5 Ways to Make Your Blog Post Interactive

Static marketing content is as outdated as print-only newspapers. Just as day-old newspapers become litter in the streets, static digital content is useless to the average reader. With such an inundation of static marketing content, one piece hardly stands out from others, meaning brands blend and ideas fade.

Readers crave the dynamic nature of interactive digital content. An ion Interactive study measured the success and general feeling from marketers regarding interactive content. In terms of effectiveness, 93% of marketers say interactive media is great at educating buyers; 88% say it’s effective at differentiating brands, whereas static was found to be only 55% effective. Not convinced yet? Did you know that interactive content also drives 2X more conversions than static content?

Despite these numbers, many marketers shy away from interactive content. It might be because it has a reputation for being expensive and labor-intensive. But that is an unfair reputation. Creating interactive elements is, in fact, easy, fast and even free.

These five tools allow you to start immediately interacting with customers, which draws them in, converts at higher rates and gives feedback to improve your business.

1) PlayBuzz

The original PlayBuzz site is for the average Internet user interested in which Hogwarts house she belongs to or wants to test her knowledge about 1990s TV shows, but PlayBuzz’s business site is tailored to empowering companies to generate an interactive feature, embed it in their marketing content and watch user engagement rise and their network grow.

With PlayBuzz you can create free countdowns, polls, personality quizzes, flip cards, trivia, rankable lists, general lists, gallery quizzes and a swipe voting feature made popular by dating apps. Each element has an appealing quality that catches readers’ attention and can communicate information quickly in a visual manner. It also keeps visitors on your page longer and is designed for social sharing.

When choosing from so many options, remember highly interactive features like quizzes and swiping are good for social platforms and visually driven posts, while flip cards and polls are good for text-heavy content.

When you are designing these embeddable features, keep in mind your company’s brand and voice, this will ensure consistency while adding that added bonus customers appreciate. The best way to track the success of PlayBuzz content is to monitor its social performance in shares, engagement and views.

PlayBuzz is so user-friendly, you will forget you are marketing while playing with the design tools and fun features. Check out these flip cards we made with it.

2) SlideShare

Slide presentations are something nearly every professional has seen or used, whether it’s from business trainings, college lectures or group projects. Putting information in a condensed, easily-digestible format is one of the most popular marketing, sales and proposal tactics because of its familiarity and logic.

SlideShare can be embedded into any blog post and breaks down a topic for readers in a much more visual and attractive manner than static paragraphs of text. Try it with an existing post that needs more visits but provides valuable content.

Take text from the blog, simplify it for each slide, keeping word count at a minimum, include a CTA on the last slide, and embed the feature somewhere in the post. If you put the slides near the top, you can include a friendly disclaimer such as, “Don’t have time to read the rest? We summed it up for you here.”

Readers appreciate options for taking in information and really appreciate when you understand their limits. SlideShare transforms already written content into powerful snippets of data.

Don’t think of SlideShare as a place to put all the information in bullet points; think of it as a place to present an idea in a visual and condensed manner. It might be a good challenge to fit a hefty amount of information into a slide show. This exercise will help you write succinctly and think about content in an out-of-the-box way.

Give the most important points priority instead of cramming an entire blog post into a slide show. Graphs, statistics and quick thoughts are especially effective on SlideShare.

3) Make a GIF

Regardless of how you pronounce it (“JIF” or “GIF”), these little graphics excel at entertaining and inserting some fun into your digital content. It shows you have a sense of humor and don’t take yourself too seriously. That said, make sure to use GIFs sparingly and only for appropriate topics.

Many websites have tools for creating your own animated GIF or have a domain of popular ones for every emotion and situation. This imagery also warrants the use of BuzzFeed-worthy titles and descriptions to accompany your chosen GIFs.

This type of interactive content performs excellently on social platforms because of the flashy element and viral qualities. These qualities lend themselves well to tracking social success easily by monitoring shares, likes and engagement.

