Digital Marketing

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  • Shout Out Studio

AdWords Certification Tips
AdWords Certification Tips 776 415 Shout Out Studio

Recently I had the pleasure of going through Google’s certification process for AdWords. I passed. However, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to do. It’s not that the material is hard to grasp or that the test itself is difficult. No, the main problem I found with the AdWords certification process is sifting through the seemingly endless amount of information in the study guides and figuring out what Google really wants you to know. I spent the better part of three weeks reading through the study guides that Google provides, reading books on AdWords, and using a paid online resource for question banks and mock exams to prepare for both the fundamentals exam and the advanced search exam. The truth is I could probably have done it in half the time if I knew some of the things I know now. I want to now share with you some of the insights I gained while going through this process in the hopes it may be able to help you become certified quicker and more efficiently.

Skim through the Google Study Guides

If I had tried to pass the exams just by reading the study guides, I am almost positive that I would have failed. It’s true that ALL of the information you need to pass the test lay within these study guides. However, they are mind numbingly boring and very hard to decipher what the big take-aways are from each entry. I read these word for word, sometimes literally falling asleep at my computer, and when I was done I struggled to look back on what I read and say what it was that I actually learned and retained.

If I were to do it over again, I would skim through each section and try to pull out the main ideas (which I said is already hard) if I can. But I definitely wouldn’t read it word for word. To take notes, I wrote down things in a spiral notebook and took screen shots of things in the study guides for reference later. I suggest doing something along these lines. Oh, and you will probably read lots of other people out there telling you to not only read every word but to watch every video too. Don’t bother. Everything covered in the videos are covered in the text, and most of it is useless.

Don’t buy any AdWords books… yet.

I bought a copy of Perry Marshall’s Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords and spent a few days reading that cover to cover. While it is a great book for someone starting out in AdWords and contains some great advice, books like these aren’t going to help you pass the exam. In fact, they are just going to serve as a distraction to you if your main goal is to get certified as quickly as possible. Hold off on buying a book like this until after your certification.

Pony up for iPass Exam (and jump right in!)

iPass Exam is the paid resource I used to study. While the English is a little off at times, some questions are extremely poorly worded, and you have to pay for it, the service does a pretty good job of delivering exactly what you need to know for the exam. In fact, I am fairly certain that if I had just jumped in and started studying off of this, I could have passed the exams just as easily as I did with all the extra studying I did. Make sure you are good about writing down the answer to every question you get wrong. Then go back and test yourself on it again. If you are passing the practice exams on iPass you are probably ready for the real test.

The real test is not as hard as the practice tests you may be taking

I was getting low 80%’s on my practice tests. I got 96% on both the fundamentals exam and the advanced search exam (no big deal). In the real test, there are a lot of questions addressing the same topics, and the questions are worded so you can VERY easily eliminate two or three answers from each question. Overall, the test really isn’t that hard.

With all that said, keep in mind you still need to put some time in to study. If you don’t pass the first time, you’ll have to wait 7 days before you can take the exam again so just put in the study time the first time. Take plenty of notes from questions you miss off of practice exams and question banks and utilize the screen shot to capture pictures of tables and guidelines that Google provides off the study guides. Overall, don’t stress. It’s way more manageable than the study guides make the test out to be.

 

Photo Credit: albertogp123 cc

BeBetterBusinessBlogger
  • Shout Out Studio

How To Be A Better Business Blogger
How To Be A Better Business Blogger 880 461 Shout Out Studio

In previous posts, we’ve broken down the anatomy of an effective blog post and established why blogging matters for business, but how can YOU be a better business blogger? Here are a few best practices you might try:

Collaborate With The Team

There’s no “I” in team right? Well, there’s no “I” in blog either. The most refreshing blogs online these days are the ones that have different viewpoints – why? Because it’s different! Working together as a team allows different to be created with little to no effort. How does that happen? In 3 ways:

  • When you collaborate with a team you feed off of each other’s ideas. If I’m stuck and my creative juices aren’t flowing I can look to my team to support me through that. They offer ideas or things they would want to hear about.
  • Your team isn’t afraid to say no. Or yes really. Often as individuals, we sit around and question our ideas, yet when we present them to the team we more often than not get a positive response or ways to make our posts even better.
  • Think in broader terms of a team. Everyone has a perspective and sometimes it’s those with the softest voice that end up having a ton to contribute, it just takes asking and they’re excited to be involved.

Understand Your Audience:

You know how everyone and their brother tells you that in order to be a successful company you have to understand your audience? Well, they’re right. It’s Business 101. You have to be able to understand your audience’s wants and needs – and more importantly, provide for those wants and needs. The same goes for your blog. We could sit around all day blogging about why cupcakes are so delicious, but that’s not what our audience wants to hear because that’s not the information or the business we provide to benefit them.

