A Guide to Creating Marketing Offers

Create Content For Your Persona

It's easy enough to say you're going to create a helpful, educational offer ... but ... how? To handle the demands of content creation, marketers have been told again and again to “think like a publisher.” It’s great advice, but what exactly does that mean? Just how do you think like a publisher? Publishers have a detailed picture of who their reader is that drives every content creation decision they made; inbound marketers should be no different.

Generate a detailed picture of your target audience (what we call a buyer persona in the marketing biz) so you can create the type of content they'll love to read -- from the right topic, to the right tone, to the right format in which it's presented (more on that later).

So if you haven't already, ask yourself ... who are your ideal customers and prospects? What are their biggest concerns, needs, and interests? Where can you reach them -- on search engines, social media, or blogs -- and what kinds of content do they prefer? These questions will help you develop buyer personas. And if you need more help creating your buyer persona, download this PowerPoint template that helps you lay the whole thing out, step by step!

Focus on the Right Stage

Content plays a critical role in every stage of the inbound marketing process, from generating awareness about your company to helping convert leads into customers. But the types of content you should use to achieve each of these goals depends on where your lead is in the sales cycle. How would you appreciate someone sending you buyer guides when you've only just downloaded a checklist? Here's a sketch of the buying cycle that should help you align the right content with the right stage of the buying cycle so your leads keep on loving the offers you send their way:

• Awareness: The prospect gets acquainted with your brand or realizes they have a need for your product/service.

• Research/Education: The prospect identifies the problem and researches potential solutions, including your product/service.

• Comparison/Validation: The prospect examines the options and begins narrowing down the list of vendors.

• Purchase: The prospect decides from whom to buy.

Use Data to Create Lovable Content -- in Topic and Format

Content comes in all shapes and sizes -- whitepapers, videos, webinars, ebooks, templates, kits -- you name it. While you can host an internal brainstorm session and come up with creative ideas for different content formats that you can produce, it’s important that this new content matches the needs and preferences of your target persona.

But how do you know? Well, you can certainly ask them -- an ideal time is when you're creating your buyer personas and performing interviews of your target audience, anyway. But we also like to use analytics to make that decision! At HubSpot, for instance, we're using our landing page analytics to explore how successful different types of content are in converting visitors to leads. If the conversion rate is lower than average, the marketing offer isn’t appealing enough to our audience. If you have a sense of what that format is for your business, use it to build your marketing campaign around it.

But your job doesn't end in determining the right format in which to present your offer. You also need to figure out what on earth you're going to write about. And the answer isn't, "Whatever strikes my fancy." Not if you want your leads to love your offer.

In order to find what content topics capture the attention of your target audience, you should look at past data that you have access to. For instance, what are the most popular blog articles you've published? What are some of the most viewed pages on your website? Your historical performance should dictate your future direction for all new marketing content -- particularly your lead generation content. If you don’t have access to marketing analytics that give you this type of intelligence, look in the public domain (places like Google News, Google Trends, and Twitter Trending Topics) for popular and newsworthy industry stories. You can then piggyback on these popular topics by adding a personal spin that reflects your expertise and resonates with your audience.

Recruit a Team of Content Creators

You don’t have to be the only one creating your company’s offer content. You can (and should!) use different voices from inside your organization. Technical folks, customer service people, C-level executives, product managers, and others in your organization have a unique take on important aspects of your business, as well as different areas of expertise you can tap into. Get your coworkers to contribute by:

• Asking them to co-write a whitepaper or an ebook
• Interviewing them and posting short videos that share their expertise
• Inviting them to give presentations or answer questions in webinars

You can also look outside your own company for help creating content. New online content marketplaces are springing up to connect marketers with legions of freelance writers and editors who will take on blog posts, ebooks, and other writing jobs for you. You can specify the topic, your desired style and tone, and your intended audience. And depending on the marketplace you work with, you typically don't have to pay unless you accept the finished article.

Repurporse Content

Almost every piece of content you create can be adapted, reused, modified, and republished in another format. Make a habit of finding multiple ways to package and distribute the same information in different formats. Here are a few ideas:

• Combine text from an old whitepaper with new videos to create a multimedia ebook

• Turn videos or webinars into blog posts and ebooks -- or vice versa.

• Use commonly asked questions and comments from webinars to create a new ebook. These topics will directly address your prospects’ pain points.

• Share all company presentations in multiple formats. Post the slides on SlideShare, upload the video on YouTube, and create a series of blog posts that dive into specific points of the presentation.

Original Post

Agencia 365

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn ha anunciado el lanzamiento de LinkedIn Ads (LinkedIn Anuncios) en 17 nuevos idiomas. Desde el ruso pasando por el japonés y el castellano, la actualización hace que resulte más fácil para los usuarios y las empresas compartir información y crear mensajes que lleguen directamente a su público objetivo, así como ofrecer oportunidades más atractivas y relevantes a nivel local y en castellano a todos los usuarios de LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Ads permite a las empresas dirigirse únicamente a los profesionales con mayor interés en sus productos o servicios por su actividad profesional e intereses, ofreciendo a los anunciantes la posibilidad de hacer más eficiente su inversión en publicidad y por lo tanto incrementar el retorno de la misma. Por ejemplo, los servicios de publicidad “easy-to-use” (fáciles de usar) de LinkedIn ofrecen la oportunidad de enviar anuncios según el nombre exacto del puesto de trabajo, el nombre de la empresa o de grupo de LinkedIn, además de la geografía, las funciones a desempeñar, la industria, el tamaño de la compañía, la antigüedad, la edad y el género del potencial candidato.

"Para los publicistas y profesionales del marketing cada vez es más difícil llegar a sus públicos debido al gran volumen de información que se maneja día a día, por eso para superar esta barrera se requiere de un nuevo enfoque. El lanzamiento de LinkedIn Ads en castellano significa que los anunciantes y usuarios en España ahora podrán interactuar directamente de forma más local", dijo Ariel Eckstein, Director General de LinkedIn EMEA.

LinkedIn Ads es sólo una parte de un conjunto de nuevas soluciones de alto impacto para ayudar a que los anunciantes trasladen eficientemente sus mensajes a una audiencia estratégica de más de 175 millones de profesionales de alto nivel en todo el mundo, y a más de 3 millones en España. El amplio portafolio de “Soluciones de Marketing” de LinkedIn abarca una gran variedad de opciones publicitarias socialmente orientadas; que van desde los anuncios de texto más simples hasta campañas de gran envergadura y oportunidades de marca a través de las “Company Pages” (páginas de las compañías) y los grupos de LinkedIn.

Articulo Original

Agencia 365

                                           

 

 

Is there a demand for a well designed, hotel website service?

Most hotel websites are very poorly designed. They are butt ugly and overcrowded. Most of them are not responsive (they don't adjust to mobiles or ipads). Most of them have not yet adopted any social marketing strategies, which are vital in this industry. I've seen tons of them with broken functionality (out of date special offers, broken booking functionality etc.)