When choosing or creating a GIF, make sure it is a reference your audience will understand. You wouldn’t want to use a GIF from a popular TV show if it’s not likely your customers are familiar with it. However, if pop culture references are common in your content, feel free to use GIFs as freely as you'd like.

Websites such as GIPHY make the art of finding the right GIF quick and entertaining, while at the same time providing you with everythin you need to share with your audience. Take the GIF below - I typed "content marketing' into the search box, found this gem from Mad Men, and simply copied the embed code into the blog. Easy!

4) Qzzr

If the products or services you are marketing lend well to quizzing your prospects, Qzzr is the right tool for engaging them further. This free quiz-making platform allows you to create a quiz in minutes, embed it into any post and track the results. It also comes with a WordPress plugin for easy integration.

Customers love to test their knowledge, if only to prove how much they know. They also love to reveal pieces of their personality and discover new sides of themselves. Giving your customers these opportunities through quizzes is the perfect gateway for interaction and connection.

Keep quizzes as short as possible so as not to fatigue your readers. Make sure the answers are pointed and don’t allow quiz takers to avoid questions. There is nothing worse than a vague answer and worthless results. And there is nothing better than seeing interactions with customers and the fruitful rewards of getting specific.

You might use a quiz if you are trying to target specific products or services to your customers as they begin their buying journey. The fashion-delivery company Stitch Fix requires all first-time users to take a fashion quiz to determine which products will please them most.

You can emulate this model or use a quiz for testing your customer’s knowledge about your industry, current events or other relevant topics. Readers especially love quizzes that tell them which [car, building, time period, scientist, politician, 1980s pop star, etc. they are most like.

The great thing about Qzzr is the ability to integrate with CRM systems. This feature allows you to track the success of each quiz, pull data from the results and target customers more accurately and personally.

5) Podcasts

Podcasts aren’t just for Serial fans or listeners of public radio. The audio format is a gold mine for the busy professional. It gives multi-taskers a chance to consume your content on their terms. There might not be enough time in the day to read all the content circulating within certain industries or interact with specific companies.

But if marketers give professionals a way to gain all the benefits of static content during their daily commute without burying their faces in a screen, they might see a rise in interest and customer conversation. It’s also great for audio learners and is a much more casual and open environment for bringing guests and commentators to foster a fruitful discussion.

Before creating a podcast, study up. Listen to all different kinds of podcasts to figure out what works. It’s also good to pay attention to which length is appropriate. If you are getting more downloads and listens for shorter episodes, your customers might want quick conversation. But if you see a demand for longer form podcasts, your customers probably appreciate deep dives into certain topics.

Bring in guests for fresh perspective. Try implementing different segments to break up the monotony of a single episode. But make sure to get into the groove of podcasting before you give up or count your early success.

As you develop your podcast and find what works, you will find you can adjust and evolve episode to episode based on listener feedback or performance statistics. The key is keeping your eyes and ears open. Podcasting is just as much about listening as it is about talking.

How to Optimize Your Website for International Search

Most websites are only optimized for the country that the business lives in, but for companies to expand, they should also optimize for international search. Search engine optimization continues to be the most effective way to drive traffic to a website. Focusing on one market may limit traffic and revenue if you aren’t thinking about international customers.
To expand to an international focus, keep these guidelines in mind:

Consider keywords in other languages

Make sure that you have considered keywords in other languages. Even if your site is English only, people will often search in their native language. If your site is optimized for keywords in other languages, you will show up in search. From there, chances are that the person looking will still be able to use your site. If the person does not speak English, he or she will be able to use tools like Google to translate the page and get an understanding of the products and services you sell.

Provide domains that are country-specific

Most countries have their own domain extension. German websites, for example, most commonly end in “.de” rather than “.com”. In order to make your website friendly for international search, it is beneficial to create landing pages with different domains for different countries. Search engines in-country will pick up the site that is most relevant for their market. For example, www.website.de would rank higher in Germany than www.website.com.

Translate content when possible

It is not essential to translate entire websites for international search since English is so commonly read and spoken. However, it is important to have at least some content translated and localized for international markets so that the site is relevant for search engines. Some websites have sections of the website that are translated with a disclaimer that only some of the content could be translated for local languages.

