Category: Writing

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Content marketing continues to generate buzz and can be an amazing way to generate new leads and convert those leads into customers. No matter what form the content takes, it can help establish a brand as an authority in its field. The state of content marketing in the last few years has been one of great change.

The latest State of Content Marketing Report from SEMrush analyzed more than 450,000 tweets, 700,000 blog posts, hundreds of thousands of Google search queries and surveyed more than 1,200 marketing professionals around the world.

The report uncovered a number of content marketing trends that ruled the marketing world over the past year.

Here are ten content marketing statistics from the report that highlight the trends most likely to continue over the next several years.

Longer Articles Over 3,000 Words Received 3X More Traffic

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Longer articles over 3,000 words receive 3X more traffic, according to a report by @SEMrush #contentmarketing

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In a few years, articles went from short pieces to lengthy, detailed pieces chock full of information. Pieces of 3,000 words or more got about three times the traffic and four times the shares as articles between 900 to 1,200 words. They also got more backlinks than shorter pieces.

While there is still a place for shorter pieces, a mix of long-form articles helps drive traffic and keeps site visitors engaged. The longer articles may also rank better in search engine results throughout 2020 (until the algorithms change yet again, anyway.

Around 37% of Americans Use Mobile Platforms to Go Online

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Around 37% of Americans use mobile platforms to go online

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For the last few years, there has been a huge push to go mobile-first and to really make online content smartphone-friendly.

While there is evidence that more and more people use their phones to access the internet, the results in the State of Content Marketing Report highlight that many still access websites via desktop.

Pew Internet Research found that about 37% of Americans use their mobile devices to go online and the overall number of people owning a smartphone went from 35% in 2011 to 81% in 2019. Mobile usage continues to rise in 2020.

However, many still use their desktops to research information. In a look at over 1,000 blogs, researchers discovered that around 63% of the traffic to automotive dealerships is via desktop. The numbers reach as high as 80% and above for online education and marketing topics.

The key takeaway here is to write for the audience rather than a device and make sure your website adapts to whatever screen size the user has at a given moment.

Successful Blogs Use a Mix of 13.8% Lists, 10.8% Q&As and 5.10% How-Tos

The report also looked at the different types of articles posted on blogs and found that most blogs benefited from a mix of different topics. For example, online education blogs had a mix of traffic that looked something like this: 3.6% guides, 5.10% how-to pieces, 10.8% Q&A articles and 13.8% lists.

Finding the right mix for each website is a matter of digging into site analytics and analyzing not only the popular topics on that blog but also competitor blogs. Many blogs even offer a look at the most popular articles, making it easy to do a bit of research and uncover which topics are popular with a given target audience.

There Are 2.96 Billion People on Social Media

One thing the report uncovered is that most businesses aren’t using social media as much as they should be, based on the number of users. There are approximately 2.96 billion people on social media.

The only categories using social media frequently enough were the fitness and health, home and garden and pharmaceutical categories. Each business is unique, so some marketers did a better job at social media promotions than others. However, it is a real weakness in the industry that must be addressed.

Headlines of 14 Words or More Got 5X More Backlinks

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Headlines of 14 words or more get 5X more backlinks #contentmarketing

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The report also uncovered an increase in headline length. The reason writers should use longer headlines of 14 words or more is because they get twice as much traffic, two times as many shares and five times more backlinks.

The traditional advice was to keep headline length between seven and 10 words, but that seems to be changing. People want to know they are getting the specific information they’re seeking.

Listicles Get Double the Traffic of Other Types of Posts

Listicles seem to be everywhere. People are busy and they like information they can absorb in quick chunks. The ability to skim over subheadings in a listicle helps the user zero in on the exact advice they need.

The State of Content Marketing Report 2019 by SEMrush also uncovered that listicles get the most shares and traffic — as much as double what other types of posts receive.

36% of Articles With Both H2 and H3 Headings Got More Traffic and Shares

The study also uncovered that the use of both H2 and H3 headings resulted in higher performances.

About 36% of articles with both headings had more traffic, shares and backlinks than similar articles without. The reason likely comes back to the need for people to skim and find the exact material needed. Descriptive headings save the reader time and frustration.

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36% of articles With both H2 and H3 headings get more traffic and shares #contentmarketing

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2020 Is About Ranking Higher Than Position #1

Search engines such as Google now use position zero to highlight quick snippets of content. While rich snippets have been around for a while, the way Google pulls information from content changed a bit in the last two years.

