-term elections. As long I try to stay neutral there is no harm in talking about it, right? read more

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  • Shout Out Studio

How Long Does It Take To Create A Successful AdWords Campaign?
How Long Does It Take To Create A Successful AdWords Campaign? 776 415 Shout Out Studio

Great (AdWords) Expectations

Paid traffic can be a great thing, but if you are starting a campaign from scratch often there are a few problems. Some marketers sell it to their clients as the end-all be-all solution, and others managing their campaigns themselves usually have a grand vision of their success with the platform. Which usually creates some ridiculously high expectations, and when those expectations aren’t met people usually get frustrated and give up. So how long does it take to create a successful AdWords campaign?

The trick to starting a successful AdWords campaign is to never set expectations so high that they can’t be achieved. If expectations are managed from the beginning everyone involved can feel good about it. Here are some of my tips for managing expectations:

  1. Think of your opening budget as R&D cost, not advertising cost. Consider this money cost of doing business. It’s gone. Don’t expect a return on it.
  2. It’s going to take AT LEAST a month before you will see your campaign start to take shape in the way you want. This opening month is all about gathering information and making adjustments often.
  3. Don’t set goals until AFTER your first week. It’s okay to set goals at the beginning, but honestly you will have no idea if those goals are realistic or not until after your campaign starts running for at least a week. After the first week, set your goals and re-evaluate at the end of every following week.
  4. Track your progress. Whether you are managing it yourself or especially if you are managing it for clients. To see your progress from week to week will help you know what changes you made that are having a positive impact on your campaign and it will let your clients know that progress is being made.

As I said before, AdWords and other paid search options can be an amazing form of traffic for your business, but when you are starting a brand new campaign stay grounded. Keep your expectations reasonable and give it time. Success will follow.

Photo Credit: dullhunkcc

person typing on a keyboard
  • Shout Out Studio

How To Find Your Blog Writing Confidence – Part 2
How To Find Your Blog Writing Confidence – Part 2 880 461 Shout Out Studio

Part one of this post I wrote last year, and I discussed finding your blog writing swagger. After over year of contributing to our blog I’d like to add build upon finding that swagger. When I first started writing for Shout Out Studio I struggled to find the confidence to sit down and write down my thoughts. Now, I find my confidence in other ways:

1) Read. Write. Plan. Repeat.

These steps, in this order, might not work for everyone but if you haven’t tried it – now is your time. It’s important for me to do these three things on a regular basis to stay inspired to share my opinions in the digital marketing world. How can you write if you aren’t inspired? Pick up that book that everyone has been telling you to read and take an afternoon to get started – it will be beneficial in the long run for you, and your blog.

2) Climb out of that suffocating, inspiration trap, that you call your office. White and beige don’t rev-up my inspiration. I’m writing this blog from my back porch for a couple of reasons: First, because its 52 degrees outside and I think that means summer is close. Second, because it’s new, fresh, and my mindset is inspired by it.

3) You should never let yourself get to the point where you feel pushed to write a blog post (in a bad way). Be pushed by inspiration, motivation, and maybe too much caffeine. However, don’t be pushed by time, pressure, and the need to keep up. Reading, writing, then planning throughout your week will allow you to stay ahead of that time crunch, which can also crunch your writing. Keep in mind there is a difference between time and goals when it comes to blogging. You can control goals, you can’t control time.

4) I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…keep your voice genuine. You’ve heard that when you communicate via online mediums it’s important to keep your voice – funny, informative, cool, classy, trendy – whatever it is, keep it. Don’t be afraid to add some sarcasm in your posts, if that’s who you are. More often than not, being true to who you are will gain more real listeners than a large mass of followers. Quality over quantity.

Have other tips for finding your blog writing confidence? Share them with us in the comments section below.

Image via klepas

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