Focus on on-page SEO

Make sure to consider the following on-page SEO guidelines for international search engines:

• Alt Attributes and Imagery – Alt attributes and images need to have keywords and those keywords should be in all relevant languages.
• Consistent Mapping – If you do use the local domain, e.g. “.de”, make sure that that all navigation links on that domain also lead to a “.de” page. This tells Google that this page is in German and that the site is relevant for the German market. Also, make it easy for the user to be able to switch languages if you are not able to translate the entire website. Then he or she can get full content on the main site.
• Keywords – It is important to do keyword research for each region that you are selling to. Doing translation of your English keywords alone is not the most effective way to find the appropriate keywords for your target country. Think of how many ways we say different words in English. If there was just one translation, you might miss the most commonly searched terms.

International Social Media

Social media sites are not the same for all countries. For example, while professionals in the US use LinkedIn as their professional networking site, people in Germany use Xing. To further optimize for international search, set up social media pages for each market and populate them with rich content that contains keywords.
By considering the above, your international SEO strategy can be as smooth and effective as your domestic one.

How to Boost Your YouTube Ranking (Infographic)

Of all the pieces of content you create to promote your brand, none are more labor-intensive, perhaps, than videos.

With all that work, you want to make sure your video is seen. But that depends on how YouTube indexes it. So, how do you make sure you’re correctly boosting your YouTube rankings?
It's simple...sort of.

Take a look at this infographic below from TollFreeForwarding.com and Gryffin Media about boosting your YouTube ranking.

11 Steps For Your Startup Online Marketing Plan Is Bound To Make An Impact In Your Business

Startup Online Marketing

For any business, marketing is an integral part. Without it, all the efforts related to the business are sure to fall flat. More so if you are a startup. It’s a difficult situation, as your target audience does not know you at all. And you need to reach out to them to spread the word about your business. The best way to do it is to use the marketing campaigns for that. If you have a website, using the online marketing procedure can come in handy.

But it’s not an easy task. The online world is evolving at the speed of light. Every other day, new trends are emerging that can help businesses stay afloat. You need to measure every step prudently to carve out a niche for your business in this highly competitive world.

So, how do you do that?

You need to follow a few steps to ensure that the marketing campaigns fetch the desired results.

1. Focus primarily on marketing
2. Be creative as well as consistent
3. Bear the right attitude towards business
4. Be focused while serving the customers
5. Have margin of error in business
6. Be technology-wise
7. Create unique and high-quality content
8. Make use of short videos
9. Be your own advertising platform
10. Integrate a blog
11. Be aware of the Latest Startup Marketing Trends

1. Let the Primary Focus be on Marketing

“Marketing first; product second”, says Rand Fishkin on Moz. And that’s just as correct an advice as it can be. You might have a great product. But until and unless you find the right market for it, the product means nothing. Same holds true for a startup. This is where the marketing becomes relevant.

Even before you debut as a startup, you need to engage in the marketing activities. It will generate interest among the people about the startup and will prepare the audience for its introduction. And once you have built a loyal customer base, you can introduce your startup. It will ensure immediate success for your business.

2. Be Creative and Consistent

No matter what you try as a marketing endeavor for your business, until and unless you do it on a regular basis, you can’t expect it to fetch any result. If you post a great update on social media for marketing your business, it can attract the attention of people. But the memory span of any person is not long enough to remember it for days together. So, you need to be post such high-quality updates on a regular basis.

Creativity is also the key to a good marketing effort. So, be that in every step you undertake. And remain assured that unique and creative efforts will never go unnoticed and unrewarded.

3. Show the Right Attitude

For establishing a startup and setting it in the right path, talent is necessary. It’s true. But that’s of course not everything. In many instances it has been noticed that companies with the most talented teams have also failed. The reason: lack of the right attitude. More than personal talent, it’s the teamwork that pays in any business.