Is there a demand for an SaaS product that would offer hotels a well-designed, responsive website that they could customize and update?

he problem you're going to encounter in marketing such a thing is that owners of franchised properties expect the franchise to hand them everything - and if they don't, it's presumably because they don't have it to give. If the owner has a 72-room property, he expects the central reservations system to send him fifty new reservations a night. In real life, it doesn't work that way. So, he concludes, it's not possible: after all, Choice and Wyndham are professionals. Or, if it's a corporate-owned property, they might hire an in-house sales director, who'll try to pull it off by soliciting personal connections and face-to-face contacts in the area - 'sales' without any good marketing. There's no convincing people that better can be expected of a website.

The problem you're going to encounter with franchise organizations is, they're collecting fees and royalties on what they have at minimal investment to themselves, so why should they invest in anything more?  (Likewise, why should a grungy biker bar with tattoo-covered topless dancers spend the money to renovate into an upscale gentlemen's club?  They're already making all the money they can imagine with exactly what they have, and the overhead is as low as it can get . . . You get the idea.)

Here's my wish list: Stand by for lots of edits - and additions - over coming months: I'm just getting started. And I intend to never finish - this business is constantly evolving. (Anyone who tells you otherwise probably runs an older property with a badly dated '70's appearance that smells musty and is probably in need of serious renovations.)

• Rate configurability:

I want more than 'Best Available Rate', AAA-AARP, and whatever whiz-bang promotion the franchise organization has going that, as often as not, has your hotel renting a room for next to nothing so the franchise as a 'whole' can benefit. One feature of a very suite-intensive (if not all-suites in all locations) new brand that we're working on is going to be a rack rate that drops automatically if you request a stay of three days or more, and again if you request a stay of a week or more. 

And I want it to work in accordance with simple rules, not exotic 'industry terminology' that only a Cornell post-grad can decipher. 

Across-the-board special rate programs need to be applied across the board, not room-type-by-room-type. (That's one of the things about configuring Check-Inn -Michael Forrest Jones's answer to What are the best property management systems for small hotels? - that drives me nuts . . . you've got to go into each room type and set a AAA rate for each one: why can't a 10% AAA discount made to be applied to all of them?)

• Package configurability:

Book a room at the Pierre in New York City, and you get that next screen where they ask if you'd like a bouquet of flowers, or a bottle of champagne, waiting in the room when the guest arrives. Why can't any hotel website do that?

We're going to include several Community Partners(sm) rates. Donate ten bucks to Habitat for Humanity, for example, for each night of your stay, and we'll give you twenty bucks off your rate. That little Check-Inn system I mentioned, that I've seen used mostly in cheaper, older economy hotels, will accommodate a deal like that. ChoiceAdvantage - a required purchase by one of the world's largest hotel franchising organizations - cannot or will not.

This package feature needs to be smart. If you make a reservation for a week in advance, you'll be offered an opportunity to order flowers. But if your reservation is for the day before, you won't - we won't have time to set it up with the florist.

Oh . . . and the first question on that page - if it doesn't appear on the reservation screen itself - would be 'Do you need a ride from the airport?' We could then deploy the shuttle van efficiently if we have one, or fall back on a deal we have in place with a local, reputable, taxi service if we don't.

• Pictures, pictures, and more pictures:

Some towns - Detroit, Newark, Camden - have a reputation (deserved or not, at various levels) -- as rusted-out, voodoo hellhole ghetto towns. But if I own a hotel in Reading, Pennsylvania - which I'd very much like to do (there is actually opportunity for hotel developers in such places) - I want Reading to look like the most attractive vacation spot in the world. This will involve some very good, high-resolution (not to mention selective subject matter) photography, and lots of attractive shots - both of the hotel and the surrounding area - on the website.

When I put my new property in Bethlehem, Pa., I want lots of Musikfest video (http://www.fest.org/ - sorry, it was two weeks ago, you just missed it ). A property in Havelock, N. C. will likewise feature lots of video of Marine aircraft taking off. (Such a sight is taken for granted around Havelock, and the noise is a bit of a nuisance, but to a visitor to that city . . . it's a memory. http://www.cherrypoint.marines.mil/  )

This doubles as a cheap advertising gimmick done with class: I want the pics to be done at a ratio, and resolution, suitable for downloading as desktop wallpaper, and a link to a page from which you can download them. (Needless to say, they'll be adorned with the appropriate hotel logo . . .)

• Denial tracking:

I'd like to see at least some of what we call 'denial' tracking. Anytime the customer didn't book the hotel - or anytime the guest had to be told, no, we couldn't give her what she wanted . . . why?  Why didn't we get the sale? Did the customer request a city in which we don't have a hotel? Where? Did he want a date on which we didn't have rooms available?  Did we not have a certain room type he needed? Was the price too high? 

Most existing brands do this very crudely - total number of denials in a day, not much more. 

One of the things that drives me nuts about hotel sales and marketing types is that too much of their focus is on looking for someone or something to blame because they can't make a sale ('rude desk clerks' are one of the biggest commodities in the blame bag); but if there's a really good reason, as opposed to an excuse, I want to know. 

Serious decisions can be made on the basis of such intelligence - or can be made blindly for lack of it. If I run a small, regional chain of hotels, and 40-50 people call my call center or visit my website each month to make a reservation for Richmond, but we have to turn them all away because we don't have a hotel there; guess where I'm going to be the next time I skip town  to chill out  for a few days - part of which I'm going to spend talking to commercial real estate brokers? (Simple law of economics: if you give people what they want, they will give you money. But first, you have to know that they want it . . .)

• Source tracking:
• Revenue tracking:

These two go together because they're so closely related. On any really good property management screen (all of which interface with a website), there are two mandatory fields, 'SOURCE' and 'TRACK'. 'Source' is the source of business, the answer to the question 'where did this guest come from?'. 'Track' is the revenue track, the answer to the question 'how did he come to our hotel?' And if she booked through the website, we'd like to know as much as we can about how she arrived at that from her Mozilla Firefox homepage. 

This would go a long way toward telling us what's working and what isn't in our marketing. 

I'd like to know as much as I can about where my customers are coming from. Why, oh why, can the name/address/city fields on a hotel reservation webpage ask for a company name? (I've stopped asking, why, oh why, don't existing chain hotel websites include this information on the booking screen when you make a reservation online.) And could we have a textarea field that asks, what brings you to our city? 

Neither would be a required field, but for an advance reservation, I'd be willing to knock three to five bucks off the nightly rate in return for the information. 

Some people don't want to be bothered without being asked. (It's why I'm a believer in the old-fashioned registration cards: someone asked this question on a form they're asked to fill out will fill in the blank without thinking: forms are official. Not so easy if we instruct the clerk to ask them when they check them in.) But then, some people are quite happy to share it around.

