The Revolution Will Be Curated: Here’s What That Means for PR
Public Relations – These days, PR is not just about getting immediate coverage: It is also about the secondary (i.e., curated) coverage that can make all the difference in winning the attention of the desired audience.”
Sales Renewal’s insight:
The increasing importance of commenting on other people’s content (curated content) has potentially big implications for getting your word out, especially thru PR tactics.
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The New Search, Content & Social Marketing Sweet Spot
Columnist Jim Yu asserts that brands seeking to create successful digital campaigns need to focus on fostering collaboration between search, social and content teams.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Whether you have separate teams for search, social and content, individual employees who handle the different areas, or you’re doing all the tasks yourself, the sooner you can coordinate the activities the sooner you can maximize your efforts, those of your staff, or your teams.
Read Original Article
February Digital Marketing Advice Roundup – Outsourced Marketing, the Role of SEO and More
Looking for more information like this? The Sales Renewal Advice from Across the Web page features a selection of the best, actionable marketing and technology advice and, importantly, adds our perspective. Think of it as a Marketing Clipping Service for the modern world.
Here, then, are our favorite tips for the month:
Marketing Plans: From Hubspot, some advice about What to Cut From Your Marketing in 2015. As is so often the case, the rule of thumb is, “everything in moderation.” Sure, it’s fun to jump on every bandwagon that comes along, but by keeping the big picture perspective, you can be sure your marketing efforts are targeted and – more importantly – something you’re able to do without being overwhelmed.
Outsourced Marketing: If you’re running a business, you may feel that digital marketing is something you can do yourself. But a recent survey shows that even small businesses- 35% of them – hire outsourced marketing firms to help them create content and maintain a strong digital presence. Learn about the many advantages of such a firm here.
Local SEO: How do you make sure your local digital presence is as strong as your physical presence? According to Search Engine Land, it’s important to look at the big picture. In Local SEO In 2015 – Look At The Big Picture, author Greg Gifford summarizes: “You’ve got to work on everything” and “You have to be a jack-of-all-trades.” Sounds overwhelming, but it can be done with the right tools and support.
LinkedIn Advertising: Many businesses have been successful reaching prospective customers on LinkedIn with Sponsored Updates. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. This article has some useful takeaways when considering a sponsored post on LinkedIn:
- Don’t talk about yourself.
- Keep it simple.
- Images matter.
Read the full article here.
Content Marketing: Got a blog? Get sharing. Get more from your blogging efforts by sharing and re-sharing (that’s the key). When you’re scheduling your blog posts, be sure to take the time to “re-schedule” them. This social sharing schedule timetable is a good guide for getting started.
ROI and Measuring What Matters: The customer journey is complicated! So is measuring the different types of marketing programs, because there’s really no way to do an apples-to-apples comparison. How do you attribute a “value” and ROI to each? This article from Click Z has suggestions for a good place to start.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Each month we offer a roundup of useful, hands-on digital marketing advice from experts in their fields. We’ve extracted the most useful information into tips you can use, and we’ve also provided a link to the full articles in case you’d like to learn more. This month, our roundup of useful, hands-on digital marketing advice from experts in their fields covers SEO, ROI, online advertising, local marketing, and more.
February Digital Marketing Advice Roundup – Outsourced Marketing, the Role of SEO and More
Looking for more information like this? The Sales Renewal Advice from Across the Web page features a selection of the best, actionable marketing and technology advice and, importantly, adds our perspective. Think of it as a Marketing Clipping Service for the modern world.
Here, then, are our favorite tips for the month:
Marketing Plans: From Hubspot, some advice about What to Cut From Your Marketing in 2015. As is so often the case, the rule of thumb is, “everything in moderation.” Sure, it’s fun to jump on every bandwagon that comes along, but by keeping the big picture perspective, you can be sure your marketing efforts are targeted and – more importantly – something you’re able to do without being overwhelmed.
Outsourced Marketing: If you’re running a business, you may feel that digital marketing is something you can do yourself. But a recent survey shows that even small businesses- 35% of them – hire outsourced marketing firms to help them create content and maintain a strong digital presence. Learn about the many advantages of such a firm here.