It’s important for every person associated with the business to have a single dream – the success of the startup. Choose the right people. And for that, meet and interview them. Even a person with a not-so-impressive resume, but with the correct attitude, might turn out to be the one whom you badly needed.

4. Serve the Customers in a Focused Manner

Customers lie at the center of the business universe for any company. And when, as a startup, you have only a few who actually know what you are doing, you need to focus on them even more. Use social media platforms to connect with them directly. Serve them at real time. Answer their queries. Try to figure out the requirements of the customers.

Knowing what the customer wants will help you plan your offerings in a perfect way. And being a startup, when you do that from the very beginning, you are sure to get amazing results. Thank your current customers whenever possible and try to build an amazing relationship with them.

5. Make Mistakes, but Learn from Them

Make mistakes. It’s quite common for startups. But ensure that they do not harm your business beyond repair. Remember, every major brand makes mistakes. But it’s the business model that offers them the room for error. So, you need to run your business in such a way that even if you make mistakes, they do not have a severe impact on you.

You should be able to recover from the negative effects early enough. And being a startup, you will have enough time for that. Thus, you can make a correction, learn from the mistake you have made, and move ahead with steady steps.

6. Make Full Use of the Technologies Available

This is an age of information and technology. And regular advancements in this field have transformed the business landscape altogether. So, there’s no reason why you should not use technology prudently. In fact, all your customers are surely using them. Hence, you need to use it to remain in the race properly.

7. Use the Best Quality Content

No matter what you are promoting, online marketing is extremely dependent on the type of content you are using. So, it is essential for you to create the content properly. It needs to be unique and of the highest quality. Only then it will help your startup to get maximum exposure.

8. Use Short Videos for Marketing

There’s no way you can turn a blind eye to videos these days when you are marketing your startup online. The trend of using short videos are high these days. So, create a video with information about your business and post them in the video sharing websites. Make sure that the video is not overtly promotional. Put in stuff that might add value to the viewers. If properly made, it might even go viral, thus helping your marketing endeavors significantly.

9. Advertise through Your Own Self

One of the best ways to spread the world about your business is to turn yourself into an advertising platform for your brand. If you go out with your car often, or carry some other object whenever you visit a crowded place, put something on them to spread the word about your brand. It can be your brand name, your address, website, contact number or anything. Present it in such a way that passersby have to take a look at it. And be assured, if they take a look at it properly, they will remember it later as well. And can very much speak about it to others. This can be of great help for your brand’s publicity, as word of mouth can be a great form of marketing.

10. Integrate a Blog in the Website

Have you integrated a blog for your startup in your business website? It’s more important than you can even think of. It can help you perform the marketing tasks right from your website. Moreover, you can also add hyperlinks of different pages of your website. People will visit them from the blog itself. This will play a major role in making your business popular among your target audience, which, in turn, will drive your business forward.

11. Know the Latest Startup Marketing Trends

The marketing trends for startups are evolving regularly. And missing out on any new one means you fall behind your competitors who are practicing them. So, it’s essential for you to remain aware of all the emerging startup marketing trends. Having this knowledge will help you navigate your business properly even through rough waters, not only as a startup, but in later years as well.

As a startup, you need to focus on the marketing endeavors prudently. They can help you create a customer base and, in the long run, emerge as a successful business.

The Only 2 Good Reasons to Work for Free

If you’re like most entrepreneurs you get hit up to work for free. Someone wants to pick your brain (yes, if the contents of your brain usually have a price tag higher than a cup of coffee, then coffee a good brain picking is working for free,) or they want you speak, consult, design, troubleshoot or otherwise provide your products or services for charity, for the exposure, for the good-will or just because they don’t want to pay for it.

As many reasons as there are for people to ask you to work for free, there are only two good reasons to do it. They are equally good reasons, but you should never use the first to justify the second.

1. It’s marketing.

Every business should have a marketing budget. Benchmarks vary by industry, but let’s say you decide to budget a minimum of 5 percent of gross revenue. That may not be much money, but a lot of entrepreneurs don’t spend even five percent on their marketing efforts. 