IP addresses that could be cross-referenced to locations, for each visitor to our website, would also be nice.

At least one notoriously bad property management system linked to a chain website has sources limited to 'corporate', 'group', 'leisure' and 'government' - with no configurability at all. 

Okay, the guys a business traveler. The briefcase, and the fact he was traveling alone when he checked in, was the giveaway. I know nothing more unless I ask him in person. . . 'Government' is not a source of business: government employees stay anywhere. They are not directed by the government agency by which they're employed to stay at a particular hotel. The same goes for AAA, AARP and senior citizens', which is why I don't like those discounts. It's just an entitlement: they do nothing in return for the hotel. Lots of loyalty demanded by AARP and its members, but none given by AARP and its members in return. If of all the hotels in town, AAA sends all its members to mine, then I'll talk AAA discount.  

When the big chains and franchises speak of a 'source of business', that's what they're referring to.

I want the real source of business. Are they hitting my website from a Facebook link? Triple up on my Facebook advertising - and watch for patterns in the pages from which they click the link so I'll know what keywords to put in my ad. Are they hitting an Expedia link on some fourteen-year-old girl's website on Old Salem that she did as a school project? I want to make friends with that kid before my competition does, provide her with some advertising links directly to my hotel's website for which I'll gladly pay her a travel agent commission, and make sure that she and her mom and dad have complimentary rooms if they take a trip out to see Old Salem in person. 

• Interface with any PMX:

If I seem throughout this response to have spoken of hotel websites, and hotel front desk property management systems, as though they are one and the same, inseparable; it's because frequently, nowadays . . . they are.

When you start working on the elements for your web platform, make friends with the guys at Innsoft in Beaverton, Oregon; and at Image Technologies in Dallas, Texas (see Michael Forrest Jones's answer to What are the best property management systems for small hotels? ). Your features need to seamlessly interface with their property management systems, so you'll want to work out something with them where you'll be exchanging lots of PHP code back and forth.

I'd add Micros-Opera to the list, but you'd have to have a client base of 500 or so hotels and show them some potential to drive their high-priced property management system sales before I'd expect them to have time to talk to you. They are where they are because of their success in putting in the fix with franchise organizations, who make their exorbitantly-priced system a required purchase. (Hotels: Do most hotels use a specific POS system at the front desk or a larger computer system?  ) I don't have time to waste on them. Their system isn't thatgood.

Or build your own point-of-sale front desk PMX as part of your system, as ChoiceAdvantage did, and as Image Technologies is working on with their upcoming cloud version of Visual Matrix.  A word to the wise: since you won't be dealing with large franchise organizations, starting out; and your system won't be part of someone's required purchase, perhaps yours should work well and be reliable. I can speak for at least one hotel manager who is fiercely loyal to things that do - and equally unforgiving of things that don't, especially when their purchase and use has been forced on me in the past. 

• Interface with any loyalty program:

If you want to market your system to 'unchained' properties, get in touch with Stash Rewards (http://www.stashrewards.com/  ), and repeat the process by which you got in good with the makers of the better property management systems shown above. 

There are several lesser ones identifiable through Google search - some of which don't have hotel partners - who will gladly work with you.

Or, build your own and maintain the database for it as part of your system. Nearly all of the value of any hotel brand or franchise is directly proportional to the number of people running around with that chain's loyalty cards - HHonors, Choice Privileges, Wyndham Rewards, Best Western Rewards, etc. Those are the people who are - well, loyal. When they need to call or go online to make a reservation, that hotel brand is the one they choose, either because they have a free night coming or want to pile on some more 'points' until they do. Nearly everyone else calls Expedia. Next to no one plans a trip and thinks, 'maybe I'd better call the Quality Inn 800 number', or surfs to the Days Inn website, unless they have the corresponding card.

• Guest history tracking:

On second thought, why reserve the benefits of a loyalty program for loyalty cardholders? (Well, OK, no one will want to sign up unless they get something they can't have without one, but still . . .)  Besides, I want to keep people coming back, and thinking of us first, even if they don't have that loyalty card in their pocket. Requiring that they sign up for a loyalty card program asks that they be our customer, but makes them work for it.

I get a lot of input from several feedback sources re what people want in a hotel, but one of my favorite sources, believe it or not, is Quora users. (Why not? They seem to be just the sort of people I want as guests . . .)  One thing that keeps turning up as something highly appreciated is that, if you come back, the hotel (or one or more of the people there) remembers you.

This should occur through a quick cross-reference once a name and city are entered. It should not require additional entry of a phone number (at least by anyone other than the person filling in the blanks on a reservation page) or a loyalty card number. When I get the reservation at our desk, I should see several possible matches, including one for the returning guest if she's stayed at any of our hotels,anywhere, before.  If during her last stay, she turned out to be the kind of person who likes to use the pool for a late-night swim, I can alert my night guy to be alert for that and try to accommodate her if he can.  If he requested a quiet room on a high floor on his last three stays, I'll know to accommodate that without even having to ask this time around.

On the other side of the coin, if - for one example -  it's someone named Phelps from Topeka, Kansas, that reservation is going to receive some advance scrutiny, especially if it's one for several rooms, or if there's a military funeral in our area (http://godhatesfags.com/  If it's those Phelps', we'll refuse the booking: I don't need either the bad PR or the security headaches that would come with allowing them to stage pickets in the area from our hotel).  If if it's a guy who, during a previous stay at a property 200 miles away, trashed the room in a manner worthy of Aerosmith, his reservation is going to be cancelled within 24 hours after we receive it, if it takes the reservation at all. If it's someone who more than once made a guaranteed reservation, but didn't show up, and their credit card was declined when we tried to charge it, it won't take a reservation from them - or, at least, that credit card - at all.

I also want company names cross-referenced, and possible matches displayed similarly. If I know who the other guests are who are with that same company, what city do they all tend to be from - and where else they travel - I can make good use of one of those skip-town-and-chill-out-for-a-few-days road trips.

Oh, and by the way -- if at any point during or after her stay, one of my guests logs on to TripAdvisor . . .  I want to know right away by text message! And if she's chewing gum while she's logged into TripAdvisor or Yelp!, I want to know what flavor! . . .

• Interface with social media:

Your system should include a Facebook app where someone can make reservations directly from the hotel's Facebook page. Your hotel's landing pages (and there should be several, not just a one-size-fits-all 'index' page) needs a Twitter feed.

A feature that could cross-match a guest who makes a reservation online and his or her Facebook page would be nice. If it's a frequent customer, we'll want to send a card - and a free upgrade - on his or her birthday.

And the content on each of those landing pages on the website - one for business travelers, one for families, one for couples, one for groups - you get the idea - needs to be able to change on a moment's notice, with no more technical know-how by a manager or sales director than it takes to type up something cute in a textbox and click 'enter'.

