Study Suggests Marketers Rely on Instinct Over ROI

Digital Marketing

Study Suggests Marketers Rely on Instinct Over ROI

I was surprised by an article on eMarketer recently titled “Do Marketers Rely on Instinct Over ROI?” According to a study by Webmarketing123, marketers are still struggling to measure return on investment (ROI).

The report found that 33% of US business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing professionals still don’t know which channels make the biggest impacts on revenues.

As the below graph illustrates, the percentages of B2B and B2C Marketers who can determine the ROI of the most popular marketing channels are relatively low.

Those who cannot determine the ROI of their marketing efforts are often left to rely on “gut instinct” to determine which channels are most remunerative. Although relying on gut may work for some, it does not provide clear insight as to which channels are most time-worthy and cost-effective.

Marketers, ROI, and Social Media:

One of the biggest areas where marketers are not tracking the results of their campaigns is social media. While 87% of B2B marketers use social media, just 17% were able to prove its ROI.

Similarly, 87% of B2Cs use social media, but only 27% are able to measure the financial effect of their social media marketing efforts.

Marketers, ROI, and Email:

Marketers are even struggling to track the ROI of email, which has been around for almost two decades now.

As the most-used channel among B2Bs, email is also the most-measured. However, with 93% of B2B markers using email, only 66% report being able to prove its ROI.

Email is the second most popular channel among B2Cs, as well as No. 2 in terms of its ability for its ROI to be proven. The percentage of B2C’s who can actually measure email efforts is just 44% vs. 80% who use the channel.

Are you measuring the ROI of your current marketing efforts?

To learn the true costs and benefits of your investments, contact us for a free consultation!

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CMO’s Unhappy With Content Marketing Efforts

Content Marketing Agency

CMO’s Unhappy With Content Marketing Efforts

With seventy percent of B2B marketers creating more content than they did last year, you would think that their bosses would be happy with their content marketing results.

But more is not always better and that appears to be the case according to a recent survey by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and NetLine Corporation. The survey found that 90 percent of CMOs said they have a content strategy, but only 2 percent consider their existing approach to demand generation highly effective

The challenge for many CMOs, and marketers in general, is producing content that translates into business results. How can they do that? By following these three strategies.

Content Amplification

Only 12 percent of marketers believe they have a content marketing strategy and amplification to target the right audiences with relevant and persuasive content. They are also not using multiple distribution and syndication channels for maximum reach, impact and return.

“Generating demand and ensuring the consistent flow of high-quality, actionable leads is paramount to the success of today’s business-to-business marketer." “Sales enablement and pipeline performance remain key mandates as organizations look to fine-tune their content marketing practices to be high-performance growth engines.”
Donovan Neale-May
Executive Director of the CMO Council.

Customized Content

Seventy five percent of marketers measure the success of their content marketing efforts by the number of downloads or registrations they get.

But often those goals are not met due to:

  • Not developing customized content for target audiences (48 percent of respondents)
  • Not allocating sufficient budget to create engaging and authoritative content (48 percent)
  • Not producing content that is relevant or meaningful to different audiences (44 percent)
  • Not reaching the right decision makers across the organization (43 percent)
  • List ItemNot leveraging the right distribution channels and syndication opportunities to maximize reach (39 percent)

As Robert Alvin, CEO and Founder of NetLine Corporation put it:

“The quantity and quality of audience-appropriate content directly correlates to the number of leads that will end up in the sales pipeline. “Content demand generation programs start with the asset but must ensure proper consumption. Syndication and distribution to target audience groups with measurable results is indispensable for a successful content strategy.”
Robert Alvin
CEO and Founder of NetLine Corporation

If you’re looking for a content marketing agency that can help you achieve your business goals, contact Braveheart Digital Marketing today. We’ll be happy to discuss your content needs and provide a content strategy that aligns with your overall business goals.

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Three Reasons Why SEO is a Long-term Tactic

SEO Agency

Three Reasons Why SEO is a Long-term Tactic

An interesting topic came up in the office last week based on a conversation we recently had with a business owner. The business owner remarked that he did not need help with SEO as he “did that” a couple of years ago.

This is a common response that we run into far too often. SEO, like any inbound marketing tactic, is not something that you do for a period of time and then turn off. SEO tactics are ones that you continuously do, monitor, and improve over time.

SEO Agency

1. Google Changes

Google makes an estimated 500-600 changes to its algorithm each year. That is almost two per day!