What do they do? They network, they use social media, they take their clients to lunch and ask for referrals. They avoid spending money by leveraging their two other resources, time and energy, to make up for what they aren’t investing in dollars.

That's great, so long as they follow the same principles for their time and energy investment as they would for a monetary investment. Which means having a clear strategy for their efforts and an eye on their return.

So if doing the work for free fits your marketing strategy, and you believe the investment represents a reasonable expectation of return, then it might be well worth saying yes. Your guidelines may differ, but here the questions I ask before investing time and energy instead of dollars:

If I were spending money, how much would I be willing to invest?

Let’s take a conference, for instance, at which I've been asked to present for free. If I had to pay for a sponsorship to get in front of that audience, I’d be weighing the potential return against the investment. I’d be asking questions like, “How closely does this audience align with my most profitable niche?” and “How much impact will this exposure allow me to have on the audience?”

Based on my conclusions during that line of inquiry, I’d decide if I was willing to invest marketing dollars to promote my business at that event, and if so, how many dollars I was willing to invest. Once I know that, I can do a pretty fair calculation of how much time and energy I should allow myself to put into presenting in exchange for exposure. That raises some questions.

Do I have the time and energy to invest?

If I plan to invest dollars, I have to make sure those dollars are available without putting other financial obligations at risk. The same is true of time and energy. If doing a project is going to stretch me too thin to take care of other obligations, then I’m either going to spend money paying someone else to take something off my plate, or I’m going to short-change someone in my business or personal life. Unless this is a huge opportunity, it isn’t worth that. If it is a huge opportunity (see above) it may be worth it to pay for some assistance so that I can take the project on, even if I’m not getting paid.

Will I have to invest money as well as time and energy?

Depending on the type of product or service I’m being asked to provide, there may be hidden, or not so hidden, monetary costs as well. If I’m being asked to speak I may be expected to provide handouts. Or pay my own travel costs. Or, as I mentioned, I may need to pay additional staff to cover tasks I won’t have time or energy for if I take the project.

Is it something that aligns with my personal values and my brand?

This should go without saying, but it’s actually my first question. If the answer is no, then the other questions don’t matter. So what do I do if I go through my checklist and conclude that it just isn’t a good marketing investment?

Then there is that second good reason to work for free:

2. Just because I want to.

That’s right. Because the project is in my heart space, it gives me joy.

I hope you never work for free out of guilt. And I hope you never fool yourself into thinking you did it for the marketing when you really did it “just because.” But if you have the time, money or energy, feeling good is reason enough to invest it in anything or anyone you choose.

7 Hot Trends Defining Your 2015 Content Strategy

Content marketing is an essential component in buyer engagement, social media, lead generation and online marketing. In fact, the power your content carries is growing by the day as new tactics and trends propel content development to new heights in brand publishing.

Blogging is not enough. Social media is not enough. There is a methodology that makes up smart content creation and it focuses on attracting, converting and inspiring your target audience — your clients and potential clients. Content needs to engage, inform and delight in order to build market identity, brand ambassadors and new opportunities for business growth and development.

What does this mean for your 2015 content strategy?

A comprehensive content marketing strategy is in order if you want to be not just a successful participant, but a winner, when it comes to creating effective content that fuels your brand awareness.

Your 2015 Content Strategy

Buyer Personas

Who are your buyers? Who is your target audience? Your buyer personas are the people you most want to engage. Your content needs to speak to their market interests, operational requirements, corporate goals, everyday problems, buying habits and even hobbies. In order to create content that is truly effectual, you must understand the customer demographics that compose your buyer personas:

• Who are they?
• What are their jobs?
• What are their behavior patterns?
• What are their professional goals?
• What power do they have in their businesses?

Identifying your buyer personas will result in your content being tailored for your ideal audience — leading to enthusiastic content shares and new client conversions.

Expansive Content Platforms

If you think blogging is enough in terms of content creation, you are not even competing in today’s content-rich marketing environment. Blogging is one small component in an increasingly robust content portfolio.