Sometimes it’s as simple as just going straight to the source and asking what they want to hear more (and less) about. Survey your readers directly on the blog or poll your audience via social media. You don’t know if you don’t ask.

Network With Your Peers:

Don’t blog with blinders. Get out of your office and go talk to the world. It’s easy to get into a rhythm of developing content, but an outsider who’s not on the front lines with you all day long can help provide a fresh perspective. Sometimes ideas are spurred by just having conversations with your peers. Ask them about issues they’re challenged with, and turn it into an opportunity to use your expertise to help educate others who might be dealing with a similar issue. Don’t just focus on challenges though, we all love to hear a good success story and share ways we can be more efficient and effective in business. Consider even doing a monthly roundtable with other business leaders to discuss hot topics for blog fodder.

Another way to utilize both your expertise and your peers is to swap your knowledge. Be a guest blogger and pay it forward. Provide insight on a subject matter that might be relevant to their audience, and in return give them a platform to share their knowledge with your audience. Sometimes it a nice little break on both ends.

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk

Blogging
  • Shout Out Studio

Content That Adds Real Value
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As marketers and bloggers, we try to keep up on all of the marketing articles floating out there for consumption. For a while it was really good, it was the golden age of marketing materials. But in our opinion, that time has passed. And lately, we just feel like the same crap is being circulated around the circles we follow. There are a hundred “10 Things You Need To Know About X” articles out there for everyone with honestly curated content with real-world experience examples. Trust us, were guilty of it sometimes too (see Top 5 Small Business Marketing Tools) but we want to take a little time to step back, breathe deep, and think about the things we really want to read from here on out.

Marsh Williams

If you’ve followed us at all you know how passionate we are about helping small business people take advantage of the Internet to grow their businesses, and usually, the first thing we have to do in a client situation is debunk the myth that there is some silver-bullet software solution that will fix everything. Despite what the various marketing and sales teams will tell you, there isn’t.

Although tools are sold based on capabilities, it’s the everyday understanding and uses that makes them valuable. Small business owners seldom have time to deal with theory, they want results and that means actionable direction. A step-by-step guide to an outcome is always going to be more valuable than a statement about theoretical marketing or sales strategies.

As an example, marketing automation solutions are often sold by touting their capabilities; generating more customers, delivering focused content, lead nurturing, etc. But, the real question for many organizations is how do I do that. How do I use these tools on a day-to-day basis to grow my business and delivery revenue to the bottom line? The answer is show me, lead me, give me step-by-step directions based on desired outcomes, not high-level theory. That’s adding value where it is needed in the small business world. Give me something to do that will actually help grow my business, not something that I have to figure out before I can even begin to apply it.

In providing content that leads to the desired outcome value is delivered…that’s where the real focus of content creation can come through.

Shannon Blair

We all know that content with Top Tens and 3 “How To’s” are informative and straight to the point but they often lack inspiration. I often sit down to seek out great content that I can share in the social media world… I mean great things gotta be passed on, right? But I have to tell you it can become tiresome when the content to be found every day is a repeat of last weeks old content about how great Twitter is for small businesses (we get it, people, Twitter rocks our socks too). The content I want to see more of is content based on inspiration. When I say content based on inspiration I mean an article that is perfectly written with not only a clearly defined purpose but with clarity that the author was motivated and moved by something, the really good stuff. This is the content that the marketing and digital world could use more of. There is nothing worse than a day chalked full of boring unoriginal content – come on people, get inspired!

Luke Pierce

I have been trying to grow my Twitter presence lately, and in doing so I have started to follow a lot of well known digital marketers out there. And now I have started to unfollow them. I was so sick of constantly having my twitter feed polluted with links to the same articles on the same subjects written the same way. All day every day. I liked to read that stuff when I first got into the digital marketing business, but frankly, I’m sick of it now. The problem I see now is that there is so much information on theory out there, but minimal amounts of information on the practice.

The marketing articles I really want to see now are the ones chronicling practice, not theory. Give me some transparency. I want to see exactly what people are doing, what worked, what didn’t work and how they are going to try and correct it. Tell me your failures, brag about your successes, and be innovative, not repetitive. Let me see the way others grow. In the future, I want to see way more well-documented case studies, analytics on specific campaigns, and crazy ideas put into practice. Digital marketing is not my religion, I don’t have to take things on faith. Give me cold hard facts.

Gretchen Ardizzone

I read a lot of content that is written from an authoritative, expert point of view, but what resonates with me most, and what I’d like to see more of, is content written from personal experience. It’s one of the guiding principles in many of our own posts. We’ve written about exercises in finding your company voice, why blogging matters, and how to conduct a blogger outreach program, just to name a few. Each of these we wrote from a personal perspective with total transparency.