Many of these changes go unnoticed by users and business owners, but some like Florida, Places, Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird fundamentally changed how Google ranks websites and displays those listings.

A good SEO program navigates a client through the changing environment, insuring that the client is positioned to take advantage of changes in search engine algorithms so the client can grab more traffic, leads, and sales.

2. Content Marketing

One of the biggest growth areas in online marketing over the last 24 months has been in content marketing.

Consumers are faced with so much noise and information that companies have realized they can no longer rely on a single message. Now they need to create original content and distribute it across the various platforms that their existing customers and targeted prospects are using.

In order to successfully do that, companies need a content marketing strategy that evolves and responds to audience behavior that will keep them in front of their target audience regardless of what their audience is searching for.

3. Changing Environments

Like Google, consumer behavior and competitors are constantly changing. A good SEO program keeps a business on top of any changes in search behavior and tracks the arrival of any new online competitors.

Where does your company stand? Has your industry became more green over the last two or three years? Has the content on your website been updated to reflect this? Or, is there a new online competitor vying against you for your key terms? We find that business owners are very aware of their offline competitors, but new online competitors often catch them off-guard.

That is why a competitor analysis should be part of every SEO package to monitor any changes in how your target audience is searching.

SEO, like any marketing effort, provides the best results when it is ongoing. It is a strategy that changes and evolves as the company, audience, market, and search engines change.

If you’re looking for help with SEO, contact Braveheart Digital Marketing today. We are a leading SEO Agency in Manchester NH that can help you to improve your website and reach new customers. Contact us today

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How We Generated 2,680,000 Qualified Visits to Our Sports Websites

How We Generated 2,680,000 Qualified Visits to Our Sports Websites

When we launched our sports network, we faced the same question you face everyday: “How can I drive more traffic to my web site?”

Sports is as competitive online as it is offline. The online world of sports encompasses teams, leagues, major publications, TV networks, and tens of millions of fans worldwide writing about their team and sport. How could we attract more web site traffic to our sports sites when the competition for their attention was so fierce?

We produced a web site traffic generation plan that focused on three channels:

  • Organic Search
  • Social Media
  • Email Marketing

We knew that by consistently and methodically executing our three-channel plan we would see results, and we did; web site traffic increased from 652,000 visits to 2,680,000 within two years!

Our Twitter accounts also grew from 111,000 followers to more than 350,000 followers. Our email list started at zero and boomed to over 25,000 subscribers.

Most importantly – our revenue reflected our success;

Sales Increased From $731,000 To $2,460,000.

Driving web site traffic is relatively easy for us with our combined 20+ years of SEO and marketing experience. The hard part was driving qualified, engaged traffic full of fans likely to buy something. Here’s how we did it:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO was one of our main sources of web site traffic, driving 40% or over 1,000,000 visitors in our site’s second year.

We faced three major challenges:

  • The league, team, and major media outlets were all viewed as authority sites by the search engine, making it nearly impossible to rank for one or two word terms. We had to find a better alternative.
  • We wanted to build relationships with fans in the US and across Europe, so we needed a customized tactical approach for each site.
  • We had to remember our goal to produce 8,000 pieces of content per year while considering SEO best practices.

How did we achieve success?

By implementing the SEO best practices we made sure that the important search engines could find all the content that we were publishing on a daily basis.

We used a combination of tools and widgets to make sure that the ongoing content had optimized title tags, had all the appropriate internal links, and automatically shared via the appropriate social networks.

We took the time to research and understand our audience. What topics were fans interested in? We found out and developed content for each topic that sparked major interest. We didn’t waste time and money producing content that fans weren’t interested in.

To make sure that we were focused on the best performing topics and keywords, we used a simple metric—revenue per search engine visitor.

Cultivating Referral Sites

Organic search was only one source of traffic. Another potential source of quality traffic was referral sites. On referral sites, sports fans looked for ways to interject themselves into conversations and share our content. The process of identifying and researching quality referral sites is worth the time and effort.

Traffic from Referral sites has a different “feel” than organic search traffic. The ability to “feel” traffic is a benefit of years of experience generating qualified traffic. It’s a sense one develops over time and exposure to many different scenarios where audience building is critical. People from fan sites were at a different phase in the buying cycle, so we offered them chances to subscribe to newsletters or follow us on Twitter. This allowed us the opportunity to build a strong relationship with them. Relationships built over time and within the context of a common interest can lead to sales down the road.