How to Create a Basic CTA Button

How to Create a Basic CTA Button

Step 1: Pick a Shape

It sounds simple, because it is! Decide on a shape for your button, and simply create one on your slide.

Step 2: Pick Branded Colors

By double-clicking on the shape, options will appear to change the fill and outline colors of the shape. In PowerPoint for Mac, you can also just open the 'Colors, Weights, and Fills' dropdown in the toolbar. This way, you can ensure the colors align with your brand!

Step 3: Add Text

Simply click 'Insert' --> 'Text Box,' and then click on the shape. This will allow you to create text directly in the text box. Craft a brief message that calls on the viewer to complete the action you want them to do. Remember, to adhere to CTA best practices, use actionable words that clearly indicate what the visitor will be doing when click on your button. For example, if our visitor clicked on the button below, they'd expect to be taken to a landing page where they could register for HubSpot's upcoming INBOUND conference. Then adjust the font size to fit the shape as you please.

Step 4: Add More Shapes

While you can stop at just text, you could also include other shapes in your design to emphasize that the button is a call-to-action, and to indicate action. In this case, I'll add an arrow to the end of the text (which I aligned to the left of the shape in step three), so readers know exactly where to click to go, in this case, to register for INBOUND.

Step 5: Group and Save

Before you save this image, you'll want to group the various pieces of the CTA so they stick together as one. Click on each component, and then right click --> Group. Once all the parts are grouped together, right click on the grouped image as a whole. This time, click the option to "Save as Picture." (NOTE: If you don't group together each part, your image will not save with all the components of the button).

Voila! Your CTA button is now created! Now all you need to do is go to your website, upload the image, and hyperlink it to the landing page you want viewers sent to. And if you're using HubSpot, our easy-to-use Call-to-Action Manager allows you to upload CTA creative and insert them into your content. By using the HubSpot tool, you'll also be able to see CTA performance metrics such as click-through rates and number of submissions!

How to Create a CTA With a Brand Logo

If you're interested in branding your CTA or using a custom image, the steps are similar to creating a custom button. But this time, we'll be creating an image that is clearly about your product or service by showcasing your brand logo! Here's an example using the HubSpot logo.

Step 1: Pick a Shape

You should already know how to do this now, but if you forget, refer back to Step 1 in the first section of this guide. To add another visual element to your button, consider adding more than one shape to call out different points in the CTA. Below, I made a basic orange shape, and then placed a gray square on top of the bottom two-thirds of the image. You can play around with how you align shapes and colors based on the messaging you're trying to convey.

Step 2: Insert Your Logo

Hopefully you have the original file for your brand's logo. Find that file, and go to Insert --> Image in PowerPoint to place the logo. You can also just copy the file and paste it into the PowerPoint slide. If your image is not transparent, don't panic. PowerPoint comes with a nifty transparency tool! In PowerPoint for Mac, you can find this tool at the top of your toolbar. In PowerPoint for PC, you can find it under 'Effects.' Simply click the tool, and then click on the white background of your image. This should automatically make your image transparent!

Step 3: Overlay Text

Next, add the text you want to the rest of you CTA. For this CTA, I'm going to motivate visitors to watch a demo, so I'll clearly type that in the orange portion of the CTA. Then under the HubSpot logo, I'm going to add a quick line about what HubSpot is, so viewers know exactly what this product demo will be about.

Step 4: Use Shape Effects

Depending on where you'll be placing this CTA (i.e. on a web page, on a blog post, in a sidebar, within an ebook, in an email, etc.), you may want to change the way the shape appears. In PowerPoint for Mac, you can simply go to 'Quick Styles and Effects' in the toolbar to change the glow, shadow, or positioning of the CTA. In PowerPoint for PC, double-click on the image, and your top navigation should change to show different effects for your CTA.

Step 5: Group and Save!

Just like last time, be sure you group together each component of the image, and then save it as a picture. As you can see to the right, the final image is done and ready for use!

Again, even though only one part of the entire CTA says "WATCH A DEMO," you can still upload and hyperlink the entire image. That way, no matter where visitors click, they'll still end up in the right destination.

 

How to Create a Specific, Offer-Related CTA

Step 1: Pick a Shape

For this CTA, choose a shape that would easily fit the bottom of a blog post or the desired place on your website. An offer-specific or content-specific CTA usually performs best when it's used on content about a similar topic! For example, in this article, we're blogging about calls-to-action. If you scroll to the very end of this post, do you notice what subject the call-to-action on this post is about? Why -- it's an offer about mastering the design and copy of calls-to-action! For blog posts, for example, some form of a rectangular shape usually performs best.

Step 2: Add the Main Image

Since this post is about creating CTAs, why don't I create a CTA for an offer about CTAs?! Find an image that portrays the offer, and then place it on the either the left or right side of your shape. Of course, you have artistic freedom at this point, so put it wherever you choose. (You could also try an A/B test with the image in different places!)

Step 3: Add a Title for Your CTA Offer

You'll want a short title in bold letters telling viewers EXACTLY what the offer in your CTA is about. It should grab the viewers attention so they continue on to the next part of the CTA, discussed in step four.

Step 4: Add Clarifying Information That Describes the Value of the Offer

Add additional information to give the offer in your CTA some context. In other words, why exactly will the offer benefit the viewer? Why should they click on your CTA? What is your offer's value? Explain this clearly and concisely.

Step 5: Add a Basic CTA Button (Just Like You Created in Section 1 of This Guide!)

Essentially, you'll be creating a button inside of your button! The point is, even though you'll end up hyperlinking the entire image, viewers may not know they need to click on the CTA to get the offer. They'll either go searching for it or leave because they didn't know what to do. Create another box, perhaps with different colors this time so it stands out from the rest of the CTA, and add clear, actionable text inside of it so visitors know to click.

Step 6: Group and Save

You know what to do :-) (See Step 5 in section one of this guide if you're lost.)

While I hope you found these examples and this tutorial useful, these are merely a few examples of the types of CTAs you can create. Feel free to play around in PowerPoint with the different shapes, colors, and effects and overall options available to you to create different CTAs. And don't be afraid to test multiple variations to optimize the click-through rates of your calls-to-action.

Or if you're a HubSpot customer, as we mentioned earlier, you can just rely on HubSpot's handy Call-to-Action Manager to design these CTAs in minutes, upload your own designs, and easily A/B test multiple variations of your CTA buttons. Imagine that!

 

 

Email Marketing: How to Identify Leads' Needs So You Can Segment Emails

There are quite a few different ways to segment and nurture your leads. And in fact, the way you choose to nurture your leads really just depends on how you decide to segment and target them.

Depending on your product or service and your marketing objectives, you can segment your leads based on demographic and geographic information or behavior-based information such as the type of content your leads have previously engaged with and which point they're at in your funnel. These are obvious and practical ways to segment, target, and nurture your leads. And from our experience here at HubSpot, we know they work.

