Is Your Marketing Zigging Or Zagging?

Marketing Lesson of The Week

► How to Zig When Everyone Zags

As Cumulative Advantage author Mark Schaefer points out:

“[I]t takes more time and effort to cut through the noise and find results.

But isn’t that true of ALL marketing? I’ve argued that this is the most difficult time to be in marketing, period. …” (Source)

So what can you do to succeed?
Carefully assess your marketing to determine which elements yield quality results and which don’t.

When you do this analysis, use a variety of metrics to ensure you’re getting the true value that each element of your marketing is adding to your profitable revenues and to your housefile of quality customers.

Then examine the landscape broadly to find places where your marketing can stand out from your competitors and others.

Your marketing goal:
To zig when others are zagging.

To help, here are 2 marketing examples.

► Taking Advantage of LinkedIn Newsletters

As Joe Pulizzi of The Tilt has preached for years, “don’t build on rented land.” Since you don’t have access to your followers independent of the platform, your work can disappear overnight if the platform changes its rules or closes down.

Even if you understand this logic, LinkedIn Newsletters still can look appealing. It offers you the ability to seamlessly create a regular newsletter by sending followers information on a regular basis. If you’re like me, you probably receive a number of these emailings.

Andy Crestodina’s Marketing Zig: Repurpose Content Via LinkedIn Newsletters
Content Chemistry author, Andy Crestodina believes the best use of social media is to build your tribe by developing human-to-human relationships.

So Crestodina examined the LinkedIn Newsletter platform and considered how it would best help achieve his marketing objectives. From his perspective, republishing content from the Orbit Media blog as it currently existed might attract new readers but it wouldn’t drive new readers to his website.

Instead, Crestodina decided to re-envision his evergreen content to work within LinkedIn’s framework while driving visitors to the Orbit Media website. Each newsletter spotlights one article by culling a few major points and visuals in easy-to-digest sections. To read the full article, readers get directed to the Orbit Media website.

Crestodina recommends choosing a clear, easy-to-understand name for your LinkedIn Newsletter. This way people know what they’re signing up for. His LinkedIn Newsletter is called “Digital Marketing Tips” .

Crestodina’s Marketing Results:

• Crestodina has 150k+ LinkedIn Newsletter subscribers and receives an additional 40K views on his site from the articles featured. Please realize that part of Crestodina’s success is attributable to being an early user of LinkedIn’s Newsletter program combined with his other work and speaking. (Hat tip: Ann Handley via her great newsletter, Total Annarchy Newsletter! )

► Using Social Media To Understand and Engage

Social media is a core element of many marketers’ strategy. Each uses a set of platforms to fulfill different objectives. Most often, they distribute content and react to customer service inquiries. 

Brooke B. Sellas’s Marketing Zig: Social Customer Care 
Brooke Sellas uses social media listening to find the conversations prospects and customers are having about her brand keywords, industry keywords and competitors’ keywords. As a result, she understands what her brand’s broader audience actually is talking about.

In her Digital Customer Journey Flywheel, Sellas proactively puts customer care at the center of community, connections, conversations and conversions. She focuses on providing social-led customer care to meet prospects and customers where and when they need help along the entire digital customer journey.

Image source: Conversations That Connect

Sellas’s definition of social-led customer care is:

“Learning what your customers value through social media intelligence and then arming yourself with that data to win the war of attention, trust, and loyalty. Social-led customer care is the service of responding to the specific demands, questions, and pain points of your current and would-be customers via social media.” (Conversations That Connect, p. 130)

Actionable Marketing Results:

• Transform your social media conversations into brand connections based on trust. In turn, these connections build sales and community.  ( BTW, “Brands with superior customer experience bring in 5.7 times more revenue than competitors that lag in customer experience.” (Conversations That Connect, p. 129))

Voice Notes

► Do You Promote Your Voice Content Widely?

Since the pandemic, most of the population across age groups is digitally savvy and has access to one or more voice-enabled devices, most notably a smartphone.

As a result, it’s increasingly important to use voice marketing strategies and tactics to reach your target audience where and when they choose to use voice-enabled devices. Also, this helps make your organization more inclusive and provides easier-to-consume content.

Unlike other types of content marketing, distribute your voice content across a variety of formats, platforms and devices at the same time to reach your maximum potential audience. Since many voice-enabled devices only support their proprietary voice format, transform your content to be available to their users.

Once you’ve done all of this work, make sure that your audience knows that you provide voice content in a format they can listen to. More importantly, make sure your audience understands your message regarding audio. Here’s an example from MarketingProfs.

Some marketers, create special marketing campaigns to promote their voice content via a variety of formats and platforms. Instead, I recommend leveraging your existing content, promotions and owned media to promote your audio formats.