Content as a Strategy

The best way to bring fans back to our sites was to produce interesting and engaging content.

Our content was written for fans by fans. Instead of just regurgitating the news, we gave our opinion on it. That drew fans and debate to the sites and kept users coming back for more.

The network of sports websites that we started with broad content became more niched and focused as it grew. This allowed us to reach the most passionate fans, the fans with burning interests in their teams, the fans who wanted to engage and interact with other fans.

We published great content several times a day, bringing those fans back to the sites on a daily basis.

We also used the scheduled post feature to ensure that we were publishing at the most optimal time to reach our target audience. For example, with London five hours ahead of New York City, it wouldn’t make sense to email Londoners and New Yorkers at the same time. The scheduled post feature allowed us to publish at local times and ensure we reached the most fans at optimal times.

Social Media

We used social media to promote content and engage with followers and fans.

Social media was a great source of traffic. We focused on accruing followers for our social media accounts by creating a voice and tone that resonated with fans. Our Twitter followers grew from 111,000 to over 350,000. That meant more fans were exposed to our content, which drove even more visitors to our sites.

We also used a website called Tweetreach.com to measure the effectiveness of the tweets we sent out. I am a big fan of A/B testing and we found that we could triple the number of impressions and CTR on our tweets just by testing different tweet formats.

Conclusion

Increasing qualified web site traffic from 652,000 visitors to over 2.68 million visitors in only 24 months was the result of a traffic generation plan that included performance-based organic search by a trusted, qualified SEO professional, select fan sites, well-written, on-topic content, and the strategic use of social media.

Have a question on how to generate more qualified web site traffic to your site? Contact us today.

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What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

This month has been the month of audits as almost every project I have worked on this month seems to involve some sort of audit (content audits, page audits, landing page audits, etc.).

My auditing procedure begins with gathering the data I need—analytics, keywords, conversion rates, etc. Additionally, I ask clients for four pieces of information on their target audience:

  • Who is the target audience?
  • What is the challenge they are trying to solve?
  • What are their pain points concerning their goal?
  • How do we help target users achieve their goal and overcome these challenges?List Item

I am amazed at the number of times I hear that this information is not available. Without these four pieces of information, the content recommendations switch from being highly customized to more general in nature.

Instead of highly targeted content that speaks directly to the user and explains why product X meets their needs, the content focuses more on features and benefits. Although that kind of content offers useful information, it lacks the hook—the story that draws users in and makes them take the next step.

The most common reason I hear why companies have not developed buyer personas is because developing them is time-consuming. While it is true that generating really good buyer personas does take time and effort, the benefit is that content that is developed with specific users in mind will result in higher engagement and conversions than content that is not. Without buyer personas, companies are losing the opportunity for more business.

Do you have your buyer personas? Contact us today, so we can help you discover your audience and pitch to them directly!

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Braveheart Digital Moves To Manchester NH

Manchester NH

Braveheart Digital Moves To Manchester NH

We are happy to announce that Braveheart Digital has a new home. We have moved our offices from the Alpha Loft incubation and acceleration space in Downtown Manchester NH to the Red Oaks Offices on 66 Hanover Street, still in downtown Manchester.

Our NEW address is
Red Oaks Offices
66 Hanover St
Suite 200
Manchester · NH · 03101

Being located in the heart of downtown Manchester will allow us to attract the SEO content writers and email marketers we need to help our clients grow their traffic, increase leads and drive new revenue.

Braveheart Digital is an SEO Company bringing together cutting edge, organic search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, marketing savvy and a solid methodology to help businesses achieve their growth objectives.

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What is geofencing?

What Is Geofencing?

What is Geofencing? Geofencing marketing is location-based ads where a user’s location is recorded via the internet, and advertisements are only shown to people in

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Three Lessons from 2015’s Social Media Benchmarks Report

Social Media Logos

When it comes to social media and business, 2015 Social Media Benchmarks Report is an incredible source of information. Showing social data from over 7,000 businesses across 9 industries, the report grants insight into how other similarly sized companies, within your market, are succeeding with social media.

While there is much to learn from the vast amount of data within the report, these three lessons are the ones you’ll really want to hang onto: .

Quality Tops Quantity

The common belief is that by increasing the number of social media posts you publish per week, you have a greater positive effect on overall engagement levels. The HubSpot report shows that that is not true.