A Needs-Based Approach to Lead Nurturing

List segmentation, however, doesn’t stop at this two axis matrix. There’s another, less obvious way to segment and nurture leads -- their needs! Think about it. What if you knew what your visitors and leads were looking for, or even better, the problem they wanted to solve? Then you could create super tailored and customized lead nurturing for different types of leads’ needs and problems to move them more quickly through the funnel to become a paying customer. Sounds awesome, right? The problem is, it's not as easy to figure out a prospect's pain points as it is to figure out, say, their zip code. One could be an essay; the other is five digits. Which information do you think would be easier to capture by a form and segment with?

Okay, so therein lies the challenge. But by knowing what your prospects want, you can easily and quickly position your product or service in a way that makes you -- not your competitors -- the clear and obvious solution. And there is a way marketers can do this more advanced type of nurturing. In fact, it's critical if they really want to take their lead nurturing to the next level! And in this post, we're going to teach you exactly how to do it. Just follow these four easy steps to a better lead nurturing approach.

1) Determine Your Leads’ Problems & Needs

In order to start segmenting and nurturing your leads based on their biggest pain points or challenges, you’ll need to figure out what those challenges are by collecting some data. You can do this by surveying a representative sample of your leads, or simply by adding a new field to your landing page forms. As a side note, this is a great tactic to gather information about your database -- just be careful it doesn’t hurt your conversion rates on the landing page. Below is an example of a field we use on some of our own forms.

 Note that we sell marketing software, so knowing what our leads' marketing challenges helps us understand what types of content to create and provide to address those needs. This field should be open-ended and tailored to your business or industry. I know, I know -- it's hard to segment based on open-ended form fields, but I'll show you how. Trust me.

Remember that some of your leads may not even think they have an issue or problem that your product can solve. Make sure you use a broad label that covers a general industry instead of a niche one (e.g. for us, we use "marketing" instead of "marketing software"). Also, think about how you phrase “problem” or “need.” Most of your leads won’t want to admit -- or even realize -- they have an issue, so we use the term “challenge” instead. Once you have this field added to the forms on your landing pages, start collecting your data by promoting your landing pages and generating new leads and conversions!

2) Analyze Major Themes in Your Data, and Select a Handful of Key Issues

Once you've set up your landing pages and forms to collect data about your leads’ challenges, give them some time to marinate so you have a substantial data set to analyze. In order to analyze the data, you’ll need to export your form data from your marketing software or CRM. If you have your data stored in a CRM, pull in other useful information to your list such as demographic or activity data on those leads that filled out the “challenge” field. This data will be useful when you start to analyze the responses in order to leverage the data in your lead nurturing.

Once you’ve exported your data, let the analytical fun begin! Unfortunately, this is a somewhat manual process since you’re collecting data on an open form field. The best way to start is to read through some of the responses to get a sense of the common themes in the challenges your leads are expressing. A quick way to get a snapshot of this is to generate a word cloud. Try uploading all the responses to Wordle, and it will spit out a visual representation of the words and phrases that are most commonly mentioned in your leads' responses. When you're reviewing the responses, pick out 10-15 major themes you notice. Next, you’ll want to read through the list of responses and categorize them as best you can by those themes. Once you have all your responses categorized by theme, count the number of responses that fit into each category. As you do this, there should be a few that rise to the top of your list. When selecting your most mentioned themes, look at the data and decide on a threshold. Are there some themes that are mentioned a lot more than the rest? What sticks out? This will help you come up with your final list of lead “needs” or “challenges” that you'll use to create a drop-down list on your forms.

3) Create & Add the Drop-Down Field to Your Landing Page Forms

Once your analysis is done and you've identified your top themes, it’s time to create your drop-down form field and pop it into your forms. Like any drop-down that you use in a form, you’ll want to make sure the number of options does not hinder your conversion rates. This is something you should test and iterate once you implement the new drop-down field on your forms.

Simply remove the open field you used to gather your initial set of data, and replace it with a drop-down form field based on the top themes. Your leads will now be able to select individual “challenges” or “needs” that best apply to their situation. Simple as that!

4) Segment & Nurture Leads by Need

Once this is in place, you can start to segment your leads by need. In addition, you may want to also segment by other variables such as persona or demographic in addition to “needs” information. If you're a B2B company, for example, a lead at a small business may have the same need as a lead from an enterprise business, but you'd probably want to craft two different messages to these two distinct groups.

With all this detailed information, you can create specific lists to nurture based on a combination of need, persona, and position in the funnel. Simply pull this information from your CRM or marketing software to generate lists that fit various criteria, and import that list into your email tool. (Note: If you're a HubSpot customer, this is very easily done using the Contacts and Email tools.) This will enable you to send content that is very targeted to your leads' different interests and needs, improving your open and click-through rates as well as the overall effectiveness of your lead nurturing campaigns.

When you can offer your leads the right content at the right time that also addresses their most pressing challenges or needs, there’s no way you’ll miss out on future sales. Be sure to analyze the conversion rates from lead to customer before and after you implement this additional segmentation strategy. That way, you’ll have concrete stats that prove your marketing success in funneling more leads into a sales-ready state.

Original Article

Agencia 365

Storytelling: Historias de Hoteles

Desde tiempos inmemoriales al ser humano siempre le ha gustado contar historias. Hemos nacido con ellas transmitidas de generación en generación formando parte de una tradición popular asentada en nuestras costumbres, en el modo de irnos a la cama, entre piratas, lobos, magos, reinas o caballeros destronados.

La imaginación no tiene límites. Aprendimos parte de nuestra naturaleza, modelos y conductas, a diferenciar el bien del mal a través de esas historias, siendo tan solo unos niños asomados al entonces, gigantesco mundo.

Pero al igual que teníamos nuestros cuentos o relatos favoritos también sabíamos elegir a nuestro cuentacuentos preferido, quién nos leía, podía ser papá, mamá, la abuela o el hermano mayor, eso no importaba, nos gustaba su tono, el modo en que lo contaba, aquello que nos hacía permanecer con los ojos abiertos hasta que el sueño nos vencía.

No todo el mundo cuenta igual una misma historia ni es fácil contarla manteniendo al espectador expectante, enganchado a cada tramo de palabra, imagen o fotograma.

En el caso de los hoteles, como estrategia de marketing y apoyándonos en el fuerte impacto viral del video, contar una historia se ha convertido en un modo de llegar a nuestros clientes ofreciéndoles nuestro producto con el objeto de que empatizen con él. Pero, en realidad, no siempre se consigue ese resultado.

Como en todo, he visto historias aburridas que no empatizan con el cliente, otras que no pueden llamarse historias porque no cuentan sino solo muestran una secuencia de habitaciones, servicios, mobiliario o decoración, otras que hacen de la música y el diseño una interesante atracción y otras que son un claro ejercicio de creatividad e ingenio al servicio del cliente.