Local SEO: How do you make sure your local digital presence is as strong as your physical presence? According to Search Engine Land, it’s important to look at the big picture. In Local SEO In 2015 – Look At The Big Picture, author Greg Gifford summarizes: “You’ve got to work on everything” and “You have to be a jack-of-all-trades.” Sounds overwhelming, but it can be done with the right tools and support.
LinkedIn Advertising: Many businesses have been successful reaching prospective customers on LinkedIn with Sponsored Updates. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. This article has some useful takeaways when considering a sponsored post on LinkedIn:
- Don’t talk about yourself.
- Keep it simple.
- Images matter.
Read the full article here.
Content Marketing: Got a blog? Get sharing. Get more from your blogging efforts by sharing and re-sharing (that’s the key). When you’re scheduling your blog posts, be sure to take the time to “re-schedule” them. This social sharing schedule timetable is a good guide for getting started.
ROI and Measuring What Matters: The customer journey is complicated! So is measuring the different types of marketing programs, because there’s really no way to do an apples-to-apples comparison. How do you attribute a “value” and ROI to each? This article from Click Z has suggestions for a good place to start.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Each month we offer a roundup of useful, hands-on digital marketing advice from experts in their fields. We’ve extracted the most useful information into tips you can use, and we’ve also provided a link to the full articles in case you’d like to learn more. This month, our roundup of useful, hands-on digital marketing advice from experts in their fields covers SEO, ROI, online advertising, local marketing, and more.
Google Plus: the too often overlooked B2B social network
We’ve been making this argument for some time to our clients, so we whole-heartedly agree with Relevance.com‘s advice and infographic :
With Google Plus, businesses can personally target certain ‘circles’ to see and share information with – a great way to amplify business-to-business marketing content. Whether you’re just getting started, or looking to increase engagement on an established page, here’s a how-to to get started with Google Plus:
Sales Renewal’s insight:
With Google Plus, businesses can personally target certain their messages in a way that’s not possible on the other social media platforms … at least for free (i.e., without advertising).
6 T-U-R-K-E-Y Tips We’re Thankful for in Our Online Marketing, Analytics-Driven World
It’s time for our annual “what we’re thankful for” post, and this year, we’re serving up the main dish, T-U-R-K-E-Y. Got some turkeys of your own? Let us know about them in the comments below.
Happy Thanksgiving from Sales Renewal!
T is for the Tools we use every day: We love tools like Yext for efficient Local Marketing; Scoop.it for our traffic grabbing digital clipping service; Moz.com, ahrefs.com, Google Analytics and our own “SRA” (Sales Renewal Analytics) for monitoring, measuring and analyzing marketing performance and ROI.
U is for Understanding: that one of the central keys to success is the ability to communicate accurately and effectively. It’s a skill you never stop learning, never stop using. Here’s a smart way to think about your efforts to communicate that will help you in almost every situation. U is also for understanding the right way to go about hiring a marketing firm to help with your marketing. Here are five key questions to ask.
R is for making our sites Responsive: If you don’t know if yours is responsive (a.k.a. mobile-friendly), or if you don’t know what we mean, you can read more here.
K is for Keywords: Where would online marketing be without them? Of course, the days when the main goal was to rank #1 for a keyword have long gone. But keywords are still, well, key to our business – from developing content for a website to monitoring actions resulting from SEO efforts.
E is for Employees: Don’t go it alone! Working with a team can go a long way to lightening the work load when managing a blogging and social media program. It is also in keeping with the “social” part of social media and social networking. Here’s how a successful content marketing program begins with your employees.
Y is for Yes, you can have fun: At Sales Renewal, we lighten up our week with a different SalesMemes every Friday. Plenty of fun and banter goes into creating this series of humorous looks at ways to grow, and NOT grow, revenue, but there’s also a lot of thought involved to keeping them relevant and on-message. Subscribe to this blog to keep up with Huckster Hank, Bad Execution Bob, Smug Marketer Sam, Good Execution Erica, Trustworthy Tom, and Good Marketer Grace.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
It’s time for our annual “what we’re thankful for” post, and this year, we’re serving up the main dish, T-U-R-K-E-Y…
How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 53 Ask Before Doing
Sales Renewal’s insight:
What a novel idea, asking your target market what they want before doing it!