According to the report, there is no discernible correlation between the average number of posts companies publish per week and the average number of interactions (e.g., likes, retweets, etc.) each of those posts receives.

Demonstrated in the graph below, there is no clear correlation between posts published per week (blue) and interactions per post (orange). If there were a correlation, the dotted blue and orange lines would follow a similar pattern.

By the data shown in this graph, it seems more reasonable that the quality of each post is a greater determinant of positive engagement than the number of posts shared.

Size Matters

Quantity is important (with quality in tow) when it comes to social media followings. The below data demonstrates that the larger the following of a person, company, or brand, the more engagement they will have with their consumers.

Mathematically—and logically, this data makes sense. If a business has a huge social following, they’ll naturally receive more likes, retweets, shares, etc. per post than a business with a tiny following. It’s a matter of probability: a business with a huge following has more people it can potentially engage, so the odds of getting someone to engage are better.

The Number of Posts Vary According to Industry and Company Size

The final takeaway from the HubSpot Social Media Benchmark Report reveals that the frequency of social media postings varies by industry and company size.

The average number of social media posts that companies publish per week across all of their social networks is shown in the two graphs below.

The first graph illustrates the average number of posts published per week by industry.

The second graph shows the average number of posts published per week by company size. HubSpot divided companies by size into the following buckets: 1-10, 11-50, 51-200 and 201+.

Because there is no one size fits all when it comes to social media marketing, it’s important to understand your market and develop a social media marketing strategy before you begin actively posting.

To discover how to optimize your social media posts with a strategy customized for your company, please fill out the form below:

If you need help amplifying your website content via social media, contact Braveheart Digital Marketing. We’re a social media agency in Manchester NHthat can help you reach your target audience and achieve your marketing goals. Contact us today to learn more!>
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Only Twenty-Three Percent of B2C Marketers Are Successful at Tracking Content Marketing ROI

Content Marketing Agency

Only Twenty-Three Percent of B2C Marketers Are Successful at Tracking Content Marketing ROI

A new study from the Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProf called B2C Content Marketing 2015: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America, sponsored by EnVeritas Group, shows that only 23% of B2C marketers are successful at tracking the ROI of their content marketing efforts.

Percentage of B2C Marketers Who Have a Content Marketing Strategy

What Are Successful Marketers Tracking?

The survey showed that the top metric that B2C marketers use to measure the ROI of their content marketing efforts is website traffic. Regardless of company size or effectiveness and whether or not the company has a documented strategy or not, measuring content’s ROI by tracking traffic proves most successful.

Metrics for B2C Content Marketing Success

Fewer than 30% of B2C marketers said that they use the following metrics to measure ROI: Customer Renewal Rates (26%), Inbound Links (23%), Benchmark Lift of Company Awareness (23%), Benchmark Lift of Product/Service Awareness (21%), Sales Lead Quality (16%), Cost Savings(15%), and Sales Lead Quantity (15%).

What Percentage of Marketers Have a Content Marketing Strategy?

While study after study shows that marketers will invest more money in content marketing in 2015, only 27% of B2C marketers have written their strategy down, meaning that the majority of marketers do not document their strategies (as illustrated in the bar graph below).

The 50% of B2C marketers who say that their agreement regarding their content marketing strategy is expressed verbally are less likely to track ROI successfully than those B2C marketers who process and document their strategies. Of the B2C marketers with a documented content marketing strategy, 43% say they are successful at tracking ROI (compared with the 23% cited for the total sample).

How Is Content Distributed?

Despite all the negative press in 2014 about the decrease in organic reach on Facebook, Facebook remains the primary channel for content distribution by B2C marketers.

B2C Content Marketing Social Media Platform Usage
B2C marketers are now using an average of seven social media platforms to distribute content as opposed to last year when the average was six. All social media platforms have experienced some level of increase this year (except for LinkedIn, which has stayed the same). The biggest increase this year has been with Instagram (up 17 points) followed by Google+ (up 13 percentage points).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the data regarding B2C Marketers and their content marketing strategies demonstrate that successful B2C Marketers:
  • Measure the ROI of their content marketing efforts by tracking website traffic.
  • Iterate their content marketing strategy in writing.
  • Use social media platforms to the advantage of their strategy.

If you’re looking for a content marketing agency that can help you achieve your business goals, contact Braveheart Digital Marketing today. We’ll be happy to discuss your content needs and provide a content strategy that aligns with your overall business goals.

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