Porque la historia debe de llegar, comunicar, mantener un hilo conductor que evite la pérdida de atención y el abandono de nuestro cliente.

Hoy solo quiero reflejar la importancia de contar una buena historia, separando el grano de la paja, y eso requiere fijar bien los objetivos, trabajar la idea, darle consistencia antes de abordar la tecnología como nuestro principal recurso.

Internet forma parte de un ecosistema donde vivimos y las redes sociales contribuyen a la difusión del mensaje a gran escala y a una velocidad fulgurante.

Pero un storytelling para hoteles que no empatize, que no llegue, que no despierte alguna emoción, que no convoque será simplemente una pérdida de tiempo y dinero y terminará por perderse en la espesura de lo digital.

Porque las historias somos nosotros quiénes las contamos, alimentamos y compartimos, como siempre, de unos a otros, sino que ahora tenemos el mundo al alcance de un click.

En un próximo post escribiré más sobre ellas orientadas a las Pymes hoteleras, sus costes y su plan de marketing en redes sociales.

Articulo Original

Marketing de Contenidos para Hoteles 

Running Successful Facebook Contests

#1: Determine Whether You Really Need a Contest

This might sound like a silly suggestion, but there are some businesses that simply will not benefit from a Facebook contest.

For instance, if you’re a B2B company that deals in a super-niche market, a Facebook contest might not help you gain a meaningful number of new clients.

However, if you’re convinced that a contest is appropriate for your business, then the next thing you need to do is set some goals.

What do you hope to achieve? Do you want to increase brand awareness or highlight a new product? Are you hoping to increase the number of Likes on your page? Do you want to boost user engagement, gather user feedback or develop advocates for your brand? Are you fundraising?

The bottom line: have specific goals and don’t run a contest just because everyone else is doing it!

#2: Decide Which Type of Facebook Contest Will Help You Reach Your Goals

There are four basic types of contests you can run on Facebook: sweepstakes, essay, photo and video.

The type of contest you run matters because each one appeals to a different audience. Video, photo and essay contests will give you lots of content for your page, but they also require more effort to enter.

A sweepstakes contest is easy to enter and you can set it up so that you get a few key pieces of information from your customers.

Legendary Whitetails offers apparel, gifts and gear for whitetail hunters. They do not have an on-location store, so all of their sales are done through their catalog and website. This makes their Facebook page a key ingredient in reaching their target audience.

This photo contest has entrants submit their photos that best represent summer—perfect for an outdoor gear and apparel retailer like Legendary Whitetails.

#3: Familiarize Yourself With Facebook’s Policies and Guidelines

When it comes to contests, Facebook has an extensive list of “do’s and don’ts.”

For example, you are not allowed to use a Facebook feature such as the Like button as a way to enter or vote. And you must notify winners via email, snail mail, phone call or singing telegram before you congratulate them publicly on Facebook, or send them a Facebook message. You can’t include calls to action such as “Don’t forget to vote” or “Tell your friends” on your Timeline cover image—and the list goes on.

One of the biggest rules that Facebook insists on is clearly stating that Facebook is not sponsoring the giveaway. The easiest thing to do is show your rules and guidelines loud and clear on your contest, like Chevrolet does, so there are no questions.

Chevrolet makes it clear in their contest that it is in no way sponsored, endorsed or associated with Facebook. They then provide a clear link to the contest rules and guidelines.

Violating any of Facebook’s rules will result in your contest, and possibly your page, being shut down. Save yourself a headache and familiarize yourself with Facebook’s contest and promotion rules.

#4: Choose a Third-Party App to Run the Contest

Facebook explicitly requires businesses to run a contest on a third-party application, and it’s nearly impossible to meet all of their other promotions guidelines without one.

There are lots of companies that provide contest support, but you’ll want to make sure the one you choose offers a few key features:

The app should be flexible. If it’s not customizable, the app might not give you the results you’re after.

The price should be right. There are third-party apps that are free and there are some that can cost thousands of dollars a month. Obviously using an app that’s low-cost or free reduces your risk if the contest doesn’t deliver the results you’re after.

The app should be embeddable or have “Anywhere” capabilities. Many third-party apps only work on Facebook. Look for one that allows you to install the contest on your website, too.

The app must have mobile capabilities. Why? Because according to Facebook’s 2012 Second Quarter Report, 543 million of its most active users access Facebook from a mobile device. That’s an increase of 67% over last year! Why not make it easy for mobile Facebookers to get to your contest?

#5: Pick a Relevant Prize

As noted above, an iPad is a popular giveaway these days. While an iPad is certainly nothing to sneeze at, you’d be better off using contests to showcase your own products and services. After all, people are coming to your page because they are interested in learning more about what you offer.

If you operate a housecleaning business, for example, consider giving away three months of cleaning services. If you sell digital cameras, do what GoPro does: periodically give away your full product line.

The prize you offer doesn’t need to break the bank—it shouldn’t, actually. Just remember that the value of your prize should reflect the effort participants need to make to enter.

Fans can enter GoPro's contest once a day, every day, for a chance to win a GoPro accessory.

#6: Keep it Simple

What’s the secret to running a successful campaign? Make it easy to enter.

Yes, there are lots of examples of super-innovative contests that attract plenty of attention, but there are even more examples of innovative contests that flop because they are too complicated.

It’s one thing to ask users to send in a photo of themselves wearing their favorite shade of red lipstick. But it’s another thing to ask them to share videos of themselves belting out their favorite Johnny Cash or U2 song.

Be aware that the more fields you ask users to fill out, the fewer entries you’ll receive. People prefer not to give their job title, marital status and three different contact numbers to enter a contest if the prize is a sticker.

Ask for less information while still getting what you need. In some cases, this might be just the entrant’s name, age and email address.

Fans may be more hesitant to enter a contest for a large company such as Advance Auto Parts if they’re asking for a lot of information.

With just four fields, Advance Auto Parts made their contest easy for their fans to enter.

The contest app also needs to be easy to find. Call the app “Enter Now” or “Sweeps” and post status updates about the contest on your Timeline.

#7: Tell the World About Your Contest

If you’re hosting a contest on Facebook, make it social! Don’t just post details to your page.

Promote it on Twitter, include it in email newsletters and send out reminders. It’s okay to remind your fans periodically that the contest is going on—just be sure to promote your business along the way. Don’t just talk about the contest, or people might lose interest.

The best thing to do is to provide share buttons on your contest like The Selection does so that fans can share the contest on their additional social media sites.

The Selection sweepstakes offers an easy way for fans to share the contest on their Facebook page and Twitter to increase their social media reach.

Put details about the contest on the homepage of your website. And don’t forget to make your contest promotion part of your integrated marketing communications strategy.

Be sure it’s well-integrated into your other marketing efforts. This can include everything from a mention on receipts (both printed and emailed), in newsletters, on in-store signage and as part of radio and television advertising.