To see how Sales Renewal has put this into action for a client’s Resource section, read Survey Says …
Visit http://www.SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #GoodExecutionErica and her colleagues #SmugMarketerSam, #HucksterHank, #GoodMarketerGrace, #BadExecutionBob and #TrustworthyTom.
Survey Says…
During the 2014 campaign season, millions – no billions – of dollars were spent on polling Americans to try to gauge the outcome of the election prior to Election Day. Research firms like Gallup, Harris, and Rasmussen Reports called, tracked, recorded and reported daily. Who hasn’t received phone calls from pollsters on both sides of the aisle? I know people who actually stopped answering their phones unless the caller id revealed a close friend or family member until after November 4. This long election season may finally be over, but polls and surveys – whether you’re a Democrat or Republican – remain a primary way for businesses to collect information about their customers, products and strategies. Through polls and surveys, you can:
- get feedback (product enhancements, service improvements)
- learn new ideas (new product or line of business)
- gather testimonials (proof points for future customers)
- find information gaps (content marketing)
- interact and engage with customers (social media)
Polling 21st Century Style
Unlike in years past (think Mad Men), it’s no longer the case that a business needs a lot of time and money to do a poll or survey right. Today, just about any business, small or large, can reap the benefits. We have the the internet and social media to thank for this. Online tools like SurveyMonkey allow small businesses to create their own survey for free. Facebook has a free polling option, too, if that’s where you interact with your customers. Well-regarded, fee-based survey tools include SurveyGizmo and Google Consumer Surveys. Constant Contact also offers a comprehensive online survey program starting at $15 a month. And with Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn at anyone’s fingertips, distribution of the survey has become more and more simple.
Survey in Action
We created a SurveyMonkey poll, embedded it on the website, and directed customers and prospects to the poll via an email newsletter, blog post, and LinkedIn update. The emphasis on quick and easy – we called it a “One Minute Survey” – helped motivate people to fill it out. (You’re welcome to take the One Minute Survey, too!) Results showed that there was plenty of room for customer education, so we built a resource section, Signage 101, on its website.
The tools available to businesses today mean that customer and prospect feedback can easily be included in any business’ strategic plan, from product development to expertise marketing. Have you polled your customers recently?
Originally published November 2012; updated November 2014
11 Content Marketing and Social Media Tools to Try
I have to admit – I’m sort of addicted to jumping in and trying all things “new” and “improved” when it comes to online marketing.
In my role as Content Manager for Sales Renewal, I spend an immense amount of time researching, blogging, writing status updates and posting to a variety of social sites – Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn to name the obvious. I also spend way too much time exploring the latest and greatest tools to manage all this content and to get our clients’ messages out to the right audience. (In my defense, I’ve found that it’s the only way to stay on top of this ever-changing industry.)
Most I quickly abandon, but some become an essential part of my day. Here then, are some of the sites and tools I’ve used this week alone – a mix of new finds and the tried and true.
Our Take on 11 Social Media and Content Marketing Tools
Content Creation
Scoop.it: This Google-alerts type of information gathering site allows for Pinterest-style presentation of relevant information. While we’re still just exploring the site, we believe it holds enormous potential.
The scoop.it folks (who, by the way, offer excellent customer service) talk about the rationale behind the site:
We created Scoop.it because we believe algorithms alone are not enough at organizing the web’s content in a smart, meaningful way and that humans could do a much better job at it if we made it easier and rewarding… By combining a big data semantic technology that helps them quickly find relevant content with an easy-to-use social publishing platform, we help them show their expertise, develop their online visibility, enrich their blogs or web sites, save time managing their social media channels and build their communities of interests.
Our rating: Ease of use: 
Business potential:
Content Distribution
HootSuite.com: Yes, I know I’m late to the game here, but with so many accounts to manage, I finally broke down and invested time and (relatively minimal) money into this social media management system that allow for posting across multiple social networks from one dashboard. It doesn’t take the place of hand-crafting messages for each social account, it just allows me to do it in one place.