It’s about positioning content so you’re not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. Writing from a personal experience perspective makes the content more relatable to the audience, and can be a great way to be able to express potential pitfalls that can be avoided based on your experience—what to do and what not to do.

Nathaniel Seevers

It’d be great to see less of all of it actually. Not just fewer sales pitch paragraphs at the end of blog posts, though that one is way, way up there, but less in general. Less focus on quantity and more focus on quality. From that; more stories. More background. More details.

2014 will usher in stronger movements toward reducing the noise and disconnecting. So when you, me, any of us put out content it better be damn worth the precious time someone spends to read it. Readers won’t be asking for more they’ll be purging blogs from their feeds so content has to stick.

There’s no hard and fast rule that says you need to put out a blog post every day to be relevant. We’re in the midst of a blog writing challenge right now as a company – all through January. But quality comes first and we planned our actions accordingly. We’d rather lose than not be useful to our readers.

 Tell us about the content you want to see in 2014.

 Note: This post was written in one hour as part of the HubSpot 30-Day Blog Challenge.

three shadows in the street
  • Gretchen Ardizzone

Utilizing User-Generated Content in Your Content Strategy
Utilizing User-Generated Content in Your Content Strategy 880 461 Gretchen Ardizzone

Your content marketing plan likely includes a combination of a blog, eBooks, whitepapers, video content, social media, and possibly a few other mediums, but one of the most compelling forms of content is created by your consumers. It’s emotional, passionate and powerful. Businesses have a huge opportunity to leverage user-generated content, and here are a few brands seeing success with this strategy:

BaubleBar

BaubleBar’s Co-Founder Daniella Yacobovsky recently spoke at National Retail Federation’s annual Retail’s BIG Show and shared how incorporating user-generated content is a highly effective tactic for BaubleBar. The brand currently integrates selfie snapshots on their website with the customers sporting their various sparkly baubles in a shoppable slideshow. Customers simply share their pic on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #BaubleBar or upload it directly to the website. According to Yacobovsky, “A third of site visitors engage with it and the conversion rate for those who do is 2.5 times higher than those who don’t.”

What’s great about this approach is that it gives the consumer a realistic view of how the product might look on them and inspiration for how to style the accessory. Much more compelling than just seeing the product on a white background, and consumers are able to relate more by seeing it on an everyday person rather than a model. And giving the consumer even more reason to share, the brand also selects three of their favorites every month to win $100.

I’ve mentioned before the value Pinterest can provide for businesses, and BaubleBar is no exception here. What’s interesting is though, the brand realized that “pins posted by others drove 10 times more traffic than BaubleBar’s own Pinterest content, so to encourage shoppers to pin, they redesigned and emphasized the “Pin it” button on product pages.” Instead of just thinking about your Pinterest strategy as a separate entity, think about how you can make it useful in the shopping experience and integrate into your website. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve visited websites and pinned items to my style board to serve as a virtual reminder, and essentially a trail of crumbs to where I can buy the product when I’m ready.

Juicy Couture

To promote its new sports apparel product line, Juicy Couture has engaged with the photo-sharing platform, Snaps to get consumers involved. Snaps is similar to Instagram but allows consumers to edit and add graphic content to their photos. The app has a two-fold purpose for the Juicy Couture brand: to allow consumers to add Juicy graphic elements related to fitness and working out, and share with friends and family, as well as try on Juicy Couture Sports product to see how it looks on them via their mobile device.

The method is effective in branding the images beyond just a hashtag connection and gives the consumer the chance to virtually try on a product, but the user-generated content has potential greater than just the selfie.

Warby Parker

I’ve praised Warby Parker in previous posts for their genius marketing efforts, and this may not be the last. The online eyewear brand with a home try-on program wholeheartedly believes in word-of-mouth marketing has found a way to incorporate user-generated content. The brand encourages consumers to use their social network to help in the selection process of their perfect frame by posting a pic of themselves wearing the various options on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.  Warby Parker’s Co-founder and Co-CEO, David Gilboa, says, “Customers who post photos of themselves in frames are buying at twice the rate as those who don’t.”

It doesn’t have to be just about promoting the product when it comes to utilizing user-generated content, it can also benefit promoting the overall brand.

Nike

While I may be a marketer, I’m no stranger to my own contribution to providing user-generated content. In 2013 sports apparel brand, Nike carried out one of the most creative initiatives which I was lucky enough to be able to participate in, which resulted in a community of individuals sharing content like you wouldn’t believe…all for a great cause. Nike organized a Women’s 10k event to raise funds for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, oh and did I mention it was all virtual? Given the fact that there was no specific destination for this event to take place, you might think the participation would be low. Think again though.