#8: Consider Facebook Ads

Investing in Facebook Ads is a great and affordable way to increase the reach of your promotion. Facebook Ad spaces are small, so it’s essential that your ads are simple to understand and eye-catching.

Facebook Ads make it easy to target users who share your interests and demographics, and they’re also a way to reach beyond the people who already Like your page by placing them where your ideal demographic hangs out.

Lays is currently running a promotion where they are asking fans to submit a new Lays chip flavor. Their ads can be seen on Facebook and even on TV, expanding their reach to a global audience.

Lays promotes their "Do Us a Flavor" contest two different ways using Facebook ads—one that attracts fans to create their own flavor and one that intrigues fans with a large prize.

#9: Finally: Don’t Forget to Follow Up!

Your promotion is over, the prizes have been awarded… and now you’re done, right? Not so fast. You ran the promotion so you could gather information about your customers, so spend a little bit of time making sense of what you’ve learned.

The simplest way to do that is to put all of the data into a spreadsheet and see what your users have to say. Did they offer you any interesting or valuable information about your brand? Did they make any suggestions for ways that you might improve interactions with them?

Make sure you follow up and let them know that you’re listening so they’ll be motivated to keep engaging with you. Ultimately they’ll be even bigger fans of your business.

Simple Guide to Creating Infographics in PowerPoint

Who doesn't love an infographic? They're pretty. They're educational. They're shareable. And they've played a powerful role in the visual content revolution we marketers have seen take hold recently.

So what's the limiting factor stopping many marketers from jumping on board the infographic bandwagon? Design. More specifically, how on earth do you create a flipping infographic?

With PowerPoint!

Wait, really? Yes, really. Whether you love it or hate it, PowerPoint is an extremely valuable yet underused design tool. That's why I created three different infographic templates in PowerPoint for you to customize and deploy. That's right, you can download this PowerPoint presentation and get access to three different infographic templates. The template itself does include notes that walk you through how to create your infographic, but this blog post will go through it in painstaking detail. So download your infographic template, and follow along with the steps in this post to create your infographic! You'll be shocked at how simple it is.

The 3 Types of Infographics in This Template

Before we get started, let's clarify what you'll get when you download your infographic template. It will come with templates for three different "types" of infographics:

1) The Step-by-Step Infographic

2) The Informational Infographic

3) The Data-Packed Infographic

When it comes time for you to build an infographic, you'll likely find the content you want to share falls into one of these three buckets. Just choose which one of the three best suits your needs, and you'll be able to modify the infographic in the template of your choice.

How to Create Your Infographic in PowerPoint

This is the step-by-step process you'll follow to create your infographic in PowerPoint. We've selected the first template in the download -- the Step-by-Step Infographic template -- to help illustrate the process. But you can apply these same steps to any of the three templates contained in your download.

For example, here's what it would look like if we made an infographic about this process of making an infographic using our PowerPoint template. For details on how to perform each step you see below, just keep scrolling down this blog post for the nitty gritty.

Step 1: Open Your Template in PowerPoint

When you download our template, it should automatically open in PowerPoint. You'll notice there's usage tips inside the template for you to easily refer to when building your infographic, including sticky note reminders on how to complete certain tasks -- delete these before publishing your infographic.

I also took the time to change the image on the infographic to show that I built it, and paired it with a mini description of who I am. You can include your own headshot here, a company logo, or any other image you choose that represents your brand or the subject of the infographic. If you change the image from a headshot, be sure to edit the copy to align with your new image, too.

Step 2: Set Your Color Scheme

Just because we handed you a template doesn't mean you have to stick to its exact setup. By right clicking on the slide, you can go to 'Format Background,' and then change the 'Fill.' This step will change the background color of your infographic to one that aligns more appropriately with your brand; just be sure to apply it to all of the infographic slides. 

Once your background is the correct color, go through the title, text, and various shapes in the graphic to ensure they all match your brand's colors, too. Simply double click on the text box or shape to change the colors. Now you have a proper foundation of colors to build your own branded infographic.

Step 3: Start Building

Now that your template has the proper color scheme, it's time to start building your infographic. Here's a few different tools and features you can use in PowerPoint to ensure your infographic remains visually appealing:

• Shapes: As simple as inserting a shape may seem, you can actually use them to create a pretty powerful design. There are a few key things you should know. First, every shape comes with various options to help customize the design. You can use the green circle present on every shape to rotate your shape, for example. You'll also find that talk bubbles come with a yellow diamond, which lets you alter from where the bubble is coming. Simply click on the shapes you insert, and play with the different options available to build your perfect shape. You can then insert images or text into these shapes.
• Images: Use non-attribution images you find online (via sites like Creative Commons or iStockphoto, for example), or your own brand images to enhance the infographic. You can alter the color of these images under the 'Effects' option. There's also a 'Transparent Color' tool that will allow you to make the background of your image transparent, and therefore naturally integrated into your infographic. If the transparent tool isn't helping, you can always add an image outline to make it fit in.
• SmartArt: SmartArt may look a bit insane when you first insert them, but these pre-made designs can really help you tell a story through visuals. You can double click on the various shapes and change their colors to align more with the overall color scheme of your infographic.
• Charts: Even if your entire infographic isn't about data, that doesn't mean you can't include a few charts or graphs to really make an idea stick out. To edit your chart, double click on any line, bar, column, or pie piece in the template to change its colors. You can also click on the axis lines to delete them from the chart, if you prefer. By clicking around the 'Format Chart Area' section of your chart, you'll be able to further customize the appearance of your chart.

Step 4: Add Sources and a Call-to-Action

Proper attribution of sources is critical for your reputation -- plus it's just good internet etiquette! It's okay to use public stats and information, just be sure to give credit where credit is due -- all you need to do is insert a snippet of text in a text box right under the information that needs to be cited.

Even if your infographic isn't clickable, you can still add a mini call-to-action at the bottom to give those who would like more information a destination to go to. And when you embed it on your blog, you can even make your image clickable to that destination page.

Step 5: Add a Logo

You just put time and effort into creating an awesome piece of visual content. Be sure to let the world know who's responsible for creating it, too! Insert your logo in the bottom right or left corner of your infographic so when it's embedded across other websites, your attribution remains in tact.

How to Piece Your Infographic Together

Now that you've prepared your various slides of visual and informational wonder, it's time to piece them all together. You know, so you end up with an actual infographic.

Step 1: Save Slides as Images

Once your infographic is ready, you’ll need to save the PowerPoint slides as images. Simply click 'Save As' and select PNG as the file type. This is critical, as PNG is the ONLY file type that will give your infographic the high quality that's needed for publishing.

Step 2: Go to a Free Online Tool

After you save your slides as PNGs, go to your browser and navigate to http://pixlr.com/editor/. Here, select the option to 'Open Image from Computer.' Find your saved images from Step 1, and select the first slide (the very top of your infographic), and open. (Note: Once you exit your tab on this free online tool, all your content will be lost. Your browser does not save any content, so be sure to save everything as you go.)