Our rating: Ease of use: Business potential:
Friends+Me: I just discovered this site yesterday. Friends+Me takes your Google+ public posts and allows you to share the messages to other networks.
Our rating: Ease of use: Business potential: Still exploring
Clip Better: allows you to email link previews vs raw URLs. It creates a rich snippet that includes an image, title, summary, and link. There are four ways to install the feature.
Our rating: Ease of use: Business potential: Still exploring
Graphics and Design
Piktochart.com: An easy-to-use site for anyone interested in making an Infographic for their blog or website that I’ve been using for nearly a year. Great, responsive customer service and open to suggestions.
Our rating: Ease of use: Business potential:
Canva.com: I just discovered Canva.com, an onl
ine design platform that allows the user to create designs for the web or print: blog graphics, presentations, flyers, posters, Facebook covers.
Our rating: Ease of use: Business potential:
PicMonkey.com: My go-to graphics site, great for making Facebook covers, collages, editing photos.
Our rating: Ease of use: Business potential:
WebResizer.com: Another go-to site for optimizing images for using online. It’s simple, no frills, and you don’t have to create an account to use!
Our rating: Ease of use: Business potential:
New Finds on the Social Sites
Pinterest Secret Boards: No, secret boards aren’t new, but I love this idea of using them for a business-client purpose. Our florist client mentioned how she wanted to use Pinterest to exchange pictures with brides-to-be so she could help them with their wedding flowers. Since the idea was for the two of them to collaborate and they weren’t interested in other people pinning and sharing, we set up a Secret Pinterest Board for each bride.
Our rating: Ease of use: Business potential:
LinkedIn Showcase Pages: Showcase Pages are like micro-sites – they’re extensions of a Company page to spotlight a brand, business unit, or initiative directly on LinkedIn.
Our rating: Ease of use: Business potential: Large businesses with multiple business units or brands can probably benefit from this; verdict is still out for the smaller businesses as to whether this will detract from or enhance a strong Company page.
Facebook Business Account: An exercise in total frustration. We have been emailing back and forth with Facebook Advertising about advertising (!) for over a month now, and we still haven’t been able to spend our money. No phone support, and each email response is a duplicate of the last one. Just about ready to give up and spend our money somewhere else…
Our rating: Ease of use: Business potential: Still exploring
All Work and No Play?
Try as I might to stay focused on “just” work, not a day goes by that I don’t find some distraction in terms of a new tool I’d like to try personally, a video to watch, article to read, or photos to look at. Today’s major distraction? This Super Bowl commercial.
Now, back to work. For this post alone, I used scoop.it (post idea came about by browsing several topics); PicMonkey.com and Canva.com (the graphic); and HootSuite.com (to distribute and share the post).
What tools do you use and love? Whether you’re a social media professional or a business owner trying to make it in the digital space, let us know your finds in the Comments section – I’d love to test it out!
And jus
t in case you didn’t click through to the commercial but really need a distraction:
Sales Renewal’s insight:
I have to admit – I’m sort of addicted to jumping in and trying all things “new” and “improved” when it comes to online marketing.
In my role as Content Manager for Sales Renewal, I spend an immense amount of time researching, blogging, writing status updates and posting to a variety of social sites. I also spend way too much time exploring the latest and greatest tools to manage all this content and to get our clients’ messages out to the right audience. Here then, are some of the sites and tools I’ve used this week alone – a mix of new finds and the tried and true.
How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 51 Wasted Employees
Sales Renewal’s insight:
After all, why would their employees need to know about their company or be leveraged as a core group of friendly, motivated people in a platform that leverages people’s relationships?
How many of your employees subscribe to your business blog or like/follow your business on social media? If the answer is “few, ” you should read A Successful Content Marketing Program Begins with Your Employees.
Visit http://www.SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #SmugMarketerSam and his colleagues #BadExecutionBob, #GoodExecutionErica, #HucksterHank, , #GoodMarketerGrace, and #TrustworthyTom.