A rich snippet can appear anywhere in the text, so utilizing bullets helps Google see what content readers need most. Bulleted lists also make content more skimmable for readers.

The Word ‘Strategy’ Appeared in 29% of Tweets About Content Marketing

For years, top marketers have turned to well-organized plans in order to gain the most traction possible. The keyword phrase “content marketing strategy” was the most popular keyword in the category of content marketing and appeared in 29% of tweets. Content marketing strategy also appeared in the top 20 questions asked on Google about the topic.

In the last year, most people noticed more and more campaigns geared toward a specific holiday or event. Promoters have learned that people want highly personalized material that speaks directly to them and their needs. At the same time, consistency is the key to brand name recognition. Planned-out programs offer variety while still tying everything together with an underlying theme.

The Majority of Marketing Agencies Expanded Their Product Offerings

Another trend in the past year is a shift in the way marketing agencies package their products. Some agencies turned to proprietary software to increase the advantages of working with them over another agency. There is a lot of competition in the digital marketing space, so anything a company does to stand out increases potential profits.

Agencies should look at services already offered and find ways to expand into a full-service agency, so clients get all their exposure from one place. For example, add an event-planning service complete with logo-imprinted giveaway items. Any work that is farmed out or covered by another company is an opportunity for growth in 2020.

Conclusion

If you haven’t already, I urge you to download the State of Content Marketing Report from SEMrush. It’s filled with even more useful data to help guide your content marketing strategy this year.

The post 10 Content Marketing Statistics for 2020 appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

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I’ve been immersed in the world of digital marketing since the earliest days and one of the biggest challenge has always been connecting the dots to create social media sales success.

Of course there are many paths to get there depending on the channel, the audience and whether you have an advertising budget or not, but when it comes to truly building an organic presence that leads to sales success, I do think there is a formula — and it might even be a little surprising to you.

Let’s get into that today.

A social media audience is different

In my classes, I explain that a social media audience represents “weak relational links.” What I mean by this is that a “like” or even a “follow” correlates to almost zero actual emotional connection to a brand or a business.

When somebody “likes” you on social media, it’s like they’re waving at you. By liking or following you, consumers are acknowledging you or saying “hello,” but that doesn’t mean they would ever open a wallet and give you their money.

I have nearly 200,000 followers on Twitter. If I sent out a tweet that said, “Hey everybody, buy my new book!” I would expect to sell zero books. Weak relational links.

The social media audience of weak links is still important because it represents potential. These are contacts you never would have had any other way.

To activate that potential, you have to go far beyond awareness and “likes” to deliver unique and extraordinary human connection and value that makes somebody want to buy something. You have to build an actionable audience.

Two components for social media sales success

I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I have a theory I would like to test out on you. The social media accounts that drive relationships beyond weak relational links into an actionable audience have two things in common:

• A consistent human component
• Unique value, insight, access, or entertainment value

Now, there is an exception — Brands that have become beloved over years of advertising and promotion like Disney, Apple, or Coca-Cola.

But if you’re a small business building a marketing presence from scratch, it seems you need those two components — human and unique value. So if you’re out there just checking a box by publishing photos of your pizza slices or floor tiles, listen up.

Human + Value = Actionable Audience

What do I mean by the human component?

Great branding occurs when you build an emotional connection between what you do and your audience.

It’s hard for people to fall in love with a picture of a car or a house, but over time, it’s certainly possible to build a meaningful human connection between people.

That’s why all the greatest small business social media accounts feature a real human being. Let’s look at a real example.

On the surface, Walmart is sort of a boring brand. They sell lots of everyday items at low prices. Not too sexy. But look at what happens when you add a human component. A store in Maryland features photos of employees with their products but one in particular, a slight, grumpy woman named Charlene, became a hit:

These photos have attracted thousands of fans and a massive amount of engagement. But everything went a little nuts when Charlene finally smiled. Did you notice what she’s holding?

Did it increase sales? Yes. People are actually driving to the store from all over the region, and even all over the country, hoping to meet Charlene. I can’t imagine anything else a Walmart store could have done on a Facebook account to get that sort of lift in attention.

Social media sales success depends on unique value

Now, just having somebody pose in photos is not enough to create interest and demand for your products. In the case of Charlene, there is a distinct entertainment value seeing her dressed up in crazy outfits or curled up in a baby’s bed. You sort of want to see what happens next.

