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.

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.

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.

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 Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting.

https://econsultancy.com/the-best-digital-marketing-stats-weve-seen-this-week-70/

Today I’ll be covering mobile app downloads in China, email marketing, CX in the travel sector and much more.

Head on over to the Internet Statistics Database when you’re done for more in-depth data on your favourite digital marketing topics.

45% of over-65s prefer to delay making a purchase via email marketing until they are on a desktop computer

Insight from the DMA’s latest report, Consumer Email Tracker 2020, indicates that 45% of over-65s prefer to delay making a purchase via email marketing until they are on a desktop computer.

The majority of consumers aged 45 and over check their emails once daily or more and most often do so using their computer, rather than mobile devices, while the opposite can be said for their younger counterparts.

When it comes to taking action via email marketing, 45-54 year-olds are most comfortable clicking through straight to a brand’s website to make a purchase (36%) compared to switching to a desktop computer (18%) or a tablet (2%). In contrast, those who fall in the 65+ category would much rather wait until they have a desktop computer on hand (45%) than make a direct purchase through the brand’s website via a CTA (15%).

Clearly, GDPR hasn’t reassured consumers in this age range either. When surveyed, 48% of over-65s said that they were no more confident in the use of their personal information and 39% said they were ‘often’ left wondering how a brand obtained their email address. These figures decline with age, but 45-54 year-olds are noticeably more concerned about personal data than those in younger age categories, according to the report.

Eight effective examples of email sign up forms

App downloads jump 40% in China during the first two weeks of February

Chinese weekly app downloads saw a 40% jump during the first two weeks of February compared to average downloads for the entirety of 2019, according to the Financial Times. Over 220 million downloads were reported via Apple’s app store in China during the week commencing 2^nd February alone.

These record-breaking numbers are thought to be prompted by Chinese consumers staying at home in the worst affected regions of the country as the Coronavirus outbreak worsens.

Educational apps were particularly in demand, experiencing downloads of more than twice the average rate for 2019 as many schools in the area remain closed. Meanwhile, gaming apps ranked way out in front at nearly 70 million downloads per week as of 20^th February, causing an unexpected boost to the global gaming industry as a result. Under usual circumstances, app developers are used to seeing a drop in overall downloads after lunar new year celebrations as people return to work and have less time to spare.

Shares in Tencent, the Chinese mobile gaming giant, as well as New Oriental Education (an online education provider) have surged thanks to this behaviour. However, companies such as Nintendo, which are more hardware reliant, have experienced a fall in shares due to concerns over factory closures and supply chain issues brought about by the virus.

Novel coronavirus outbreak: how Clorox and Lysol are using rapid-response marketing

61% of travel orgs say their efforts to improve CX are sub-par

Nearly two-thirds of global travel organisations say that their efforts to improve CX are either ‘average’ or ‘terrible’, a report from Reuters Events has discovered. Just 6% said that their efforts in the area were ‘outstanding’.

Respondents cited ‘budget constraints’ as their biggest barrier to delivering effective CX, as only 49% stated that more budget was being allocated for this purpose, while 42% said that it was staying the same. Ultimately, the majority of organisations believe that the buck stops with C-Suite individuals when it comes to delivering a great customer experience.

So, despite 62% claiming that they take CX seriously, there appears to be some disconnect between attitudes and goals, mostly caused by the lack of resources, funding and outdated legacy systems, among other challenges.

However, travel organisations appear to have hope in the future. Forty-eight percent of respondents said that they expect AI to be the most impactful emerging technology for the improvement of overall customer experience, followed by virtual assistants (29%) and omnichannel engagement solutions (26%).

Six excellent hotel websites (and how they encourage direct booking)

Ecommerce sees highest sales on Thursdays

Online shoppers were more likely to make a purchase on Thursdays than on any other day of the week in 2019, according to Salecycle.

The report, 2020 Ecommerce Stats, collected global data from Salecycle clients to reveal insights about the ecommerce landscape throughout 2019, leading into 2020.

Average sales volume for Thursdays were measured at around 15%, with consumers purchasing over three million times more than on a Saturday, which ranked lowest at around 12.5%. Moreover, 9pm was the most popular time of day to shop, accounting for a little over 6% of total sales volume.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 29^th day of each month saw the highest purchase volume, while the 21^st saw the lowest, as most shoppers rein in their spending until payday.

Interestingly, APAC and South America saw the largest ecommerce sales growth during 2019 – 25% and 21.3% respectively, but more established markets like Europe and North America slowed somewhat. Mexico came out on top as the region with the highest ecommerce growth at 35%, with India (31.9%) and the Philippines (31%) following in second and third place, contributing significantly to the overall results within their respective continents.

Events such as Asia’s ‘Singles Day’ also played a part in these geographical figures. Purchases on 11^th November 2019 accounted for $38.4bn of ecommerce sales in the region, jumping from $30.8bn on the same date in 2018 (more than double the sales of Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined).