So how did it work? Everyone had to register and pay the $40 entry fee. Each runner had to commit to running a 10k distance (6.3 miles) over a 2-day period (March 9th or 10th) whenever and wherever they chose—trail, track, road or gym—using the Nike running app to record their efforts. In true race fashion, each runner received a technical race shirt (Nike branded of course), with a blank space for runners to write in the various reasons why they run…for fun, for a cause, for those who can’t, just to name a few. Runners were then encouraged to share their route and run using the hashtag #letsturnitup.

Participants professed great satisfaction with running for a worthy cause, and over the course of the two days, runners logged 29,524 miles on the Nike running app, and filled Nike’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter news feed full of stories of individuals and groups participating in the run. Not to mention, raised almost $50,000 for LLS.

Many runners had never used the Nike running app and were exposed to a new run tracking method, at the same time feeling the reward of accomplishment. And while the event may have been virtual, that day connected thousands of individuals through social media. Well done, Nike.

While the brands I mentioned may have big marketing budgets, small brands and entrepreneurs can successfully utilize user-generated content without a significant investment, but with a sound strategy.

Photo Credit: The Real Estreya

sign and guitar
  • Marsh Williams

Marketing Equals Engagement
Marketing Equals Engagement 880 461 Marsh Williams

We’ve been on an internal campaign lately to think less about marketing and more about engagement. After all, you cannot create a customer/client/friend/whatever until you engage them in some way.

The phrase we’ve been kicking around is AIDA—not the opera, but ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE, ACTION. It’s a natural progression in forming a relationship that so many companies, including ours, forget from time-to-time.

Alright, break it down. Let me share what the little voice in my head is saying in response to your marketing…stay tuned there’s a prize at the end.

Attention

The goal here is not to just get someone’s attention but doing it in a way that leads to interest. Any idiot standing on the corner screaming can get my attention, but lose it just as quickly because I have observed, processed and decided I have no desire to be around them.

So now turn that around. In the same way, a great visual element, or line of copy can pique my interest and get me to the point of spending a few seconds more (that’s all you get) to see what is going on, “…you’ve got my attention, now keep me interested.”

Interest

I’ve seen enough on this brief journey to start observing critically and begin to form an internal value statement on what I’m observing/reading/listening to.” I’m actually going to spend a few more seconds to see what happens next. “…you better keep it interesting.”

Desire

“Alright, I’m in. I’ve seen enough that I want to know where this goes.”

Action

This is the payoff…what all marketers want: engagement. Up till now, I’ve been “distracted into” seeing what someone has chosen to present. I’ve been a passive party in the experience, but now I’m stepping over the threshold. Now I’m taking action based on my experience and I am going to be proactive in my response by calling/emailing/buying/referring.

Now for the fun part…take those thoughts and apply the first three steps to the video.

Attention

A man in formal wear standing in the middle of a public plaza with a bass doing nothing.

Little Voice: “Wait, what’s wrong? Why is he here in tails and why is he just standing there doing nothing.”

Interest

The man starts playing and almost immediately someone else comes out and joins him to build the experience.

Little Voice: “Alright this is cool and completely unexpected. I want to see where this goes”

Desire

New elements/layers are being added at a rate that captures my interest. The overall experience in building on itself to the point that people are going to see this through and get the full message.

Little Voice: “This is pretty wonderful and I don’t care if I have to be somewhere else right now. I’m just going to be late because this is worth it.”

Action

People loved it and it has been the most successful marketing/engagement the Sabadell Bank ever undertook… that’s right, the bank that’s in the background of almost every shot.

Little Voice: “If that ever happens again I want to be there to experience it myself.”

By the way…if you don’t have a little voice in your head then we rent ours out.

 

Photo Credit: Stephen Poff

dictionary
  • Shout Out Studio

Digital Marketing Terms Defined
Digital Marketing Terms Defined 880 461 Shout Out Studio

If you’re new to digital marketing, you may find yourself in a world full of unfamiliar acronyms and jargon. It can seem intimidating, confusing, and even exclusionary. But, most of the time it’s a way for marketers to communicate with each other in the most efficient way possible. Knowing some of what it means can help you as your company enters a digital marketing venture. Below is a list of commonly used terms you will come across in digital marketing, and what they mean. By familiarizing yourself with these terms, you can feel confident moving forward with your companies marketing goals.

B2B:

Business to Business refers to business interactions that occur between two businesses. It is the way goods or services are exchanged between two companies. This is usually part of the development or manufacturing of one company’s consumer goods.

B2C:

Business to Consumer is similar to B2B. A business to consumer transaction is when a consumer buys a final product or service from a company for use.

CTA:

A Call to Action is a something on your company’s website that grabs the attention of a viewer and invites them to view another part of your site. It can be something like a banner or button, such as a “Learn More”  button at the end of a paragraph, inviting the viewer to continue reading. In other words, it is a lead or a prompt.