Another favorite example is my friend John Phillips, an artisan in my home town of Knoxville, TN. John handcrafts knives from recovered steel in old plows, bridges, and other structures and forges them into unique and beautiful products.

Just posting photos of his work is pretty interesting but what has helped his business explode in popularity is the videos and images he posts describing the process of how he gets there.

The “value” that you share through your human presence can take several forms:

Knowledge — I create content that freely shares my ideas and observations about the world of marketing.

Access — Kim Kardashian provides a peek into her glamorous life in the hopes that you will buy her beauty products.

Insight — John Phillips opens the doors to show you the materials and processes that go into these extraordinary knives.

Entertainment — A Maryland Walmart store caught fire by offering funny photos of a charming employee.

Now, there is one other idea that runs through any social media effort — consistency. I could never build a business based on one blog post. I’ve blogged every week for 12 years to make my little dent in the world. Charlene, John, and the Kardashian clan would be invisible if they only posted occasionally.

So I believe that is the formula for social media sales success. A human presence delivering unique value, consistently over time.

What do you think?

Mark Schaefer is the chief blogger for this site, executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, and the author of several best-selling digital marketing books. He is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

The post A simple theory of social media sales success appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/markgrow/~3/m_T7m2OvM5c/

I’ve been immersed in the world of digital marketing since the earliest days and one of the biggest challenge has always been connecting the dots to create social media sales success.

Of course there are many paths to get there depending on the channel, the audience and whether you have an advertising budget or not, but when it comes to truly building an organic presence that leads to sales success, I do think there is a formula — and it might even be a little surprising to you.

Let’s get into that today.

A social media audience is different

In my classes, I explain that a social media audience represents “weak relational links.” What I mean by this is that a “like” or even a “follow” correlates to almost zero actual emotional connection to a brand or a business.

When somebody “likes” you on social media, it’s like they’re waving at you. By liking or following you, consumers are acknowledging you or saying “hello,” but that doesn’t mean they would ever open a wallet and give you their money.

I have nearly 200,000 followers on Twitter. If I sent out a tweet that said, “Hey everybody, buy my new book!” I would expect to sell zero books. Weak relational links.

The social media audience of weak links is still important because it represents potential. These are contacts you never would have had any other way.

To activate that potential, you have to go far beyond awareness and “likes” to deliver unique and extraordinary human connection and value that makes somebody want to buy something. You have to build an actionable audience.

Two components for social media sales success

I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I have a theory I would like to test out on you. The social media accounts that drive relationships beyond weak relational links into an actionable audience have two things in common:

• A consistent human component
• Unique value, insight, access, or entertainment value

Now, there is an exception — Brands that have become beloved over years of advertising and promotion like Disney, Apple, or Coca-Cola.

But if you’re a small business building a marketing presence from scratch, it seems you need those two components — human and unique value. So if you’re out there just checking a box by publishing photos of your pizza slices or floor tiles, listen up.

Human + Value = Actionable Audience

What do I mean by the human component?

Great branding occurs when you build an emotional connection between what you do and your audience.

It’s hard for people to fall in love with a picture of a car or a house, but over time, it’s certainly possible to build a meaningful human connection between people.

That’s why all the greatest small business social media accounts feature a real human being. Let’s look at a real example.

On the surface, Walmart is sort of a boring brand. They sell lots of everyday items at low prices. Not too sexy. But look at what happens when you add a human component. A store in Maryland features photos of employees with their products but one in particular, a slight, grumpy woman named Charlene, became a hit:

These photos have attracted thousands of fans and a massive amount of engagement. But everything went a little nuts when Charlene finally smiled. Did you notice what she’s holding?

Did it increase sales? Yes. People are actually driving to the store from all over the region, and even all over the country, hoping to meet Charlene. I can’t imagine anything else a Walmart store could have done on a Facebook account to get that sort of lift in attention.

Social media sales success depends on unique value

Now, just having somebody pose in photos is not enough to create interest and demand for your products. In the case of Charlene, there is a distinct entertainment value seeing her dressed up in crazy outfits or curled up in a baby’s bed. You sort of want to see what happens next.

Another favorite example is my friend John Phillips, an artisan in my home town of Knoxville, TN. John handcrafts knives from recovered steel in old plows, bridges, and other structures and forges them into unique and beautiful products.

Just posting photos of his work is pretty interesting but what has helped his business explode in popularity is the videos and images he posts describing the process of how he gets there.