Step 3: Change the Zoom and Size

Adjust your zoom in the bottom left-hand corner to 20%. Then in the top navigation bar, go to 'Image,' then 'Canvas Size,' where you'll extend the height to 4000. This will allow your canvas to be large enough to paste in each slide from your PowerPoint to build the infographic.

Step 4: Copy and Paste

Now all you have to do is open the rest of your slides that you saved as PNGs by going to 'File' and 'Open.' Use Ctrl+A to select the entire slide, hit 'Edit' and 'Copy,' then go to your image with the increased height and paste. You can move the image around to ensure all the pieces have lined up correctly.

Step 5: Repeat

Continue to copy and paste your slides until your entire infographic is pieced together. Once you’re done, you can use the crop tool in the toolbar to crop the infographic and eliminate any extra white space added from adjusting the canvas height in Step 2.

Step 6: Save as PNG

When you’re done, you once again need to ensure you save the file in PNG format for optimal visual quality.

Answers to 7 Questions About the State of SEO in 2012

1) If I'm just getting started in SEO, where do I begin?

If you're just getting started with SEO, you're probably going to want some quick wins. And the easiest way to get those quick wins is to target long-tail keywords -- typically classified as phrases that are three or more words in length. Long-tail keywords typically have less search volume than head terms, but they are also less competitive. Think about it ... it's probably harder to rank for "lawyers" than for "reliable family lawyers in boston," right? Here, take a look at this image to understand the value of long-tail search a little more:

See that callout in the chart above that says long-tail search yields an average 36% conversion rate? That's the other benefit of targeting long-tail keywords -- because they're more specific in nature, the traffic you're driving by ranking for them is more targeted. And more targeted traffic means higher conversions! Piggy-backing off of our lawyer example, there are millions of people that could be looking for a lawyer; that doesn't help the family lawyers in Boston looking for new clients. So even if they drove traffic to their website for the term "lawyer," chances are, most of that traffic isn't going to turn into a new client ... hence the benefit of targeting long-tail keywords, instead! Less competition. Quick wins. Higher conversions. Good stuff.

2) What's the deal with rel=Author? What does it mean?

When you see rel=Author, it simply denotes the author of a page -- think of it as a way to connect authors with their content on the web. Google is using it to help surface content from great authors in the SERPs. They know that the best content comes from awesome authors, and Google obviously wants to return the highest quality content possible in their search results. They hope this tag will highlight those authors, and help their content rank in search results without having to rely so heavily on inbound links to achieve high rankings.
When this markup language is employed, it also links to your Google+ profile and through that, pulls in your profile image. This should help make that content more engaging in the SERPs, improving click through rates, showing a new focus on not just ranking in SEO, but actual engagement. To start taking advantage of rel=Author, just follow these steps:

1) Have a Google+ account with a full profile. Make sure the email address for the profile matches the author email and name.

2) Use this link to connect your website to your profile: https://plus.google.com/authorship

3) Wait for the content to be indexed -- this may take up to a week or longer.

Follow the guidance from Google Webmaster Tools for additional best practices.

3) What kind of content should marketers create for optimal SEO results?

Search engines are built to mimic human behavior. What's good for your audience is good for them. If people like your content because they find it helpful or enjoyable, they'll read it, bookmark it, and share it. That makes search engines happy.

That means the content you're creating should make readers happy first. And you can do that by making your content specialized and focused. You know, written with your target audience in mind. When you're creating content with passion and the intent to help someone, you'll naturally be creating great SEO content. So be thorough, think of topics that your audience wants to read, and offer it up in a palatable way -- well written, well formatted, and sometimes even in visual formats. If you do this, you won't have to un-naturally force a certain number of keywords into your content just to try to rank in the SERPs. In fact, doing that will make the crawlers and your readers really, really unhappy.

4) Do you have any tips on local SEO?

Why yes, I do. Before I get into some nitty gritty tips, let's get one more general best practice out of the way.

Google has been consistently supplementing search results with immediate answers when conducting local searches. It's their attempt to get you answers more quickly and improve your experience. As a local business, you need to leverage your knowledge and expertise to appear in these supplementary results. To do that, offer much more depth of content, and cover topics that Google may never offer up content on (simply because they don't know). Be as specific and detailed as possible, showing a depth of knowledge that cannot be replaced by a machine.

Now that we have that out of the way, here are some golden nuggets for great local SEO:

• Add yourself to local directories like your local Chamber of Commerce.
• Write about local events, history, and the people who work at your company, if possible.
• Get reviews from sites like Yelp!.
• Have a Google Places Account -- which is now managed through Google+. Bing and Yahoo offer their own versions, too.
• Have a Facebook Account so people can perform local check-ins.
• Have a true "Contact Us" page with a working phone number, physical address, and map.
• Exercise superior customer service. What people experience in the real world, they talk about online.

5) It seems like larger websites need a slightly different approach to SEO. Do you have any enterprise SEO tips?

Enterprise SEO doesn't need to be radically different, it's just that enterprise businesses typically have more resources. So use them! Here are some tips on how you can leverage your resources for better SEO:

• Vary your content. In other words, think of content outside of the realm of just text-based content. Make use of videos, surveys, visual content, and industry trends backed up by data.
• Segment your content. Google really likes segmentation. It drives better search results if you segment content by, say, industry, because it lets them deliver more specific results.
• Leverage multiple contributors and authors, especially when those contributors may have segment specialization and want to build thought leadership online.
• Continue improving your overall website speed and uptime. Nothing is worse -- for users and search engines -- than a slow site, dead ends (404s), or worse, a site that's frequently down.

6) What best practices do you have for pay-it-forward link building?

Link building is like relationship building. Come at it with a long-term, mutually beneficial approach. Think about it ... if you were looking to foster a good relationship with a new co-worker, what would you do? Probably slowly get to know them on a more personal level, try to be helpful with projects, do nice things for them periodically, and do things to make them more successful at work. You know, just general, good-person things.

That's what link building is like. Give websites links to their content because it's awesome, and you think they deserve the credit and boost in the SERPs. Connect with them non-aggressively, like on social media. When they post a fantastic blog post, or you share a snippet of their content in your own, tweet at them to let them know you think they rock. As time goes on (and you continute to create excellent content, of course), you'll appear on people's radar naturally. You'll have built a relationship with high quality webmasters, and you'll be one yourself. Birds of a feather flock together!

7) What are considered to be "sketchy" SEO tactics?

A good rule of thumb is if it doesn't help the searcher's experience, it's probably considered sketchy by Google's crawlers. Here are a few more concrete things not to employ, though:

• Keyword stuffing in your content and URLs
• Overuse of tags on your blog
• Buying links
• Aggressively adding yourself to directories
• Pumping out extreme amounts of low quality content
• White on white text -- for the purpose of keyword stuffing or receiving inbound links

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