Bounce Rate:

This is the percentage of people who visit one page on your site but leave it without visiting any other page. It is better to retain a viewer’s attention and get them interested enough to visit more of your site.

Blog:

A blog is what you are currently reading. For a business, it is a chance to self-promote. You can put out original content, create site traffic, and grab the attention of potential clients. It’s a good way to interact with your audience by starting a conversation.

Brand: 

In marketing, a brand does not just refer to your logo or tagline. It is identifying what you want the target audiences’ perception of your company to be, and how your company’s voice reflects that image.

ROI:

Return on Investment basically comes down to getting the biggest bang for your buck. You want to see results, and developing a strategy geared towards providing ROI (Return on Investment) is the first place to start.

SEO: 

Search Engine Optimization is the visibility of your site in a search engine’s “natural,”  or unpaid, results. The better your site’s SEO is, the more views it will get from this “organic”  traffic.

SEM:

Search Engine Marketing is the promotion and SEO development to increase site visibility.

UX:

UX is an acronym for User Experience. In terms of digital marketing, this is the experience your visitors will have when they visit your site. User experience takes into account the actions you’d like the user to take and the information you’d like them to obtain. The more they enjoy that experience, the more likely they are to spend time looking at what you have to offer.

While this is not a complete list, it can give you a better understanding of what’s being discussed in digital marketing. In the fast-changing culture of the Internet, and therefore digital marketing, it is nice to have a base of reference to lean back on.

Photo Credit: MrPhilDog

Outreach
  • Gretchen Ardizzone

Blogger Outreach: Building Brand Buzz
Blogger Outreach: Building Brand Buzz 1920 700 Gretchen Ardizzone

If you’re a young brand looking to grow, but don’t have the capital to pay big bucks to get your product out there, word of mouth marketing in today’s terms might just be the right thing for you. What am I talking about? A blogger outreach campaign.

According to Nielsen Media, there are somewhere over 181 million blogs on the Internet with 6.7 million people publishing content on blog sites. That’s a whole lot of blogging going on, and a whole lot of opportunity to create some buzz. Using a blogger outreach campaign as a part of your marketing strategy can be beneficial to create brand awareness and exposure to relevant, targeted consumers.

Why does a message coming from a blogger sometimes have better reach than your marketing message? Trust. 81% of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs, and 61% of online consumers have made a purchase based on a blog’s recommendations (Source: BlogHer). One of the ways that you can utilize this influence is by getting your product in the hands of these bloggers to conduct a product review and post content around their experience with the product. Here a few recommended steps for a successful approach:

Establish your goals: First things first with any marketing initiative it’s important to understand what the goals are for your outreach campaign. Do you want to increase foot traffic to your website, gain a following on social media, build brand awareness, introduce a new product, etc? Understanding this upfront will give you something to benchmark and determine if your strategy was a success.

Find the influencers: Next, establish your criteria for qualified bloggers. You can use Technorati, Alltop or even Google’s blog search to help you locate them. Use tools like Pagerank and Alexa to determine what kind of traffic the identified blogger is getting. This will help you save time in the long run. Why waste energy pitching to someone who isn’t relevant or the end result won’t get your reach.

Establish rapport: You don’t ask someone out on a date before you get to know them. Establish rapport first before you approach. This means following them, engaging with them on social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+), commenting on and promoting content that you like (honestly).

Outreach: After you’ve had some time to “get to know” them, you’re now ready to reach out. This is a big step though. Depending on how well known the blogger is they might receive thousands of emails just like yours. Your message needs to be genuine, personal to them, and creative. Something has to make them want to read it. If it sounds like a blanketed message, then chances are you’re just wasting your time. This part of the process does take time, but it’s worth it to put in the extra effort to connect with someone. That’s what will get you noticed. The key is not to be long-winded. Yes, what you’re sharing is great, fabulous and awesome I’m sure, but anything too long might get ignored. Be concise and to the point as far as what you’re asking for them to do.

Provide incentive: Be prepared to offer them something in return. What are you going to do for them that gives them a reason to even respond? Are you offering a complimentary product, are you willing to sponsor/fund a post? Sometimes bloggers (especially with greater reach) will only participate if you’re willing to provide a financial investment. It’s important to know upfront if that’s something you’re willing to consider. And if not, it’s good information to know and could be useful in the future.

Follow up: So you’ve sent your message. Next requires follow up, but make sure you’ve given the appropriate time to respond. Pay attention to automatic messages. If you get something stating, “Due to a high volume of emails,” you have to take into consideration that if might take them some time to even see your email. Wait a week. A lot of bloggers won’t engage until the follow up response. Planning your blogger outreach campaign well in advance will help allow for the turn around time it sometimes takes to get a response.