The “value” that you share through your human presence can take several forms:

Knowledge — I create content that freely shares my ideas and observations about the world of marketing.

Access — Kim Kardashian provides a peek into her glamorous life in the hopes that you will buy her beauty products.

Insight — John Phillips opens the doors to show you the materials and processes that go into these extraordinary knives.

Entertainment — A Maryland Walmart store caught fire by offering funny photos of a charming employee.

Now, there is one other idea that runs through any social media effort — consistency. I could never build a business based on one blog post. I’ve blogged every week for 12 years to make my little dent in the world. Charlene, John, and the Kardashian clan would be invisible if they only posted occasionally.

So I believe that is the formula for social media sales success. A human presence delivering unique value, consistently over time.

What do you think?

Mark Schaefer is the chief blogger for this site, executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, and the author of several best-selling digital marketing books. He is an acclaimed keynote speaker, college educator, and business consultant.  The Marketing Companion podcast is among the top business podcasts in the world. Contact Mark to have him speak to your company event or conference soon.

Illustration courtesy Unsplash.com

The post A simple theory of social media sales success appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

https://wordtothewise.com/2020/02/what-is-fcrdns-and-why-do-we-care/

It’s been a light blogging month. We’ve been dancing around getting the final plans, financing, and contractors set up for the work we’re doing on the Dublin house and then heading off for our first actual vacation in almost 5 years. But, I wrote half of this answering a question on mailop, so I may as well polish and publish.

What is FCrDNS

FCrDNS stands for Full Circle reverse DNS or Forward-Confirmed reverse DNS. It means that if you do a DNS lookup on the domain in a reverse DNS lookup than that domain will point back to the original IP. The name actually comes from the fact that if you start with the IP address and go through the hostname, you get a full circle.

The reason FCrDNS is a thing is because any IP address owner can assign any domain to the rDNS of an IP address. They are in complete control and there are no technical checks that the hostname be a domain they own. Anyone could assign their IP a rDNS of angrygoose.google.com, or flowerchild.facebook.com or jupiter.spamhaus.com to their IPs. And, in fact, lots of spammers did just this, assigning domains to their IPs that they didn’t own.

Why do we care about FCrDNS?

Spammers lie, a lot. The did all sorts of things to avoid being blocked. Stealing legitimate domain names in their rDNS was one of those. They’d set up their IPs forging known domains as a way to try and get around some filters. Receiving systems figured this out pretty quickly. They started doing FCrDNS checks to verify that the person managing DNS for that IP space also manages DNS for the domain space. The underlying idea, is that if the IP points to a hostname and that hostname points back to the same IP, then everything is under control of the same entity.

FCrDNS is a method of deciding whether or not the IP address is legitimately being used by the domain in the rDNS entry. FCrDNS is a way to verify the identity of the connecting IP. If the rDNS doesn’t match, then it’s much more likely that the mail is coming from an illegitimate source. 

What should have a FCrDNS?

Basically, any time you set up rDNS on an IP address it’s good practice to give the corresponding hostname an A record. For IP sending outgoing mail, this is one of those expected best practices. There’s an IP address with a rDNS of a single hostname and the hostname points back to the IP address. That IP uses the same hostname to introduce itself during the SMTP transaction. Certainly when I’m looking at IP addresses and domains and EHLO values I do check to see if everything matches.

But. Not every hostname has to have a single A/AAAA record. A single hostname can point to multiple IPs:

A single IP can also point to many different hostnames or no hostnames at all. In fact spot checks show me that none of the IP addresses in the example above actually have a rDNS set up.

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;2.160.97.40.in-addr.arpa.    IN  PTR

The ability of an IP to point to many hostnames and a hostname to point to many IPs complicates completing the circle. Anyone verifying FCrDNS on an IP with multiple PTR records needs to do multiple DNS lookups for the verification step. Lookups can quickly get out of hand if each of the domains in the PTR has multiple IPs then there’s even more DNS work.

These technical and practical realities are why we can only recommend that an IP sending mail have FCrDNS, we can’t require it. And, in fact, not all outgoing mail servers do have it.

FCrDNS is a hack to link an IP address to a domain. That’s all it’s there for. You set it up if you can, and should probably expend some effort to do so for dedicated outbound servers, particularly those sending bulk mail. But, no, your 5321.from domain doesn’t need to point to an IP simply so you can check this box