Five Free Infographic Templates

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If you’ve been waiting to get started using infographics then here is your chance.

Those lovely people over at Hubspot have created some great infographic templates in powerpoint that will allow to quickly and easily create your very own powerful infographics.

So get over to the link below and get creating.

Five Free Infographic Templates.

Of course, make sure you have the cart firmly behind the horse – what do you intend to use the infographics to promote?

It could be the advantages of your product over the competition?

It could be some interesting data you’ve come across that will be of interest to your customers (and make them realise that they need your products or services).

It could be a nice way of highlighting the key elements of your project case study in order to drive people to read the full text.

There are a huge number of ways that you could be using infographics – if you’d like some help figuring this out then get in touch.

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Is storytelling dead?

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storytelling for B2B marketers

Storytelling is still an important part of the marketing mix

I came across a post recently on the Explore B2B blog urging marketers to stop storytelling. On seeing the headline I thought I would disagree with the idea but after reading the article in full I could see where the author was coming from.

The article by Carlos Hidalgo highlighted that storytelling implies a focus on us as the storyteller rather than our customers. It was making the point that in the social media age we should be engaging in conversations (2 way communication) with our potential customers rather than simply telling them our story (one way communication).

While I agree with this principle it’s premature to signal the end of storytelling as a marketing tool of value.

And here’s why:

Before people will fully engage in conversations with us they want to know who they are talking to.

Do we understand their problems and offer a solution?

Do our values match with their own?

Do we have any evidence to support the claims that we are making about how we can help them?

online and offline conversations with customers

Conversations are given context by the story you tell

A well crafted story will help to answer these questions and provide the context which will give the subsequent conversations some meaning.

Of course the story we tell needs to be carefully considered. Too many of these focus on what we would like to talk about rather than what our potential and existing customers want to know.

If we have a good story to tell its most likely down to our understanding of customer requirements and capability to design a solution to these problems. So make this the story.

For me it’s not a case of storytelling versus conversations. Both are vital parts of the marketing mix.

One of the most significant impacts of social media has been to facilitate conversations between us and our customers – but the reports of the demise of storytelling have been greatly exaggerated.

If you would like some help creating your compelling story that will make your target customers engage with you first, and buy from you second then get in touch.

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Consistency is far better than rare moments of greatness

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Chess board represents marketing strategy

Random moves lead to defeat – strategy is what is required to win

I love this line – the title of a book by Scott Ginsberg from 2012.

For me it sums up what marketing is all about. While others may judge us on the impact of an individual event, video etc we should be judged on consistently delivering results that will allow our businesses to achieve their goals.

It is far too often the case that marketing is judged on the tactics employed rather than the overall results – and this is because of a disconnect between the overall business strategy and the marketing activities that we are engaged in.

Rare moments of greatness happen by accident rather than design. They happen because we’re just trying to do a lot of different stuff with the digital channels available to us without proper consideration for what we’re trying to achieve or what success looks like. It’s inevitable that the more we do of this stuff, the more we learn about what works and the better we get at spotting content that is likely to get a good reaction online.

And this is part of the problem – an endless pursuit of Facebook likes does not constitute a strategy. It is merely a tactic to help you deliver something valuable. So what is it that you’re trying to deliver? The problem is that a lot of people just don’t know.

To move from rare moments of greatness to the consistency that will deliver real business value you need to take a step back – ignore all the tools you have available to you and focus on what it is you are trying to achieve.

The first step is to understand what your goals are – this is derived from your overall business strategy. This could be to win a certain amount of new sales / donations within a new sector or market or increase market share to give some examples.

From this we are then able to define what the goals of our marketing efforts are:

Are we trying to drive traffic to our website or blog because we know this generates more leads?

Are we trying to provide resources and information to assist our customers with their buying decision?

Are we trying to build a social following to build our reputation in the industry?

Once you know what it is that you’re trying to achieve you then need to know how you’re going to measure success.

If we’re trying to drive traffic to the website to generate more leads – how much traffic do we need and how many leads should this convert to?

If we’re trying to provide resources and information to assist customers with their buying decision – how many downloads of the whitepapers, brochures and case studies are we looking for?

If we’re trying to build a social following – how many new likes or followers are we trying to win? Or maybe focus on the engagement metrics instead – the conversations that begin because we started them, the number of times our content was shared?

When you have these things in place you can then start thinking about the tactics that you’re going to employ to help you achieve your goals. It’s only now that the channels come into the equation – where do your target audience hang out, what is the best way to connect with them when they are there and what content will they find either useful or interesting? This should include both online and offline channels to deliver the best results.

A well considered digital strategy will yield results for your business – simply because you now know what you are trying to achieve.