In 2015, the content winners will be those expanding their content machine to include everything from:

• white papers
• ebooks
• videos
• webinars
• email newsletters
• blogs
• podcasts
• timely social media posts
• guest blogs
• strategic landing pages
• visual content
• live presentations

Think of content as a palette – one with diverse colors all necessary in painting a successful portrait of your business and its branding.

Mobile Content

As the rise in smartphones and tablets continues, the requirement for mobile content rises. Your content is being viewed 24/7 on diverse mobile devices. Is your content empowered for today’s mobile buyers? A mobile-optimized website is required to deliver content that creates a positive user experience. Are your clients using their mobile devices for virtually everything? Of course they are. Why aren’t you?

Your content needs to be reflective of the paradigm shift that has impacted the professional landscape — the age of the mobile workforce. If your website isn’t mobile friendly, get with the times — fast. Keep in mind also that these same mobile surfers are also active on social media — so you had better be as well.

The Rise of Adaptive Content

According to the Content Marketing Institute, adaptive content is a content strategy technique designed to support meaningful, personalized, interactions across all channels. The urgency of supporting personalization that considers multiple channels is apparent from stats like these. Ninety-four percent of businesses say personalization is key to success. And 48 percent of shoppers say they prefer to use a smartphone to shop while actually standing inside stores.

Today’s consumers want to see personalization somewhere in your content stream. Why? It reflects not only your ability to relate to their motives, challenges and needs, but also expresses your desire to deliver a superior and uniquely tailored customer experience. Adaptive content can boost presale and marketing content, as well as influence post-sale engagement. Researching and incorporating elements of adaptive content will benefit your 2015 content strategy greatly.

Ample Visual Content

Visual content is streaming big in online marketing strategies today. People want to see people, places and things. They want visual engagement. They trust visual engagement. If your 2015 content strategy is devoid of videos and unique visual elements, rethink it. Incorporating visual content is extremely important, especially when trying to engage mobile viewers.

Get creative with infographics, memes, charts, graphs and even cartoons to tell your brand’s story and win over brand loyalists — especially on your social media platforms. Don’t have a Pinterest yet? Stop neglecting the opportunities visual content will create for your online marketing endeavors. Odds are, your competitors are moving in a visual content direction. Don’t be outdone or outdated.

Website Content Optimization

When it comes to the content you are putting out there, the most important place to position optimized content is your website. Your website content needs to be powered with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to fully leverage it  as a marketing tool and funnel for new clients. The content of your website should be designed to attract, convert and close customers. It is your single, most important sales tool. Your website can convert leads into new business.

However, if your website is not SEO optimized, how will anyone find you? Searchers are buyers. They are searching, right now to accomplish a task. Will your business pop up as they are searching? If you have effective SEO tactics in place, you stand an excellent chance of getting noticed. It all comes back to the strategy and quality that fuels your content. Remember, search engines crawl content to understand a website’s purpose. Next, they index content based on the perceived purpose of the content.

If your website is equipped with smart SEO, clear Calls To Action (CTAs) and content designed to engage the right buyers, your website is doing its job. If not, research the best SEO and CTA techniques for your business and make the adjustments necessary to turn your website from a simple window to an open door for customer acquisitions.

Going Inbound

You’ve no doubt heard the term inbound marketing, but do you know what it means? Inbound marketing is everything from optimizing blog content to generating website traffic and conversions with strategic white papers and more. Inbound marketing is about developing customer-centric content and leveraging that content to produce results — new clients. Inbound marketing is all about creating original content that engages your target audience — buyer persona — in a conversation.

According to HubSpot, inbound content best practices include researching and understanding buyer personas, creating content tailored to both your buyer’s persona and your buyer’s three journey stages — awareness, consideration and decision — and leveraging your content to serve your business goals by optimizing distribution channels.

Creating remarkable content that is delivered to your ideal audience via your blog, social platforms and website is the core of inbound content strategy. Go inbound in 2015 — and see how your buyers react.