Support content creation: Once someone has agreed to participate, make it as easy for the blogger to develop his or her content. Provide them with information about the product. Is there a unique backstory about how it was created? If so, make sure to share, consumers care not only about the product, but a good brand story can help capture someone’s attention. Are there specific product features or benefits they need to know? The blogger may not know these intimate details so make sure you include. Many times bloggers will take their own photos of the product, but sometimes supplying additional imagery helps to support content. They may be featuring one product style, but if you want to show the breadth of a product line, that can be communicated through an additional photo.

Track your results: So your product has been featured, it’s time to track your results based on what you established as your goals. Monitor your website traffic, social media following and engagement. Make sure to thank the blogger for their efforts, you could be establishing an ongoing relationship with a blogger that may be interested in featuring your product more than once as you introduce new styles, limited edition collections, etc.

Be prepared for the negative: Something to keep in mind with this type of program though is you don’t have complete control in the process. You have to be prepared to hear the negative. There’s always a possibility your product won’t be a hit with everyone. It may mean the product isn’t right for them or it could be an opportunity for improvement based on some honest feedback.

Consider alternative outreach opportunities. Blogs are not the only platform brands have an opportunity to conduct outreach. Each social media platform (Google+, Twitter, Instagram) has influencers that create a potential for you to connect your brand with consumers. An interesting Instagram example was one carried out by shoe brand Puma. With a goal to increase their followers, the brand reached out to influential Instagrammers and sent to events (even some overseas) equipped with a camera to document “awesome places that shoes take you.”

Another unique example is how Audi utilized Twitter. After a raving Audi fan created a hashtag, #WantAnR8, around her desire to acquire an Audi R8, the brand made notice and gave her an Audi for the day to experience, document and share with her Twitter community. Audi promoted the event via twitter and encouraged others to do the same, resulting in a giveaway of eight more R8s. What’s interesting about that example is that the consumer created the opportunity, Audi was just smart enough to be listening.

The more unique the approach, the greater opportunity your outreach will standout in the crowd and gain a following. Start by considering what platform for outreach might be appropriate based on where your customers are spending their time online.

photo credit: Mylla
modified by Shout Out Studio

Create
  • Nathaniel Seevers

Creating The Right Digital Marketing Campaign
Creating The Right Digital Marketing Campaign 1920 700 Nathaniel Seevers

Ever heard the phrase, “you are what you eat?” Well, in the world of brand communication and marketing you are what you tweet, sell, walk, talk, help, share, look, and so on. Creating a cohesive marketing campaign strategy is important for communicating a brand that knows who it is. Being consistent with your message, even if just across a market segment or range of time helps customers and potential customers understand what to expect from your company. That better understanding can help increase engagement and build trust.

So how do you get started creating a strategy that effectively melds the right message and voice across different channels?

Let’s explore, shall we…

1. Define Your Goals

Whether a seasonal campaign or long-term brand awareness building, you should start by documenting goals for big wins and 1 or 2 secondary wins. Only when you know your Point B can you plan your path to get there from Point A.

Start at the high level and broad, then drill down into more detail. Some common goals may be to increase audience size and engagement on a particular social platform or increase online sales by X% through a certain quarter of business. Or possibly improve conversion rate on your website. read more

Content Marketing
  • Gretchen Ardizzone

Content Marketing Matters of the Moment
Content Marketing Matters of the Moment 880 461 Gretchen Ardizzone

When you spend your days working as a marketing consultant and content creator, you can only imagine the number of articles, tweets, blog posts, white papers, newsletters, email communications… (need I go on) read on a daily basis. For some, it could be overwhelming, but for me, it’s what I live for and love… scouring for good content, thought-provoking ideas, and inspiring marketing. So with that said here’s my list of Top 5 Content Marketing Matters of the Moment. This is what’s been on my mind…

1. How Much Personalization is Too Much?

A little while back I read a HubSpot article addressing the question, “How much personalization do you want as a marketer and a consumer?” The subject still lingers with me as I watch the industry continue down a path of personalized content. Through advances in technology and with the use of analytics, online experiences are more customized than ever. My music lists are curated based on previous listening sessions, news content is tailored to what I was reading last, ads are targeted at the products I’ve browsed, but the devil’s advocate in me can’t help but wonder when does it all remove the fun of discovery? Will I ever get back to being a blank slate consumer where I freely decide what is for me?

2. Content Marketing Applies to You Too

Many brands get confused and think, “Oh content marketing is for someone else. What stories do we have to tell?” Sometimes that takes a little bit of an effort to discover for some brands more so than others. We often spend time with our partners talking about what their buyers and consumers want to know in order to determine what type of content is relevant. And other times we just simply ask! One category that hasn’t fully embraced content marketing opportunities is the restaurant category. The whole aspect of food is social and shared. Granted for some brands it may not be appropriate, but without a doubt some of the best content marketers out there are food service brands like Chipotle, and my personal favorites Sweetgreen and Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. What makes them so successful with content marketing? A compelling brand story at the heart of it all. Spend time crafting that and you’ve got something to share.