Why?
Since you already have existing of marketing, it’s easier to add a QR code or other symbol for audio content such as a set of headphones. Further, doing this doesn’t add any cost to your existing marketing.

Actionable Voice Marketing Tips

• Add a section of your website to spotlight your voice content. This allows your visitors to easily find and link to it.
• Create and distribute your voice content across all voice and audio options at the same time. This enables you to reach your audience regardless of their voice-enabled device.

Note: I will be speaking about Voice Marketing at the Voice 22 Conference in Arlington,VA (October 10th to 12th) You can get an additional 20% off any pass by using the code: Cohen20 when you register. Note: prices go up after September 30th, so register today.

Content Communicates

► Yes, Blogging Is Still Alive

Are you considering whether to keep your blog going?

To tell the truth, at times I seriously considered this question. But I chose to keep going because that is how you succeed over time.

Thanks to my friend and colleague Andy Crestodina, Orbit Media published its 9th Annual Blogging Survey to help you become a better blogger and content creator.

The Orbit Media team has run this survey since 2014. Each time 1,000+ bloggers answer 20 questions. So its results are statistically valid. Since most of the questions  remain the same, results can be compared over time.

The major 2 blog findings are:

• To write a blog post in 2022, bloggers spend an average of 4 hours 10 minutes, a 74% increase in time over 2014.”

• In 2022, the average blog post length consisted of 1376 words, a 70% increase over 2014. As a point of contrast, a small minority (4%) write 3000+ word posts.

Due to the investment of time to create each article, most bloggers post weekly or several times per month.

Want your blog to succeed? Keep showing up on a regular basis.

Actionable Content Marketing Tip

• Examine the results of Orbit Media’s Blogging Research. Even if you don’t have a blog, these results show what other content marketers are doing to succeed.

New York Marketing Minute

► A Vist to Porto Rico

This weekend, my husband and I walked down to the West Village to stock up on coffee at Porto Rico Importing Co. on Bleecker Street.

It’s one of the few surviving businesses from that time this area of the city was Italian. Part of why we return to Porto Rico is its history.

The smell of coffee wafts through the air of the tiny shop. It hasn’t really changed much since I went to business school at NYU. They’ve added a coffee bar at the back where customers can get coffee to go.

As a small local business, Puerto Rico Coffee’s history supports its brand. Many of its customers are regulars who come for their favorite type of coffee. The coffee is in burlap bags by type.

We love Porto Rico’s wide array of different types of coffees and teas. Their employees understand the different variations like a good sommelier at a fine restaurant. For example, my husband loves a special oolong tea which, unfortunately, has been out of stock due to supply disruptions.

In front of us in line, a man was in the neighborhood visiting his mother-in-law. So he used the opportunity to load up on his family’s favorite treats. Even better, he realized that two of his employees were right behind him. They were shopping there based on his recommendation.

Actionable Small Business Tips:

• Figure out what makes your business special to your best customers. Why are they willing to go out of their way to shop from you versus other options.
• Document your business’s history. Do you have a story to tell your audience and your employees?

Marketing Reads

As October approaches, make sure your content marketing, social media and blogging have seasonally appropriate content even if your readers can’t taste the digital hint of pumpkin spice!

Since we’re entering the 4Q22, it’s a good time to do a content audit. It will help you find your best articles to update and republish while you’re busy with your holiday-related marketing.

• Content Audit: The Ultimate Guide To Improve Your Content Marketing Results

As a shortcut, revisit the content you published last October to see if you can bring it up-to-date.

• Monthly Content Themes: How To Get Your Content On Track

► 35 Examples of Brands
That Are Winning With Content

See how brands big and small can stand apart from their competitors, stand up for their values, and step outside their comfort zones to deliver stellar content experiences. Free from Content Marketing Institute.

Plan Ahead: Mark Your Calendar

► VOICE22
October 10-12th, 2022 in Arlington, VA.

The market for Voice/AI solutions is growing exponentially.
Join me and the top people working to transform the user experience. Use code: Cohen20 for 20% off of any ticket.

► StartUpCincy
October 10 -15, 2022 Cincinnati, Ohio

This entrepreneurial-oriented event subtitled Spark The Future, is run by Pete Blackshaw and Cintrifuse.

► MarketingProfs B2B Forum
October 12-14th, 2022 in Boston.

Ann Handley brings B2B back to Boston with 49 Sessions. 4 Keynotes and shenanigans!

► SparkTogether 2022
November 10, 2022 – Paid tickets for virtual event.

Organized by Rand Fishkin and his team, this event won’t be recorded.