This will allow you to quickly and easily report on progress internally and demonstrate to the cynics in your organisation the value you are adding through your digital content marketing activity. This focus on performance is what is all too often missing from the marketing function.

Too many KPI documents for the marketing department are littered full of tactics that shift and change depending on the latest requests from the board or the sales team. All this does is measure activity – and just because you’re busy doesn’t mean you’re adding any value.

By stepping back and considering what it is that we are trying to deliver we can shift the focus from the activity to the value that we are adding and this is when we will achieve consistency.

Because consistency is far better than rare moments of greatness.

If you would like some help either developing your digital marketing strategy or deploying the tactics to ensure success then get in touch.

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Content Marketing – still to be convinced? Read this.

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content marketing as a magnet for new customers

Use content marketing as a magnet for new customers

There are some compelling stats out there supporting the rise of content marketing over the last few years – the number of web searches for ‘content marketing’ has increased by 400% since 2010 (stats from Google Trends) and there are now 27 million pieces of content shared online every day (according to AOL).

These 2 stats are taken from a great blog post by @captora last week called ‘20 tweetable content marketing stats that every marketer should know’.

I published a post last week in response to this attempting to delve a little deeper. While the figures are undoubtedly useful for reinforcing the importance of content marketing to any modern marketing strategy I feel that there is a need to look at what questions they provoke.

The 2 most important questions for me are:

  1. What does this mean for your company?
  2. What can you do about it?

My previous post dealt with the 2 stats mentioned earlier about the 400% increase in searches for ‘content marketing’ and the 27 million pieces of content shared online every day. You can read my thoughts on this by visiting the post – Need convinced about content marketing? Read this.

For today, I’d like to focus on another stat from the @captora post and answer the 2 questions posed above:

Stat #1
78% of consumers think organisations that create content are interested in building relationships.

What does this mean for your company?

This one stat alone sums up one of the major opportunities that exists with content marketing. For decades marketing departments were engaged in the game of producing content and hoping that the relationships you had developed with your target print publications would mean that your news release, project case study or company announcement would get featured.

In most cases the only way to really ensure this happened was to part with some of your hard earned budget and invest in advertising.

Of course the best print publications maintain a level of editorial integrity (and that is how they have survived) but content marketing represents a huge shift in the balance of power. We’re all publishers now and the technologies that facilitate the content marketing revolution have added a level of democracy to our communications that didn’t previously exist.

For the first time it’s genuinely not about how much advertising spend you want to commit to a specific publication in order to ensure the required level of editorial coverage.

You produce your own content and publish it. If it’s good enough it will gain traction online with your customers, increase your profile and ultimately help you achieve your goals whatever they may be.

Another benefit of this development is that your brand can have a voice and the opportunity to communicate directly with your target audience rather than being run through the editorial controls of your target print publications.

This helps to better portray the personality of your organisation which allows your potential customers to establish whether it is an organisation that they would like to do business with.

What can you do about it?

In order to maximise the chances of success from your content marketing strategy there is an old saying that was a particular favourite of the sales director of a company I used to work for:

“You have 2 ears and one mouth – use them in that proportion.”

Your first job in trying to take advantage of the content marketing opportunity involves listening and observing what is going on in the virtual world around us.

  1. What online channels are your customers currently using?
  2. What are the current issues within your industry that your products or services help to address?
  3. What have you got to say about these issues?
  4. What are your competitors currently saying about these issues and how can you differentiate your message?

Once you’ve got the answers to these questions you’ll be in a much better position to understand the kind of content you can produce in order to help you achieve your goals of more leads, more sales, more donations, more applications for the job you’re promoting (or whatever else is relevant for your business).

In summary, content marketing represents a huge opportunity for any business for whom their customer base is online. While the headline stats from the @captora post confirm this you need to understand what it means for your business and what you should be doing about it. Once you’ve nailed these two questions then the opportunity will begin to open up in front of you.

And you’ll enjoy the benefits offline as well – after all. you’re producing great content tackling the main issues facing your industry. What print publications aren’t going to be interested in that story?

If you’d like some help developing your content marketing strategy or producing the content you need to build your profile then get in touch.

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The Top 7 Content Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2015

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It’s that time of year when all the ‘top for 2015’ lists start coming out.

This one caught my eye – and in particular the first point that Jason DeMers makes in his post.

Publication is only the small first step – value comes from distribution.

I’m reminded of the old ‘build it and they will come’ line – it must have been nice to live in these times. Now we’ve all got to work so march harder to earn the right to be considered by our potential customers.

It’s something I see too much of in marketing – all the effort goes into producing great content with very little thought given to the distribution of this content.

I couldn’t agree with Jason more strongly on this one – it’s not the content that’s king. It’s the distribution of that content that will make you king.