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  • Nathaniel Seevers

How to Deliver a More Concise Online Message
How to Deliver a More Concise Online Message 880 461 Nathaniel Seevers

Let’s get to the point.

Editing in writing and design is often the most critical step. In this age of instant information, instant access, instant gratification, here today gone yesterday attention span, it’s important to be concise with your communication.

Helping companies, and ourselves, get a message across we often find the need to streamline large blocks of copy. Even when there’s consensus that it should be done it can still become a laborious task where pride and feelings can become the defendant of sentences.

It’s easy for all of us, in the middle of a writer’s high, to fail to think about how we ourselves engage and buy online. Our time is precious. Our attention spans short. Our desire for the right information, right now, is great. Yet when it’s our turn to hit the keys, one more paragraph is no problem.

What if we could approach the online communication process better right from the beginning? What if thinking inside the box, a box, helped us to develop better content?

Here are some thinking and doing tips for delivering a more concise online message: read more

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  • Nathaniel Seevers

Test Driving the New Google Databoard
Test Driving the New Google Databoard 1920 700 Nathaniel Seevers

The internet has blessed us with many things. New ways to communicate across distances. The ability to tour a city or building on the other side of the world. Opportunities for new business ventures, avenues for invention, enhanced celebrity obsession and copious amounts of cat videos.

And Insights. Data at our fingertips. With a little smart searching and a lot of compiling you can build a case for or against nearly anything thanks to the internet.

The folks over at Google decided, you really shouldn’t have to waste all that time. They’ve compiled insights for you via Google research studies and have made them available to you at the new Google Databoard. There are only a few studies available currently, all based around mobile usage and trends, but you’re able to sift through the studies, drill down into topics and curate data points to create your own infographic. read more

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  • Marsh Williams

Google Analytics Made Easier
Google Analytics Made Easier 1920 700 Marsh Williams

For those of you who know the power of the Google Analytics dashboard, you can skip to the next paragraph. For the rest of you, Google Analytics has the ability to create customized dashboards which provide a fast detailed look at any set of data you want. While it can be a bit “wonky” to create them they are well worth the effort if you’re trying to get a quick look at any subset of information and invaluable in understanding your audience.

Or if you don’t want to create your own, there are places on the webernet that you can also find pre-packaged dashboards which can be directly imported to your GA.

We have found a few of these to be especially effective and use them frequently…

Site Performance – Go get it

This is a great option for showing how your site is actually performing from a time-to-load standpoint. It also shows metrics for performance in each browser.

SitePerformance Sample

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Image of a tape-measure for Review of Twitter Analytics
  • Marsh Williams

If you aren’t measuring you’re wasting your time…Twitter Analytics
If you aren’t measuring you’re wasting your time…Twitter Analytics 880 461 Marsh Williams

Let’s start with a brief bit of context. I hated statistics in college. I did everything possible to avoid it as a subject area and it bored the hell out of me.

Skip forward a whole lot of years and I now love statistics. They are the benchmark for measuring creativity and the effectiveness of any digital marketing efforts.

Seem like a non-sequetor? It’s not. Shout Out’s whole approach to marketing is based on a simple model:

Plan/Create/Execute/Measure/Refine/Repeat

This combines the left brain/right brain, creativity, and measurement, in what we believe has become read more

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  • Shout Out Studio

3 Core Components to Persuasive Marketing Messaging
3 Core Components to Persuasive Marketing Messaging 1920 703 Shout Out Studio
Getting your business’ message to the right audience is difficult enough. So many marketing pros end up spending a lot of their effort on increasing the audience SIZE rather than crafting the perfect message to deliver to that audience.

Be sure to infuse these three ingredients into your advertising and you’ll be smooth sailing.

A Quick Introduction from Aristotle

Aristotle Introduced the three modes of persuasion in Rhetoric (written in 350 BCE). In Rhetoric, Aristotle writes that persuasion is the counterpart to dialect. Where “dialect” signifies discourse and discussion, “persuasion” suggests an intent to seducing an audience to your position.

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are all modes of persuasion capable of shifting an audience in their thinking. Some will be more susceptible to one mode, but the combination of all three into your messaging will hook your audience in a deep way. read more

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  • Melissa Braithwaite

How to Find Your Blog Writing Confidence
How to Find Your Blog Writing Confidence 880 461 Melissa Braithwaite

Updated 5/15/2023

Blogging can be a powerful tool for growing your business or personal brand, but it can also be intimidating. After all, when you blog, you are vulnerable by putting your thoughts out into the world for anyone to see.