35% of SMBs do not boost their online videos

A global study of small business marketing trends from Promo claims that 35% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) do not boost their online videos, instead relying on organic reach. However, those that do are most likely to spend up to $500 per month (41% of respondents), and 12% spend between $500 and $2000.

Facebook ranks as the top-used channel, with 83% of SMBs stating that they use it to publish videos and 54% stating that it is the most high-performing channel for their content strategies. Instead, Instagram came in second place, despite its popularity and quantity of visual content, with 63%, followed by brand websites (55%) and YouTube (52%).

As for frequency, 30% percent of SMBs stated that they posted one piece of video content per week on their marketing channels and a further 26% post one on a monthly basis. Just 7% of those surveyed said that they posted daily videos.

Perhaps most surprisingly, only 2% of companies said that they used short-form video app TikTok, and even fewer used Snapchat (1%). Both are two of the most well-liked social platforms amongst the younger consumers of Generation Z, and this data raises concerns that SMBs may not be able to reach these audiences as effectively as they potentially could do by adding it to their marketing arsenal.

The best social media stories & campaigns from February 2020

70% of US and UK internet users think tech will help them manage their health and wellbeing in future

Data from GlobalWebIndex suggests that as many as 70% of internet users in the US and UK think that technology will help them to manage their health and wellbeing in the near future.

An average 36% of consumers across all age ranges stated that they currently use the internet to research health issues. Zeroing in, 55-64 year-olds have used the internet for this purpose the most (42%), while fewer individuals from younger age groups have done so (for example, 31% of 16-24 year-olds). The research also found that more mature respondents in the 55-64 year old category base their medication purchase decisions on online information and recommendations/ratings.

Among the findings, respondents said that they would find it helpful to book doctors appointments online (51%), access their past health information (50%), and be able to speak to a doctor using online phone or video call (50%), among others. A tiny 6% do not think any technologies would help them to manage their health and wellbeing more effectively.

While conducting video call appointments is now an option available to individuals in some regions, 55% of those surveyed stated that they had not yet tried it out, but were keen to do so in the future. One of the most appealing benefits of doing so was, unsurprisingly, that it was more convenient than an appointment as a physical location (63%), as well as that it ‘frees up their time’ (55%) and offers ‘better appointment flexibility’ (52%).

It appears that demand is high for better and more widespread online healthcare technologies, with consumers noting the many benefits they bring. Perhaps this will give healthcare companies the incentive to ensure their online services become just as commonplace as, for example, online grocery shopping.

The post The best digital marketing stats we’ve seen this week appeared first on Econsultancy.

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

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/markgrow/~3/tBBT_G7geq4/

In my new book, I propose a Marketing Rebellion — a movement toward human-centered marketing.

It is a vast book with lots of ideas. The idea of shifting your focus from technology to something more customer-centered and personal might seem overwhelming but taking that first step does not have to be difficult.

Customers have the accumulated knowledge of the human race in the palm of their hands. They can connect to vast tribes instantaneously and they are in control. They don’t want to be interrupted or intercepted. They’re skipping your ads, blocking your spam, discarding piles of unopened direct mail waste.

They demand marketing on their terms. Human terms.

There are a few simple things that almost anybody can do to begin …

1. Stop doing what people hate

As a consumer, you’re probably sick of marketing that annoys you and interrupts you. Look at your own company. Are you doing things that people hate?

Stop it. Right now.

Just stop annoying and interrupting people and you are taking a giant leap forward toward respecting them.

2. Get out of the office

My teacher and mentor Peter Drucker advised us that 75 percent of your meetings should be with your customers (either internal or external).

Especially as a marketer, your job is to be out among your customers understanding their needs and translating this into valuable new products and services.

A startling story from the book was a Martin Lindstrom account about asking 5,000 marketers if they had visited a customer in the last year and 19 raised a hand.

That is why our profession has become sick.

Get out of the office and meet with customers.

3. Be an observant consumer

The simplest exercise is to think about what you love about your favorite customers. How do they engage with you? What creates the emotional bond between you and the product?

To be a good marketer, be an observant consumer. When you see a company doing something great that you love, think about how you can translate that to your own business.

4. Show up

I speak, teach, and consult but I also do a lot of personal coaching for small businesses and entrepreneurs. As I review the sites of even one-person businesses, it’s amazing to me how difficult it is to find a photo of a real person, much less a video.

Everyone knows that business is built on relationships with people that we know to be warm and competent. Why don’t we extend that to our own web and social media presence? Look at your own web presence. Where are the faces, the smiles, the heart, the passion?

If you’re successful at business, it’s probably because people like and trust you. Is that how you’re showing up online or do you have stock photos of fake people?

It seems so simple — human-centered marketing means you show up.

Human-centered marketing — There’s no choice

Take one small step toward this human-centered marketing movement today. At one point or another, you’ll have to stop obsessing over technology and get back to the human roots of marketing.

Why? You have no choice. This is the way the world is moving, this is what customers demand … and the customers always win.

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 How to take your first step toward human-centered marketing appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.