If you can get the balance right between identifying the opportunity for great content, developing that content and building a network that will perceive your content as valuable then you’re well on your way to a winning content marketing strategy.

Have a read of Jason’s post for some other very interesting observations on where content marketing will take us in 2015.

The Top 7 Content Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2015.

If you would like some help building your content marketing strategy or even just producing some more great content then get in touch:

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Need convinced about content marketing? Read this.

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I came across a great blog post today from @captora with some really powerful stats on the rise of content marketing in recent years.

There is no doubt that the stats are convincing – content marketing is here to stay and I don’t think you’ll get much of an argument from any modern marketers.

So here’s my problem – if my hypothesis is correct and there is an acceptance that content marketing needs to be central to any marketing strategy there must be something else that is stopping people from getting involved.

I think there is a general fear of content marketing – largely driven by the fact that it is often accompanied by the word ‘strategy’. This immediately conjures up visions of 100 page documents and puts people right off.

So, to try and dispel this fear I’ve taken two of the key stats from the @captora post and asked 2 important questions:

  1. What does this mean for your company?
  2. What can you do about it?

Here we go:

Stat #1:
There are 27 million pieces of content shared each day online

What does this mean for your company?

This is one hell of a big number – you need to understand how much of this content relates to your industry, to the products you are selling. This will vary hugely depending on whether you’re involved in a mass market consumer product or a niche engineering application for example.

What can you do about it?

  1. Understand what your goal is – what does success look like? Sales, website visitors, video views, increased followers, more enquiries?
  2. Two ears, one mouth – use them in that proportion.
  3. Search online for content relating to your industry (Google Alerts are a great way to do this).
  4. Search Twitter to see who in your industry is doing this stuff well – and understand why.
  5. Once you’ve done this initial research you will better understand what content you can produce that is suitable for sharing, likely to get a response and will ultimately lead to more sales leads (or whatever your overall goal is).
  6. Start recording these ideas in an editorial calendar and hey presto – your content marketing strategy is underway.

Stat #2:
The number of web searches for ‘content marketing’ is up 400% since January 2011

What does this mean for your company?

Take comfort in the fact that this suggests to me that there are a lot of people out there who don’t understand how to make the most of this opportunity.

The opening line of the @captora post says “Content marketing has become a buzzword in modern marketing”.

Content Marketing is simply the latest way to describe what marketers have always done – produce good content. It’s nothing particularly revolutionary. Your tone might have to change and adapt to the social media channels that you are using in order to get the best results but otherwise – keep on keeping on.

What can you do about it?

Once you’ve developed the first run at your editorial calendar then select the channels that are right for you and just get started.

I’m reminded of a quote from Thomas Edison that is relevant to this discussion:

“I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

Hopefully you’ll get the hang of it well before the 10,000 mark – but the only way you’ll really find out what works and what doesn’t is to get started. Set yourself some small objectives at the start that you think will help you achieve your overall goal – increased sales, donations to your charitable cause, views of your Youtube videos.

There are a number of other interesting stats in the @captora post and I’ll return to these at a later date.

Hope you found this post useful – if you did please remember to share with your network.

You can follow me on twitter @petracmarketing

And if you want some help developing your content marketing strategy then get in touch.

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Your new website – for you or your customers?

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website design and planning

Your website is stage 1 in your sales process

So you’re embarking on a new website project?

It might be over simplifying it but when it comes to developing a website you’ve got 2 choices.

Option 1:
Develop a website that is designed to tell your customers everything that you want them to know.

Option 2:
Develop a website that answers the questions that your customers want answered and shows them how you can help them solve whatever problem it is that they currently have.

When does a bad project start to go off track?

Right at the very start. People start selecting the images they’d like to use and writing thousands of words under the generic menu headings:

  • About us
  • Our team
  • Products / services
  • Contact us
  • Recruitment

All of this work usually begins without a single question being asked about who it is that visits your website and what they want when they get there.

There could be multiple different visitor types. No – there are multiple different visitor types.

  • Existing customers
  • Potential customers
  • Job seekers
  • The bank you’ve just applied for a loan from
  • Funding bodies
  • Suppliers
  • Potential suppliers

Before a word of copy is written, a line of code is created, a minute of design is spent you need to

  1. Understand who it is that is visiting your site
  2. Prioritise your visitors – who is most important to you?
  3. Understand what they’re trying to achieve when they get there
  4. Know what message you want to give them
  5. Know what you want the end result of their visit to be – what’s a conversion?

Once you’ve done all of this you’ll be in a far better position to

  1. Create the engaging content that gives them what they’re looking for
  2. Understand what navigation options suit best
  3. Start the design process with objective research as the driving force rather than subjective views on images, button sizes and design schemes

All of this combines to maximise the potential for you to convert your website visitors into qualified sales leads.