The reality is the more success you see from your blog writing, the more confidence you will gain. But how do you build your blog writing swagger so that you can take advantage of this great marketing tool?

Establish Your Writing Process

It is important to create a process that speaks to your creativity when writing since it can help you to feel more inspired, focused, and confident in your writing. What does this process look like? That’s entirely up to you.

Maybe you let loose, writing your first draft in bright pink as you drink your red Moscato. Maybe you can’t touch your keyboard until after you’ve had a second cup of coffee. You may need library-like silence to channel your creativity, or you may thrive when the background ambiance of a coffee shop or bustling office environment is abuzz.

The time of day you are better able to channel your creative side could be early morning or late at night. Yet it’s important to keep in mind that creative inspiration can come at any point – day or night. People often have a habit of ignoring a creative spark or idea because they are in the middle of something. I encourage you, beg you, and hopefully am persuading you to STOP and channel it into something awesome, like your blog.

When you have that spark, make sure you at least take the time to jot down some notes so that you don’t lose your train of thought.

blog writing

Be Inspired

What inspires you in your industry? Maybe it’s reading the latest trade journal or book by someone who runs a business like yours who has found immense success. Maybe it’s reading other blogs … not only the ones you love but the ones you hate. Sometimes hate sparks more motivation than love (take politics, for example).

Reading any of these options above can give you fresh ideas and keep you up to date on the latest trends and news in your industry. However, you don’t need to limit yourself to just industry-specific reading material. In fact, stepping outside of your industry can allow you to explore other areas for inspiration. What do you like about them? What resonates with you?

Look to other fields that interest you, such as art, music or literature, and see how you can incorporate their techniques or ideas into your writing. The more diverse your sources of inspiration, the more unique and interesting your blog content can become.

chatgpt

Keep Your Voice Genuine

You’ve likely seen the headlines about AI tools like ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools. At a time when technology is allowing us to generate more content quickly, it’s more important than ever to keep your voice genuine.

Connecting with your audience will take you a long way, and being true to who you are will allow you to gain more real listeners than a large mass of followers. Quality over quantity is critical in marketing since your ideal customer is someone who will return to you the next time they need your product or service (or, even better, will recommend you to others who need your help).

Know Your Audience

Here’s where we get into the nitty gritty of blog writing. Building your writing confidence begins with always striving to produce high-quality content. And if you want to generate high-quality content, you HAVE to understand your audience.

Understanding your audience is crucial when writing a blog post because it helps you tailor your content to their interests, needs, and expectations. If you don’t know who you are writing for, you may end up creating content that is irrelevant or unappealing to them.

By understanding your audience, you can use language, tone, and style that resonates with them and addresses their specific concerns or questions. This not only makes your blog more engaging and valuable to your readers, but it can also help you build a loyal following and establish your authority in your niche.

Understanding your audience can also help you identify opportunities for monetization or collaboration with other businesses or influencers that target the same audience.

So who is your audience? In the marketing world, we call your audience your ideal customer or buyer persona. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of who you are speaking to in your blog. It’s based on a number of factors like customer demographics, goals or pain points, and even behavior patterns.

The more detailed you are when creating this ideal customer, the better chance you’ll have at developing the best content that attracts and resonates with visitors to your blog.

Make Your Blog Compelling

One of the biggest mistakes we see in the blogging world is when business owners use their blogs to talk about their lives. They personalize their blogs too much to the point where it reads more like a diary than a tool meant to share knowledge that can help your customer (or potential customers) with a problem that needs to be solved.

A blog is a powerful platform. As famous writer and activist Alice Walker said,

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

As a company that provides a service or product, you can use your blog to not only showcase your offerings but also to establish yourself as an authority in your industry and connect with your audience.

The blog posts that you create should keep people coming back for more. Customers are looking for solutions, and as you continue to provide those solutions in what you write, your confidence will soar because you’ll realize the power that you have with the pen (or keyboard).

Blog Writing

Never Overextend Yourself

One of the worst things you can do to derail finding your blog writing confidence is to push yourself to the point where you feel like you have to write a blog post. Be pushed by inspiration, motivation and maybe too much caffeine. However, don’t be pushed by time, pressure or the need to keep up.

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.

Blogging can be intimidating, but building your blog writing confidence is possible. Create a writing process that speaks to your creativity and be inspired by other fields outside of your industry. Keep your voice genuine and know your audience to produce high-quality content that resonates with them.

Avoid personalizing your blog too much. Keep it compelling, and keep in mind that it’s better to produce quality content than to overextend yourself. As you continue to provide solutions in your blog writing, your confidence will grow, and your blog will become a powerful platform to connect with your audience and establish yourself as a leader in your industry.

© 2024 Shout Out Studio, LLC
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