You wouldn’t forgive a salesman for selling nothing on the basis that he looked the part.

Treat your website the same way – yes, it needs to look professional and reflect the culture of your company but it’s far more important than that.

It’s step 1 in your sales process.

If you’re looking for some help with your new website project then get in touch and we’ll put the plan into action.

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Web Sites – Seven Tips for Creating Credibility for a Marketable Website

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If you’re thinking of embarking on a new website project then a recent article on the Marketing Profs website is worth a read.

There are 7 very simple tips from the author, Daniel Cochran on how to make sure your website is credible.

The 7 tips he gives are summarised below with a link to the full article at the bottom of this post:

1 – Choose a design scheme that says it’s a modern website

2 – Analytics: Make sure you monitor progress by keeping an eye on the figures. Visitors and enquiries are the 2 most important ones (in most cases) but Google analytics is free and will provide you with a wealth of information

3 – No matter how good it looks any car still needs an engine: You won’t see it but the back end stuff is vital to the success of your website. Make sure it’s easy to update with a simple content management system.

4 – The move to mobile: There are such a huge range of access options for people – mobile phones with a whole variety of screen sizes, tablets of all sizes and desktop PC’s and laptops. Responsive design is a must – this will adjust the appearance of your site to take account of the size of the screen on which the user is looking at your website.

5 – Useful, informative an engaging content: Know who you are trying to attract to your website and what you want them to do when they get there. Walk in the shoes of your visitors and understand what questions they want answered. Then build your content to deliver this.

6 – Social media is your friend: Google will take a while to index your site so make sure you share your content with your social media network to ensure your message is spread as widely as possible.

7 – Conversions are important but not the entire game: The real measure of success comes from the enquiries you generate that you then convert into new business. But this will take a while to happen so make sure you know what success looks like until this happens – more social followers, better search engine results, getting great feedback on how your can improve your site.

Here’s the original article on the Marketing Profs website – it’s worth subscribing for regular updates across the whole range of marketing activity.

Web Sites – Seven Tips for Creating Credibility for a Marketable Website : MarketingProfs Article.

If you’re embarking on a website project get in touch and we can talk about how I can help you with all of these tips.

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So much promise, so little forethought

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Over the last decade Belfast and Northern Ireland have been transformed.

The Titanic building was a stroke of genius and is something that everyone in Northern Ireland should be proud of. People travel from all over the world to see what is on offer at Titanic.

Belfast as a City has come on leaps and bounds in the last decade – restaurants, bars, pubs, clubs, concert venues, theatres. Something for everyone. The next time you’re walking around the City Centre pay attention to just how many tourists are now visiting our country.

And it’s not just Belfast getting the benefit – let’s face it, it’s not a very big place. Anyone visiting for any length of time is going to do a tour taking in the Giants Causeway, Marble Arch Caves, Ulster American Folk Park, the Peace Bridge in Derry City.

We had the Giro D’Italia last year, the Irish Open returns to Northern Ireland next year, Radio 1 hosted their big weekend in Derry / Londonderry.

Everything is going in the right direction…

And then we hear of the cuts to the budget for the Department of Culture, Arts & Leisure – the upshot of which will be our museums will host fewer exhibitions and events, funding will be withdrawn for the very events that attract the visitors in the first place. There can be no doubt that this will also lead to people losing their jobs.

Most frustrating of all is the often peddled argument – the return on investment on the arts doesn’t add up. I hope those peddling this falsehood remember their words when the Northern Ireland Tourist Board inevitably reports on a drop in visitor numbers as a result of these cuts. People won’t come here if there is nothing to come here for.

The events that receive funding from the Department of Culture, Arts & Leisure are an investment in our infrastructure that helps to support the positioning of Northern Ireland as an attractive destination for tourists.

Simply seeing it as a cost is a blinkered view that needs to stop if we are to continue to build on recent successes.

A simple conversation

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talk to your customers

Talking to your customers will reveal much more than you think

How many case studies have you written where you’ve put words into your customers’ mouth and sent them the draft for them to approve before you publish it?

It’s time to stop  and let your customers do the talking for you. If you spend half an hour talking to your customer about that great project you delivered you’ll get some little gold nuggets that will make the story much more interesting, believable and likely to help you sell more of your stuff.

We think we know why people by our stuff – and for the most part we’re not far wrong. But every now and again a little surprise turns up – and this has benefits outside of the marketing project that spurred the conversation in the first place.

It reveals another USP, a new industry sector you could target, a new country where there is demand for what you do. It’s only one on one conversations that will reveal these little gems – so get talking.

Get in touch and we can talk about how we can work together on your project case studies.

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